LinkThe American people have only a limited role in the United States government. They must choose representatives to govern for them, rather than govern directly. They have just two political parties from which to choose. And if a representative from one district votes for a bill that affects another, the people in the other district cannot do a thing about it.
Oftentimes, one can't help but wonder if the practical power of the people is even slighter. American elections too often have low turnout. They are too frequently determined by the campaign for dollars, as candidates raise money to subsidize the unctuous propaganda that fills the airwaves prior to Election Day. Elections often do a poor job of booting the bad characters from government. The whole ugly process of electoral politics rarely seems to attract the best of the citizenry. A visit to Washington, D.C. can prompt the cynical question, "Who runs this place? Because it sure as hell doesn't seem like it's the people..."
And yet for all this, the people do indeed rule. While their power is limited, it is nevertheless unconditional where it exists. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi need the assent of the people of the United States to govern this country. But the people don't need any such thing. In the limited sphere where they rule, they are supreme.
This is easy to forget because it is rare to see the people actually wield their power in its full force. Between 1954 and 1994, the Democrats controlled the House, whether they deserved to or not. The Republicans controlled it from 1994 to 2006, again regardless of merit. The Senate has usually been just as static. Turnover in the presidency has also been fairly uneventful. Only once in the last century have the people ejected from the White House a party it had installed just four years prior (that dubious distinction goes to Jimmy Carter and the Democrats, who were promoted to the White House in 1976 then quickly demoted in 1980).
This kind of stability can give the impression that the people do not rule. We so rarely see the full force of their power that it is easy to think that the real bossess are the decades-long denizens of the prestige committees, the high-powered lobbyists, the king-makers in both party establishments, or the plugged-in Beltway journalists. We see them all the time, preening about their power and influence. They seem like they're really in charge.
But they're not. D.C. might shine brilliantly to the eyes of some, but it is still just reflected light. For all their posturing, the establishment still works at the pleasure of the people. It just so happens that the people usually choose to renew their tenure.
Yet this year, it looks like the people are set to deliver a historic rebuke to the establishment. The portents of the coming reprimand are all around us. Consider:
-Arlen Specter was effectively booted from the Republican Party nearly a year before the primary election. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the Republican electorate in Pennsylvania had become too conservative. This tendentious interpretation has been exploded by the fact that he's about to be ejected from the Democratic side, too.
-Scott Brown came out of nowhere to defeat Martha Coakley in the election to replace Senator Ted Kennedy.
-Former Senator Dan Coats couldn't even get 40% of the vote in the Indiana primary. Most of the vote was split between Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler, who combined had raised just $315k by April 14.
-In Indiana's 9th Congressional District, frequent candidate, former representative and party favorite Mike Sodrel finished in third place. In Indiana's 5th District, Republican incumbent Dan Burton scored just 30% of the primary vote.
-Charlie Crist has been forced to exit the Republican primary in Florida because of Marco Rubio's surge. He is currently leading in opinion polls, but the lead is completely illusory. Right now, he's winning over 40% of the Democratic vote (more than the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kendrick Meeks) as well as nearly 25% of the African-American vote. Those numbers are unsustainable.
-Three-term Senator Bob Bennett has been booted from his seat by the Republican Party of Utah.
This is the thunder on the mountain, the early warning that something bad is about to blow through the District of Columbia. I don't think there's anything anybody there can do about it. The people have a limited role in this government - but where the people do possess power, they are like a force of nature. They cannot be stopped.
That's bad news for the establishment this year. They're going to wake up on the morning of November 3rd and be reminded of who is actually in charge of this country.
Democrats will be hit much, much harder than Republicans. Even so, it would be a huge mistake to interpret the coming rebuke through a strictly ideological or partisan lens. Yet predictably, that's what many will do. Republicans will see this as a historic rejection of Barack Obama's liberalism, just as they saw the 1994 revolution as a censure of Bill Clinton, and just as Democrats saw 2006 and 2008 as admonishments of George W. Bush's foreign policy. These interpretations are only half right. When the people are angry at the way the government is being managed, and they are casting about for change, their only option is the minority party. The partisans of the minority are quick to interpret this as their holy invitation to the promised land, but that's not what it really is about. They were only given the promotion because the people had no other choice.
The entire political class needs to understand that the coming events transcend ideology and partisanship. The electoral wave of 2010 will have been preceded by the waves of 2006 and 2008. That will make three electoral waves in a row, affecting both parties and conservative and liberal politicians alike. The American people are sending the establishment a message: we're angry at the way you are running our government; fix it or you'll be next to go.
Some of you may think that I am being dramatic when I say that images of Greece may soon become a reality in America, if we continue down our current path. Yeah ... that's me. Mr. Drama. There are two main issues that led to the downfall of Greece. First, the government took on too much debt, which means the Greek government spends too much money. While our own government debt is alarming - and growing at record rates with The Community Organizer in charge. We're in a financial crisis right now - not as bad as Greece, but bad enough - but it wasn't caused so much by government debt as it was by government ineptness. It was private debt that sent us into a tailspin. Specifically, trillions of dollars owed on real estate loans by people who didn't have and never had much of a chance of paying those loans off. Our government debt problem can still be solved - but not with this man in the White House and these big-spenders controlling the congress.
What is going to be a lot harder to solve is the second issue that led to Greece's downfall: an entitlement culture. Greece is a country that has managed to convince its people that they need the government in order to survive. Not only do they need the government but they are ENTITLED to certain things, and like any good entitlement culture, that list of "things" only grows and grows. Suddenly, the people of Greece believe that they are owed a comfortable life by their government, even if they are not willing to work for it.
In Greece the average government worker retires at 58 years-of-age with 80% of their final basic salary. The Greek government can't even tell you how many government employees there are. Some estimate that figure to be one out of three Greek workers. Unions run the show and the government marches to the demands of union leaders. In this regard Greek government officials are much like our own. Unlike the private sector, when government officials are met with unreasonable union demands for wages and job security they don't have to crunch the numbers to see if the demands can be met with any degree of fiscal responsibility. After all .. they can just raise taxes. You start weighing the effect of unions working against your reelection to the mindless voters remembering a tax increase a year later when they go to the polls and ... well, it's not hard to figure out.
Over the years, Greek salaries and pensions have risen 30% above Greek productivity ... in other words, they were getting paid more than they were worth. Not only that, but they felt ENTITLED to this payment and only sought to gain more and more while doing less and less. We are talking about a culture where being a hairdresser is considered a "hazardous job" ... a hazardous job that makes you eligible to retire with a full pension (funded by the government) at the age of 50. But it's not just hairdressers, there are 580 other job categories that have managed to convince the government that there job is so hazardous that they are worthy of an early retirement - 50 for women and 55 for men. Radio and TV presenters - I guess that would include yours truly - can take early retirement because they are thought to be at risk from bacteria on their microphones. Musicians who play wind instruments .. they can retire at age 50 because they have to deal with gastric reflux from all the puffing and blowing.
No, I am not making this stuff up. This is what happens when you have a country that believes they are owed everything and a government that is willing to give it to them because that gives them (the politicians) more power. In the meantime, paying for this mentality mattered not ... until now.
Are we now watching the final chapter in Greece? The EU and the IMF are ready to bail out Greece with over $150 billion dollars, but there are strings. Wages are going to have to be cut. Government employees are going to lose jobs ... and, as you can see if you peel your eyes away from Inside Edition this evening ... the Greeks don't like it. They're rioting. They're attacking their own police officers. They're destroying property. Greece is virtually paralyzed by violence .. people reacting to the reality that their cushy ride might be coming to an end. You're seeing what happens when a parasite is separated from the host ... when the protected and coddled face the prospect of having to develop a bit of self-reliance.
Could this happen in America? Can someone please tell me why it could not?
The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus.
"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of
July ."Disrespect? Incendiary? By wearing an American Flag t-shirt in the United States of America just because they wore it on May 5? This is precisely what's wrong with our country. No assimilation. Immigrants want to turn California and other border states into the Mexico North campus by overrunning the culture instead of learning it. And the left wonders why people are getting pissed.
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10. I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.
9. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.
8. I voted Democrat because Freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
7. I voted Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.
6. I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.
5. I voted Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies through abortion so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
4. I voted Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits.
3. I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the democrats see fit.
2. I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.
1. I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my ass it's unlikely that I'll ever have another point of view.
"We have about five more years at the outside to do something."
Kenneth Watt, ecologist
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."
George Wald, Harvard Biologist
"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions....By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
"Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support...the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution...by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...."
Life Magazine, January 1970
"At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable."
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones."
Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate...that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, `I am very sorry, there isn't any.'"
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
Sen. Gaylord Nelson
"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
The White House has warned state and local governments not to expect a "significant federal response" at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours after the blast, according to a planning guide.
President Obama told delegates from 47 nations at the Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday that it would be a "catastrophe for the world" if al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got a nuclear device, because so many lives would be lost and it would be so hard to mitigate damage from the blast.
About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.
In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.
Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
