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CBO on Obama Debt Orgy
This week the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the president’s FY2011 budget. The CBO projects that combined deficits for 2011–2020 under the president’s budget will be $1.2 trillion (for a total of $9.7 trillion) higher than the Office of Management & Budget’s forecast.
The CBO projects that debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP will be significantly higher:
One major reason why the CBO projects higher deficits than the OMB is because the CBO projects that cumulative revenue over the period will be lower (its economic growth assumptions aren’t as rosy as the OMB’s).
But a lack of revenues isn’t the big problem. The CBO projects that revenues as a percentage GDP would rebound from 14.5 percent in FY2010 to 19.6 percent in FY2020. The big problem is that spending as a percentage of GDP is projected to remain at post-war record highs throughout the decade:
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Due Process Victory for Concealed Carry Permit Holder
That’s the outcome in the Second Circuit (full decision here), where a Connecticut man who has held a concealed handgun permit since 1982 was given the run-around when he tried to renew it, prompting a year-and-a-half of delay.
In March 2007, Kuck applied to DPS to renew his permit to carry a firearm. He was subsequently contacted by Defendant Albert J. Masek, an employee of DPS, who requested that Kuck provide a U.S. passport, birth certificate, or voter registration card in support of his renewal application…
Kuck objected to the requirement, arguing that he had submitted proof of citizenship when he first applied for a permit in 1982 and, over the subsequent 25 years, had never before been asked to provide such proof with a renewal application. He claimed then, as he does now, that the DPS requirement was arbitrary, designed to harass, and, in any event, not authorized by state law. Ultimately, he refused to provide the requested documents. As a result, DPS denied his renewal application.
Why the additional citizenship inquiry?
Notably, at the time of his renewal application, Kuck was the Secretary of the [Board of Firearms Permit Examiners]. Members of the Board are appointed by the Governor and include individuals nominated by gun clubs in Connecticut. In 1998, Kuck was nominated by Ye Connecticut Gun Guild, Inc. to the seat on the Board reserved for its representative.
Kuck alleges that, since his appointment, the estimated waiting-period for a hearing has increased dramatically, and that the Board Chairman, Christopher Adams, opposed his efforts to speed up the appeals process. He contends that DPS and the Board have acted to burden gun-owners’ ability to obtain carry permits by improperly denying applications in the first instance and then subjecting applicants to unjustified and prolonged appeals…
It appears that being critical of the discretionary licensing process can earn you extra scrutiny from bureaucratic overseers.
As I’ve said previously (and before that), enforcement of the right to bear arms against the states will force them to abandon discretionary “may-issue” permitting regimes. Where Due Process is owed, Due Process shall be honored.
Chavez Arrests the President of Globovision Television
Today, the Venezuelan government arrested Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision Television, the only remaining television on public airwaves critical of Hugo Chavez. According to the government, Zuloaga made offensive comments about Chavez (which is against the law in Venezuela) while speaking at a conference of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in Aruba, where media representatives criticized the Venezuelan regime’s crackdown on freedom of speech.
Globovision and Zuloaga have been under constant harassment from the government, and Chavez has promised to close the station. Last July, Cato held a forum in Washington on “Venezuela’s Assault on Freedom of the Press and Other Liberties,” which was to feature Zuloaga. After the event was announced, however, a politically directed court prohibited him from leaving the country. So Zuloaga taped this 3 minute video address to the Cato audience and sent his son and vice president of Globovision, Carlos, to take his place.
Robert Rivard of the IAPA also spoke at the forum. You may also see various short videos prepared by Globovision for the forum starting here.
“It is becoming a crime to have an opinion.” That’s how Carlos Zuloaga summed it up this afternoon when he referred to this incident and the recent arrest of former Venezuelan state governor Oswaldo Alvarez Paz for having said during a Globovision interview that Venezuela has become a drug-trafficking haven.
How will hemispheric leaders and the Organization of American States react to this renewed attack on free speech in Venezuela?
Ramming Through Radical Nominee Takes Back Seat to Ramming Through Obamacare
Senate debate on the health care reconciliation bill forced Democrats to postpone yesterday’s hearing for Goodwin Liu, President Obama’s controversial nominee to the Ninth Circuit (which covers the western states). Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy accused Republicans of “exploiting parliamentary tactics and Senate Rules” — GOP senators have stopped consenting to afternoon hearings for the duration of the health care debate — to delay Liu’s appointment “at the expense of American justice.”
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Despite the postponement, Liu’s confirmation is proceeding at breakneck speed. His hearing was scheduled only 28 days after his nomination, while the average Obama appointee waited 48 days for a hearing and the average Bush appointee waited 135 days. And Senate Democrats themselves cancelled all hearings Tuesday afternoon so they could attend the ObamaCare signing ceremony at the White House.
Moreover, Leahy’s intent is not so much to urge the timely vetting of judicial nominees, but to further the government’s Blitzkrieg takeover of civil society — before the Democrats’ congressional majorities turn into pumpkins this November. As Liu stated in a January interview with NPR, “now we have the opportunity to actually get our ideas and the progressive vision of the Constitution and of law and policy into practice.”
According to Liu, that progressive vision includes constitutional rights to health care, education, housing, and welfare payments. Liu states outright that “rights to government assistance” are “essential to liberty.” He defends this contradiction by claiming that “experiences of other nations suggest that the existence of such rights is compatible with constitutionalism.”
Liu’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee thus concerns much more than a seat on a federal appellate court (just when you thought the Ninth Circuit couldn’t get more radical). The Washington Post has noted that the hearing might serve as a test of Goodwin Liu as a Supreme Court nominee. With so much potentially at stake, postponing Liu’s hearing to ensure it receives the Senate’s undivided attention — and any other legal method of stopping or delaying by even one day his ascension to the bench — serves “American justice” rather than betraying it.
Globocop vs. Nanny State
Max Boot opines in today’s WSJ that ObamaCare is a threat to U.S. global military power, and, by extension, a threat to global security. I disagree. Because we should be seeking to offload some of the costs of policing the world, I hope that our current fiscal difficulties will force an ultimately worthwhile trade-off.
To be clear, I share Boot’s disdain for this massive expansion of federal power. Similarly, I don’t dispute Boot’s characterization of the health care legislation as likely to impose a huge net cost. Rather, the central flaw in the piece is his unwillingness to think clearly about our government’s obligations to our citizens, and of other governments to theirs.
The rationale whereby the U.S. government defends other countries, and U.S. taxpayers pay for it, is flawed. Under our Constitution, the American people grant to the federal government explicit powers to protect and defend the security of the United States. Treaties negotiated during the course of the Cold War effectively equated the defense of other countries with that of our own so that today the U.S. government provides “public goods” for people who are not now, and have never been, parties to our unique social contract.
As such, today’s U.S. military chiefly fights other people’s wars, and builds other people’s nations. The primary role of the U.S. Department of Defense is the defense of others.
These commitments have been sustained since the end of the Cold War under the premise that the costs are both low and sustainable over the long term. But it is becoming harder and harder to maintain these pretenses. By seeking to provide global public goods for all of humanity, we are saddling our children and grandchildren with huge costs.
Fiscal pressures have the potential to cause the American people to scrutinize military spending, and this scrutiny could ultimately force Washington to revise some of the core assumptions that have driven force planning for a generation. If that happens, we might finally shift the burdens of defense spending back onto those who benefit from such spending.
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Free Speech in Canada
Free speech isn’t exactly free in Canada, and even Glenn Greenwald and Mark Steyn agree on this point. When conservative commentator Ann Coulter (who can be uncivil, but shouldn’t be muzzled by the state for it) tried to give a speech at the University of Ottawa, she was warned by the political correctness police not to hurt anyone’s feelings:
I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.
You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind.…
So much for inalienable rights.
Steyn highlights the view of the lead investigator of Canada’s “Human Rights” Commission: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”
I would offer a rebuke, but Ezra Levant has done it better than I ever could. Crank your volume up, sit back, and enjoy: