election

Obama’s Economic Fallacy: The Not-To-Do List

/ L. M. Walker / 1 Comment

Small Business Goals, Rewards and Incentives

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

“Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” ~ Lewis Carroll *

In his latest weekly address, Mr. Obama outlined a mirage of goals, rewards and incentives which he says Congress ‘must’ act upon immediately. But for the most part, what he proffered are just more of the same tried and failed policies, conjured from the same line of illogical reasoning we’ve heard, time and time again, over the last four years. Therefore, what Mr. Obama coined as a “Congressional To-Do List” should rather be endorsed as the official “Not-To-Do List”. Why? Well, let’s test the logic of just one item on the, so called, ‘To-Do List’.

Mr. Obama said, “Third, Congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages. Small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. We shouldn’t be holding them back – we should be making it easier for them to succeed.”

In order to understand why Mr. Obama’s argument is fallacious, one must understand what an argument is. Very briefly, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, by giving reasons or evidence for accepting a particular conclusion. It consists of one or more premises followed by a conclusion. In a logical argument, the premises support the conclusion. When we place Mr. Obama’s argument in its proper order we arrive at the following:

Premise 1 – Small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country.

Premise 2 – We (the government) shouldn’t be holding them back – we should be making it easier for them to succeed.

Conclusion – Congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages.

No one in their right mind would disagree with either premise. Yes, small businesses are the engine of economic growth in the USA. And no, the government shouldn’t be holding us back, but should rather get out of our way, and off of our backs, so that we may succeed. However, the premises Mr. Obama presented do not support his conclusion.

Will the act of offering or failing to offer the reward of tax breaks to small businesses, that hire more workers and pay higher wages, make them any more, or less, the engine of economic growth in America? Will the act of passing additional governmental laws, rules, regulations and loopholes make it any easier for small businesses to succeed?

As a small business owner myself, I can state first hand, that offering my company a reward for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages won’t help my company in the least. That’s because nowhere in my mission statement will you find the stated goals of hiring more workers and paying them higher wages.

How many small business owners do you know that are in business for the purpose of hiring more workers and paying them higher wages? I’m in business to provide a top quality, affordable service, and to hopefully make a profit in the process, not to hire more workers and pay higher wages.

In my world, hiring more workers and paying higher wages are by-products of increased demand. But since demand is still a far cry from where it was in 2007, why would I suddenly alter my goals toward hiring more workers and paying them higher wages? If demand were to suddenly increase, I might be forced to hire more workers and/or offer higher wages, but I would not do so to receive a deficit-financed government reward.

If, and when, I decide to hire another employee, the decision will be solely based on demand. But as long as the economy remains in its present lackadaisical state, if enacted, Mr. Obama’s proposed reward will wind up just like the 17 other so called tax cuts he has offered to small businesses over his failed term – another waste of paper and ink. If anything, what small business owners lack is an incentive to succeed, not more rewards for jumping through narrowly defined governmental hoops.

Goals, Rewards and Incentives

In order to understand how illogical Mr. Obama’s proposal is, one must have an understanding of goals, rewards and incentives. A goal is simply the purpose toward which an endeavor is directed. And while a reward is a positive reinforcement granted after the performance of a desired behavior, an incentive is an expectation of reward, offered in advance, in order to induce action or motivate effort.

Goal: The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

Reward: The return for performance of a desired behavior; positive reinforcement.

Incentive: An expectation of reward that induces action or motivates effort.

In the matter at hand, an incentive would be something offered upfront to motivate small business owners to reach their own goals. But what Mr. Obama has proposed is to reward small business owners after they achieve a government-imposed goal.

According to Mr. Obama, the measure of success for a small business lies in the number of persons it employs. What’s wrong with this theory? The main problem is that it fails to align with the realistic goals of most small businesses. Following is a list of goals for my small business. As you can see, hiring more workers and paying them higher wages isn’t on the list.

  1. Offer top quality services at affordable prices.

  2. Make a profit.

  3. Control costs.

  4. Maintain sufficient demand to remain viable.

  5. Meet all current obligations with current revenue.

  6. Payoff existing debt without incurring more.

  7. Build and maintain a prudent reserve.

  8. Achieve moderate growth, in-line with current resources.

Hiring more workers and paying them higher wages might be Obama’s goal for business owners, but what business has he ever run? Common sense dictates that hiring more workers and paying higher wages are by-products of successful business practices, not primary objectives. It is only when small business owners meet their goals that business activity, hiring and wages increase. So instead of offering a reward for something low on the priority list of small business owners (not even on my list), Congress could do better by offering an incentive to help small businesses reach their true goals. Number one on that list is, indisputably, a reduction of individual income tax rates.

Lower Individual Income Tax Rates

Like me, since most small business owners are taxed at the individual level, lowering individual income tax rates will support small businesses in the following ways:

  1. Helps small businesses keep prices level by not forcing them to raise prices to meet higher income tax obligations.

  2. Enables small companies to maintain the same effective profit margin, in the present unstable economy, without raising prices or slashing expenses.

  3. Makes it easier to control costs without raising prices, or laying-off existing workers.

  4. Helps small companies stay in business in the face of lower demand, which is the by-product of oppressive government taxing and regulatory policies.

  5. Allows small businesses to meet current obligations without incurring additional debt.

  6. Enables small companies to pay down existing debt without incurring more.

  7. Allows small companies to build prudent reserve accounts to meet obligations in the face of future business cycle downturns.

  8. Helps small companies achieve moderate growth in-line with existing resources.

In addition, lowering individual income tax rates will enable increased consumer demand for the products and services offered by small businesses, since a rate cut would apply to everyone across-the-board. Lower income tax rates are therefore a win-win for the economy.

Who asked you anyway?

The only one asking for tax breaks for small businesses that hire more workers and pay them higher wages is Barack Obama. No small business owner that I know has requested any such nonsense. But on the other hand, everyone that I know would benefit from the incentive of lower individual income tax rates. If we can’t agree on this, can we at least agree not to raise individual income tax rates?

Raising tax rates on small business owners on January 1, 2013, which is what’s really on the table, will not help them reach their goals, nor will it achieve Mr. Obama’s fallacious goal. Raising taxes will rather have the opposite effect. Even if the proposed carrot on a stick, tax breaks for those who hire more workers and pay higher wages, is offered, the pending tax hikes will negate that reward, leaving both those who take the bait, and those who don’t in jeopardy.

Arbitrarily hiring more workers and paying higher wages, in a stagnant economy, will force small businesses to raise prices on existing customers, and raising prices, without regard to demand, will have the effect of reducing demand, as customers seek lower cost alternatives. The resulting drop in demand, in the face of higher costs, will lead to further price hikes, in order to meet current obligations. In effect, pursuing the third item on Mr. Obama’s ‘To-Do List’ would land most small businesses – out-of-business – in double-time.

I am frankly sick and tired of all the special interest gimmicks conjured from the illogical mind of an amateur. What Mr. Obama ought to do at this point is simply surrender the keys, and let someone who knows what they’re talking about manage the economy. That’s what I call a logical conclusion.

“Companies are not charitable enterprises: They hire workers to make profits. In the United States, this logic still works. In Europe, it hardly does.” ~ Paul Samuelson

Related:

Picture via: Christ, My Redeemer

 

 

Is Mitt Romney Severely Conservative?

/ L. M. Walker / 1 Comment

* Try Moderately Severe, or Severely Moderate!

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

Mitt Romney told a gathering of conservative leaders and activists Friday that he is severely conservative, or something. “I was a severely conservative Republican governor,” Romney told the audience regarding his time in office, pointing out his support of traditional marriage and abstinence education. Sure Mitt and maybe God resides near a star called Kolob. Hey, I’ll send you a quarter so you can call someone who gives a flip!

Now being far more conservative than Mitt, I’m not so certain that government should even be dabbling in matters of marriage and education. Thus, Mitt’s entire premise, in and of itself, isn’t all that conservative. The often heard proclamation, “Get the government off my back, and out of my way,” is a severely conservative position, while Romney’s idea of conservatism is nothing but a weak watered down sound bite.

Although it may be true that Romney never worked a day in Washington, his signature Massachusetts health care law, or as Rick Santorum coined it, “the stepchild of Obamacare,” made it all the way to the top. Do we really want the guy who invented Obamacare presiding as chief executive over the nation? Lack of tangible experience, and being the inventor of the vilest piece of legislation ever, are precisely why Romney should be written-off.

It’s interesting that the only 2012 Republican candidate mentioned in the Reagan Diaries is Newt Gingrich. There was no mention of a severely conservative Mitt Romney at all. But of course, back then Mitt was busy roaming the earth proclaiming that, “There is no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God,” or something.

And what was that idea of young Gingrich that Mitt claims Reagan so disliked, again? Oh yeah, according to pages 123 – 124 of the Reagan Diaries, Newt’s idea for addressing the 1984 budget deficit was to “freeze the budget at the 1983 level.” Gosh, what a horrible idea! But Mitt is so severely conservative that he’s been bashing Newt over this horrid, 30-year-old, position for month’s now.

Although Romney has publicly proclaimed that he will “repeal Obamacare,” a quick review of the U.S. Constitution failed to locate any passage granting the President of the United States the authority for repealing any law. And even worse, one of Romney’s advisors went on record stating, “We’re not going to do repeal …” Is telling conservatives that you will do something that you know you won’t, in any way severely conservative?

Romney has also come out recently in support of indexing the minimum wage, to rise automatically to keep pace with inflation. So is allowing the government to fix wages (i.e. price fixing), instead of allowing market forces to control the economy a severely conservative position?

Finally, Romney’s position on illegal immigration is for the government to sit back and rely on self-deportation. Even though Romney’s own grandparents and great-grandparents self-deported from the United States to Mexico, in the 19th Century, it wasn’t like they weren’t being chased by the U.S. Marshal and a host of deputies. Far from being severely conservative, Mitt’s reliance on self-deportation isn’t even mildly conservative, it’s at best lukewarm.

  • Is bashing young Newt’s idea of freezing the federal budget at the 1983 level a severely conservative position?

  • Was advocating for and signing Romneycare into law in some way severely conservative?

  • Is publicly stating he will repeal Obamacare, while privately planning not to repeal it a severely conservative design?

  • Is supporting the indexing of the minimum wage a severely conservative position?

  • Is relying on illegal immigrants to deport themselves somehow severely conservative?

I would say that Mitt Romney is severely something, but it’s not conservative. Maybe he’s severely moderate, or suffering from a moderately severe case of Amnesia, but whatever he’s got, I want nothing to do with it.

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!” So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” ~ Revelation 3:15-17

Related:

A Defining Moment

Mitt Romney’s Defining Moment | Indexing the Minimum Wage

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

Is Mitt Romney a Liberal?

By: Larry Walker, Jr.

As Economist Thomas Sowell relays, in his piece entitled, A Defining Moment, “Mitt Romney has come out in support of indexing the minimum wage law, to have it rise automatically to keep pace with inflation.”

But according to Dr. Sowell,

“We have gotten so used to seeing unemployment rates of 30 or 40 percent for black teenage males that it might come as a shock to many people to learn that the unemployment rate for sixteen- and seventeen-year-old black males was just under 10 percent back in 1948. Moreover, it was slightly lower than the unemployment rate for white males of the same age.”

You may read the full text at Jewish World Review.

So what happened? Liberals imposed a series of minimum wage laws, virtually assuring today’s devastating rates of black teenage unemployment. So is Mitt Romney a Liberal? I can’t say for sure, but he’s most definitely not a conservative.

That’s right, lie to us Mitt. For we must defeat Obama at all costs – even if that means deceiving and destroying the Conservative movement, in the process. Will a real conservative please stand up and challenge this walking disaster before it’s too late?

Will Mitt Romney Repeal Obamacare?

/ L. M. Walker / 1 Comment

* Does a President have that authority?

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

In his Nevada victory speech, Mitt Romney once again publicly declared, “I will repeal Obamacare”. How so? Will Willard Mitt Romney single-handedly repeal Obamacare?

Although I am in favor of repealing Obamacare, and replacing it with a free-market solution, the last time I checked the Constitution, I wasn’t able to locate any passage granting the President of the United States the sole authority for repealing any law. Frankly I’m tired of hearing the same old false promise over and over again.

The truth is that in order to repeal or amend any federal legislation, Congress is required to follow the same procedures used in passing any new legislation. In other words, a new bill must be introduced by Congress either repealing or amending the existing law, and then it must pass both Houses of Congress, before being signed by the President.

So although the currently Republican controlled House of Representatives would favor repeal, the Democrat controlled Senate would not. And unless the Republican Party is able to win the presidency, along with a substantial majority in the Senate, while maintaining its present majority in the House; Mitt Romney won’t be repealing anything (i.e. He won’t be signing any repeal legislation.). As far as I’m concerned it’s just words.

What’s disheartening is that while Romney has made this bold proclamation publicly, literally hundreds of times, offstage as Ben Domenech notes in his Transom, Mitt Romney’s advisors have now advised him to support not repealing Obamacare. Norm Coleman, an advisor to Romney, went on record saying:

“We’re not going to do repeal. You’re not going to repeal Obamacare… It’s not a total repeal… You will not repeal the act in its entirety, but you will see major changes, particularly if there is a Republican president… You can’t whole-cloth throw it out. But you can substantially change what’s been done.”

Now I took Romney’s ridiculous blurb about fixing any holes in the safety net that exists for the very poor, for whom he is otherwise unconcerned, as a joke. Thanks Mitt, for keeping the very poor out of the way, and in everlasting poverty [sarcasm]! But his ongoing pandering plea to conservatives, that giving him the nomination will somehow empower a president Romney to repeal Obamacare, or any other law, is outright dishonest.

It’s hard to see how Romney’s practice of discrediting Newt Gingrich, alienating hundreds of thousands of Reagan conservatives in the process, can aid in the party’s winning or maintaining substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, let alone winning the presidency. I haven’t heard Romney mention anything about that. All I’ve heard him ramble on lately is what he will do by his lonesome, whether or not it’s reasonably possible, or even constitutional.

But aside from that, in the remote possibility that Republicans were able to win substantial majorities in both Houses along with a Romney presidency, what would a Romney Administration replace Obamacare with? Wouldn’t we just wind up with fifty state-run Romneycare’s?

Talk is cheap. Dishonesty is worthless.

That’s right, lie to us Mitt. For we must defeat Obama at all costs – even if that means deceiving and destroying the Conservative movement, in the process. Will a real conservative please stand up and challenge this walking disaster before it’s too late?

Mitt Romney’s Pro-Immigration Rant

/ L. M. Walker / 2 Comments

* Leading with the chin. *

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

Mitt Romney argued haphazardly, in the January 26th GOP Debate, that he is pro-immigrant, because his father was born in Mexico. Ah, so that’s it. He shouted, “Mr. Speaker, I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico…” That little proclamation was worse than his implication that Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts somehow help create jobs in America. When I heard the former, my first thought was, ‘what does that have to do with being pro-immigrant’? And upon hearing the latter, I laughed out loud.

Was Romney’s father a Mexican immigrant who waited in a long line to cross the U.S. border “legally”? Well, not exactly. I believe Mitt’s grandparents sprinted across the border twice; once as felony fugitives of the United States government, and the second time to escape a band of Mexican marauders. So it sounds more like a matter of self-deportation followed by an act of forced-deportation than anything else.

Frankly, I would have countered Mitt with, “And why don’t you explain to us all exactly how your father came to be born in Mexico, since you chose to go there?”

And what could Mitt say?

I mean, come on! When we think of American immigrants, we think of men and women who journeyed from afar seeking liberty, and a better way of life. But that’s not exactly the story of the Romneys.

Actually, Mitt Romney’s father George was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. This may mislead one to the assumption that his parents were down there doing some kind of missionary work when he was born, right? But, that’s not exactly the way it went down. So how did Mitt Romney’s father come to be born in Mexico?

The Romneys wound up in Mexico due to an act of self-deportation from the United States. And although it may be true that the Romneys immigrated from the U.S. to Mexico in the 1800s, fleeing as fugitives and likely forfeiting their rights to U.S. citizenship in the process, it would be false to imply that his father was ever an immigrant to the United States. That is, unless the Romneys actually did forfeit their rights to U.S. citizenship. And you know what that would mean.

The fact is that when Mitt Romney’s great-grandparents fled the U.S. for Mexico in the 1800s, they were actually “felony fugitives” of the United States government. And when they returned to the United States in 1912, they were running for their lives from Mexican Revolutionaries, who also despised the practice of polygamy. One could make the case that the Romneys re-entered the U.S. illegally, more so than that his father was a bona fide legal immigrant.

How Self-Deportation Works

The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was a federal enactment of the United States Congress that was signed into law on July 8, 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. The act was designed to target the Mormon practice of plural marriage and the property dominance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Utah Territory.

In 1882 the Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, was passed by the United States Congress replacing the Morrill Act. This was part of what by then was a 20 year struggle by the US government to curb the LDS practice of plural marriage in Utah Territory and other locations in the American West. Among other things, the law made the practice of polygamy a felony and disenfranchised polygamists. As a result, over a thousand Latter-day Saint men and women were eventually fined and jailed. Some were sent as far away as Michigan to fulfill their terms.

The Edmunds Act not only reinforced the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act but also revoked polygamists’ right to vote, made them ineligible for jury service, and prohibited them from holding political office. Wow, that’s deep!

The Edmunds Act was later replaced by the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887. The new act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It also dissolved the corporation of the LDS church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000. The act was enforced by the U.S. marshal and a host of deputies.

So to be straight up about it, Mitt Romney’s great-grandparents were polygamous Mormons who fled with their children from the United States to Mexico because of the federal government’s opposition to polygamy. Mormon genealogical records, among the most detailed and complete of any religion, show that two of Mitt Romney’s great-great grandfathers, Miles Romney and Parley Pratt, had 12 wives each. His grandparents, American born Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt, immigrated to Mexico with their polygamous parents as children, were married in 1895 in Mexico, and lived in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Mitt’s father George was born on July 8, 1907.

When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, the Mormon colonies were endangered in 1911–1912 by raids from marauders. The Romney family then fled Mexico and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home and almost all of their property behind. Mitt’s father George would later say, “We were the first displaced persons of the 20th century.”

Hogwash! The Romneys weren’t displaced, but were rather the first self-deported American citizens of the 19th century, and perhaps the only such in all of U.S. history. That is to say, they self-deported from their native country, after refusing to follow U.S. law for nearly two decades. And then were subsequently run out of Mexico by a group of well armed patriotic Mexicans. So if anything, the Romneys were self-displaced.

Is this why Mitt Romney is so passionate about the idea of self-deportation? I mean after all, out of every other presidential candidate, he would know a little more on this topic than anyone else, and certainly more than he lets on. I would contend that if Mitt Romney is somehow pro-immigrant, it has nothing to do with his legacy, but rather all to do with saying what voters seem to want to hear. But all this voter wants to hear is the truth.

That’s right, lie to us Mitt. For we must defeat Obama at all costs – even if that means deceiving and destroying the Conservative movement in America in the process. Will someone please stand up and challenge this walking disaster before it’s too late? When your opponent leads with the chin, that’s when you go for the jugular. And someone needs to do just that, because it’s starting to smell like 2008 all over again.

I honestly can’t get with Mitt Romney’s background anymore than I could ever get with the current abandoned anchor-POTUS’. If Romney is the best that conservatives can produce, good luck to you all with that. I would rather stake my last dollar on the real deal, even if it means defeat. I don’t know where you stand, but for me it’s principle over politics.

“When a man becomes a citizen of the United States under the Constitution, he cannot cease to be a citizen, except by expatriation for the commission of some crime by which his citizenship shall be forfeited.” ~ Sen. Jacob Howard

Also see:

Polygamy Prominent in GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney’s Family Tree

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Video | Newt Gingrich Delivers Keynote, Gets Cain’s Support

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

Last night, GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich delivered an inspirational keynote speech at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s 2012 Lincoln Day Dinner.

Congressman Allen West led off by defining the American value of equality of opportunity. Then Chairman Sid Dinerstein explained that scarcely any of the jobs created under the Obama Administration were full-time jobs, that nearly every single one of them has been part-time.

Next, Palm Beach County Republican Party Trustee Gay Hart Gains clarified the characteristics of the ideal presidential candidate, and declared that Speaker Gingrich is the one. And then, before Gingrich would take the microphone, former Presidential Candidate Herman Cain delivered a surprising, official and enthusiastic, endorsement for Newt Gingrich as President of the United States.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf?pid=303980-1

It’s interesting to observe how many Conservatives continue to sit on the sidelines, focusing on things that really don’t matter, while others have made their stand with the anti-Reagan, Massachusetts moderate. At some point, all must make a choice. Will it be the Conservative, the Moderate, or the Socialist?

Conservative Envy | Romney vs. Gingrich

/ L. M. Walker / 3 Comments

* Round 15: GOP Debate

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

The first three minutes of the January 19th CNN-GOP Debate was such a crock that I turned it off and caught up with the highlights later on. In one less notable tirade, Mitt Romney exclaimed, “Mr. Speaker, you talk about all the things you did with Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Revolution and the jobs created during the Reagan years and so forth. I mean, I looked at the Reagan diary. You were mentioned once in Ronald Reagan’s diary. And in the diary he says you had an idea in a meeting of young congressman, and it wasn’t a very good idea, and he dismissed it. That’s the entire mention.”

Well first of all, the book is entitled, “The Reagan Diaries”, not the Reagan Diary.

Secondly, the meeting Romney referred to was concerning what at the time was considered to be a “horrendous” budget deficit.

As Reagan relays, on page 123, Newt’s idea for addressing the deficit was to “freeze the budget at the 1983 level”. Gosh, what a horrible idea!

Reagan penned that the idea was “tempting”, not that it was an outright zany notion. He went on to say that Newt’s idea, although tempting, would “cripple” his proposed defense program.

Actually there’s a little more to the story than that.

Reagan said he was worried that an across-the-board freeze on spending, with the exception of defense, would cause every special interest group to demand the same.

So in a sense, Reagan was willing to let the deficit spiral out of control, rather than take up that fight. Do you disagree?

We all know what happened subsequently. That’s right, by the 1990’s our nation would face a much more serious budget problem. One which would be combated with higher taxes. That is until this notion was finally quashed by the Gingrich Revolution.

So if nothing else, at least Romney inspired those with curious minds to pick up the Reagan Diaries for a badly needed refresher. And in retrospect, perhaps Newt’s idea wasn’t so bad after all, especially in light of our current fiscal crisis.

To be fair, George Romney was mentioned twice, on pages 249 and 415. Each mention was a short little blurb about his being the head of some kind of “volunteer initiative”, or something. Seriously, that’s the entire mention. Read it for yourself.

So what was Romney’s point? That his father got mentioned twice, for some trifle; while Gingrich was only mentioned once, regarding the most important issue of this era? Man, was that dumb!

Or was Romney trying to say that being mentioned twice in the Reagan Diaries is superior to once? If that’s the case, then what are we to make of the fact that Mitt Romney wasn’t mentioned at all?

If you ask me, this was just another anemic Romney exchange, worthy of the response it received — none. Perhaps Romney was signaling that he would never go for a spending freeze, under any circumstance. Who can decipher his reasoning? Nevertheless, he came off as one suffering from a classic case of Conservative Envy. Consequently, Romney is going down.

Sources:

The Reagan Diaries, pages 123, 249, and 415.

Quotation from: Real Clear Politics – Romney To Gingrich: “You Were Mentioned Once In Ronald Reagan’s Diary”.

Voting Without Passion | 2012 Election

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

Thoughts from an Independent Fiscal Conservative –

– By: Larry Walker, Jr. –

“What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind?” ~ Mathew 11:7 [New Living Translation]

You either live in a red state, or a blue state. You are either black, or you are white. You are either a millionaire, or you’re in the middle-class. You are either a Republican, or you’re a Democrat. You will either cast your vote for the Republican nominee, or for the Democrat nominee. There is no in-between; there are no other alternatives. So make your choice today. And if you have to hold your nose while voting, then hold your nose and choose between Red and Blue, because that is your patriotic duty. That’s pretty much the way things are, or at least the way some candidates, and propagandist media outlets would have us believe.

Now, back to earth – The truth is you can vote for anyone you want. You are not confined to choosing between the classic Red and Blue. There are literally dozens of people running for president, from Libertarians to Communists. Also, many have forgotten that having a legal right to vote, doesn’t mean one must vote. You have a legal right to drive a car, if you are of age, and secure the appropriate license and insurance, yet not everyone chooses to drive. Some people rely on taxis, limousines or public transportation. No one is forced to drive a car, but everyone has the right to drive. You also have God-given rights to get married, to have children, to buy a home or other property, but not everyone exercises these rights. Thus no person may compel another to vote. Neither are we limited to crawling into those little boxes that politicians and media propagandists have so allotted.

Passion – Each and every vote for a presidential candidate, for which there is no passion, is a waste of one’s legal right. If you are not passionate about a candidate, or a political party, and merely follow the dictates of a third-person, you have not really exercised your right. You might as well have stayed home. Last time I checked, refusing to vote isn’t a sin, but rather a vote against the establishment. I haven’t voted in every single presidential race, or in every single primary. For example, I didn’t vote in the 2008 presidential primary, because I felt no passion toward any of the candidates. I certainly felt nothing for John McCain (and still don’t), and although I felt a little something for Mike Huckabee, the bond wasn’t strong enough to compel me to the local precinct to show my support (although I nearly did).

I did vote in the 2008 presidential race, but my vote was cast more against one candidate than for the other. In other words, I wanted to send a message that I was against the blue party, but I wasn’t really for the red party. Then as today, I feel as though my 2008 presidential vote was merely thrown away. In retrospect, I wish I would have turned my back on the status quo, and supported a third-party candidate. But that was then, and this is now.

“Pathos (Greek for ‘suffering’ or ‘experience’) is often associated with emotional appeal. But a better equivalent might be ‘appeal to the audience’s sympathies and imagination.’ An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond emotionally but to identify with the [candidate’s] point of view–to feel what the [candidate] feels. In this sense, pathos evokes a meaning implicit in the verb ‘to suffer’–to feel pain imaginatively….

Perhaps the most common way of conveying a pathetic appeal is through narrative or story, which can turn the abstractions of logic into something palpable and present. The values, beliefs, and understandings of the [candidate] are implicit in the story and conveyed imaginatively to the [voter]. Pathos thus refers to both the emotional and the imaginative impact of the message on an audience, the power with which the [candidate’s] message moves the audience to decision or action.” ~ Derived from: Ramage, John D. and John C. Bean. Writing Arguments. 4th Edition. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1998, 81-82.

Independent – Since I come from a family of left-leaning independents, having been reared as a free-thinker meant I had to find my own way in the political arena. My parents never attempted to influence my political views. At the age of 20, my very first vote in a presidential race was for Ronald Reagan. I didn’t vote for Reagan because he represented a particular political party (I could have cared less about all that at the time), but rather because I heard the man speak, and I was touched by the emotional and the imaginative impact of his message. In fact, I was inspired enough to change my college major to political science (although it would later change), which led to my interviewing local politicians and working as a volunteer at a local voting precinct.

So how in the world was Ronald Wilson Reagan ever able to reach out and touch a 20-year old black male, from North-Central California, who was dropping in and out of Junior College, and on his way to a life of despair? For me, pathos is the critical element, and it trumps the old red or blue, black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat rhetoric in any era. If your message isn’t transcending political ideology, or if you’re still trying to convince the public as to why you’re qualified to hold office, you really don’t have a message, so perhaps you should do us all a favor and just drop out.

Since I officially quit the Republican Party in 2007, I have been a free-agent when it comes to politics. I can vote for whomever I please. I am not bound by the strings of media propagandists. I can vote for anyone who is on the ballot, or any qualified write-in candidate. Nobody will tell me who to vote for, and no one will constrain me from casting my vote for the candidate or party of my choosing. I am free, I am independent, and I will vote, or not vote, according to my conscience. I hope you will do the same.

Clueless? – For the political class, passion is achieved through persuasion, by appealing to voter’s emotions. It’s not just about ethos, and logos. So you are credible. So you can make a logical argument. Big deal! Yet you have not persuaded independents, such as me, because you have failed to connect with my sympathies and imagination. What we have today is a president who lacks logic and credibility, but who can win on passion, versus a group of candidates, strong in the former, but woefully lacking in the latter. Thus I may vote in the 2012 presidential race, or I may sit this one out, or perhaps I will send a message this time, by throwing my support to a third-party candidate. I’m not sure about that yet, but one thing that I am sure of is that until I hear a message which fires on all three cylinders, I will not enter into the wilderness, but will rather work to expose every weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind.

What Does $40 per Week Mean To You?

/ L. M. Walker / 2 Comments

– Let’s see, to me one thing it means is that the federal government will be adding another $120 billion to the national debt. For my friend Jeff, at Liberty Works, it means – we’ve been bamboozled again. –

By: BoomerJeff | Liberty Works

“… On Thursday Obama ramped up the theatrics and gave us a preview of his New Year strategy for diverting attention away from his manifest failures. He stepped to the microphones to prove he identifies with the struggles of the helpless against those cruel Republican Scrooges (transcript). His tone dripping with pious solicitude, he began:

We’ve been doing everything we can to make sure that 160 million working Americans aren’t hit with a Holiday tax increase on January First…If you’re a family making about $50,000 a year this is a tax cut that amounts to about a thousand dollars a year. That’s about forty bucks out of every paycheck.

So far the President’s math is correct, since most employees are paid either bi-weekly or semi-monthly.

It may be that there are some folks in the House who refuse to vote for this compromise because they don’t think forty bucks is a lot of money. But anyone who knows what it’s like to stretch a budget knows that at the end of the week or the end of the month forty dollars can make all the difference in the world…

So on Tuesday we asked folks to tell us what it would be like to lose forty bucks every week.

Wait a minute! “Every week?” He just changed it from $40 out of every paycheck to $40 every week! But the temporary tax cut is worth only $19 every week to his hypothetical $50,000 per year family.

You’d have to earn $104,000 a year for Obama’s Social Security tax markdown to be worth $40 every week.

Obama then quoted some of the emails from his “folks” about how they would deal with the loss of $40 per week.

Joseph from New Jersey would have to sacrifice the occasional pizza night with his daughters. My 16 year old twins will be out of the house soon – I’ll miss this.

Richard from Rhode Island wrote to tell us that having an extra $40 in his check buys enough heating oil to keep his family warm for three nights. In his words, and I’m quoting, If someone doesn’t think that 12 gallons of heating oil is important invite them to spend three nights in an unheated home.

Pete from Wisconsin told us about driving more than 200 miles each week to keep his father in law company in a nursing home. $40 out of his paycheck would mean that he could only make three trips instead of four.

Dinner out for child who’s home for Christmas, a pair of shoes – these are the things that are at stake for millions of Americans. They matter a lot.

Obviously these emails are absurd. If you earn $104,000 and have to give up $40 per week, are you really going to have to deny your kids a pizza or a pair of shoes? Will you shiver for three nights without heating oil?

Of course, there are some folks to whom $40 every week would be make a real difference:

  • A hotel maid who works full time for $8.50 per hour

  • A construction worker who has been cut back to half time work at $17 per hour

  • A self employed business owner whose customers were hammered by the recession and now barely survives by depleting his savings. He generated only $17,700 profit this year after paying his employees and the employer’s half of the payroll tax which was not reduced by the Obama payroll tax markdown.

To each of these people Obama’s temporary payroll tax cut is worth not $40 but $6.80 per week.

But much of the media have already begun to help Obama plant a false perception in the minds of uninformed voters that Republicans would deny everyone $40 per week. (For example, see the headline here.)

Obama knows that informed voters will figure out the deception. But he doesn’t care about informed voters. They won’t vote for him anyway.”