Statement from Governor Daniels regarding Speaker Boehner’s debt proposal
“I hope the Indiana Congressional Delegation will support Speaker Boehner’s proposal. The terrifying, nation-threatening debt levels caused by past and present overspending and future overpromising will not be solved by any one action or in any one year. But the Boehner plan begins in the right place, with real spending restraint and would show Americans and world markets that we do not intend to commit financial suicide. I hope Congress passes it and then begins work immediately on step two of our long march back to national solvency and economic prosperity.”
It’s not much of a surprise that Gov. Daniels would support the Boehner budget proposal. Daniels is a serious limited-government advocate, but he’s acutely aware of what is politically possible, which is what made him so successful at obtaining serious reforms in Indiana.
[click to continue…]
Michele Bachmann
Political rhetoric in the United States has always been feverish and low on scruples. That’s the nature of democracies. Yet there has arisen a new atmosphere in the past decade, and it is not a result of right-wing talk radio. It is instead a legacy of the 1960s New Left, which held that purity of purpose justifies any tactic short of murder.
Purity of purpose, moreover, is to be found only in progressive, statist quarters. All others must endure whatever the statists wish to visit upon them.
[click to continue…]
Above: Advocates For Self Government's famous "World's Smallest Political Quiz."
A recent New York magazine article has raised a bit of a ruckus on the right. In his long article on libertarianism, Christopher Beam appears both fascinated and puzzled by the odd phenomenon under his microscope. Anyone at all familiar with libertarianism will recognize that his characterization of the movement and the philosophy behind it is something of a caricature, but there is a serious critique to be found in his article.
That critique is seriously wrong, as it happens, and understanding just where Beam goes wrong could go a long way toward helping libertarians, conservatives, classical liberals, and others on the right better understand the foundations of our thought and the opportunities for a mass movement it may afford. Too often we tend to argue as vigorously over our differences with one another as we do with those whose big-government policies are the real adversary. What we share, however, is the foundation for a truly American mass political movement.
[click to continue…]
AP suggests that increasing oil prices indicate the U.S. economy is strengthening . . . or weakening (note passages in bold type):
The amount of oil in storage remains above the average for this time of year, yet the oil price is now at its highest level since October 2008, when the global financial crisis was taking hold. Oil prices have risen about 11 percent this year, while crude supplies have increased by 11.5 percent.
The government also said gasoline inventories declined by 1.9 million barrels to 210.3 million barrels while demand over the past four weeks was up slightly, averaging 9.1 million barrels a day. That’s an increase of 1.8 percent from the year earlier period.
Oil prices have climbed steadily in recent weeks because the dollar has weakened against other currencies. That’s largely because of the Federal Reserve’s decision to pour $600 billion into a bond-buying program to stimulate the U.S. economy.
Since oil is priced in dollars, a weaker dollar makes it more of a bargain for buyers using euros or other currencies. Energy traders expect this to happen, so they buy oil when the dollar falls, boosting the effect.
Yet, oil was higher Wednesday even though the dollar was stronger as traders concluded the inventory decline was a sign of an improving economy. On Thursday the dollar fell against the euro and rose versus the yen.
Or is it really U.S. economic growth that they’re expecting? Consider this, from the same AP article:
[click to continue…]
Given that politics both manifests and affects the culture, it’s appropriate to consider the possible cultural meaning of Tuesday’s elections. Voters replaced the party in power in the House by an unusually large change in seats (a swing of more than sixty), cut the Senate majority to the near-minimum, and turned over party rule of several state legislatures and governorships.
Nineteen state houses flipped to the Republican Party, a truly astonishing number. The North Carolina and Alabama legislatures are under Republican control for the first time since the 1870s.
These changes reflect a cultural trend in the nation exemplified, of course, by the Tea Party phenomenon. The election results show an increasing political and cultural bifurcation of the nation into a bourgeois-liberal heartland and a high-population-density progressive enclave confined largely to New England and the West.
As to the political and cultural ideas expressed in last night’s elections, here is my comment for a Heartland Institute symposium on the subject:
[click to continue…]
