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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Maybe Paul Ryan Should Have Called It a Trojan Condom Budget

Barack Obama spoke to the American press yesterday to demagogue Republicans, Paul Ryan’s budget, cite Ronald Reagan as proof that raising taxes is okay, and damn with faint praise American exceptionalism.

The President called Paul Ryan’s budget a “trojan horse.” Given the President’s predilection for forcing all Americans, through regulatory fiat, to adhere to his view of contraception, I suspect that had Paul Ryan preemptively called his budget a ‘trojan condom,” the President of the United States would be campaigning trying to make us all adhere to it.

One thing that really stuck out at me in his speech yesterday was his statement that his very life and career were made possible because of American exceptionalism. He’s right. It’s also what makes his public policy choices so maddening.

The President’s policy choices reject the very American exceptionalism he himself claims to have benefited from. Our nation has had a unique spirit centered around the idea of the Puritan work ethic and the rugged individualism that sprang from that.

But Barack Obama wants to get rid of that exceptionalism and make us conform to the failed socialist policies of Europe. He says he wants to tax the rich because it will help the middle class. The only way taxing the rich helps the middle class is when the middle class is so dependent on government that it requires further wealth redistribution to maintain its government subsidy.

Government subsidy is not what American exceptionalism is all about. Government policy to redistribute wealth for middle class welfare subsidies is conforming to the rest of the world.

Conforming is not exceptional, it is a failure.

As an added bonus, it was more than a bit ironic to hear Barack Obama call Paul Ryan a social darwinist considering Barack Obama remains the only member of the Illinois State Senate to speak in favor of infanticide from the floor of the State Senate.

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COMMENTS

  • davesinsanantonio

    nt

  • GreyCloak

    The fact is, Congress hasn’t passed ANY budget in YEARS! Obama proposed his, Ryan proposed ours, the Congressional Dems have proposed nada!

    It is up to Congress, not the President, to set a budget and approve eventual appropriations. This may mean giving up a little pork and, yes, eliminating the welfare known as tax credits and specialized deductions for (mostly) the businesses that contribute to Congressional campaign funds.

    As to contraception, I rather think that a bogus issue in which the Federal Government should not be involved. On the other hand, a “condom tax” might raise revenue. The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act was also effective (tongue in cheek) … hardly anyone uses marihuana any more.

    Incidentally, “tax the rich” doesn’t benefit “the middle class.” Redistribution only benefits the non-tax-paying 50% of our population. When Reagan advocated “tax the rich” in 1986, I was all for it. After all was said and done, I found that my $35,000/yr salary somehow qualified me “rich” and my taxes went up. Democrat or Republican, the burden of taxes will fall mostly on the “middle class.” Whether Republicans add $500 billion/yr to the National Debt (as they did under George Bush II), or the Democrats add a $trillion/yr (under Obama), they are all crooks and deserved to be fired!

  • mikelindell2

    Even Joe Scarborough said today that he has not talked to anyone in the Republican establishment that expects Romney to beat Obama. Limbaugh has made similar statements about putting Romney up to lose. It seems unimaginable to me that the establishment would want that. Although, watching how inept and bumbling Republicans seem to always be, it makes you wonder maybe they are actually trying to help the Democrats. Maybe that’s why they came out in full force against the one guy who has actually acted like a conservative in Washington-Newt.

  • amazedamerican

    Maybe because newt is his own person, they can’t bully him.

  • romeg

    by way of American Exceptionalism is 100% BS. His presidency was made possible by Affirmative Action. His Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on the same basis.

    His singular accomplishment has been his convincing a sufficient number of Democrats that he was exceptional but, somehow, all of the documentation supporting his purported exceptionalism seems to be lost to history.

    Having hoodwinked (no racist pun intended) the Democrats, he then hoodwinked a sufficiently large number of utterly uninformed and incurious voters to win both the nomination and, ultimately, the Presidency.

    So his “exceptionalism” IS his presidency, not the other way around.

  • renl57

    The bill that Reagan signed into law actually lowered the top tax rate. But it still broadened the tax base by eliminating numerous loopholes and special favors for politically connected businesses.

    In short, its focus was on tax simplification rather than on “soak the rich”, which is what Obama is after.

    It’s easy to imagine a bill that would eliminate subsidies like the ExIm Bank while lowering tax rates to give a break to small businesses (which typically don’t have fancy lobbyists in Washington).

    But I guarantee you that’s not what Obama and his True Believers are after. They just hate “multinational corporations”–that’s another one of their boogeymen they always attack.

  • APA Guy

    We haven’t even reached high-demand season yet and we’re sitting at $4/gallon nationally. When Americans have to cancel summer vacations and the service industry, now the lifeblood of our economy, goes down in flames, you’ll se just how fast people can turn on a president (ahem…1992…).

  • wlcjr

    We should not be calling the left “liberalism”, as there is very little of their policies which have a truly liberal backing. Forcing churches to act against their religion, violating the contract rights of insurers, arguing they can hold us indefinitely or kill us w/o trial, and spending 40% more than you bring in does not follow any valid political philosophy. “Health care is a right” boils down to support of a kind of slavery.
    Classic liberalism was in support of a limited govt, market economy, private property rights, and sound monetary policy. I see none of that in the left of today and therefore we should not grace whatever populism they come up with with any valid lable, including liberalism.

  • celador2

    Rep Paul Ryan asks that the US do a budget involving Senate reconcilliation with the House budget he wrote. Ryan would really reduce the debt of over 16 trillion and reform Medicare with choices not mandates.
    First agenda to save money and balance book is repeal Obamacare.

    Ryan is a tax cutter and proposes two rates 10 and 25%. He concentrates on growing the private sector small business arena where jobs and wealth are created. It is from the private sector government derivesd its revenues. Wealth creation leads to R and D for all kinds of innovation. Competition eliminates waste and drops costs. This is how and where we soar. Look at the cars in so many colors, for example, not just a Model T. Computers drop costs and improve.

    To Obama the vital and central business sector is an afterthought in a budget. Free markets, wide open spaces and exploration are not his cup of tea!

    Obama has no problem with growing 16 tril debt nor adding to the deficit spending in his budget. There is a clash between Ryan and Obama on taxes and debt reduction. For Ryan also has a problem with Obam’s borrowing and Fed reserve chair Ben Bernarke’s manipulation of the economy and dollar. Ryan has accused Bernarke of weakening the dollar with his artifical low interest rates and growing a bubble. The Fed activism masks structural problems as does deficit borrowing and spending.

    Ryan goes about a budget in a clean cut straight forward manner with lower taxes and live with our means debt reduction.

    Obama would print, borrow , tax and spend like there is no tomorrow to hand out spoils that help some of us feel no pain today.

    .In an election year nothing will get done unless Obama can gain politically.
    Meanwhile,

    Obama and Bernarke were joined in deficit spending promotion by new Manager IMF Legarde who calls for increased firewall power to grow more her lending pools to save debtridden Eurozone nations, She praised central banks in Europe and Fed Res in US She attacked Republicans for not spending enough for a recovery in US.

    Ironically, IMF’s Christiine Legrade of France did note the gloomy unemployment figures in zone that are highest in months. But like Obama her remedy to grow jobs is to grow lending and borrowing pools. Like Obam’s US taxes the eurozone business arena is not business friendly. It needs to thrive with low taxes, innovation and discovery that eliminates waste. The private sector to IMF chief is a side issue and afterthought

    The IMF-Obama model seems to mask economies shrinking and does little to bring them back to life with free market solutions of lower taxes and regulations.

    .Rep Paul Ryan has his hands full but is up to the task!

  • earlgrey

    often they don’t end up spiking the way we expect them too.

  • tnguy

    Decreased significantly from 1985 to 1986. Unless someone was invested in tax shelters or had a significant amount of consumer debt, their tax bill undoubtedly went down.

  • dmt1021

    Good article, Eric, but I wouldn’ t agree that Barack Obama is a product of America’s exceptionalism.. That’s a description for those who internalized the beliefs in American goodness, it’s love of hard work, freedom and above all, liberty. It’s for those rugged individualists who strived to get ahead in a free market system – capitalism – and prospered while advancing in that system..

    Obama is none of these. He was a pampered child, yet gifted probably, who was co-opted into a socialistc belief system that has proven unworkable over and over and over again. He never held a job, never had to meet a payroll and never built anything of note. His best claim to fame, until elevated to the highest office in the land, was that of being the head lawyer for ACORN, a corrupt group of community organizers best known for excelling at voter fraud.

    At best, Obama’s claim to be an example of America’s exceptionalism is a grotesque mis-characterization of reality. At worst, it represents an abject cynicism that portends harm to this nation.

  • celador2

    EE wrote,

    <<<<>>>>>

    Amen!
    And may we never forget that a usually detatched state senator Obama became animated and jumped up to the floor to make sure a baby who survived abortion did not recveive support nor the abortionist punished.

    Many O supporters in media begrudged VP CHeny’s heart transplant saying he was too old. He waited 20 months but it shows how Obama mouthpieces support rationing and arbitrary decisions.

    Then there is the still un named 15 member DC panel that oversees seniors health care through Medicare for cost control reasons in ACA.
    Mr Ryan has spoken against IPAB and repealed ACA in House. Ryan calls for Obamacare’s repeal to balance budget.

    I trust Paul Ryan who respects life at all ages more than Obama.

  • benko

    Kinda speaks for itself don’t it?

  • Tbone

    which dollar to I stop at to keep from jumping from 10% to 25%?

    This is a really stupid idea.

  • Tbone

    Absolutely nothing he has done or said would lead me to think him more than a nominally above 100 IQ actor. He actually comes across as a semi-literate, shallow thinker.

  • jon11

    doesn’t mean he’s never right, but he did have a slobbering love affair with Jon Hunstman :)

    Joe is just plain wrong about no one in the establishment thinking Mitt can win.

    Rove, in his New Years predictions in the WSJ, predicted a republican sweep in 2012, including the WH.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203391104577124880807529116.html

    Laid out the reasons why in great detail and ended the piece by asking to be ‘held accountable’ for his predictions.

    This was not pandering or cheerleading. It was what he believes.

    Ill never understand this argument coming from the right that the guy who beat all comers…Perry, Newt, Cain, Bachmann, Santorum, etc…is actually, if you’re smart enough to see it, the weakest general election candidate.

    Pundits say a lot of stupid things. Fortunately the voting public typically pays it no never mind.

    I look at some of the idiots we nominated in 2010 and note that republican turnout was the highest in 39 states that it had been since 1930.

    If you think the turnout was for those unknown upstart candidates you’re dead wrong.

    It was about Obama, and it will be again this fall.

    Romney is no ones dream candidate, but he’s nothing like his right wing caricature. He’s going to look pretty appealing standing next to obama.

    This will be a very close race, much much closer than 2008, and i just don’t see obama surviving.

  • radicalrighty

    I listen daily and Rush has NOT said such a thing. This guy should apologize or name the date/time of Rush saying that.

  • Common_Cents

    American exceptionalism? hogwash. Obama was coddled and cheated his entire life. I’ll believe some American Exceptionalism when Obama releases his college records showing he paid for his education fairly, showing he earned his degrees fairly, showing he was admitted fairly, showing his grades that he did the work and deserved it.

    Obama’s rise shows the FAILURE of America’s unconstitutional affirmative action policy.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    It would be discriminatin to only ban Newt’s Nut-jobs.

  • Common_Cents

    as being around PMSBC will rob you of your manhood.

    Erick better watch out at CNN as well.

  • Common_Cents

    obummer is just daring America to call them out. They are blatant and don’t care. Baier tried to corner this Carney moron but Carney just plugs his ears and yells na nanananananana. This is our presidential administration? really?

  • APA Guy

    1. Supply and demand

    This president absolutely REFUSES to increase domestic supply on public lands and remains a holdout on approving Keystone. As world demand remains constant and the Middle East continues to swirl, this sill increasingly work against stabilizing oil prices

    2. Refineries operating at less-than-maximum capacity

    All the oil in the world doesn’t mean jack if our petroleum supply doesn’t match it.

    3. The budget…or lack thereof…

    CBO calling for another $1.3 trillion in debt to be added during FY 2012. Devalued dollar = higher oil prices

    4. Summer demand nearly always = increased gas prices

    Of course, this may cease if Americans stop traveling when their kids get out of school…in which case Obama has an additional problem to solve

    You see, the only solutions to avoid spiked prices at the pump are those that the president refuses to embrace. He is destined to fail on this issue. I would be shocked if gas prices aren’t $4.50 by the end of May and $5 by the time summer hits full swing.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    to which mike was referring. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you missed that day. And I’ll note that Mike said “similar” statements, nothing specific. In this exchange, Rush pretty much implies that there are those who would rather run Romney even when they’re talking about him losing than a conservative.

    Rush

    And yes, I voted for Newt and am proud of it.

  • JSobieski

    who presume that Romney will lose.

    Rush didn’t say it was HIS point of view, but that it was the view of certain establishment types.

    He repeated this more than once.

    You should apologize for being wrong.

  • Seedyrom

    in the GOP. Once again dems and Obama obstruct a good bill.

  • ragstoriches

    you are using it in the sense of exception + al + ism: the belief that Obama’s presidency is the exception to the rule that all president’s are generally genuinely looking out for America’s best interests.

  • earlgrey

    I know air fare has shot way up.

  • http://www.redstate.com/wp-admin/user/profile.php docfreeman

    Our Trojan Horse president Good fiction must ring true to life – this narrative is incredible
    I was thinking about writing a novel about what might happen if a man who hates America and wants to bring it down is somehow elected president. What would he do?
    I sketched out a few plot elements, and you can decide whether this will fly.
    First, the Trojan Horse president would initiate unprecedented spending, driving the debt up by more than $4 trillion just in the first three years. Much of the money would go into the pockets of political supporters and people who donate heavily to his campaigns.
    He would ram through an unreadable law allowing the federal government to seize the health care system, which would transform citizens into beholden subjects.
    He would cut out private lenders and federalize student loans.
    He would go on a world apology tour, letting America?s friends and foes know that he is doing whatever he can to make sure America becomes a third-rate power and is brought to heel under a growing world government headed by the United Nations. While on the tour, he would praise Islam and denigrate America?s Christian heritage.
    He would cripple America?s ability to be energy-independent by halting new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska – even projects that already had undergone years of research and approval. While promoting oil drilling by Brazil and other foreign countries, he would halt a pipeline from Canada?s oil tar sands that could create 20,000 U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
    He would waste billions on ?new? sources of energy that don?t have a prayer of sustaining America?s vast industrial and service industries. This means windmills, solar farms and acres of cages full of hamsters on wheels that generate electricity.
    He would appoint a totalitarian-minded director of the Environmental Protection Agency to use global-warming hysteria to create carbon rules to shut down or bankrupt coal-burning electric plants and shackle manufacturers with hundreds of new regulations.
    He essentially would end the space program, a main driver of America?s computer and other high-tech industries. First he would order NASA to ?reach out? to Muslim nations.
    He would hollow out the military by killing new weapons, reducing forces and letting our foes know exactly when America is leaving the field of battle, regardless of conditions.
    To complete the job of destroying morale, he would orchestrate, with leaks and stacked surveys, an end to the military?s moral code, which has been in existence since the nation?s founding. He would brook no commander who held strong moral views and would appoint spineless bureaucrats to facilitate the new sexually androgynous armed forces.
    He would alienate European allies such as Poland by yanking away a missile-defense system after the Poles already had committed to it and risked the wrath of neighboring Russia.
    He would send his secretary of state around the world to promote abortion, homosexuality and anti-blasphemy dictums that stifle criticism of Shariah law.
    He would use the Justice Department to undermine the rule of law. Here are some ways he could do that:
    c Attempt to close down the Guantanamo Bay military prison and bring terrorist suspects into U.S. civil courts, where they could claim constitutional immunities.
    c Reignite racial animosity by dropping voter-intimidation charges against radicals such as the New Black Panther Party thugs outside a Philadelphia polling place.
    c Order his attorney general to flout the Constitution?s requirement to ?take care that the Laws be faithfully executed? by announcing that the administration will no longer defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act. While doing this, he would play coy with the media about his ?evolving? views on same-sex ?marriage? and facilitate homosexual activists? other key goals, such as a federal hate-crimes law.
    c Have the civil rights enforcement staff ignore voter-fraud allegations by citizens who happen to be white.
    c Ignore blatant violations of immigration law by ?sanctuary cities? while suing Arizona and threatening other states that dare to enforce federal laws against illegal immigration.
    c Threaten states that tighten laws against voter fraud, such as requiring a photo ID. Without evidence, accuse them of trying to ?suppress? the minority vote.
    c Ship hundreds of taxpayer-purchased firearms to Mexican drug gangs in order to frame law-abiding gun sellers in Texas. When the Fast and Furious weapons are used to kill U.S. and Mexican lawmen, the attorney general will pretend he didn?t know about the program until very recently and is shocked, shocked! The attorney general will claim that critics of this criminally insane policy are motivated by racial animus against him and the president. After all, this worked when anyone questioned why the president?s college and medical records were sealed or why he attended a Marxist minister?s church for 20 years and hung out with known terrorists.
    He would appoint Supreme Court justices who believe in a ?living Constitution,? which means they can ignore its plain meaning when it interferes with their ideological agenda.
    He would stack the National Labor Relations Board with union hacks who would do unspeakable things such as order a major company (Boeing) not to open a new factory in a right-to-work state (South Carolina) in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. If he got away with that, he would go ahead and strengthen a crony socialist system reminiscent of Mussolini?s Italy or Hugo Chavez?s Venezuela that subsidizes ?winners? such as Solyndra.
    Finally, throughout his tenure, he would employ the Marxist rhetoric of class warfare, blame ?the wealthy? and make more Americans dependent on government checks. He would sucker Republican leaders into secret meetings and emerge to accuse them of wanting to raise taxes on all but the rich.
    As I began to flesh out this novel, I decided it was a waste of time. Good fiction has to ring true to life, and the hamster part just won?t wash.

  • ihateliberals

    That is what caused the Conservative Republican Party to come into existence. Of course many other qualities have been added like support of the constitution and maintaining a small government. Liberalism today is the way these people keep from being called what they are and that is socialist, communist. The Black community was freed by the Republican Party 150 years ago and the Democrats immediate pandered to them to keep them enslaved by the government. In today’s government the word Entitlement and Enslavement are interchangeable. The Government now though has a much broader hold on all minorities as opposed to just the Black community of the 1860′s. The freest this nation has been since WWII was the years 1981 through 1988. People had more in pocket spending money and the Job market was begging for to find people to work. Everyone that wanted a job had one. The in 1989 the first of the Progressive was elected and we have been gong down hill ever since. GHW Bush might have been a Republican but he was no conservative. we use to call these people RINO’s but now we have to call them what they are and that is left-wing Republicans. Their end game agenda is the same as the Liberals they just have a different means of achieving it. Now we are heading down the same old worn out road with our choices being a far left democrat or a left-wing Republican.

  • romeg

    His presidency is exceptional only in the sense that his agenda is the most anti-individual, anti-liberty, anti-constitution, anti-America agenda in the entire history of the Republic.

    Others have been elected to the office with nefarious and ulterior motives but none have had such antipathy toward hallowed American institutions as Obama.

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    Politics is a game of compromise. Reagan wanted enormous reductions in spending, reallocation of federal priorities, and no more taxes. House Democrats wanted massive social spending and higher taxes. In order to get his early budgets passed, Reagan agreed to a tax hike in exchange for promises of budget cuts. The tax hike was passed, but the budget cuts never materialized. Now the left is blaming Reagan for the tax hike they fooled him into authorizing.

    Reagan learned his lesson, and never believed the House Democrats again. Rather than agree to their nonsense, he shut down the government twice in budget fights.

  • cja99

    Who are they kidding people. You know these liberal politicians, you give them an inch and they’ll take everything you own.

  • cja99

    $5.00/gallon? Obama and Chu want $8.00-$9,00/gallon like Europe.
    Obama’s Energy Secretary gave himself an A for “mishandling our energy situation. Play the tape of what “he has stated”, if you don’t believe me.

  • ww2nd95

    I’ve read your posts, you know better then this. I don’t agree with his policies in any way, shape, or form, but to say he isn’t gifted except for his skin color is ignorant. The man did get into Harvard and was head of the Harvard Law Review.. none of that is a joke. I’ll agree he doesn’t have any experience in leadership and it’s showing obviously in his presidency, but I think he’s probably a gifted individual, just not to our liking.

    This complete and utter hatred for Obama is what has given us Mitt Romney, who I think is almost certain to lose, though I will pull the lever for him, instead of Jon Huntsman (who would have been a guaranteed win for conservatives) because he didn’t bash Obama 24/7 like every other candidate did, and therefore the base kicked him to the curb early…. It’s horribly sad and depressing to see a very beatable President being handed a golden apple like Romney.

  • avagreen

    because all those deeds written on one post are a death knell for this nation, and by osmosis for the rest of the world.

  • Tbone

    One of the dumbest people I ever hired was a black, corporate lawyer with a BA and law degree from Princeton. Affirmative Action in action.

    Getting into Harvard was not hard. BTW, who paid his tuition?

    Where are Obama’s grades?

    He was an abject failure as Editor of HLR. He didn’t publish and he didn’t get any clerk offers.

    If you things he actually wrote they are high school level.

    He can’t talk a lick.

    He has made numerous gaffes due to a broad based ignorance. Austrian language?

    He actually appears to be drug addled.

  • demsaresatanic

    an undeserved compliment.

  • radicalrighty

    I still didn’t read anything that would justify this sentence in his post,

    “Limbaugh has made similar statements about putting Romney up to lose”

    Clearly, he meant to imply Rush (himself) has said it, while in reality, Rush has been careful to NOT criticize any of our candidates.

  • radicalrighty

    He wrote, “Limbaugh has made similar statements about putting Romney up to lose.”
    ******************************
    He was implying that Rush himself had said that, and that is not true.

  • radicalrighty

    That statement was not true and I challenged it. I also didn’t ask for anyone to be banned.

    Lastly, I’m sure not a Romney-bot, but will defend him from untruths and/or exaggerations, same as I would for any GOP candidate.

  • JSobieski

    Rush never said “I feel this way”. He did say it from a “other people are thinking this way”.