Newtown Shooting

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT is a horrific, unimaginable evil.  I cannot imagine the grief and utter despair of the families who lost their young children. I can also not fathom the depth of psychosis that would lead anyone to commit such a heinous act. My prayers go out to all those who were affected by this tragedy.

In times such as these, emotions across the nation run high as we collectively grieve for the victims and their families. We want to know how this could happen...why would someone ever want to harm the most precious and innocent among us...our children. We want to feel safe...that this could never happen to us, or any of those we love. We are angry, and righteously so. We want someone to blame for letting it happen. We want assurance that steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence. We feel helpless and afraid.

We must look for real, workable solutions and not, as is done too many times in our society, simply actions that soothe our emotions and assuage our fears.

This is all understandable.  It's a natural reaction to such an unfathomable and terrible event.  But in our grief...in our anger, we must be careful not to let emotions rule.  Already the media talking heads with their anti-gun agendas are calling for stricter gun laws.  This appeals to our fears and insecurities.  After all, if no one had guns, this couldn't have happened...right?  Well, solutions based on fear and insecurity are seldom wise, and usually don't achieve the desired goals.  We must look for real, workable solutions and not, as is done too many times in our society, simply actions that soothe our emotions and assuage our fears.

First of all, lets look at some hard realities:

No one can ever make you completely safe.

This is indeed a hard truth.  We want to feel safe in our homes, schools, shopping malls, etc.  But life is fragile and easily disrupted or destroyed.  This can be through accidents, natural disasters, disease or malevolent actions by others.

While it is certainly logical to try to reduce risk in life, safety comes with trade-offs.  You must make judgments everyday, in every part of life on what you are willing to give up to feel safer.   You can choose to race around in a sports car that you really enjoy...or safely obey every speed limit and traffic law in boxy soccer mom car with the highest safety ratings, and lowest fun ratings...or not drive at all because the Center for Disease Control (CDC) identifies motor vehicle injuries as a "leading cause of death for people age 5-34"...higher than suicide, homicide and cancers.  The vast majority of us fall between Speed Racer and Soccer Mom.  We wear a seat belt and drive reasonably safely, but most of us bend the traffic laws and try to drive something we like.

Guns don't kill people.

I know...this is a controversial one, especially in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.  But, it's more than a NRA cliche...it happens to be true.  A gun is a tool...like many other tools we have in our world.  Guns can be used for sport...for defense...or offensively...just like cars.  On the CDC's National Vital Statistics report (December 23, 2009), in a List of 113 selected causes of death, firearms related deaths do not appear until #100-Accidental Discharge of Firearms...under #1-Samonela,  #96-Motor Vehicle Accidents, and #99-Accidental Falls.  Others include: #105-Suicide by Firearm, #106-Suicide by other means, #107-Homicide by firearm, #108-Homicide by other instrument, and #113-Complications of Medical Care.

So are firearms dangerous?  Absolutely.  When used carelessly or with malicious intent, they are deadly like many other tools of mankind.  Keep it in perspective, though.  If a criminal, terrorist, or psychotic wants to inflict mass causalities they can do it without a gun.  Just a few examples are:

• September 11, 2001 - Of course everyone remembers when more than 3000 people were killed by terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Center twin-towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
• April 19, 1995 - Oklahoma City Bombing.  Domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, along with other accomplices killed 168 people and injured 680 others with a truckload of fertilizer chemicals.
• March 25, 1990 - Happy Land fire. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio González killed 87 people at the Happy Land social club with a plastic container of gasoline and two matches.

Recently, a knife wielding man in China injured 20 elementary school children. The UK Daily Mail reports that "There were six similar attacks in just seven months in 2010 that killed nearly 20 people and wounded more than 50." Knives are also tools that can be used to kill or injure.  In these cases, they injured many in one spree.

So what do we do?  

Surely it's not all hopeless.  We certainly don't have to just lay down and accept that we're all just helpless prey for psychopaths and criminals.  Wouldn't gun laws help to reduce the risk of such tragedies happening again?  I believe the answer is a resounding NO.

"During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower."

No laws will eliminate guns.  That genie is already out of the bottle.  There are millions and millions of guns in this country.  Stricter laws may get guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, but will not make them impossible to obtain.  Criminals of all types will still have them...there will be a thriving black market for guns brought in from outside the country.  I heard former US Representative J. D. Hayworth say just this morning on the radio (and I'm paraphrasing): If stricter gun laws are passed in this country, of course the law abiding will follow the law.  But those with no compunction, no compulsion to follow the law...the lawless...will not.  How is it that we would be helping the law abiding citizens by abridging their rights to defend themselves against the lawless?  The result of stricter gun laws would be a citizenry that is defenseless against criminals, and there would still be many other methods for psychotics to use to commit mass mayhem.

It may feel good to think that a law can eliminate something you feel is bad for society, but tell me how that worked for the prohibition of alcohol...or illegal drugs.  If strict handgun laws worked to reduce crimes committed with a firearm, you would expect the cities and areas with the strictest laws would have the lowest crime...right.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Washington  D. C. have, or have had some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.  They have also been the areas with the highest violent crime rates.  In fact, the Just Facts web site noted that, "During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower."

I hear you saying, "If stricter gun laws won't work, then where right back where we started...helpless, right?" Of course not.  That attitude is only a result of years and decades of being trained that the Federal government is the only source of solutions.  In fact, the government has very few real solutions.  No, the solutions lie with our local communities...with our States.  Since we cannot hope to get all guns off the streets...since we know criminals will continue to have guns...since we know that we can never be completely protected, not even by the police or government, we have to take matters into our own hands...not as individuals for schools and public places, but as communities, school districts, cities, counties and States.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ~ Amendment X, United States Constitution

I once heard the president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) say that when people ask him why he felt someone needed to be able to have firearms for personal protection, since that's why we have a police force, he would ask them if they should be allowed to have a fire extinguisher in their homes.  Most people say of course you should be allowed to have a fire extinguisher.  Why, he would ask, isn't that why we have fire departments?

The point is, when a violent crime is being perpetrated against individuals, families, group, or school children, the police cannot respond quickly enough to avert or reduce loss of life.  Just as a fire extinguisher in a home or public building cannot prevent a fire, but can help eliminate or contain it to save lives and property, so also a gun in the hands of a law abiding and trained private citizen at the scene of a violent crime can be used to end or contain a shooting incident.  The Just Facts web site notes that, "Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year." That is almost a million incidents a year where the criminal would have came out on top and many lives would have been taken if these citizens would have been prevented, by law, from defending themselves.

"Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year."

Policemen cannot be everywhere...just as firemen can't.  Policemen usually don't prevent violent crime, they show up after it's over to pick up the pieces...just like firemen with a fire.  We, as a society, feel no compunction against teaching citizens, from children to senior citizens, how to prevent and survive fires.  In fact, we feel compelled to do so.  We should likewise feel compelled to train our citizens to defend themselves and others from violent crime...to build a new local militia, of sorts, of trained and certified citizens who would be able to react to violent crimes quickly, because they would be everywhere throughout the community... legally armed and at the ready.  I'm not saying that we should create some kind of armed para-police organization, but simply citizens living their lives who could confront crime if it happens to them or those around them.

Over the past several years, with stories such as the Newtown shooting or deadly crimes in my local area, I have become more and more determined to to carry my legally procured and registered handgun with me as often as possible.  I pray that I will never have to use my guns in self defense, but I have decided that if such a crime would happen when I'm around, I will be able to act to save my own life, my family or other complete strangers.  I feel it is my duty as a husband, father, and member of society.    I know that there are many out there, like myself,  who have been willing to purchase the weapons and ammunition, to get training, and submit to background checks to become licensed to carry legally.  If more training were available, many like myself, would be willing to get it at their own cost.

But, what about the schools?

Schools are places with a special designation as "No Gun Zones."  The laws passed to create this designation were meant to protect our students and prevent gun violence on our campuses.  As we have seen from Columbine, to Virginia Tech, to Sandy Hook Elementary, these laws have no power to prevent a person, or group of persons from entering campus and killing students and faculty.  In fact, since everyone knows that no guns are allowed on campus, there is no one to defend against attack.  The laws have, as so many other such well-intentioned  pieces of legislation, had the opposite effect...they have made the schools targets.

While I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to just allow people to randomly wander onto school property with firearms.  We should take real steps that none-the-less help defend our children.  I propose the removal of the Gun Free Zone restrictions and allow facility and staff, once properly screened and trained, to carry hand guns on school grounds.  This should be a voluntary program and require both background and psychological screening.  These screenings should be periodic.  Training should also include gun safety, weapons retention, escalation of force doctrine,  as well as marksmanship and defensive shooting.  They should be taught concealment techniques so that no one, students or other staff members, ever even know they have a weapon.

Training and screening should be done by independent, non-governmental agencies to avoid political agendas.  Identities and numbers of teachers in each school who participate in the program should be kept private to the school district.  Some schools within a district may have high participation...some may have none. But, if the public doesn't know which school is which, this alone will be a deterrent to would be assailants who will not want to risk going into an area where there may be armed defenders.

Would this have kept the mentally unstable 20 year old from coming to Sandy Hook Elementary with guns?  Likely no.  Could it have stopped him before he took so many lives...could it have saved 20 children?  Very likely.  Only having armed personnel in place will stop a determined  murderer.  Waiting for police response is too little too late.  By the time the police show up, the damage is done and the assailant has escaped or committed suicide.

I believe this approach, along with other systems of lock-downs, security cameras, alarm and notification systems, and training of the children is the only hope to provide any real level of protection for our schools.

We must insist that our elected officials stop using such tragedies to further their own political agendas.  They must find effective and realistic solutions.  Gun laws do not work...it is proven in our cities...it is proven by the fact that Gun Free Zones don't work.  We must take the emotions out of the calculation and implement real-world, viable solutions.  Let's all take a breath, settle down and set about making schools truly safer.

Limited and Specific Powers

United States Constitution

Article I: Section 8. (The Enumerated Powers)

8.1 The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

8.2 To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

8.3 To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

8.4 To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

8.5 To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

8.6 To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

8.7 To establish post offices and post roads;

8.8 To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

8.9 To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

8.10 To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

8.11 To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

8.12 To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

8.13 To provide and maintain a navy;

8.14 To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

8.15 To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

8.16 To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

8.17 To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

8.18 To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Aftermath

I'm a bit too shell shocked to go into any real analysis of the election, so I just wanted to get down some of my general thoughts:

• This is now the second presidential election in a row where the Republican party decided it was best to run a "nice" campaign.  They are so kowtowed by the threats of being called racist, that they would not deal directly and firmly with Obama's history and record.  They allowed the Democrats to continue to distort facts with very little response.  This is a complete lack of leadership and the Republican party deserved to lose.
• It seems to me that we have now become a country, as a whole, who is willing to follow Europe down the socialist debt hole toward insolvency.   Alexis de Tocqueville  is credited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”  We seem to have reached this point.  We no longer ask what we can do for our country, but want only to know what our country can do for us.  We seem to be willing to sell our legacy for free health care, food stamps and Obama phones.
• The nation has reached a state of shallowness and vapidity from which I fear only truly hard times will shake us.  I saw polling information that said something like 43% of those responding to exit polling said that President Obama's handling of the hurricane Sandy disaster was "very important" to their decision.  This is absolutely astounding...and more than a little distressing...to me.  That someone could, after four years of broken promises, failed policy and nonexistent leadership, see the President acting "presidential" in a brief, staged photo-op after a storm and think that made him a good president is incomprehensible.  The fact that the response of the Federal government has been less than stellar since then means nothing to the Obama groupies with stars in their eyes.
• Half the country seems to be hopelessly invested in class warfare...just like the Russian people were before the communist revolution...or the Germans before the Nazi take over.  This has caused them to draw stark, black and white lines in their minds.  Corporations are always evil and Unions are always good.  Democrats always acts for the good of the people and tell the truth...Republicans are selfish liars who only care about what's best for them and their Corporate overlords.  The rich have stolen everything they have from the poor. They are blind to the fact that absolute power corrupts, absolutely...regardless of party, occupation or income.  They are easily fooled by 20 second sound bites and focus-group tested tag lines.
•  Facts and details mean nothing to many people.  They will not hear the truth that the largess they vote themselves is financed by trillions of dollars of indebtedness to our enemies.  They will not see that the policies of their chosen representatives have caused the financial woes we have been experiencing.   No discussion of corruption...no discussion of the rule of law moves them.  They mock, scoff at and ignore anything that does not agree with the approved party line...and this is on both sides of the political divide.  When confronted with hard issues, they do not answer them...they will only excuse, obfuscate or ignore them...but never deal with them.  If all else fails, they just blame Bush.
• There are no statesmen left...only power hungry politicians. 
• The Republicans are only marginally better than the Democrats...but we were unwilling to move even incrementally toward smaller, less intrusive government.
• I fear for our future.

Debt Limit Looming...Again!

In July of 2011, I did a post with two videos arguing against raising the Federal debt ceiling.  Well, of course they did it...they raised the ceiling.  At that time, we were about to come up against a $14.2 trillion debt limit.  We were told we had to raise the debt ceiling or we would be in default...a lie.  Now, less than a year and a half later, Newsmax,com reports that, "The Obama administration said on Wednesday that the nation would hit the legal limit on its debt near the year's end..."  That's right, now the Central Spending Machine is only "$235 billion below the $16.4 trillion statutory ceiling on the amount it can borrow."  The Debt now exceeds the GDP of the entire country at just over $15 trillion.

In an October 2011 post, when we were a mere $14 trillion in debt, I tried to put the National Debt in Perspective.  In that post I said:

"In 2010, The US government spent more than $413 Billion on interest payments alone. This is more than was spent on The Department of Health and Human Services…The Departments of Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce…hold on, I’m almost done…The Department of Treasury, Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration …COMBINED. Just to service current debt. And, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the interest payments on the debt are projected to be $1.1 Trillion a year by 2021, a mere 10 years from now."

I also pointed out that then it would have taken 384 years to pay off the debt if government stopped spending any other money and just paid $100,000,000 a day on the debt.  That time frame has increased by 65 years to 449 years...in a year and a half.

Let me remind you that candidate Obama said of President Bush's addition of $4 trillion to the debt in eight years, "That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."  Which I agreed with.  Now Obama will have raised the debt by more than $6 trillion in four years.

The Debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the last decade, from $5.9 trillion to $16.4 trillion. And now, the Treasury is already calling for another hike, "As we saw last summer, it is important that the debt limit is raised in a timely manner," said Treasury Assistant Secretary Matthew Rutherford.  

Our credit rating has already fallen.  Our spending is out of control.  We cannot continue to raise the debt ceiling.  We cannot continue to pass results of the current government's irresponsibility down to our children, grandchildren ..and great, great grandchildren.  We need to take responsibility.  We need people who do not allow their votes to be bought with government hand-outs.  We need serious adult leadership in government.  We need to reduce the size and scope of government...and we can't put it off.

Challenge Your Beliefs

Once upon a time, I was a confirmed Neo-Con.  Then I began to read history.  I studied  the founding fathers and principles.  I looked at the history of our government to the present day.  What I realized was that I had a lot of preconceived, and wrong, ideas.  I saw that the Republicans are almost as bad as the Democrats when it comes to big government, centralist policies and solutions.

I am much more of a libertarian or a classic conservative now.  I am not really happy with any party out there...the two major parties or the other, smaller parties.  Have you challenged your own long-held beliefs lately...or ever?  In the video below, Professor Jason Brennan challenges us all to question our beliefs and helps us to know How To Vote Well.

Obamanomics

Andrew Klaven provides another humorous and irreverent look at Obama's policies and understanding...or rather lack of understanding of how the economy works.

Klaven refers to James R, Otteson's article, An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism for The Manhattan Institute.   In this article, Otteson points out that while Obama said that "the market" or capitalism "doesn't work. It has never worked," this flies in the face of historical facts:

"Since 1800, the world’s population has increased sixfold; yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold. That is a truly amazing achievement. In America, the increase is even more dramatic: in 1800, the total population in America was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39, and the real gross domestic product per capita was $1,343 (in 2010 dollars); in 2011, our population was 308 million, our life expectancy was 78, and our GDP per capita was $48,800. Thus even while the population increased 58-fold, our life expectancy doubled, and our GDP per capita increased almost 36-fold. Such growth is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Considering that worldwide per-capita real income for the previous 99.9 percent of human existence averaged consistently around $1 per day, that is extraordinary. "

"What explains it? It would seem that it is due principally to the complex of institutions usually included under the term “capitalism,” since the main thing that changed between 200 years ago and the previous 100,000 years of human history was the introduction and embrace of so-called capitalist institutions—particularly, private property and markets."

The article goes on to show that, contrary to socialist propaganda, capitalism is actually the system that benefits the most people and is, in fact, the moral choice.  Some of his key points are:

• "(M)arkets allow us to 'serve' one another even when we do not love one another—even when we do not know of one another’s existence."
• "(V)oluntary exchanges that take place in the free-enterprise system are positive-sum, not zero-sum—meaning not that one person benefits only at another’s expense but rather that all parties to the transaction benefit."
• "Even if we do not all get rich at the same rate, we all still get richer."
• Rescuing hundreds of millions of people from grinding poverty is, however, nothing to sneeze at—and nothing to take for granted."

Otteson admitts that, "Capitalism is not perfect."  But, he points out that, "The benefits of the free-enterprise society are enormous and unprecedented; they have meant the difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of people and have afforded a dignity to populations that are otherwise forgotten. We should wish to extend these benefits rather than to curtail them."

"It would be all too easy for us, among the wealthiest people who have ever lived, in one of the richest places on earth, to disdain the institutions that have enabled us to escape the strictures of poverty and disrespect that have plagued humanity for the vast majority of its existence. Our crime today, however, would lie not in our inequalities but rather in our refusal to uphold the institutions that give humanity the only hope it has ever known of rising out of its natural state of destitution. The great and precious blessings of freedom and prosperity that we Americans have enjoyed, and that some, but not enough, others around the world have also experienced, deserve nothing less."

Do you really want a president who is so completely ignorant of how the economy really works?  I don't.

Enjoy the video, but don't miss it's point.

Electoral College Prediction

Okay...I'm going out on a limb and am going to predict a Romney win by 286 to 252 Electoral votes.  The map below, which I created from the Real Clear Politics Create Your Own Map tool, is how I'm calling it as of today.

Analysis from political science professors Kenneth Bickers of Colorado University (CU)-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver actually gives Romney the win with 330.  Their analysis has been applied to all presidential elections back to 1980 and have accurately reflected the actual results of those contests.  Their model gives New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to Romney, which I give to Obama...an additional 44 Electoral votes.

I believe that the anti-Obama vote has the most motivation...and the more people see of Romney, the more they like him.  In July, Gallup reported that Democratic voting enthusiasm is down sharply from the 2004 and 2008 election cycles.  In October, Forbes reported that one of Obama's biggest challenges was voter apathy.  The Forbes article points to analysis by NBC's Chuck Todd that showed "an ‘across the board’ advantage for Republicans in the enthusiasm race."

No one should take any of this for granted though.  It is highly dependent on voter turn out.  So, if you care about the future of your country:

GET OUT AND VOTE!

Top Priority? Really?

I always tell people in my business life that when everything is a priority...nothing is a priority.  Obama has done nothing positive for any of his many so-called "top-priorities."

Obama in his own words:

Retire the Debt Overnight?

For another way to look at the Federal debt, I thought it would be helpful to do a little thought experiment:

If the Federal debt of $16.2 Trillion were divided among all Americans, each of our more than 314 million citizens would owe in excess of  $51,000 to retire it.  Let's say that there was a way, through great effort and sacrifice by all of the patriotic people of the country, to collect this amount from every citizen and retire the debt ...maybe some would pay more than others...corporations would also contribute.  What if we could do this and erase the debt overnight?  Would you be in favor of this?

Think about it, all the problems that arise from such a large debt that I and others have chronicled...gone over night.  No more indebtedness to China...no more credit problems.  This would be great, right?  Well, the problem is that Federal spending exceeds revenue every year by about $1.1 Trillion at today's spending levels. This would mean that one year after the country went to extraordinary measures and sacrifice to retire the debt, each citizen would already owe an additional  $3,500 above their normal tax burden..that's every citizen, children, old, sick, handicapped, ...everyone. Additionally, with current programs and rates, there are future, unfunded liabilities for spending on things like Social Security and Medicare in excess of $61 Trillion...or more than $500,000 per household.   Of course this is not current debt, but gives a view of future debt.

What does this all mean?  Well, it's as I've said again and again, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Even if we got the revenue to retire the debt overnight, the government would be back in debt in no time.  With current spending, there's no way to get things in check.  Government is like an out-of-control teen with credit cards.  Even if they consolidate all of their cards,  they will just run them up again.  We have to take away the cards.  We must return to small, decentralized and limited central government as as was intended by our founders and is in fact law through the Constitution.  We must return our States to a place of prominence, where they can apply checks on the power if the Federal body.  We cannot sustain...cannot long endure...under the current, corrupted system.

This does not, regardless of what the desperate central planners would have you believe, mean that the poor would be left to live or die on  their own.  It does not mean old people would be forced to eat cat food to survive.  States could look after their own citizens as they see fit, without the burden of overhead caused by the huge Federal bureaucracy.  Each State, according to the wishes of their own electorate, can deal with these problems on their own terms.  If some states wish to pursue a "socialist-like" solution, they are able to...but with no bailouts from the Federal government if it fails.

With this arrangement, I believe States will quickly find viable solutions.  They will have to balance policies that keep and attract business for full employment with the needs of their less fortunate citizens.  They will have to compete for services and opportunity to keep people from moving to states that better meet their needs and expectations.  To do this with no bail-outs means they will have to do what works, and not engage in wild,  Utopian experiments.  They will only be able to provide safety nets to the "truly needy," as they define it in their own States.  In short, they will have to run their affairs like responsible adults and not spoiled kids.  This is the Utility of Federalism that I have posted about in the past.

Ask yourself, would you trust your money to an investment that created ever-increasing, crushing debt, no matter how much money you contributed?  An investment with huge overhead and red tape?  Of course not.  Why would you then trust our current government?  This may go against what you have always believed, but it is what the founders intended.  As for myself, I would rather stand with the learned, patriotic statesmen of the founding than the power-hungry, corrupt politicians of today.

Tax the Rich?

I know I have posted several Antony Davies videos, but he is very good at putting debt and deficit issues in very clear perspective.

One thing that Liberals, Keynesians, and Class Warriors of all stripes always ignore is that there are consequences to their policies.  Namely, that higher taxes are a disincentive to business and economic activity in general.  Davies points out that to balance the budget (not reduce the debt) you would have to raise the taxes of the top 5% of Americans to 88%.  This would reduce the average "rich household's" real income to about $36,000/year.  "Making the average rich household worse off than the average household."

Would you, or anyone, continue to work hard to make a lot of money if it were going to be taken from you, redistributed to the less productive, and make you worse off than someone with an average job?  History tells us no.  Whether the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony who became lazy and unproductive in their commune established by the Mayflower Compact, or the Soviet people who had a common saying that "as long as they pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work."  Socialism has never worked.  Taking from the rich simply makes the rich less productive...taxing corporations simply passes on the cost to the consumer, who buys less product.  Raising taxes on any activity reduces the activity...which reduces the tax revenue.  Many central planners have been surprised and dismayed, for example, that raising taxes on cigarettes has actually resulted in decreased revenue as some people stop smoking or cut back, and some find other, lower taxed sources.

Here is another great video where Professor Davies shows how ridiculous it is to continue to call for taxing the rich to deal with our deficit   The answer is to CUT SPENDING.  As he says in the last line of the video:

"The budget deficit is so large that there simply aren't enough rich people to tax to raise enough to balance the budget."