The Bipartisan March to Fiscal Madness

By DAVID A. STOCKMAN, Reprinted from The New York Times, 24 April 2011

IT is obvious that the nation’s desperate fiscal condition requires higher taxes on the middle class, not just the richest 2 percent. Likewise, entitlement reform requires means-testing the giant Social Security and Medicare programs, not merely squeezing the far smaller safety net in areas like Medicaid and food stamps.

Unfortunately, in proposing tax increases only for the very rich, President Obama has denied the first of these fiscal truths, while Representative Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has contradicted the second by putting the entire burden of entitlement reform on the poor. The resulting squabble is not only deepening the fiscal stalemate, but also bringing us dangerously close to class war.

Good and Bad News

Dear Folks,

As to the good news. I watched C-Span 3 this morning, featuring student awards for the value and meaning of government. First prize won by a teen girl on the importance of Obama saving the auto industry. She interviewed people, showed evidences of small towns that would have fallen completely apart if their car industry there had collapsed, and gave example after example of specific families that would have been all out of work if
agencies and related businesses had been lost. The negative is frightening indeed.

Some of you may have watched Rachel last night. Without getting into details, she reported on almost half of the states planning to restrict what ordinarily is a simple process for registering to vote: showing your id and address. In many, people will have to show their birth certificates, etc.

In several states beyond Michigan and Wisconsin, the governors have promoted legislation that enables them to take over towns that are in economic troubles. Benton Harbor in Michigan has already been taken over by the Gov.  He replaces duly elected officials with a economic czar who rules the city in every respect. As Rachel points out, the party of small gov becomes the party of autocratic big gov when Republicans take over: from Reagan to Bush II and now these governors and their legislators doing these draconian things.

We must alert MoveOn.org and ethnic churches to alert their people right now, as well as democratic parent their children who will vote to be certain they have their birth certificates. I'm going to push this in every avenue I can find, including Obama's group, Organizing for America. AMERICA HAS TO WAKE UP.