> In the rhetorical cotton candy of his inaugural address — sugary, and mostly air — Obama spoke of “investing in” rising generations and said: “America’s possibilities are limitless.” He ignores the encroaching limits imposed on the nation by his policies that are funded by debt that will burden those generations.
When George Will is at his best, there is simply no one better.
Erick Erickson writing at *Red State*:
> I think this plan is warmed over McCain-Kennedy and will do nothing to solve the problem. I say this as someone to the left of much of the readership here at RedState and the conservative base.
> The GOP was smart to put Marco Rubio as the face of the plan because many of us like him personally, support him still, and consequently don’t want to seem critical.
> But the plan makes the actual problem of immigration more difficult to solve.
Analysis like this is why Mr. Erickson is the best at what he does.
If you want to see how Marco Rubio makes his case for immigration reform, take a look at the full transcript of his interview on Rush’s show. I have to admit, Senator Rubio is pretty convincing.
> Oh, by the way, Ray Lewis, something I meant to say. Ray Lewis has got a simple explanation or answer for all this. What difference does it make? At this point, what difference does it make? About Atlanta in 2000 and whatever happened in the nightclub — and the deer antler spray, what difference does it make? Hey, it worked for Hillary. If it worked for Hillary, it’s bound to work for somebody like Ray Lewis.
Well said, El Rushbo. Well said.
Daniel Horowitz writing at *RedState*:
> Undoubtedly, Republican negotiators of reform proposals, like Marco Rubio, are well-intentioned in their desire to solve a serious problem with thoughtful solutions. However, if they are really committed to advancing conservative solutions and addressing conservative concerns about the immigration system, they must understand the adversity we all face with our Democrat opponents on this issue. Their proposals must be crafted to work not just in a world full of Marco Rubios and Paul Ryans, but in a political system full of Luis Gutierrezs and a judicial sphere full of ACLU and MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) types. Hence, when proposing immigration bills, to know thy enemy is key.
Very good advice from Horowitz and something to keep in mind as we start seeing the *actual*[^fn1] immigration reform bill that comes out of the Senate.
[^fn1]: As we all know, these *outlines* are garbage in today’s politics. We have to assume there will be thousands of pages of non-immigration related provisions in any “immigration” bill.
Related: water is wet.
> Liberal groups say it will increase taxes on the middle class.
Is Obamacare the only thing that Liberals *did not* say would increase taxes on the middle class?[^fn1]
[^fn1]: Which is nice, since it actually did.
Again, this proposal eliminates the current income tax structure. I do not like the provision that requires opening a special “Unlimited Savings Allowance” account, however. Regardless, it should be an interesting to see how radically North Carolina’s tax system will be altered.
Interesting idea. I like the idea of eliminating the state income tax, but am worried about how taxing services (especially things like medical co-pays) will end up impacting people.
> According to the federal government, 8,400 Americans begin using drugs every day, half of them under the age of 18. And 68% of folks who become addicted to drugs begin with marijuana. Get the picture?
> So celebrate the pot culture if you want. But know you are not helping the kids by taking the high road.
Well said.
One of my former law professors writing in the *New York Times*:
> If Mr. Obama wants to avoid Monroe’s mistakes, he must extend the narrative of his presidency with a view to posterity. He should consider whom he wants to follow him and which of his legislative initiatives Republicans might support. If Mr. Obama doesn’t get involved in the next election or cannot produce significant bipartisan achievements, he risks having his successors belittle or bury his legacy.
Of course, my hope is that President does *not* produce significant bipartisan achievements and that Professor Gerhardt has rightly predicted that the President’s accomplishment will be buried.
> If House Republicans lose in November of 2014, it won’t be because they fought the good fight. It’ll be because they left John Boehner as Speaker who decided to rely routinely on a bunch of Democrats to help him sell out so he wouldn’t have to fight.
I could not agree more.
Too bad. I was hoping he would announce he was moving out of California to a state with a better tax code.
Conrad Black, writing at *National Review*, about George Will’s address that took place at Washington University in St. Louis:
> He makes three principal points: that, in most cases, religion is a desirable belief for a society in general to hold, one that benefits equally all members of that society, including those who, like himself, have no religious beliefs; that Madison, as chief author of the Constitution, instituted the system of checks and balances among three coequal branches of the government to restrain the federal government from too dirigiste an intrusion in the rights and freedoms and natural course of the lives of the citizens; and that Woodrow Wilson compromised this with the assertion of the federal government’s right and duty to be more directly interventionist than the authors of the Constitution wished.
A brilliant speech by Mr. Will. You can find [the full text](http://rap.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/George-Will-lecture-text.pdf) and (http://rap.wustl.edu/event/2012-fall-keynote-george-will/) at the Washington University website.
> You’re still spouting this nonsense about being fiscally conservative while insisting that the GOP is the problem. You buy into the media’s anti-Republican hysteria no matter what the facts are. Heck, you even believe it when Obama suggests he’s like an Eisenhower Republican.
> Well, let’s talk about Eisenhower, your kind of Republican. Did you know that in his famous farewell address he warned about the debt? “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” he said. “We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
> Bob, we are that insolvent phantom, you feckless, gormless clod. The year Eisenhower delivered that speech, U.S. debt was roughly half our GDP. But that was when we were still paying off WWII (not to mention things like the Marshall Plan), and the defense budget constituted more than half the U.S. budget (today it’s a fifth and falling). Now, the debt is bigger than our GDP. Gross Domestic Product is barely $15 trillion. The national debt is over $16 trillion and climbing — fast. The country isn’t going broke, Bob, it is broke.
I completely agree with Mr. Goldberg. I hear the “fiscal conservative, but the party has left me” argument all the time. In my opinion, it’s a sign that the media onslaught, and the rest of the left’s messaging war, has succeeded in making people think that if they believe in small government concepts, they’ll be branded as racists and bigots. If the Republican Party wants to start making up the ground it lost in the last election, this messaging problem has to be the first thing it fixes.
> Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
This is only the beginning. Not only will insurance costs continue to skyrocket under Obamacare, but additional taxes will start to drag down other parts of the economy. Some might say that was the plan all along, since it will give an opening for people to argue for a “single payer” system.
They cannot publicize stories like this if they want to try and push the narative that handguns do not benefit America’s citizens.
I would imagine that the amount of people in Congress who have no religious affiliation will continue to decline as religion itself continues to decline in America.
Peter Wehner writing at *Commentary* magazine:
> The deal to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff was a lousy one: tax rate increases during a weak economy, no spending reductions, nothing on entitlement reform. And yet if House Republicans had succeeded in derailing this deal, negotiated between Senator Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden, it would have been disastrous.
> It would have led to much higher tax increases on all Americans, even beyond the increase in payroll taxes that will now go into effect, and triggered decimating cuts in the defense department. And it would have done a great deal to advance the storyline that Republicans — at least House Republicans — are extremists enamored with nihilism.
> …
> Congressional Republicans who wanted to amend the deal sent to them by the Senate may have been engaging in a primal scream of sorts. They are enormously (and understandably) frustrated at the president’s staggering indifference to our debt crisis and their inability to do anything about it. And because this deal is so bad in so many ways, they wanted to vote against it. But if more of them had voted the way Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Eric Cantor did, they would have badly damaged their party and their country.
My fear is that until the country actually hits rock bottom, people will simply accept that we have to keep “making these deals.” By not making this deal, maybe the path to the bottom would have been accelerated and people would start seeing that it is time for government spending to be tightened up. Now, I fear that America is simply continuing on its path of decline.
The editors of *National Review:*
> Conservatives have every reason to be dismayed by [the current economic] picture, and to seek to change it. It would be a mistake, however, to regard the fiscal-cliff deal that has just passed Congress as an important cause of these destructive trends. The deal actually makes federal budget policy slightly less disastrous.
> …
> Conservatives have every reason to be dismayed by this picture, and to seek to change it. It would be a mistake, however, to regard the fiscal-cliff deal that has just passed Congress as an important cause of these destructive trends. The deal actually makes federal budget policy slightly less disastrous.
It is difficult to analyze the deal without simply thinking “America lost.” I hope the *National Review* editors are right and this is not as bad a deal as it seems at the outset.