Political Commentary, Columns & Discussion

[SuBe]

There is a better stimulus plan out there
by Neal Boortz

We now have the benefit of PEBO’s* general position on a plan to stimulate our economy. Government shall be our savior. We shall not want. More specifically, government spending. About $800 billion (probably more) will be created out of thin air and then spent by politicians and their cronies in an effort to get our economy moving. Some of PEBO’s spending ideas included “investing” in government schools and modernizing various federal government buildings in Washington and elsewhere.





The “investing in education” bit gives you your first real clue of just what Obama is proposing here. He is proposing to use the occasion of an economic crisis to provide cover for increased government spending that he’s been promising since the day he announced his candidacy. I doubt that someone can explain clearly just how investing in education is going to quickly stimulate our economy, but that spending will be there because it was promised – promised long before our crisis became apparent.


Obama’s stimulus plan is very little more than a plan to enhance and solidify the power of the Imperial Federal Government over our economy at the expense of the private sector and free markets.


Is there a better idea out there? You bet there is, and it came from the 1st Congressional District of Texas. Congressmen Louie Gohmert notes that the federal government collects about $100 billion in income taxes every month, plus another $60 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes. If those of you who are government educated have a calculator handy, you’ll see that this adds up to about $160 billion a month. Now if you divide Obama’s proposed $800 billion stimulus plan by $160 billion, you’ll come up with five. This means that our government will collect $800 billion in income and payroll taxes from February through June.


So, Gohmert asks, instead of bureaucrats and politicians deciding how all of this money is going to be spent, why not let the people who actually worked for this cash make their own independent spending decisions for this money. How would you do that? Simple: declare a five-month tax holiday. From February through June everybody keeps their paycheck. No income tax withholding … no payroll taxes. What will the people do with this money? What, are you crazy? They’ll spend it, that’s what. Talk about stimulating the economy!


Let’s just wrap this up with a handy little chart. Politicians just love charts.


Stimulus plans' affect on national debt


Obama's Stimulus - The government prints $800 billion for government to spend, thus insuring that the money will be spent as politicians and government bureaucrats want it to be spent. Plan adds $800 billion in additional debt.


Six Month Tax Holiday - The government prints $800 billion to replace the lost tax revenue needed for ordinary government expenses while people are spending the money they earned to stimulate our economy. Plan adds $800 billion in additional debt.


Either way we add $800 billion to our deficit.


Who gets the power to chose economic winners and losers?


Obama's Stimulus - Government makes the choices of who wins and loses. Winners include teacher’s unions, government contractors, politicians and businesses favored by government and political operatives. This plan grows government.


Six Month Tax Holiday - The people who actually earned the money get to choose the economic winners and losers through their spending decisions. Winners include private sector businesses that provide quality products and services. This plan grows the private-sector economy.


Either way $800 billion gets poured into our economy!!!


Who comes out with more power?


Obama's Stimulus - Enhances the power of government and promotes the cause of a state -controlled economy.


Six Month Tax Holiday - Enhances the power of the individual taxpayer/consumer and promotes the cause of economic liberty and the free market.


Power to the people? Or to government?


Who gets the happy ending?


Obama's Stimulus - Thrills those who love government


Six Month Tax Holiday - Pleases those who love liberty



Is there a detriment to the Gohmert plan? You betcha! And the flaw is fatal. If you declare a full tax holiday people are actually going to figure out how much they earn. No more of this “take home pay” nonsense. You get your whole paycheck. Now just imagine what happens in July with the withholding starts again.


Revolt.

 

[SuBe]

The College Scam
by John Stossel

A college diploma is supposed to be the ticket to the good life. Colleges and politicians tell students, "Your life will be much better if you go to college. On average during your lifetime you will earn a million dollars more if you get a bachelor's degree." Barack Obama, stumping on the campaign trail, said, "We expect all our children not only to graduate high school, but to graduate college."

Rachele Percel heard the promises. She borrowed big to pay about $24,000 a year to attend Rivier College in New Hampshire. She got a degree in human development. "I was told just to take out the loans and get the degree because when you graduate you're going to be able to get that good job and pay them off no problem," she told me for last week's "20/20."

But for three years she failed to find a decent job. Now she holds a low-level desk job doing work she says she could have done straight out of high school. And she's still $85,000 in debt. This month she had to move out of her apartment because she couldn't pay the rent.

The promise about college? "I definitely feel like it was a scam," says Rachele.
Her college wrote us that that many of its graduates have launched successful careers. But Rachele's problem isn't uncommon. A recent survey asked thousands of students: Would you go to your college again? About 40 percent said no.

"The bachelor's degree? It's America's most overrated product," says education consultant and career counselor Dr. Marty Nemko.

Nemko is one of many who are critical of that often-cited million-dollar bonus. "There could be no more misleading statistic," he says. It includes billionaire super-earners who skew the average. More importantly, the statistic misleads because many successful college kids would have been successful whether they went to college or not.
"You could take the pool of college-bound students and lock them in a closet for four years -- and they're going to earn more money," Nemko says.
Those are the kids who already tend to be more intelligent, harder-working and more persistent.

But universities still throw around that million-dollar number. Arizona State recently used it to justify a tuition hike.

Charles Murray's recent book, "Real Education", argues that many students just aren't able to handle college work. Graduation statistics seem to bear him out.
"If you're in the bottom 40 percent of your high school class," Nemko says, "you have a very small chance of graduating, even if you are given eight and a half years."
Colleges still actively recruit those kids, and eight years later, many of those students find themselves with no degree and lots of debt. They think of themselves as failures.
"And the immoral thing about it is that the colleges do not disclose that!"
For many kids, career counselors told us, it's often smarter to acquire specific marketable skills at a community college or technical school, or to work as an apprentice for some business. That makes you more employable.

Vocational education pays off for many. Electricians today make on average $48,000 a year. Plumbers make $47,000. That's more than the average American earns. But some people look down on vocational school. A degree from a four-year college is considered first class. A vocational-school degree is not.

"More people need to realize that you don't have to get a four-year degree to be successful," says Steven Eilers, who went through an automotive program and then continued his education by getting a paying job as an apprentice in a car-repair center. He's making good money, and he has zero student-loan debt.

Eilers story is no fluke. In the past year, while hundreds of thousands of white-collar jobs vanished, the auto-repair industry added jobs.

Self-serving college presidents and politicians should drop the scam. Higher enrollments and government loan programs may be good for them, but they are making lots of our kids miserable and poor. For many, the good life can be lived without college.

 

[Nitehawk013]

That further supports my feeling that College is not that important for millions of students. There are tens of millions who would be better served by going to a Technical college or learning a skilled trade rather than wasting tens of thousands of dollars on a traditional liberal arts college education.

 

[SuBe]

Neal Boortz: Moochers need free-market dose
by Neal Boortz

What’s the most surprising element of the current health care debate?

That would be the belief many government-educated Americans have that the Democrats pushing this health care takeover actually care all that much about their health.

This whole debate — and the Democrats’ attempt to seize control of a sixth of our nation’s economy — would have ended long ago if the American people had realized that this is about creating dependency on government and nothing else. Look, if these moochers had any concern whatsoever about the availability and quality of health care in this country, they would have turned the free markets loose.

There has never in the history of mankind been any social or economic system better able to improve the standard of living of the people, and that includes health care, than the competitive free market — a system, by the way, currently despised by the ruling (not governing, ruling) party in Washington. Our friends the Democrats, knowing the power of the free market, wouldn’t so much as propose allowing you to purchase health insurance across state lines, let alone give you the same tax breaks if you were to purchase health insurance on your own that your employer gets purchasing it for you.

All right. So, I’m not going to be able to convince you that your friends the Democrats are just out to grow government and their political strength. I can, however, use the words I have left (they really need to give me a bigger word budget) to dispel you of this absurd notion that you have a “right” to health care.

How do you receive health care? Compare health care to your right to free speech. All that is necessary for you to exercise your right to blab away on almost anything is for other people to refrain from stuffing a sock in your mouth. Not so with health care. Health care is a service. Free speech isn’t, nor are the other rights enumerated in our Constitution. Someone has to provide you with health care. They either have to administer to you personally, or they have to provide you with drugs or medical implements. To claim a right to health care, then, is to claim a right to either the time or the property of the people with the skills, the drugs or the equipment you may need.

Get the point?

You have NO right to a portion of another person’s life, or to their property. None. Therefore, you cannot have a right to health care.

Think about this: Once you perfect a claim to a portion of another person’s life or property for your health care, where does it stop? Do you then have a similar claim for shelter or three squares a day? How much of that person’s life and property belongs to you? How much can they protect from your ever-growing dependency on government?

You know ... I need to write more columns at 1 a.m. Clearly I nailed this “right to health care” thing. Perhaps I should quit while I’m ahead, but I’m going to spend a few more words stating the obvious.

How’s this swine flu thing working out for you?

Have you had any problems finding your swine flu shots? Tell me how you like that rate of return you’re getting on all of the money that was confiscated from you for Social Security!

And have you noticed that you can get your oil changed faster than you can work your way through the line at a post office? Private sector vs. government.

Are you really paying attention to the choices you’re making here? No? Well, isn’t it about time?


Neal Boortz’s column appears every Saturday. For more Boortz, go to www.boortz.com

 

[Addendum]

Free speech doesn't protect one from interference by private citizens. It simply protects one when it happens by the government.

 

[ChrisBaleBatman]

There's alot of people who don't understand that.

Carrie Prejean is currently the most vocal one who doesn't understand it, I think.

Sarah Palin has made comments that makes me doubtful that she knows it too.