Joe Biden loves to give away money, especially if it’s not his own. He has spent trillions of dollars for political benefit that didn’t need otherwise to be spent.
The recipients laud his compassion and generosity. Common Americans though are trapped in an inflationary spiral while our grandchildren face an unpayable bill.
Thus, in a recent presentation about his second attempt to forgive student loan debt, he actually bragged about the hundreds of billions it would cost. He twice mentioned the fact that many blacks would receive benefits.
He became so consumed in self-congratulation that he apparently lost awareness of how blatant his political pandering was. We know black voters are a key demographic in play in the upcoming election.
Biden’s sheer enthusiasm for spending again evidenced itself in his response to the Baltimore bridge collapse. His first reaction was to guarantee that the federal government would underwrite the entire cost of reconstruction. What a guy!
Neither offer made sense. Regarding the student loan debt, the Supreme Court had affirmed that the Constitution means what it says, that the power to initiate spending lies solely with Congress. Most public criticism focused on the obvious unfairness of the policy, how it would disadvantage those who had been responsible in favor of those who wished to renounce their legal obligations.
Biden’s bridge proposal was also nonsense. The bridge isn’t owned by the United States. There is no conceivable reason for the federal government to be deemed responsible for its repair. The bridge was demolished by a cargo ship, in an industry which insures heavily against such misfortunes. Other jurisdictions have also acknowledged partial responsibility.
Here’s the problem with the mindset that it’s okay to get involved with all these giveaways: we don’t have the money. We’re seriously in debt, with expenses vastly exceeding our income and no plan in place for repayment or even deficit reduction.
Biden is hardly the only politician who has deduced that spending other people’s money (OPM) can win elections. Even many Republicans, to their shame, support the spending juggernaut. The spenders are the moral equivalent of a wastrel with no money and no job, with bankruptcy looming, who continues to pick up tabs and buy pricey gifts with credit cards he has no intention of paying off.
Still, the spenders know that Americans have mostly normalized excessive spending even when unnecessary. So, Biden was able to propose a whopping $7.3 trillion budget for next year (up $500 billion in the last year alone) without provoking much outrage.
The $2 trillion spent on COVID relief accomplished nothing. It was mainly an excuse to push more money out the door. At least it was supposed to be temporary. Biden’s budget though would pocket the COVID bump and add yet more permanent spending, mostly on programs for “climate change” and other boondoggles. A $10 trillion budget by 2033 is projected.
What can’t go on forever won’t. Our present course is unsustainable. Income tax revenues are soaring, yet the debt continues to grow. We are using borrowed money to pay the debt interest, which has surpassed all budget items except entitlement programs.
How do we get out of this death spiral? The left’s favorite solution is to raise taxes. That doesn’t work. The historical record shows that tax increases put us further in the hole.
For example, the Obamacare tax increases raised $1.4 trillion but so hindered economic growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that the feds lost $3.8 trillion in revenues. In contrast, President Clinton signed the 1997 Republican tax and spending cuts. Four years of budget surpluses ensued.
It’s well known that reform of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is necessary for a balanced budget. Yet both parties are interested only in demagoguing the other if they catch them even considering the issue. If the politicians, including Donald Trump, continue to insist on prioritizing incumbent reelection, the only way out may be for the people to take matters into our own hands.
Anybody else interested in seriously revisiting the notion of amending the Constitution to mandate a balanced budget? Sure, it may (or may not) be difficult, but the consequence of doing nothing is surely worse.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
The notion of color-blindness derives from the principle that moral persons of conscience should disregard race in judging their fellow human beings. It is a sincere aspiration but not necessarily meant as a description of reality. It was once considered a non-controversial mainstay of the American ethos.
No longer. The term “color-blind” has become an object of scorn among America’s elite. The usual crowd directing our national groupthink has determined that proclaiming color-blindness is intentionally deceptive, simply a cheap cover for racism.
Thus, Critical Race Theory guru Ibram X. Kendi informs us that the most threatening racist movement is not the “alt-right’s drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s desire for a race-neutral one.’ Best-selling author Robin DiAngelo claims that the color-blind strategy boils down to “pretend we don’t see race and racism will end.”
One critic alleges that color blindness was “developed in the neo-conservative think tanks during the 1970s.” Another condemns color blindness as “part of a long-standing whiteness protection program, associated with indigenous dispossession, colonial conquest, slavery, segregation, and immigrant exclusion.”
It’s not clear where these professors acquired their bizarre claims, but the historical record tells a far different story. The ideal of color-blindness was not birthed in some loony right-wing outpost but was the philosophical basis of the fight against slavery. As author Coleman Hughes points out, color-blindness was the driving passion of civil rights leaders from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King.
Wendell Phillips, known as “abolition’s golden trumpet,” called in 1865 for the “creation of a government color-blind” in which all laws referencing race would be repealed. Later, the idea of color-blindness was the inspiration for the battle against Jim Crow.
In the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which affirmed the discredited “separate but equal” doctrine, the lone dissent was from Justice John Marshall Harlan. His declaration still rings through the ages that “our constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among its citizens.”
When then-NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, later a Supreme Court Justice, argued segregation cases in the courts, he referred often to the Plessy dissent. “Our constitution is color-blind” became the mantra of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Color-blindness in the 1940s was the first demand of the original March on Washington, which successfully pressured FDR to integrate the defense industry. Color-blindness was also the first argument made in the NAACP’s appellate brief supporting the Brown v. Board decision, which finally reversed the Plessy decision in the 50s.
Americans sometimes forget how much progress was made when color-blindness was the guiding principle driving racial progress. By the 1950s, America was clearly lifting itself out of its deeply racist past. Economic opportunities for blacks were burgeoning. Black families and churches were strong. A solid black middle class was forming while black professionals and political leaders became more common.
So, what happened? How did we end up with a race-drenched public life where “systemic racism” is considered the accepted explanation for just about everything bad that happens. Award-winning public intellectuals teach that the races are inherently different and that treating individuals differently based on race is not only acceptable but desirable.
Citizens grounded in the philosophy of individual liberty are difficult for centralized government to control. The Marxist-inspired left clearly wants Americans to identify as members of an oppressed group, be it race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Life’s failures and disappointments can then be blamed on racism, even where none is readily apparent, and used to stoke racial resentments. Any successes or achievements are attributed not to individual merit or diligence but to the privileges bestowed on favored groups by government.
Ward Connerly, a leader in the anti-affirmative action movement, tells critics “I don’t care what color you are. Do you care what color I am?” That simple question may be the key to a brighter racial future.
Americans must decide if we really want to turn away from our Enlightenment-based notions of racial equality and once again embrace sanctioned racism. We will never achieve a society in which race really doesn’t matter if we can’t agree on the most basic principle of all— absolute equality granted by the Creator.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
The Great Climate Change Revolution is headed for failure. You can tell because it was already in big trouble before the ultimate heavy lifting even started.
International accords, (i.e. Paris Agreement) passed with great fanfare to ensure cooperation on emissions reductions, are ignored by most of the signers, notably China. Consumers worldwide are balking at increased energy prices. Unsold EVs are piling up.
All this resistance is occurring well before the full rollout of the regulations and restrictions needed to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050, the agreed-upon goal of climate activists worldwide.
It may not seem at first glance like the climate change movement is struggling. After all, mainstream dogma still holds that man-made warming has us careening toward disaster, possibly an uninhabitable planet. The only solution is to “just stop oil” along with coal and gas.
As John Kerry explains, there is no alternative. Biden’s proposals have nothing to do with politics nor ideology. “It’s entirely a reaction to the science, to the mathematics and physics that explain what is happening.”
It was no surprise, then, when Biden officials recently rolled out new CO2 emissions requirements, maintaining the same endpoint by 2032. The only way for auto makers to comply would be for gas-powered cars to comprise only 30% of new car sales.
But there’s a telling detail. The 2030 requirements have been relaxed, which means that they’re still going to put the squeeze on to force more EV sales, just not right now. But what’s going to change to make regulations more palatable in 2032 than in 2030? There’s no evidence that the demand for EVs will be greater or that consumers will be more interested in purchasing them.
EVs were envisioned as the cutting edge of the “zero by fifty” campaign. If we could replace the outmoded, smoke-belching anachronisms on the roads with sleek new vehicles lacking tailpipe emissions, the new atmospheric standards would be a piece of cake.
But there are problems. Consumers aren’t wild about EVs. After years of the feds promoting them and subsidizing them in every way thinkable, they still account for just 8% of new car sales.
They are still too expensive, refueling can be difficult and they have poor resale value. Moreover the giant batteries are a disposal nightmare. EVs increase soot pollution. Depending on the fuel source used to produce the electricity, they may produce no net carbon reduction anyway!
Yet the Biden administration soldiers on, insisting EVs can capture 70% of all sales within eight years. Hint: they can’t. Look for other accommodations to reality to be made. Meanwhile they are doing a lot of economic damage, for no possible benefit.
Americans are less caught up in climate panic than ever. Surveys revealed that of all the issues in this year’s election, voters rank climate change 10th in importance. “We’re number 10” may not make an inspiring campaign slogan, but the massive media, academic, and governmental infrastructure dedicated to its promotion means the climate change industry won’t disappear anytime soon.
As Swedish economist Björn Lomborg points out, climate change is a problem but only one of several mankind must grapple with. Meta-analysis of all scientific estimates shows climate change costs will likely average one percent of GDP across the century, a figure sure to be dwarfed by anticipated economic growth. Meanwhile, the proposed solutions insisted upon by the panic advocates will average $27 trillion annually or seven times more than the problem itself.
Costs aside, we lead better lives because of fossil fuels. Abundant energy has more than doubled lifespans, dramatically reduced hunger, and increased personal income tenfold. Climate related deaths from droughts, storms, floods, and fires have declined an astonishing 97% over the last century.
The worst thing we could do is to drive ourselves into poverty by “following the (false) science.” We need to stay economically and technically strong to be able to accommodate change as needed. Human beings do that, you know.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
During World War II, the civilians of the Axis nations suffered greatly. Their daily lives were disrupted by bombing. Severe food shortages were common. Families were separated. An estimated 2 million civilians died in Japan alone.
Yet the Allied powers would have thought it preposterous to provide humanitarian aid. These countries had attacked us and were committed to achieving world domination. Our only hope to save civilization was to force their surrender. Instead of sending relief packages, we dropped atomic bombs on them.
You know how it worked out. America and the Allies prevailed and proved to be unusually benevolent victors. Germany, Italy, and Japan eventually became functioning, prosperous nations.
During the war, the Allies, like combatants throughout history, realized it was lunacy to work against your own war aims by subsidizing your enemy. Yet that is precisely what America is forcing on Israel in the Gaza War with our persistent calls for ceasefires, which give the beleaguered Hamas forces the opportunity to regroup and resupply.
Anthony Blinken alone has made at least three trips pressuring Israel to give their enemy a fighting chance by providing humanitarian aid. President Netanyahu is widely criticized for not going along.
The American far left, which exerts an outsized influence on foreign policy in Democratic circles, holds large rallies calling for a complete ceasefire. For them, Israel’s only way to avoid international censure is to admit defeat and accept subjugation to their savage foe, an unthinkable option.
Netanyahu’s response to the unprovoked, horrific massacre orchestrated by Hamas on October 6 was transparent. Decades of seeking accommodation with them through negotiations had come to naught. Hamas, among the Islamist terrorist groups sponsored by Iran, has fighters who since birth have been taught to hate all Jews.
The only strategic goal of any interest to Hamas is the complete annihilation of the Jewish state. They put Israel into a position where it had to permanently destroy Hamas to have any hope for a safe, peaceful future.
America seemed to initially understand the Israeli position. Israel is a small, mostly Jewish state of 10 million residents surrounded by 24 hostile countries with 500 million Muslims, most of whom ascribe to an ideology that demands eradicating Judaism. Every day, Israeli Jews must defend their right to exist.
America’s initial support of Israel’s response to a massive act of war melted under pressure from the pro-Muslim left to end the collateral damage of civilian death and suffering. The Israeli military is considered one of the most careful anywhere, sometimes amending battle plans to avoid civilian casualties.
Hamas, on the other hand, uses civilians as human shields, often housing them in the same building as military targets. Hamas celebrates their deaths as public relations coups.
Wartime hostages are always a difficult issue. Few loved ones anywhere would act differently than those piteously begging now for the return of their family members.
Yet the cruel calculus of war is that ransoming hostages, especially in lopsided transactions, inevitably means more will be taken in the future. Only a policy of remorselessly attacking hostage takers can prevent future potential kidnappings.
At this point, it is clear that the Biden administration, once Israel’s ally, is now siding with Hamas. Biden publicly criticizes Netanyahu for not agreeing to an immediate ceasefire. He is planning to build a large port into Gaza to accommodate bounteous food shipments.
We seem not to know or care that this is handing victory to Israel’s enemy. If Hamas can escape consequences for the October 6 debacle and live to fight another day, their greatest dreams will be achieved.
America has not only been an inconstant friend to Israel, we did much to enable this Gaza war in the first place. Obama and Biden rescued Iran when it faced a serious domestic uprising. They also provided the subsidies for Iran to fund its proxies, which are now enthusiastically killing Americans. The dynamic duo has virtually assured that Iran will soon be nuclear armed.
At a time when the world order is changing and new alliances are being formed, America does itself great harm by proving such a weak and indecisive ally. Make no mistake, the world is watching.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
Legislative Republicans in Arizona are advancing a bill to terminate your right to vote…well at least from the “comfort of your kitchen table,” according to Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts. Arizona’s beleaguered voters would instead have to “schlep down” to actual polling places.
But wait – it gets worse! The bill also eliminates the ability to cast your vote anywhere you choose, or it won’t count. Of course, in the real world you would’ve been repeatedly notified of your polling station, and if you went to the wrong one anyway, poll workers would helpfully direct you to the correct one.
Why are Democrats motivated to concoct these exaggerated arguments against in-person voting, which has always worked just fine for Americans? It began in the age of COVID when, to prevent unnecessary mingling, voting in-person was discouraged. Voters instead were sent a ballot which they could return at their leisure
Then, magic happened. Suddenly, Democrats became more likely to win. Close elections turned blue at the last minute, sometimes even after the official account was completed. Underdog candidates, almost always Democrats, begin to eke out victories.
In-person voting came to be depicted as an onerous infringement on our fictitious right to convenience, much more difficult than a trip to the grocery store or a doctor’s office. Exceptions were readily granted for the elderly, infirm, or geographically unavailable. Still, requiring the able-bodied to vote in-person was nothing more than voter suppression, barely more tolerable than Jim Crow.
What difference does it make where you vote? Most Americans don’t realize elections must be rigorously protected from fraud. The election process to a political grifter is like a bank to a thief. Within lies wealth and influence if you can crack it. Every election produces mountains of anecdotal evidence of widespread fraud, although unfortunately no official statistics are kept.
Moreover, all this activity occurs in a system with no systematic method for detecting fraud. When it is sought, the results can be shocking. The multiple irregularities found too late in the 2005 Rossi/Gregoire gubernatorial election in Washington and the ineligible votes cast in Al Franken’s 2010 senatorial election in both cases would have been more than enough to change the outcome.
American elections in the last century have been designed to ensure security of the ballot. On election day, registered voters not claiming a hardship exemption present themselves to a local polling place with a signed photo ID. They are physically protected from inappropriate influence both inside and outside the polling booth. They would drop their completed ballot into a secured receptacle, the contents of which would be delivered to local election officers under strict chain-of-evidence protocols.
With bulk-mail voting, all the precautions vanish. Millions of unsolicited ballots are mailed to poorly maintained lists of voters, many of whom have moved or don’t exist. Nobody knows or can know what happens to the ballots until they are returned by mail. The notably unreliable signature verification process is the lone fraud protection.
Whether the ballot actually reached the intended recipient, who actually filled out the ballot, and whether any illegal aid was supplied to the voter are all categorical unknowns.
Still think bulk-mail voting is basically reliable? Read on.
A Rasmussen poll of 1,085 voters after the 2020 election revealed that fully 21% admitted to filling out a ballot on behalf of another voter. Also,17% said they voted in a state where they were not a permanent resident, and another 17% said they signed a ballot for someone else. Remember, too, the 2020 election was touted as our “most secure of all time,” and these survey numbers were obtained directly from voters who were unlikely to over-report themselves.
Up to 80% of Americans doubt our elections are secure. Some are conspiracy kooks fighting the wrong battle at the wrong time. But many others have justifiable concerns about a system increasingly dependent on bulk-mail voting.
Deep doubts about election validity are not healthy in a democracy. Although bulk-mail voting is popular, convenience-loving Americans should rethink their choice. Casting your ballot in person is a small price to pay for ensuring our republic.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
