Republicans: "Fix Bayonets!" by Pat Buchanan

After his narrow defeat by Gerald Ford at the Kansas City convention in 1976, Ronald Reagan was seen as a has-been.

Came the Carter-Torrijos treaties of 1977, however, which gave away the Panama Canal, and the old cowboy strapped on his guns:

   “We bought It. We paid for it. It’s ours. And we’re gonna keep it.”
 

America loved it. Bill Buckley said we must recognize reality and transfer the canal. GOP Senate leader Howard Baker was the toast of the city as he led 16 Republicans to vote with Jimmy Carter. The treaties were approved.

Reagan’s consolation prize? The presidency of the United States.

Voters in New Hampshire in 1980, remembering his lonely stand, rewarded Reagan with a decisive victory over George H. W. Bush, who had defeated Reagan in Iowa. When Howard Baker came in, he was greeted as “Panama Howie,” and did not survive the primary.
The Republican war over whether to bow to the seemingly inevitable and fund Obamacare is a Panama Canal issue. How one votes here may decisively affect one’s career.

Ted Cruz may have, as Richard Nixon used to say, “broken his pick” in the Republican caucus. Yet, on Obamacare, his analysis is right, his instincts are right, his disposition to fight is right.
These are more important matters than the news that he is out of the running for the Mr. Congeniality award on Capitol Hill.
If Obamacare is funded, the subsidies starting in January will constitute a morphine drip from which America’s health-care system will not recover. If not stopped now, Obamacare is forever.
Senate Republicans should be asking themselves why Cruz and Rand Paul, two newcomers to the Senate of decidedly different temperaments, are being talked of as credible candidates in the presidential primaries of 2016.
Answer: Both are clear in their convictions, unapologetic about them and willing to break some china to achieve them. And that part of America upon which the GOP depends most is increasingly frustrated and angry with those who run the national party.
Order Pat Buchanan’s brilliant and prescient books at WND’s Superstore.
Americans don’t want a dignified surrender on Obamacare. They want someone to drive a stake through Obamacare.
And the question that is going to be answered in coming weeks is: Is the GOP willing to shove its whole stack into the middle of the table, for a showdown over Obamacare? Or will the House GOP in the end cast the decisive vote to make Obamacare permanent?
For, as columnist Terry Jeffrey writes, “[M]ake no mistake. If Obamacare is funded and implemented, it will be because Republican members of Congress decided to do it.”
As Terry notes, Congress has absolute power over the public purse. Article I of the Constitution says, “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”
The law authorizing President Obama to spend more money for Obamacare expires Sept. 30. If the House refuses to vote for any bill that contains new Obamacare funding, Obamacare is dead.
Thus the Republican House controls the fate of Obamacare.
But if we don’t fund Obamacare, comes the Republican wail, Harry Reid will let the government shut down, the American people will blame us, and all of our pundits say we can’t win this fight.
For sure you cannot win if you do not fight.
But if a Democratic Senate refuses to pass the House-passed continuing resolution funding the government, because Obamacare is not in the bill, who is shutting down the government?
If Obama vetoes any continuing resolution funding the government that does not contain Obamacare, who is shutting down the government then?
Who is putting the U.S. economy at risk to protect a bollixed program the American people do not want and Congress would never approve if they voted on it today?
What House Republicans have lacked is not courage, but a political and communications strategy.
Having provided a continuing resolution to fund the government, except Obamacare, the House should next begin passing CRs – one for each department. A CR to fund defense and veterans affairs. A CR to fund state, the CIA and Homeland Security. A CR for justice, transportation, energy, etc. One every day.
Would Harry Reid refuse to fund the U.S. Army and Navy unless John Boehner’s House stuffs Obamacare into the defense budget?
Do Republicans really feel incapable of winning this argument?
Are Republicans so tongue-tied they cannot convince America of the truth: They have already voted to fund the government.
If Republicans capitulate and lose this battle, and this unwanted mess passes into law, there is something deeply wrong with the party.
Two weeks ago, a brave Congress, listening to America, stood up and told Obama: Your red lines be damned; we’re not voting for war on Syria.
Now House Republicans need to tell the country: Come hell or high water, we’re not voting to fund Obamacare. We will pass a CR on everything else in the budget, but Obamacare is not coming out of this House alive.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/republicans-fix-bayonets/#ETPwzkX9QsHUoBzk.99

Sequester in perspective

Lawrence Kudlow of CNBC:

The Obama administration is whipping up hysteria over the sequester budget cuts and their impact on the economy, the military, first providers, and so forth and so on. Armageddon. But if you climb into the Congressional Budget Office numbers for 2013, you see a much lighter and easier picture than all the worst-case scenarios being conjured up by the administration......

In other words, lower spending and limited government are the exact right medicine for free-market prosperity. The sequester cuts are pro-growth. Finish the job, please. 

Read the rest here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/21/the_pro-growth_sequester__117093.html

Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles Praises Paul Ryan Budget

A serious man for serious times!
Erskine Bowles – who co-chaired President Obama’s Deficit Commission and previously served as chief of staff for President Clinton:

Have any of you all met Paul Ryan?” Bowles asked. “We should get him to come to the university. I’m telling you this guy is amazing

.

“I always thought that I was okay with arithmetic, but this guy can run circles around me.
“And he is honest, he is straightforward, he is sincere. And the budget that he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, serious budget and it cut the budget deficit just like we did, by $4 trillion…

“The President came out with his own plan and the President as you remember, came out with a budget and I don’t think anybody took that budget very seriously. The Senate voted against it 97 to nothing.

 In 2010 President Obama appointed Eskine Bowel to the The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often called Bowles-Simpson/Simpson-Bowles from the names of co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles in order to get a handle on our huge mounting debt. I think he knows something about the subject and he is not a "right winger"! Listen to him yourself:

This was posted by Jake Tapper of ABC News one of the few evenhanded MSM reporters.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/in-2011-clip-former-clinton-white-house-chief-of-staff-erskine-bowles-praises-paul-ryan-budget-criticized-president-obama/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Eagle Point Teachers Strike

This morning the Medford Mail Tribune newspaper reported the Eagle Point School teachers union are on strike. The national unemployment is 8.2%. It is 11.7% here in Jackson County, Oregon.  The Teachers union is greedy and stupid!

The following is a newsletter I received Friday from  Oregon State Representative Dennis Richardson:

I cannot remain silent when surrogates for a teachers’ union encourage 100 Eagle Point High School (EPHS) students to break school rules, march off campus and stage a protest to “respect the teachers.” Such a stunt, implicitly intended to pressure the school district to accept the union’s final offer and avoid the strike that the union called, is despicable. Notwithstanding the misinformation given to the students, the impasse in collective bargaining has everything to do with money and power, and nothing to do with respecting the good teachers of EPHS.


Eagle Point, a southern Oregon community of 8500, has become the most recent community facing the battle between public unions and public school districts. The dispute is over how limited tax resources should be spent, and after a year of collective bargaining negotiations, the teachers and classified workers at Eagle Point School District 9 are scheduled to walk out of the E.P. schools and strike.

To the best of my understanding, here’s a summary of the school district and the union’s positions:

The school district’s final offer to the union includes the following key provisions:

The annual average payroll package for teachers will total $92,000 by the third year of the proposed labor contract. The $92,000 cost for each teacher position is for 190 days work. [To be specific, 190 days at 7.5 hours per day = 1425 hours per year or $64.82 per hour.]

The compensation package includes:

an average salary of $58,000; [$58,000 divided by 1425 hrs = $41 per hour.]

a signing bonus ($400);

1% pay increase in 2013-14;

provisions for 15 “step” increases in pay;

increase in payment (phased from $978 mo. to $998 mo.) toward employee and family’s group medical, dental, vision, life insurance;

100% of Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) retirement benefits payments—including both the employer’s and the employees’ contributions to the PERS retirement plan for full-time employees.

The main areas of contention are two concessions sought by the school district:

1. Payment of employee benefits should be based on the number of hours worked (currently the District pays $978 every month toward the cost of health benefits for bus drivers who are on-the-job as little as 4-5 hours per day and the District wants part-time employees to start paying a portion of their benefit costs); and

2. The District reserves the right to subcontract for support services when doing so would free up money needed in the classrooms.
The union’s final offer to the school district includes the following key provisions:

No subcontracting of support service positions regardless of potential savings for the District and regardless of any financial benefit that would result for the students and classrooms.

The District shall continue paying all costs for health care benefits (approx. $12,000 per year, per employee) for all employees and their families--full-time and part-time.

The District is to continue paying full benefit costs for both spouses in a family who both work for the District ($24,000 per year), even though the cost for one employee could be saved by listing him or her as a family member.

If one spouse agrees to “participate in the Opt Out Program,” the District will be required to pay $5,000 per year to that spouse’s Section 125 “cafeteria” account.

Compensation for teachers shall increase by 1% for 2012-13, in addition to the “step” pay increases, longevity increases and special duty pay for which teachers may currently qualify.

Here’s my analysis: Since the existing union/school district contract was the starting point of the failed negotiations, I started my research by reading it. The 2008-11 collective bargaining agreement contains the following provisions for Eagle Point teachers:

1. Maximum work year of 190 days (38 weeks on the job; 14 weeks off);

2. No more than 176 “pupil contact” days (35.2 weeks of actual teaching);

3. Not more than 7 ½ hours of work per day—lunch break not included.

4. All negotiated pay increases;

5. Additional automatic “step” pay increases available: 3.4% each year (15 steps in the first 15 years of employment), compounded annually;

6. Additional 3.4% of base pay available in every year when 15 credit hours of education is completed;

7. Additional 3% of base pay each year after 14 years;

8. Additional 2% of base pay each year after 18 years;

9. District pays $978 per month toward cafeteria plan of health benefits for the entire family;

10. Full District pays 100% PERS benefits, including both the employer’s and employees’ portions.

11. District pays health benefits after retirement at the rate paid on date of retirement and continuing until retiree reaches age 65 (some reductions forthcoming).

I have spoken to representatives for Eagle Point School District 9. The District has spent more than $1 million in the past year from its reserves. Thus, it is already spending at an unsustainable rate. By June 30, 2012, the District will have just over $3.7 million remaining in its Reserve Fund. To finance the District’s final offer will cost the District an additional $500,000 from its reserves by June 30, 2013. If the District were to accept the union’s final offer, it would cost the District an additional $1 million and leave its Reserve Fund with only $2.7 million remaining by June 30, 2013.

I chided the District for spending down its reserves when there is no economic recovery on the horizon and the high cost of Oregon’s social programs is likely to cause further flat-lining of state support for K-12 education. The District expressed pride in its teachers, its students and the progress being made in the quality of student achievement. Unfortunately, to balance its budget, even without additional costs, the District must either continue spending its reserves, cut teachers or cut the number of school days in the school year. Students cannot be taught if their school is closed. So far, the decision has been to spend down reserves, and everyone agrees this is a temporary solution to a long-term problem. The District is convinced it is doing everything possible to reach an agreement with the union while staying true to the District’s primary mission of providing the best education possible for Eagle Point students within the financial resources the State and taxpayers have provided to it.

The union, on the other hand, is working for its members and not the students. This is what unions do. One official involved with the negotiations recalled that when an issue came up that would have cost $100,000, the District said there was no money to pay for it. The union representative’s response was the District could just lay off a teacher. Once again union representatives take the position, if you have to lay off teachers and cut school days to get the public to raise taxes and spend more money on education, then that is what you should do.

For decades the public unions have held the power in collective bargaining negotiations. They repeatedly have gotten their demands by threatening to walk off the job and strike. Now the money has run out and further tax increases are “off the table.” There is no longer an alternative. Public agencies and school districts are being forced to stand firm.

In response, the unions call for a strike and focus on generating propaganda to coerce public agencies to cave under misinformed pressure from the media and public—even using children for union purposes. I’ve seen this done at the Capitol when young children were brought in to beg legislators to vote for higher allocations to the State K-12 Budget. Now we are seeing Eagle Point High School students being used as pawns for the teachers’ union.

It is time for such antics to stop. The unions are all about maintaining power and getting concessions for their members—I understand that. Nevertheless, public agencies and school districts cannot just raise the price of their products or move production off-shore like businesses would to deal with escalating labor costs.

The Eagle Point School District has limited financial resources. It relies on taxpayers to provide its funding and must live within its means.

It is my opinion that the citizens should stand with their School District and resist the union’s threats and bluster. If the teachers believe a $92,000 annual pay package for 38 weeks of work is too low, let them walk off the school grounds and strike. But, they should not be surprised or complain when the School District hires new teachers, who would be happy to have the pay and benefits the union members disparage.

The public employee unions have extorted too much from the taxpayers for too long. The cost of salaries, 100% payment of Benefits and 100% payment of PERS costs is running Eagle Point School District’s well dry. If the public employee unions refuse to acknowledge the economic realities being faced daily by the average taxpayer and refuse to cooperate with our public servants who must live within their budgets, their union members will have to live with the consequences.

The focus should be on the best interests of the students, their classrooms and their teachers, and balancing these needs with the resources available to the School District. I believe the Eagle Point School District is attempting to do this, and I, for one, will stand with them. If a strike results, so be it.

Sincerely,

Dennis Richardson

State Representative

United States Debt Worse Than Greece !

The following chart from the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, showing that 'America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece,' as well as Ireland, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain.

The Republican candidates need to be talking about this over and over again !

Detroit Today...... Oregon Next !

Quote of the Day taken from the WallStreet Journal "Political Diary":

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted:

A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors. A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average. A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members. Other government employee unions that do the same for their members. A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don't have to guess, because there is such a city right here in our state: Detroit.

Detroit has been dubbed "the most liberal city in America" and each of these "progressive" policies is alive and well there. How have they worked out?

In 1950, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America on a per capita income basis. Today, the Census Bureau reports that it is the nation's 2nd poorest major city, just "edging out" Cleveland.

Could it be pure coincidence that the decline occurred over the same period in which union power, the city government bureaucracy, taxes and business regulations all multiplied? While correlation is not causation, it is striking that the decline in per capita income is exactly what classical economists predict would occur when wage controls are imposed and taxes are increased.--Jarrett Skorup writing at michigancapitalconfidential.com on Feb. 14.

Can Oregon be next ?.....

Halftime in America: Remy Chrysler Ad Parody

"Halftime in America"

Last night, Jay Leno observed that it may be

“half time in America, but China’s got the ball and we’re down by 15 trillion!”

Sorry Clint!

(Chrysler ad during the Super Bowl)

UPDATE:

Rich Lowry writes:

Amid all the patriotic piety, Eastwood neglects to mention that Chrysler is now 58.5 percent owned by Fiat, an Italian company. The heart-tugging images of Turin, Italy, apparently were left on the cutting-room floor.

To read the rest of the column click on the title for a link.

Sending Oil to China and Losing 100,000 Jobs

President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone pipeline to send oil from Canada to Texas was met with disappointment by our friends north of the border.

According to Jake Tapper of ABC News:

(Canadian) "Prime Minister Harper expressed his profound disappointment with the news. He indicated to President Obama that he hoped that this project would continue given the significant contribution it would make to jobs and economic growth both in Canada and the United States of America.” Pointedly, the statement also says that Harper “reiterated to the president that Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports.”

“Diversify”? What does that mean?

It means Canada will explore selling more of its oil to Asia. As Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver told the CBC: “Our focus is, as you know, on diversifying our markets. We currently have one customer for our energy exports. That customer has said that it doesn’t want to expand at the moment. So it certainly intensifies the broad strategic objective of the government to diversify to Asia.”

In other words Communist China !

***********

Jake Tapper continues"

A we covered earlier today, the project would directly create an estimated 13,000 jobs with the Teamsters Union assessing more than 100,000 others support jobs would be created along the pipeline’s path.

In the middle of a deep period of recession and unemployment when we are dependant on energy from some of the woulds worst tyrants our President, in order to keep his environmental wackos happy, destroys jobs and energy Independence. Thanks a lot, Mr President !

Mitt Romney's statement on the decision by President Obama:

“President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline is as shocking as it is revealing. It shows a President who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy. If Americans want to understand why unemployment in the United States has been stuck above 8 percent for the longest stretch since the Great Depression, decisions like this one are the place to begin. By declaring that the Keystone pipeline is not in the ‘national interest,’ the President demonstrates a lack of seriousness about bringing down unemployment, restoring economic growth, and achieving energy independence. He seems to have confused the national interest with his own interest in pleasing the environmentalists in his political base.”

Mitt Romney the Real Conservative

Jay Nordlinger of National Review Online:

Over and over, Romney defends and explains capitalism. And he’s supposed to be the RINO and squish in the race? That’s what I read in the conservative blogosphere, every day. What do you have to do to be a “real conservative”? Speak bad English and belch?

In the Saturday debate, Santorum knocked Romney for being just a “manager,” just a “CEO,” not fit to be president and commander-in-chief. This was odd for a couple of reasons: First, Romney did have a term as governor of Massachusetts (meaning he has executive political experience, unlike Santorum). And second: Since when do conservative Republicans denigrate private-sector experience?

About 800 times, Newt Gingrich told us to read a particular newspaper, to see what a capitalist meanie Romney was. What was the newspaper? The New York Times, of course. There’s a great slogan for our conservative visionary: “Read the New York Times!”

Now Romney has said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say, ‘You know, I’m going to get someone else to provide that service to me.’” Simple, elementary competition. Capitalism 101. And conservatives go, “Eek, a mouse!”

I could go on: the $10 million bet, the pink slips, conservatives wetting their pants, over and over. They have no appetite to defend capitalism, to persuade people, to encourage them not to fall for the old socialist and populist crap. I fled the Democratic party many years ago. And one of the reasons was, I couldn’t stand the class resentment, the envy, the hostility to wealth, the cries of “Richie Rich!” And I hear them from conservatives, at least when Romney is running.

Go ahead, have your “bloodbath” in South Carolina. Make Romney the little guy in the top hat, from the Monopoly game. Have your Santorum, your Perry, your Newt. They may carry something like four states in the fall, but at least they’ve never sullied their hands with — eek! — business.

Perhaps after the election, while Obama is deepening the country’s poverty, Romney and others like him can find a party friendly to capitalism. We conservative Republicans turn out to be cradle-to-gravers, like everyone else.

Click on the title for the compete article.

"The Perry Paradox"

DANIEL HENNINGER of the Wall Street Journal makes a telling point about Rick Perry when he writes today:
.....

Texas' pro-business bias goes back about 175 years—and never died. "It's just that they believe in the whole Horatio Alger myth down here," said Mr. Booth. "It's hard to understand if you haven't lived here."

And so Perry's Paradox: Rick Perry is a success because he nominally presides over an American tiger state, a genuine free-market economy that doesn't much need—or want—his tender loving care. If the job before us is unwinding an unimaginably vast, smothering national government, is Lone Star Gov. Rick Perry the man for that job?

This much is obvious: Texas, not California, better be the American future.

To read the rest of this excellent column click on the title for a link.

"Why We Can't Escape the Eurocrisis"

Gerald O'Driscoll Jr of the Wall Street Journal gives a good explanation of why what happens in Greece is important to Americans.

First to the EU. The underlying dilemma is that governments have promised their citizens more social programs than can be financed with the tax revenue generated by the private sector. High tax rates choke off the economic growth needed to finance the promises. Economic activity gets driven into the underground economy, where it often escapes taxation.
Nowhere is this truer than in Greece....

In Greece and elsewhere in the EU, the banks support the government by purchasing its bonds, and the government guarantees the banks. It is a Ponzi scheme not even Bernie Madoff could have concocted. The banks can no longer afford to fund budget deficits, yet they cannot afford to see governments default. Governments cannot make good on their guarantees of the banks......

.... U.S. banks and financial institutions are exposed to EU banks through funding operations, issuance of credit default swaps and unknown exposure in derivatives markets.

The sad fact is that there is not enough money in the EU to pay off the public debts incurred by the governments. Most countries have long since squeezed as much tax revenue from their citizens as they can........

Americans must not be smug about the suffering of Europeans—our financial system is thoroughly integrated with theirs.....

To read the rest click on the title for a link.


Mr. O'Driscoll, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is a former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and later Citibank.

9 9 9 is a "wonderful plan" so says Art Laffer

Reagan economist and creator of the "Laffer Curve" says that Herman Cain's 9 9 9 tax plan is a "wonderful plan" He says it will "lower the tax rate and broaden the tax base” while provide people with the least incentive to cheat on their taxes"

"Mr. Cain’s plan is simple, transparent, neutral with respect to capital and labor, and savings and consumption, and also greatly decreases the hidden costs of tax compliance. There is no doubt that economic growth would surge upon implementation of 9-9-9.”
Laffer also said that “such a system provides the least avenues to avoid paying taxes, yet also maintains the strongest incentives for work effort, production, and investment.”

In addition Congressman Paul Ryan likes it too:

“We need more bold ideas like this because it is specific and credible,”

The budget chairman went on to say that ideas like Cain’s plan could help shape the debate over tax reform moving into 2013.

“It’s great to see such bold ideas,”

I admit that I was skeptical of 9 9 9 but I am becoming less so if Laffer and Ryan like it. Go Herman !

President Obama: American's "gotten a little soft"

Jimmy Carter, when the American economy went South, blamed it on the American people and said we were in a malaise to cover for his own incompetence.He was shifiting the blame.

Now, another President is attempting to cover for his own incompetence by blaming it on the American people and the new malaise is "a little soft."

President Barack Obama:

"This is a great great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades,”

Jonah Goldberg has the best comment on Obama's attempt to shift the blame from himself to the American people:

Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he’s lecturing us about how America’s gone “soft”? Really?

No, American just needs a real leader !

Ford Ad Obama Doesn't Want You to See !

Under White House pressure Ford Motor Company pulled this ad.

From the Weekly Standard:

Ford has pulled a TV ad that took shots at companies that benefited from federal government's auto bailout "in response to White House questions," reports Daniel Howes at the Detroit News

"Panic ?"

Stocks collapsed roughly 700 points over two days .... this is the backdrop to tonight's Republican Debate...... as the world's economy is on the edge !

Rich Lowry at National Review Online posted this quote from
From Walter Russell Mead on "The Corner":

This is not just about how big the deficit should be; it is about whether the international financial system will survive the next six months in the form we now know it. It is about whether the foundations of the postwar order are cracking in Europe. It is about whether a global financial crash will further destabilize the Middle East and, if so, what we and the Europeans are going to do about it. It is about whether the incipient signs of a bubble burst in China signal the start of an extended economic and perhaps even political crisis there. It is about whether the American middle class is about to be knocked off its feet once again and indeed whether the middle class as we’ve known it will survive. It is about whether sovereign governments can still underwrite economic performance and financial stability in the leading economies of the world.

Click on the title for a link.


"signs of a bubble burst in China" ??????

It is a Ponzie Scheme

Governor Perry is right Social Security is a legal Ponzie scheme. Both liberals and conservatives have described it as such. Stanley Kurtz has done a little research and the first person to call it a Ponzie Scheme was liberal Newsweek economics columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson in 1967.... yes 1967:

Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson as perhaps the earliest use of the Social Security/Ponzi-scheme comparison in public argument. Samuelson was actually drawing on the Ponzi analogy to defend Social Security. His claim was that the perpetual succession of human generations establishes the conditions for a sustainable Ponzi scheme. Regardless of whether Samuelson was the first commentator to use the Ponzi analogy, he has clearly been the most influential. Policy briefs and books churned out by conservative think tanks such as Heritage and Cato have cited Samuelson’s Ponzi column for years.

Others who have called it a Ponzi Scheme:

Ben Whattenberg

the 1987 publication of Ben Wattenberg’s book The Birth Dearth. Wattenberg, who once worked for Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, was by the late 1980s a centrist Democrat, hawkish on defense and otherwise alternately allied with the right or left, depending on the issue. Although many rejected Wattenberg’s claim in The Birth Dearth that a crisis of population decline loomed, time has vindicated his warning.

In a U.S. News & World Report cover story excerpting The Birth Dearth, Wattenberg sums up his argument by saying: “In short, Social Security is a Ponzi game, a pyramid scheme, a chain letter.”

Jame C. Miller

In December of 1988, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, James C. Miller III, made news when he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme before an audience at the National Press Club

Robert J. Shapiro

Shapiro was also a senior economic adviser to the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry, and advised the presidential campaign and transition of Barack Obama as well...

The first section-heading in Shapiro’s piece reads “National Ponzi Scheme.” There Shapiro recalls Samuelson’s 1967 Ponzi comparison and suggests that, given today’s demographics, Social Security is“fiscally unsustainable” without major restructuring.

Jonathan Alter

Lamm is praised as a “truthteller” by Alter for being willing to say, among other things, that Social Security is a “well-meaning Ponzi scheme.” Today, of course, the very liberal Alter is a sympathetic biographer of Obama and one of the president’s most supportive media cheerleaders.

Michael Kinsley

Kinsley published a piece at Slate titled, “Social Security: From Ponzi Scheme to Shell Game.”

Max Frankel (former editor of New York Times and columnust)

“For more than 30 years, Presidents and Congresses have pretended that the Social Security Ponzi scheming between the generations will never explode in their lifetimes.” Argued Frankel, “ . . . the majority of voters have been misled.”

To read the entire Kurtz column click on the title for a link.

The Economy: "High Anxiety"

A Fox Business News commentator said we are in a period of "High Anxiety" regrading the economy and stock market. Reminded me of a Mel Brooks comedy ..... but I fear it's more serious.

State of the GOP Presidential Race

Stanley Kurtz at National Review Online has a very good review of the Republican race for President.

As for Romney, I don’t think conservatives have the luxury of dismissing him, Romeycare notwithstanding. If Perry crashes and burns, and Pawlenty fails to catch on, we’ll be down to Bachmann and Romney. At that point, given his current lead, Romney would likely take the nomination. Even if I’d prefer another nominee, I’d be thrilled to see Romney defeat Obama. Conservatives need to get their heads around that scenario, even as they fight for another.

Click on the title for a link to read the rest.

The down grade by the S & P helps Romney against the rest of the GOP field because of his experance in helping buisness in trouble and the United States is in trouble.

Standard and Poor's Report

Click on the title for a link to the report. Some quotes:

The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the
long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less
reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new
fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government
debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case....

Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the
structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt
burden in a manner consistent with a 'AAA' rating