DeWine is a Conservative on the Same Order as John Kasich! Both Are a Disgrace!

By Rich Kozlovich

Editor's Note:  This was forgotten sitting in my draft file, so some of the information is dated.  I came across it today and it's dated but the thoughts are current and valid, especially in light of Kasich's current comments and De Wine's tyrannical decisions regarding this coronavirus issue.  RK

Governor Mike DeWine is fond of telling people he's a conservative.  He seems to have the same problem John Kasich had:  Defining conservatism as they see fit.  Which in the case of both of them is to act like far left Democrats.

On July 19, 2016 Eric Scheiner posted the article, Gov. Kasich: We Want Immigration - Population is Stagnant in Ohio saying: 

Ohio Gov. and former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich (R-Ohio) told an audience in Cleveland that he looks at immigration as an opportunity because Ohio has a “stagnant growth of population – we want people to come to Ohio.”  “When I look at immigration I look at a new level of energy,”....... “I look at immigration as an opportunity. One of the things that we face in Ohio is a stagnant growth of population – we want people to come to Ohio.

 

Okay....I wonder who this "we" is he's talking about?  And why do we need more people in Ohio? Are we getting a bunch of new factories to replace all those that closed over the last 20 years?  I haven't seen them.   And why are they immigrants and not people from other states?  There's a reason why is it Ohio is in the top five states people are moving out of?  Does anyone besides me think there's something wrong with Kasich?  I think he's weird and stunningly arrogant. 

He's gone from being a "conservative" - at least that's what everyone thought until he became Governor of Ohio, then he started acting like .....well..... Obama!  He bypassed the expressed will of the legislature regarding Obamacare issues, which will end up costing Ohio billions of dollars we don't have.  His justification?  He says he has to support Obamacare otherwise he'll have to answer to God for not doing so.  Is this another Twilight Zone episode? 

He claims he cut taxes, but what he did was shift them to the "rich".  He cut taxes on small businesses, but he didn't cut the volumn of taxes being collected - he merely shifted them to bigger companies.  That's classic leftist class warfare, and claiming to have cut taxes is a lie. He subsidized large corporations that threatened to move out of Ohio, like Bob Evans, thereby forcing all the other restaurants in Ohio to support Bob Evans financially - along with the rest of us.  Did anyone see Bob Evans cut their prices as a result?  No, and you won't. 

There are some consolation to all of this - he's not going to the convention, so we won't have to listen to his gibberish and logical fallacies, and he's term limited.  He's gone after 2018 and we won't have to listen to anything he babbles about again.  In the meanwhile - It appears to me John Kasich is now in the service of Mordor and the dark lord Sauron. 

He claims we're isolationists when we "just take care of us", but the fact of the matter is when we take care of us the rest of the world benefits.  If we throw more good money after bad money we'll go broke and the world will spiral into dystopia. 

Personally - I think there's something seriously wrong with him, and I'm not all that crazy about his Lieutenant Governor, Mary Taylor.  She actually thinks after accepting Obamacare they can (and I heard her say this in a meeting I attended) back out of it if they please.  Is it possible she's not the brightest pebble in the brook either?  Or is it she's just another political hack?  

Then we come to DeWine.  What a prize he's turned out to be.  The booby prize!

A Battlefield Conversion on Fiscal Policy for the GOP

January 23, 2021 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty 

I have relentlessly criticized Republicans in recent years for being profligate big spenders.

But I have some good news. The GOP is finding religion and is once again fretting about big government.  The bad news is that many of them are total hypocrites.  The only reason that they’re now beating their chests about fiscal responsibility is that there’s now a Democrat in the White House pushing for big government rather than a Republican in the White House pushing for big government.

Talking a few days ago with Politifact, I remarked on the GOP’s battlefield conversion.

“The very narrow Democratic majorities in the House and Senate will make big policy changes difficult for Biden,” said Daniel Mitchell, a conservative economist with decades of experience in Washington. “Republicans were big spenders under Trump, but they’ll dust off their fiscal conservatism rhetoric with Biden in the White House. …”There will be unanimous, or near-unanimous, GOP opposition to the tax increases,” Mitchell said. That could make passage difficult.

I’m not the only one to notice Republicans change their spots when Democrats are in charge. In her Washington Post column, Catherine Rampell also notes their hypocrisy.

It’s almost like clockwork. As soon as a Democrat enters the White House, Republicans pretend to care about deficits again. …And so Republicans laid the groundwork for blocking the Biden administration’s request for more covid-19 fiscal relief, on the grounds that further spending is not merely unnecessary but also irresponsible. …These foul-weather fiscal hawks neglect to mention, …before the coronavirus pandemic — the Republican-controlled Senate passed and President Donald Trump signed spending bills that added…$2 trillion to deficits.

If Ms. Rampell’s column focused solely on Republicans behaving inconsistently, I would fully applaud.  Unfortunately, she also used the opportunity to make some assertions that deserve some pushback. Beginning with what she said about the 2017 tax reform.…the GOP’s prized 2017 tax cuts added nearly $2 trillion to deficits.

It is true that the legislation is a short-run tax cut, but there’s no long-run revenue reduction because many of the provisions expire at the end of 2025.  And, as Brian Riedl made clear in this chart, the tax cuts only play a tiny role even if all the provisions ultimately are made permanent.

Ms. Rampell then makes a Keynesian argument that more spending would be stimulative.

…the U.S. economy actually needs more federal spending, and President Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion plan… Republicans objecting to Biden’s proposal…seem to be writing off the need for more relief entirely, at least now that a Democrat is president.

Is she right about Republican hypocrisy? Yes. Is she right that bigger government produces growth? No.

If Biden and the Democrats were simply arguing that some level of handouts are needed and justified to compensate for government-mandated shutdowns, I wouldn’t be happy, but I also wouldn’t complain.  But I do object to the mechanistic argument that government can magically produce prosperity by borrowing money from the economy’s left pocket and putting it in the economy’s right pocket.

At best, the borrow-and-spend approach only produces a transitory bump in consumption, but does nothing for real problem of inadequate income (which is why we should focus on GDI rather than GDP).  She also engages in a bit of historical revisionism about Obama’s failed stimulus from 2009.

This is, not coincidentally, almost exactly what they did about a decade ago. …Republicans suddenly demanded to turn off fiscal (and monetary) spigots once Barack Obama was elected.

In reality, Republicans didn’t control either the House or Senate in Obama’s first two years. He was able to adopt his so-called stimulus. And the economy was stagnant.  Republicans did win the House at the end of 2010 and were somewhat successful in controlling spending for the next few years. And that’s when the economy did better.  Just like it did better during the Reagan and Clinton years when there was spending restraint.

To put this discussion in the proper context, I’ll close with another chart from Brian Riedl. The long-run problem we face is not red ink. Deficits and debt are merely the symptom of the real problem of excessive government spending.

P.S. I wish Politicifact had identified me as a libertarian. I’m only willing to be called a conservative if that means Reaganism, but I worry it now means Trumpism. 

(My Take - Clearly I like Dan's views on much of what he writes about regulation, spending, economics and government, especially his analysis of the GOP hypocrisy, or I wouldn't publish so many of his articles, but not all.  I've never quite understood this position with Dan about Trump, except his antipathy toward Trump's trade sanctions, which brought good results. 

That's why I can never entirely agree with so many of the positions libertarians take, or understand how they can justify those position in light of history and human behavior, including, and especially, immigration, which I've highlighted today in some posts with this question:  Can you really believe they will integrate and become productive law abiding citizens?  The second question everyone needs to ask:  Why does any society "need" immigrants?  For the benefit of the host country, or, for the benefit of the immigrant?  That will be the thrust of a future article of my own. 

If you wish to criticize Trump for not curtailing spending, I can agree with that, but I think you have to ask, with a Congress, both sides of the aisle, clearly being against cutting the budget, what exactly does anyone think he was he supposed to do? RK)

 

2014: The Year of the Primaries

Daniel Horowitz

Next year Republican primary voters will have an unprecedented number of choices for whom to nominate to the United States Senate. There have never been so many primary challenges against such high-level and long-serving members of the Senate.

There are now primary challenges in Kentucky, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kansas, and Wyoming. The challengers vary in degrees of viability, competence, and skill. Not all of them have been endorsed by conservative groups; not all of them necessarily will receive endorsements. But all of these states are represented by entrenched ruling class Republicans of yesteryear. They are also all states Mitt Romney carried by a comfortable margin.

As such, irrespective of the details of each individual challenge and challenger, conservatives should celebrate the growth in election competition in itself. At the core of our free market belief is that choice and competition perfects the outcome of any product or service. Politicians are no different.

Senators are elected for six-year terms, not lifetime appointments. Every six years they need to stand before their constituents and vouch for their record while explaining why they would be the best choice for a new six-year term. When there is no competition in primaries, they feel no need to improve or consider the concerns of their conservative constituents. Primaries offer alternative candidates, and often, better choices for the future. Again, this is something we should celebrate, especially in conservative states……To Read More…..

10 Reasons to Vote Against the Murray-Ryan Giant Spending and Deficit Increase

By Michael Hammond (Diary) | December 14th, 2013

(1) It increases spending by over $59 billion dollars.

(2) It increases he deficit by over $45 billion dollars.

(3) It raises taxes in order to raise spending. .

(4) The increased spending will be spent on Democratic priorities which will explode in out-years.

(5) The Murray-Ryan budget purports to be "frugal" only because of "Obamacare-style accounting.

(6) A vote for the Murray-Ryan budget is a vote to fund Obamacare, no matter what.

(7) The Murray-Ryan budget would remove a point of order which has been used to object to new spending.

(8) For foreign policy hawks, the bill would slash military colas.

(9) The Murray-Ryan budget will change the national discussion - to immigration reform, minimum wage increases, and gun control.

(10) Harry Reid just destroyed he Senate as an institution, and should not be rewarded for his fraud. …..To Read The Details……

To quote Speaker John Boehner: “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????”

My Take - I have waited to see if anyone would pick up on this, but apparently no one has.  When Boehner lambasted conservative groups for criticizing a budget they hadn't seen I noticed one important fact.  I didn't criticize them for being factually wrong.  Why?  Because the information had been leaked ahead of time - spoiling his Sanhedrin moment -  and as it turned out, they were factually and philosophically spot on.  Just a thought. 

Boehner’s Crocodile Tears for Amnesty

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | December 13th, 2013

It is an odd fight. Such a weird little battle over meaningless and known outcomes. Conservatives, aware from press reports and congressional leaks, knew what would be in the Paul Ryan drafted budget plan. The conservative groups released statements in opposition to the plan based on what they had been told. But there was never any doubt about the Ryan plan passing.

After the plan was publicly unveiled by the Republicans at six o’clock on a Tuesday night, conservative fears were realized. Those things they knew would be in the plan were, in fact, in the plan. The plan funded Obamacare. The plan raised taxes. The plan broke the sequestration spending limits that only a month before Republican leaders had said would never be broken.

Speaker Boehner then did something curious. He held two press conferences wherein he lashed out at conservative groups. He denounced them for making up their minds before the plan was publicly unveiled. Never mind that everyone knew what would be in the plan. Never mind that he only gave the public thirty-six hours to explore the text of the plan, a violation of a campaign promise to give at least seventy-two hours of examination. Speaker Boehner’s statement sounded like former Speaker Pelosi claiming we had to pass the Ryan plan to find out what was in the Ryan plan.

Superficially, it is a very odd fight. But Speaker Boehner’s crocodile tears in his attacks and cries against the conservative movement are really about the next fight. Speaker Boehner intends to pursue immigration reform, with an amnesty component. Before he gets there, he needs to shape battle lines.  . . . ‘please click here for the rest of the post ’

A Winning Issue: Abortion and Pascal’s Wager

By: streiff (Diary) | December 11th, 2013

“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Shortly before Virginia Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful was routed by Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe I posted The Abortion Truce Trap. In it I noted that while Cuccinelli was being bombarded with, as it turned out, several million dollars in ads attacking his position on abortion, he was refusing to attack McAuliffe’s support for unbridled infanticide.

I quote Maggie Gallagher who summarized the problem of conservative candidates running away from an issue that has roughly 70% support in the electorate:....... The decision should be easy. Abortion is criminal. There is no medical reason for abortion. Late term abortion is indistinguishable from infanticide. Abortion has nothing to do with women’s rights and everything to do with how we value the most vulnerable members of our society. Every culture that has embrace abortion has inevitably moved on to embraced post-partum infanticide and euthanasia.  There is no reason our candidates should refuse to take a stand against abortion, but especially against late term abortion. It is not only moral, it is good politics......The 17th century French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, devised an interesting argument for moral behavior now called Pascal’s Wager:

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.....To Read More...

My Take – The quote that starts this article is from Revelation 3:15-16.  I know, I know - everyone already knew that! 

The Hunt Is On And I Smell’s RINOs

Posted by Rodney Lee Conover on Dec 8, 2013

Congress, Congressional Arrogance, Even after my opponent made his pro-Amnesty, “legalize everyone now” intentions clear; voted YES on the Senate negotiated CR spending and debt ceiling deal (funding ObamaCare), NO on Tom McClintock’s $1.5 billion Dept. of Energy cut; refused pledge not to raise taxes… shall I go on, or do you get the picture?

Keep in mind this is less than a year into his Congressional tenure – and there’s plenty more – including bad votes on insurance subsidies, NSA, taxpayer handouts to local governments to scoop up private land – he can’t even support the RSC’s Fiscal Year ’14 “Back to Basics” Budget? It’s a no-brainer, pal! He’s on the wrong side of conservatives nearly every turn.

That’s right – Rodney Lee said it!

Yet… People still give me crap for running against a Republican – some even identifying themselves as conservatives or representatives of Tea Party groups. What the hell is that? Now listen to me, sports fans: We are never – I repeat – never, going to get a damn thing done about the Marxists running the show over there in D.C. – THAT’S RIGHT I SAID IT (my best Levin voice) if we don’t get rid of these RINO’s who are running interference first……Read more at