….“Over a third of single-parent families with children are poor, compared to only 7 percent of married families. Overall, children in married families are 82 percent less likely to be poor than are children of single parents.”
Robert Rector’s study, “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty,” detailed the problem in each state and he concluded that the Feds need to focus on marriage more.
“Policymakers on the state and national levels recognize that education reduces poverty, but they’re largely unaware that marriage is an equally strong anti-poverty weapon,” said Rector, a nationally recognized authority on the U.S. welfare system.
Heritage said that “while more Americans grow dependent on welfare, government fails to communicate the benefits of marriage even as it warns young people not to smoke, do drugs, have “unsafe” sex, or drop out of school.” Rector calls this “tragic.”
…The chart appears to be telling us that spending, taxes, and deficits are all lower today than when Obama took office. I applaud the chart’s makers – the goons over at Think Progress with the help of the Center for American Progress – for their crafty figuring.
The chart uses the percentage of GDP from the day Obama took office and the current estimates to fudge the truth and make it look like Obama isn’t everything we evil conservatives say he is, namely fiscally irresponsible. Even an amateur economist – like public school amateur – should see right through this.
Of what use is comparing spending using a percentage of GDP, unless you’re goal is to provide bad analysis? Spending as a percentage of GDP increased from 20.8 to 25.2 between 2008 and 2009 (from government stimulus). Assuming the calculations in the chart are true (in reality, they’re only based on estimations), all it shows is that spending went from one slice of a big pie to a smaller slice of an even bigger pie.
It’s the same dishonest game for their claim on taxes. The percentage of GDP does not at all associate with the increasing tax rates that Obama and the Democrats gave us with ObamaCare. Also, coming from left-wingers, why is low federal revenue a good thing?
Lastly – I assume this is their big hurrah – deficit spending has decreased from 8.3 to 7.6% of GDP. Even if this were true, so what? This is like patting yourself on the back for sticking to your diet by only eating the whole kitchen. Political Math fixed the numbers on the chart using actual data instead of flimsy estimates and found that spending and deficits are higher under Obama (every sane person says “Duh!”). Obama did, however, seem to lower federal revenue without raising taxes. Again, with a barrage of new spending, how is this a good thing?…
(Chart above) It is easy to dispense with the argument that the president has been tight with money. Assume that during the year 2009 your already-overweight friend gained forty extra pounds, and since then your friend has continued to overeat such that his body weight has remained roughly constant. Since he hasn’t gained much weight in the past four years, can I conclude that he doesn’t have a weight problem? Of course not. Same goes with the president and his spending; a low rate of spending growth does not imply the absence of an extremely high amount of spending. (FORBES).
…But since taking office, Obama’s policies have made everything far worse.
And that’s abundantly clear if you compare the rest of the CBO’s 2009 forecast to Obama’s actual results.
In each and every year, Obama spent far more than the CBO had projected, took in far less in revenues — not because he cut taxes, but because of the lousy recovery — and produced much larger deficits.
Whereas the CBO projected spending in 2012 would be 21% of gross domestic product, for example, Obama now pegs it at 24%. That, mind you, would have been far worse had Republicans not put the brakes on further “stimulus” spending.
Deficits as a share of GDP, meanwhile, have come in almost twice as high as the CBO projected just before Obama took office. And the government has piled on more than $5 trillion in additional debt.
Obama can’t blame the deeper-than-expected recession on these dismal results. The real problem has been the extremely poor recovery he engineered. Whereas the CBO’s January 2009 forecast put GDP growth in 2011 at 4.4%, it came in at a mere 1.7%. This year, GDP growth is running at half the rate the CBO predicted…
One last point that is worth mentioning. Since we are dealing with projections, let’s throw this one out into the ether:
…This year, he [Obama] introduced a fiscal 2013 budget that would have reversed the debt deal’s caps on increased spending.
“Over the 2013-2022 period,” CBO concluded in its analysis of Obama’s proposal, “the cumulative deficit that would result from enacting the president’s budget — $6.4 trillion (or 3.2 percent of GDP) — would be $3.5 trillion larger than the cumulative deficit projected under current law.”
When Obama told the people in Waterloo, Iowa, this month that he would make sure government did its part to reduce the debt, it was not a $1 trillion lie. It was a $3.5 trillion lie…
(Reuters) – General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.
Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.
Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce….
Breitbart has this update on Obama’s ambitious, tax payer funded, plan to put electric cars on the road:
In 2011, President Barack Obama set a goal of putting one million electric cars on American roads by 2015. Currently, there are just 30,000 electric cars on U.S. roads.
The abysmal numbers are even more surprising considering the government’s efforts to prop up “green car” manufacturing. Electric luxury car manufacturer Fisker, for example, was approved for a $529 million taxpayer-funded government loan; the federal government cut off the funds at $193 million after sales fell woefully short of required targets. The struggling electric car maker recently recalled 2,400 of its Karma vehicles when one caught fire due to problems with its cooling fan.
In June, a CBS News report calculated projected electric car sales by Mr. Obama’s 2015 date at 310,663. That figure, while still less than a third of Mr. Obama’s goal, may still be overly optimistic. Reuters says industry experts predict that less than 200,000 electric vehicles will be on U.S. roads by 2015.
Further exacerbating the challenge of meeting Mr. Obama’s goal is the fact that taxpayer-funded electric car battery companies continue to flounder. Last month, for example, struggling U.S. electric battery maker A123 Systems, which received a $249 million taxpayer-funded government loan, announced its plans to sell a controlling stake to Wanxiang, a Chinese company, for $450 million.
Similarly, lithium-ion battery manufacturer Ener1, Inc., which received a $118.5 million taxpayer-funded grant, filed for bankruptcy. And Aptera Motors has already folded.
“Here at this site, Solyndra expects to make enough solar panels each year to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. And over the lifetime of this expanded facility, that could be like replacing as many as eight coal-fired power plants.” ~ Barack Obama
From video description:
This is pretty lame. I wonder how many people think this power just comes out of the ground? Perhaps these greentards think this is magic solar power that is leached from the sun and stored in invisible floating Tesla flywheels. Bet that went right over most heads. Anyway this is a real problem for shoppers at WalGREENS. Weather they are asked or not they are subsidizing this climate hoax and paying for the fuel that is getting these FARCE-CARS from point “a” to point “b.”
Larry Elder has the unique ability to put side-by-side thesis and antithesis in order to explain [well] two competing ideas. In this example, he answers the question of of what, if any, differences there are in the two competing parties. (Posted by: https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/) There are quotes from Milton Friedman as well as the ineffable Ronald Reagan to drive home these differences. Enjoy, it is Larry Elder at his best.
PS, this video took a LONG time to do! Larry Elder’s Producer would mix two differing Reagan speeches, and insert Obama clips, as well as cutting out long pauses in Milton Friedman’s and Ronald Reagan’s clips. So trying to sync up the videos were very time consuming as I literally had to “trim” almost every sentence of Gippers debate close.
In one of my favorite presentations by Scott (his ministry is outstanding: http://www.prolifetraining.com/), arguments touching on scientific laws, philosophy, and common sense allow the pro-life advocate to deal with opponents in clear and concise ways. This isn’t a Bible bashing fest, but a tactic in bringing the whole of the argument for the preciousness of life to the forefront.
Here is the VIDEO Scott Klusendorf references near the end of this presentation. THERE IS A WARNING WITH THIS VIDEO, it is GRAPHIC!
A good presentation as well is the 180 movie. Well worth your time.
I recently post on my FaceBook my “states in the red category” prediction in November (*not* the map above). One friend wrote that:
“I wish I could share your optimism”
Which is true, I am going big, granted. But the following is my small “booster” for the conservative at heart — even if it is fleeting:
I will give you some indicators… but mind you… I am going BIG and will most likely be wrong. But I am confident that we will win:
★ Flashback: Gallup Had Carter Up 4 Points Over Ronald Reagan in September 1980 http://tinyurl.com/9xwbr64
Alert!
I was thinking it was only a 4% lead that Carter had… in fact, three weeks BEFORE the election Carter rose to 47% and Reagan dropped to 39%! Remember, Reagan took 44-States, he blew Carter out of the water! Then doc Rove shows the lopsided polls in regards to Democrats and Republicans. WOW!
(Click above graphic to enlarge: h/t to Gay Patriot)
Some people see that “God” and “Jerusalem” (the Jewish vote) being re-added (wrongly I might add) is a BIG deal. So the black vote and the Jewish vote will change a bit. Others see the emphasis on abortion at the DNC this year (See for instance: http://tinyurl.com/8w7olch). It was pushed incessantly, and because of Akin, others have heard Obama’s voting record on infanticide. So the women vote will change. Still others note the odd line-up of speakers:
A man who was accused by 15-women of either unwanted sexual advances or rape, Bill Clinton (yeah, Republican war on women); A women who in one breath will say “keep government out of my bedroom,” but then in the next want government to pay for her contraception via acts in the bedroom… who also wants government to pay for sex-change operations, Sandra Fluke (radical genderist); A women caught lying about her ancestry and stories from it, Elizabeth Warren (Obama also falsely tied himself to Native-American ancestry); A racist involved deeply in what would be the White Pride movement if he were white… and has close ties to the Chicano version of the KKK, who’s mom founded both movements in her town (chapters of, so-to-speak), Julian Castro (for some reason Democrats think you cannot be racist if a minority, see: http://tinyurl.com/99ua58z).
So moderates and independents are going to vote a bit more for the RR2. These are just a few reasons to be optimistic… but maybe not as much as me.
The Magic Is Gone:
UPDATED:
A recent PEW POLL puts Romney (yes, Romney) up by 4-points. The Dem/Repub/Indie split was 39/29/30, respectively.
The most recent WaPo/ABC POLL has Obama up by 1-point Dem/Repub/Indie split is 35/26/33, respectively.
A poll from a month or so ago by CBS/NYT had Obama up and Democrats polled at 9% more. My boss came in one day and said Romney was down 10-points in Ohio… the Democrats were sampled at 35%, and Republicans at 27%. So while the race is close in swing-states, it IS close, and swaying to Romney.
So when Romney and the Left is surprised by it… you know why… they trust the Legacy Media.
The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. ~ Weekly Standard
“Romney currently leads Obama 52 percent to 45 percent among voters who say they have already cast their ballots,” Gallup reported. “However, that is comparable to Romney’s 51 percent to 46 percent lead among all likely voters in Gallup’s Oct. 22-28 tracking polling.” ~ Gallup
Very early on, before this campaign started in earnest, live or die, I publicly cast my lot with Gallup and Rasmussen. As a poll addict going back to 2000, these are the outlets that have always played it straight. It’s got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with credibility and not wanting to kid myself. So when an outlet like Gallup tells me Romney is up seven-points, 52-45%, among those who have already voted, that’s very big news.
Just as Gallup did with their bombshell survey showing that 2012 is looking like a year where Republicans will enjoy a record three-point turnout advantage over Democrats (a ten-point shift from 2008), for whatever reason, they buried the lede with this latest bombshell, as well. When you consider the fact that the CorruptMedia’s been talking for weeks about how Obama’s crushing Romney in early voting, you would think Gallup proving that Narrative a big fat phony lie would be news. Instead, though, they bury this explosive news at the bottom of a piece headlined: “In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots“.
Sounds like a nothing story, right?
Except waaaaay at the bottom we learn this:
Thus far, early voters do not seem to be swaying the election toward either candidate.
Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney’s 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup’s Oct. 22-28 tracking polling. At the same time, the race is tied at 49% among those who have not yet voted but still intend to vote early, suggesting these voters could cause the race to tighten. However, Romney leads 51% to 45% among the much larger group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6.
When Gallup says early voters don’t seem to be swaying the election, presumably what they means is that because Romney is ahead by five points nationally, an early voting advantage of seven-points isn’t going to “sway the election.”
Romney’s early voting lead in Gallup may not jive with the CorruptMedia narrative, but it does with actual early vote totals that have been released and show Romney’s early vote totals either beating Obama in swing states such as Colorado and Florida or chipping away at the President’s advantage in the others. For example, here’s what we know about Ohio’s early voting numbers, thus far:
But here is what we do know: 220,000 fewer Democrats have voted early in Ohio compared with 2008. And 30,000 more Republicans have cast their ballots compared with four years ago. That is a 250,000-vote net increase for a state Obama won by 260,000 votes in 2008.
The Ohio poll (Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News Organization Poll) that has the 49% vs. the 49% close race, is a great example of what I have been talking about here-and-there about the disparity of proper representation of Party affiliates in these polls. For instance, in the poll used by many to show the tie, here is the breakdown:
★ The party breakdown of the randomly selected respondents: 47 percent Democrats, 44 percent Republicans, 10 percent independents.
We know that Independents are tracking more with the Republicans this year, about 54 percent (R/R) to 40 percent (O/B). And of course the difference is obvious in Democrat/Republican, as shown above. If there were a more even sampling between all three… Romney would be up, and by a few percentage points!
Likewise, the Minnesota poll that shows a statistical dead-heat is broke down thusly:
★ The poll comes as more Minnesotans identify as Republicans, which could add to Romney’s support. A month ago, the poll’s sample was 41 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican and 31 percent independent or other. In this survey, 38 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrat, 33 percent Republican and 29 percent independent or other.
NOW, the important part for my California readers. Yes, this state will go blue… but it is a duty for all Republicans to vote. Why? Because I believe that we will win this election, but a larger popular vote win will give R/R a moral high road for their agenda. The wider the gap the better.
[….]
Okay, the Gravis Marketing Poll (Ohio) which has Obama up 1 in Ohio ~ 50 Obama, 49 Romney… Dems are sampled 8% more (also remember Independents are going for Romney in larger numbers). Here is how the poll breaks down:
⚑ Democrat – 40 ⚑ Republican – 32 ⚑ Independent or in another party – 28
[….]
PPP’s newest Ohio poll finds Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 51-47, up from a 49-48 margin a week ago. How does this newest poll break down?
Rasmussen has Romney at 49% and Obama at 47% — nation wide average. I can never find the in-depth breakdown… I think you have to be a paying member to do so. At any rate, here is one of their articles in part:
———————————————-
The full Swing State tracking update offers Rasmussen Reader subscribers a combined view of the results from 11 key states won by President Obama in 2008 and thought to be competitive in 2012. The states collectively hold 146 Electoral College votes and include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
In the 11 swing states, Mitt Romney earns 50% of the vote to Obama’s 46%. Two percent (2%) like another candidate in the race, and another two percent (2%) are undecided.
Romney has now led for 11 straight days with margins of four to six points most of that time.
In 2008, Obama won these states by a combined margin of 53% to 46%, virtually identical to his national margin.
Nationally, Romney remains at the 50% level of support in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll….
The race for Ohio’s Electoral College votes remains very close, but now Mitt Romney now has a two-point advantage.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters shows Romney with 50% support to President Obama’s 48%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate, while another one percent (1%) remains undecided.
New Projection of Election Results: Romney 52, Obama 47
The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. The poll also found that Romney has an even greater advantage among middle class voters, 52 percent [Romney] to 45 percent [Obama].
While Obama can close the gap with a strong voter turnout effort, “reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory,” says pollster Ed Goeas.
Should Romney win by 5 percentage points, it would increase Republican chances of gaining control of the Senate. His coattails would help elect GOP Senate candidates in Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. “Republicans are now certain to hold the House,” Goeas said, “regardless of how the presidential race turns out.”
The poll’s election model takes into account variables including voter intensity, age, and education, and voters who are certain in their vote. The race “remains very close in the surface,” Goeas said, “but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney.”
The projected outcome by the Battleground Poll is close to that of the Gallup Poll. Last week, Gallup said Romney leads Obama 49 percent to 46 percent in its model of the electorate’s composition on November 6.
The Battleground Poll is conducted by Goeas of the Tarrance Group and Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners. Goeas is a Republican, Lake a Democrat. The survey is affiliated with Politico and George Washington University.
Taken last week, the poll found that only 37 percent of voters believe the country is headed in the right direction. For an incumbent president to win reelection, that number normally must exceed 40 percent. “Everyone but the core Democratic constituencies holds the strongly held feeling that the country is off on the wrong track,” Goeas said.
For the first time this year, Romney has a majority favorable image. His favorability rating is 52 percent, Obama’s is 51 percent. According to the poll, Romney is viewed favorably by a majority of independents (59 percent), seniors (57), married voters (61), moms (56), college graduates (54), middle class voters (56), and middle class families (61).
North Carolina State University, March 20, 2011 – William Lane Craig (author of Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology) and Lawrence Krauss (author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing) debate the existence of God. This is the debate where Krauss famously unbuttoned his shirt and boldly told his audience that 2+2=5! Is this what it takes to be an atheist? In fact, Krauss did so embarrassingly bad he was voted as the loser* of the debate. Craig does a masterful job of exposing Krauss’ unscientific and wacky view of physics and science. Unfortunately, many atheists are parroting his arguments and thoughts. Transcript: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-craig-krauss-debate-at-north-carolina-stat…
* – The voting results at NCSU on who won the debate:
-516 cards turned in -286 Dr. Craig made the clearer/better presentation -130 Dr. Krauss made the clearer/better presentation -100 stated it was a draw
(Video Description) America’s public education system is failing. We’re spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.
That’s because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn’t designed to produce better schools. It’s designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians.
For decades, teachers’ unions have been among our nation’s largest political donors. As Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has noted, the National Education Association (NEA) alone spent $40 million on the 2010 election cycle (SOURCE). As the country’s largest teachers union, the NEA is only one cog in the infernal machine that robs parents of their tax dollars and students of their futures.
Students, teachers, parents, and hardworking Americans are all victims of this political machine–a system that takes money out of taxpayers’ wallets and gives it to union bosses, who put it in the pockets of politicians.
