Principled Politics – 12/10/09

No Ceiling... and the Sky is Falling by Howard Rich
  The irony of the United States' current financial situation is that it would be absolutely impossible for any business or private citizen to ever wind up in such dire straits…
  Of course, words like “out-of-control” or “unsustainable” don’t really cut it these days when it comes to Washington’s impending budget disaster.
  We are looking at nothing short of catastrophic recklessness – as well as an unmitigated contempt for future generations that is likely to cripple our nation’s economy for decades. Read more…

How to Create Jobs Without Really Trying by Cal Thomas
  President Obama delivered his latest speech on job creation and the economy Tuesday at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington. As with all of his speeches, this one was loaded with first-person references and blame of the Bush administration for America's economic troubles….
  The president would achieve real success by cutting taxes, eliminating unnecessary regulations and liberating the free enterprise system to do what it does best: create products and services people will buy so that companies will hire people.
  That has always been the formula that has produced a strong American economy. Government produces little that people want to buy. Government mostly takes from those who produce. Government can spread wealth, as this president is attempting to do -- but it can't create wealth. So by spreading wealth rather than allowing wealth to be created, the result is less wealth to spread.
  Why can't liberals understand this? It is because this president and much of his administration have never punched a time clock or run a business.
  The economic power of America is in Americans, not in government.
Read more…

Kentucky Votes No - A special-election warning on health care.
By the WSJ
  In his private meetings with Democrats, President Obama's health-care argument has come down to an appeal to make "history" (see above). He'd be more candid if he said that if they vote for the current bills many of them soon will be history.
  That's the warning from the unlikely quarter of Tuesday's special state senate election in Kentucky that became a referendum on the Democratic agenda in Washington, especially health care. Voters in the 14th District elected Republican Jimmy Higdon over Democrat Jodie Haydon by 12 points. That's significant in a district that leans Democratic by more than 2 to 1, and where Democrats and their allies spent more than $1 million, perhaps twice what the GOP did. …
  But the message from Kentucky is that the Pelosi-Harry Reid agenda is becoming politically toxic, and Democrats who vote for it will want to have career contingency plans. Read more…