Monthly Archives: January 2009
How to Stimulate the Economy
Quote of the Day: “The permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is a theory of consumption that was developed by the American economist Milton Friedman. In its simplest form, PIH states that the choices made by consumers regarding their consumption patterns are determined not by current income but by their longer-term income expectations.” — from Wikipedia
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Subject: How to stimulate the economy
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The President-elect wants the proposed stimulus bill to be 40% tax cuts. That’s good. But he wants those cuts to be one-time reductions. That’s bad.
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The politicians want to prop up businesses by stimulating consumer spending. One-time tax cuts will not accomplish this.
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Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for
The New President’s Promises
Quote of the Day: “When a government takes over a people’s economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs.” — Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) Source: The Guaranteed Life http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Maxwell.Anderson.Quote.981D
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Subject: The New President’s Promises
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Politicians make promises. The President-elect made a lot of them. Chris Edwards at the Cato Institue has provided a helpful summary of some of them.
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We want to draw attention to these . . .
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* Eliminate “ineffective government programs.”
:::* Expose corporate welfare.
:::* Enforce tougher new standards on the Office of Management and Budget’s current “PART” program, which grades program effectiveness.
:::* “Enforc[e] standards when programs continually fail” by ”cutting program budgets or eliminating programs entirely” or other reforms.
:::* “Eliminate government programs that are not performing” by means of a “line-by-line” budget review.
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These are pretty good promises. We applaud them. We’d like to help the President-elect keep them. Were he to do so, it would mark change. Other Presidents, from both parties, have made similar promises. They have not kept them.
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We vote for change.
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To cause change by keeping these promises the President-elect will need not only the will to do so, but also help from Congress. This is where we can assist him. Let’s be helpful.
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The President-elect faces a target rich environment in terms of keeping these promises. There are too many examples of
Ted Kennedy’s Deathbed Legacy
Quote of the Day: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”
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Subject: Plotting to Socialize Medicine
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A swift attack is coming. “We need to be on the offense,” said the soon to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle. He claims they learned, from the Clinton failure, how to pass socialized healthcare.
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President-elect Obama believes that his health care gimmicks should be part of his economic recovery schemes. While you and I were decking the halls, and kissing our sweethearts under the mistletoe, he was stealthily advancing his agenda.
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During the last half of December the Obama transition team held house meetings across the country. They took the feedback from these socialist trysts, then posted it at their interactive site, Change.gov. The Obama administration is conspiring to hit the ground running in January, using the claim that these meetings represent public support to compel Congress to act . . .
Starting off the new year
Quote of the Day: “He who does not bellow out the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.” — Charles Peguy (1873-1914) French poet, essayist and editor
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Subject: Starting off the new year
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We’re back. Happy New Year.
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We’re going to start off slowly today, giving ourselves and all of you a chance to ease back into the swing of things. But we did want to tell you that . . .