My Democrat mom and Republican father did agree one thing: that government welfare made it “too easy” for the able-bodied “get on the county.” And my Dad always said, “If you try to get something for nothing, you end up with nothing for something.”
…
My dad’s wisdom was simple. Don’t play the victim: “Hard work wins. Nobody owes you a living. You get out of life what you put into it. And no matter how you hard work or how good you are, bad things will happen. How you react will tell if me and your mom raised a man.”
Massachusetts lowered its state income tax in 2001. Given the presumably large number of rich people who pine to pay more taxes, the state allowed tax filers to check a box and voluntarily pay the old, higher rate. In a liberal state of over 3 million tax filers, how many volunteered to pay the higher rate in 2004? A tiny fraction of 1 percent — 930 taxpayers.
Among those who refused to pay the higher rate? Sen. Kerry and Rep. Barney Frank. In Frank’s case, he refused to pay the higher rate because, he says, “I don’t trust the legislative leadership and Gov. (Mitt) Romney to make the right decisions.” Instead, Frank said, “I’ll donate the money myself.”
“Red Lobster, Olive Garden (are) using Obama re-election as an excuse to deny employees benefits and living wages,” Jon Marquis fumed.
Twitter user Daphine Walker sent unhinged, ungrammatical messages to Red Lobster and Olive Garden in all-caps: “I WILL NEVER SPEND ANOTHER CENT ON THIS RACIST COMPANY WHO DOESNT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEIR EMPLOYEES.”
The CEO of Red Lobster and Olive Garden is black. But no matter. Regardless of the actual facts, economic realities and entirely predictable and inevitable consequences of command-and-control government mandates, it’s always about identity politics for the Obama grievance mob. In good times and bad, the left never grants waivers from the race card.
The Common Core, then, should be viewed, at least in part, as an attempt by the Obama administration to gain control of what is taught in public schools for the purpose of indoctrination. As Stanley Kurtz puts it, “Obama has managed to press direct support for his most cherished and controversial policy initiative onto your local school district.”
Kurtz warned about this move in Spreading The Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For the Cites. And he documented the central role in the development of the Common Core being played by Linda Darling-Hammond.
A long-time proponent of a politicized curriculum, Darling-Hammod was Obama’s education adviser during the 2008 campaign. She was on track to be nominated Secretary of Education until her leftism alienated many Democrats. Bill Ayers — domestic terrorist and former Obama associate on educational matters — expressed disappointment that Darling-Hammond was not nominated, adding that he would also have picked Noam Chomsky for Secretary of State, fellow terrorist Bernadine Dohrn for Attorney General, and Paul Krugman for Secretary of Treasury.
But, as Kurtz explains, Darling-Hammond may be more useful in her role as the leading presence at the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of the two private groups involved in designing the Common Core. And Darling-Hammond isn’t just a prime force behind the common curriculum; she’s also working on standardized testing. Kurtz shows that Darling-Hammond is actually opposed to such testing and that her mission is to dumb testing down.
The shrewdest aspect of Obama’s education power play is the relative absence of his fingerprints. As noted, Common Core is being presented as having been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia. In reality, though, most of them hadn’t even seen the new standards. They were induced to agree to adopt whatever curriculum leftists like Darling-Hammond came up with as a condition of receiving federal funds.
Instead of trying to bribe single America into voting Republican, Republicans might do better by making the argument—to all Americans—that marriage is a pillar of both freedom and liberalism. That it is an arrangement which ought to be celebrated, nurtured, and defended because its health is integral to the success of our grand national experiment. And that Julia and her boyfriend ought to go ahead and tie the knot.
Instead of turning the GOP willingness to deal on taxes into a win-win, the White House seemingly wants to humiliate them by insisting they cave entirely on increasing tax rates — or take responsibility for going over the cliff. Instead of sitting down and negotiating directly with leaders from the other side in private getaways, as presidents like Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan did, the president launches a campaign-style offensive against them.
The proposal that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put before Republicans on Thursday, as reported by The New York Times, was clearly intended to score political points with Democrats rather than entice Republicans into serious negotiations. It was full of nonstarters. One example: It demanded that Republicans lock in to $1.6 trillion of higher taxes in December and in exchange said that spending cuts one-quarter that size would be the subject of talks next year. Come again?
What we are seeing, I regret to say, looks very much like a movie we have seen before: The side that wins an election thinks the public has given them permission to steamroll the other side, pushing through their favorite ideas willy-nilly. Sometimes, they partially succeed, but before long, there is a backlash, and Washington comes to another grinding halt.
