THE FOUNDATION

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” –John Marshall

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Few of President Obama’s 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year ‘will not see their taxes increase by a single dime’ if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: It’s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes. Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation,’ White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. ‘It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,’ Mr. Summers said – except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, ‘We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.’ These aren’t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it. … In an editorial on February 26, ‘The 2% Illusion,’ we wrote that the feds could take 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning more than $500,000 and still have raised only $1.3 trillion even in the boom year of 2006. The rich are fewer and less rich now, while the Obama budget is nearly $4 trillion. Democrats already plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts, but that won’t raise enough money. So they’re proposing an income tax surcharge on ‘the wealthy,’ but that won’t raise enough either. Democrats have no choice but to soak the middle class because only they have enough money to finance the liberal dream of yoking the middle class to cradle-to-grave government entitlements.” – The Wall Street Journal

VILLAGE IDIOTS

Get ready for tax hikes: “If we want an economy that’s going to grow in the future, people have to understand we have to bring those deficits down. And it’s going to be difficult, hard for us to do. … We’re not at the point yet where we’re going to make a judgment about what it’s going to take.” –Treasury Secretary Timothy Tax Cheatin’ Geithner when asked if taxes could be raised on the middle class

Tax hikes II: “[I]t is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what.” –White House National Economic Council Director Larry Summers on tax increases for the middle class

White House “clarification”: “The president’s clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.” –White House press secretary Robert Gibbs

A lady and a scholar: “F–king redneck douchebaggery. Unmitigated douchebaggery. Why are they holding signs that say, ‘Whatchoo talking about, Willis?’ These people are called ‘racially sensitive’, what they should be called is racist, backward motherf–kers.” –actress and “comedian” Janeane Garofalo on Tea Party protestors

INSIGHT

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." –President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’" –President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

"There is good news from Washington today. The Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

UPRIGHT

“‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.’ We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away…. If you think government should ‘do something’ about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don’t have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“[H]ealth care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That’s its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists – to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Polling shows that most Americans are happy with the health insurance they have. One reason is that they have, in economist Albert Hirschman’s phrase, the option of exit. Most Americans choose health-insurance policies every year, and if we don’t like our current plan, we can exit from it and choose another. Government insurance will tend to close off the option of exit, trapping you in a system that is sure to be riddled with unanticipated consequences.” –political analyst Michael Barone

“The White House and Congress have encountered a delay on the bullet train to passing health care legislation. This is a good thing. Our government has just proven that it cannot even purchase used cars, but it expects us to believe that it has a stranglehold on health care and its costs?” –columnist R. Blake Curd

“A society that is organized to permit individuals to flourish and to realize their potential … will broadly share in the increased prosperity those individuals help to create. A society (or a global system) that misunderstands wealth creation and wishes to level society by penalizing success will make life poorer for everyone.” –columnist Mona Charen

THE DEMO-GOGUES

The Big Lie: “First of all, nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care. I’m tired of hearing that. I have been as clear as I can be. Under the reform I’ve proposed, if you like your doctor you keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. These folks need to stop scaring everybody, you know?” –Barack Obama And we’re tired of you and your lies.

What he said then: “My commitment is to make sure that we have universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. … I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process.” – Barack Obama in 2007

Pointing fingers: “It’s almost immoral what [private insurers] are doing. Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure. … They are the villains in this.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

We’re all just pawns of the insurance companies: “I hope my colleagues won’t fall for a sucker punch like this. These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town meetings for visual impact on television. They want to show thousands of people screaming socialism and try to overcome the public sentiment, which now favors health care reform. … There are health insurance companies that are … very profitable and they don’t want to see this reform so they are helping to organize these rallies.” –Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

Somehow, this is not reassuring: “Let me assure you: There will be a health care reform bill passed and it will make a big difference in the lives of the American people.” –Nancy Pelosi

Cat’s out of the bag: “I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer and that’s the best way to reach single payer. … I think the best way we’re gonna get single payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate its strength and its power.” –Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)

As if that’s a good thing: “One expert from a conservative think tank called this Congress ‘as active and productive as any I can remember. Its true – we have passed more serious, substantive laws than any Congress since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

DEZINFORMATSIA

We know what’s good for you: “You’ve got 47 percent of the people at our NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll who have health insurance who don’t like what the president’s doing. The problem he’s got, 47 percent of the people who have got coverage don’t want change. They don’t like what they’re hearing. Now, they may not know what’s good for them, but the problem is that he always knew he was going to have to persuade people with insurance.” –NBC’s Andrea Mitchell

“So many people are working to bring down health-care reform because it has a negative impact on their little corner of the world, or they’ve got a partisan interest in hampering President Obama’s agenda. … And most are pretty heartless about the more than 40 million uninsured, thinking that those people should do something for themselves and not drain resources from the rest of the system. This is what Obama is up against.” –Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift

Time for re-education camps: “The insurance industry and some of the medical moguls continue to demonize health care reform as 'socialism.’ The broadcast wing of the Republican Party, led by Rush Limbaugh, is pumping out fear-mongering falsehoods about health reform. I am concerned that members of the House and Senate who favor reform have a massive task ahead of them during their August break: They need to re-educate the public about what reform will do – and what it won’t.” –looonggg-time journalist Helen Thomas

Why the scare quotes?: “It’s happening almost everywhere Democrats are trying to defend health care reform. Angry protestors … against what they called ‘government-run health care’…. Avoiding this kind of uproar is partly why Democrats wanted to pass health reform before the August recess. Democrats are now out there without a final bill to defend, but facing opponents trying to kill what they call ‘ObamaCare’ with a show of August heat.” –CBS’s Wyatt Andrews

Just raise taxes already: “Nothing has been more damaging to rational discourse about economic policy than the notion, peddled relentlessly by Republican conservatives and accepted by too many centrist Democrats, that raising taxes is always and everywhere bad for the economy.” –Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein

When sexism is okay: “I think that often where I am is just in the middle. The middle is often the common-sensical place to be. The notion that one side is right and one side is wrong is generally, as one finds in life, not the case. Women tend to be a lot more common-sensical than men are. In fact, when the Mark Sanford thing broke, I went tearing into my husband’s office and said, ‘Okay, that’s it. Women just are better. Men are just lesser beings.’ He couldn’t argue at that point.” –ABC and NPR news analyst Cokie Roberts

Obamedia: “I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media. … A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom. This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.” –disgraced “journalist” Dan Rather

Newspulper Headlines:

‘An Irish Cop, Two Black Guys and Joe Biden Walk Into a Bar….’: “Black Scholar Says He’s Able to Joke About Arrest” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “Ski Resorts in Summer Are Fun but Not for Skiing” –Associated Press

Who Would Want More Than 2?: “House OKs More Arms Than Obama Wants” –Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)

They’re Always in the Last Place You Look: “51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit” –National Geographic News

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Foreign Workers Market Spinning Out of Control” –Jerusalem Post

News of the Tautological: “Sheriff’s Office Looking for Missing Man” –Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Obama Lectures the Country on Race, Economy” –U.S. News & World Report Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

SHORT CUTS

“No Member of Congress in his or her right mind is going to walk into a [town hall] meeting knowing that opponents of Obama Care are armed with cell phone video cameras and instructions on how to upload to YouTube. The Pelosi plan to sell the health care plan will have lasted even less time than the Cash-for-Clunkers program.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“The president’s dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“President Obama just announced he’s considering transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Michigan. The idea is to scare the prisoners into revealing information about terror plots by showing them a bus ticket to Detroit.” –comedian Conan O'Brien

“Liberals will occasionally make a movie about the courageous Germans who attempted to assassinate Hitler, but they get their panties in a knot when our government tries to kill Islamic terrorists. Hell, they even break out in hives if the human scum locked up in Gitmo don’t get their prayer mats dry-cleaned on a regular basis.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky 

“The GOP National Committee had a convention in San Diego over the weekend. They denounced health care reform as socialism and blasted czars as abuse of power. They believe that the Democrats have drifted so far to the left that in the next Star Trek movie, the Starship Enterprise will be re-christened the Starship Shared Responsibility.” –comedian Argus Hamilton