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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 2 March 2001 | Vol. II #32 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 2 March 2001 | Vol. II #32 | ||
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"As late as yesterday, I still had friends telling me that the Republicans were the party of smaller government -- the party that would rein in federal spending -- that all I had to do was wait and see -- that when I opined that the Republicans wouldn't do anything to cut government, I was talking through my hat. More Social Security. More Medicare. More entitlements. More discretionary spending. Increased government spending, even accounting for inflation. Tucked into subtle phrases in (President Bush's Tuesday night) speech, we find more spending for the failed War on Drugs, more spending for welfare, more spending for, well, pretty much everything. Is this what my friends mean by 'smaller government?'
"... Outside of some money for military pay raises and equipment improvements, every one of Bush's spending proposals, as described in the speech, flies in the face of the Constitution and of Republican rhetoric going back to Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential candidacy... Try as I might, I can't find the section of the Constitution that enumerates any federal power to provide for education. ... On almost every budget item mentioned in the speech -- from education to Social Security and Medicare and beyond -- Bush proposes more spending and more federal intervention in areas where the federal government has no business in the first place."
[ Columnist Thomas L. Knapp ]
"Since the New Deal, Americans have slowly forgotten that the Constitution puts great limits on what the federal government can do. As recently as the 1950s, people could still question whether the federal government ought to build a national highway system. In order to justify that program constitutionally, it was called the National Defense Highway Act. Today, of course, any notion that such a program would need that sort of constitutional veneer to gain passage is absurd. Bush can help himself and his tax and budgetary plans by trying to reinvigorate constitutionality as a rationale for his actions. Programs that do not rest on a clear grant of constitutional power should be abolished or transferred to the states. He can even argue that tax rates that are too high violate the Constitution's prohibition against unlawful seizure."
[ Columnist Bruce Bartlett, Creators Syndicate ]
The other day Democratic Senator Tom Daschle and Democratic Congressman Dick Gephardt appeared in a new conference to bash G.W.'s tax plan. They got up and said that it was too big and only benefited the wealthy. The same old mantra they have been using for the last few months. At the end of their little speech they brought up a Black female who stated that she was a working single mother who only made $20,400 per year and Bush's tax plan would only give her $117 per year in tax relief.
First of all, doesn't she actually make more money than that but it is not taxable because it's called child support? If she's not getting child support then she should make the deadbeat pay up so we don't have to.
If this mother of one makes $20,400 per year then she uses the earned income credit to pay her taxes. She pays her share of Social Security Taxes and Medicare payments. You can bet she will use these services to the fullest extent. By using the earned income credit she will not only not pay income taxes on her income but she will actually receive a check from the taxpayers for about $2,500.00. She stated that she puts her son in daycare so she takes the daycare tax credit, which is currently $500.00 per child per year, and under the Bush plan she would get $1000.00 per child per year. This brings her income up to about $24,000.00 per year after taxes. Not great but way above the poverty level.
After last night's Presidential speech, Daschle and Gephardt again tried to scare the people with their spin. They talked about the tax cuts during Reagan's Administration bringing on deficits. The deficits were brought on because they passed a tax cut but the Democratic Congress continued to spend money they didn't have and took that money from the Social Security Fund. They have been stealing money from Socoal Security for years, that's why it's in the shape it's in now! There was never a balanced budget until the Republicans controlled Congress.
I know one thing for sure that if we leave our money in Washington they, both Democrats and Republicans will spend it. Give the money back to those who paid it in a proportional amount to which they paid it in and let us decide how it is best used.
[ Ike Harley ]
"The dirty little secret, of course, is that (federal income tax) withholding -- implemented during World War II -- is the linchpin of the welfare state and big government. If Americans had to sit down every April 15 and write a check for their entire tax bill -- instead of having the IRS surreptitiously remove installments from their paychecks each week as if the money never existed -- the beltway bureaucrats and politicians couldn't flee town fast enough to avoid being skinned by angry mobs demanding relief."
[ Las Vegas Review Journal ]
Democratic Sen. Zell Miller sharply criticized his party's political leaders yesterday, warning that they were making "a terrible mistake" with their class-warfare attacks against President Bush's tax-cut plan.
Mr. Miller, the only Democrat thus far to embrace Mr. Bush's tax cut plans, said that if his party continues to play polarizing politics on the tax-cut issue "the voters are going to skin us alive" in the 2002 midterm elections.
The Georgia senator said he did not like the tactics being used by House and Senate Democratic leaders to discredit Mr. Bush's tax-cut proposals. He also denounced the language being used by Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe as "over the top."
"I think the Democratic Party could not have made a worse choice in choosing Terry McAuliffe as chairman of the DNC. He stands in the shade of Bill Clinton," Mr. Miller said in an interview with The Washington Times.
The last vestige of civilized Britain has fallen away - the unarmed British "Bobbie." For 170 years, British police functioned without guns. Since their founding by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, Bobbies walked their beats armed only with their nightsticks. Until the last few years of these 17 decades, the British public was armed. Now it is the other way around. The police have guns, and the law-abiding public doesn't. What happened?
Britain has the most severe "gun control" laws in the world. Not even members of the British Olympic Shooting Team are allowed pistols. The British are reduced to registered single- and double-barreled shotguns, and the maximum permitted shell load is birdshot.
According to the arguments of gun-control advocates, Britain should be safe and crime free. But, alas, violent crime and robberies have skyrocketed. Gunfights between rival immigrant gangs caused the revolution in British policing. In Robin Hood's Nottinghamshire, constables now patrol in pairs armed with semi-automatic pistols. They are backed up by armed-response vehicles (ARVs) stocked with submachine guns.
If gun control makes society safe, why was it necessary to overthrow British police tradition, arm police with semiautomatic weapons and provide machinegun backup? As a test case in gun control, Britain proves it to be a total failure. The result is exactly the one predicted by the National Rifle Association: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
In Britain, a man's home may be his castle where the king of England cannot enter without a warrant, but robbers and rapists enter at will. It is easier and less risky for a criminal to have his way with a victim in the privacy of the victim's home than in public. Gun control has made home invasion safe for criminals.
In the United States, experts have proven time and again that widespread gun ownership is a deterrent to crime and prevents between 1 million and 3 million criminal acts each year. Gun ownership saves numerous lives and foils large numbers of rapes and robberies. Yet, gun controllers persist in their attempts to disarm the public.
A person can't help but wonder whether gun-control advocates are uninformed fools or have a secret agenda. Once gun control enters politics, the lying makes even Bill and Hillary Clinton blush. As the 20th century came to a close, Canadian Justice Minister Allan Rock fended off criticisms of a gun-registration bill his government was pushing by giving assurances that "there is no reason to confiscate legally owned firearms."
Within 10 months of the minister's assurances, 553,000 legally registered handguns were confiscated. Now, rifles and shotguns must be licensed and registered. Having learned that the only purpose of registration is to tell the government where the guns are, compliance has collapsed. Large numbers of law-abiding Canadians prefer to risk five years in prison than to register their guns. Gun-control laws dramatically reduce public safety and turn law-abiding citizens into law-breakers. Licensing and registration increase crime by devoting police resources to paperwork. Gun registration databases cannot prevent crimes or aid in their solving, because criminals do not register their guns.
The people most dangerous to the public are not on the FBI's "Most Wanted List." Far more dangerous to our safety than criminals are gun-control extremists like Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sarah Brady of Handgun Control.
These are the people who will leave us defenseless as they abrogate the Constitution and destroy respect for law, while promising an end to "gun violence."
The American Rifleman reports that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) - the guys who brought us Waco - are using intimidation and threats to compile an illegal registry of gun owners. BATF thumbs its nose at federal court decisions and continues to harass legitimate gun dealers and purchasers as if they were criminals.
We need to ask ourselves why liberals have made gun confiscation such a priority. I think it is to distract us from the disastrous results of liberal social engineering. When high-school students shoot their classmates and workers open fire on their co-workers, the fault lies not in guns. It lies in the breakdown in self-control and moral integrity. The irrational shootings are due to the success of liberals in achieving their goals.
[ Paul Craig Roberts, Creator's Syndicate ]
One of our readers forwarded to me an alarming e-mail yesterday urging people to sign a petition by Democrats.com demanding that President Bush fire Jack Oliver. Now, I just met Jack Oliver briefly for the first time in the hallway at the Republican National Committee headquarters a week ago, so my interest was piqued. He seemed like an OK kinda guy to me.
So who is this Jack Oliver, you ask ... and what dastardly deed has he committed which has the Democrats' pantyhose all up in a bunch? Here's an excerpt from the petition to Mr. Bush:
"On January 29 ... Republican national Committee Deputy Chairman Jack Oliver broke your promise and launched a vicious attack on Democrats and liberal activists who oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft for Attorney General. He said 'Democrats are working with radical groups like People For The American Way, NOW and NARAL to attack Senator Ashcroft and distort his record.' He accused these groups of waging a 'smear' campaign.
"Jack Oliver's remarks are totally uncivil. They lack humility and decency and fairness. They are arrogant and disrespectful. We call upon you to demonstrate your commitment to your promises by firing Jack Oliver and making it clear to all Republicans - in the White House, Congress, and the Republican Party - that you will not tolerate this kind of behavior. Your failure to do so will send a clear sign that your promises are meaningless, and your Administration will engage in the same old vicious partisan attacks that Americans detest."
Well! Indeed. We can't have some "loose cannon" running around pointing out the obvious now, can we? This Jack Oliver is a mad-man. An animal. How dare he call a smear and smear? What a vicious brute. Why, next thing you know he's liable to say Chelsea's mom wears army boots! Or that Ted Kennedy has "cooties." Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
Is this the level of banal pettiness the once-great Democrat party has sunk to after eight years of Clinton/Gore? Appears so. But it gets even more embarrassing. We went to the web site hosting the online "Fire Jack Oliver!" petition and clicked the button to view the list of persons alleged to have already signed it. Guess what? No names. Surprise.
The site explains: "Viewing of the full signatures list for this petition has been temporarily disabled to accommodate very high traffic." How high? According to the site itself, a whopping 302 signatures. Pathetic. 302 signatures overwhelmed this site? But wait. There was another button promising to reveal the "most recent 50" signers. Click. Oops. No names, again. Que pasa? "Due to temporary problems with a server upgrade, some signature lines may be temporarily displayed incorrectly." Uh- huh.
Conservative columnist Ann Coulter hit the nail on the head recently when she wrote that the biggest mistake Republicans have made in recent years was treating Democrats like adults. This childish "Fire Jack Oliver" petition seems to make her case quite well, thank you very much. Mr. Bush should consider sending the Democrats to their rooms without dessert. That'll teach 'em. Waaahhhhhh!
[ Chuck Muth, Editor GOP N&V ]
House and Senate investigators in the Clinton pardons caper are attempting to pin down exactly where former DNC finance chairman Beth Dozoretz was on the evening of January 19, 2001. According to the White House logs, she was present at a final party thrown by the Clintons for friends and big-time donors to Bill and Hillary's campaigns. The security logs list both Dozoretz and Marc Rich ex-wife Denise Rich as being present at the affair. And their presence at the event would explain how Dozoretz apparently knew about the Rich pardon before anyone else knew about Clinton's final decision.
"By some time before midnight on the 19th, she seemed aware that it was happening," says a Senate investigator. "The president claims he didn't decide until an hour before the inauguration. Our gut instinct tells us to trust Ms. Dozoretz's version of events."
But wait. Dozoretz's husband claims she wasn't at a White House party. She was, he says, sitting on a plane with him to Los Angeles at the time of the Washington function. "It doesn't make sense," says the investigator.
It gets better, though. According to a publicist in Los Angeles, the wife of Hollywood producer Mike Medavoy, Irena Medavoy, is telling people Dozoretz was at a pre-Golden Globes party held at their home in Los Angeles on the evening of the 19th. Dozoretz is also said to have lunched at L.A. hotspot Spago on the afternoon of the 20th. The Medavoys, by the way, are also big donors to the Clintons, and were White House overnight guests of Bill and Hillary. "She can't have been in three places at once," says the Senate source. "It just gets stranger."
[ Washington Prowler ]
We are happy to announce that we will start carrying editorial cartoons drawn by artist Jim Huber. Jim does a great cartoon under the heading of Politically Correct, which is funny all by its self if you have seen Jim's 'toons.
In the text version all we will be able to do is provide a link, but the html version will have the cartoon itself at the bottom of the page. These will appear in the first edition published each week.
If you enjoy this addition to TCN, be sure to let Jim know by surfing over to
his Contact page and dropping him a note. If you have a problem with his form, you can send your note to TCN and we will be happy to forward it for you.
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