The Foundation

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

“They’re making a bundle inside the Beltway, while across the country it takes $2 million to create a pothole-filling job. Never has Washington spent so much to get so little real work. When the Democrats are in charge, the rich just get richer. Wait – isn’t that what we’re supposed to say about Republicans? Not so when federal stimulus funds are being spent. Washington has taken trickle-down economics to a whole new level of inefficiency. Those closest – literally – to the seat of federal power get the most. By the time the funds make their long journey to paychecks for people doing productive work, there’s not a whole lot left. Take the example, revealed this past week, of how $111 million in stimulus money has so far funded a paltry 55 public-works jobs in Los Angeles. City Controller Wendy Gruel says two municipal departments, Public Works and Transportation, plan eventually to create or retain 264 jobs with that money, but the contracting process is so slow that most of the money is still waiting to be spent. So the price tag per job is $2 million at this point. Even if the city departments meet their target of 264, it will drop to only $420,000. This is still several times what workers will actually get paid. So where does all the money go in cases such as this? In part it goes to the capital costs and profit of the contractors. But much of it also gets absorbed into the normal process of government contracting, in which public employees are paid to ensure (ideally) that the taxpayers are getting the most for their money and aren’t being cheated by favoritism. Of course, bureaucrats typically feel no need to rush things along. They don’t get paid any less if a street gets repaved a few months late.” –Investor’s Business Daily

Insight

“The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.” –economist Fredrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)

“It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” –Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954)

Upright

“The establishment hates people it can’t control and who are not beholden to those who run it. Conservative candidates who are scoring well understand this is a contest between the Washington establishment and the rest of the country. The establishment has one set of interests and the country has another. The conservatives are beholden to the people. The establishment is beholden only to itself and those it chooses to admit to the inside-the-beltway inner circle.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“Americans are fed up with voting for the lesser of two evils. What is the epitome of a lesser evil? A ‘Me First’ politician masquerading him or herself as a loyal member of a political party. As a conservative, I’ll leave Democrats to deal with their own phonies. On the Republican side, despite all the hysteria emanating from those who think they know better, the electorate was three-for-three: a trio of GOP Me Firsters – Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle and Charlie Crist – have all been given the heave-ho. As evidenced by their actions, it couldn’t have happened to a ‘nicer’ group of duplicitous hacks.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“‘Politically correct’ views all derive from anti-Western, secular ideologies such as anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, utilitarianism, feminism, multiculturalism and environmentalism. These all share the aim of overturning the established order in the West. So any groups who have power within that order can never be offended or hurt because they are themselves offensive and hurtful, while ‘powerless’ groups can never be other than victims. This obsession with power is, of course, a Marxist position; indeed, ‘political correctness’ is a form of cultural Marxism.” –columnist Melanie Phillips

“Why … is President Barack Obama pursuing an international nuclear disarmament agreement? It cannot be because he thinks it will work. Even if he were foolish enough to believe that, virtually anybody in the Pentagon can tell him why it won’t. His political advisors, however, can tell him how great that can be for him personally – if he doesn’t already know that. It would be ‘historic’ and an ‘achievement,’ just like ObamaCare. His political base – the young, the left and the thoughtless – would be thrilled and energized. That can translate into money donated to his campaign coffers and people willing to walk the precincts to get out the vote for him in the 2012 elections. It is by no means an irrational thing to do, from Obama’s self-centered perspective.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Dezinformatsia

Pot and kettle: “In the long run, a healthy democracy needs qualified and able people of every party to function effectively. The tea party movement’s failure to support candidates who meet that standard may help Democrats avert disaster, but it’s hardly a recipe for a strong political system.” –Fox News’ Susan Estrich (Ironically, it’s the Democrats’ failure to meet that standard in their presidential nominee in 2008 that gave birth to the Tea Party movement.)

Clueless: “One of the things President Obama, I would say, would put on his greatest accomplishments list, of the early stage of his presidency is health care reform. It’s something that he fought hard for and he went around the country singing its praises. Now here we are six weeks before a midterm election and Democrats are running in races all across the country and very, very few are talking about that accomplishment of health care reform. Why?” –NBC’s Matt Lauer

Elitist snobbery: “[T]here’s no mistaking the public mood, and the truth is that it makes no sense. In the punditry business, it’s considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.” –Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day: “I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today – he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It’s their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn’t take our money. It’s an important distinction.” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Newspulper Headlines:

The Inspirational Leadership of Barack Obama: “Dems to Voters: You May Hate Us, but GOP Is Worse” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “‘As the World Turns’ Stops Spinning After 54 Years” –Associated Press

Oh, They Were Just Dandy: “Foreclosures Swell in Area in August” –Richmond Times-Dispatch

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Who Is the ‘Christian Osama bin Laden’?” –TheWeek.com

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look: “Taliban Commander Found Hiding in Oven” –CNN.com

News of the Tautological: “Many Say Poverty Rate Is a Poor Measure” –MSNBC.com

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Obama Makes Rare Church Appearance” –ChristianityToday.com

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

The Demo-gogues

Whose money is it? “I can’t give tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans, 86 percent of that money going to people making a million [dollars] or more, and lower the deficit at the same time. I don’t have the math.” –Barack Obama, who thinks it’s all his money (Memo to Barack: When even Chris Matthews understands that, you’re not going to win the argument.)

Class warfare: “It’s very important that everybody understand this. What the Republicans are proposing is that we … provide tax relief to primarily millionaires and billionaires. It would cost us $700 billion to do it. On average millionaires would get a check of a hundred thousand dollars, and, by the way, I would be helped by this, so I just want to be clear, I’m speaking against my own financial interests.” –the ever-charitable Barack Obama

More on taxes: “This is like a holy jihad to keep the tax cuts going.” –Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE), likening the effort to keep current tax rates to radical Islam

Misdiagnosis: “The problem I’ve seen in the debate taking place in some Tea Party events – I think they’re misidentifying who the culprits are here. As I said before, we had to take emergency steps last year but the majority of economists will tell you the emergency steps we take are not the problem long term. The problems long term are … [w]e got two tax cuts not paid for, two wars not paid for, an aging population, we all demand services, but taxes have actually substantially gone down.” –Barack Obama, complaining about all the wrong “culprits”

How do I love me, let me count the ways: “[B]ecause of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families – and especially those most in need – millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year.” –Barack Obama

Polite words from an opponent of this view: “[The American people have a] noble tradition of being helpfully skeptical about government.” –BO

The BIG Lie: “[T]he federal government is probably less intrusive now than 30 years ago.” –Obama

True in reverse: “If you look over the past two years it is hard to find things we have done that is designed [sic] to squash business as to promote business.” –BO

Voluntary albatross: “I wrote the [health care] bill. … The bill and I are one.” –Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

Endowed by whom? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” –BHO to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, omitting the phrase “by their Creator”

Village Idiots

A “me too” moment: “I was a candidate that was in some ways like the Tea Party candidate. I was a complete outsider. I capitalized legitimately on the dissatisfaction that was permeating our society.” –Jimmy Carter

Malaise: “This country has become so polarized that its almost astonishing…. Not only with the red and blue states… President Obama suffers from the most polarized situation in Washington that we have ever seen – even maybe than the time of Abraham Lincoln and the initiation of the war between the states.” –Jimmy Carter

On illegal immigration: “The American people want their borders to be protected. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with making sure that people come across our borders, particularly our southern border, in a legal, safe manner. But at the same time we have millions and millions of illegal immigrants in our country, undocumented individuals, who are working, who are doing things we need done in this country. They’re all over my house doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house.” –former Secretary of State Colin Powell

And the backtrack: “I don’t hire illegal immigrants. On ‘Meet the Press’ [Sunday], I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be ‘illegal.’ There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy.” –Colin Powell on Monday, one day after he “admitted” that illegals are “all over my house”

The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree: “If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.” –BO’s illegal immigrant aunt Zeituni Onyango

Short Cuts

“Maybe it’s time to reconsider Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Frank Murkowski, Alaska’s former senator and governor, took little Lisa to work in 2002, and now she refuses to go home. Shortly after taking office as governor, Mr. Murkowski appointed Miss Murkowski to the Senate seat he had just vacated. She was elected in her own right in 2004, but this year Alaska Republicans decided it was time for a new direction and handed her a primary defeat. Well, listen up, Alaska voters: You didn’t put Miss Murkowski in the Senate, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to let you throw her out. On Friday she announced that she intends to run a write-in candidacy. (If you want to write her in, her name is spelled M-I-L-L-E-R.)” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

“Jimmy Carter told CBS News Thursday that Senator Teddy Kennedy killed his health care reform bill thirty years ago to deny him credit for it. Don’t blame the senator. The health care reform bill knew better than to get into the car with Teddy when he’d been drinking.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“Having suffered through recovery summer, most of us are waiting impatiently for recovery fall, which, this year, comes on November 2nd.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“[I]f the recession has been over for 15 months, and this is how Obama and his handmaiden, Joe Biden, describe a recovery; then we should all party like it’s 1929.” –political analyst Rich Galen