Voice For Liberty

Tag: Barack Obama

  • AFP responds to Obama attack

    Attacks by President Barack Obama on Americans for Prosperity for its promotion of limited government and free markets are a signal that these principles are resonating with Americans.

    Now AFP has formulated a video response to the president.

    While some characterize the president’s remarks as a personal insult to each of AFP’s 1.2 million citizen members, I see it as evidence that AFP has grown to become “America’s leading conservative grassroots organization,” as described in a recent article penned by Richard Viguerie. Obama wouldn’t even bother to mention the name Americans for Prosperity if he wasn’t concerned about the group’s effectiveness.

    In his remarks, the president attacked AFP for spending millions on television advertisements against Democratic Party candidates. The president didn’t note that every dollar given to AFP is a voluntary contribution.

    This is in contrast to the way the Democrats operate. The Wall Street Journal has noted, for example, that the recent spending bill passed earlier this month is a boon for Democrat campaign funds: “The National Education Association and other unions will thus get as much as $100 million in additional dues from this bill, much of which will flow immediately to endangered Democratic candidates in competitive House and Senate races this year.”

    This week AFP is holding its annual Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington. I’ll be there along with probably two thousand other citizen activists from across the country.

  • Wasteful government spending must stop

    As part of its campaign against wasteful government spending, Americans for Prosperity Foundation has started a television advertising campaign and companion website to help Americans learn more about the harmful effects of the stimulus plan promoted by President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

    In just a handful of years, AFPF has grown to become “America’s leading conservative grassroots organization,” according to a recent article penned by Richard Viguerie. The recent attacks on AFPF by President Obama are evidence of this.

    According to AFPF President Tim Phillips, “This first ad called ‘Hollywood’ details how the failed $862 billion Obama/Pelosi/Reid ‘Stimulus’ bill was wasted on pet political projects, how it cost every American family an average of $10,000 and how it in reality killed genuine private sector jobs.”

    The companion website at SpendingCrisis.org has useful information that citizens can tap to learn more about the stimulus spending, as well as government spending in general. The site carries the headline “Washington, we’ve got a problem.”

    In particular, an issues page gives some reasons as to why high government spending is bad for America.

    As an example, under the heading “Government Spending is Inherently Wasteful,” we find “It’s regarded as a virtual truism that no one spends someone else’s money as well as they spend their own. The only people who seem to disagree are politicians.”

    Other facts highlighted include:

    • This year, the federal government will borrow about $12,500 per household to pay for its spending.
    • Despite claiming that the $862 billion stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8 percent, it is hovering around 9.5 percent with few signs of improving.
    • Public employees earned more than $120,000 per year in salary and benefits on average, compared to about $60,000 in the private sector.
    • From anti-poverty spending programs to defense and education, the federal government now spends a record $30,543 per household.

  • Star Parker campaigns in Wichita

    In a campaign stop yesterday in Wichita noted conservative figure Star Parker told an audience that she works for market-based solutions to fight poverty, and that the answer to poverty is freedom and personal responsibility, not a welfare state.

    Parker appeared in Wichita at a fundraising event hosted by Wichita businessman Johnny Stevens. Parker is running for Congress as a Republican from the 37th district of California, which includes the cities of Compton, Long Beach, and Carson, south of the City of Los Angeles. Her campaign website is Star Parker for Congress.

    Parker described her efforts working on welfare reform at the federal level during the 1990s, which she described as successful in terms of helping poor people recover their lives. But the momentum that was started — moving poor people from socialism towards capitalism and economic freedom — has not continued, she said. What we have today, she told the audience, is moving in the opposite direction.

    Parker said that a critical factor in helping her to decide whether to run for Congress was when President Barack Obama chose to use Abraham Lincoln’s Bible as part of the swearing-in ceremony during his inauguration. Lincoln — although a complicated man and her hero, Parker said — confronted the moral problem of his day by deciding that the country should remain together and with everyone as free people. She contrasted this with Obama, who avoided a moral question by saying it was “above his pay grade.”

    Then when she saw bankers and Wall Street executives lining up to go on welfare she was furious, and seriously considered responding positively when asked to run for Congress.

    Democrat Laura Richardson, the two-term incumbent in the district Parker is seeking to represent in Congress, has had trouble with homes she owns falling into foreclosure, even being criticized by the Los Angeles Times for that and for falling behind on property tax payments. Richardson had been charged with an ethics violation in conjunction one of her three homes that has been in foreclosure. In July the House Ethics Committee cleared her of misconduct in that matter.

    Parker said that Richardson’s main accomplishment has been bringing stimulus money into the district. She described it as a union district, and that unions do not want to see this seat in conservative hands.

    Parker criticized campaign finance laws that allow those with personal wealth to spend all they want on their campaigns — we saw this in the Kansas fourth district with one candidate spending about $2 million of his own funds — but limit outside contributions to $2,400 per election cycle. This limits the ability of challengers to mount effective campaigns against incumbents, she said.

    Parker said it is critical to take Congress back from the control of Democrats, and that for a black conservative to win a seat currently held by the Congressional Black Caucus would be “extremely sweet.”

    She told the audience that if we fail to take Congress this fall, “you think you’ve seen arrogance now, you think you’ve seen elitism, you think you’ve seen how aggressively they can spend other peoples’ money and how close to the edge of danger they will allow us to go — we’ve seen nothing if on November third we wake up and they still have the Congress.”

    Even if Republicans take Congress, she said since over half of them are not conservative, there will still be a challenge.

    She mentioned that she will be part of an upcoming John Stossel feature on Fox News Network.

    Parker spoke about the importance of schools and described the difficulties that parents face trying to get their children in good schools. Answering a question about the lack of reform such as charter schools and school choice in Kansas, Parker said that lack of these limits the opportunity for the underclass to get a quality education. In public schools, Parker said that children are taught secular humanism, and the cycle of the entitlement mentality is passed down from one generation to the next. School choice is the way to break this cycle and give schoolchildren an opportunity to attend schools that have a moral framework.

    Answering another question about what caused the transformation in her thinking — Parker is not shy about talking about her past life living on welfare — she said that she “just got born again” and decided to adopt a Biblical world view.

    As to what spurred her to become a free-market activist and adopting a libertarian economic thought, she said that it was her experience in business. “Government is harsh,” she said, with many agencies that stand in the way of prosperity.

    The ideas of socialism are inconsistent with a free country, she said, telling them that the rules of welfare are “don’t work, don’t save, and don’t get married.” These rules work against people breaking out of poverty.

    Parker has been endorsed by many national conservative figures, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Mike Huckabee.

  • Stimulus Pushers

    If we needed more evidence of President Barack Obama‘s inclination to shower public treasure on public sector unions, here it is. The Wall Street Journal details some of the ways that last week’s mini-stimulus bill is a gift to public sector unions at the cost of everyone else.

    For example, the portion of the spending dedicated to public schools comes with the requirement that the funds be used to increase school spending. The funds can’t be used by states to replace their own spending.

    The claim that teacher jobs will be lost is false, too. The editorial notes the rapid growth of teacher employment, far more than the growth in student enrollment: “While Mr. Obama quotes the union figure of 160,000 potential lost teacher jobs, those don’t have to come out of the classroom. According to research by Eric Hanushek of Stanford University, student enrollment grew by 22% from 1990 to 2007, but teacher employment grew by 41%. Since 2000, enrollment has grown by 5% but teacher employment by 10%.”

    The editorial also notes that teacher layoffs in Milwaukee could have been avoided if teachers had accepted a less expensive health care plan. The district proposed cutting per-teacher health plan costs from $23,000 per year (!) to $17,000. What happened? “The unions chose the layoffs, betting (correctly) that Democrats in Washington would come to their rescue.”

    Finally, the article estimates that teachers unions and other unions will receive an estimated $100 million in additional union dues because of this bill, and much of that will be used for political purposes.

    Any guesses as to what type of candidates this money will be used to support?

    Stimulus Pushers

    The latest bailout for public unions and spendthrift states.

    To treat Washington’s spending addiction, the November elections are the taxpayer’s best chance to stage an intervention. But until then, President Obama and the Democratic Congress are determined to keep pushing strung-out state governments to take one more fix.

    Witness yesterday’s 247-161 largely party-line House vote to approve a Senate bill shovelling another $26.1 billion out to state education and Medicaid programs. The White House has promoted the bill as emergency assistance for strained state budgets. But this unique brand of therapy drives states to spend more, not less. The “assistance” is so expensive that several governors were begging for relief even before Mr. Obama signed it into law.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal

  • President Obama job approval

    As President Barack Obama develops a track record, and as people become familiar with his policies and their results, they realize don’t like this man and his policies.

  • Obama health care rejected in Missouri election

    What are we to think when President Obama’s signature legislative achievement is highly unpopular with Americans?

    Scott Rasmussen has written: “One of the more amazing aspects of the health-care debate is how steady public opinion has remained. Despite repeated and intense sales efforts by the president and his allies in Congress, most Americans consistently oppose the plan that has become the centerpiece of this legislative season.”

    Now we have election results that show that Americans — Missourians, anyway — don’t like what they see in the Obama health care plan. The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto reports on the Missouri election.

    Mo. to O.: ‘No’

    They said voters would learn to stop worrying and love ObamaCare. They were wrong.
    By James Taranto

    They told us that Americans would learn to stop worrying and love ObamaCare. To judge by yesterday’s election in Missouri, they were wrong.

    Official election returns show that citizens of the Show Me State voted overwhelmingly–71% to 29% in favor of Proposition C, a ballot measure described in a pre-election report from Time magazine:

    The specific issue boils down to this: Can the government require that citizens buy health insurance? Mandatory insurance is a key element of the health care reforms passed by congressional Democrats and signed by Obama this year. Adding healthy people to the insurance pool spreads the cost of policies for people with health problems. Missouri’s referendum rejects that mandate by asking voters whether state laws should be amended to forbid penalties for failing to have health insurance.

    Time describes the vote as “largely symbolic.” Other states have already passed such opt-out laws via legislative action rather than voter initiative, and the real test will come in the courts. But symbolism matters. If the constitutional question is a difficult one, it’s possible that judges will resolve it on the side of public opinion. And of course the public’s reaction to ObamaCare is likely to influence the politicians who have control over its implementation and possible repeal.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal

  • At RightOnline, John Fund is hopeful, but warns

    At Saturday’s general session of the RightOnline conference at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund told the audience of 1,100 conservative activists that they will win in November, but opposition is already planning to derail the victory.

    Fund said he is doing double duty this weekend, covering both RightOnline and the Netroots Nation conference, a gathering of liberal — or “progressive” — activists. He said that the attendees at Netroots Nation are sullen, depressed, and confused. “People don’t seem to want to change America quite the they way they want to.”

    Fund said that at the time of last year’s Netroots Nations conference, the health care bill was sinking in the polls. Liberals were told that all they had to do is to pass the health care bill, and the American people will embrace it. Fund asked “Well, how’s that working out for you?” The health care bill is as unpopular as it was on the day it passed.

    He told the audience that a new poll says that 55 percent of Americans believe that the word “socialist” best describes President Barack Obama. Even his own party is having questions, Fund said.

    He told how pollster Pat Cadell — Jimmy Carter‘s pollster — says that polls indicate the country is in a “pre-revolutionary mentality.”

    In the last 18 months, Fund said that the American people — having been disappointed by both political parties — have decided to take things into their own hands: “Politics is too important to be left just to politicians.”

    Fund said that by harnessing the power of the Internet and new media, conservatives have been able to create a political force that has astonished the entire political community, telling the audience that they now have more power to influence government than any previous generation.

    As evidence, Fund said that conservatives have scared their adversaries into a panic. They have lashed back using scare tactics, including the charge of racism. Referring to BigGovernment.com‘s $100,000 reward for video evidence of an alleged ugly racial incident on Capitol Hill, he noted it has gone unclaimed.

    Fund said there is now evidence as to why the charge of racism is made. Quoting Mary Francis Berry, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and an influential civil right leader, he said: “Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.”

    Fund said there’s good news: “You’re going to have a big victory in November.” But already the “beltway party” — that being the members of both parties who want to spend your money — is already plotting to thwart you. He said that Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, told a newspaper that “We don’t need any more Jim DeMints here in the Senate.” (DeMint is a conservative South Carolina senator who opposed increased spending during the Bush administration, and opposed bailouts.)

    Fund told the audience that a major problem is the upcoming lame duck session of Congress, where members of Congress who have just been defeated may vote on major legislation. He also said we have to be wary of Democrats who campaigned as moderates, but inevitably govern as liberals. President Obama fits in this category, he said.

  • Herman Cain: Conservatives should dream, be united, informed, inspired

    Herman CainHerman Cain

    At this weekend’s RightOnline conference at The Venetian in Las Vegas, businessman and radio talk show host Herman Cain delivered an inspirational message to the audience of some 1,100 conservative activists from across the country.

    Cain has a nightly radio show and is a frequent guest host for the Neal Boortz show, which is heard in Wichita on KNSS radio. Cain has been an executive at several companies, including serving as president of Godfather’s Pizza, a unit of Pillsbury. He appears on Fox News, and WorldNet Daily carries his weekly column.

    He also runs The Hermanator PAC, which seeks to elect economically responsible conservatives to office. His name is mentioned in lists of presidential contenders for 2012, and he may launch a presidential exploratory committee.

    Speaking at Saturday’s general session at RightOnline, Cain told the audience “The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goals; the tragedy lies in having no goals to reach for. It’s not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to have no dreams.”

    Cain said that his dream is that we return to the principles that the Founding Fathers envisioned for what turned out to be the greatest country in the world: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. “It didn’t say anything about a Department of Happy!” It is the pursuit of happiness that is mentioned.

    Cain told the audience there are three things the audience must do: First, conservatives and their citizen movements must stay united in their efforts take back our government.

    Second, conservatives must stay informed. “Stupid people are ruining this country,” he said, telling the audience that over half the people can be persuaded by a slick speech or a slick campaign ad.

    Third, conservatives must stay inspired. Telling the audience the story of his recovery from cancer, he said his inspiration for his work comes from God Almighty.

    He also related the story of the bumblebee, and how aerodynamic equations and computer models predict that the bumblebee should not be able to fly. “There’s only one reason the bumblebee flies: He didn’t get the memo that said he couldn’t. The bumblebee believes he can fly.”

    Telling the audience that they have “bumblebee power,” he believes that conservatives can take back the government in November 2010.

    Cain also mentioned what he calls the “SIN” tactics that liberals employ: First, they shift the subject, then they ignore the facts. “Liberals can’t handle the facts,” he told the audience, and that’s why they shift the subject and ignore the facts.

    Finally, liberals resort to name-calling, calling himself and other conservatives racists, a charge he said is ridiculous and has backfired.

    Later that day, I had an interview with Cain in his suite at Encore Las Vegas. Casually dressed and sipping a glass of wine, he was more relaxed than during his energetic speech earlier that day, although eventually his engaging enthusiasm broke out.

    Referring to his optimism for the chances of conservatives in the upcoming elections, I said I’m not so sure, even pessimistic. Why am I wrong, I asked?

    Cain said that callers — both to his Monday through Friday radio show and when he substitutes for Boortz and Sean Hannity — express their frustrations with the direction of the country, the stalled economy, and lack of private sector job creation. That makes him optimistic. Callers say they’ve been duped by the “hope and change” message, and they’re waking up.

    Another factor he cited is the ongoing Gallup poll showing conservatives outnumbering liberals two to one, and independents and moderates outnumbering liberals one-and-a-half to one. He said this tells him that the numbers are on our side.

    I asked Cain about the controversy about the Civil Rights Act of 1964: As a black man, who at age 64, growing up in the south, faced real and actual discrimination: Is our country better off for it?

    “Absolutely we are,” he said, for both the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voter Rights Act of 1965, adding that they had historical impact on our country.

    The Great Society programs and the rise of the modern welfare state: Are we better off for that? No, he said. He said that these programs didn’t provide enough incentives for people to help themselves. “That’s what’s wrong with most of the social programs today. That’s why they need to be modernized. When you provide incentives, and you provide help, but you also have requirements in there for people to help themselves: guess what? The programs will work.” But people have figured out how to game the system, and then the programs don’t work.

    “Look at systemic poverty, look at crime, look at the quality of education in our inner cities — it’s all worse than it was.” The welfare reform of the 1990s, which required people to do certain things in order to continue to receive a check, shows that when people have an incentive to help themselves, they will use assistance programs more effectively, he said.

    Since he mentioned education, I explained that in Kansas we have very few charter schools, and no school choice. What are we missing out on in Kansas? Are we behind the curve?

    Yes, he said. “Competition makes everything better.” He told about the success of the Washington DC school choice program, with over 90 percent of the students going on to college. But the Democrat-led Congress and the President would not re-authorize the program. The teachers unions don’t like competition, he said, and this was the reason why.

    I mentioned that often liberals are opposed to school choice because they say that poor uneducated parents are not equipped to make decisions regarding schools for their children. This is not true, Cain said. “It’s part of that whole attitude that government can make better decisions for a poor family then they can make for themselves.”

    A focus of this conference is that liberty and free markets are superior in creating prosperity for everyone. But many people believe that one person becomes rich only if others become poor. I asked: Why do people believe that? Why have we as conservatives not been successful in getting out that message? Why doesn’t the president seemed to believe that?

    Cain said that President Obama doesn’t believe this because he is “at least a socialist.” Republicans have not been good about managing “sharper, clearer messages about certain things.” He said and the Republican National Committee focuses on raising money, which is good, but they don’t do a good job of explaining what the Republican Party stands for. Cain said that while he supported current chairman Michael Steele for that job, he doesn’t know what Steele believes are the priorities or focal points for Republican candidates running for office in November.

    While we know that we have to do something about spending, taxes, and education, these are general, broad statements, he said. We even know how to fix most problems. “We just don’t have the political will or the leadership to fix some of these problems. That’s what America faces, that’s our biggest challenge.”

  • Financial reform passes Congress

    This afternoon the United States Senate passed sweeping financial services regulation, sending the bill to President Obama. As the President has championed this legislation, it is certain he will sign the bill.

    The Wall Street Journal reports “The measure, once implemented, will touch all areas of the financial markets, affecting how consumers obtain credit cards and mortgages, dictating how the government dismantles failing financial firms and directing federal regulators’ focus on potential flashpoints in the economy.”

    The Journal also issues a warning: “The work of remaking the financial-regulatory regime, however, remains far from finished. Thursday’s vote effectively opens a second phase of lobbying and policy making as financial regulators begin to shape the rules and framework laid out in the legislation. That rule-making process will determine how the new law affects those ranging from traders of complicated derivatives to consumers shopping for a mortgage or a credit card.”

    In an earlier story, the Journal reported on the broad reach of this bill: “Designed to fix problems that helped cause the financial crisis, the bill will touch storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus, attesting to the sweeping nature of the legislation, the broadest revamp of finance rules since the 1930s.”

    The Wall Street Journal’s collection of reporting on this topic is at Financial Regulation.

    ALG Condemns Financial Takeover as “One More Piece of Liberty Lost”

    July 15th, 2010, Fairfax, VA – Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today condemned the U.S. Senate for enacting the conference version of the Dodd-Frank financial takeover bill, sending the bill to the desk of Barack Obama to become law.

    “The American people have lost one more piece of their liberty, as the Senate has voted to create a hidden, permanent bailout that will enable faceless bureaucrats to levy taxes, bail out politically-privileged institutions and to seize and liquidate politically-unconnected ones, redistributing their assets to favored constituencies, like unions,” Wilson declared.

    “There will be no votes in Congress like TARP ever again, as Congress has abdicated the power to tax and spend elsewhere,” Wilson explained, adding, “Which solves a political problem for members of Congress, but is really just a con game so that they don’t have to take responsibility for unpopular bailouts and government takeovers.”

    Continue reading at Americans for Limited Government