Be sure to view all four parts. It’s very good. Click here for part one.
Category: United States government
1,000 to Protest Attack on Free-Market Principles at U.S. Capitol
I am one of these people!
Amidst Market Unrest, Americans for Prosperity Gathers Citizens to Protest Big-Government Power Grab
WASHINGTON – About 1,000 citizens will gather in front of the U.S. Capitol on Friday to participate in a free-market call to arms by the grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Amidst market uncertainty, and just weeks away from a crucial election, the crowd of citizens from 38 states around the nation will protest a looming big-government power grab and rally to the defense of free-market, limited government principles. The rally will kick-off at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 10, in front of the Capitol reflecting pool at the Grant Memorial.
“Big-government supporters are on the attack – the free market and our American way of life are the targets,” said AFP President Tim Phillips. “This rally is a call to arms for those who believe government is the problem, not a solution. The one-thousand citizens who will rally in front of the U.S. Capitol represent millions more Americans across the country who believe in free-market principles.”
Who: Americans for Prosperity
What: Rally to defend the free market, protest big government power grab
When: 2:30 p.m.; Friday, October 10
Where: Grant Memorial, in front of the Capitol reflecting poolEven as candidates and elected officials are busy blaming economic uncertainty on Wall Street “greed” and deregulation, the rally is part of AFP’s grassroots campaign to expose government policies that have ushered in market unrest and promote free-market solutions. The citizens participating in the Capitol Hill rally will also attend AFP Foundation’s October 10-11 Defending the American Dream Summit at the Marriott Crystal Gateway — the nation’s largest gathering of free-market conservatives committed to changing the policy landscape on issues such as taxes, spending, and unfettered markets. Americans for Prosperity is a co-sponsor of the Summit. Visit www.DefendingtheDream.org for a full agenda.
“We are standing together to send a powerful message that free markets and pro-growth economic policies deliver the American Dream,” Phillips concluded. “Class warfare attacks are camouflage for a far-left, big-government agenda that will shut down our economic engines. Our rally will send a compelling reminder to lawmakers of the belief in more limited government, low taxes, and less spending, shared by millions of Americans.”
Booted from White House Conference Call
My friend Leslie Carbone was Booted from White House Conference Call.
By the way, Leslie is the author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, which will be published in May 2009. I can’t wait.
Kansas Blog Roundup for September 12, 2008
There won’t be a Kansas blog roundup today. I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona attending the State Policy Network conference. We’ve been busy from dawn to way late at night, and there just hasn’t been time.
Letter to Justice Anthony Kennedy
From my friend Karl Peterjohn.
16 June 2008
Mr. Anthony Kennedy
US Supreme Court
1 First St., NE
Washington, DC 20543Dear Sir:
I am writing concerning your most recent decision empowering terrorists captured on the battlefield in the U.S. court system. This edict granting habeas corpus rights to Islamic Jihadists will stain you and your four left wing activist colleagues as much as the bloodstained clothes worn by Danny Pearl were spoiled when he was decapitated and butchered for being an American.
Is Boeing tanker “victory” good for America?
A Wall Street Journal editorial from March 18, 2008 (Patriot Tanker Games) argued that calls on Capitol Hill for “patriotism” in defense procurement are misguided. Leaders of this call include Kansas’s very own Todd Tiahrt and Pat Roberts.
These politicians say that allowing an important American defense system to be built in partnership with a European firm is dangerous for America. In testimony to the defense appropriations subcommittee Rep. Tiahrt stated “I am outraged by this decision to outsource our national security … We are stacking the deck against American manufacturers, at the expense of our national and economic security.”
But the Journal editorial sees clearly through the haze: “What’s really going on is a familiar scrum for federal cash, with politicians from Washington and Kansas using nationalism as cover for their pork-barreling … The modern aerospace biz is an increasingly global affair, and more than half of the Northrop/EADS tanker (by value) will be made in America. Much of Boeing’s tanker would also have been built outside the U.S.”
If the tankers are built by Boeing that means more jobs for Wichita, which Tiahrt represents. Bringing home jobs and pork, it seems, are one of a United States Congressman’s most important jobs. But as the Journal editorial points out, the Defense Department has broader responsibilities: to American taxpayers across the country, and to American soldiers. If the Pentagon believes the Northrop/EADS tanker proposal is best for American security and taxpayers, on what basis can Todd Tiahrt, Pat Roberts and the rest of the Kansas congressional delegation object?
Every congressman and senator wants to do for their district or state what Tiahrt and Roberts are doing for Wichita and Kansas. This desire leads to never-ending battles for a share of federal spending. Spending is often allocated based on political considerations instead of reason.
The Journal editorial is absolutely correct when it concludes that “Protectionists in Congress want to make America’s soldiers wait even longer for this new equipment, all to score political points at home. There’s a word for that, but it’s not patriotism.”
A Mess of John McCain’s Own Making
Kimberly A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal explains a mess of John McCain’s own making, and which confirms to me that he is not suited to be President of the United States: McCain’s Campaign Finance Revelation.
“The Arizonan may not yet fully understand that money is speech.” writes Ms. Strassel.
As Thomas Sowell recently said: “Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.”
Earmarks and pork thoroughly established
In a letter printed in the February 22, 2008 Wichita Eagle, Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Tom Winters, along with Wichita State University President Don Beggs, praised some Kansas congressmen for being “very effective Washington advocates for south-central Kansas.” What the congressmen — Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and Kansas Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts — did was to “roll up their sleeves and work on many issues that help improve our quality of life in the Wichita area.” Sounds like a noble cause, doesn’t it?
What the three congressmen did was to secure federal funding for several projects deemed important to Chairman Winters and President Beggs. In other words, they brought home the pork to Wichita in the form of earmarks. This is why efforts to reform earmarks and pork barrel spending have failed and are likely to continue to fail. Evidence of this is Tom Winters, as I believe that he would describe himself as fiscally conservative, yet he praises his congressmen when they bring home the pork.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt recently sent me a newsletter by email titled “It’s Time to End Wasteful Spending.” It told me of his goal “to find and create solutions that will benefit Kansas taxpayers.” He’s done just that, according to the letter from Winters and Beggs, and in the past too.
In 2004 the Wichita Business Journal reported on two projects where Rep. Tiahrt brought home funding to his district. One was a computer-aided dispatch system for Sedgwick County’s 911 system. The other was a grant to the Wichita Art Museum. Neither recipient of the earmarks, the director of Sedgwick County’s Emergency Communications Department and the director of the Wichita Art Museum, thought the spending qualified as pork. Most pork recipients feel the same.
Then there’s Tiahrt’s earmark for the BTK investigation. As reported in Human Events: “Tiahrt, according to ‘The Almanac of American Politics,’ has bragged that one of the ‘top 10 most gratifying things I’ve done’ is securing $1 million in an omnibus appropriations bill for the Wichita Police Department to investigate the ‘BTK’ killer.”
That’s the way it usually is. The recipients of the earmarked pork barrel spending believe the need is urgent, the cause worthy, and a federal earmark is justified. It seems that everyone across the country believes this about their own pet projects.
To Rep. Tiahrt’s credit, he has voted for earmark reform measures. But his behavior and that of our two senators, Roberts and Brownback, is to continue to bring home earmarks and pork for the good of the folks back home.
And who can blame them, really? After all, we pay taxes to the federal government. Shouldn’t we get something back? Even Ron Paul gets earmarks for his congressional district. Should Rep. Tiahrt turn down earmarks, his political opponents would have his hide for failing to look out for the needs of his district.
But with these attitudes, earmark reform will never succeed, and pork barrel politics will never end.
More Kansans for Ron Paul
By John Todd.
The people know much better how to spend their money than the government. — Ron Paul
The economic prosperity and the freedom that people of this country enjoy today were a result of low taxes combined with little or no regulations dating back to the founding. People were free to use the fruits of their labor and their property as they wished, and through this freedom they created the most prosperous country in the world with the greatest amount of individual freedom. Today, Ron Paul is the only candidate for president who understands the dangers to our economic prosperity and freedom that has resulted as people have learned to vote themselves money from the government treasury and how to take other peoples property through government regulations. The result has been high taxes and regulations that threaten our prosperity and freedom, and we must stop this slide.
Ron Paul says, “too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future — and yours.”
How does this impact Kansas? The per capita share of the national debt is around $30,000 per Kansan or $120,000 for a Kansas family of four! Our own state budget has grown to nearly $13 billion. Six billion of the $13 billion that comes from state general funds with all source funds accounting for the balance. A large portion of the “all source” funds come from the Federal Government. What we as a people have allowed is for the Federal Government to overtax us, and then place our state in a position to compete with 49 other states to recover our own money. And when the money comes back to Kansas, it has “strings” attached on how the money can be spent, thus allowing non-elected federal bureaucrats in Washington to control us through their imposed regulations. What does this do to state sovereignty? We need to stop this abuse, and Ron Paul is the only candidate for president who is willing to do it! Ron Paul says, “The Constitution was written to restrain the government, never to restrain the people.”
Ron Paul is clearly the only presidential candidate, who understands individual liberty vs. the collectivism that permeates our country, private property rights that restrict governments ability to give our house, business, or farm to the politically well-connected, free market capitalism, and the need for limited government that eliminates the onerous overburdening regulation that stifles our businesses, our personal lives, and our freedom.