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FOXNews.com – Groups Raise Alarm Over Social Security Tampering as Debt Panel Starts Negotiations

nterest groups are sounding the alarm that President Obama’s newly created debt commission could start hacking away at Social Security benefits in the name of closing the budget gap.

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FOXNews.com – GM Could Be in Hot Water With FTC Over Truth in Advertising

General Motors is running ads on all the major networks this week claiming it has repaid its bailout from the taxpayers “in full.” But the claim isn’t standing up to scrutiny from lawmakers and government watchdogs who have found that the automaker was able to repay the bailout money only by dipping into a separate pot of bailout funds.

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Thursday, March 25. 2010

Posted by Karl Denninger in Corruption at 08:13

Having ruined the pension funds of Americans nationally through corrupt and utterly unsustainable "projections" of future growth labor unions are now targeting your money to make up the difference:

One of the nation’s largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is promoting a plan that will centralize all retirement plans for American workers, including private 401(k) plans, under one new "retirement system" for the United States.

In effect, government pensions for everyone, not unlike the European system and regardless of personal choice.

Yes, because labor unions have done such a great job of managing their pension plans, right?

Oh wait, they haven’t.  In fact, virtually none of them are actuarially sound, and they know it.  So instead of addressing this (which would mean that workers would have to put up much more of their wages to be funneled into these funds) the SEUI is effectively advocating stealing your 401k – to cover for their outrageously rosy "estimates" on portfolio returns (which in fact have been negative over the last ten years.)

I may have been early in my "What’s Broken: All Of It" Ticker about a year ago, but it also looks like I was right.

Thursday, March 25. 2010

Posted by Karl Denninger in Corruption at 08:13

Having ruined the pension funds of Americans nationally through corrupt and utterly unsustainable "projections" of future growth labor unions are now targeting your money to make up the difference:

One of the nation’s largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is promoting a plan that will centralize all retirement plans for American workers, including private 401(k) plans, under one new "retirement system" for the United States.

In effect, government pensions for everyone, not unlike the European system and regardless of personal choice.

Yes, because labor unions have done such a great job of managing their pension plans, right?

Oh wait, they haven’t.  In fact, virtually none of them are actuarially sound, and they know it.  So instead of addressing this (which would mean that workers would have to put up much more of their wages to be funneled into these funds) the SEUI is effectively advocating stealing your 401k – to cover for their outrageously rosy "estimates" on portfolio returns (which in fact have been negative over the last ten years.)

I may have been early in my "What’s Broken: All Of It" Ticker about a year ago, but it also looks like I was right.

MOLINE, Illinois (March 25, 2010) — Deere & Company announced today that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law this week will adversely impact its expenses for fiscal 2010. As a result of the legislation, the company’s expenses are expected to be about $150 million higher on an after-tax basis, primarily in the second quarter. This impact was not included in the 2010 outlook for net income attributable to Deere & Company of approximately $1.3 billion disclosed in the company’s first-quarter earnings report on February 17th…

<snip>

http://www.johndeere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

Glenn Beck closed out the three-day conservative conference on Saturday with a stirring speech. Watch the complete speech above…

from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell

Thursday, December 17, 2009

‘And here’s the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen. That’s right. The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor. It’s the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the importance of getting it right on health care reform:

“Senators on both sides acknowledge that the health care bill we’re considering is among the most significant pieces of legislation any of us will ever consider.

“So it stands to reason that we’d devote significant time and attention to it.

“Indeed, some would argue that we should spend more time and attention on this bill than most — if not every — previous bill we’ve considered.

“The Majority disagrees.

“Why? Because this bill has become a political nightmare for them.

“They know Americans overwhelmingly oppose it, so they want to get it over with.

“Americans are already outraged at the fact that Democrat leaders took their eyes off the ball. Rushing the process on a partisan line makes the situation even worse.

“Americans were told the purpose of reform was to reduce the cost of health care.

“Instead, Democrat leaders produced a $2.5 trillion, 2,074-page monstrosity that vastly expands government, raises taxes, raises premiums, and wrecks Medicare.

“And they want to rush this bill through by Christmas — one of the most significant, far-reaching pieces of legislation in U.S. history. They want to rush it.

“And here’s the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen.

“That’s right. The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor. It’s the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private.

“That’s what they intend to bring to the floor and force a vote on before Christmas.

“So this entire process is essentially a charade.

“But let’s just compare the process so far with previous legislation for some perspective. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve done and where we stand:

• The Majority Leader intends to bring this debate to a close as early as this weekend — four days from now, on this $2.5 trillion dollar mistake

• No American who hasn’t been invited into the Majority Leader’s conference room knows what will be in that bill

• This bill has been the pending business of the Senate since the last week of November — less than four weeks ago.

• We started the amendment process two weeks ago.

• We’ve had 21 amendments and motions — less than two a day.

“Now let’s look at how the Senate has dealt with previous legislation.

“No Child Left Behind (2001):

• 21 session days or 7 weeks.

• Roll Call votes: 44

• Number of Amendments offered: 157

“9/11 Commission/Homeland Security Act (2002):

• 19 session days over 7 weeks.

• Roll Call votes: 20

• Number of Amendments offered: 30

“Energy Bill (2002):

• 21 session days over 8 weeks

• Number of Roll Call votes: 36

• Number of Amendments offered: 158

“This isn’t an energy bill. This is an attempt by a majority to take over one sixth of the U.S. economy — to vastly expand the reach and the role of government into the health care decisions of every single American — and they want to be done after one substantive amendment. This is absolutely inexcusable.

“I think Senator Snowe put it best on Tuesday:

‘Given the enormity and complexity,’ she said, ‘I don’t see anything magical about the Christmas deadline if this bill is going to become law in 2014.’

“And I think Senator Snowe’s comments on a lack of bipartisanship at the outset of this debate are also right on point.

“Here’s what she said in late November:

‘I am truly disappointed we are commencing our historic debate on one of the most significant and pressing domestic issues of our time with a process that has forestalled our ability to arrive at broader agreement on some of the most crucial elements of health care reform. The bottom line is, the most consequential health care legislation in the history of our country and the reordering of $33 trillion in health care spending over the coming decade shouldn’t be determined by one vote-margin strategies – surely we can and must do better.’

“The only conceivable justification for rushing this bill is the overwhelming opposition of the American people. Democrats know that the longer Americans see this bill the less they like it. Here’s the latest from Pew. It came out just yesterday.

“A majority (58 percent) of those who have heard a lot about the bills oppose them while only 32 percent favor them.”

“There is no justification for this blind rush — except a political one, and that’s not good enough for the American people.

“And there’s no justification for forcing the Senate to vote on a bill none of us has seen.

“Americans already oppose this bill. The process is just as bad.

“It’s completely reckless, completely irresponsible.”

###

The president of the National Council of La Raza, America’s largest Hispanic advocacy organization, said healthcare reform should include “everyone” — including illegal aliens.

Speaking at a press conference in support of President Barack Obama’s efforts to overhaul the healthcare system, La Raza President Janet Murguia said:

“From our perspective there’s a strong case to be made in this country for us to reform healthcare,” and “it ought to include everyone.

“We know that politically it’s very difficult right now to take on the issue of undocumenteds [but] there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be trying to cover as many people as possible, certainly when it comes to undocumented children. Our goal should be to have healthcare for everyone.”

Murguia told CNSNews: “In terms of fairness and cost efficiencies, I think it’s in the interest of healthcare reform to have access to as many people as possible.”

Language inserted in the healthcare reform legislation would make federal health insurance subsidies available only to U.S. citizens and legal residents. But the House and Senate bills do not contain a clear provision for verifying citizenship status.

Rep. Michael Honda, a California Democrat, said undocumented aliens, “if they can afford it, should be able to buy their own private plans. It keeps them out of the emergency room.”

Rep. Honda and other Democrats who support his position say that the illegals should be able to buy insurance “even if it comes through a government-established exchange,” the Washington Times reported.

But Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, declared: “If anyone can, with a straight face, advocate that we should provide health insurance for people who broke into our country, broke our laws and for the most part are criminals, I don’t know where they ever would draw the line.”

Newsmax.com
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THEIR Playbook

Did you ever ask yourself, “WHAT in hell is he doing??“  This is one theory.

Keeping in mind that “progressives” (Marxists) want power.  Power over anything they can grab.  Also keeping in mind that Obama has shown himself to be a Marxist, his goal is, bluntly put, to collapse this country.  Why?  Once he has the country in chaos, hungry shell-shocked people will take whatever solution he offers (Cloward-Piven Strategy, page 5). 

Using steps from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, he’s plowing ahead.  You will recognize many of them, both in the “Rules” and methods in the “Crisis Strategy” that follows. 

From Newsmax.com, Diane Alden, January 7, 2003:
 
Saul Alinsky died in 1972. He was a Marxist grassroots organizer who spent much of his life organizing rent strikes and protesting conditions of the poor in Chicago in the 1930s. However, unlike Christian socialist and activist for the poor Dorothy Day, Alinsky’s real claim to fame was as strategist for anti-establishment ’60s radicals and revolutionaries.
 
Indeed, Alinsky wrote the rule book for ’60s radicals like Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Miller and Nancy Pelosi. He considered Hillary Rodham to be one of his better students and asked her to join him in his efforts as an organizer of radical leftist causes. But Hillary had other fish to fry on her climb to national prominence.
 
“Rules for Radicals” begins with an unusual tribute: “From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”
 

The devil challenged authority and got his own kingdom, and that goes to the heart of what left is really about. That of course is to get power any way you can, including lying, cheating and stealing. The ultimate rule is that the ends justify the means.

 … Alinsky and his followers counted on the guilt and shame of the white middle class to get what they wanted. In order to take over institutions and get power, the middle class had to be convinced that they were somehow lucky winners in “life’s lottery.”

 Alinsky’s radicals found a perfect vehicle for their destruction of the American system and more particularly for taking and maintaining power. That instrument was the Democratic Party.

 Obama is proud to have learned and taught Alinsky’s methods for community organizing.

 Originally published in 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals, a Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals.  Alinsky’s rules, which he calls “power tactics”, are listed.  Notes on his rules are in italics.  Pay particular attention to rules 5, 8, 11 and 13:

 RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

 Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

 Sound familiar?  Did you realize, before the current administration how EVIL were the corporations that have fueled the jobs in this country?  How EVIL are wealthy people? 

 Obama is doing his best to divide this country solidly with the “haves” being humbled and their power (wealth) being taken “for the good of all”.  As he taxes us more and more, the number of “haves” grows smaller every day.  Don’t fool yourself; YOU are one of the “haves”!

 RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”

 When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat.

 Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.  Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.

 You see an example of this taken and used against them accidentally in the “mobs” at the town hall meetings.  You notice that town hall meetings are being replaced by “one-on-one” events and “telephonic town halls”.  It is taking them from a situation outside their experience (angry people – especially conservatives – in large numbers) to a comfort zone.

 RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”

 Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

 This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.

 RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

 Historically, Republicans hold the moral and ethical high ground.  So tempt them and then absolutely hammer them with the results, whether the reported issue is true or not. 

 Remember Mark Foley, Republican homosexual Congressman in Florida?  He was accused of sending inappropriate emails to young male pages, and on the say-so of one young man, who led us to believe he was 16 at the time, was hounded out of Congress.  Foley’s a Republican and they are supposed to be moral, so he must go, right?  After all the hoopla and his resignation, it was found out that the page Mark Foley was exchanging emails with was 19 and over the age of consent.  This would be lauded if Mark Foley were a Democrat, but he was politically killed by lies, the Republican book of rules, and much help from the liberal media.

 RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

 It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule.  Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

 In line with this rule, smirking media talking heads are calling the Tea Party attendees “Tea Baggers” to ridicule them.  “Tea bagging” is a homosexual act.

 This is being used against them in the “Socialism” poster depicting Obama as the Joker.

 RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

 They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.  Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.

 Conservatives, are by nature, well… conservative.  You see them out in force now because they have come to recognize that their whole way of life is at risk.  You don’t/won’t see them laying in the streets to block traffic or handcuffing themselves to fences, they don’t enjoy the attention like the largely immature liberal constituency seem to do (look up “useful idiots” for more on this).  We generally don’t like to make a scene, that’s why Obama should be paying VERY close attention to these Tea Parties.  We aren’t having fun, the fact that they are so well attended means he’s got one pissed-off population!

 RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

 Don’t become old news.  Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.

 Ever notice how a “traditional protest” has something of a party atmosphere?  Got to have fun!

 RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

 Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

 Boy, are we seeing THIS one!  It’s something new every day!  We are fighting against them taking over our health care while they are working on food rules that need to be countered, cap and trade, and another (bigger) “stimulus” bill.

 Recall Rahm Emanuel (White House Chief of Staff) saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste!”

 RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

 Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

 RULE 10: “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”

 This ties in with Rule 11.  He wants a violent outburst from … anyone… so he can do… something.  Martial law, perhaps?  Gun grab, perhaps?

 RULE 11: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”

 Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

 THIS is what he’s trying to do with some of the push-push-push.  Union thugs beat up a man the other night.  They are pushing people around.  How long before someone defends themselves with a weapon?  THEN the union is the underdog.

 RULE 12: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

 Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.  Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power.

 We MUST learn to use this one against them!

 RULE 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

 Remember how they demonized President Bush?  Remember Joe the Plumber?  Sarah Palin?  The CIA?  Targets picked and polarized.

 They generally go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.  This is cruel, but very effective.  Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.

CLOWARD-PIVEN

 The “Crisis Strategy”

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org

 Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

 First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

 Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

 In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.

 The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

 The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare — about 8 million, at the time — probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a “massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.”  Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level.”

 Their article called for “cadres of aggressive organizers” to use “demonstrations to create a climate of militancy.” Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of “a federal program of income redistribution,” in the form of a guaranteed living income for all — working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act.

 This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

 Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven’s article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

 Regarding Wiley’s tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, “There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests – and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones.  “These methods proved effective.  ”The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley’s wildest dreams,” writes Sol Stern in the City Journal.  “From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city’s private economy.  “As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.

 The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York’s welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in “the end of welfare as we know it” — the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

 Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. “This wasn’t an accident,” Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. “It wasn’t an atmospheric thing, it wasn’t supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare.”

 Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

 In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new “voting rights movement,” which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new “voting rights” movement was led by veterans of George Wiley’s welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

 All three of these organizations — ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE — set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with “dead  wood” — invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people — thus opening the door to the unprecedented  levels of voter fraud and “voter disenfranchisement” claims that followed in subsequent elections.

 The new “voting rights” coalition combines mass voter registration drives — typically featuring high levels of fraud — with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of “racism” and “disenfranchisement,” and “direct action” (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America’s welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation’s understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries. 

 Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros‘s Open Society Institute and his “Shadow Party,” through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left’s most ambitious campaigns.

August 6, 2009 | By Amanda Reinecker

The national deficit stands at an unprecedented $1.845 trillion. President Barack Obama’s proposed budget would increase spending by an additional $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And that doesn’t take into account Congress’ proposed $1 trillion takeover of the health care system.

With all this spending, millions of Americans are left wondering who’s going to pay for it all.

The answer: Taxpayers, big and small.

The President has repeatedly reiterated his campaign promise that he can rein in the deficit without levying any new taxes on the middle class. Instead, he proposes to saddle the wealthy with the bulk of the burden of increased spending by hiking taxes to where they were before the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. This would bring the top federal tax rate to almost 40 percent, not counting the proposed surtax on high-income earners to fund the health care plan.

Despite the President’s insistence that he remains “clearly committed” to his campaign promise, Heritage tax policy expert Curtis Dubay points out how the middle class could end up paying anyway:

We’ve heard taxes proposed on sugary drinks and alcoholic drinks. Of course, middle-class people purchase those items. Let’s not forget that the cap-and-trade program pushed heavily by President Obama falls on anyone who uses electricity, so that obviously hits the middle-class as well. And one of the first actions that President Obama took as President was to increase the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack. And of course, middle- and low-income people are hit heavily by that tax as well.

In another analysis, Dubay argues that the Left’s soak-the-rich approach will only dig the economy deeper into recession by discouraging investors and entrepreneurs from entering the market. This will “negatively affect long-term economic growth because businesses that otherwise would have been created and added jobs to the economy will never get off the starting blocks.”

Furthermore, these taxes alone would not generate enough to account for the massive spending increases. And the middle class could pay the price.

“You just can’t borrow a trillion dollars for an economic stimulus, enact a new trillion dollar health care entitlement, and increase discretionary spending by 12% through 2019 (including doubling federal education spending), and then expect to pay for it all by taxing the most productive Americans,” writes Heritage’s Conn Carroll in the Morning Bell.

There are lots of mythical benefits from tax increases, yet the Left seems determined to learn their lesson the hard way—during a recession, no less.

There is an alternative. Dubay outlines ways in which the President and Congress could cut spending and taxes, foster individual enterprise and ultimately spur significant economic growth. Otherwise, he says, we’re just “hurting the economy at a time when the U.S. can least afford further damage.”

Five questions to ask your Congressmen on health care

As members of Congress break for their August recess, many have planned to host town hall discussions on health care. “This country deserves a respectful, honest debate about health care,” Conn Carroll writes in The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell. “And the hundreds of town halls members of Congress will be hosting across the country this August are just the place for these conversations to happen.”

» FreedomWorks has compiled a list of town hall meetings. Find a meeting near you.

To help concerned citizens prepare for the town hall discussions, The Heritage Foundation has constructed a list of five important questions that the proposal’s proponents need to answer.

1. Can you promise me that I will not lose my current plan and doctor?

1. Will members of Congress enroll in the public plan?

1. Can you guarantee that Obamacare will not lead to higher deficits in the long term?

1. Will there be rationing of health care for patients on the public plan?

1. Can you promise that my tax dollars will not fund abortions?

» Get talking points, in-depth analysis and more on Heritage’s rapid response page

The heated town hall meetings of the past week have already demonstrated the broad public opposition to big-government health care. As one University of Pennsylvania professor tells Politico, this movement could present a political problem for the Left. “If this comes down to vocal individuals, the Obama campaign ought to be able to always outnumber their opponent. And if they’re not, then that’s a problem.”

Host a 33 Minutes screening

You can host a screening of Heritage’s feature-length documentary on missile defense, 33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age.

The threat to America hasn’t changed, nor has the need to defend the American people. Yet the Obama Administration plans to significantly cut and roll back a missile defense plan that has been in place for years to protect us–without having a serious national discussion on this issue. The Heritage Foundation is working get this discussion back on the table and you can help by hosting a screening of our film. We’ll supply you with all the materials you need to host an effective, informative and enjoyable event.

   » Watch the 33 Minutes trailer and apply to host a screening

> Other Heritage work of note

• The Heritage Foundation has been a strong presence in the health care debates. In July alone, our experts conducted over 130 television and radio interviews on health care, while our FixHealthCarePolicy.com Web site has become a go-to resource for lawmakers and the media.

• Unlike so much of the rest of the world, America “inherited a framework for resolving our differences according to shared principles and practices of constitutional government,” writes Heritage’s Jennifer Marshall. Unfortunately, these principles are often misused and disregarded, endangering our nation’s ability to address these differences, explains Marshall, who oversees Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society. These “cultural minefields” manifest themselves today in debates over school choice and public health care, where progressive proposals threaten an individual’s freedom to support only those causes they believe in.

• During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama promised a better foreign policy in Latin America. However, Heritage foreign policy expert Peter Brookes condemns the administration’s “‘Have a Coke and Smile’ brand of foreign policy.” This policy has led to increasingly strained relations south of the border, while the likes of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez continue to build anti-American coalitions.

• “[Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates’ approach to the defense authorization bill recently pushed through Congress is riddled with ‘old think,’” writes Heritage homeland security expert James Carafano in an article for the Washington Examiner. The defense plan reflects the Cold War philosophy that America’s enemies are “predictable” and therefore easily written into the defense budget. But this doesn’t account for unexpected and potentially more sophisticated attacks. “Enemies who really want to kill you prepare for the kinds of battles that you don’t want to [or aren't prepared to] fight,” Carafano warns

> In other news

• The Senate has confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, 68-31, making her the first Hispanic on the high court.

• The House of Representatives has endorsed, and the Senate is expected to pass, a $2 billion extension of the “cash for clunkers” spending program. Under the program, Americans who buy certain government-approved cars are given up to $4,500 to destroy their used cars.

• The courts are again getting involved in policies properly left to lawmakers, in this case public safety and spending. Citing the need to improve prisoner health, “a panel of federal judges ordered the California prison system on Tuesday to reduce its inmate population.”

• Russian nuclear submarines have recently been spotted off the American coast for the first time in more than a decade.

• The abortion battle may again be decisive politically as more information comes to light about the President’s public health care plan. Many socially-conservative liberal lawmakers would hesitate to support the legislation if the final version expands public support for abortions.

> Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other events at Heritage please RSVP at Heritage’s website. Or you can view these events live online. All times are Eastern.

• On Monday, August 10 at noon, Heritage will screen the new documentary Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous than Global Warming Itself.

Amanda Reinecker is a writer for MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. Nathaniel Ward, the Editor of MyHeritage.org, contributed to this report.