raising taxes is the enemy of controlling spending.
Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour
From the American Spectator, by Peter Ferrara, The Timeless Principles of American Prosperity
Several times in the last 100 years, whenever the nation’s economic policies adhered to the timeless principles of economic growth and prosperity, our economy has boomed. When it has departed from those policies, it has fallen into stagnation, or worse.
America today once again desperately needs to return to the timeless principles of economic growth, to restore our traditional, world leading prosperity, and the American Dream. This should be the central argument and theme for this fall’s elections.
Last year, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute produced a brilliant, overlooked book that recounted the history of supply-side economics—Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity, by Brian Domitrovic. As explained in that book, the roots of supply-side economics go back to 1913, when the national income tax and the Fed were first adopted. “For restraining the institutions created that year—the income tax and the Federal Reserve—is the essence of supply-side thinking,” Domitrovic writes.
It didn’t take long for trouble to brew. The top tax rate of 7% soared to 77% by 1918. Moreover, the income tax, sold as a tax on the rich, began to apply at just $1,000 in income (equivalent to about $20,000 today). In addition, during World War I, the Fed essentially doubled the money supply relative to the economy. Inflation consequently soared by 84% over the 4 years from 1916 to 1919. The Fed then slammed on the brakes, draining 60% of the excess money, and throwing the economy into steep recession as a result. Unemployment soared to 12%, 50% higher than in any previous recession.
Warren Harding, newly elected President in 1920, appointed the enormously successful Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon Secretary of the Treasury, with the duty of fixing the economy. Mellon adopted what became the supply-side economic formula. He slashed the top income tax rate to 25%, and the bottom rate from 8% to 1%, increasing the income level to which it first applied by 50%. Moreover, Mellon led the Fed to stop the money supply drain, return interest rates to standard levels, and devote itself to stable prices. The Fed would look to market price levels, particularly commodities, including gold, for its guide.
The result was the Roaring ‘20s, the greatest boom in American history to that point, essentially beginning the modern American economy. Real output galloped, stock prices tripled, real wages advanced with productivity increases, and prices were stable. “It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long distance telephone call, took their first vacation,” as Domitrovic quotes Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway.
The Depression arose and worsened as America departed from these pro-growth policies. Instead of maintaining stable prices, the Fed allowed the money supply to decline precipitously, even while dollar demand was soaring as the world sought a stable store of value. This created ruinous deflation. Mellon’s tax rate policies were also ruinously reversed, with the top income tax rate raised first to 63%, and then to 79%, with the lower tax rates raised even more in percentage terms. The Smoot-Hawley tariff added another tax burden that killed international trade. President Roosevelt tried to restore prosperity with soaring Keynesian government spending and deficits, which failed miserably as the Depression dragged on for over 10 years. By 1933, unemployment was at 25%, and GDP was down 57% nominally, 22% in real terms.
Read the full article for the complete history of Supply Side Economics.
John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, GW Bush all applied Supply Side Economics with great success yet the current occupant of the White House is doing the exact opposite and reaping disastrous results. Keynesian Economics practiced by the Democrats, exclusively, have never lead to prosperity and it won’t now.
If the Obama Administration would learn from our history America’s prosperity could be restored. Unfortunately when the Bush tax cuts expire we will face an economic downturn that will rival the Great Depression or worse.
Just remember as I pointed out previously, President Warren Harding faced a worse depression than the Great Depression and recovered the economy in one year using Supply Side Economics. It worked then, it can work now.
From the Heritage Foundation, Ready for the Next Trillion-Dollar Bailout?
CLASS is a new long-term-care insurance program that was inserted into Obamacare so that Congress could raid its $70 billion surplus through 2020 to cover Obamacare’s initial deficits. Like the raided Social Security trust fund, future taxpayers will have to repay that $70 billion with interest when the program falls into deficit later.
Thus, even Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) admits that Congress has enacted “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”
Just another reason Obamacare needs to be repealed, CLASS is another entitlement that America can’t afford.
Comment to an article on David Rosenberg’s, YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN A DEPRESSION WHEN ... reader B9K9 NAILS the current economic condition.
Who knew laws would be abrogated, criminals rewarded and riches absconded? Who knew centuries old jurisprudence & Constitutional provisions would be discarded as mere inconveniences which were preventing rewarding cronies & political supporters?
dupes, rubes & dopes (um, that would be most of us), made the fatal mistake of bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Never, ever apply logic & fundamental reasoning skills in an environment where the thugs control all the cards.
I’ve learned my lesson - how many others have learned theirs?
Credentials:
Former president and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza
Former president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association
Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Vice president of Burger King
Vice president of Pillsbury Company
A mathematician for the U.S. Department of the Navy, and…
A business analyst for Coca-Cola
He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Morehouse College, and…
A master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University.
And, Pssttt…. Unlike Obama, he believes in the American Dream, American Exceptionalism and The Unites States Constitution.
What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.
John Adams
From The Washington Post, by Tom Tancredo, The case for impeachment
For the first time in American history, we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. That’s why I say the greatest threat to our Constitution, our safety and our liberties, is internal. Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms.
Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law.
To Mr. Obama, the rule of law is a mere inconvenience to be ignored, overcome or “transcended” through international agreements or “norms.”
From The Washington Times, by Jeffrey T. Kuhner, President’s socialist takeover must be stopped
President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors. The Democratic majority in Congress is in peril as Americans reject his agenda. Yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.
He is slowly - piece by painful piece - erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there - yet. But he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances; subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law; presiding over a corrupt, gangster regime; and assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism. Like Venezuela’s leftist strongman, Hugo Chavez, Mr. Obama is bent on imposing a revolution from above - one that is polarizing America along racial, political and ideological lines. Mr. Obama is the most divisive president since Richard Nixon. His policies are Balkanizing the country. It’s time for him to go.
What recourse does America have against a corrupt President when the Congress of the United States supports his illegal actions? My fear is that they will invent a crisis and declare martial law, suspend the constitution and create an American Dictatorship. I know that I am not alone.
From The American Conservative, by Thomas Dilorenzio, Central banking and militarism are intimately linked.
A history of banking and the boom and bust cycle explained by a professor of economics. To me one tidbit stood out…
The boom created by the Fed’s war financing inevitably caused a bust—the Depression of 1920, the first year of which was even worse than the first year of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Gross domestic product declined by 24 percent from 1920-21, while the number of unemployed Americans more than doubled, from 2.1 million to 4.9 million. The Great Depression of 1920 only lasted one year, however, thanks to President Warren Harding’s inspired policy of cutting both government spending and taxes dramatically.
WAIT! WHAT WAS THAT?
Obama has done the opposite, how is that working out America?
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
Earnest Hemmingway
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
Pravda - 50 Random Facts That Make You Wonder What In The World Has Happened To America
Our world is changing at a pace that is so staggering these days that it can be really hard to fully grasp the significance of what we are witnessing. Hopefully the collection of random facts below will help you to “connect the dots” just a little bit. On one level, the facts below may not seem related. However, what they all do have in common is that they show just how much the United States has fundamentally changed. Do you ever just sit back and wonder what in the world has happened to America? The truth is that the America that so many of us once loved so much has been shattered into a thousand pieces. The “land of the free and the home of the brave” has been transformed into a socialized Big Brother nanny state that is oozing with corruption and has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. The greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen is falling apart before our very eyes, and even when our politicians actually try to do something right (which is quite rare) the end result is still a bunch of garbage. For those who still love this land (and there are a lot of us) it is heartbreaking to watch America slowly die.
America is going bad so fast that even Pravda noticed. Read the rest…
50 Random facts, not a pretty picture.
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
Voltaire, 1764
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Orphaned!
The Democrat and Republicans In Name Only, (RINO)s, have lost touch with the American People. They have become the political elite and We the People have become "fly-over country." I am not a Nazi, a terrorist, a member of the KKK, a racist, or a member of an angry mob. I'm not a birther, teabagger, truther or astroturfer. I do, however believe in the original intent of the Founding Fathers, the United States Constituton and the rule of law. I believe that Government should serve the People, not the other way around. I’m an American and conservative to my very core.
I feel like an orphan.
An American Political Orphan.
| July 2010 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
