Last week we talked about Obama's scary budget proposal. But why is it scary? Why is having more government spending and programs a bad idea?
William Easterly, in his book The Elusive Quest for Growth, paints a clear picture:
"In an economy with many government interventions, skilled people opt for activities that redistribute income rather than activities that create growth."
You might have noticed a funny little thing happening lately: everyone thinks they have a legitimate claim to government money. Lobbyists have never been happier as their phones are ringing off the hook. But what are the long term consequences of this?
Blog
Obama recently presented his 2010 budget, and a lot of Americans are having sticker shock. From an economic standpoint, his budget does have a couple good ideas in it, such as cutting some subsidies to farmers. But after that, it gets a little scary.
This budget provides the clearest picture yet of what Obama really wants to do: expand government and redistribute wealth. Even the New York Times calls the budget a “pronounced move to redistribute wealth”.
Bobby Jindal delivered the Republican response to President Obama's speech tonight. We couldn't have picked a better person to represent this new era of conservatism. Although the Governor of Louisiana has some room to grow with his oratorical skills, it was a clear representation of conservatism and set the right tone for the party.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Jindal said that, "In the end, it comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. We oppose the national Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs."
Aaron Schock is currently the youngest member in Congress. What might be surprising, given the current woes of the Republican Party reaching out to young voters, is that he's a Republican. And thankfully, he's a very articulate and likable one.
The 27-year-old has been in the news lately for standing up under the pressure of Obama's charisma... and offers of trips on Air Force One. Our new President flew Schock to his hometown of Peoria, IL, for his speech to workers at Caterpillar. Obama was trying to gain support for the recently-passed stimulus bill, and he was hoping Schock would be pressured into casting a "Yea". He wasn't.
Schock isn't completely new to national attention, though. In September, he took the stage for a couple minutes (literally) at the Republican National Convention.
Do Republicans care for the poor? It's a fair question to ask. Unfortunately, the response for too many young voters is "No." This has caused many young evangelicals to flock to Obama and the Democratic party.
One of the leaders of this exodus is Chris LaTondresse, creator of RecoveringEvangelical.com. This son of evangelical missionaries says the reason he, along with many others, made the switch is because their faith speaks about more than gay marriage and abortion.
Here is how he put it on an interview with Fox News.
Okay, point made. But that leads to the question: what are the best policies for helping the poor around the world?
In case you missed it, Michael Steele became the new RNC Chairman last week. He said in his acceptance speech that "it's time for something completely different." He wasn't joking.
Yesterday, Steele gave legs to his rhetoric by asking the 100 staff members at the RNC to resign. He has certainly wasted no time in bringing change to the Republican Party.
So what do you think? Was Steele the right choice? Was getting rid of all RNC staffers a smart move?
You can read more about Steele cleaning house here.
This little gem comes from our friends at Post Secret. We're guessing many on the left are having similar bouts of depression. On the flip side, though, many Republicans are likely realizing the benefits of being in the minority.
Democrats are now the ones who are responsible for our government; they are expected to have the right ideas and policies... the magic elixirs, if you will. While this temporary relief is refreshing, Republicans can't stay in the minority for long. The future of our country depends on it.
Even though our ideas aren't the ones being passed in Congress right now (unless you consider a $700 billion reformed stimulus package a Republican idea), it's important we're still developing them. The country will probably be looking to Republicans once again in a few years. We better be ready.
President Obama recently said that we all need to show the same spirit and courage as the Founders of this great country. I’m glad to say that on this point, the President and I actually agree. I only hope he’ll follow his own advice.
Alexander the Great is said to have remarked that the reason the peoples of Asia had for so long been slaves was that they never learned how to say “no,” and in that story lies the soul of what made the Founders of this country so great. When writing what would become the Constitution of the United States and given the chance to seize total power for themselves, they said “no”.
Upon the election of our new President, Barack Obama, many of my friends (even conservatives) encouraged me to give our new leader a chance. I agreed with that request. I did my best to believe (maybe out of naivety) that despite his record, I would give the chance of hope to our new President. Today, I must announce that I rescind that hope. The fact of the matter is that within days of taking office, President Obama has made dastardly executive orders that only prove his record as the most liberal United States Senator.
Obama signed a Presidential executive order today that lifts the ban (placed by the Bush administration) on overseas abortion funding. One day after the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade court decision, the order will reverse the policy that “requires any non-governmental organization to agree before receiving U.S. funds that they will 'neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.'”
My grandfather, a pastor, has told me many times that leadership is a bloody nose and having both of your front teeth knocked out. Sometimes the saying varies and it’s a broken nose and black eye. But in the end, the essence of leadership is facing more persecution than praise, more anger than applause.
As I watched President Bush give his farewell address last Thursday night, I thought to myself, Now there’s a leader. Like the Greek boxer from an ancient Olympics, President Bush has taken such a beating that it is very likely his own dog doesn’t recognize him anymore.
Yet there he stood, addressing the nation for the final time, not lamenting over the hand he had been dealt, but standing by his decisions and thanking the American people for giving him the honor of serving as our president.
The focus within the Republican Party since the election has been on who the new RNC Chairman will be. Like we said previously, this is an important job. It's not the only one, though.
The Republican Party needs good leaders at all levels, including the state and grassroots levels. We need leaders that can communicate the benefits of conservatism. It is relevant, after all. We also need more young leaders in the party.
President Bush gave a great speech today (haven't heard that one lately) about our current financial crisis. His main points were along the lines of what we previously mentioned here.
You can read more about his speech here.
Here is more of Obama's Chump Change, this time about our economy.
Obama Change: Protect U.S. workers and provide more government programs
Chump Change: Increase prices for U.S. consumers, make the U.S. less competitive, and raise taxes
Flanked by unionized Wal-Mart greeters, Obama can be found rollin’ back America with tax hikes and toilet paper rations for all.
There are more slaves today than ever before in human history. This slave trade is worth $32 billion a year - more than what Nike, Google, and Starbucks make combined. Human trafficking (which is a nice way of saying slavery) involves victims who are forced, defrauded, or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation.
If you're like most Americans, it seems impossible this is still happening. It also makes you wonder why you haven't heard more about it.
Thankfully, the Republican Party has a plan in their 2008 Platform to fight human trafficking: "We advocate the establishment of an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, reporting directly to the President, and call for increased diplomatic efforts with foreign governments that have been negligent toward this evil."
As with most issues, we shouldn't just look to our government to solve the problem. That's where nonprofit organizations and individuals come in. One way to fight slavery is by creating awareness, which is just what the film Call + Response set out to do. Below is their (slightly graphic) trailer. Be sure and check out their website to see if the movie is playing in your city.
Aristotle had a unique outlook on life. He taught his students to live between extremes. In battle, for example, the extremes were cowardice and irrationality. Nothing was worse than cowardice, but a foolhardy rush to war with no consideration of the costs or risks wasn’t much better. Courage lay between the two.
Courage recognizes the fear that drives the coward to inaction but acts anyway; however, such action is marked by caution and sobriety rather than haste and foolish bravado. Thus courage fits neatly between (and is superior to) the two extremes.
I’m no Aristotle, but if I could be so bold, let me give you this piece of advice: live between panic and intellectualism. It’s a little place called common sense, which I urge us to live in because it’s going to see us through the dark economic days ahead.
Lyndon Johnson was probably the best negotiator in U.S. political history. Known as “Master of the Senate” before becoming president, he was often able to get other Senators to do what he wanted. Perhaps his greatest feat in the Senate was getting civil rights legislation passed when Segregationists dominated his party.
As president, he even talked a justice of the Supreme Court into resigning to become ambassador to the United Nations.
There was one battle, however, Johnson couldn’t negotiate his way out of...the Vietnam War. Johnson felt sure that if he could just sit down with Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, he could talk him into ending the war. Regrettably, Ho was of the opinion that as long as Johnson was willing to talk, he wasn’t willing to fight hard enough to win. Even more regrettably, Ho was right.
If you've watched the news at all this week, chances are you've seen Bill Clinton doing an interview. Why is Bill all over the news? Well, it's not necessarily because Hillary's getting ready for a 2012 run for the White House. The reason you're seeing a lot more of Bill is that the annual meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative are being held this week.
Basically, Clinton brings together a lot of rich or influential people and gets them to donate money to worthy causes. In the first 3 years, CGI has raised $30 billion in commitments, helping 200 million people in 150 countries with such issues as health, education, clean energy, micro loans, etc.
Interestingly, in many of these interviews, Bill has basically been promoting a conservative ideology (in not so many words).
We've always heard how most Americans would rather have a beer with President Bush than other politicians. According to the Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Bush has (figuratively speaking) took it up a notch and bought alcoholic Americans a round of drinks. Let us explain.
In Part 1, we shared thoughts from Mayor Bloomberg about America's financial crisis, explaining what the government bailouts mean. Today, we'll give you his thoughts on how we got here in the first place.
Michael Bloomberg, business mogul and New York mayor, spoke at Georgetown last week. He talked about what's happening on Wall Street, the Federal Government's bailouts, and how we got to the place we find ourselves today.
While Bloomberg considers himself an independent, his economic views are mostly conservative. His assessment of what's going on with the financial industry seems to be accurate, and his prescription for improving it sounds convincing.
In this first part, we’ll cover Bloomberg’s assessment of the recent government bailouts and the need for fixing how Washington regulates the financial industry.
Special thanks to our friends at Postsecret for displaying this. Postsecret is a popular website sharing anonymous secrets sent in on postcards.
Hurricane Gustav did not cause the damage we all feared. This was partly due to nature, partly due to the great leadership of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.
Bobby was certainly in the news over the past couple days, although he had to miss his keynote speech at the Republican National Convention. He is a rising star within the Republican party, with strong fiscal conservative values.
On Friday, the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Bobby released an article showing how fiscal conservatism helped Louisiana beat Katrina. You can read that article here.
Bobby Jindal is a rising star within the Republican Party. The 37-year-old Governor of Louisiana is considered by many to represent the future of the GOP.
Last week, the GOP Youth Convention announced that Bobby is teaming up with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to serve as Honorary Co-chairs of its campaign to bring young people to the GOP National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In about 8 months in office, Jindal has already brought great reform and conservative principles to a state better known for its street-lined festivities and questionable ethics than a healthy business environment and tax cuts.
In an interesting turn of events, Senator McCain and the Republican Party are now using Obama's popularity against him, comparing him to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and David Hasselhoff.
They recently released separate videos, painting Obama more as a celebrity than a viable commander-in-chief.
Watch these videos and let us know your thoughts. Is there truth behind the ads, or are they just a clever (and humorous) political ploy?
From the McCain Campaign
"I understand the challenge I have, and I understand that this election is really all about the people of your generation," John McCain said of young voters at a recent town hall meeting in Ohio.
According to an article today on CNN, McCain has his work cut out for him. As of right now, Obama is carrying the young vote (for a few obvious reasons, not the least of which is age).
Conservative outreach groups are saying that McCain must work to connect young voters with the principles of conservatism. Incidentally, that's what The Relevant Elephant is doing, and will continue to do.
We do this because we strongly believe that when a young voter understands the guiding principles of conservatism, they will see that it's best not only for our country, but for themselves as well.
The Relevant Elephant is working hard on some exciting updates that will better inform you on the Presidential election. So be sure and check back often.
It’s 2:30AM, and all is quiet. Without warning, the sound of breaking glass echoes through the night air. Dressed in black from head to toe, a shadowy figure crawls through the broken basement window. He wastes no time, quickly stuffing his bag with valuables, looting the house of its contents.
As he kneels to empty a drawer of silverware into a pillowcase, the intruder is interrupted by a swift kick to the back of the head and is sent sprawling across the floor. As he rolls over and comes to his senses, he finds himself staring down the barrels of two loaded pistols in the hands of the Tomb Raider herself, Angelina Jolie.
“How is this possible?”, he thinks to himself. “I picked this house because celebrities live here... they can’t possibly be gun owners!”
As The Relevant Elephant grows, we’ll be connecting young voters with leading conservatives from across the nation. Today, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating shares his thoughts about Senator McCain’s character with The Relevant Elephant in light of General Wesley Clark’s recent comments.
Former Democrat presidential candidate,
General Wesley Clark, suggested that being shot down over Viet Nam is not a presidential credential for Senator John McCain. He conveniently ignored the rest of the story.
John McCain went on to complete a distinguished Navy career, including executive stints as a squadron commander. His service as a U.S. Congressman, and long serving United States Senator, are heralded. In those positions he behaved more like a governor and less like a legislator. McCain brought together competing interests of both parties to resolve problems. It was not enough just to talk about resolution. He got resolution. If it were not for his executive leadership in the confirmation battles involving Federal judges, neither John Roberts nor Sam Alito would be on the Supreme Court today.
The Missouri Governor’s race will be one of the most watched elections in the country this year. The Republican primary has definitely heated up in the past couple weeks, with controversy surrounding Steelman’s attack ads and Hulshof’s response.
The Relevant Elephant recently interviewed both candidates, and not surprisingly, they both think they are the most relevant candidate to young voters. In the interviews, Steelman attacks Hulshof’s voting records in Washington and plays up her Missouri experience. Hulshof talks about the influence young conservatives can have and his plan for creating an economy that provides quality careers to young voters in Missouri.
The Relevant Elephant will be endorsing a candidate this week, so we want to hear from you. Be sure and check out both of their interviews and where they stand on the issues.
Coldplay’s highly anticipated and Latin-inspired
album, Viva la Vida, was released today. And whether your Facebook status currently proclaims your unwavering love for the endearing Brits or you’ve spent years trying to convince your friends that Chris Martin’s crooning falsetto is overrated, you’re probably aware of the band’s promotion of fair trade. Maybe you’ve even been influenced by it. Martin’s Bono-esque advocacy for fair trade has materialized in a variety of ways, from the crafty use of Sharpie on his ivory-tickling hands to the distribution of petitions at Coldplay concerts.
Barack Obama has run an historical campaign. The first African American to clinch a major party nomination, Obama's run for the White House has generated unrivaled enthusiasm. Not only did he finally beat the pantsuit off Hillary Clinton, he's also spoken to larger crowds and raised more money than any other candidate in the history of presidential primaries.
Young voters are especially attracted to the inspiring and articulate politician from Chicago's south side. Obama has brought young voters out of the woodwork. "Yes, we can!" has become the battle cry of a generation whose main goal seems simple on the surface: change.