Tag Archives: Tax Policy

News

Michelle Malkin takes on Nancy Pelosi’s dismissal of tea party protests

Leave a comment

The Weekly Standard, citing Roll Call, reports on Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s explanation for the 800+ Tax Day protests.

Excerpt from the Roll Call article: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

But in an interview on Fox TV in San Francisco, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as “AstroTurf.”

“This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it’s not really a grass-roots movement. It’s AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class,” Pelosi said.

Other House Democratic leaders took a different tack: One senior aide has been circulating a document to the media that debunks the effort as one driven by corporate lobbyists and attended by neo-Nazis…

In addition, the tea parties are “not really all about average citizens,” the document continues, saying neo-Nazis, militias, secessionists and racists are attending them. The tea parties are also not peaceful, since reporters in Cincinnati had to seek “police protection” during one of the events, it states.

The Weekly Standard responds to Pelosi:

The suggestions that these tea parties are driven by DC-based groups is laughable; Liz Mair takes a critical look and concludes the charge is baseless. Besides the points that Mair makes, it’s worth noting that while there have been dozens of tea parties, few have featured conservative candidates or representatives of DC think tanks and lobbying groups.

As far as the charge that these rallies are composed of Nazis and terrorists, that’s hard to reconcile with the pictures of participants. There are too many young children and grandparents. Further, even a strong Obama supporter like Susan Roesgen didn’t turn up any violent types at the Chicago Tea Party, despite her best attempt to provoke a strong reaction.

And then they ask about the groups and sponsors of left-wing rallies:

If this is a conversation they want to have, however, perhaps Ms. Pelosi can explain the role of Marxists and North Korean sympathizers in the U.S. anti-war movement, or discuss how George Soros bought such influence in the Democratic party. It’s not a debate that would help Democrats, since it’s relatively easy to show the role of fringe extremists in the Democratic grassroots.

That’s all well and good, but commentary is better when Michelle Malkin is the commenter:

And Michelle has a lot more photos and videos from the various protests, too.

News

CNN media bias exposed by slanted tea party coverage

2 Comments

Here is a video clip to get us started from CNN. (H/T Hot Air and Heritage Foundation)

This is not at all unusual for CNN. Notice how those on the left cannot even bear to hear the words of those they disagree with. That is telling, and it foreshadows the oncoming fascism that I predicted earlier based on the leaked Department of Homeland Security report that portrays Republicans as potential terrorists because they are not secular socialists.

Michelle Malkin, (who I think is very pretty and funny and smart), was interviewed on Fox News at the Sacramento Tea Party. She explains exactly why these protests are happening: fiscal irresponsibility, including high taxes, huge spending, massive deficits, corruption, fraud and government waste. And these protests are as much against big spending Republicans, as Democrats.

And Glenn Beck is even more explicit. (H/T The Heritage Foundation). This is not about Democrats or Republicans. It is about economic policy. Period.

There were 225,481 attendees, according to PJTV. Over 800 protests occurred, across all 50 states! But Gateway Pundit reports that Obama is unaware of the protests. Yes, he’s unaware of many things, I’m sure. In fact, that’s his specialty. (UPDATE: The Campaign Spot says 337,682 on Thursday April 16th)

In her related post entitled The word of the week is “crazy”, The Anchoress has a funny caption over the graph showing the budget deficit projections under Obama’s plan. Her caption is: If you do not like this chart and think something should be done about it, you are “crazy“. Yes, according to socialists, everyone who objects to socialism is crazy!

Obama's projected deficits
If you do not like this chart and think something should be done about it, you are "crazy" (H/T The Anchoress)

And here is a bit more of her post: (go read the whole thing!)

From the LA Times: Anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Parties steeped in insanity

Here is a crazy lady?

That headline is interesting, not only are the Tea Party folk “insane” but they are also “anti-Obama.” Recall, back in the day, if you were any sort of opponent to Clinton policies or if you donated to a candidate other than a Clinton, you were “anti-Clinton” or, as I liked to say, an “anti-Clintite”. Of course for the last 8 years, protesters were just reasonable people with reasonable, moderate and patriotic concerns. They were not “anti-Bush” and they were not “crazy” or “insane.” Those protesters, originating from the left, were smart, and deserving of respect and respectful media coverage. Hell, when the DHS wrote about “leftwing extremism”, they felt no need to even mention them as part of a vague “suspect ‘em all” strategy. Imagine that.

But now if you are protesting, you’re just a crazy “anti-Obamite.”

Gateway Pundit has pictures of the St. Louis rally, which drew 10,000 protesters! And more pictures are linked here.

Remember, these grass-roots protests of the tax-and-spend policies of the Democrats, which have been adopted in response to a crisis caused by the Democrats (videos showing Democrats are linked there). If you still believe that Democrats are fiscally conservative, check out this video of Obama giving a serious economic policy speech during the election campaign.

Also, did you know that Obama made 2.7 million dollars in income last year? At least it’s less than the 4.2 million he made in 2007. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll donate it all to charity like Dick Cheney did.

Pictures and stuff

More Tea Party at the Heritage Foundation, including pictures and videos!

I have to link to the pictures, as everyone I talk to seems to be interested in what the signs say. Laura at Pursuing Holiness, whom I just blogrolled, has a post up with a video of the New Orleans Tea Party protest.

News

Secretary of Education rescinds previously awarded D.C. vouchers

Leave a comment

Fox News reports on it here: (H/T The Cato Institute)

The Heritage Foundation has a lot more.

Let’s start with a personal experience from one of the 200 low-income households affected.

Put yourself in the shoes of LaTasha Bennett. A single mother living in Washington, D.C., Ms. Bennett is able to send her child to a private school thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Hoping to enroll her daughter in the same private school, Ms. Bennett applied for and recently received a voucher from the Washington Scholarship Fund.

But last week, Ms. Bennett and hundreds of other D.C. parents received a form letter from the U.S. Department of Education informing them that their children wouldn’t be receiving a scholarship.

And more:

Secretary Duncan’s decision to take scholarship money away from low-income families came just days after the Department of Education released a study showing that students participating in the Opportunity Scholarship program had statistically significant better reading scores than students who applied to the program but were not offered a scholarship. The students that were in the program the longest showed notable improvement reading at levels approximately 1.5 to 2 full school years ahead of the sample group.

The data is in. School choice works. And it significantly lower costs. Opportunity Scholarships offered through the program are worth $7,500. Since the participating private schools cannot charge scholarship students more than the amount of their scholarships, that amount is still less than half of the $15,315 that D.C. taxpayers spent per pupil in the 2004–05 school year.

And what about the educations of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan?

Growing up in Hawaii, President Obama attended a private school. Growing up first in Chicago, and now in Washington, Obama’s two daughters attended and still attend a private school. Growing up in Chicago, Secretary Duncan attended a private school. And when he moved to D.C. Secretary Duncan chose to live in Arlington, where good schools for his children are assumed.

But maybe they were just pretty typical progressives, living in an emotional fantasy-land, with no access to facts?

The Wall Street Journal reports: (H/T The Heritage Foundation)

Voucher recipients were tested last spring. The scores were analyzed in the late summer and early fall, and in November preliminary results were presented to a team of advisers who work with the Education Department to produce the annual evaluation. Since Education officials are intimately involved in this process, they had to know what was in this evaluation even as Democrats passed (and Mr. Obama signed) language that ends the program after next year.
…
Mr. Duncan’s office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You’d think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program.

And the Denver Post’s David Harsanyi reports: (H/T The Heritage Foundation)

When I had the chance to ask Duncan — at a meeting of the Denver Post editorial board on Tuesday — whether he was alerted to this study before Congress eradicated the D.C. program, he offered an unequivocal “no.” He then called the WSJ editorial “fundamentally dishonest” and maintained that no one had even tried to contact him, despite the newspaper’s contention that it did, repeatedly.

When I called the Wall Street Journal, I discovered a different — that is, meticulously sourced and exceedingly convincing — story, including documented e-mail conversations between the author and higher-ups in Duncan’s office. The voucher study — which showed progress compounding yearly — had been around since November and its existence is mandated by law. So at best, Duncan was willfully ignorant.

And why are we surprised? Teacher’s unions funded Obama’s election campaign, not children and parents. The purpose of schools, according to socialists, is to indoctrinate the youth with socialism, moral relativism, secularism, and the religion of global warming. The purpose of schools is not to provide them with an education, so that they can get a job and avoid dependence on the government!

Further study

The Heartland Institute’s series of podcasts on vouchers and school choice.