Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Mitt Romney supports the anti-Christian and anti-business ENDA law

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This is an article from 2007 from the Christian post. I thought it might be a useful reminder of what Mitt Romney really believes when he’s not running for office.

Excerpt:

Romney during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” said he supports the contentious Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which adds “sexual orientation” to a list of federally protected classes that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

The bill upsets conservative leaders because it grants special protection to employees based on their “actual or perceived” sexual orientation. Moreover, it would force Christian organizations that oppose homosexuality to hire gay employees.

“Mitt Romney’s Christmas present to the homosexual lobby disqualifies him as a pro-family leader,” said Peter LaBarbera, longtime pro-family advocate and founder of the Republicans For Family Values website.

“Laws that treat homosexuality as a civil rights are being used to promote homosexual ‘marriage,’ same-sex adoption and pro-homosexuality indoctrination of schoolchildren,” he said. “These same laws pose a direct threat to the freedom of faith-minded citizens and organizations to act on their religious belief that homosexual behavior is wrong.”

The former Massachusetts governor responded on “Meet the Press” that ENDA “makes sense” at the state level. But LaBarbera warns that if Romney “openly” promotes homosexual agenda at the state level then he cannot be trusted at the federal level.

He pointed out that the state’s “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination law laid the groundwork for Massachusetts legalizing gay “marriage” – the first in the country to do so.

Moreover, the ENDA-like law forced Boston’s Catholic Charities to shut down its century-old adoption agency because it refused to place children in gay households against Catholic teaching.

“Given Romney’s extensive pro-homosexual record and willingness now to depart from principle on this crucial issue, should we trust a ‘President Romney’ not to reverse course again on federal pro-homosexual laws such as ‘Hate Crimes’ and ENDA?” LaBarbera posed.

The Washington Times explains more about what it is exactly that Romney supports.

Excerpt:

 According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

ENDA would force – under penalty of law – Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owners to adopt a secular-humanist viewpoint, ignoring all matters surrounding sexual morality while making hiring and firing decisions. Unlike race or sex, homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors are both volitional and mutable. Nonetheless, and despite the reality that such conduct is in direct conflict with every major world religion, thousands of years of history and uncompromising human biology, ENDA would compel business owners with 15 or more employees to leave sincerely held religious beliefs at the workplace door and submit to the demands of the homosexual activist lobby.

This is government-sanctioned viewpoint discrimination. It is no different from forcing a deeply religious business owner to hire and accommodate an “out and proud” adulterous “swinger.” It directly alienates the unalienable rights of people of faith. It pits the government directly against the free exercise of religion and is, therefore, unconstitutional on its face.

During his second term, President George W. Bush issued a Statement of Administration Policy on ENDA, highlighting its unconstitutionality: “[ENDA] is inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion as codified by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”

President Obama, however, has publicly endorsed the bill and promises to sign it into law should it pass. This is in perfect keeping with his demonstrated belief that the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers are more of a suggestion than a requirement. Mr. Obama has appointed at least one like-minded ENDA heavy. Chai R. Feldblum is a lesbian activist and sexual nihilist lawyer who in the past has publicly supported legalized polygamy and bisexual polyamory.

One of Mr. Obama’s recent 15 controversial recess appointments, Ms. Feldblum was sworn in on April 7 as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). As ENDA’s chief framer, Ms. Feldblum would be charged with its primary enforcement. This is the classic fox-guarding-the-henhouse scenario.

In the past, Ms. Feldblum has repeatedly and candidly summed up the mindset behind the bill. She has publicly stated that the battle between religious freedom and unfettered sexual license (aka homosexual “rights”) is a “zero-sum game,” meaning the two cannot possibly coexist in harmony. It’s a “winner takes all” approach.

When asked about the Christian business owner or religious organization that morally objects to hiring people openly engaged in the homosexual lifestyle, Ms. Feldblum snapped: “Gays win, Christians lose.” And where Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to religious liberty comes into conflict with the postmodern concept of homosexual “rights,” Ms. Feldblum has admitted having “a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

And Mitt Romney supported this in 2007.

Commentary

Does going to university necessarily educate you and provide you with job skills?

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The Heritage Foundation explains why universities don’t necessarily provide students with a useful education, at least in the non-STEM areas.

Excerpt:

Guess how many top-tier universities offer a course on Lady Gaga? Four! The University of Virginia, the University of South Carolina, Wake Forest University, and Arizona State University all now offer semester-long explorations of Lady Gaga’s apparently profound influence—since 2007—on music, fashion, and the LGBT lifestyle. Yet none of these universities requires students to take a course in U.S. history before graduation. Professors and faculty at top-ranked institutions are giving preference to frivolous classes at the expense of true education.

In a new study by the National Association of Scholars, only one in 75 top universities required students to study western civilization. In 1964, more than half required students take a two-semester course that covered the history of western civilization from Greece to the modern era. The other half of universities required courses that guaranteed graduates understood the history of their society. But studying the foundations of our society no longer seems to be a priority for American universities.

It is not just studying western civilization that has been tossed out the window. There is a dearth in all general requirements. Asking “What Will They Learn,” the American Council of Trustees and Alumni has found that only 20 percent of universities require students to take a U.S. government or history class. Only 5 percent require students to take a class in economics. Many, including top liberal arts colleges, have no general education requirements. With this setup, it is increasingly unlikely that college graduates will leave their alma maters even grasping the basics.

I recommend going to university and I have the BS and MS in computer science, myself.  But if, you have a child in university, my advice is to 1) monitor every course they choose, and 2) have a career mentor meet with them periodically to make sure that what they are learning is what is actually needed in the field.

Regarding the general need for history and economics, I think this is something that it might be better for students to learn before they get to university. It’s probably safer to learn history on your own, and then just take economics. I would try to avoid any course where the teacher can teach their point of view and isolate it from reality. Stick with math, science, engineering and physics.

Commentary

Obama says that limited government and capitalism have never worked

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Obama Economic Record November 2011
Obama Economic Record November 2011

Investors Business Daily explains the latest speech on economics from the man who has doubled Bush’s 2007 unemployment rate, and increased Bush’s 2007 budget deficits tenfold.

Excerpt:

One thing is certainly true about President Obama — no matter how many times people point out the falsehoods in his speeches, he just keeps making them. Case in point: his latest “economic fairness” address.

In that speech Tuesday, Obama once again tried to build a case for his liberal, big-spending, tax-hiking, regulatory agenda. But as with so many of his past appeals, Obama’s argument rests on a pile of untruths. Among the most glaring:

• Tax cuts and deregulation have “never worked” to grow the economy. There’s so much evidence to disprove this claim, it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s begin with the fact that countries with greater economic freedom — lower taxes, less government, sound money, free trade — consistently produce greater overall prosperity.

Here at home, President Reagan’s program of lower taxes and deregulation led to an historic two-decade economic boom. Plus, states with lower taxes and less regulation do better than those that follow Obama’s prescription.

Obama also claimed the economic booms in the ’50s and ’60s somehow support his argument. This is utter nonsense. Taxes at the time averaged just 17% of the economy. And there was no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Departments of Transportation, Energy or Education, and no EPA. Had Obama been around then, he would have decried it all as un-American.

• Bush’s tax cuts on the rich only managed to produced “massive deficits” and the “slowest job growth in half a century.” Budget data make clear that Obama’s spending hikes, not Bush’s tax cuts, produced today’s massive deficits.

And Obama only gets his “slowest job growth” number by including huge job losses during his own term in office. Also, monthly pre-recession job growth under Bush was about 40% higher than post-recession growth has been under Obama.

• During the Bush years, “we had weak regulation, we had little oversight.” This is patently false. Regulatory staffing climbed 42% under Bush, and regulatory spending shot up 50%, according to a Washington University in St. Louis/George Washington University study. And the number of Federal Register pages — a proxy for regulatory activity — was far higher under Bush than any previous president.

• The “wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century.” Fact: the federal income tax code is now more progressive than it was in 1979, according to the Congressional Budget Office. IRS data show the richest 1% paid almost 40% of federal income taxes in 2009, up from 18% back in 1980.

• We can keep tax breaks for the rich in place, or make needed investments, “but we can’t do both.” Not true. Repealing the Bush tax cuts on the “rich” would raise only about $70 billion a year, a tiny fraction of projected deficits. With or without the Bush tax cuts, the country can’t afford Obama’s agenda.

The Heritage Foundation describes the effects of the Bush tax cuts.

Excerpt:

President Bush signed the first wave of tax cuts in 2001, cutting rates and providing tax relief for families by, for example, doubling of the child tax credit to $1,000.

At Congress’ insistence, the tax relief was initially phased in over many years, so the economy continued to lose jobs. In 2003, realizing its error, Congress made the earlier tax relief effective immediately. Congress also lowered tax rates on capital gains and dividends to encourage business investment, which had been lagging.

It was the then that the economy turned around. Within months of enactment, job growth shot up, eventually creating 8.1 million jobs through 2007. Tax revenues also increased after the Bush tax cuts, due to economic growth.

In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced. Rather than expand by 36% as the Congressional Budget Office projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion.

The CBO incorrectly calculated that the post-March 2003 tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion. Revenues for 2006 came in $47 billion above the pre-tax cut baseline.

Here’s what else happened after the 2003 tax cuts lowered the rates on income, capital gains and dividend taxes:

  • GDP grew at an annual rate of just 1.7% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the six quarters following the tax cuts, the growth rate was 4.1%.
  • The S&P 500 dropped 18% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts but increased by 32% over the next six quarters.
  • The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.

The timing of the lower tax rates coincides almost exactly with the stark acceleration in the economy. Nor was this experience unique. The famous Clinton economic boom began when Congress passed legislation cutting spending and cutting the capital gains tax rate.

If, in the 2012 election, half the country decides to vote for the person who gives the best speeches and who is cheered on the Comedy Channel, then we are going to have four more years of 9% unemployment and 1.4 trillion dollar deficits. Barack Obama knows nothing whatsoever about economics.

UPDATE: Obama says that small business owners didn’t build their own businesses