A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure. These figures have changed little since December.
Polling released earlier this week showed that Americans overwhelmingly believe that more competition and less regulation is better for the economy than more regulation and less competition.
Not surprisingly, America’s Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. However, among Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market.
Regulation
Obama as anti-business moves into mainstream discussion | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Complaints about economic uncertainty created by Obama’s health care bill and the financial regulation bill have already been percolating for a few weeks. Much of this was kicked off by an explosive indictment of Obama’s policies by Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg – who has been a key business ally of the president’s – in late June.
And though the White House feels that it has true free market believers such as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council director Larry Summers in key decision-making positions, many top business leaders see the two – who have both been in government or academia their entire lives – as poor substitutes for men or women with actual business expertise.
“One of the concerns in the business community writ large is that this administration has no former CEO – manager of a business enterprise – anywhere in this administration,” said R. Bruce Josten, a top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who oversees its government affairs division.
Momentum builds toward possible end of this U.S. agency
I think I’m in favor of this. Any reduction in the secrecy and power of the Fed is a good thing. Just not sure if it will expose just how many amateur academics are sitting on that committee and tank the dollar even more in that light. I’m ashamed of them. Really poor decisions by congress in the past.
In a recent Straight Talk commentary, Rep. Paul wrote, “Claims are made that auditing the Fed would compromise its independence. However, by independence, they really mean secrecy. The Fed clearly cherishes its vast power to create and spend trillions of dollars, diluting the value of every other dollar in circulation, making deals with other central banks, and bailing out cronies, all to the detriment of the taxpayer, and to the enrichment of themselves. I am happy to challenge this type of ‘independence.'”
via Momentum builds toward possible end of this U.S. agency.
Mary O’Grady Says Latin America Needs Economic Liberalization and Property Rights, Not Foreign Aid – WSJ.com
Exactly! I am so tired of these bureaucrats who perpetuate poverty, not cure it, because it gives them a job.
Bush Tried To Rein In Democrat Driven Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae
In yet another article about the Democrat responsibility for events that led to the hell we’re in now (and frankly most of the hell this country’s ever been in). Read the full article here. Excerpts are included below…
Mr. Bush wanted to limit systemic risk by raising the GSEs’ capital requirements, compelling preapproval of new activities, and limiting the size of their portfolios. Why should government regulate banks, credit unions and savings and loans, but not GSEs? Mr. Bush wanted the GSEs to be treated just like their private-sector competitors.
But the GSEs fought back. They didn’t want to see the Bush reforms enacted, because that would level the playing field for their competitors. Congress finally did pass the Bush reforms, but in 2008, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed.
Isn’t that interesting. Surrender Poodle Pelosi and the Freddi Mac executive’s boy-toy Barney Frank should be run out of the country on a rail. I don’t understand why fools in those states keep fools in power, but I guess I guess that explains it.
When Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed for comprehensive GSE reform in 2005, Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut successfully threatened a filibuster. Later, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed, Mr. Dodd asked, “Why weren’t we doing more?” He then voted for the Bush reforms that he once called “ill-advised.”
But Mr. Dodd wasn’t the only Democrat to heap abuse on the Bush reforms. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts defended Fannie and Freddie as “fundamentally sound” and labeled the president’s proposals as “inane.” He later voted for the reforms. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York dismissed Mr. Bush’s “safety and soundness concerns” as “a straw man.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” was the helpful advice of both Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware and Rep. Maxine Waters of California. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York berated a Bush official at a hearing, saying, “I am just pissed off” at the administration for raising the issue.
…
The housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government privilege. If Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn’t be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off.
That’s why some mythmakers are so intent on denying that Mr. Bush worked to rein in the GSEs. But facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say, and in this instance, the facts support Mr. Bush and offer a harsh judgment on key Democrats. Perhaps that explains why so many in the media haven’t told the real story.
GET OUT THE VOTE!
We conservatives need to get out the vote now more than ever. Much like the Democrats encourage each other, with the motivation and intention to skew the election results away from the stance of the population, rather than any interest they claim to have in providing fairness and true representation of the country’s views. They know this with total clarity and have combined to that end with great sinister cooperation.
We need to spread the word far and wide that in every town, in every county, in every state (even the liberal ones) we need to make our voices heard and our votes counted. It’s easy and doesn’t take much time, and even if it did freedom isn’t free and being busy is no excuse.
First, vote yourself. No matter how much you’re certain of the positive or negative outcome regardless of your vote, you need to be counted or you can’t complain about the result. Second, spread the word to your conservative family, friends, and neighbors. Press them with reason that voting is the only way to bring about change since we’re not quite yet to a point where we need a coup.
It’s common knowledge that when we conservatives vote, we win. We’re always the majority in common sense, charity, and altruistic (largely Christian) effort to truly lift the less fortunate from the chains the Democrats have forged around their necks.
We’re the majority of the country’s population for heaven’s sake!
But unfortunately, we’re far behind in activism and “community organization” and representation in the media. This is likely due to the fact that we’re busy working on the American Dream, with little time for protesting outside corporations all day with signs and slogans (where do they get the time?) Our singlular focus on getting a piece of the pie must change, until the country changes and we can all go back to focusing on our pursuit of happiness and prosperity.
We must gain a greater awareness of the state of the nation. Our inaction is causing a shift in power as the Democrats register and hype those over which they preside as masters and keepers. Our inaction leads to the persistence of the programs and policies we so often decry. Our inaction will keep the country in the depth of recession and depression. Will it be another 50 years like the Democrats and closet-Socialists gave us? It’s up to us.
Democrat policies and the communities the left organizes are the source of our financial crisis. This kind of policy, enforced by the same guilty parties, will never lead to a better outcome. They need to be removed from office and their policies discontinued.
Vote and help those around you to vote. Plan a carpool for election day, make reminder calls, take the time to persuade and befriend those you know are conservative and remind them of the urgency of the emergency in this country. We are on the verge of an all Democrat government siege. That kind of crisis is actually far more dangerous, and in more widespread and moral ways, than the current mortgage crisis. There’s no doubt about it.
Please be sure to vote and open your mouth. The liberals around you will try to suppress you, as that is the only way they will win. But stand for your values. Again, please be sure to vote and open your mouth.
Video: Escaped The Plantation, Voting McCain
Perhaps the best speech given during this entire campaign cycle.
The O-Team
More genius by ZO. See more great clips here
Obama Votes Present on Fannie/Freddie
Again, the WSJ is on the ball today…
If Sen. Obama were truly looking for a kind of deregulation that might be responsible for the current financial crisis, he need only look back to 1998, when the Clinton administration ruled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could satisfy their affordable housing obligations by purchasing subprime mortgages. This ultimately made it possible for Fannie and Freddie to add a trillion dollars in junk loans to their balance sheets. This led to their own collapse, and to the development of a market in these mortgages that is the source of the financial crisis we are wrestling with today.
Finally, on the matter of deregulation and the financial crisis, Sen. Obama should consider his own complicity in the failure of Congress to adopt legislation that might have prevented the subprime meltdown.
In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.
Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.
Why Do Our Taxes Go To ACORN?
You might ask, as I did when I found out the Democrat shell company ACORN is federally funded, why this is the case. A Wall Street Journal piece today lays out some detail we didn’t know, and now we feel like being militant ourselves.
“But the organization’s real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn’s American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an “affordable housing” provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.
All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.”