The Next Government Grab – Higher Education

While Egypt and Syria are falling apart and our economy continues in a malaise of tepid growth, I guess the best thing to do, if you don’t like governing, is to change the subject. That is exactly what President Obama did this past week. He did what he likes to do, take vacations, play golf, and go on campaign trips and give speeches that inspire selected audiences and tells them what they want to hear.

For the last 5 years he has been telling college students how his financing programs would make college more affordable. You recall that he push through a $1trillion student loan program for which the U.S. tax-payer is the guarantor. Now he does a 180 degree turn and tells them that our economy can’t afford a trillion in outstanding student loan debt. His solution is for the federal government to rate colleges on their effectiveness and efficiency and then, as an incentive, allocate federal subsidies to those schools that Washington believes is providing the best education at the lowest cost.

How is that for irony? The federal government should look in the mirror before it rates anyone on effectiveness and efficiency, when you consider its track record! Why can’t the professional academics, parents, and students decide on the best universities to attend? The rise in tuition costs since 1965 is a direct result of the federal subsidy machine of tax-payer guarantor student loans and federal grants and loans to colleges which caused them to increase staff, salaries, and curriculum. This is what always happens when the government starts to provide incentives. The price goes up. Since 1983 tuition and fees have risen by 257% while family incomes advanced 16%.

We should think hard and long before allowing the Federal government to dominate our system of higher education. Like Obamacare, this is just another step toward statism; when government influences what is taught and how colleges spend their money. There is no place for this in our society and it sounds more like what Hitler or Lenin would do. How would conservative universities compete with lefty schools with this administration?

The best approach is to stop the increase in grants and subsidized loans that Obama has greatly accelerated.  Instead of “tinkering” with a system of higher education that is second to none in the world; a system that thousands of foreign students flee to every year to get the best education they can. We have enough college grads and can’t even find jobs for them right now.

 The federal government should get out of higher education. As much as those lefty professors abhor the idea of a free market, I bet they go ballistic at the thought of politicians running their universities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faithful Execution of the Law – Obama Style

Well, it has taken me a while, but I am finally breaking my pledge not to directly criticize Mr. Obama after his recent press conference on Friday. This guy bugs me so much that I simply can’t resist. His comments are so revealing about his attitude on Presidential power and his rather cavalier approach to the constraints of the U. S. Constitution. I can only conclude that although he is revered by blacks, young people, gays, and liberal women he is nothing but a politician who only thinks about his opposition and ways to blame them for his mistakes and stays aloof of the real problems. He is a liar and a hypocrite who misrepresents the facts and assumes that since the low information voter doesn’t really follow events, what he says will be believed by the masses. This is a strategy used by dictators and tyrannical regimes. It works, except when people become educated or life gets so bad that riots occur and the military take over, which is not likely in the U.S., mostly because he will be out of here in 2016.

What troubles me the most is that the White House press corps did not take him to task when he rationalize his decision to delay for one year the Obamacare corporate mandate in violation of the effective date of the existing law. He said he acted unilaterally because the Republicans were “ideologically fixed” against Obamacare and this was a tweak that doesn’t go to the “essence “ of the law. What he neglected to tell you was that in July the House passed a law giving him authority to tweak this law which he said he would veto because it was “unnecessary”, so the Senate didn’t even bring it to a vote. The House also passed a companion bill delaying the mandate for ordinary Americans as well, let’s hope he will not consider that “unnecessary”. The implementation of Obamacare is fraught with technical problems and impossible procedures which show it to be un-operational and that is why the Republicans are fixated on it!

The President’s remarks show that if he thinks a part of this bill does not affect the “essence” of the law, he can elect to change it by “executive authority” without seeking Congress to affect a legislative remedy. Therefore, this so-called Constitutional lawyer can elect to change any law passed by Congress if he thinks the change does not affect the “essence” of the law, so he can act as the Supreme Court and the Congress if he sees fit. This is the attitude of a Caesar Chavez, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Mao, and even Hitler, and now we have a President that feels that way. Not one reporter took him up on his remarks or why he is giving Congress the ability to opt out of the law entirely. Enough said for investigative journalism. That’s why we yearn for a leader, instead of a political misfit. Have a nice vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. President.

 

 

Why the IRS Scandal is Important

 Since the Obama regime (and it is a regime) can check any conservative blog on the Internet, should I expect an IRS audit this year? If I gave money to a Tea Party group, could I be targeted for additional IRS scrutiny? Also, because I am a conservative, should I be investigated using a different set of guidelines than my liberal counterparts? Or the converse, if I were a liberal and conservatives had the White House, should a different set of tax rules apply to me? Well, this is exactly what we have with the current regime and their playbook, and never since the Nixon administration have we seen this. As you recall, Mr. Nixon resigned in order to avoid impeachment.
         
Will we impeach Mr. Obama? Of course not, that’s why I hang up when groups advocating this call me for donations. I don’t support such a waste of time and money. We will never impeach our first black President. It will cause a tremendous outrage and set back the progress we have made in the civil rights arena by 100 years. There will be riots and it will eliminate any chance for future African-Americans to have a shot at the Presidency.

               Should Mr. Obama be impeached for the way he runs the Executive office? Certainly! The Nixon presidency is a case in point. For example, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is now involved in the IRS scandal. There is now evidence that this presumably neutral agency received information from another presumably neutral agency, the IRS, and used its enforcement powers against conservative groups. The FEC’s General Council staff sought tax information about conservative political groups from Lois Lerner (remember her?) of the IRS. Such a request is illegal and is a clear violation of FEC rules. The IRS is barred from releasing such information, but Ms. Lerner, based on her political bent and apparently instructions from White House Council, elected to ignore the law. There is also evidence from emails, that the FEC created a “novel” or scenario by which a conservative group could be “investigated” by the IRS which was more severe or stringent than the evaluation of liberal groups.

               All this is typical of this regime. Create a straw man, spread a bunch of lies or mistruths about him, and then proceed to tear him down as you deflect attention from your mistakes and blunders. It was done to Romney and is now being done in the Virginia gubernatorial race where an outstanding conservative, Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General, is running against Terry McAuliffe, the has-been cast off from the Clinton years. The Obama playbook is being used by McAuliffe as he goes negative, stays vague on his policies, and stresses the fanciful GOP “war against women” on his opponent. Does anyone still believe that?

               Just like this President, who has decided not to govern and stay aloof of the real issues in the world, but spend his 8 years in office campaigning and lecturing ideaology to special interest groups, blacks, young people, women, and spreading mistruths about his favorite straw man, the GOP.