#687 (11/1) "[Americans] Must Get Wise To Obama's Hard-Line Fiscal Strategy"

PERSONAL NOTE: Praise  God with me as this Sunday, Nov. 3, will mark 40 (yes, FORTY!) years since the night I prayed to receive Christ. Please join me in thanking God for proving Himself again and again to be faithful and worthy of all trust these many years. There have certainly been many twists and turns in my journey with Him, many valleys as well as mountain tops, but through it all, as the song says, "I have learned to trust in Jesus, learned to trust in God." - Stan
NOTE: This Sunday is also the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I do hope your church is making plans - at least on this one day a year - to stop to pray for our hundreds of thousands  - 400,000 in North Korea alone -  who are imprisoned for their faith. Sunday's post will  focus on them.

URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS:

NEWS ALERT: Oct. 23: "Christians Fleeing IRAQ Area Once Considered Safe," - CBNNews.com, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/October/Christians-Fleeing-Iraq-Area-Once-Considered-Safe/  "Increased violence in northern Iraq is pushing Christians out of that part of the country. The Kurdish north was considered a safe area for Christians fleeing from violent persecution in the central and southern regions. But bombings in recent months are causing panic and many are fleeing the country. Al qaeda has claimed responsibility for several of those attacks. Some Christians have been told by local police that they "should not be in Iraq because it is Muslim territory." The Christian charity Open Doors International is urging people around the world to pray for Christians in Iraq. They say that if the persecution continues, there may be no Christians left in Iraq by 2020.[PRAY that believers in Iraq will know God's protection and provision; that believers will know[ whether they are called to flee or remain and persevere; and that their persecutors  may come to hear the gospel and come to faith in Christ. - Stan] 


"SYRIAN Christians Brace for Strike, Ask for Prayer," - by Gary Lane, August 31, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/August/Syrian-Christians-Brace-for-Strike-Ask-for-Prayer/"As Syrians brace themselves for a possible U.S. military attack, many of the county's Christians are praying for divine intervention. They say military action against the Assad regime will only bring them greater hardship and suffering and they're asking Christians worldwide to pray that God intervenes to bring peace to their nation. They believe the collective prayers of Christians around the world could reverse an escalating conflict..."

Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.]  

Oct. 14, NORTH KOREA -"Kenneth Bae, Mom Meet; Release Not Guaranteed"  - CBNNews.com,  http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/October/Mother-Visits-Missionary-Jailed-in-North-Korea/Update on Kenneth Bae: "US Ready to Bargain with N. Korea for Bae's Release,"-  CBNNews.com,  Aug 14, 2013  http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/August/S-Ready-to-Bargain-with-N-Korea-for-Baes-Release/  - The United States is willing to engage North Korea to secure the release of imprisoned American Christian Kenneth Bae. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States is "willing to consider a number of different options" to bring him home.In a video recently released by a North Korean newspaper, Bae requested the United States send a high-ranking official to North Korea to seek his pardon. It is unclear if he spoke of his own volition in the video. Bae, 45, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for sharing his faith. He suffers health problems such as diabetes and is currently hospitalized.[PRAY for 1) God's healing of and presence with Pastor Bae, 2) His earliest release by the North Korean government, and 3) God's comfort for his family and friends.] 

IRAN - Vigils Mark One Year Imprisonment of Pastor Saeed - CBNNews.com, Thursday, September 26, 2013 - Today marks one-year that American pastor Saeed Abedini has been held in an Iranian prison. He is serving an eight-year sentence because of his Christian faith. It has been a year of torment as he has suffered beatings, physical pain from untreated medical conditions, and separation from his wife and two children... The suffering has not dampened his passion for Jesus. Pastor Abedini has led more than 30 prisoners to Christ during his time in prison. This afternoon, thousands of Americans from coast to coast will pray for his release. Events will be held in 40 states at capitols, city halls, parks and churches. Thousands more will join from 15 nations around the world

PRAY: - For comfort and peace for Saeed’s wife and children here in the U.S.

- For a strong witness and testimony from Pastor Abedini in the prison where God has placed him

- For Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ

- BOLDly (Beside Our Leaders Daily) for leadership from the White House and State Department in defending the freedoms of Abedini and other Americans

- GO TO SaveSaeed.org to sign a petition over 600,000 others asking for his immediate release.

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"REPUBLICANS MUST GET WISE TO OBAMA’S HARD-LINE FISCAL STRATEGY," - By: Lawrence Kudlow, 10/21/2013 ; http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/21/republicans-must-get-wise-to-obamas-hard-line-fiscal-strategy/

Judging from the speech Obama gave following the deal to end the government shutdown, Republicans better get wise to the president’s next fiscal gambit when the three-month stop-gap budget and debt measures come due. As was the case with his hard-line defense of Obamacare, the president likely will be inflexible on ending sequestration budget caps, pushing for massive tax hikes and permitting only the most inconsequential entitlement reforms.

Obama is interested in busting the GOP in 2014. He’s not interested in true budget restraint or other economic-growth measures.

Example: [Two weeks ago], instead of a conciliatory work-together message for the negotiations ahead, President Obama gave us another Republican scold speech: “All of us need to stop focusing on lobbyists and bloggers and talking heads on radio, and professional activists who profit from conflict.” But of course, it was Obama who wouldn’t negotiate. And it was Obama and his followers who demonized the GOP with words like “hostage,” “ransom,” and “terrorists.”

Another example: Out of nowhere in his post-shutdown speech, the president pledged to “close these corporate-tax loopholes that don’t help create jobs and freeze up resources for the things that do help us grow, like education and infrastructure and research.” Huh? Where did this come from? There’s no discussion of corporate tax reform in the whole speech, except for this one derogatory mention. So don’t count on progress for the single biggest growth and jobs creator, namely full-fledged business tax reform. It may be in Obama’s budget, but it’s not really on his agenda.

The real agenda is to jack up taxes on businesses and the wealthy. On top of this year’s $700 billion tax hike, the Democrats are going back to the $1 trillion tax-hike idea mentioned in recent years by Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

True pro-growth tax reform should broaden the base, lower marginal rates and simplify the code. The Democratic objective, however, is to raise as much additional taxpayer money as possible.

Why? Well, of course, to provide the spending fuel after they get rid of the budget-capping sequester. The Obama democrats are manic about this. They know that the sequester has effectively stopped their grandiose spending plans, and is actually bringing the discretionary budget back to 2007 levels. In fact, the real budget-winning move of recent years was the Republican reverse bait and switch (the bait came from the White House) in 2011 to embrace the sequester and implement it. It’s the only true pro-growth fiscal measure we’ve seen in the Obama years.

Closing tax loopholes is a good idea so long as it is accompanied by lower marginal tax rates on the other side. (Repatriating over $1 trillion in overseas corporate profits at a minimal sanction of 5 percent would also help grow the economy.) So companies, wealthy entrepreneurs and small-business owners shouldn’t be fooled when they hear the president talk about closing tax loopholes. Why is he saying this? That’s easy: He wants to spend more money on his pet projects. More for the teachers’ unions, the local construction unions, the quick-fix, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, the clean-energy Solyndras and all the other oddball social programs put in place by this administration.

Government spending cuts amount to tax cuts, which provide economic stimulus. But Obama and the Democrats want no part of it. Step back and read the president’s economic speeches in August and September. You see a pattern: Raise taxes on businesses and successful entrepreneurs, kill the sequester and use the new tax revenues to spend more and grow the government — and probably even finance Obamacare, which is going bankrupt even before it starts and has become the laughingstock of the country with its catastrophic breakout.

Finally, while Obama again may occasionally say otherwise, the Democratic Party opposes all manner of entitlement reforms. All. That includes the chained-CPI reform (which would lower benefits), Medicare means-testing, longer retirement eligibility, and higher co-pays for federal-employee benefits.

Labor doesn’t want this stuff. House and Senate Democrats don’t want it. And I seriously doubt if the president would push for it. Which means, in terms of the new budget conference (another fiscal cliff?) due to report in mid-December, the GOP better be super careful not to end the sequester budget caps in return for phony entitlement reforms.

Republicans had no coherent message going into the shutdown fiasco. But they can change that. They can now adopt a clear policy that maintains the sequester budget caps, pushes hard for pro-growth tax reform, and makes no apologies for rolling back the taxing, spending, mandating, budget-busting behemoth that is Obamacare.

The budget and debt battle of the next three months is actually going to be war. Obama knows this. Does the GOP?

[bold and italics emphasis mine]