Category Archives: News

News

Who has the better economy? Canada or the USA?

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Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute reports:

1.2 million Americans have lost their jobs since the $800 billion stimulus package was signed into law.

The stimulus package has directly destroyed tens of thousands of jobs. A provision in the stimulus package that blocked 97 Mexican truckers from U.S. roads “caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade,” destroying 40,000 American jobs.

It also ignited a trade war with Canada. In response to vague “buy American” provisions in the stimulus package, “A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.”

Yet, Obama had the audacity to claim that only passing the stimulus package would save us from “irreversible decline” and economic ““disaster”.

Obama’s policies echo those of Herbert Hoover, who helped spawn the Great Depression through his protectionism and tax increases.

Remember how Democrats used to complain about Bush and his “tax cuts for the rich”? Yeah, it’s strange how only people who pay taxes (59% of the public) can actually get tax cuts, isn’t it. But Obama has an even better idea: “tax hikes for the poor”.

The Washington Post reports on Obama’s new car tax: (H/T Heritage Foundation, Michelle Malkin, Stop the ACLU, Gateway Pundit)

A senior administration official said the new standards would raise the cost of an average car by $1,300, $600 of which could be attributed to the rules being announced today.

This is not to mention the electricity tax (cap and trade), the cigarette tax, taxing employee health care plans, and the rising cost of living caused by protectionism.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at Canada in relation to the United States, courtesy of the Cato Institute. (H/T Heritage Foundation)

The Cato Institute writes:

Spending: Spending by all levels of the Canadian government peaked at 53 percent of the country’s GDP in the early 1990s, then plunged to 40 percent in 2008. U.S. government spending has risen, reaching 39 percent of GDP in 2008. And with the stimulus package, that number is likely to jump even higher.

Government spending as % of GDP
Government spending as % of GDP

Debt: The Canadian government cut its debt from 71 percent of GDP in 1995 to 32 percent in 2008. Under President Obama’s budget plan, U.S. federal public debt will jump from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to more than 60 percent next year.

Federal debt as % of GDP
Federal debt as % of GDP

Deficits: Canada has balanced its budget every year since 1998 — not by raising taxes, but by cutting spending. The United States balanced its budget for four years in the late 1990s, but now deficits are so large that it’s difficult to imagine that ever happening again.

Surplus / Deficit as % of GDP
Surplus / Deficit as % of GDP

Corporate Taxes: Canada has cut the corporate tax rate from 28 percent to just 15 percent, and most provinces have trimmed corporate taxes as well. The U.S. federalstate rate stands at about 40 percent, and the Obama administration is planning to increase corporate taxes.

Corporate tax rates
Corporate tax rates

It’s important to note that the Liberal party in Canada is socially progressive, but moderate on fiscal issues. Of course, now that the Conservatives have been running things, it’s gotten even better. It would be great if they could win a majority. The biggest problem in Canada right now is the fascist Human Rights Commissions, but there are candidates from the Conservative Party who intend to abolish the HRCs in BC and Ontario.

News

Is Obama keeping America safe?

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Let’s see how Obama is performing on national security issues. Most of these links courtesy of Free Canuckistan.

Former FBI agent tells NewsMax that Obama is making another 9/11 “inevitable”. (H/T Infidel Blogger Alliance)

A former FBI agent who recently won a lawsuit defeating FBI attempts to muzzle him tells Newsmax that the agency’s morale may be at its lowest ebb ever, and warns the “chilling” effect of Obama administration policies is making another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland “inevitable.”

…”I’m not exactly sure where the president is coming from, but all the signals he gives out is that the United States is prepared to talk peace, we’re not going to do anything to upset any of the people that are conducting all these terrorist acts, we’re going to back out of everything we’ve done before, we’re going to apologize for everything we’ve done in the past – what kind of signals does that send?” Vincent asks. “It sends a signal of weakness and: ‘We are not willing to try and stop what you have planned.'”

Yes, this is what happens when the people claim that Bush could have kept us safe without force or surveillance. We already know how Obama’s leftist diplomacy works. We were attacked multiple times during Clinton’s presidency, and Clinton was like Churchill or Thatcher, compared to the Obama.

IBD had this editorial by economist Thomas Sowell regarding Obama’s national security performance:

In 1938, with Hitler preparing to unleash a war in which tens of millions of men, women and children would be slaughtered, the play that was the biggest hit on the Paris stage was a play about French and German reconciliation, and a French pacifist that year dedicated his book to Adolf Hitler.

When historians of the future look back on our era, what will they think of our time? Our media too squeamish to call murderous and sadistic terrorists anything worse than “militants” or “insurgents”? Our president going abroad to denigrate the country that elected him, pandering to feckless allies and outright enemies, and literally bowing to a foreign tyrant ruling a country from which most of the 9/11 terrorists came?

There was a time when American elected Presidents like Reagan and Bush. Those presidents believed in and fought for the cause of liberty. But that time is gone.

ONE of the world’s most courageous women is locked away in a miserable rat-hole in Rangoon. Her “crime”? Demanding freedom for her people.

…Of course, with an “election” coming up next year, Burma’s kooky generals have every reason to keep their country’s most beloved democrat under lock and key — and most of the world sees through the sham. Voices from Congress to the European Union have demanded Suu Kyi’s release.

And the Leader of the Free World? Silence.

What a change from the previous White House, which had two champions of Burmese freedom in President George and, especially, Laura Bush. Their backing of Suu Kyi was part of a much broader campaign for freedom fighters around the world. Bush sent a clear message to those risking everything for their freedom: If you stand up for liberty, the president will stand with you.

Now, that message is muffled. In recent weeks, some of the worst human-rights violators have seized and detained US citizens — from journalists Roxana Saberi in Iran and Laura Ling and Euna Lee in North Korea, to prisoner John William Yettaw in Burma — with nary a word from President Obama in reply.

Not to mention the forced conversion of Christian children in Egypt to Islam, or the actual torture that goes on in North Korea. (H/T Half Done)

God help us all if the President of the United States is more concerned with scoring political points than improving liberty, prosperity and security, at home and abroad. There is a price to pay for the moral decay that results from rejecting objective morality. When threats arise, the secular left blames America and praises the enemies of liberty and prosperity, as Evan Sayet has argued.

UPDATE: The Heritage Foundation linked to a couple more national security stories.

News

Is Obama a pro-life or pro-choice President?

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From NewsBusters, we get a nice list of things Obama has done for the unborn.

  • January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.
  • February 27, 2009 – Starts the process of overturning pro-life conscience protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.
  • March 9, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order forcing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.
  • March 11, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order establishing a new agency within his administration known as the White House Council on Women and Girls. Obama’s director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, an abortion advocate, became director of it.
  • March 11, 2009 – Obama administration promotes an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.
  • March 17, 2009 – Obama makes his first judicial appointment and names pro-abortion federal Judge David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • March 26 – President Obama announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
  • April 23 – Refused to appeal a ruling requiring the FDA to allow 17-year-old girls to purchase the morning after pill without either a doctor visit or parental involvement beforehand.
  • May 5 – Details emerge about a terrorism dictionary the administration of President Barack Obama put together in March. The Domestic Extremism Lexicon calls pro-life advocates violent and claims they employ racist overtones in engaging in criminal actions.
  • May 8 – President Obama releases a new budget that allows the Legal Services Corporation to use tax dollars to pay for pro-abortion litigation.
  • May 8 – President Obama’s new budget calls for taxpayer funded abortions in the nation’s capital, and eliminates all federal funding for abstinence-only education.

And we shouldn’t be surprised at his record on social issues in office, because those of us who can inform ourselves, using means other than television commercials during sports telecasts, knew about Obama’s record before he started to run for office:

  • Obama expressed support for legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions, and which has been credited with saving over a million lives.
  • Obama, unlike even many allegedly “pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice.
  • On the campaign trail, Obama referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a “punishment” that she should not have to endure.
  • Obama has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand.
  • Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, did not and has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies.
  • Obama, as an Illinois state senator, opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. The Obama campaign lied about his vote until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done. In fact, Obama continued to lie about his inhuman voting record in regard to the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, and even stooped so low as to run a disgusting television ad attacking the disabled survivor of a botched abortion.

And don’t forget his plans to enact the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which denies Christian doctors and nurses the freedom to choose not to perform abortions, in violation of their consciences:

But Obama the presidential candidate also promised that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA),” which would create a federally guaranteed “fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including “a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons”, and would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry.

A lot of pro-lifers say that abortion is the new slavery – you pick a group of people and dehumanize them because they are weaker than you are, for your own financial gain. At least the slave owners didn’t kill the slaves, though.

Other blogs writing on abortion:

  • Hot Air: Obama’s speech at Notre Dame
  • Nice Deb: Audio of Obama arguing in favor of infanticide in the Illinois legislature
  • Heritage Foundation: Contrasting the Notre Dame speech with Obama’s actual policies
  • Western Experience: Pro-life protesters arrested at Notre Dame

The full story of nurse Jill Stanek, who blew the whistle on infanticide in Illinois hospitals, in case you missed it.

UPDATE: Hot Air has video of John Piper speaking about what Obama’s pro-abortion stance really means: 1,000,000 dead babies every year. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Ironic, because I was just listening to John Piper’s sermon on William Wilberforce, who abolished the “abortion” of his day: slavery.