Econ/Tax/Spend/Big Govt

Citizens in Name Only

By John Biver

President Barack Obama said this in his inaugural address:

“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

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Suggested New Year’s resolution for “activists”: Stop enabling

By John Biver

My colleague Cathy Santos has said it over and over again: It is not our job to clean up the Democratic Party – it’s our job to clean up the Republican Party. As 2008 ends and 2009 begins there are too many Illinois Republican activists still not quite understanding that new behavior and new leaders will be needed if the future isn’t going to look exactly like the past.

Forget Rod Blagojevich. If you think his arrest changes anything you’re not paying attention. The people who continue to lead the Illinois Republican Party are so incompetent that they haven’t been able to take advantage of Rod’s actions before his arrest, so get it out of your head that they’re going to be able to do so now.

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We the people…need reformers

By John Biver

Breaking with a failed past is an American tradition – Republicans need only do it again. Job number one is to find and support new leadership. If anyone thinks the current crop of men and women holding office as Republicans is sufficient, please send me some evidence.

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Obama on NAFTA and a Social Security tax hike

By John Biver

Last spring the National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote a piece titled “On Trade: Obama’s Opportunistic Fear-Mongering.”
“For Barack Obama, hope can triumph over anything, except for open trade with a neighboring country with an economy 1/20th the size of ours. Then, all is despair.

Obama’s culprit is Mexico , our third-largest trading partner. It is trade deals like NAFTA — the 1993 accord eliminating tariffs among the U.S., Mexico and Canada — that ‘ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart,’ Obama intones. Feel inspired yet?”

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Common sense economics: Ten things every candidate and voter should know

By John Biver

Anyone running for office – and anyone who plans on voting – should do the right thing and at least try to learn a little about basic economics. The good news is that if you know where to go on the Internet, you can get a pretty darn good lesson online.

A while back the Heritage Foundation’s “The Insider” publication ran an article called “Ten Key Elements of Economics,” by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, andDwight R. Lee.

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To improve the economy we need leaders who understand economics

By John Biver

The contents of Henry Hazlitt’s book, “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics,” applies to the current financial crisis America is experiencing during these remaining weeks of the presidential campaign. Written in 1946, it’s an excellent read that conveys the basics about what you need to know when it comes to the larger workings of the economy.

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Articulating an economic message effectively is possible

By John Biver

There are several terrific voices on the political right succinctly and artfully addressing the often complex topic of the economy. Talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and writer/talkers like Michael Medved do a fantastic job, as do scholars like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of our elected “leaders” suffer from an inability to articulate on the all important economic issues. Fortunately, they need not invent new language – they need only tap into the words spoken and written by the many top tier communicators whose words are available by the truckload.

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Change you can’t believe in: The unintended consequences of bad government policies

By John Biver

As we noted last time, Republican Congressman Jim Saxton, the ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), recently issued a report outlining the policy blunders that have led to the “inflated and unsustainable housing bubble” and the ensuing crash and financial crisis.

Continuing with our posting of the report’s highlights, the JEC summarized the macroeconomic policy factors that have contributed to the current worldwide financial problem. (Emphasis added.)

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Big Irony: An indicted or impeached Blagojevich doesn’t help a visionless IL GOP

By John Biver

The Chicago Tribune editorial this morning says it’s now “more likely that Gov. Rod Blagojevich will be indicted or impeached or both.” Evidently “convicted political fixer Tony Rezko” has talked, and federal prosecutors are saying crimes have occurred at “the highest levels of power in Illinois.”

There’s more. The Trib states that an Illinois appellate court ruling last Friday ordered the governor to stop a health care insurance program that the legislature wouldn’t approve.

“The Illinois secretary of state said the governor had no authority to do that. A legislative rule-making body said he had no authority to do that. But he did it anyway.”

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