http://www.twincities.com/…

Now that Hillary Rodham Clinton has conceded the Democratic contest, we are faced with the prospect of another round of boring, scripted party conventions.

The only sign of life is the alternative convention scheduled for September in St. Paul by Ron Paul. The losing candidate for the Republican nomination has hired a hall so he can put on a show for the libertarian wing of the party as the big GOP show goes on nearby.

This promises to be fun. But it would be more fun if the Republicans had simply given the Texas congressman a speaking role at the convention and thereby brought his supporters into the fold. John McCain certainly needs them in what promises to be a close election. But why doesn’t he want them?

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Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, spoke today in front the Commonwealth Club of California, the country’s oldest and largest public affairs forum. A transcript of what he said in entirety can be found on the Dallas Fed’s website, here. Cliff Notes on the other side of the jump.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Republicans need to be Republicans. The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says “look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it.” Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. It doesn’t fly. People aren’t going to buy that, because that’s not the way we are as a people. That’s not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for.If you have a breakdown in the social structure of a community, it’s going to result in a more costly government … police on the streets, prison beds, court costs, alcohol abuse centers, domestic violence shelters, all are very expensive. What’s the answer to that? Cut them out? Well, the libertarians say “yes, we shouldn’t be funding that stuff.” But what you’ve done then is exacerbate a serious problem in your community. You can take the cops off the streets and just quit funding prison beds. Are your neighborhoods safer? Is it a better place to live? The net result is you have now a bigger problem than you had before.

I think this guy needs a lesson in libertarianism and for that matter Republicanism. Perhaps a few quotes from a man he espoused to be like, Ronald Reagen, would point him in the right direction. Or maybe he could have paid attention when in the debates with Ron Paul.

http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/…

Time to listen to Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the lone voice of reason in Congress today who’s got to feel like he’s shouting into a field of cotton with his repeated warnings about the dangers of a collapsing dollar, while the administration goes AWOL on the problem.

The dollar just hit a record intraday low against the euro on reports that consumer confidence levels have dropped to levels not seen since the post-Watergate era. It is down 7% year to date against the Chinese renminbi, it’s weaker than the Japanese yen and the Canadian loonie.

The joke is the greenback is now only stronger than the Mexican pesos and the Zimbabwe dollar, an overstatement for dramatic effect, to be sure.But since hitting a peak in 2002, the dollar has lost about a quarter of its value against a trade weighted basket of currencies.

A weak dollar acts as an anvil around the neck of the US economy and consumers. Rising inflation is essentially a tax on consumers, so are rising energy prices, and that double whammy threatens to undermine the purchasing power of the rebate checks due out in May–backed by printing even more dollars.

A bellwether event of significant import to our nation’s finances happened this past January 1 with little notice. That’s the day the first baby boomer was allowed to retire. A new federal report wearily warns once again for the umpteenth time that the nation faces some $60t in Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities alone.

We’ve heard time and again conservatives say deficits don’t matter. To say that deficits don’t matter is like saying ketchup is a vegetable or trees cause pollution.

This article is almost too positive. If she’s so in agreement with Paul’s economic position or at least parts of it then why haven’t I seen more of him on her programs?

These stats are taken from my 2007 W-2:

Total percentage of AGI: 33.7628%

Total days spent explicitly for the government: 123.315993

This obviously doesn’t include the matching Social Security funds my employer pays, property taxes I pay indirectly through my landlord, NJ sales tax, state and federal gas taxes, import and export taxes, corporate income taxes, etc.

http://www.humanevents.com/…

If you forgot to get a Christmas present for Charlie Rangel, don’t worry. The congressman picked one out for himself, and he’s sending you the bill: $2 million for a shiny new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.

The New York Democrat’s Monument to Me was one of about 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved before going on vacation. Most represented a more subtle form of self-aggrandizement, aimed at maintaining power and prestige by currying favor with voters.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the total cost of the 11,000 or so earmarks in the omnibus bill and an earlier defense bill is about $14 billion, which is not much in the context of a $2.8 trillion federal budget. But the same tendency that explains the persistence of earmarks — the habit of staying popular by pretending your constituents can get something for nothing — also explains the failure to address the federal government’s increasingly dire fiscal predicament.

The root of that predicament is not earmarks, which represent less than 1 percent of federal spending. Nor is it the war in Iraq, which at $100 billion or so a year accounts for less than 4 percent.

So-called entitlement programs are the reason “America faces escalating deficit levels and debt burdens that could swamp our ship of state,” as Comptroller General David Walker put it in a recent speech. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 40 percent of federal spending and are expected to consume 51 percent in a decade.

I wasn’t going to post this story originally. While I believe his $100 billion Iraq figure is disingenuous given that there is also other military discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Totaling just shy of $700 billion for 2007. Regardless he makes very important points but they are fairly well known. The reason I had to post this is because of one of the comments. Comment #2 from Charles in Ohio:

We need to raise taxes, bust up corporations, mandate living wages for workers, and cap salaries for executives. We need a one child policy to prevent overpopulation, send more money to public schools, and oversee a total dismantling of the military.

What Democrat will do that? Any?

It’s time this country realized that the way to pay for all these illegal wars by an unelected president is to tax at 100% levels any rich person, that is, anyone making over $100,000 per year. Then we end the wars, tax corporations at historically high levels to erase the deficit, nationalize health care and ban all private medical practice forever.

The government is the solution and must provide basic needs to all Americans. That is FAIR! Watching retired generals and former defense contractors show up in welfare lines is FAIR because of all they stole from the poor.

Which Democrat will do that? Any?

Will any Democrat dare do what is FAIR and start taxing by race and gender? Blacks, Latinos, women, and gays should be given tax breaks and rich white men’s taxes should be raised to pay for those breaks and that is FAIR!

Will any Democrat do this?

At first I thought it was your average egalitarian socialist but Charles goes a whole lot further. I wish he would have told us who will do what he proposes.