Thursday, March 19, 2009

Mandatory Volunteerism?

I couldn't make this stuff up!

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act, was passed yesterday by a 321-105 margin and now goes to the Senate.

Under section 6104 of the bill, entitled “Duties,” in subsection B6, the legislation states that a commission will be set up to investigate, “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”

Section 120 of the bill also discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.”

Have these people never read a history book?

Monday, March 16, 2009

Coincidence? I think not!

Remember during the Presidential campaign when John McCain was absolutely crucified for saying that he thought "the fundamentals of our economy are strong"? Liberals tore into him for being "out of touch" with normal people. I mean, he owns how many houses?! Obama even made it a bullet-point in his stump speech, constantly railing on McCain and stopping just short of calling him an idiot.

McCain defended himself by saying that by "fundamentals", he meant "the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong."

The DOW was at 11,000 points back then.

Fast forward a few months, and we have President Obama saying that "We are keeping focus on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy."

Hmm.

President Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, was on Meet the Press this weekend. She was asked, basically, "Isn't that the same thing John McCain said during the campaign?" Her reply? "Of course fundamentals are sound. In the sense that the American workers are sound, we have good capital stock, we have good technology."

Huh.

The DOW, by the way, is currently at what... 7,300 points?

In another stroke of irony, President Obama looks like he now wants to tax our health insurance benefits to help cover the cost of (or force us all to) nationalized healthcare.

It's funny how Obama criticized John McCain for proposing the same sort of tax on health benefits during the campaign, touting them as "a huge tax increase on the middle class." The difference was that McCain was also proposing a tax credit for the middle class people affected by the tax on benefits.

With Obama, we just get the extra tax, hold the credit!