# No Child Left Behind. Forget about abolishing the Department of Education. Bush made the federal government a much more intrusive and costly part of local schools.
# Project Safe Neighborhoods. A draconian law that further guts the 2nd Amendment, like 20,000 other unconstitutional gun laws before it.
# Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.
# Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the '30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.
# Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.
# Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bush's encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.
# Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).
# Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, they're now used to herd in opponents.
# The Patriot Act. This 401-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.
# The War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. It's become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.
# Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.
# The No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and it's still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the future…
# The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizens' dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid you're not polite to them…
# Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.
# Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history.
Drawn with edit from:
MORRIS: So, if we talk about the rich side of this, and if income is taxed at a higher level, does that solve all the problems?
VARNEY: No, not at all. Let's go crazy. Let's, for example, imagine that we tax at 100 percent every dollar anybody makes over $250,000 a year. In other words, you take it all off them. You make $250,000 and $1, that $1 comes right off you -- goes to the government. You'd still only bring in $900 billion a year. You've still got a deficit of $750 billion, even with 100 percent tax rate above $250K per year. Now, let's suppose you go utterly insane, and totally illegal, and you confiscate the wealth, not the income, the wealth --
DOOCY: The stuff in the bank.
VARNEY: The -- your real estate, your stocks, your bonds, your yacht, your corporate jet, your business, just take it all off the 400 richest people in America. You confiscate the lot. You still balance the budget for just one year. And the year after that, you're back to a trillion dollar deficit, and plus you've wrecked the economy and ruined the Constitution. That's another story.
July 26, 2011 by Robert Ringer
Watching the nonstop commentaries on television about the debt ceiling debate only reinforces the reality that most people — including many perceived conservatives — still don’t get it. If they did, they would not allow themselves to be diverted by a political circus.
It amazes me how the vast majority of conservatives — both inside and outside of the media — still take Barack Obama seriously and believe he is desperately trying to save the United States from economic disaster. Don’t get me wrong. Obama wants to do what is right for America, but his vision of “right” is wealth redistribution on a massive scale carried out by an all-powerful Federal government.
As Obama continues to toy with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, he is well aware that the continuation of his policies will destroy the U.S. economy beyond repair. I believe his strategy from the outset has been to follow the Saul Alinsky model: Win the Presidency through a semi-legitimate election, then tighten your grip over everything and everybody, move swiftly to create economic chaos, and use the chaos you’ve created to establish a dictatorship.
Now don’t go giving Obama too much credit for originality. He’s really just a slick and clever copycat. Getting elected and then using your powers to eliminate all competition is an old trick used by power-hungry thugs throughout history.
Of all the dictators over the past hundred years, I believe Obama’s rise to power mirrors that of Adolf Hitler’s more than anyone else. I know, I know… I can practically hear readers chuckling. Enslaved people throughout history have a propensity for chuckling — until they wake up one morning and find themselves in chains. So, by all means, feel free to chuckle — but do hear me out.
Though most people don’t realize it, Hitler was legitimately chosen to be chancellor of Germany in 1933 by President Paul von Hindenburg. At his swearing-in ceremony, Hitler faithfully repeated the oath of office: “I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone.”
