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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 20, 2008 / 13 Adar II 5768

Spending as if there were no tomorrow

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | We've all seen or heard about them. Perhaps they are friends or family members who have demonstrated financial irresponsibility: a college student who has a budget and quickly exceeds it on wild partying; a cousin or best friend who asks for a "loan" and then never pays it back; people whose credit cards are maxed out and they can't afford the finance charges.


Government behaves similarly, playing any or all of those roles. It now resembles an irresponsible parent, spending the children's wages and inheritance as if there were no tomorrow. Republicans lost the spending issue — and their congressional majority — because they behaved like overspending Democrats. Now Democrats in the House are going the Republicans one better. They are promising to increase spending should they win the White House and maintain their congressional majority.


According to an analysis of the fiscal 2009 House Democratic majority's federal budget by Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation, (www.heritage.org), every American household would pay on average $3,100 more in federal taxes. That amounts to $1.265 trillion more over five years and $3.911 trillion over 10 years. Worse (if that's possible) the Democratic budget proposal increases discretionary spending by 8 percent and does not eliminate even one wasteful program. It also ignores the coming explosion in the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.


None of these increases will be paid for by "soaking the rich" with new tax increases. That means more borrowing from countries that don't have America's best interest as a priority, more inflation and a weaker dollar.


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The spending virus has so permeated Congress that members won't even go on the wagon during an election year. The bipartisan DeMint-McCaskill budget amendment that would have required a one-year moratorium on earmarks was soundly defeated 71-29. This is how little respect most members have for those whose money they take through taxation, spending it like frat boys on a weekend bender.


The Washington Examiner newspaper determined that the longer someone serves in the Senate, the more likely they are to favor spending more money and to oppose any suggestion that they stop. According to the Examiner, "the average seniority of senators voting for DeMint-McCaskill was 12 years, while opponents averaged 22 years in the Senate." All three presidential candidates returned from the campaign trail to vote for the measure. Sen. John McCain is far more credible on spending reductions than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and the moratorium was about slashing earmarks, not the big-ticket items most in need of reform, but getting any politician on record favoring spending reductions (and then following through to see if they mean it) is worth something.


This year, according to Heritage, the federal government will spend $25,117 per household.


The excuse one hears most often is that there is no place legislators can cut spending.


Really?


Last year, says the Heritage Foundation, the government made at least $55 billion in overpayments; the Pentagon spent almost $1 million shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida. Even the coming postal rate increases aren't that high.


Washington spends $60 billion per year on corporate welfare compared to $50 billion on homeland security. Suburban families are receiving large farm subsidies for the grass in their back yards, subsidies that many of these families never requested and do not want. Over half of all farm subsidies go to corporate farms with average household incomes of $200,000.


And then there is my personal favorite: government auditors spent the last five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them — costing taxpayers $123 billion per year — fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.


This is outrageous. That our elected officials participate in this sham and then claim they can't afford to cut anything ought to disgust us all, especially when some are planning to spend even more. It demonstrates that a government program is proof of eternal life in Washington.

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