By Ed Feulner
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Following the news from Washington has never been easy. But there's an added challenge today: the problem of large numbers. It's almost impossible for anyone to really grasp the idea of a billion, let alone a trillion. Even the experts get confused.
"I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think it's - it went from $1.75 billion to $1.84 billion," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said recently when asked about the national deficit. He quickly corrected himself: "a trillion - I'm sorry." This isn't a trivial difference. A billion is a thousand million, and a trillion is a thousand billion.

Why does this matter? Frankly, our economic well-being depends on it. The Social Security Trustees recently released their 2009 annual report, and it's packed with numbers that are difficult to comprehend. But it's critical that we try.

In "net present value," the report says Social Security has promised to pay out $7.7 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes. "Net present value" means Congress would have to invest $7.7 trillion today to have enough money to pay all of Social Security's promised benefits between 2016 and 2083.

That's more than twice what the federal government will spend this year on everything it buys. And again, this investment would be on top of the funding Social Security will collect through payroll taxes.

The big numbers matter more this year. Lawmakers have passed an $850 billion "stimulus" bill. President Obama has set aside hundreds of billions more for health care reform.

However, as they embark on a historic spending spree, policymakers are beginning to lose a windfall they've come to count on. Starting this year, the annual Social Security surpluses that Congress has been borrowing and spending on other programs will begin to shrink. That means larger deficits today and less money for Congress to spend in the years ahead.

The trustees say these surpluses will disappear for good in 2016. Social Security will then start paying out more every year than it takes in. Lawmakers will have to raise taxes or slash spending on other federal programs to pay benefits.

Sure, there's a Social Security trust fund filled with IOUs. But, unlike your 401(k), there's no real money behind those - just a promise by one wing of the government to provide money to another wing. The real money will have to be taxed or borrowed, as is the case for all government spending.

What does this mean for you? Depends on how old you are.

Workers at or near retirement age have nothing to fear. Social Security remains solvent and can afford to pay them full benefits, including an annual cost of living increase. And at that time, there's little doubt that political pressure will force Congress to act to keep benefits flowing.

The news isn't nearly as good for younger workers.

They'll continue to pay Social Security taxes throughout their working lives. But they shouldn't expect to get back everything they invest. They'll also be on the hook to fund some $6 trillion needed to repay the Social Security trust fund in the decades ahead.

The time to act is now. Lawmakers should begin raising the retirement age so future workers pay in longer before they can collect benefits. They should also create personal retirement accounts that, like an IRA, would allow individuals to set aside a small portion of their Social Security taxes - real money - in accounts they would own and control.

It won't be easy, but we can preserve Social Security for future generations. The question is, do we have the will to do so?

Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

With his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama has abandoned all pretense of being a post-partisan president. While he may like to think of himself as a thoughtful moderate soaring above the issues that divide America, his actions reveal what hides under that hopeful lining.

Presidents usually nominate judges that espouse their philosophy. So what does this nomination tell us about Mr. Obama's true colors?
Even the liberal establishment worries that Judge Sotomayor tilts too far to the left. New Republic essayist Jeffrey Rosen reports that fellow liberals who have watched or worked with her closely "expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and... [they have said] she is 'not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench.' "

A suspiciously high number of her decisions have been overruled by higher courts. Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network said that record shows "she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court."

There will be much to say in days to come about Judge Sotomayor's manifest lack of appropriate judicial restraint and about other problems in her record. For now, though, three red flags beg for attention.
Speaking at Duke University Law School in 2005, Judge Sotomayor said the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made." On its face, the assertion runs counter to more than 200 years of American legal tradition holding that courts are merely meant to interpret existing law, not actively make policy choices.

Immediately realizing she was on thin ice, the judge continued: ". . . and I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don't 'make' law." To much laughter, and with facial and hand gestures to indicate that her next line was to be taken with humor as a useful fiction, she added: "I'm not promoting it and I'm not advocating it."

But judicial activism is no joke. It undermines the Constitution and substitutes judicial whim for democratic decision-making. Unelected judges, answerable to no one but themselves and serving for life, can all too easily become dangerous oligarchs.

Judge Sotomayor seems to think that inherent racial and sexual differences are not simply quirks of genetics, but make some better than others. Consider her 2002 speech at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said. "I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."

She also accepted as potentially valid the idea that the "different perspectives" of "men and women of color" are due to "basic differences in logic in reasoning" due to "inherent physiological or cultural differences."
If a white male had said these openly racialist words in a prepared speech, his chances of reaching the U.S. Supreme Court would be gone in an instant. Instead, it seems that these outlandish remarks are what qualified Judge Sotomayor in Mr. Obama's eyes.

Judge Sotomayor seems to favor racial discrimination. Consider the case of Ricci v. DeStefano. In that controversial case, 19 white firemen were denied promotion because no blacks scored high enough on a race-neutral test to also be promoted. Judge Sotomayor ruled against the white firefighters.

If Mr. Obama wanted a judge with the right "empathy," he struck out with Judge Sotomayor. One of the white firefighters denied promotion, Frank Ricci, is dyslexic. In order to ace the promotion exam, he quit a second job, spent $1,000 for instruction materials, and spent many hours reading those books into an audio tape to help him study. For his extraordinary efforts, he finished sixth out of 77 applicants for promotion - but then was denied, simply because he is white.

Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jose Cabranes, appointed by a Democratic president, complained that the ruling written by Judge Sotomayor and two other judges "contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case."

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Ricci v. DeStefano before the Senate votes on Judge Sotomayor's nomination. It would be an extraordinary rebuke were a current nominee to be overruled on such a controversial case by the very justices she is slated to join.

Judge Sotomayor seems to be the most radical person ever nominated for the high court. To continue to command public respect, the Senate will have to ask her some hard questions. The simplest one to ask will be the hardest one for her to answer: Given her statements against whites and males, can she be fair to all Americans?

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

Jewish babies threaten the peace process

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Monday, June 1, 2009


EDITORIAL:
What does Hillary Rodham Clinton have against Jewish babies? Last week, the secretary of state issued a demarche to Tel Aviv stating that Washington "wants to see a stop to [West Bank] settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions." The euphemism "natural growth" refers to children. About 9,600 babies were born in West Bank settlements in 2007, and the State Department views these bundles of joy as a threat to its precious peace process.
The demographic issue is central to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Some Israelis fear that they will be overwhelmed by a rapidly growing Palestinian population, so to the settler population, having children is a patriotic act. The new arrivals require larger houses, schools, playgrounds and other facilities, hence the need for the settlement growth that is upsetting Foggy Bottom.
The no-baby declaration came as welcome news to Palestinians, who are rapidly losing their advantage in the breeding battle. Aggressive international family-planning programs contributed to Palestinian fertility rates dropping almost 30 percent between 2003 and 2008, to 3.31 children born per woman. This compares to 2.77 births in Israel, which experienced a 10 percent increase over the same five-year time period. If these trends continue, Israelis will be outpacing Palestinians in a few years.
For this and religious reasons, abortion is a crime in the Palestinian Authority unless the physical health of the mother is endangered. Palestinians generally are what in American parlance would be called "pro-life." A 2008 study by WorldPublicOpinion.org showed that just 38 percent of Palestinians say abortion should be an individual decision, compared to a global average of 52 percent. Most support some form of government restrictions.
The Obama administration has taken a despicable stand in favor of promoting abortion overseas. On his third day in office, President Obama rescinded the 1985 Mexico City Policy, which stipulated that U.S. Agency for International Development family-planning assistance would be given only to foreign nongovernmental organizations that would pledge not to perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning. Mr. Obama also seeks to return U.S. financial support to the United Nations Population Fund, which promotes controversial "family planning" efforts in the developing world.
Many Palestinians view such internationally sanctioned family-planning efforts as a conscious plot to reduce their numbers. In a report in the Hamas-run daily newspaper Filastin, Sari Hanafi, the director of the Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center, quoted a colleague who said that "the United States seems to have two ways to control population growth in Palestine: one through the Apache gunships and the other through family planning programs."
The State Department would do well to stay out of this issue. The West Bank settlers in particular will not respond well to finger-wagging from the United States over how many children they choose to have. Behind the euphemism "natural growth" are thousands of babies, girls and boys, who are objects of love and adoration of their doting parents. Secretary Clinton's devotion to the peace process is a much less powerful force than the love of Israeli parents for their children.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~