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Another insightful article by my friend Avi Jorisch. (See 2 below.)
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Obama's proposal demonstrates an arrogant contempt for Republicans and the nation's welfare.
We are enduring a continuing void in leadership. (See 3 and 3a below.)
Obama's action provides the Grand Old Party an excellent opportunity to demonstrate both their sincerity and desire to resolve the nation's fiscal crisis both as to recognized obligations as well as off balance sheet unfunded ones, ie. some $83 plus trillion or so of total debt and future obligations.
It is also a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to voters why Obama should never have been elected president much less re-elected.
My Proposal:
a) First, the Republican House can and should maintain GW's rates structure.
b) Second, they should embrace Romney's idea for raising new funds by setting a specific limit on deductions and allow tax payers to choose where they are applicable, ie. charity, interest on home loans etc.
c) Third, The Republican House should designate a certain amount of money that will be cut from entitlements which, based on projections, should reduce the 16 or so trillion dollar deficit to some fundable amount over a ten year period, ie. $6 trillion for example.
d) Fourth, The Republican House should address the issue of unfunded off balance sheet future obligations by proposing a new starting age for Social Security and Medicaire recipeints while grandfathering current and prospective recipients at say anyone currently over 55 years of age.
They should also make modifications in other such programs that will eventually run out of money if continued along their current path, ie. Funding for the Handicapped etc.
e) Republican House members should restrict and/or withhold funding where desired in order to force compliance with the mandatory overhaulin spending.
f) In conjunction with the above, The Republican House should mandate that every year for ten years, at the very least, between 1000 and 2000 government strangulating regulations deemed restrictive, costly, anti-competitive, anti-capitalist and inane be eliminated.
g) Finally, The Republican House proposals should be set in stone for ten years and made off limits from future Congressional changes.
The House has such powers and though the Democrat controlled Senate may choose to disregard any such Republican House efforts the gauntlet will have been thrown down and a legitimate challenge to Obama's power grab will have been responded to for all to note.
Obama is betting Republicans getting weak kneed and/or eventually being blamed for any future economic discord occurring if they reject his insincere actions and it is about time Republicans showed their mettle.
An Heritage Foundation Proposal (see 3b below.)
Kim's op-ed comments. (See 3c below.)
This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader: "Its all part of his grand plan to weaken the U.S. and redistribute wealth around the world. He believes that this will bring world peace. He perceives himself as the benevolent president -- the king do-gooder around the world. Make everyone equally poor and the world will be safer....This guy is totally nuts. And our uneducated, uncivilized population supports it. It's totally disgusting.
B------"
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Is the once Constitutionally based America beyond our grasp and gone forever? (See 4 below.)
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What does the U.N. vote upgrading Palestinians mean? (See 5 and 5a below.)
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Dick
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1) From an Arab
Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.
It is not often that we hear an Arab state the obvious so clearly.
Bravo, and may his remarks spread rapidly to his brethren.
By all means share this.
A view from a Saudi
Abdulateef Al Mulhim is retired from the Royal Saudi Navy at the rank of Commodore and writes regularly for Arab News.
He poses interesting questions and a challenge for the Arab world.
Bravo, and may his remarks spread rapidly to his brethren.
By all means share this.
A view from a Saudi
Abdulateef Al Mulhim is retired from the Royal Saudi Navy at the rank of Commodore and writes regularly for Arab News.
He poses interesting questions and a challenge for the Arab world.
Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News
Arab Spring and the Israeli enemy·
By ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM
Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days.
The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.
The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations.
From the period of 1948, and to this day many confrontations have taken place.
Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced.
On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The questions now are:
What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people?
And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is:
What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars?
But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya
The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy.
The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries.
So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?
These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries.
But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people?!
In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations?
And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country?
Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians?
And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world?
Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export?
Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world?
And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?
On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared.
And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine
The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days.
The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war).
The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugee
And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees
who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them.
The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset).
The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated.
And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves
and under constant attacks from their own forces.
Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them.
It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est.
In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis.
In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.
Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)?
Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure.
Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom
than many of their Arab brothers
Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World.
Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?!
The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis.
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2)-Indonesia's Anti-Terror Arsenal
To capitalize on recent arrests, Jakarta must upgrade its surveillance and financial tracking tools.
by Avi Jorisch
The swift and near-simultaneous arrests late last month of 11 individuals allegedly preparing to bomb U.S. and other Western targets throughout Java, Indonesia's most populated island, should serve as a wake-up call to Asia's national security establishment, lawmakers and leaders. The foiled plot would have been just the latest in a flurry of terrorist activity by members of Islamist organizations, all of which are registered and legally sanctioned by the Indonesian government.
During the arrests, Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism squad found explosive material, a bomb-makingmanual, detonators and a list of targets that included the American and Australian embassies in Jakarta and the American consulate in Surabaya, according to Indonesian government officials. Each of those arrested appears to be a card-carrying member of the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, also known as Hasmi, an obscure Islamist organization few had heard of previously.
The group denies any terrorist activities or links to those arrested. In the wake of the raids, leader Adi Mulyadi told the media that "Hasmi is a non-violent organization and we focus on preaching." However, counterterrorism experts say the group is linked to Indonesia's Islamic Defenders' Front, an Islamist organization known for hate crimes. Hasmi has engaged in demonstrations against Christian churches in West Java and Israel. The ultimate objective of Hasmi, like other Islamist organizations, is to create an Indonesian Islamic Republic based on sharia law.
The recent arrests come on the heels of other planned attacks in Indonesia. In September, law-enforcement officials revealed they had uncovered cells throughout the country with links to Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a well-known Islamist organization whose leader, Bakar Basyir, is also reportedly the spiritual leader of Jamaah Islamiah, the al Qaeda affiliate that operates in large swaths of Asia. According to National Police spokesman Brigadier General Boy Rafli Amar, two of the detainees from the September raids had plans to bomb Jakarta's parliament and kill members of the country's law-enforcement community. "They recruited, invited young men to be trained in a military-style jihadi camp and bought bomb-making materials," he said.
All told, in the last half year, Indonesian counterterrorism officials have arrested nearly 50 militants for plotting attacks targeting foreigners and Indonesians. The groups whose members have been arrested — Hasmi, the Islamic Defenders' Front and JAT — are all sanctioned by the government and free to operate as they wish. It now appears that militant Indonesian groups not hitherto engaged in overt violence are crossing the divide and using low-intensity conflict and other terrorist tactics to achieve their objectives.
What can Indonesia do in response? As a start, Jakarata should blacklist terrorist organizations and their members, ensuring that law enforcement and intelligence services can track them and providing the judiciary with the authority to put them behind bars.
This hasn't happened the way it should so far because, for domestic reasons, Jakarta appears to be pandering to radical Islamists. The international community until now has placed much of the blame at the feet of the country's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who many believe has looked the other ways as militants have attacked minority groups, including Christians, Shiites and Ahmadi Muslims.
Indonesia should also shore up laws that place controls on its financial sector to protect against abuse by illicit actors. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which combats money laundering and terrorism financing, Indonesia has strategic deficiencies in these areas that need to be addressed expeditiously. In the FATF's view, Indonesia has yet to adequately criminalize terrorism finance or establish procedures to identify and freeze terrorist assets.
Since February 2010, Jakarta has been promising to work with the FATF and other international organizations such as the Asia Pacific Group to redress this problem, but meaningful steps have yet to be taken. These laws must be passed and enforced if Indonesia is to curb the militant Islamist threat. Failure to do so sends the wrong message to terrorists, their financiers and the international
community.
Finally, law enforcement and intelligence analysts must become proficient in the innovative tools developed in the last decade, including geospatial and network analysis tools, to attack networks and uncover financial links. Palantir, Analyst's Notebook, ArcGIS, and GoogleEarth — tools many government officials do not use or are not even aware of — make it easier to manage and sort through vast reams of data. They also facilitate the tracking of financial flows and smuggling routes. Ignoring these innovations hampers the ability to capture members of rogue organizations and put them behind bars.
In the last decade, Indonesia has been a staunch ally of the U.S. and other Western democracies in the war against terrorism. It has arrested and ultimately jailed hundreds of rogue actors who intended to engage in attacks around the globe. Many countries and policy makers admire Indonesia's outstanding record and its demonstrated desire to challenge the threat of terrorism. Yet in order to ensure continued success, it is critical that Indonesia blacklist organizations engaging in violence, protect its financial sector from abuse and provide its analysts with the tools they need to track and capture those who mean citizens harm.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Surreal: Obama's Fiscal Cliff Proposal Stuns Washington
Republicans have been asking for the White House's plan for some time now -- well, they finally got one. Oh my:
House Republicans said on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, an immediate new round of stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits. The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, was likely to meet strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other entitlements, to be worked out next year, with no guarantees. He did propose some upfront cuts in programs like farm price supports, but did not specify an amount or any details.
And senior Republican aides familiar with the offer said those initial spending cuts might well be outnumbered by upfront spending increases, including at least $50 billion in infrastructure spending, mortgage relief, an extension of unemployment insurance and a deferral of automatic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare … The upfront tax increases in the proposal go beyond what Senate Democrats were able to pass earlier this year. Tax rates would go up for higher-income earners, as in the Senate bill, but Mr. Obama wants their dividends to be taxed as ordinary income, something the Senate did not approve. He also wants the estate tax to be levied at 45 percent on inheritances over $3.5 million, a step several Democratic senators balked at. The Senate bill made no changes to the estate tax, which currently taxes inheritances over $5 million at 35 percent.
No wonder Mitch McConnell openly laughed at this outline; how else should one respond to a preposterous farce? Republicans should counter-offer in kind, demanding full Obamacare repeal, across-the-board tax cuts, the Wyden/Ryan Medicare plan -- and maybe toss in articles of impeachment just for kicks. Let's unpack the Times' report piece by piece:
(1) Obama is asking for $1.6 Trillion in tax hikes, double the number he and Boehner reportedly (almost) agreed upon last summer during the previous crisis. Not only does he want to raise marginal tax rates on "the rich," he's also shooting to raise capital gains and dividends taxes, too. According to NBC News, those revenues would amount to nearly $1 trillion. Then comes an undefined $600 Billion in unspecified "new revenue," presumably from tax increases to be named later. This element of the broader package alone is more than enough to tear the whole thing up and walk away.(2) There are no guaranteed entitlement reforms. There are no specified spending cuts. Obama is willing to consider some "savings," but those would have to be discussed some other time in the future. This is what Obama fancies to be his "concession." And it comes in exchange for...Republicans agreeing to the taxmaggedon described in item #1. As I said, surreal.(3) There's another stimulus in this puppy. Remember, this is supposed to be a deficit reduction plan, yet it calls for *at least* $50 Billion in new spending on infrastructure and other projects. As theTimes reports, some aides on the Hill believe the plan's guaranteed spending increases could actually outnumber its (still unspecified) cuts (!)...(4) Obama's proposal goes so far on investment and death tax hikes that even Congressional Democrats are looking at each other and slowly backing away.(5) And, oh yeah, it abolishes the debt limit. Poof. Limitless "legal" debt for the federal government.
I understand that this is just an opening offer; both sides generally commence negotiations with a very robust ask, recognizing that they'll have to back down on certain elements at the bargaining table. But this isn't a starting point. It's an insult. Allahpundit is beginning to convince himself that Obama has joined the cliff-diving brigade and is therefore hoping to either (a) bully Republicans into a chain-reaction cave of epic proportions, or (b) make his demands so unreasonable that GOP leadership simply cannot relent, allowing him to stick them with the blame when the economy goes up in smoke. What should Boehner and McConnell do? Walk away, counsels Charles Krauthammer:
House Speaker John Boehner says there’s been “no progress” in the budget talks in the past two weeks. At this moment, Republicans in Congress need to examine which presents a more dire threat to the country: A) A double-dip recession driven by the sequester and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, or B) the public’s belief (verified through polling) that our giant debt, our ticking time bomb of entitlements, and our gargantuan government can be solved by “asking the richest Americans to pay a little bit more,” as Obama insists.Option A is terrible, but Option B is the giant locked door blocking all of the real solutions. So if we must have tax hikes, let the tax cuts for every income level expire and let everyone of every income level pay higher taxes. Destroy the illusion among so many voters that they can get all the government they want without paying more in taxes.
Jim's core question is a difficult one. Is another painful recession (with Republicans likely getting pounded with blame) more or less harmful to the long-term interests of the nation than allowing the general public to cling for a little longer to the dangerously wrong belief that fiscal solvency is just around the corner, if only the rich may a tad more in taxes? Before you rush to answer that question, understand that the fallout won't occur in a political vacuum. If Republicans take the hit and get wiped out in 2014, we could have another 2009 on our hands, with no ability to block catastrophic liberal policy misadventures, which would plague the nation for decades to come. As I see it, GOP door number one is to negotiate earnestly and try to fashion the, um, least bad deal possible to avert the cliff (which assumes Obama isn't hell-bent on going over the side). I still think this is the likeliest outcome -- for now, at least. GOP door number two is walking away and bringing the pain, even if it means political disaster in upcoming cycles. That's the approach Geragthy is kicking around. GOP door number three is stating opposition, but giving Obama what he wants via mass "present" votes. This might spare Republicans a political massacre, but it would also help The One continue the charade and superficially delay America's bitter medicine...which we're going to have to swallow sooner or later. Obama would just have to hope that the implosion comes sometime after January 20, 2017. Bad options, all.
3a)'Fiscal cliff' - time for Obama to lead
- With the nation's economy just a month away from the "fiscal cliff," the impasse between the White House and Congress appears to be hardening. President Obama, and now Republicans, have gone into campaign mode - the distressingly wrong direction for a nation that needs its leaders to start making tough choices on difficult issues.Mr. President: The campaign is over. You were elected to lead. It's time for you to do so.
It's easy to blame both sides equally for the stalemate, because neither has offered much in specifics on what it would do on spending. The Republicans who are refusing to consider any increase in tax rates are clearly an obstruction, but their ranks could thin quickly if the White House put forth a credible package of spending cuts as an alternative to the robotic machete that would slash programs by $1.5 trillion over 10 years if Congress fails to act. Several prominent Republicans already have signaled their willingness to break their no-tax pledges as part of a deal that includes meaningful cuts.
Obama has pushed for action on the easy issue - extending tax breaks to filers earning $250,000 or less - without offering the spending cuts that would deliver the "balance" in his call for a balanced approach. The proposal that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner floated Thursday did nothing to move the discussion forward: Its purported savings were vague and illusory; its tax increases were beyond what even many Democrats would accept.
The president has been playing small-ball politics when he should be thinking long-term policy. The "fiscal cliff" is Congress' self-imposed deadline to do something substantial about runaway federal spending. It must not squander the moment.
Surely the Obama administration, after four years in office, can identify $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade out of a federal budget that now approaches $4 trillion a year. If it can't, then Obama needs to be looking for some real managers for his second term.
While we agree with Obama's insistence that the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy should expire, as a matter of fairness, leadership is not just about staring down adversaries. It's also about persuading your allies to leave their comfort zones.
The Democrats' resolute refusal to consider measures to ensure the sustainability of Social Security and Medicare also raises a question of fairness: to the young people who will be bearing the burden of keeping these programs afloat for Baby Boomers - while worrying about whether the programs will be there when they retire.
The Obama White House is premature in urging Americans to tweet (#My2k), e-mail, Facebook to "communicate a sense of urgency" about the fiscal cliff to recalcitrant Republicans. The president needs to present a package that reduces the deficit, helps secure entitlements for the long term and restores Clinton-era tax rates on the highest earners. At that point, we'll join the chorus for Republicans to close the deal.
Until then,@BarackObama needs to be receiving an earful about #balance on his Twitter feed.
About the 'fiscal cliff'
The term refers to the tax cuts that would expire and the automatic spending cuts that would take effect if Congress fails to act by year's end.
Why the deadline? Congress created it to compel action if a so-called supercommittee failed to find common ground on deficit reduction. It failed.
Tax increases: Expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, along with a scheduled increase in the payroll tax, would raise taxes on all Americans by several percentage points.
Spending cuts: Federal spending would be trimmed by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. The few exempted areas include Social Security, Medicaid, military pay and veterans benefits.
Unemployment: About 2 million Americans will lose jobless benefits if the extended safety net program expires on Dec. 29.
The White House's proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to raise the debt limit so that all this spending could continue.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn't contain his laughter at these suggestions.
One congressional aide said the offer b amounts to little more than reiterating the President's budget request which failed to get a single vote in the House or Senate.b
Perhaps House Republicans could simply bring President Obama's latest proposal up for another vote to see if anything has changed.
The fiscal cliff is man-made. Congress' primarily the liberal-led Senate and the President built it themselves through their legislative decisions over the past four years, and then they turned away and tried not to look at it until after the election.
Elected officials in Washington keep enacting short-term patches to keep the government running, which is not a real solution. We need to reform the programs that are causing the runaway spending and deficits today and in the years to come the large, lumbering entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
>>> As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama said he'd like to reform entitlements in his first term. Web re still waiting. Watch the video.
In a new paper, Heritage's J. D. Foster, Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy and Alison Acosta Fraser, director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, point out that
Obama's tax hikes would reduce the rise in federal debt over the next 10 years by 15 percent. The President is silent about the other 85 percent. The numbers confirm that President Obama's tax hike demands are at best tangential to attaining a balanced budget.
The real issue is federal spending, and Foster and Fraser describe the bottom line this way:
When this year's kindergarteners enter college, just 13 years away, spending on these two programs [Social Security and Medicare] plus Medicaid and interest on the debt will devour all tax revenue.
To make meaningful changes to the nation's unsustainable budget policies, Foster and Fraser lay out four simple, commonsense, and thoroughly vetted solutions that already enjoy broad support across the political spectrum:
1. Raise the Social Security eligibility age to match increases in longevity. People are living longer, and entitlement programs need to be updated to reflect that fact.According to the Social Security actuaries, continuing to increase the eligibility age to 69 by the year 2034 and allowing it to rise more slowly thereafter to reflect gains in longevity could go a long way toward reducing Social Security's funding shortfall. While this would not reduce today's budget deficit, it would strengthen Social Security's finances and put it on a path toward sticking around in the future.
2. Correct the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in Social Security. The annual COLA benefit adjustment is determined today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI). However, the CPI, an antiquated measure, generally overstates inflation, meaning that benefits are increased a bit too much each year to offset inflation. Again, according to the Social Security actuaries, using a more modern inflation measure would substantially reduce Social Security's shortfall over time.
3. Raise the Medicare eligibility age to agree with Social Security. Medicare has an eligibility age problem, but unlike Social Security, the Medicare eligibility age remains stuck at 65. An obvious solution is to wait five years and then slowly raise the eligibility age to align eventually with the Social Security eligibility age. While the short-term budgetary savings would be negligible, the long-term savings in Medicare would be profound.
4. Reduce the Medicare subsidy for upper-income beneficiaries. In 2012, the average Medicare beneficiary received a subsidy of about $5,000. Subsidizing Medicare benefits for low-income seniors and perhaps for some middle-income seniors makes sense, but upper-income seniors do not need and should not receive a $5,000 subsidy to buy Medicare health insurance.
In addition to those reforms, Foster and Fraser list two bonus proposals that have not been considered as closely by lawmakers, but would be simple and effective:
5. Phase out Social Security benefits for upper-income retirees. As a nation, we need to ask whether today's working families should pay payroll taxes so that upper-income retirees can continue to receive their checks. In short, Social Security should be social insurance against poverty rather than a government-run pension scheme.
6. Consolidate Medicare's elements and collect a single higher premium. Medicare is actually three distinct components, referred to generally as Parts A, B, and D, reflecting the fact that Medicare was built up over many years. This antiquated structure is confusing and inefficient. An obvious reform is to consolidate the three distinct parts into a unified Medicare program, with a single premium, and then raise the premium to cover 35 percent of related program costs.
Continuing to raise America's debt limit every few months is irresponsible and dangerous. And failing to address the budget deficits that give rise to this debt limit pressure every few months is equally irresponsible and dangerous. Raising taxes would weaken the economy, kill jobs, and hold down people's wages. This is not a solution.
Congress and the President should instead consider these serious fixes to the drivers of out-of-control government spending. All that's missing is for the President to take the lead, which is what Presidents are supposed to do.
3c)
This Unserious White House
The president makes the GOP a fiscal-cliff offer he knows they will refuse.
By Kim Strassel
The White House this week finally explained just how serious it is about averting a fiscal cliff that could throw the country back into a recession. The answer: not serious at all.
The markets and the media in recent days have been operating on an optimistic belief that the administration simply will not let the country fall off the fiscal cliff. They'd best rethink. On Thursday, the president dispatched Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House Director of Legislative Affairs Rob Nabors to Congress to finally outline the White House's offer to avert the coming tax hikes and sequester.
It was something out of Wonderland and Oz combined.
According to sources on Capitol Hill, the White House wants Republicans to pony up $960 billion in immediate tax increases, which will come from hiking the top marginal rates and increasing capital gains and dividends taxes. That is just for starters. The administration also wants the GOP to surrender an additional $600 billion in revenue via later tax reforms.
Oh, the White House also wants Congress to give Mr. Obama the authority to increase the debt limit, whenever he wants, as much as he wants.The president's team specified noamounts or details on spending cuts. Rather, the White House wants more spending: at least $50 billion in new stimulus, an extension of unemployment insurance, a one-year deferral of the sequester, new money to refinance underwater mortgages, a Medicare-doctor fix . . . and a partridge in a pear tree.
What do Republicans get in return? Next year, the White House will agree to talk to the GOP about cutting as much as $400 billion from entitlement programs. Maybe. If Democrats get around to it. Which they won't—because they'll have everything they've wanted.
How to put this tax-and-more-spending offer in perspective? It is far in excess of what the Democrats asked for in last year's debt-limit standoff—when the political configuration in Washington was exactly the same. It is far more than the president's own Democratic Senate has ever been able to pass, even with a filibuster-proof majority. It is far more than the president himself campaigned on this year.
But the president's offer is very much in keeping with his history of insisting that every negotiation consist of the other side giving him everything he wants. That approach has given him the reputation as the modern president least able to forge a consensus.
Don't forget: The man now engaged with Congress to work out a grand deal is the same one who could not pull over to his side a single Republican vote for his stimulus legislation, who had to ram through ObamaCare with procedural tricks, and whose inept handling of last year's debt-ceiling talks ultimately led his fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to isolate him from the final negotiations. This is not a history to inspire confidence.
Mr. Obama's tendency to campaign rather than lead, to speechify rather than negotiate, has already defined this lame-duck session. The president has wasted weeks during which a framework for a deal has been in place.
Within two days of the election, Mr. Boehner had offered an enormous compromise, committing the GOP to provide new tax revenue, through limits on deductions for the wealthy. Mr. Obama campaigned on making "the rich" pay more—and that is exactly what Mr. Boehner agreed to give him.
All that was left for the president to do was accept this peace offering, pair it with necessary spending cuts, and take credit for averting a crisis. Mr. Obama has instead spent the past weeks campaigning for tax-rate hikes. He wants the revenue, but collected only the way he chooses. And on the basis of that ideological insistence alone, the nation is much closer to a crisis.
Talks that had been at a standstill may now crumble, thanks to the Geithner-Nabors proposal. The president is boxing in the Republicans—offering them a deal they cannot accept, a deal they can't even be seen to be treating seriously. Mr. Boehner is legitimately interested in a bargain that will set the country on sounder footing. Yet the most immediate outcome of such an open slap from the White House will be to make even those Republicans who were willing to cut a deal harden their positions. Someone get the White House a copy of "Negotiating Tactics for Dummies."
Then again, the most frightening aspect of the White House proposal is that it wasn't an error. Perhaps the proposal was thoroughly calculated. This suggests a president who doesn't care about the outcome of the cliff negotiations—who thinks that he wins politically no matter what. He's betting that either the GOP will be far more responsible than he is and do anything to avert a crisis, or that the cliff gives him the tax hikes his partisans are demanding. Win-win, save for the enormous pain to average families across the country.
The Republicans will have to contemplate how to deal with such an unserious offer. But in presenting his demands, the president has now made very clear that there is only one side that is working in good faith.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Will We Ever Get Our America Back?
By David S. Whitley
Ever watch one of those chase scenes in a cartoon where the one in the lead heads over the cliff and lands in a devastating crash at the bottom -- only to find whatever he was carrying (adding insult to injury) comes tumbling down on top of him?
Well, that's us. As we collectively head over this fiscal cliff -- we are actually over it right now -- we're not feeling much because we're free falling (like the cartoon character) and falling is never really that painful (though the rushing wind can chap the lips and mess up one's hair) but in the end it's the sudden deceleration at the valley floor that causes the real damage. The only problem here is that if we happen to live through it -- the crash -- there is an economic avalanche coming down on top of us that will almost certainly finish us off.
Our problems in America are not taxes and revenue; our problems are spending and the immoral class warfare that allows it all to continue without end. Warren Buffett again recently suggested we raise the rates on the wealthiest Americans to balance things out in our tax code. The problem is -- despite what the left has to say about all the wealth at the top, and the disparity between rich and poor -- that there isn't enough money at the top to pay off anything so enormous as the US national debt.
Here is how Mark Steyn put it yesterday:
"If you took every single penny that Warren Buffett has, it'd pay for 4-1/2 days of the US government. This tax-the-rich won't work. The problem here is the government is way bigger than even the capacity of the rich to sustain it. The Buffett Rule would raise $3.2 billion a year, and take 514 years just to pay off Obama's 2011 budget deficit."
After telling us in 2008 that he could cut the annual budget deficit in half and begin to pay down our national debt, President Barack Obama began his first term by taking us on a journey that rather than trimming anything, added over $1 trillion in new annual deficits by borrowing and spending more than we have, mostly on things we do not need, like nonexistent "shovel ready projects." This has added nearly $1.3 trillion annually to our national debt, which has now skyrocketed to over $16 trillion and by all estimates is headed to $22 trillion before he is done in 2016.
When the Democrats took control of Congress by capturing the Senate in 2006 the national debt was already a staggering $8.9 trillion and was forking over $237 billion annually to pay the interest on that debt. The Democrat-controlled Congress began its spending spree and bailouts long before Barack Obama became president. The total debt attributed to their reign of power is well over $7 trillion dollars in five years. Under George Bush, the budget deficit was $167 billion in 2006 -- Obama has never had a deficit under $1 trillion. But oh yeah, it's all Bush's fault.
The only reason we haven't felt the economic pain from all this deficit spending over the past 25 years is that we have successfully put off the paying the bills by putting it all on a national credit card (throwing away billions in interest) while continuing to stuff our faces. We might be fat and happy now, we might feel really good about ourselves willing to give so much to so many, but we are as dumb as a sack of hammers.
Doesn't anyone ever consider that the public treasury isn't ours to give? Let me be clear: giving is great, giving of our own accord is doing the work of the Lord. Giving away the labor of others, being generous with other people's money, is not moral -- it's a grave and dangerous character flaw. For who but a robber takes great joy in taking or giving away another man's treasure? Who rests comfortably at night with a clear conscience after giving one man the labor of another? Does anyone -- let alone the cold faceless State -- have the ability to "love your neighbor" for you?
The taxes in the public treasury belong to "the people". We need to understand that this is an account of trust, governed by Constitutional law. The public treasury isn't a gift bag to be given to the constituency of the winner of an election. Nor is it to be spent any way one person or party believes it should be. There are rules to follow, though you wouldn't know it from national politics today.
The most horrible thing about this coming economic catastrophe is that all those (the 47%) who don't pay taxes but get benefits from the government treasury will be the very ones who are hurt most when the train wreck comes to a full and complete stop. They are like hungry, vulnerable baby birds in a nest chirping for more. But there will be no more. There will be nothing left to give, and for that matter, there will be nothing left to take. As in Atlas Shrugged, there may not even be anyone to take it from. Those with the wealth and the ability to create that wealth may in fact abandon ship, leaving those in "need" to fend for themselves in a Darwinian state -- the survival of the fittest.
This may appear to be merely an economic and fiscal crisis -- but it really isn't. At its core it is the culmination of a moral collapse that started long before the economic derailment. It is the result not so much of presidents and the powerful but a populace that has chosen for far too long to be conscientious objectors in the war for the soul of the Republic and the rule of Constitutional principles. Welcome to the rise of bureaucratic despotism. The future will soon look like the past -- the very long ago past of marauders and peasants with pitchforks and torches -- and it won't pbe retty.
Today we need more than a Mitt Romney or a Ronald Reagan -- we need a William Wallace.
In 1994 David Whitley self published a 300-page softcover book titled The Conservative Directory -- The Little Black Book of the Cultural Counter Revolution.
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5)What the upgrading of the 'Palestinians' status at the UN is really about
By Jonathan Tobin
Hint: Peace isn't it
With the Palestinian Authority status at the United Nations upgraded this evening to nonmember observer state, some who call themselves friends of Israel as well as some prominent Israelis are applauding the initiative. In particular, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he does not oppose the move by his former negotiating partner, PA head Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert says the vote will promote a two-state solution and help Palestinian moderates in their quest to make peace with Israel. But Olmert, whose attempt to give Abbas pretty much everything he had asked for in 2008 resulted in the Palestinian fleeing the U.S.-sponsored talks without even responding to the offer of a state, seems more interested in vainly seeking to undermine his successor Benjamin Netanyahu than drawing conclusions from his own experience.
The show at the UN is about a number of things, but advancing the chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians isn't one of them.
The decision of most European countries to line up behind the PA seems to be based on the same reasoning put forward by Olmert. They think that after Hamas's attention-getting terrorist missile offensive against Israel it is necessary for those who would prefer the PA to lead the Palestinians rather than the Islamists to give Abbas a shot in the arm. The win today in New York will give him that, but the vote shouldn't be mistaken for anything that will advance peace. In fact, the whole point of the exercise is to help Abbas avoid being cornered into a negotiation like the one he abandoned with Olmert.
Understanding this requires observers to stop their myopic obsession with Israel and to focus on the real obstacle to a two-state solution: the inability of the PA to ever sign an accord that will accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state no matter where its borders are drawn.
Netanyahu's critics consistently decry his lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with the Palestinians and achieving peace. In a sense they're right, since the prime minister and most Israelis don't believe peace is possible in the immediate or perhaps even the foreseeable future because of the PA's refusal to negotiate or to contemplate the sort of compromises needed for an agreement.
But the PA can justly be accused of the same thing. Abbas has no long-term strategy, since he won't or can't make peace with even an Israeli leader like Olmert who was willing to make drastic concessions, and doesn't want to return to fighting the Israelis as his predecessor Yasir Arafat did during the second intifada and as Hamas continues to do.
All Abbas can do is to hang on in the West Bank. His strategy is to avoid elections that he might lose to the increasingly popular Hamas while also evading peace talks with the Israelis while also seeking to maintain a security relationship with the Jewish state that keeps his corrupt and discredited regime in place.
The show at the UN is perfect for Abbas since it does nothing to hinder those objects, especially since the Israelis have wisely decided not to retaliate for his stunt.
The problem for the PA will come next year as a re-elected President Obama will likely attempt to revive a peace process that Abbas has spent the last four years dodging. By then, the UN vote will be just one more propaganda move that will heighten Israel's diplomatic isolation but achieve nothing tangible for Palestinians. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to rule a real independent Palestinian state in all but name that makes Abbas's Ramallah outfit look like Israeli puppets.
Those expecting the Palestinians' new status will do anything to advance the moribund talks are dreaming, and not just because the upgrade will make mischief for Israel in international forums. Peace talks are the last thing Abbas wants.
5a)SHamE ON THE U.N.
Dr. Michael L. Brown -
November 29 used to be a day of celebration in the history of the United Nations - until that date rolled around this year and the U.N. chose to rebuke Israel.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations' General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan; the Arab leadership rejected it. Sixty-five years later, on November 29, 2012, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, excoriated Israel, praised Islamic terrorists, and received the overwhelming approbation of the General Assembly, which voted 138 to 9 (with 41 abstentions) to recognize Palestine as a "non-member observer state."
Abbas was perfectly clear: "The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation." The world, then, through the U.N., would be rebuking Israel with its vote.
To be sure, President Abbas made some conciliatory remarks, such as: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel." But these remarks were completely overridden by his unstinting condemnation of Israel, whose policies, he claimed, "have thrown [negotiations] into the intensive care unit."
How could he claim that he came to the U.N. to "launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace"?
Speaking of the recent conflict in Gaza, Abbas said, "Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace."
Yes, this is how Abbas attempts "to breathe new life into the negotiations" with Israel: by failing to mention the thousands of rockets launched first by Hamas terrorists at Israel; by failing to acknowledge that some of these Palestinian "martyrs" were men like Ahmed Jabari, the mastermind of numerous mass-murder plots against unarmed Israeli citizens; by forgetting entirely that it was Hamas that brutally drove the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza.
Yet in the mind of Abbas (and apparently of the U.N. General Assembly as well), it is the Israelis who are the murderers, guilty of "brute force and war." And how many times did Abbas speak of "Israeli aggression" in this speech, which was allegedly aimed at achieving peace?
Abbas also recounted the revisionist version of recent Palestinian history, noting that, "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history." (What extraordinary charges!)
The tragic irony of all this is that, had the Arab leadership accepted the U.N. partition plan offered in 1947, "Palestine would be celebrating its [65th] anniversary this May. And there would have been no Nakba [catastrophe]" (quoting Professor Ephraim Karsh in his important book Palestine Betrayed).
As far back as 1937, David Ben Gurion stated that, "We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption - proven throughout all our activity in the Land of Israel - that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs."
And on November 29, 1947, when the Jewish leadership accepted the two-state partition plan, Golda Meir said: "We are happy and ready for what lies ahead. Our hands are extended in peace to our neighbors. Both States can live in peace with one another and cooperate for the welfare of their inhabitants."
This was followed by Ben Gurion's statement in December 1947: "If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state ... if the state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge will be built to a Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance."
In contrast, Arab leaders like Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, had their sights set on driving the Jews into the sea: "It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades." (As quoted in an interview in the Akhbar Al-Yom newspaper, October 11, 1947.)
Speaking to the U.N. Security Council on April 16, 1948, Jamal Husseini stated: "The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight."
The Arab nations did fight - and lost. And while the fledgling state of Israel absorbed 800,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled from surrounding Muslim lands, these same countries made no effort to absorb the 600,000 Arab refugees who fled Israel. Sadly, to this day, there are Palestinian refugee camps in Arab countries like Lebanon, while the inhabitants of Gaza lived in oppressive conditions when it was under Egyptian control after 1948.
But truth and justice matter little to the U.N. General Assembly when it comes to Israel, and so, November 29, which was once an important day in the history of the United Nations, has become a day of infamy.
Dr. Michael Brown, a Jewish believer in Jesus, is a biblical scholar, apologist, worldwide speaker, and activist. He is the host of the nationally syndicated, talk radio program "Line of Fire," and he serves as president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, NC, as well as adjunct professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 21 books, most recently "The Real Kosher Jesus."
This column is printed with permission. Opinions expressed in 'Perspectives' columns published by OneNewsNow.com are the sole responsibility of the article's author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff or management of, or advertisers who support the American Family News Network, OneNewsNow.com, our parent organization or its other affiliates.
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