You are here: Home / Floyd Reports

Floyd Reports

floydreportslogo2 Floyd ReportsWelcome to the new home of FloydReports.com. Enter for conservative commentary, conservative videos, and conservative news from veteran political expert Floyd Brown,  President of the Western Center for Journalism. If you are a subscriber of FloydReports.com, you will still get the same great content to your inbox, just at a new home. The blog’s move to WesternJournalism.com will allow it to have greater reach and a more powerful server. Please take a look around, and if you have any comments, please use our contact page to reach us.

 

Proof Obama Born In Kenya? Obama Literary Agent Says Yes

May 17, 2012 By 74 Comments

Breitbart.com has introduced some explosive evidence showing that Obama claimed he was born in Kenya years before he became a presidential candidate. Interestingly, the editors of Breitbart still think that now Obama is telling the truth.

Obama Closeup 2 Proof Obama Born in Kenya? Obama Literary Agent Says Yes

 

Over and over our critics have demanded we provide proof that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. We have demanded in response that Obama provide proof he was born in the United States.

Now thanks to Breitbart News we have proof that Obama himself claimed he was born in Kenya, at least to his literary agent.

Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
The booklet, which was distributed to “business colleagues” in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.
It also promotes Obama’s anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White–which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

Here is a picture of the full page of text, which must have been approved by the young author.

Obama Column Proof Obama Born in Kenya? Obama Literary Agent Says Yes

This story is an important additional piece to the puzzle of trying to figure out who is “Barack Hussein Obama.” The Breitbart organization should be congratulated for this important exclusive. But I must admit that the senior management went out of their way to discredit the story they were publishing with this bizarre preface:

Note from Senior Management:
Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama’s ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.
It is for that reason that we launched “The Vetting,” an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)–not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.
It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below–one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.
It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.

So we are supposed to believe that Barack Obama went around telling people he was born in Kenya years ago, but he was lying then? And after the mountain of proof that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has assembled that the Hawaiian Birth Certificate is a forgery?

I am scratching my head now. The left would never release evidence which implicates a President of The United States in a criminal conspiracy to hide the location of his birth, and then say never mind we don’t believe our evidence anyway. The left, in contrast, would be calling for the President’s resignation.

It is a felony to place a forged document, the Hawaiian birth certificate on a government website. We aren’t talking about something done years ago, we are talking about a felony committed last year in the White House.

It reminded me of an argument between Joseph Farah (a man I admire for his integrity) and Andrew Breitbart back in 2008 that was covered only briefly in the Washington Independent.

During WorldNetDaily Editor-in-Chief Joseph Farah’s Friday night dinner speech, which spent around 10 of its forty minutes on questions about Barack Obama’s citizenship, Andrew Brietbart was among the conservatives in back of the room grumbling audibly about what he was hearing.

After he introduced the evening’s closing entertainment — a film titled “Generation Zero” — Breitbart walked outside to the convention hall. There, I heard Breitbart criticizing Farah, and briefly talked to him about it before I noticed that WorldNetDaily’s Chelsea Schilling was already talking to him, holding up a voice recorder. I backed up to allow her to continue her interview, which consisted of questions on why Breitbart didn’t think Obama’s citizenship was a legitimate issue.

“It’s self-indulgent, it’s narcissistic, it’s a losing issue,” Breitbart told Schilling. “It’s a losing situation. If you don’t have the frigging evidence — raising the question? You can do that to Republicans all day long. You have to disprove that you’re a racist! Forcing them to disprove something is a nightmare.”

“Wouldn’t you say,” asked Schilling, “in this case, that Farah is asking Obama to prove something rather than his disprove it?”

Breitbart rejected the premise. “When has a president ever been asked to prove his citizenship?”

After a few minutes Breitbart ended the conversation and Schilling started interviewing Tea Partiers about the speech, finding a little less skepticism. (I found some Tea Partiers, like Rita Grace of Virginia, who said they didn’t appreciate Farah’s speech.) I spotted Farah and asked him if his speech had been approved by Tea Party Nation.

“They asked me to speak,” said Farah. “They didn’t ask me, ‘What do you want to speak about?’ No, this operates like a free and open society, not like the kind of Marxist society you would apparently like to be a journalist for.”

I told Farah that his speech was getting negative attention already, and that Breitbart, who’d taken the stage after him, had criticized the “birther” parts of the speech. Farah shook his head and walked over to Breitbart in what seemed like an attempt to debunk my question.

“Andrew is my friend,” said Farah. “He has the right to disagree, and he has the right to say anything to a socialist newspaper that he wants. And if he wants to criticize his friend to you, and he’s dumb enough to do that…”

Breitbart raised his eyebrows. “I’m dumb to do what?”

“Criticize your friend to this socialist newspaper.”

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart, pointing to Schilling. “I was talking to you. And I was saying that I disagreed on the birther stuff.”

“OK, well, did you know that Dave Weigel from The Washington Independent was”–

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart. “She was asking me if I thought it was wise to bring it up, and I said, no. We have a lot of strong arguments to be making, and that is a primary argument. That is an argument for the primaries that did not take hold. The arguments that these people right here are making are substantive arguments. The elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were all won not on birther, but on substance. And to apply to this group of people the concept that they’re all obsessed with the birth certificate, when it’s not a winning issue–”

“It is a winning issue!”

“It’s not a winning issue.”

“It is! It becomes even more of a winning issue when the press abrogates its responsibility–”

“You don’t recognize it as a fundamentally controversial issue that forces a unified group of people to have to break into different parts? It is a schism of the highest order.”

“Nothing exposes the president’s–”

“Then prove it!”

“The press isn’t asking the question–”

“Prove it!”

“Prove what?”

“Prove your case.”

“I should prove, what, a birth certificate that may or may not exist?” Farah had gotten irritated. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t even understand the fundamental tenets of what journalism is about, Andrew. It’s not about proving things. It’s about asking questions and seeking truth.”

Breitbart tensed up after that insult. “Right.”

“I know you’re not a journalist, so that’s fine. But don’t diminish people who’ve been doing this for 35 years.”

“So you’re going to go on record saying that I’m not a journalist?”

“Are you? I’ve never heard you claim to be. Are you?”

“I’ll let it be answered by you.”

“Well, I knew Drudge didn’t consider himself a journalist, so I assumed that you were. … I don’t know, I’m not trying to insult you.”

“You did.”

At that point, Judson Phillips — who had spotted a very small crowd around us — walked into the fray and tried to simmer everyone down with a joke.

“I can give you absolutely conclusive and definitive proof that Obama’s birth certificate does not exist. How else do you explain why Joe Biden is vice president?”

That more or less ended the conversation — Farah moved on, and agreed to talk more about why he and WorldNetDaily continued to pursue stories on Obama’s citizenship. The citizenship issue had stuck around and taken off, he said, “because of us.” He ran stories asking questions about the issue — including stories that were quickly debunked — because the rest of the media wasn’t asking the questions.

“Do you think this has made my life easier, doing this?” asked Farah. “I used to be on TV all the time. I haven’t been on Fox News once since I started talking about this.”

Asked whether he thought his speech created any problems for Sarah Palin — prompting reporters to ask why she patronized a convention with rhetoric like this — Farah rejected the premise.

“Sarah Palin is a big girl,” he said. “She can take care of herself. I have a lot of confidence that she’ll take care of herself well. … My objective is not to get Sarah Palin elected or something. My job as a journalist is to seek the truth.”

Update: Here’s audio of the Farah-Breitbart dispute.

Update 2: As Andrea Ryan at TheGatewayPundit pointed out, Obama’s “narrative” way way back in 2006 was also a little off. Here he is in Kenya saying it’s so great to be back home. What are we to believe? That what Obama has been saying for most his life is true, or what he started saying once he wanted to be elected President? You decide.

Read more at Breitbart.com. By Joel B. Pollak.

Photo credit: breitbart.com

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , , ,

The State That Is Leading The Fight Against Obama

May 17, 2012 By 4 Comments

Arizona flag SC The State That Is Leading the Fight Against Obama

Just like the aftermath at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941 and the horrendous loss of life on the destruction of the Battleship U.S.S. Arizona which galvanized this nation and steeled our citizens for the war effort that followed this “dastardly” act of cowardice.  We flash forward to today. Once again, Arizona is leading the fight against tyranny and lending it’s namesake to the coming battle of political wills as we are being taken down the road to serfdom and the slavery of socialism by Obama.  The only thing we are missing is the battle cry “Remember Pearl Harbor and the Arizona.”

Obama has been willing to throw this entire State under the bus so that he could import the citizens from Mexico to keep his party’s “unholy alliance” with public employees and more importantly teachers unions and the dilemma of sagging student populations in inner city schools.  This of course is in no small thanks in part to the more mundane fascination liberals have with reducing minority representation in our society through infanticide, better known as abortion, which is both frenetic, conspiratorial, and duplicitous all at the same time.

That is, when he was not killing them outright when he allowed thousands of firearms to walk across the border into Mexico with Fast & Furious; well, I guess he is driving their citizens into our nation by force of arms for his unions pals.

He was not satisfied with only this outcome; after all, how dare that uppity governor Jan Brewer object to the “Great and Powerful Oz” (sorry, wrong story, since these citizens are bearing the brunt of this invasion from Mexico with increased violence due to human smuggling and drug trafficking along the border.) No, he was not happy with this at all, so he has started a concerted effort to bring them to heel.  He has unleashed the “Dogs of War” against the citizens of Arizona for this betrayal of his intended acts of favoritism and patronage for his supporters.  The opening salvos were fired when the state legislature dared to pass SB 1070, a law that allowed Arizona law enforcement officers to assist in the federal jurisdiction of capturing illegal aliens by verifying their status when they were stopped or questioned for violations of Arizona law.  This law was just heard by SCOTUS, and a decision is expected next month; the arguments suggest that parts of the law if not the entire law will be upheld.

As a corollary to this, Irving, Texas has had a similar program for the last 10 years where every person who is arrested has their citizenship verified with about 45% to 55% being found to be illegal aliens, with nary a peep out of Obama about this program.  ICE continues to support and congratulate Irving for their assistance in this effort.

Not to be outdone, Obama and the vast array of governmental oppression available to him has taken issue with Tombstone Arizona over their water supply.  Many a range war has been started over water in the arid west, so I cannot imagine a more brutal way in which to bring these citizens to heel than let them wither due to parched throats and dehydration. Obama is now claiming that the federal government has superior rights to the water in the west as shown by his latest actions from an article published by WND:

“Federal water rights are entitled to a form of protection that is broader than what may be provided to similarly situated state law rights holders,” states a letter from Julie Decker, the deputy state director in the U.S. Department of the Interior to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

The letter was objecting to state plans to do a routine “Designation of Adequate Water Supply,” which reviews water resources, rights and uses when changes are proposed.

This recent turn of events is contrary to the last century or more of legal precedent of allowing states to manage their own water resources. Obama is simply grabbing these resources for his own use, no doubt to re-distribute to his friends, supporters, and cronies and to teach the citizens of Arizona a lesson they will not soon forget.

Obama is not finished with Arizona, not by a long shot; he has also unleashed Eric Holder, the most corrupt Attorney General the nation has ever had the misfortune to suffer, who has taken aim against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County.  The same sheriff that dared to investigate Obama’s bogus documents.  The DOJ through Eric Holder is threatening to bring a civil action for the violation of civil rights on behalf of Hispanic prisoners his department has arrested.  The following excerpt is taken from the WND article:

The sheriff charged that the Obama administration is attacking him in an effort to gain Hispanic votes in November for the Democratic Party.  “This is a coordinated effort directed from the White House to deflect attention from Eric Holder’s failure to cooperate in the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious,” he said.

This is on top of an ongoing investigation from the DOJ in complaints that his department has been lax in investigating sexual crimes against women in the so-called “War on Women.”  Are we seeing a pattern here? All the DOJ can do is kvetch all in the name of civil rights of so-called oppressed minorities.  The Department of Justice has “justice” as its overarching mandate, and what we see completely lacking from Holder is the assistance of local law enforcement for the apprehension and assistance in the ancient battle of civilized society against crime and criminals.

Crime is winning under Obama as he and Holder condone lawlessness at every turn, unless of course there is a minority vote at stake.  Clearly, “justice” has left the building in this administration.

For instance, Holder recently struck down many Voter ID laws in the South so that voter fraud can continue unabated. This is due a misguided law by Congress in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 over minority voting rights in the South still being in force.  Let’s not forget that he had the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case tossed after it was already won by default (against the defendants.)  We can expect the assault against Sheriff Joe to continue, given the criminals that sit in the White House and the Department of Justice.

One man in Arizona, Secretary of State Ken Bennett (the top election official in the State),  has had enough.  He has contacted the State of Hawaii and requested a copy of Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth” from the Department of Health per Hawaii Statute §338-18 Disclosure of records.  We were introduced to these statutes in my “Mission Accomplished for Operation Sideshow” series of articles an excerpt of the applicable law is shown below:

We can stop right here as Obama is the registrant, however; to lend even more credence to any request made by anyone, much less a governmental request, and one so special as the President of the United States as a favorite son of the State of Hawaii we have the following;

“(2)  A governmental agency or organization who for a legitimate government purpose maintains and needs to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities;

(3)  A governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks confirmation of a certified copy of any such record submitted in support of or information provided about a vital event relating to any such record and contained in an official application made in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities by an individual seeking employment with, entrance to, or the services or products of the agency or organization;

(4)  A private or government attorney who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record which was acquired during the course of or for purposes of legal proceedings; or

(5)  An individual employed, endorsed, or sponsored by a governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record in preparation of reports or publications by the agency or organization for research or educational purposes.”

The statue clearly shows the “special status” with  Section 2 being paramount in his request if not all the other portions as well when taken into account.  They show that governmental requests are held to be supreme; it will be interesting on how they handle his request given the action(s) of Hawaiian officials in the past.  They are being put between a rock and a hard place by their own thoughts, deeds, and actions.  Mr. Bennett has requested his bona-fides and is threatening, if the State of Hawaii is not forthcoming, that Obama will not be on the Arizona ballot come November with his position being made clear in this quote from Mr. Bennett in an article by Jerome Corsi from WND:

“Because of the importance and profile of the president’s case, and at the request of many constituents, I have gone the extra step of asking the state of Hawaii to verify the facts contained in his birth certificate,” Bennett wrote in response to concerns last month. “Hawaii is bound by their own statutes to provide such verifications to other state officials in their official duties.

“With all due respect, the [Arpaio] investigation has not proven anything other than raised probable cause that the birth certificate posted on the White House website ‘may be’ a forgery. The next lawful step would be for the sheriff’s office to turn their findings over to the county attorney for prosecution,” he continued. “Evidence would be brought on both sides and a judge should issue a decision.

“Whether or not that happens, if Hawaii can’t or won’t provide verification of the president’s birth certificate, I will not put his name on the ballot,” he wrote.

We can thank brave men like Mr. Bennett and Sheriff Arpaio that have had “enough” of the lawless behavior out of Obama and his regime of second and third string players as they game and corrupt this nation’s laws for their own purposes.  The corruption is getting so obvious and in your face that the Democrats are getting worried for their own survival as a political force in this nation; they simply backed a corrupt “stalking horse” and did not care about the consequences.  They simply misjudged the American people and their misguided perception of the average citizen as being “bitter clingers of God and to their Guns.”   When, in fact, it is our belief in our founding principles of self-rule and the rule of law that guides each of us as we seek freedom, liberty, and justice.  Everyone should show their support to Mr. Bennett and encourage him to seek the truth in this sad story that our nation has had to endure that is all things Obama!

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Jeremiah Wright On The Obamas: “Church Was Not Their Thing”

May 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

I can’t really say I am surprised. Are you? After all, he never really went to church after he was elected president.

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports, Videos Tagged With: ,

Obama’s Living Close To Bill Ayers During Mysterious NY Years Reported Two Weeks Prior To Election

May 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

Obama Files reported an exclusive last week about Obama’s girlfriend, Genevieve Cook, in 1984 going to the same college (Bank Street College of Education) at the exact time that Bill Ayers was attending. And that Obama in 1984 had lived literally within a half mile of Ayers. With the extensive ties Obama had later with Ayers in the 1990s and early 2000s, it is inconceivable that Obama did not connect with Ayers while in New York.

Ayers had been underground the whole of the 1970s and resurfaced in 1981, the exact year Obama transferred to Columbia University, so it can be theorized that Obama sought out the domestic terrorist and may have chosen Columbia University, within sight of Bank Street College, for the specific purpose of being near Ayers (and possibly Dohrn), who were heroes of the radical Left, being considered a sort of Bonnie and Clyde.

What was most shocking, however, that Obama Files discovered this week, was that it was known and reported that Obama had lived in close proximity to Ayers in the early 1980s literally two weeks before the 2008 election, posted on the blog of a private investigator by the name of Bill Warner.

In the above video, we also add some new information regarding the communist connections of the Brooklyn Friends School, the ‘experimental’ school Genevieve Cook taught at in 1983.

 

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports, Videos Tagged With: ,

The Chicago Way: Coach Axelrod In 2004

May 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

David Axelrod SC The Chicago Way: Coach Axelrod in 2004

Growing up, we are all told after losing a game that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game that matters.

On Obama’s football field in 2004, Coach David Axelrod had a slightly different take on this aphorism: winning is the only thing that matters, even if you have to cheat.

In the beginning of March 2004 with Obama running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois (and with the national Democrat party already on board), Obama was a shoe in for the democratic nomination.

Obama easily won against his Democratic rivals in the primary, but the Republican candidate Jack Ryan was a different matter all together.

Polls showed that the race was tight. On a normal American football field, the coach would have told his team to play their best. But this was not a normal football field. This was Chicago, and Coach Axelrod was calling the shots.

Axelrod contacted his minions at the Chicago Tribune to file a lawsuit to get Ryan’s divorce records unsealed in order to expose what he already knew was in there: that his wife had made some outlandish accusations against her husband (he had forced her to go to sex clubs and perform sex in public.) His wife, Jeri, had admitted that she had made these claims in order to gain custody of their child and agreed with her ex-husband that the records should be kept sealed, so as to not cause damage to the small child.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign had been sending out mass emails to reporters about the “hidden” divorce records without specifying what was in them, even though they had full knowledge what the records contained.

On March 29, 2004, a judge in Los Angeles (Robert Schnider) then deemed that the records should be unsealed, but that only items that would not be damaging to the child should be released, and appointed an “objective” referee. This unnamed referee, on April 4, then released virtually everything, without regard to the child’s well-being.

Within four days, Ryan’s campaign imploded. Obama was licking his chops in private, but he was widely quoted as saying that he felt sorry for what Ryan was going through.

The replacement for Ryan, Alan Keyes, having little time to prepare and with the entire Democrat machine by this time behind Obama (our friend in the Mainstream Media George Stephanopoulos was already on board by this point) foundered until election day.

On July 27, 2004, Obama gave his now-famous DNC keynote speech—basically the DNC red carpet was laid for a 2008 run at the White House—and in November, Obama won the U.S. Senate race in a landslide.

With Coach Axelrod in charge in 2004 and with only a smattering of the media on board, one wonders, with the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media behind him, what Team Obama in 2008 was engaged in…

We now know Obama crony Eric Whitaker tried to slip $150,000  in hush money into Jeremiah Wright’s pocket in 2008 to keep him quiet. We know the Obama campaign was involved in massive voter fraud. But what else is there to uncover?

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , ,

The Real Lesson From The British Double Dip Recession

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
UK flag SC The Real Lesson From The British Double Dip Recession

Economists and pundits alike are going wild over the United Kingdom’s recent “double dip” recession. The 2008-09 recession prompted the election of a conservative coalition led by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron decided the best path for economic recovery was “austerity,” a program of reduced government spending and smaller government debt. The new coalition—with the aid of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne—sought to drastically slash the government budget. With the addition of increased taxes, the plan was dubbed “Tax and Axe.”

Two years later, the United Kingdom is back in recession. Keynesian economists are enjoying a savory “I told you so” moment, as many pointed out the dangers of austerity during troubled times. The logic runs as follows: when businesses, households, and governments all try to pay back their debts at the same time, they spend less. As they spend less, national income falls, leading to even less spending. This sets off a cycle of decreased spending and economic collapse.

The Keynesian solution is government spending. It goes like this: Governments can increase spending during recessions to keep national income up, preventing the spending collapse. In short, more stimulus is the answer.

In turn, many progressives in the United States are arguing that any similar austerity here (such as Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget plan) would have equally bad results: another recession.

Unfortunately, this reasoning is based on a faulty premise. Here is the reality: There is no austerity in the United Kingdom.

Quite the contrary, government spending in Britain has increased in the last two years, and will continue for the foreseeable future. In real terms (based on estimated inflation and GDP growth), spending was set to decrease this fiscal year. Unfortunately, this prediction was made on the assumption of positive yet small GDP growth. As we now know, this assumption was bad and GDP shrank, heralding a recession.

Public debt in the United Kingdom continues to rise. The 2012 budget clearly outlines increases in public debt all the way until 2016 (when the predictions stop). To top it all off, these numbers exclude the 2008-09 emergency financial interventions. The financial sector in the United Kingdom took a hit in the previous recession and was promptly bailed out in 2009. Since then, the government has borrowed an additional 124 billion pounds to keep banks afloat.

Furthermore, some British think tanks estimate that only around 6 percent of Cameron’s cuts have been implemented, with the remaining 94 percent still waiting to actually be cut by 2016-17. Is this “austerity” (itself a loaded term) in any sense of the word? Suppose you were driving towards a cliff. Is it enough to ease off the gas pedal, or do you need to hit the brakes?

Economists such as Paul Krugman are already branding Europe’s approach a failure. In many ways, it is. But what is really at stake is the real reason things are failing. We cannot allow history to think that the United Kingdom tried austerity. It is simply not true. If we interpret this wrong, we will get the wrong historical lessons.

In fact, something similar happened during the onset of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was in office when panic struck and the history books claim he tried free-market principles, which failed. In the first year of the depression, 1931, federal expenditures rose from $4.2 billion to $5.5 billion. The federal government incurred a $2.2-billion deficit the same year. In 1932, Hoover raised taxes.

Sound familiar? Despite the fact that President Hoover increased government spending and debt, his approach was labeled “free market.” The exact opposite is true. When running against Franklin Roosevelt, Hoover actually argued that Roosevelt would make things worse by lowering taxes and decreasing spending. Roosevelt responded by accusing Hoover’s administration of being a profligate spender.

The same classification error is happening again today. The United Kingdom has raised taxes, increased government spending, and taken on more debt. This is the exact opposite of the clear meaning of austerity. What sort of Orwellian doublespeak is being used when “free market” means more government?

Of course, the situation in the United Kingdom is not identical to the United States. Exact comparisons and examples do not translate. One thing we do know, however, is that the British have not attempted to rein in out-of-control government spending. Like many governments, Britain scheduled cuts years into the future and continue to pile on debt. Before we even consider the failure of austerity in England, we must first be convinced austerity has really happened.

Kyle Latham is a contributor to The Center for Vision & Values and a May 2012 graduate of Grove City College who will be pursuing a graduate degree in economics. He is a winner of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation’s 2010 Sound Money Contest with his paper on “Concerns for the Utilitarian and Ethical Characteristics of Money.”

Photo credit: twicepix (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , ,

Phony Student Loan Issue Obscures Real Fight Over Spending

May 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

Dollar Bills SC Phony Student Loan Issue Obscures Real Fight Over Spending

The interest rate on federal Stafford Loans is a phony political issue. The 6.8 percent interest rate was slashed — at taxpayer expense — to 3.4 percent last year. Now Obama and Democrats in Congress are acting as if the rate returning to its usual level is an economic catastrophe for students. It isn’t. We’re talking about a difference of $6 per month on new loans. Existing loans are unaffected. The student debt problem is real, but the Stafford Loan interest rate issue is not.

Yet the legislation proposed in Congress to address this non-issue is still hugely consequential because the Republican version would end a particularly destructive big government spending program, and the Democratic alternative would raise taxes on small businesses. It’s a fight that epitomizes the choice voters will face when they head to the polls this fall.

The House has already passed legislation, H R 4628, that extends the current Stafford Loan interest rate for another year, averting that $6 per month disaster that Obama has been focusing on out on the stump. The bill also does something much more significant; it repeals the so-called Prevention Fund, a multi-billion-dollar slush fund created by Obama’s stimulus bill and then expanded and funded even more lavishly — and automatically, without annual appropriations—by the president’s health care law.

The Prevention Fund is the most egregious type of federal spending because it uses our federal tax dollars to raise our taxes and limit our freedoms at the state and local levels. Specifically, it provides taxpayer-funded grants for television advertising, lobbying campaigns, and other activities aimed at raising taxes on soft drinks; imposing zoning restrictions on fast food restaurants; imposing smoking bans; and other such nanny-state favorites.

In Philadelphia, the city spent millions of federal taxpayer dollars on advertising to promote a tax hike on soft drinks. The tax was defeated by a remarkable coalition of tea party and union activists, but Mayor Nutter has vowed to continue to pursue it. And why not, with federal taxpayers picking up the tab?

In California, federal taxpayers paid for an effort that resulted in a ban on fast food restaurants in West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Lemert, South Los Angeles, and Southeast Los Angeles. That’s right; a state with 11 percent unemployment is using taxpayer dollars to intentionally prevent restaurants from opening that could employ thousands.

In New York, Mayor Bloomberg — enemy of trans fats, sugar, salt, and pretty much anything else that tastes good — is now tapping into federal Prevention Fund tax dollars for flashy advertising attacking the soft drink industry and urging customers to “drink water, fat-free milk, seltzer, or unsweetened tea instead.”

There’s also outright waste, like in Nashville, where Prevention Fund dollars are going to spay and neuter pets. That improves public health because, the reasoning goes, people will exercise more if they are no longer cowering in their homes, afraid of stray dogs and cats.

Contrast ending this outrageous use of taxpayer dollars with what’s in Harry Reid’s version of the Stafford Loan legislation: a tax hike on small businesses.

Harry Reid’s bill, S. 2343, contains language identical to the House-passed bill extending the 3.4 percent rate on Stafford Loans for one more year. But it leaves the Prevention Fund intact, while attaching a $9 billion tax hike on the business income of S-corporations and partnerships by applying a self-employment tax if the owners of those businesses are also employees. This is despite the fact that there are already IRS rules to ensure those individuals are already paying themselves fair market wages, which are subject to payroll taxes. It’s bad tax policy and it would set a terrible precedent. Meanwhile Reid, intent on protecting the Prevention Fund and keeping the phony interest rate issue alive, is refusing to vote on the House bill — even though the Senate rejected his own version last week.

This battle is now over whether we should hike taxes on small businesses (in the middle of a recession) or cut irresponsible, wasteful spending. That’s a fight worth having, even if the $6 per month that started it is inconsequential.

Mr. Kerpen is the president of American Commitment and the author of “Democracy Denied.” Kerpen can be reached at phil@americancommitment.org.

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , ,

Obama Took Money From Bain Capital, Despite Criticizing Them Today

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Floyd Reports, Videos Tagged With:

Van Jones: Environmentalists Don’t Protest Democrat Presidents

May 17, 2012 By 3 Comments

Finally, he admits to being a hypocrite.

Filed Under: Floyd Reports, Videos Tagged With: ,

The Truth About Medicare

May 17, 2012 By 2 Comments
Obamacare Medicare SC The truth about Medicare

According to government sources, the Medicare Trust Fund will run out of money in 2016 if reforms are not put in place by then. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, has put forth a plan to do just that, but this has been met with the howls and fear-mongering cries from Democrats that ANY reform will destroy Medicare and leave the disabled and senior citizens to die of lack of health care. What really is the truth in this discussion?

Here are some facts for you to ponder. Right now, 50% of doctors and some hospitals will NOT accept Medicare patients because the government reimbursement does not cover their costs. It seems that instead of truly reforming the system, Congress has developed a simple solution; cut what you will pay for services to providers, and tell them they have no choice but to accept this dictated pay schedule. Ah, but the providers do have a choice: simply drop out of the program. This action leaves those on Medicare with fewer or, even worse, NO health care providers. Fewer providers means longer waits to get to see the providers that are left. It’s called “care rationing.” Lower reimbursements plus outrageous liability insurance costs are driving a lot of doctors OUT of the medical profession and preventing a lot of new prospects from getting in.

What makes the Medicare program even worse is that Obama and the Democrats are siphoning money out of the already cash-strapped program to fund Obamacare and a “fake” tax cut. Democrats put a provision into the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 that took $500 BILLION out of Medicare to be used as seed money for Obamacare. Obama and the Democrats then concocted a “tax cut” that in reality was nothing more than Social Security and Medicare deductions being halted temporarily. This action has shorted the system another $1.4 BILLION. Now add to this another $600 BILLION that has to come out of the general fund to pay for a “Doc fix’, basically a bribe to keep remaining doctors in the Medicare program.

What do you suppose is going to happen within ten years if you add another 30 MILLION people to an already unsustainable health care system? Take a good hard look at Canada and Great Britain’s health care systems if you really want that answer. The Democrats’ howling and screaming to scare seniors and the disabled about ANY kind of change or reform is not going to alter the reality that is facing this country right now. Paul Ryan and the Republicans have offered a realistic evaluation to help solve this crisis, and it’s about time that the adults in the room get serious about discussing this plan.

Photo credit: terrellaftermath

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: ,