Why Defunding PBS Is Important

With the national debt now over $14 trillion, something’s got to be cut. PBS, through TV and radio provide news and entertainment. Does the government need to provide this?

The government provides us:

• Safety (from internal threats – police; from external threats – military)
  
• Education
  
• Medical Emergency services
  
• Transportation support (roads, air traffic control)
  
• News and entertainment services
  

One can add other services that the government provides. In the list, which item would you cut? What cut hurts the least?

When we make decisions for our family, this is what we have to question. This goes for government budgeting, too.

If we cannot cut PBS, then it is unlikely that any meaningful cuts will be made anywhere.

The GOP Made Obama Do It! Huh?

Re: Gitmo. The new spin is that the Republicans made him follow Bush's policies. Now, there is something to this.

Remember Reagan's deficits were accompanied by loud cries in the establishment media about how necessary for him to "compromise and cooperate" with the Democrats in Congress. In his time, the Democrats controlled the House and also at the end controlled the Senate, too. It was unfair to lay all the blame for the deficits on him and it may be unfair to blame all that's wrong on Obama, too.

However, the President is the one guy in the position to do things if anybody is. One gets the sense that Bush was really right on these national security issues and that, more than the politics, is what's driving Obama's Gitmo decisions.

Obama’s Re-election Prospects

Tony Blankley reminds us that Obama enjoys the incumbent’s advantages. He also reminds us that these advantages depends upon other factors. In modern times, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush all failed to win re-election. However, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush did. Thus, the history.

Bad/good Economic times are a factor. Obama has gotten a lot of mileage claiming, “Remember, we inherited this mess.” The Republicans and the press has been remiss in reminding people that the Democrats controlled the Congress and that key Democrats were Chairman of powerful Congressional committees and that they had made sweetheart deals with the Finance Industry in the two years before the crash. Obama could still face this point in the 2012 election campaign, however.

Worse for Obama, is explaining how the current economic problems became so bad. If the aftermath of the crash was always going to be intrinsically bad, despite the best policies (which Obama claims he implemented), then why did not he or his party say so beforehand? Instead, he goes into 2012 having to explain why his policies did not take a bad situation and make it worse.

The above has to be put in the perspective of bad economic times continuing for the duration of his presidency.

Then there’s the Health Care issue. It is shaping up to be a mess. Already it is being repealed in a death of a thousand cuts. 1,000 waivers have already been issued - and not by Republicans, but by Obama’s own administration.

There’s the half trillion dollars that’s being counted twice.

A major component of Obama’s Health Care Bill CLASS, standing for Community Living Assisted Services and Support, has been declared “totally unsustainable”, again not by just Republicans but by Obama’s own cabinet secretary for Health and Human Services.

Millions of people have already seen huge increases in their health insurance premiums. In the years ahead, millions will face practical restrictions in health care access as doctors cut patients due to the HC Bill’s regulations.

These are consequential items.

After Obama tires of having to explain his domestic problems, he can look abroad. His foreign successes peaked with his Nobel Prize. Since then, his every initiative has been rebuffed.

What is significant is the degree that he has antagonized so many foreign leaders who have been otherwise supportive of American Presidents. In future crisis, he is unlikely to receive the support that Presidents have in the past.

So, much of the advantages of the incumbent will be neutralized by three area of economic policy, health care policy, and foreign policy which are likely to be disadvantageous to the President.

Islamic Radicals and Congressional Hearings Thereon

The House opens hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America (the King Hearings, named for the chairman of the committee holding them). How can this be any more anti-Islamic than hearings last century on the Ku Klux Klan? (The KKK recruited mostly from Christian churches.) Terrorism is terrorism, whether the source is domestic or foreign; whether it uses Christians or Muslims, whether the problem was last century or this one. Our country dealt with the KKK last century, we can deal with this quaisi-Muslim stuff this century. Government can use the same techniques for both.

First step is to identify the problem and learn about it. Denying that we have one was not the answer last time. It only lengthened the scope of the KKK’s reach and power. Denying the problem of Muslim extremism will not work this century, too.

The King Hearings in the House are a necessary corrective to the culture of denial of the problem by the Obama Administration and too many of the Muslim community.

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From Baghdad to Benghazi

My take on Charles Krauthammer's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: Obama once derided G.W. Bush's views on democracy in the Middle East; now events are imposing those views on him.

Quote:

Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda, it's not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed "realism" of Years One and Two of President Obama's foreign policy - the "smart power" antidote to Bush's alleged misty-eyed idealism.

My Views: I've written before bemoaning the left's attitude that all that was necessary was to denounce Bush's policies and then turn their minds off. In reading K's little essay, I wonder if Obama deserves no credit whatsoever for softening anti-American attitudes in the Middle East. Is he really sure that Obama's kind speeches and other out-reaches to the Arabs have not had anything to do with the less anti-American moods that he now detects?

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Charles Krauthammer is a more establishment columnist. He came to punditry by way of psychiatry (at Massachusetts General Hospital) via the New Republic Magazine. He appears on TV where you never see his wheelchair. Here's his Wiki bio.

I am drawn by the substance and the thinking than any particular writing flair.

Half Trillion Dollars Off

The Obama Administration admitted today that 1/2 trillion dollars of the Health Care Budget has been double counted. The money is being applied to Medicare and to expenses at the same time.

Would that we could all do that. I've got $50. I want to pay my $50 utility bill and I want to drop $50 at the local tavern. Why cannot I just take that $50 in money and spend it in both places at the same time? After all, Obama does it - and he even tacks a few zeros on it, too!

Stevenson on Leadership

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

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