Archive for November, 2006
(Alexandria, VA) — The Democratic Party's "New Direction for America" might attempt to steer government toward a sounder financial footing, but its course leads to $79.1 billion in new annual federal spending, according to a line-by-line analysis by the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF). Among the findings:
- Health care represented the largest spending category at $28.8 billion, or 36 percent of the total agenda. Within this category, Democrats proposed to "fix the Medicare prescription drug program," which would cost $29.5 billion annually. The plan did call for spending cuts amounting to just over $1 billion, in order to "end wasteful giveaways to drug companies."
- Veterans care was high on the list as well, at $19.8 billion. The initiative to launch a "G.I. Bill of Rights for the 21st Century" would provide increased pay, health care, and other benefits for veterans and their families. This program would increase outlays by $99 billion over 5 years, and would be offset by increasing the top income tax rate.
- Education spending, at $16.2 billion, represented approximately 20 percent of the total net agenda. The Democratic plan called for increasing the maximum individual Pell Grant to $5,100 ($4.0 billion in total annual spending), recruit science and math teachers ($3.7 billion yearly), and reduce college loan interest rates ($7.4 billion annually), among other items.
- Yet another proposal called for an "AmeriSave" account system that would establish a dollar-for-dollar federal match for the first $1,000 contributed to a personal retirement plan. This initiative would cost taxpayers roughly $7.5 billion each year.
(Washington, D.C. ) – Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) today announced a new Internet web site, in collaboration with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that will help veterans to register and vote in the upcoming elections: http://vetsvoteamerica.org/
“This is an important step forward in pushing for even greater voter participation by veterans,” VVA National President John Rowan said, “and to make sure that their fellow citizens know they are veterans.”
Recently the Secretary of Veterans Affairs launched a “Veterans’ Pride” program to encourage all veterans to wear their medals and campaign ribbons on Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July as a way of visibly taking pride in their service.
“While Vietnam Veterans of America believes the Veterans’ Pride program is a good idea,” Rowan said, “it is even more important for veterans to wear their medals and campaign ribbons, or anything else that identifies them as a veteran or a veteran’s family member, when going to the polls on Election Day.
by Christopher Adamo
Despite all of the hype the media have spawned from the Mark Foley controversy and the direction in which they want to take it, a critically important facet of the 2006 elections should not be overlooked. With few notable exceptions, this campaign cycle once again focuses chiefly on the issues of importance to conservative America. And this pattern has remained unchanged for more than the past two decades.
Admittedly, the War on Terror, and in particular, the ongoing situation in Iraq, provide aspiring liberal politicians with an occasional opportunity to pander to their far left, "cut and run" base. But even when attempting to appeal to that fringe constituency, liberal candidates often pull their punches, seeking to establish themselves as "cut and run" candidates who do not really endorse the idea of cutting and running.
by Bob Parks
So Nancy Pelosi says the Democrat Party will not seek impeachment proceedings against President Bush IF the Democrats take control of the House and Senate.
Coming from a Democrat, that's a big IF. Remember, Democrats seldom tell the electorate what they plan on doing after Election Day, because to do that would spell doom. Just ask Bill Clinton where that middle-class tax cut that got him elected President the first time went…?
The position Pelosi now takes can't be rubbing terrorists worldwide the right way. Their current strategy of ramping up murder in Iraq is working. Democrat pundits are using the deaths of American soldiers as a marketing tool to energize the liberal base and give them a reason to point their fingers at Republicans and scream "See…?"
Liberals are now pulling out all the stops. The only way they can will next month is to blame the up-tick in Iraq violence on a failed military campaign. The only reason it's failed is because our military has been forced to fight with their hands behind their backs.
Let's not be taken out of context: war is hell, which is why it should be only used as a last resort. But when we do opt to send in the troops, it should be balls-to-the-wall, kick ass, win the damn thing and get out.
But that's something we can't do anymore as a nation. We can't win. Winning is bad because, in the liberal mind, that wouldn't be fair to the loser. So we go in, complete with embedded reporters that are there to supposedly report the goings on, but in reality, are there to document the atrocities of war, and only when we commit them.
And if they can air some video of courageous freedom fighter picking off one of our Marines, maybe it's worth a Pulitzer or two.
While our domestic media focuses on the increase of roadside and homicide bombings, kidnappings, tortures, and executions by insurgents on Iraqis as an excuse to blame the whole thing on the liberation, they distort the reality here in the United States.
How many Democrats are still using the phrases "high gas prices", "lack of jobs", and an war that they now publicly declare "unwinnable." Never mind the numerous letters from soldiers who want to go back and finish the job there because THEY see the good that's being done despite the violence that seeks to reach some November 7 crescendo.
By Alan Caruba
The political pundits all tell us that Americans have grown weary of the bloodshed in Iraq and the loss of our troops sent to topple Saddam Hussein and help the Iraqis establish a working, secular democracy. They say the Democrat Party will win and, true to their promise, will begin to “redeploy” our troops from there and Afghanistan.
The Republicans and the Bush Administration urge us to stay the course in its efforts to transform the Middle East and defuse the Islamic threat to the United States and the West.
One thing Americans know for sure is that we are no longer safe from attack in our homeland. We learned that on 9-11, but that awful day recedes now in our collective memory. The experts tell us America will be attacked again.
So, on Election Day we must vote as if our lives depended on it, because they do.
The reason is almost too obvious, but it is human nature to deny it. The deliberate murder of millions of people in the name of Islam is not just hard to grasp, but too horrible to contemplate. Let it be said, however, Islam is in love with death. At the core of this warrior cult is the suicide bomber who takes his own life in order to kill others.
Just briefly consider Islam in the latter part of the last century and what it promises as this new one begins.
There probably will never be a full accounting for the millions of Iraqis murdered under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but in the course of the Iraq war against Iran it is estimated that more than a million died and the war against Kuwait cost thousands more. This year, by the end of May, the bodies of 6,000 people had filled Baghdad’s main mortuary as sectarian violence raged out of control. It continues unabated.
By Alan Caruba
It’s not very often you will find me agreeing with an avowed environmentalist, but facts are facts and, when it comes to population growth, they are ignored at our peril if America is to avoid sliding rapidly into a Third World status.
“The American people, especially our leaders, must bring themselves to face the reality that our population cannot be allowed to continue to grow without disastrous consequences,” said Donald Mann, president of Negative Population Growth, Inc. in response to the news that on October 17, 2006 our population passed the three hundred million mark.
Of that number, the estimate of illegal immigrants ranges from twelve to twenty million. In his bestselling book, “State of Emergency”, Patrick J. Buchanan noted that “Rarely have immigrants constituted 10 percent of our number,” adding that “We have almost as many foreigners here today as came in the first 350 years of our history…(and) most of those coming are breaking in.” The U.S. Census bureau calculates that an immigrant sets foot in America, legally and illegally, every 31 seconds.
Americans, in addition to the out-of-control immigration crisis, have an even larger crisis looming and it too will impact every aspect of our lives. With more people being born every day than are dying, we are less than thirty years away from a population of 400 million!
We do need a new, replacement, younger work force and the current Social Security and other benefits programs depends on this. It’s predicted to go broke in a decade or so anyway.
A dramatically growing population is going to require more roads, bridges, power plants, airports, housing, jails, schools, hospitals, and other elements of our national infrastructure just to keep pace with our current needs. By any measurement you apply—crime, healthcare, education, transportation—life in America is going to grow worse without the facilities and the energy to maintain our current lifestyles.
The quickest, easiest answer is to stop all immigration, legal and illegal, into the nation and do not tell me this cannot be done. It has already been done. Between 1924 and 1965, America declared a moratorium, a forty-year pause that allowed the “melting pot” to facilitate assimilation into our culture.