Somewhere just south of the Erie Canal, in a small suburb of Buffalo, where a Starbucks can hardly be found, the American pioneer spirit is alive and thriving.  I am not referring to the rugged individualism of exploration and development, nor to the blind risk taking and abiding optimism that we associate with economic gain, although these do exist in small clusters overshadowed by a city where shuttered steel mills and rusting plants fill block after block. 

Rather, meet Mother Jacquie.  She’s is not a religious Mother, like Mother Theresa, although her faith-based work might justifiably be compared to hers.  She is a mother with eight children who makes her living in an habilitation center for young adults with special needs.  Between her family and her job, one might think that Jacquie’s days are filled with about as much emotionally taxing endeavors as one person can handle.  Not so.  You see, Jacquie’s home becomes home to children who, by fate or the errors of their parents, are being dragged on a tumbril toward a slow decapitation of their hope and joy.  These are kids of drug addicts, or who are abandoned, or who were condemned by the state to a foster “care” that ends up betraying the loving and nurturing home it was intended to be.  When these kids have nowhere else to turn, when the foster system has failed them, when despair and the streets overwhelm them, their custodial agencies turn to Jacquie.  She takes them in and loves them, feeds and clothes them, educates and teaches them how to pray, and offers them hope and happiness.  They call her mother, she calls them children; and her natural children embrace them, too, as immediately as brothers and sisters embrace a newborn into the family.

When they turn 18, Jacquie sends each child to college.  They don’t question her.  They just accept her motherly directive: if you want a good life, you must get an education.  Infused with boundless optimism and self-confidence, they find a school of their liking, a course of study, and a way to pay for their education.  Yes, each of Jacquie’s eight children and the 15 to 20 she estimates were given her by other parents over the years completely pay their way through college.  With joy and gratitude they study hard, work hard, and eventually make their way into the world of business, medicine, and law.  And they never forget their roots.  Jacquie’s son, Dan, is somewhat of a daredevil.  He earns well into six figures dangling from and maintaining powerplants and communications towers.  Yet, each year he gives one month of his time without pay to help build housing for the poor.  “Mom,” he declares to Jacquie, “this is how you taught me.”  Her daughter, Mandi, a social worker, shares custody of babies of unwed teenage mothers to ensure that both grow on the right path.

Is the new President campaigning against Christianity or is he only trying to be inclusive and respectful of other faiths?  This is the question that discomfits Americans who had always learned and always believed in the Christian tradition and foundation of our country.  To respect all faiths is a laudatory grace; to deny the influence and spirit of a faith practiced by the overwhelming majority of the country one leads is disgraceful.

Consider that in June 2006 Obama said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”  (FactCheck; YouTube).  And in July 2007 he told CBN News, “America is no longer just a Christian nation”.

One might tolerate a candidate’s flirtations with studies in comparative religions, perhaps in recognition of the changing religious profile of the United States of late (largely due to a failed immigration policy), or one might rationalize his reaction to the doctrinaire and often unforgiving positions assumed by the evangelist wing of Christianity which for too long meddled beyond their mission to save souls to encumber the politics of the GOP.  But a President’s responsibility requires a supererogation in contrast to a candidate’s ambitions, and a requisite honoring of American history, tradition, and the realities of the super-majority Christianity comprises in our country.

Yet, as President, Obama recently carried his three year message while in Turkey, “ ‘One of the great strengths of the United States’ is that it does not consider itself ‘a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.’ ” (CNN)  No, Mr. President, the great strength of the United States is this: because we are a Christian nation we are tolerant of other faiths as long as they are bound by the same ideals and set of values.  Contrast our tolerance and acceptance with nations who are openly and predominantly non-Christian, something you might have done, diplomatically, during your European trip to reaffirm Western ideals.

Are we a Christian nation?  According to the American Religious Identification Survey 2008, 76% of the population identify themselves as Christian.  That is a number that can make even the most self-assured politician salivate.  The original colonies and territories of the United States, with the exception of Virginia, were settled by Europeans escaping persecution for Christian practices that were not tolerated in their home country.  And in a case before the Supreme Court, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), Justice David Brewer declared in a unanimous decision, “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”  Brewer’s argument is replete with examples that firmly establish the Christian tradition in American political practice.

What about the oft-cited “separation of Church and State” in the First Amendment?  Nowhere in the Constitution do these words appear.  The exact language is, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, …”  Secularist are all too eager to parse the phrase and conveniently leave out the second clause.  The original purpose was not to create a God-less society, but precisely the contrary: to protect free expression of faith.  Here is Thomas Jefferson, writing to the Danbury Baptists who were concerned about government intrusion into religion:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

Obama’s solicitous exclamations about America’s non-Christianity that contradict majority American practice and belief, combined with a misreading of the Constitution by the followers of the former Constitutional professor are tragically being manifested in outrageous demands, that violate at least the spirit of the free exercise clause.  Before Obama accepted an invitation to speak this month at Georgetown University, a Jesuit school, The White House requested signs and symbols of Jesus Christ be covered up  (NBC News).  What is more unconscionable than that request is Georgetown’s acquiescence in it.  Perhaps the Catholics who run Georgetown forgot the words of St. Paul to Timothy, “If we deny Him, He will also deny us.”

Denial of our Christian heritage, denial of history, denial of the very values about which the President bragged to his Muslim interlocutors … we have managed to allow a Christian nation—yes Mr. President, it is—to be turned upside-down by a small minority who understand neither faith nor American tradition.

Michael Avari

http://bloggernews.net/120552

http://americancivility.us

What do Milton Friedman, the late Conservative economist, and Robert B. Reich, a Liberal economist who served in the Clinton administration and who is an advisor to President-elect Obama have in common?  They both propose that business taxes be eliminated.

That the same proposal is advanced 45 years apart by two economists of otherwise contradictory philosophies confirms that at least its founding postulate is rooted in immutable principles.

Politicians ought to listen this time.  We are all too familiar with the conditions vitiating our economy and our future—the banking crisis now well into its eighth month, bailout after bailout, rising unemployment, danger of deflation, a weak dollar, poor world competitive stature, and a capitulation of gains in our personal investments earned in the last 10 years.

More than any other proposal, more than stimulus packages, more than personal tax cuts, more than bailouts, the Friedman-Reich proposal will almost immediately reverse these conditions and restore the economy to health.

Why should business taxes be zero?  Because we have in our country today a system of “double taxation”, meaning that every dollar that certain corporations make is taxed twice.  These are the corporations likely to be in your 401(k), IRA, 529, or other portfolio.  For example, you work for Starbucks and have some of your personal savings in their stock.  For every $100 Starbucks makes in profit, they pay $35 in taxes leaving $65 to be distributed to shareholders in dividend or capital gains.  Some economists argue that $35 comes in higher product prices or lower wages.  When you are paid dividend you are taxed again at your individual rate, or when you sell your stock you are taxed another 15% (currently) or $9.75 on the profit.   You, as a shareholder, are left with $55.25 in that $100 earned by your company less dividend taxes paid.

With a single taxation system, only the owners of the company, the shareholders, pay the tax on profits at their normal tax rate. If you pay taxes at the marginal rate of 25%, then your share of that $100 is $75 ($100 - $25). You [or your 401(k), IRA, and other investments] keep more of the business profits, which you will spend, save, or invest again in the economy.

Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman first recognized the inequity in double taxation in his book Capitalism and Freedom (The University of Chicago Press, 1962) and wrote about it in Free To Choose (Harcourt, 1990).  He wrote,

“The corporate income tax, too, is highly defective.  It is a hidden tax that the public pays in the prices it pays for goods and services without realizing it. It constitutes double taxation of corporate income—once to the corporation, once to the shareholder when the income is distributed.  It penalizes capital investment and thereby hinders growth in productivity.  It should be abolished.”

And recently in his book, Supercapitalism (Random House, 2007), Robert Reich came to the same conclusion:

“In reality, the corporate income tax is paid—indirectly—by the company’s consumers, shareholders, and employees.”, and concludes that “Abolishing the corporate income tax would … help capital markets work better.”

Reich extends his analysis and observes because corporations are not people they should not be afforded the opportunity to challenge laws in courts, nor to lobby government, and should be denied other rights and privileges reserved for citizens.  Subsidizing corporations would be unnecessary without a corporate tax.  And in this age of bailout-mania, eliminating the business tax would reduce or obviate the need for Washington to rescue companies with taxpayer money.

By ending double taxation, we will create an environment of capital formation, and with it business growth without the need for stimulus, bailout, subsidy, tax credit, tax deduction, tax loophole, or other gimmicks. We believe this is the way we can make our economy strong—permanently strong—and competitive, without deficits, Federal borrowing, and increased taxation.

Friedman-Reich will make unnecessary:

- bailouts
- stimulus packages
- tax loopholes
- government subsidies
- capital gains taxes
- corporate lobbying

Friedman-Reich will:

- attract capital to business
- make companies more competitive in the world economy
- halt layoffs and increase employment
- keep jobs here
- increase the value of retirement and other savings accounts
- make capital markets more efficient and relieve the credit choke
- ultimately increase government tax revenue

There is no better time to consider this proposal.   We have an economy that needs revitalization, a new President who has called for bi-partisan ideas, and a breakthrough concept with support from both sides of the political spectrum.  This is an idea started by a conservative and advanced by liberals.  And Mr. Reich is an advisor to President-elect Obama.  We believe we have therefore, at this moment, the perfect storm to advance a proposal that would redress systemic disadvantages our tax system imposes on businesses and capital markets, precisely at the time when both need help.

Please sign the Friedman-Reich petition.  We hope to present the petition to the new Obama administration and to Congress.

Michael Avari

http://www.americancivility.us/

President Bush shows no regard for the will of Congress or the majority of the American people. The Senate rejected the auto bailout. But that doesn’t stop Bush.

A few facts:
- The Big Three first wanted $25 B
- Then they asked for $34 B
- The bill that failed in Congress was for $14 B
- Bush is considering lending the auto makers $8 to $10 B from the Troubled Asset Rrecovery Program (TARP).

A few points:

1) Clearly the auto makers don’t know what they need and Washington is just throwing our money around with reckless abandon.
2) Neither Ford nor Chrysler need the money right away, so this is a GM bailout.
3) The Senate bill failed because the UAW would not assure lawmakers that they would make their labor rates “competitive” with those of Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Mercedes which manufacture in Sen. Shelby’s Alabama and with Nissan whose headquarters is in Sen. Corker’s Tennessee, where Volkswagen will build a 2000 employee plant.
4) The Fed, who has authority to lend to non-financial entities in an emergency refused to lend to the Big Three. And they are bankers!
5) Bernanke and Paulson, backed by Bush, came pleading to Congress and the American public to approve $700 for the banking industry otherwise the economy might fall into depression. If that money is not used by banks, it should be returned to the American people.
6) There is no provision in TARP to allow lending to non-financial enterprises.
7) Bush would have to get Congress to approve use of TARP funds outside its original scope or risk breaking the law.
8) Cheney said the administration did not want the Republican Party to be remembered as the Party of Hoover and allow an industry to fail.

Instead, it will be remembered as the party who, 20 years after Reagan, brought Socialism to America.