Following UK example, US congress looks to stem flow of US taxpayer dollars to UN programs deemed useless or harmful

.
Americans are without raises, but "the United Nations has raised the wages of 4,800 of its staffers by 3 percent."...The few remaining US taxpayers provide about a quarter of the entire UN budget. The UK has already undertaken cuts to the UN. (3/3/11) Why finance a hate group that's officially immune from criminal prosecution?

9/2/11, "How to force the United Nations to change," Benny Avni, NY Post

"It won’t become law anytime soon, but a bill to be introduced in the House next week to revolutionize how America finances UN activities is already stirring up Turtle Bay.Which needs it. A top member of the US delegation to the UN, Ambassador Joseph Torsella, publicly complained this week that while the salaries of US officials are frozen due to budget constraints,

• the United Nations has raised the wages of 4,800 of its staffers by 3 percent.

That “unwarranted” raise was determined by a structure where America’s vote equals any other member’s,

• so Torsella’s complaint won’t change anything.

What would? In a language East River bureaucrats understand well -- French: Rather than prix fixe, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D-Fla.) wants America to dine á la carte.

All UN members now pay an annual membership fee as determined by the General Assembly. The size of each country’s dues equals its share of the world economy, as reflected in its gross domestic product -- with room for negotiation."...

• (As our GDP is nearing zero, wouldn't that cut our "dues" to zero? ed.)
  

(continuing, NY Post): "As the world’s largest economy, we pay far more than any other country -- a full 22 percent of the regular UN budget (which was $516 million in 2010), and 27 percent of peacekeeping (which totalled $1.9 billion last year). What do we get in return? Well, that’s decided in the UN halls -- where

• each member gets one vote, no matter what it pays.

Which leaves spending priorities prey to UN politics, where large blocs dictate the agenda. Thus Arabs states can fan the United Nations’ legendary anti-Israel sentiment -- even though

• the wealthiest of them, Saudi Arabia, pays less than 1 percent of the UN budget.

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen thinks enough is enough. Rather than pay what UN bureaucrats say we owe, she’d give that decision to elected Americans: The president would determine which UN bodies and programs serve America’s interests, and therefore deserve funding, and which are harmful to us and our allies -- and get zilch.

To listen to the attacks on her plan from the Obama administration and others, you’d think the idea is so outlandish and so destructive that we shouldn’t even look at it. One UN advocate, Jeffrey Laurenti, accused “conservative fundamentalists” of launching a “suicide attack” againstthe world body. In reality, the United States has already tested it -- to great success.

In the late 1980s, one of our most internationalist presidents, George H. W. Bush, threatened to withdraw funds from any UN body that admitted “Palestine” as a member state. None did. And back in 1984, the Reagan administration pulled out of the utterly corrupt UNESCO -- forcing it to clean up its act to get US funding restored. (In 2003,

• President George W. Bush
  

• announced UNESCO “has reformed,” and rejoined it.)

Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for our UN ambassador, Susan Rice, says she believes that cuttingUN funds would “undermine American leadership in the world.” She’s also said that increasing our UN participation will put us in a better position to urge UN reform.

• But urging isn’t enough -- the UN pay hike shows that....
  

America, by the way, won’t necessarily be alone in this fight. Tokyo diplomats tell me they find it harder to justify maintaining Japan’s status as the second largest UN contributor (14 percent of the budget) -- especially now, as Japanese voters finally realize their country is unlikely to

• ever join the exclusive UN club of five permanent Security Council members.

Nothing will change overnight, though anti-American ugliness at this month’s General Assembly might turn up the heat. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others are headed here for the annual show; they’ll be in town clogging up traffic

• and spewing out hate just after the 10th anniversary of 9/11."...

--------------------------------

4/16/09, "Report: U.N. spent U.S. funds on shoddy projects," USA Today, Ken Dilanian

"Federal prosecutors in New York City were forced to drop criminal and civil cases because the U.N. officials have immunity, according to the report."...(para. 4)

"Commissioner Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon controller, asked...whether the agencies have immunity "if they siphon (their U.S. grants) all off into Swiss banks? Is that accurate? They will be

• totally immune, no matter what they do with the money?"

"My understanding is, yes," Gambatesa replied."...

-------------------------------

3/3/11, "U.K. Pulls Plug on United Nations Spending, in Move That is Bound to Hearten U.S. Critics," Fox News, George Russell

"Critics of U.S. spending on the United Nations got a huge boost—and supporters of that spending, especially the Obama Administration, took a body blow—from an unlikely source

• this week: the British government,

long one of the U.N.’s staunchest supporters. In a sweeping and hard-nosed reorganization of priorities for its $10.6 billion multilateral foreign aid program, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron has pulled the financial plug entirely

• on four U.N. agencies at the end of next year,

put three others judged merely “adequate” on notice that they could face the same fate unless they improve their performance

• “as a matter of absolute urgency;”

and issued pointed criticisms of almost all the rest....

The tough actions were revealed as the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has been gearing up an extended critical look at U.N. funding as part of its overall budget austerity plan....

Moreover, the British actions change the focus of the debate, from gauzy generalizations about the need for and importance of the U.N. to a realistic look at what it actually achieves.

The basis of that switch is the same urgent necessity hanging over almost every Western government: austerity....

• The shock waves inspired by the British announcements may soon be followed by others.

Norway, for example, has long been one of the most reliable U.N. piggy-banks....Its direct contributions to U.N. organizations are upwards of $900 million, not counting money channeled through

• U.N. affiliated development banks.

It ranks as the U.N.’s sixth-largest donor. Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the country’s development aid agency, Norad, told Fox News, “We are inspired by the new British review, and will look closely to see what lessons can be learned from it.

• Norway is a dear friend to the U.N. But it is important to be honest and let friends know when they don’t deliver what they promise.”"...

-----------------------------

3/30/10, "UN immune from criminal prosecution. Did you know?" SciForums

---------------------

For the record, this post became yet another in the long list of my posts that was vandalized after completion and posting, ie large portions were blotted out and therefore unreadable. I re-did the post. As I've explained before having looked at all angles, I can only discover one continuous variable in the matter, which is google. ed.



.

Virginia democrat says Obama would not win the state if election were held today-CNN

.
9/3/11, "Dem: Obama wouldn't win Virginia today," CNN, Dan Merica, Political Ticker blog

"Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said if the 2012 presidential election was held today, President Barack Obama wouldn't win Virginia, a state he carried in 2008.

Speaking on local Washington radio station WTOP Friday, Connolly said, "In my opinion, no, today he would not win the state."

But, with more than a year before Election Day, Connolly said Obama still has time to regain the momentum he had in the last election.

"The growing diversity, especially in Northern Virginia, has changed the polity of Virginia permanently," said Connolly on The Politics Program With Mark Plotkin. "There is no question in my mind that President Obama can make a comeback and win Virginia."

Prior to Obama winning Virginia in 2008, the state had not voted for a presidential Democrat since former president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The last time Virginia voted for a Democratic president two elections in a row was in 1944 and 1948.

Connolly said that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would have the best chance of beating Obama in 2012 but that all White House hopefuls, including Obama, come with imperfections.

"I think that all of the Republican candidates, as does President Obama, have serious baggage," said Connolly.

Obama will visit Richmond, Va. on Sept. 9, the day after unveiling his jobs plan to a joint session on Congress."

via RedState.com

Tennessee state agencies prepare for 5 percent budget cuts

.
9/2/11, "Tennessee's state agencies told to prepare for 5 percent cuts," KnoxNews, Tom Humphrey

"Tennessee state government agencies have been told to prepare for a 5 percent reduction in their spending of state dollars next year, a move that will follow a recent outline of how they would deal

• with a 30 percent loss of federal dollars.

In a letter to all executive branch departments, Finance Commissioner Mark Emkes also said that no new or expanded funding — with a few exceptions — will be allowed by Gov. Bill Haslam's administration unless the new costs are offset with further cuts elsewhere in their budgets....

About 40 percent of the $30 billion state budget for the current fiscal year comes from the federal government. The rest is in state dollars, though some is from earmarked sources that will not be covered by the new reductions, such as college tuition, and license fees.

The 5 percent reduction will amount to about $270 million, Emkes said.

While the reduction in federal dollars is speculative and intended in part as a way to show credit rating agencies that Tennessee is prepared to cope with a major loss of federal funds, the 5 percent reduction of state dollar spending is far more likely to occur.

Emkes says in a letter to state departments that, even if state revenues grow 3 percent as projected, the state dollar cuts will be necessary.

"Therefore, I am kindly requesting that each state agency submit base budget reduction plans in three parts," Emkes wrote....

The letter says that K-12 basic education funding, pre-kindergarten, "agencies funded by dedicated taxes and fees" and increased spending mandated under current state or federal law will be exempt from the requirement of making cuts to offset any increased spending.

Several programs are specifically mentioned as "held harmless" from the general rules, ranging from college scholarships to annual cost-of-living pay raises for judges, and the CoverKids, CoverRX and AccessTN health care programs.

Legislative leaders have generally praised Haslam for asking state government departments to plan for cuts in both federal and state spending."...

via Instapundit

Shariah law in US is fine says NY Times op-ed, Islam is growing so fast in the US, we shouldn't 'stigmatize Islamic life'

.
Author says opposing Shariah law is like opposing Jewish law. (para. 4)


9/2/11, "(NYT) — "More than a dozen American states are considering outlawing aspects of Shariah law. Some of these efforts would curtail Muslims from settling disputes over dietary laws and marriage through religious arbitration, while others would go even further in stigmatizing Islamic life: a bill recently passed by the Tennessee General Assembly equates Shariah with a set of rules that promote “the destruction of the national existence of the United States.”

Supporters of these bills contend that such measures are needed to protect the country against homegrown terrorism and safeguard its Judeo-Christian values. The Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has said that “Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”

This is exactly wrong. The crusade against Shariah undermines American democracy, ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation, and creates a dangerous divide between America and

• its fastest-growing religious minority.

The suggestion that Shariah threatens American security is disturbingly reminiscent of the accusation, in 19th-century Europe, that Jewish religious law was seditious. In 1807, Napoleon convened an assembly of rabbinic authorities to address the question of whether Jewish law prevented Jews from being loyal citizens of the republic. (They said that it did not.)"...

Read more....

(The author is an academic, an assistant professor at Yale).

----------------------------

Where was Gingrich 10 or 15 years ago when this problem was growing like weeds and could have been stopped? He had the media at his beck and call but chose to remain silent and sell us out. ed.

---------------------------

11/30/09, "'Honor killings' in USA raise concerns," USA Today, Oren Dorell

----------------------------

2/27/11, "NPR Insists Buffalo Wife's Beheading by Muslim Outreach TV Founder Has No Islamic Overtones," Newsbusters.org, Tim Graham

"You know, apparently, we're just too stupid. We just all think that all Muslims are bad."...

---------------------------

6/14/10, "Female Genital Cutting: Affecting Young Girls in America," ABC News

-----------------------------

7/9/11, "The Insidious Kumbaya on American College Campuses," American Thinker, Ashraf Ramelah

"What will never be revealed is that the Muslim establishment has no intention of embracing Western democracy. Instead, the establishment will make a convincing feint, all the while using the very freedoms they wish to subvert -- beginning with initiatives like the Interfaith and Community Service Challenge." (end of article)...

"Islamic tradition...has also codified wife-beating, polygamy (multiple wives), female genital mutilation, woman guardianship, honor killings, and female head and face veiling. These practices

• flourish today

• within Islamic communities throughout the world."...

-------------------------------

6/3/11, "Detroit's Death Rattle," American Thinker, Richard Butrick

"In a recent update (6/2/11), Wooldridge writes that Detroit has now dropped another 200,000 from 912,000 in 2009 to reach 712,000 people in 2011.

Whites are fleeing the city. Something like 400,000 to 500,000 are now Muslims and they have built hundreds of Mosques and their music floats over the city of Detroit. We now have honor killings, female genital mutilation, arranged marriages and schools where only Arabic is spoken. Detroit is about 83 percent minorities and about

90 percent of them are on welfare."...

--------------------------

8/28/11, "Ground Zero imam gives Scotland his recipe for successful multiculturalism," Herald Scotland, by Vicky Allan

"Greater integration between Islam and the West depends on the incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of the UK and the United States"

• according to the Ground Zero Imam.

-----------------------------

Pamela Geller notes

"Rauf does not and cannot point to a form of Sharia that does not contain the mandates for stoning, amputation, etc. So how firm and honest can his assurance that Muslims have no intention of bringing all that here really be? We're already seeing honor killings and female genital mutilation in America. Why shouldn't the rest follow when all of this is justified by Sharia?"...

---------------------------

3/20,11, "'This case (in Florida) will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law'," American Thinker, Thomas Lifson

• "A mind-boggling court order from Judge Richard A. Nielsen, of Hillsborough County (Tampa) Florida. Read the whole court order, via Jihad Watch.

------------------------

3/20/11, "Sharia law has come to Florida," RedState.com by Tom in Florida

"In effect, due process in an American court is being denied and Sharia law is being imposed

• on an unwilling participant. Right here in Florida."

-----------------------------

8/6/11, "Christie’s ‘Crazies’," Andrew McCarthy, NRO, "Sharia is not a figment of our imagination."

• 8/5/11, "Chris Christie Backs Hamas-linked Superior Judgeship Pick -- Blasts ‘Crazies’ After Appointing Muslim Judge: The ‘Sharia Law Business Is Just Crap’," Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller

To Gov. Christie, FYI: 3/18/11, Sharia law comes to Tampa, Florida. Hillsborough County Judge approves use of Islamic law. Chris Christie and others have no problem bashing sincere, informed, ordinary Americans. Hopefully his life in government will not go beyond the state of New Jersey. ed.

7/14/11, New Jersey schools teach tolerance of 9-11 by leaving out 'grisly' parts

-----------------------------------

10/2006, Christmas play cancelled in Florida public school

-----------------------------------
12/4/08, "Primary school cancels nativity play because it interferes with Muslim festival of Eid," UK Daily Mail



via Weasel Zippers

Long term unemployed will likely never be hired again

.
The rich, academic elites, and the poor think this is good, a long awaited 2 class system, haves and have-nots, no annoying middle class.

9/2/11, "From Unemployed to Unemployable," NPR, Planet Money

"The unemployment rate didn't budge in August, according to this morning's jobs report. Net job growth was zero.

Also basically unchanged: The number of people who have been out of work and looking for a job for six months or more.

More than 6 million Americans are now among the long-term unemployed, up from about 1 million before the recession. The long-term unemployment rate is far higher than it's been at any time since before War II....

The longer people are unemployed, the less likely they are to find a new job."...

• (You won't even get an interview. ed.)
  

(continuing): "This is partly due to the fact that the most employable people — those whose skills are in highest demand — get snapped up right away.

But there are also more insidious forces at work....Employers may be wary of hiring someone who has been out of work for a long time....

"After a long period of unemployment, affected workers may become effectively unemployable," economists at the Richmond Fed wrote in a paper published this week....

"Never before in the postwar period have the unemployed been unemployed for so long," the Richmond Fed paper says."...

------------------

4/1/2010, "The Obama Coalition," The Atlantic, Thomas Byrne Edsall

"One of the most striking indicators of the potentially enduring unemployment status of many of those now out of work is the increase in the number of people who have been without jobs for six months or more. These people have the hardest time making it back into the workforce, and the growth of this population suggests that more and more people who lose a job face the danger that

• unemployment will become permanent....

While both the “have” and “have-not” coalitions have been growing,

• with the middle waning...

(Obama) could effect—

• as promised—

• the long-awaited transformation of American politics."

--------------------------

Even the NY Times knows it but if anyone is happy about the death of the middle class it's the NY Times.

2/20/10. "The New Poor: Despite Signs of Recovery, Chronic Joblessness Rises," NY Times, Peter S. Goodman

"Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come."...




Above graphs from NY Times Feb. 20, 2010 article, graph on left of "Long term unemployment" is from BLS, 1975-Jan. 2010.

-----------------------------

7/13/11, "WOLF: ‘German Miracle’ Barack Obama doesn’t see," "Blinded by big government, the Obama Depression is no accident," Washington Times, Dr. Milton Wolf

--------------------------

7/3/11, "Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job,'" Weekly Standard, Jeffrey H. Anderson

"The stimulus is now causing the economy to shed jobs....

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and

• taxpayers would have come out
  

• $427 billion ahead."...

----------------------

Obama has taken care of the "millionaires and billionaires:"

7/1/11, "The economic recovery turns 2: Feel better yet?" AP, News.com.au

"The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession. Higher-paying jobs in the private sector, the ones that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour,

• made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010
  

• but only 27 percent of the jobs created since then."...

Obama has taken care of the richest Americans:

• AP: "The economy's meager gains are

• going mostly to the wealthiest.

Workers' wages and benefits make up 57.5 percent of the economy,

an all-time low. "...

----------------------

6/7/11, "California’s Green Jihad," Forbes.com, Joel Kotkin

"In reality the creative economy simply cannot make up for losses in more tangible industries....growth. So who really benefits from the green jihad? To date, the primary winners have been crony capitalists...Finally, there are the lawyers — lots of them. A hyper-regulatory state requires legal services just like a theocracy needs mobs of mullahs and bare knuckled religious enforcers. No surprise the number of lawyers in California increased by almost a quarter last decade."...

-----------------------

8/31/11, "Long-Term Unemployed Losing Hold On Middle Class," Huffington Post, Peter Goodman

As of 7/1/11, only 58.1% of America's working age population is employed, the lowest since 1948. (para. 11)

-------------------

12/14/10, "The Hard Truth: Companies Don't Hire Unemployed,"NPR



.

No jobs added in August 2011, June and July job totals revised downward-CNN, AP

.
9/2/11, "No jobs added in August," CNN Money, by Annalyn Censky

"Hiring slammed to a complete halt in August as several fresh challenges put the American economy in turmoil.

Employers added no jobs during the month and the unemployment rate remained at 9.1%, the Labor Department said Friday.

The report was partially distorted by 22,000 state workers in Minnesota returning to work after a temporary government shutdown in July, as well as 45,000 Verizon workers on strike in August.

Those effects made it hard to compare the August jobs number to the 85,000 jobs gained in July."...

(Note AP article below saying June and July jobs revised downward by 57,000) ed.

(continuing): "A CNNMoney survey of 21 economists had predicted the economy would add 75,000 jobs in August....

The White House said yesterday that it predicts the unemployment rate will remain stubbornly high, not falling below 6% until 2017."

------------------------------

9/2/11, "Employers add no net jobs in Aug.; rate unchanged," AP, Rugaber

"It's the first time since February 1945 that the government has reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent....Job gains in June and July were revised lower, to show 57,000 fewer jobs added. The downward revisions were all in government jobs. The average work week also declined and hourly earnings fell by 3 cents to $23.09."...

via WZ, Hot Air

US taxpayer money transferred to the Taliban is their second biggest cash score next to opium-CBS News

.
8/31/11, "U.S. money is Taliban's No. 2 revenue source," CBS News, David Martin

"The commission was told that except for the opium harvest, U.S. contracts were the Taliban's biggest source of funds. A separate investigation estimated $360 million has ended up in the hands of the taliban..

The sheer volume of spending -- as many as 260,000 contractors on the payroll at any one time -- amid the chaos of war was simply too much for the U.S. to manage.

A $60 million project to distribute seeds and fertilizer to Afghan farmers became a $360 million cash for work program "paying villages for what they used to do voluntarily." The commission also warned of massive new waste. For instance, there is a planned $82 million Afghan defense university that the government of Afghanistan cannot afford to keep up.

"What is the point of spending hundreds of millions on projects that will then fall into disuse?" asks commission member Dov Zakheim.

The commission warned that, without a major overhaul of wartime contracting,

• we can expect more of the same as the wars drag on."...

via WZ

'The governing class has been reduced to claiming that things would have been worse without its wild orgy of spending. Really?'

.
"Government cannot create wealth." There's nothing Obama, the Fed or the rest can do. The only thing that will help is for all of them to shut up, stop giving speeches, and do nothing except repeal most regulations made in the past 20 years.

8/31/11, "WOLF: Prosperity starts with Americans, not Uncle Sam"," Washington Times Opinion

"Never before in history has such overwhelming evidence failed to convince the smart-set governing class of the obvious: Government cannot create wealth. Instead, our rulers bitterly cling to the notion that the government can spend your money more wisely than you can.

It’s easy to blame President Obama for our economic quagmire, but that’s only part of the story. Sure, Obamanomics has become the science of downward-sloping graphs - with the notable exceptions of spending, borrowing and taxing - but Mr. Obama did not invent the big-government annexation of our economy - he only accelerated it.

Let’s not forget that former President George W. Bush also worshipped the false idol of “stimulus” economics. His 2008 $168 billion “booster shot” was straight out of the Keynesian pump-priming playbook, and despite Mr. Bush’s claim that it was “large enough to have an impact,” it didn’t. In retrospect, MSNBC’s analysis is as comical now as it was prophetic then: “Economic analysts generally believe the $168 billion package Mr. Bush signed will help prevent the current downturn from ballooning into a crisis. But if the rebates don’t spur a consumer spending spree strong enough to cure what ails the economy, Congress is ready to throw more money at the problem.”

And how! If there’s one thing we can count on Congress to do, it’s throw more money at problems. Eight months later, Congress wrote the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) check and President Bush signed it - with Sen. Barack Obama’s endorsement - promising that it would prevent economic Armageddon. It didn’t. In fact, TARP head Neil Barofsky later acknowledged to taxpayers: “You were robbed.”

Parenthetically, when the Obama administration claimed TARP was “remarkably effective by any objective measure,” it’s unclear if it specifically meant

• the successful fleecing of Americans.

Just four months later, with the economy still in a downward spiral despite so much “stimulus” and so many empty promises, Mr. Obama signed his $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law with still more grand promises that it would “create or save” millions of jobs and unemployment would stay below 8 percent.

Mr. Obama’s wild stimulus spending spree didn’t stop there. His administration has claimed straight-faced that food stamps and jobless benefits are really - wait for it - job stimulus programs. With 1 out of 7 Americans on food stamps and 400,000 new jobless claims each week, it’s a stimulus bonanza. Add in the gimmicks like “Cash for Clunkers” and “Cash for Caulkers,” and don’t forget that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi billed Obamacare as a jobs stimulus program, too: “It’s about jobs In its life, [the health bill] will create 4 million jobs - 400,000 jobs almost immediately.” Never before in human history has an economy been so thoroughly marinated in government stimulus.

All told, our governing class - Republicans and Democrats - has spent on the order of $5 trillion we don’t have on jobs that never materialized, in some cases in

• zip codes that don’t even exist.
  

We mortgaged our children’s and grandchildren’s futures, and what exactly did we get in return?

In every measurable way, not much. In fact, worse than not much. Absent any actual economic success stories, the governing class has been reduced to claiming that things would have been worse without its wild orgy of spending. Really? Unemployment shot to nearly 10 percent, with underemployment almost double that and the average length of unemployment at an all-time high. Consumer confidence is approaching an all-time low. Food-stamp dependence is at an all-time high. Homeowners have lost a decade of equity, and foreclosures continue unabated. The debt has ballooned to $14.6 trillion. And for the first time in history, the United States of America has suffered the self-inflicted humiliation of having its credit rating downgraded.

The Keynesian pump-priming of Mr. Bush and the pump-flooding of Mr. Obama have been unmitigated disasters. The inescapable reality is that the government cannot create wealth and every dollar it spends must be taken from the private sector, which can. As Ayn Rand wrote, “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

Martha’s Vineyard is a great place to avoid reality, but our president is well-rested now and ready to try his luck once more with a big-government stimulus program. This from the man who famously said, “We’ve got a big hole that we’re digging ourselves out of.” Please, just stop digging. Instead, give Americans themselves a chance to stimulate our economy.

Entrepreneurs will create the jobs and reignite the economy if the government will create a predictable business climate and then just get out of the way. Start by eliminating every chokehold the government has on the economy. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent (until fair flat-tax reform can be enacted). Repeal Dodd-Frank. Suspend Sarbanes-Oxley until it can be reformed. Repeal Obamacare. Institute an immediate moratorium on new government regulations and take a machete (not a scalpel) to the current Federal Register. And finally, stow the destructive and divisive class-warfare language that is unbecoming of an American president.

In short, allow Americans to be Americans once more."

via WZ