The Welfare State will Eat Your Soul...

...or at least your checking account.

I discovered a draft post that somehow I failed to publish from last year. Samuelson's article may be from a year ago, but it's just as applicable today as last year.

Economics writer Robert Samuelson has a new article out today (Feb 14, 2007) that puts much of the political battle over government spending into perspective. Neither party is willing to do much to rein in spending although both are eager to castigate each other for it.

It is useful to examine the chart Samuelson includes with his article. It shows the massive growth of welfare spending, especially as it compares to the decline of defense spending as a percentage of the government budget. These percentages are even more astounding when you realize that defense spending grew to a (numerically) record high of $520 billion for 2006 (including spending on Iraq and Afghanistan).

These figures are frightening enough today, but the real scare will hit us in the coming decades as our aging population retires and live longer lives, expecting government support for many more years than did their grandparents, without as many grandchildren to work and pay for it.

Hitchens on the Deeper Implications of Hillary's Bosnia Lies

Having gone to Sarajevo himself in 1992, Christopher Hitchens is not amused by Hillary Clinton's "recollections" of her 1996 trip to Tuzla. Particularly galling to Hitchens is that Hillary's claim to "bravery" during her Bosnia trip references a point in time after which over 250,000 Bosnian Muslims had been slaughtered by Serbian forces while Hillary was focusing on her health-care initiative.

"Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above."

Her claims to be an authority on national security and foreign policy are just as baseless as Barrack Obama's claims from having lived overseas as a child.

More on the Great Transcender

Thomas Sowell, The Audacity of Rhetoric;
Bookworm, Obama's Messianic Schtick;
and, from March 2007:
David Ehrenstein, Obama the 'Magic Negro'

The Great Transcender's verbal sleight of hand

Christopher Hitchens's Monday column in Slate shreds Barack Obama's rhetorical puffery in his much-vaunted (at least from the point of view of Obama-as-messiah cultists) speech on race in America.

Contrary to Obama's claims that the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright's outrageous condemnations were a recent revelation to the Great Transcender, Obama knew at least as early as April 2007 that should he advance in the Democratic primaries, he would have to publicly distance himself from Wright. In other words, Obama was perfectly content to garner political support in Chicago's black community by staying close to Wright until he built a wide enough base to support his national run. He has tried to be one person in the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ supporting the hateful speech of his racist pastor, while presenting himself as some great racial healer to the American public.

From Hitchens's column:

"To have accepted Obama's smooth apologetics is to have lowered one's own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come."

His hypocrisy stuns and insults. Unfortunately, too many people still exclaim in wonder at the emperor's new clothes.

Now back with more Genius!

In preparation for the Election 2008 Extravaganza, I intend to be blogging on a much more frequent basis, with a goal of highlighting what I consider to be some of the most interesting aspects of this campaign season.