DIOGENES: In Search Of An Honest Politician!

DIOGENES invites you to pull up a chair on this rainy day and read
posts from around the world.
The writing may lean to the right...but that's the way Diogenes wants it!
You may leave your opinion,
but Diogenes rarely changes his! WELCOME!

Monday, January 27, 2014

GOP Should 'Do Nothing' On Immigration Reform

Monday morning, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough warned that the one thing that could cost the GOP control of the Senate this year would be to pass immigration reform. That same day the editors of National Review shouted "don't do it" with the warning that history proves "President Obama obviously can’t be trusted" to abide by any kind immigration deal.
Though not in a way the media, GOP Establishment, big business, and Barack Obama would like, it looks as though conservatives, the grassroots, and various elements of the Republican Party are unifying on this issue. National Review's reasoning starts with the obvious, that immigration reform is only seen as a priority by 3% of the American people and therefore hardly the burning issue the media and Democrats pretend it is.
"The other prudential reason not to act is that President Obama obviously can’t be trusted," NR writes. "Any immigration deal would have to trade enhanced enforcement for an amnesty. Since the president refuses to enforce … provisions of immigration law he finds uncongenial, he obviously can’t be relied on to follow up on his end of any bargain."
If President Obama has proven anything during his time in office it is that he has no regard for the rule of law or the Constitutional wisdom of divided government. Tomorrow, Obama is promising a State of the Union address where he will flaunt his "pen and phone" promise to ignore Congress. The president makes no secret of these things. To trust him to enforce a border that keep Democrats out is utter folly.

A GOP Immigration Plan to Satisfy No One

The House Republican retreat sounds like it is going to live up to its name.
“Comprehensive immigration reform” was once again moving through its normal life cycle: fawning coverage of leading amnesty supporters, bold predictions that legislative success was inevitable, dire warnings that House Republicans must capitulate or be doomed to permanent minority status—and then nothing.
That was the fate of the McCain-Kennedy bill and its imitators in both 2006 and 2007, when President George W. Bush teamed up with Democrats to overhaul immigration laws and admit more foreign workers.
Barack Obama promised to succeed where Bush failed. But there was no action on immigration when the Democrats held three-fifths majority in both houses of Congress. Afterwards, there was only limited executive action to legalize the subset of illegal immigrants who might have benefited from the DREAM Act, which once again stalled in the Senate.

Reince's Solutions Miss Mark (GOPe taken down to size)

In typical establishment fashion, Reince Priebus and the wizards at the RNC have looked at the last presidential nomination cycle and learned the wrong lessons. They have concluded that not allowing Mitt Romney a smooth coronation was the problem, and they are out to make sure their anointed one never has to face that again. As such, the prescriptions for change recently announced by Priebus will only make things worse. This is what happens when a national party is isolated from -- and igorant of -- its nation.
Yes, the debates did become a series of shameless food fights as the process unfolded -- and something should be done about that. But what exactly? One might think that the establishment consultants would look in the mirror and figure out that it was they, and their candidates, who made it so. As long as the debates were focused on the problems of Obama and liberal judges, liberals in Congress, liberal academics, liberal unions, and liberals in the media, the debates were awesome. We needed more of those debates. Of course, only Herman Cain, and at two different times Newt Gingrich, had this figured out.

Everything You Ever Needed to Know about the Left’s View of Income Inequality

If you want to know why the left is wrong about income inequality, you need to watch this Margaret Thatcher video. In just a few minutes, the “Iron Lady” explains how some – perhaps most – statists would be willing to reduce income for the poor if they could impose even greater damage on the rich.
This picture is another way of getting across the same point. It was sent to me by Richard Rahn (famous for the Rahn Curve), and it uses two pizzas to show how leftist policies would “solve” inequality.
I like this analogy, and not just because I also used the pizza analogy to make the same argument in this TV interview.
The growing or shrinking pizza is useful because it helps to focus people on the importance of growth.
Nations that follow the right policy recipe can enjoy the kind of strong and sustained growth that enables huge increases in prosperity for all income classes. In other words, everyone can have a bigger slice if the pie is growing.
I even tried to educate a PBS audience that growth is better than redistribution if you really want to help the poor. Talk about Daniel in the Lion’s Den!I don’t know if I persuaded anyone, but at least the facts are on my side. Consider, for instance, how the world’s two most laissez-faire jurisdictions – Hong Kong and Singapore – haveovertaken the United States over the past 50-plus years.
That’s been great news for low-income and middle-income people, not just the rich.
So ask yourself whether you’d rather be a poor person in one of those jurisdiction or in France. The government in France has all sorts of programs to make your life easier, but you have very little hope of escaping a life of dependency.
And now ask yourself whether it’s good that Obama is doing his best to push America in that direction.
P.S. If you want another example of how long-run growth makes a big difference, check out this chart comparing Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. Not only has Chile overtaken the other nation thanks to pro-market reforms, but the poverty rate has fallen dramatically.
P.P.S. Since this post shares a very good image about income inequality, let’s include a bonus picture on taxation.
It’s a helpful suggestion on how to make kids aware of the cost of big government.
Though let’s be sure to acknowledge that Obama is doing what he can to make kids more skeptical of class warfare.
P.P.P.S. On a separate topic, I’ve explained that the so-called “austerity” vs “growth” argument is grossly misguided because Keynesian spending isn’t pro-growth and also because it’s important to distinguish between good austerity and bad austerity.Too many governments are choosing the wrong type of austerity, imposing destructive tax hikes on the private sector. What’s really needed in genuine spending restraint so that “austerity” is imposed on the public sector.
But some folks on the left say there’s been too much spending restraint in recent years.
So who’s right? Well, UBS has produced a report containing some very useful data.

Viewing the global economy as a single unit, we see a very different picture to the post-crisis world of austerity – at least if “austerity” is taken to mean government spending cuts. The two largest components of global GDP, namely private consumption and fixed investment, both hit multi-year peaks in the first quarter of 2008. …Since the start of 2008, government consumption at the global level has risen by 20% in real terms, whereas private consumption and fixed investment have risen just 8% and 5%, respectively. In other words, despite talk of austerity, government spending continues to run ahead of private-sector spending.

Hmmm…the burden of government has been growing faster than the private sector. That’s the opposite of what the Golden Rule calls for.
And not only has government been growing too fast in the past, it’s likely that fiscal policy will get even worse in the future.

Structurally, government debt, government spending, and the share of government within the economy must be sustainable. Government consumption’s share of global GDP has risen from 11% to 14% over the past 15 years. In 2013, it reached its highest level since 1980. At the same time, government debt-to-GDP ratios have hit record highs in many countries. In the long run, such elevated levels of expenditure (and corresponding levels of debt and deficit) are probably not sustainable, in particular, given other structural changes underway. For instance, demographic trends in many advanced economies pose challenges.

Communists Sue Democratic Party For Stealing Platform!

In a surprise move, the CPUSA (Communist Party USA) has announced a lawsuit against the Democratic Party and its leadership for the alleged theft of intellectual property. The plaintiffs claim that the entire so-called "new" Democratic agenda is, in fact, the product of a decades-long, painstaking campaign by CPUSA theorists, agitators, and underground subversive cells - which makes it the intellectual property of the Communist Party USA, protected by American copyright laws. "They stole our entire platform, rebranded it 'progressive', and claimed it as their own," declared a CPUSA spokesperson at a press conference in San Francisco. "And we communists say, not so fast! Not in this country anyway, where we still have property rights and the rule of law, thank God! Actually, let me rephrase that..."
The Communist Party representative explained that government ownership of the auto and financial industries, redistribution of wealth, and free rationed healthcare have always been among the glorious CPUSA objectives: "We held on to these goals through all the difficult years of factional infighting, purges, denunciations, and heroic espionage on behalf of the Soviet intelligence services. "This may seem like a foreign idea to you, but we sacrificed everything for it - our friends, our neighbors, and our nation. We suffered from all kinds of ulcers and split personality disorders by blindly following Stalin's directives. We risked our chances of promotion within US government agencies by dutifully advancing Soviet foreign policy. And for what? So that some spoiled Democrats could ride on our backs to power while throwing us crumbs in the form of minor cabinet appointments?

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), once part of the "Gang of Eight" in the Senate that wrote the immigration bill that the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of American workers, believes that conservatives are opposed to amnesty because they don't want America to become "less white."
"Yes, things have changed. White Anglo-Saxon men are not exclusively running the country anymore," he said Thursday. "President Obama lost the white male vote 35 to 62 percent yet he recaptured the presidency – by 5 million votes and a resounding electoral college margin."
Schumer said the changing demographics also "[explain] why so many on the right vehemently opposed the Senate immigration bill."
"In a pre-tea party world, the Senate immigration bill would have been welcomed by House Republicans," he said. "However, the tea party rank and file know it's a different America. It looks different; it prays different; it works different. This is unsettling and angering to some."(continued)

Former New Orleans Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin, who led the city during its darkest days after Hurricane Katrina, will be thrust back into the spotlight this week when he goes on trial in a corruption case that mushroomed at the end of his eight-year tenure.
[Snip]
Nagin's 21-count indictment includes bribery and wire fraud charges, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years and 20 years in prison, respectively.

White House panics as millennials wise up, bail on Obama!

President Obama is making a sudden push to win back millennial voters, who have grown disillusioned over his failed “Hope and Change” campaign that left them without jobs, living in their parents’ basement.
Even though he has run his last race, the president needs the 18-to-34 age group to make his signature Obamacare policy work. Without them, the whole system falls apart — not tomorrow, today, right now, before the radical reform of U.S. health care can even get off the ground.
Just how bad is it? Just 24 percent of the new enrollees to Obamacare are between 18 and 34. The entire plan was predicated on a sign-up rate of nearly 40 percent, the idea being that healthy young people will pay more — much more — than they once did to offset the unhealthy elderly signing up for Obamacare.
In some states, the sign-up rate for millennials is abysmal: Arizona and West Virginia saw just 17 percent of the age group enroll. The White House, of course, predicts that number will grow as the deadline to sign up nears at the end of March (if you’ve got a millennial kid, you know they only do things at the last minute).
But the situation is far worse than just flagging enrollment of Obamacare, and the president knows it...