#400 (12/29 "Why Republicans Lost:"

A SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST; My long-time friend, Alex, is planning to share the  gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.

NOTE: TODAY marks 25 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the over 55 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the tens of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 

PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies. 2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed. 3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars. 4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia. 5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

PRAYER REQUEST: That our representatives in Washington and the President will come to an agreement that will avert a tax hike beyond those that will already go into effect with ObamaCare and others set in place, will not hurt our ability to have effective national security, and will cut our nation's out of control spending, especially as it concerns our massive entitlement programs. May each have Your Wisdom and political courage beyond what is deemed prudent to their careers as they make these decision. (Note also the on-going prayer to the right of this post.)

Why Republicans Lost: Analysis and Lessons from the 2012 Presidential Election [I direct you in particular to item #4 below.] By John Stemberger, actionalerts@floridafamilyaction.org

[Please note the link after this article to another analysis.]

It is hard to make the argument for one glaring reason that caused Republicans to lose the White House in 2012. It appears to be a more complex combination of circumstances that came together to produce a victory for President Obama. Here is one man’s perspective on what went wrong for conservatives and what the left did correctly.

1. Moderate Republicans are losing Republicans. Governor Romney is a decent and honorable family man with great business and leadership experience. But the reality is Mitt Romney was a very flawed candidate from the outset. He was a Northeastern liberal and arguably the most liberal republican ever nominated for President by the Republican Party. The history of Presidential elections demonstrates a pattern of moderate Republicans losing: Goldwater, Bush I, Dole, McCain, and Romney. In my opinion Romney was the GOP candidate most vulnerable to defeat by Obama; who he was and what he stood for on his voting record is the single most significant factor in the Republican defeat.  As was commonly stated in the 2008 McCain/Obama election, conservatives did not lose the election.  Conservatives were just not on the ballot.
    
2. This election was all about negative energy, not positive motivation. For most conservatives Romney was the last choice in the primary because they knew when you looked into his ideological soul there was no governing first principle except political pragmatism. Romney's favorable ratings were among the lowest ever recorded for a presidential candidate in the modern era. The motivation for grassroots conservatives was primarily negative against Obama; there was very little positive energy or enthusiasm for the future invested in the ideal of Mitt Romney. In the post-election Pew poll, a much greater percentage of Obama supporters (80%) than Romney supporters (60%) told Pew that they were voting for their candidate rather than against his opponent.
    
3. Latinos, Latinos, Latinos! Ignore them to your peril. Hispanic Americans are the fastest growing demographic in America. Today they represent nearly one out of every six adults in the United States and this number will continue to increase. Yet 71% of Hispanic Americans voted for Barack Obama. In my opinion most of the outreach to Hispanics by the Romney campaign and by other coalition groups was misguided, anemic or completely lacking.  One such wrong-sided attempt was a newly created group for the election call “Libra” which attempted to reach Hispanics on economic issues. You are not going to teach Hispanic voters to become economic conservatives in a couple of months before an election. You have to build upon their existing core values-- life, marriage and family. Hispanics are social conservatives but most GOP leadership run from social conservative issues.  I have been preaching for years in national conservative circles that we need deliberate and thoughtful outreaches to Hispanic voters and we need to develop and raise up Latin American political conservatives. If we don’t we are in trouble. Finally, Paul Ryan is no Marco Rubio and the VP pick was a mistake in my opinion. Rubio would have given the conservative grassroots base all the excitement and energy of Sarah Palin with none of the “bad aftertaste”. Perhaps when the time came Rubio was considered but did not want the position as Romney’s running mate. We may never know for sure.
    
4. If Evangelical pastors and Catholic priests do not become more engaged, conservatives can never win elections.  In my view this is the bottom line for the future.  A majority of the Republican base and grassroots are comprised of primarily religious conservatives. If we lose these voters, the GOP will never win elections. We are gradually losing them and therefore eroding our base. Leadership by Evangelical pastors and Catholic priests is the key to Republicans winning national elections—and the left knows this. We saw an unprecedented awakening of pastors in 2012 because of the enormous threat to religious liberties but I also observed a significant apathy and falling away of pastors and an indifference to their role to teach and preach on civic involvement. The left is clear on understanding how important this is. Only days after the election, a well-funded and highly developed center-left evangelical group “Denison Group” started placing internet ads influencing the faith community on Obama’s agenda for social issues over the next four years into 2016. They are thinking way ahead of us! The bottom line is this: If the ceases to see itself as a voice in the culture outside the four walls of the church then it is over politically. Conservatives will never win elections and liberals will become permanently entrenched. We must continue to educate evangelical pastors to see themselves as not just the guardians of the church and the family but also as guardians of the community and the wider culture, including civil government.
    
5.  It’s not just the “economy stupid”; it’s also social issues. President Obama ran a “base vote” campaign whose strategy was simple: turn out the base of the Democratic coalition. Romney ran a “swing vote” campaign strategy that only went after the 7% of undecided or swing voters. Obama openly spoke and campaigned on issues appealing to his base: abortion rights, gay marriage and other left-leaning social issues. Unfortunately the Republicans did not speak to their base and Romney attempted to run even further to the center on social issues during the final months of the campaign. Romney announced he would enact no new pro-life laws if elected and then he even came close to reversing himself by indicating that he would not support a Federal Marriage Amendment. He did very little, if anything, in the election to reach out to social conservatives and all the while Obama pursued center-left faith voters and center-right evangelicals. Romney assumed white evangelicals would just fall in line and choose him over Obama, but he was wrong. Many of them stayed home or voted for “purist” candidates no one has heard of. The Romney campaign’s failure of to address social conservative issues (and even to run away from them at times) was an enormous mistake in my view. Minority voters (both black and Latino) can also be reached and animated with social conservative issues and that was another missed opportunity.  The marriage issue, though unsuccessful on the ballot in four states, still got higher voter numbers than Governor Romney. On average the marriage issue did 6% better than Romney in all the states where it was on the ballot. Had Romney even done small things like tweeting support during the Chick-fil-A marriage controversy or making arguments for life in speeches he would have enormously helped his campaign energize a base that was dying for some positive energy and confidence in their candidate. Instead Romney focused almost exclusively on the economy.  I am sure we will hear the chorus of moderate Republicans once again calling for the party to "avoid the social issues and focus on the economy".  The irony is we have tried that in the past 2 elections and it has failed miserably.  Social issues were nowhere to be found in Romney’s campaign so how could that have contributed to his defeat?   The truth is life, marriage and family are both good policy and good politics.  The day that Republicans get this is the day they will be on the path to victory.
    
6. Super Storm Sandy was a gift to the President. The unexpected “almost- hurricane” super storm Sandy was a major gift to Barack Obama. The tragic results of the storm put the President in a very important role—an almost heroic role helping and appearing to “rescue” those whose property and lives were devastated. The focus was off our awful economic woes so substantive attacks on Obama’s record were made difficult. I do not assign too much weight to Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s comments praising the President but it clearly did not help the Republican candidate. Conservative activist Rod Martin said in his brilliant analysis of the election “Sandy kept Mitt Romney off TV for five crucial days, days which, without Sandy, would almost certainly have seen Romney’s lead solidify and grow. Instead, Barack Obama had a rare (and rarely taken) chance to look truly presidential, for the entire last week of the campaign, with zero competition.”
    
7. The rapidly expanding welfare class is loyal to the political party who is cutting the checks. Romney took heat for talking about the 47% in a pejorative way but they are a serious voting force. Rush Limbaugh said it with less finesse when he stated it is “Very difficult to beat Santa Claus.” Apart from being bad fiscal and economic policy, the rapidly expanding welfare class has serious political ramifications. When we reach the point where more than 50% of the electorate is receiving wealth and not creating it, you have fundamentally changed the social contract between government and its citizens. A perverse political loyalty begins to cement itself between the state and its new “welfare citizens”. This number has grown rapidly and exponentially over the last four years and will continue to grow even greater over the next four years under the Obama administration.
    
8. Democrats have been organizing --- and never stopped since the last election in 2008. Political operatives have reported that after Barack Obama’s election in 2008 many of his key campaign offices in battleground states like Ohio and Florida never closed down; they continued to be staffed straight into 2012.  During most of 2012 when the GOP was still trying to figure out which candidate would be the nominee, Obama’s operatives continued to organize. From my perspective the Democrats’ ground game for voter registration and GOTV efforts were close to flawless because of the early lead time, human resources and available funding.   Finally, Democrats have exploited early voting to their advantage in an unprecedented and powerful way. This was a major strategic factor in Obama’s successful campaign for a second win and one which Republicans need to be aware of and respond in kind with a similar strategy.  There are actually quite a few really good reasons why early voting is a really bad idea in the first place but that debate is for another time.
    
9. Democrats leveraged social media, Internet, Google ads, and direct outreach to win young people in record numbers. Never before has the youth vote been leveraged so effectively by a Presidential campaign. At colleges like the University of Central Florida in Orlando, “Obama friendly” operatives went right into large lecture halls with announcements about voter registration before and after classes. They registered new voters by the thousands in Florida and across the country. Barack and Michelle Obama’s “cool factor” and youthfulness were a powerful force to attract the attention of the younger generation. The Obama campaign also strategically hired a sizable team of former Facebook and Google employees to run their social media presence, which was second to none. Customized full color large ads ubiquitously graced the Internet, reminding voters of the deadlines for voter registration, early voting and other GOTV messages, all sponsored by the Obama campaign. While Romney had some Facebook presence, his campaign did not even come close to leveraging social media they way Obama did—yet again.
    
10. Instances of voter fraud, voter intimidation and sharp GOTV practices from the Obama campaign were widespread. I really hesitated to include this last factor at the risk of being misunderstood as buying into some fringe position, but the evidence is mounting and compelling. I attended a conference of conservative leaders from around the country in Washington, DC just days after the election. I heard countless reports from a variety of states about complaints ranging from edgy and intimidating campaigning to outright fraud. The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Florida reported “discovering” 1,000 ballots after the election was over in a “warehouse” earlier this month. Various conservative groups are collecting stories and firsthand accounts of voter intimidation and fraud. This stuff seems unbelievable at times but it exists and is all around us. Citizens should rise up and demand that Congress hold special hearings on voter fraud and ballot security. Our entire representative democracy rests upon the integrity of our local county Supervisors of Elections and their ability to hold fair and valid elections. If this is seriously undermined, the legitimacy of our entire civil government is at stake.
11.  [underlined emphasis mine] 
12. John Stemberger is an Orlando attorney and is a former Political Director of the Republican Party of Florida. He has served as an adviser to state, federal, and presidential candidates for the last two decades and led the successful 2008 statewide campaign to pass the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment with a 62 percent vote margin. Stemberger is currently president of Florida Family Action where he oversaw 12 field offices across the state, raised and spent over two million dollars in an unprecedented campaign to mobilize grassroots conservatives in Florida in 2012.                                                                                                   ----------------------------------------------------------

13. "Liberal Stealth Groups Paved Obama Win," Ernest Istook, November 29, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/29/liberal-stealth-groups-paved-obama-win/

#399 (12/28) - '10 Facts on the Fiscal Cliff, Debt, and Spending'

A SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST; My long-time friend, Alex, is planning to share the  gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.

NOTE: TODAY marks 26 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 

PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies. 2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed. 3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars. 4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.  5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRAYER REQUEST: That our representatives in Washington and the President will come to an agreement that will avert a tax hike beyond those that will already go into effect with ObamaCare and others set in place, will not hurt our ability to have effective national security, and will cut our nation's out of control spending, especially as it concerns our massive entitlement programs. May each have Your Wisdom and political courage beyond what is deemed prudent to their careers as they make these decision. (Note also the on-going prayer to the right of this post.)

"10 Facts..." - By Romina Boccia, December 27, 2012

Budget policy in 2012 was characterized by deficit spending, major increases in the national debt, and a heated debate over the “fiscal cliff ^[1].” With just days left for President Obama and lawmakers in Congress to avert a major tax hike, sequestration, and other major policy changes, today we bring you a list of the top 10 facts on federal spending in 2012:

1. Four years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Fiscal year 2012 concluded with a $1.1 trillion deficit, marking the fourth year ^[2] of trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Too much spending is the root cause of the federal government’s deep and sustained deficits ^[3]. At 23 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012 and on track to rise further, federal spending is growing at a dangerous pace.
2. National debt hit $16 trillion. On September 4, the U.S. national debt hit the $16 trillion mark ^[4]. We owe more on the national debt than the entire U.S. economy produced in goods and services in all of 2012. Sixteen trillion dollar bills stacked one on top of the other would measure more than 1 million miles high, which would reach to the moon and back more than twice.
3. The debt limit was raised by $1.2 trillion. On January 30, the federal government raised its debt limit from a staggering $15.194 trillion to an even bigger $16.394 trillion ^[5]. This increase was the last one of three granted in the Budget Control Act of 2011, a result of that summer’s debt ceiling negotiations, which allowed for a total debt limit increase of $2.1 trillion.
4. The $650 billion fiscal cliff distracted from the $48 trillion looming fiscal crisis. Much of 2012 was spent arguing over tax rates in the fiscal cliff ^[6] debate while lawmakers ignored the much more dangerous looming fiscal crisis. As large and as major a concern as federal budget deficits are today, they stand in the shadow of $48 trillion in long-term unfunded obligations ^[7] in Social Security and Medicare. Even with President Obama’s originally proposed tax hikes in his budget, the federal debt would still rise by more than $7.7 trillion ^[8] in the next 10 years.
5. Social Security ran a deficit for the second year in a row. According to the 2012 trustees report, Social Security spent $45 billion ^[9] more in benefits in 2011 than it took in from its payroll tax. This deficit is in addition to a $49 billion gap in 2010 and an expected average annual gap of about $66 billion between 2012 and 2018. Social Security’s deficits will balloon yet further. After adjusting for inflation, annual deficits will reach $95 billion in 2020 and $318.7 billion in 2030 before the trust fund runs out in 2033 and a 25 percent across-the-board benefit cut occurs ^[10].
6. Three years of spend-as-you-go policies without a federal budget. The last time both chambers of Congress agreed on a budget was on April 29, 2009. Since then, Congress has operated on a spend-as-you-go basis, characterized by incoherent, ad hoc budget procedures. The House passed budget resolutions each of the past two years, but the Senate failed to do its part.
7. The government spent nearly $30,000 per American household. The average American household’s share of federal spending in 2012 was $29,691, or roughly two-thirds of median household income. The government collected $20,293 per household in taxes in 2012, resulting in a budget deficit of $9,398 per household in 2012.
8. Obamacare will spend $1.7 trillion over 10 years. After the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office did an update of its scoring of the law. The result: Obamacare will spend $1.7 trillion over 10 years ^[11] on its coverage expansion provisions alone, including a massive expansion of Medicaid and federal subsidies for the new health insurance exchanges. This means that Obamacare will increase federal health spending by 15 percent.
9. Social Security was the biggest federal spending program. In 1993, Social Security surpassed national defense as the largest federal spending category, and it remains first today. The top five biggest spending programs ^[11], in order, are 1) Social Security; 2) national defense; 3) Medicare; 4) Medicaid, CHIP, and other government health care; and 5) interest on the debt.
10. More than 40 percent of Americans are on some government program. According to Census Bureau data and Heritage Foundation calculations, 128.8 million people in America ^[12] depend on a government program for basic (or not so basic) needs, such as rent, prescription drugs, and higher education.

For even more budget facts and to see infographics, see Federal Spending by the Numbers—2012 ^[11].

---

Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org
URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/27/morning-bell-10-facts-on-the-fiscal-cliff-debt-and-spending/
URLs in this post:

[1] fiscal cliff: http://www.heritage.org/issues/economy/fiscal-cliff

[2] fourth year: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/11/u-s-budget-deficit-for-fiscal-year-2012-already-at-1-trillion/

[3] deep and sustained deficits: http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012/the-federal-budget-is-recording-chronic-deficits

[4] hit the $16 trillion mark: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/19/obama-dont-worry-about-16-trillion-debt/

[5] $16.394 trillion: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/increases-us-debt-limit

[6] fiscal cliff: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/11/what-is-in-the-fiscal-cliff

[7] $48 trillion in long-term unfunded obligations: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/06/cbo-long-term-budget-outlook-on-the-nations-fiscal-future

[8] $7.7 trillion: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/11/six-bipartisan-entitlement-reforms-to-solve-the-real-fiscal-crisis-only-presidential-leadership-is-needed?query=Six+Bipartisan+Entitlement+Reforms+to+Solve+the+Real+Fiscal+Crisis:+Only+Presidential+Leadershi

[9] Social Security spent $45 billion: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/03/social-security-runs-permanent-deficits-benefit-cuts-loom/

[10] a 25 percent across-the-board benefit cut occurs: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/social-security-finances-significantly-worse-says-2012-trustees-report

[11] $1.7 trillion over 10 years: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012

Copyright © 2011 The Heritage Foundation. All rights reserved.

#398 (12/26) - A Lesson On Raising Taxes On the Rich From A Famous French Actor

A SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST; My long-time friend, Alex, is planning to share the  gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.

NOTE: TODAY marks 28 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 

PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies. 2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed. 3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars. 4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.  5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

NOTE: The following article looks at a real-life example of what we can look forward to if Presdent Obama and other progressives have their way in putting a greater tax-burden on the wealthiest among us. It is followed by a second  article that looks more closely at the devastating impact such policies will have on our economy.

“Non” to Taxes, Gives D.C. a Lesson," Mike Gonzalez, December 21, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/21/departing-depardieu-french-icon-says-non-to-taxes-gives-d-c-a-lesson/

It’s not often that a Frenchman becomes a hero to conservatives, and extremely rare when he happens to be an actor. But even some Frenchmen have a threshold of pain when it comes to the confiscatory state. In this case it has been Gerard Depardieu, France’s best known thespian, who has announced that he won’t pay one cent more to his rapacious government, and will leave France rather than be taxed further.

By playing the lead role in this real life Atlas Shrugged, Depardieu is showing would-be taxers all over what happens when you inflict too much pain on the people. Washington, which is at the moment agonizing over just how much more to tax already over-taxed Americans, should take notice of the consequences.

Rather than raise taxes because of a fiscal cliff Members of Congress themselves created, our most enlightened politicians should, in fact, be offering Depardieu a green card, so that he can bring and invest his millions here—putting people to work. It would be another example of life imitating art, as Depardieu was the star of the 1990 hit Green Card about a Frenchman who overstayed his visa in the U.S.

In an angry letter, Depardieu addressed the Socialist government of President Francois Hollande, which wants to raise taxes to 75 percent for French people who make above $1.31 million annually.

“I was born in 1948, I began working at the age of 14 as a printer, as a store handler, then as a dramatic artist. I’ve always paid my taxes, whatever the level and under all serving governments. “At no moment have I avoided my duty,” Depardieu went on. “I am leaving because you consider that success, creation, talent, in fact, being different, must be punished.… I am a free being, Sir.”

Depardieu has turned in his passport and is moving to Belgium, which has no wealth tax.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Higher Taxes Mean Slower Economic Growth,"  December 17, 2012 , http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=22681&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

President Obama believes his reelection gave him a mandate to raise taxes on high earners. However, top earners already pay high taxes and a further increase could depress overall economic growth and production, say Edward C. Prescott, co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics and director of the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University, and Lee E. Ohanian, the associate director of the center and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

• U.S. growth is currently weak, with an overall output of 13.5 percent lower than what it would be had we continued on the pre-2008 trend.
• The average marginal effective tax rate is around 40 percent when all taxes on earnings and consumer spending, federal, state and local income taxes, and Social Security and payroll taxes are taken into account.
• The effect of tax increases would slightly increase revenues but reduce overall economic activity.
• This is because high tax rates on labor income and consumption reduce the incentive to work by making consumption more expensive relative to leisure.

Workers have less of an incentive to work and produce goods when they make less money for their work. The incentive to work is reduced even more when the government increases cash transfers that may not require work.

Other economies around the world provide an example of the negative effects that a higher tax rate would have on the U.S. economy.

• When tax rates were low in the 1950s, many Western Europeans worked more hours per capita.
• However, as tax rates increased over the decades, there has been a 30 percent decline in work hours.
• Furthermore, entrepreneurship is much lower in Europe because people are discouraged from business creation.

Higher marginal tax rates in the United States will have similar effects. On top of depressing the number of work hours, the increased revenue may prompt the government to continue policies such as Dodd-Frank, bailouts and subsidies to different sectors in the economy, which are fraught with economic inefficiency.

Instead, the government should make the economy more productive by lowering marginal tax rates and removing burdensome regulations. Furthermore, immigration policies need to be altered to attract the best and brightest from other countries to reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit that has kept the United States competitive for decades.

Source: Edward C. Prescott and Lee E. Ohanian, "Taxes Are Much Higher Than You Think," Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2012

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#397 (12/25) - Merry CHRISTmas!

A REMNDER AS YOU CELEBRATE CHRSTMAS: Whatever gft you gve your non-Chrstian frend or relatve, remember that nothing is more meaningful - and eternal - than being sure they understand the "reason for the season." I pray that whatever fear of rejection or otherwise that makes you hesitate will be overcome by the certainty that "loving that person means taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaving the results to God."
     Let God use you and see if He will yet surprise you!

     I do hope that you and yours have a very blessed Christmas! - Stan

SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.

CHRISTMAS Funnies (c/o of MikeysFunnies.com):

* WHAT NATIONALITY IS SANTA CLAUS? – North Polish
* WHY DOES SCROOGE LOVE RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED
     REINDEER? – Because every buck is dear to him.
* WHAT DO YOU CALL A BUNCH OF GRANDMASTERS
     OF CHESS BRAGGING ABOUT THEIR GAMES
     IN A HOTEL LOBBY? – Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer
* HOW DO SHEEP IN MEXICO SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS?
       – Fleece Navidad!

CHRISTMAS DESANITIZED -  By Gene Westveer

Decorations, red, green lights;
Top fir trees with stars so bright;
Jingle bells rock on silent night.
Here comes Santa in his sleigh.

Mistletoe and boughs of holly,
Red-nosed reindeer, elves so jolly,
But it seems a bit of folly
When it's only Veterans' Day.

As I watch the people flocking
To buy stuff to fill up stockings,
Comes a thought that's rather shocking:
What's it all for, anyway?

Fair young woman, great with child,
Trudges on, mile after mile.
Poor, but loving fiance
Encourages her on their way.
They come to their ancestral town,
Where there's no bed to lay her down,
And little sympathy awaits
The unwed couple.  Shown the gate,
Seeking refuge from the chill
They find a cave up on a hill
That's used in wintertime for sheep.
It will do.  They'll try to sleep.
They enter in.  The odors choke:
Sheep manure, stale soot and smoke.
There amidst the stench and dung,
She gives birth to God's own Son,
Wraps Him up in strips of cloth,
Lays Him in a rocky trough.
If God was going to come to earth,
Why choose this foul place for birth?
Not a place of wealth and style,
Not a place fit for a child.
If He would come, His life to give,
Was there a worse place He could live?
A cruder place to get His start?
I know of one such place: my heart.

So dress in colorful apparel,
Trim a tree and sing a carol,
Ride the sleigh and hark the herald,
Make those presents look real nice.

As the weather outside freezes,
And the pressure of life squeezes,
Keep your hearts and minds on Jesus,
His tremendous sacrifice.

Born in filth and poverty,
To suffer pain and cruelty,
To be born again in such as me:
There's no Christmas without Christ.
------------------------------------------
Copyright 2011 Gene Westveer. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

#396 (`12/24) "A Baby vs. the World" ...

A REMNDER AS YOU CELEBRATE CHRSTMAS: Whatever gft you gve your non-Chrstian frend or relatve, remember that nothing is more meaningful - and eternal - than being sure they understand the "reason for the season." I pray that whatever fear of rejection or otherwise that makes you hesitate will be overcome by the certainty that "loving that person means taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy

 Sprit, and leaving the results to God." Let God use you and see if He will yet surprise you! I do hope that you and yours have a very blessed Christmas! - Stan
PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.NOTE: TODAY marks 31 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 
PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

"... - God's Strategy for Overcoming Evil"; Chuck Colson, Breakpoint.org; December 24, 2012,
(This commentary originally aired on December 24, 1997.)

A Christmas message came to my mind a few years ago as I stood shivering in the autumn chill at the grave side of Father Jerzy Popieluszko. Jerzy was a young pastor who once delivered the dynamic messages that stirred the Polish people to overthrow their Communist oppressors.
His theme was always the same: The Christian is called to defend the truth and overcome evil with good.

Father Jerzy was a young man, pale and gaunt, and his sermons were neither fiery nor eloquent. Yet his monthly masses, dedicated to the victims of Communist persecution, attracted tens of thousands of Polish people. He never preached revenge or revolution. He preached the power of good to overcome evil.

It was a passion that dominated his own life, as well. In 1980, martial law was declared in Poland. Tanks and troops clogged the streets until the entire country was one vast prison. Jerzy hated the occupation as much as his countrymen, but he fought it using God's weapons of overcoming evil with good. On Christmas Eve, Jerzy slogged through the snow handing out Christmas cookies to the despised soldiers in the streets.

And even in his death, Jerzy was victorious. In 1984, he was kidnapped by the secret police. The nation was electrified. In churches and indeed in factories across Poland, people gathered to pray. Steelworkers demanded his release, threatening a national strike. Fifty thousand people gathered to hear a tape of his final sermon. Then the blow fell: Jerzy's body had been found floating in the Vistula River. He'd been brutally tortured, his eyes and tongue cut out, his bones smashed. Yet the gentle pastor had taught his people well. After his funeral, hundreds of thousands of Polish people marched through the streets of Warsaw right past the secret police headquarters carrying banners that read, "We forgive." They were assaulting evil with good. And under the impact, the Communist regime soon crumbled.

In 1993, I traveled to Poland for the chartering of Prison Fellowship Poland, a ceremony held outside the very church where Jerzy had preached. His grave is in the courtyard, and as I laid a wreath of flowers on the grave, I looked up at the balcony where the martyred pastor once preached his most powerful message: "Overcome evil with good."

Suddenly, I felt a stab of conviction as though the Holy Spirit were saying to me, "Pick up the baton. Make that your message, too." In that instant it was clear to me that the message Jerzy preached has always been God's strategy for overcoming evil. The supreme example is the Incarnation itself, which we celebrate tomorrow–-the event when God Himself entered human history to overcome the evil of the world.

America is not in the grip of a Communist regime as Poland was, yet Christians are battling a hostile secular culture. And we often wonder how we can fight more effectively. The answer is that God's people are to fight evil using God's strategy and God's weapons.

When God wanted to defeat sin, His ultimate weapon was the sacrifice of His own Son. On Christmas Day two thousand years ago, the birth of a tiny baby in an obscure village in the Middle East was God's supreme triumph of good over evil.

[bold and italcs emphasis mine]

#395 (12/23) Christmas - and Longfellow

PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.
NOTE: TODAY marks 31 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 
PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

A "Politically Incorrect" PRAYER REQUEST : In marking the shootings of a week ago, bells throughout Newton, Connecticut, were rung yesterday for those who died. It saddened me that some refused to toll their bell for the shooter and his mother. I totally cannot understand the reluctance to recognize the mother as a victim. And while I can understand the emotion behind the refusal to remember the murderer, the fact that we will never know what led that troubled soul to be in such pain and so deceived by Satan gives me  pause. (Of course, like Judas Iscariot - and each of us - he alone is accountable for his actions.) Therefore,  I have felt led by God to PRAY for His mercy as he judges Adam Lansa for his actions. For surely, while it is too late for God to extend him His grace, is it not in God's nature to extend mercy in some measure to anyone  He is forced to judge? [After all, CHRISTmas is a time to remember God showing EACH OF US mercy and grace in coming in the Person of Jesus Christ. As NONE OF US is deserving of either from God, can we not at least ask Him to extend MERCY to even him WE have judged in our hearts to be one of the worst among us?]

"Here," By: Erick Erickson , December 21st, 2012, http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/21/here/

On Christmas Day of 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” His oldest son had been badly wounded in the Civil War the prior month and Longfellow’s wife had died in an accidental fire. Among the lines were these:

And in despair I bowed my head;

”There is no peace on earth,” I said;

”For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

One week ago in Connecticut, innocent children were gunned down. It is not a far leap to wonder if Longfellow was right. Many have asked loudly to Christians this week “Where is your God” and “How could Jesus let this happen?”

Young men storming the beaches of Normandy in World War II, as they lay dying in the sand, would gasp, crying out for their mothers. We should not dare even try to imagine the cries of those children that terrible day — the cries left unanswered; moms and dads not coming to rescue and to comfort.

At Christmas, those who demand to know where God was must be met with compassion, but also clearly with the word “Here.” Christ did not abandon those children. He met many that day with open arms. He comforts now where parents cannot. He shines even now as a light in the darkness for those who are willing to see him.

We have become accustomed in our vernacular to treat evil as the opposite of good or the opposite of God. Evil is not an opposite; it is an absence — the absence of good, the absence of God. The act in Connecticut was evil.

God and good exist. The devil and evil do as well — the incarnation of the absolute void left in the absence of God. The existence of a Risen Lord does not exempt the world, even Christians, from evil in the world. We are all born sinners and sin affects the world as much as sun and rain and air. Bad things do happen to good people and to innocent children still unaware of the extent of human evil. It is the nature of this world and why so many long for the next.

Two thousand years ago Christ was born in Bethlehem. We focus on angels, shepherds, wise men, and the virgin birth. We focus on the miracle. We ignore the rest of the story. King Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem where they slaughtered every boy under the age of two. The world greeted the birth of the Savior with the slaughter of innocents.

Two thousand years later, in a small town in Connecticut, the cries of children and the sounds of gun fire bring us to reflection and prayer. And “Jesus wept.”

He weeps now. He welcomes home the little children and calls for us to persevere and, if we will, to turn back toward him and bring our society with us. But our society must be prepared to have larger conversations than whether or not we should regulate guns or bullets. We must discuss mental health. We should discuss the real nature of evil. We should know that in this fallen world sometimes there is nothing we can do.

Longfellow, his wife dead and thinking his son dying, concluded his poem that Christmas Day 149 years ago thusly:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

[bold, italics, and underlined emphasis mine]

#394 (12/22) - A Christian Addresses President Obama

PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.
NOTE: TODAY marks 32 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 
PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

My Take: No pressure, Mr. President  By Eric Metaxas, Special to CNN

December 10th, 2012, Note: Eric Metaxas is the author of "No Pressure, Mr. President! The Power Of True Belief In A Time Of Crisis: The National Prayer Breakfast Speech."

(CNN) [Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter] –Imagine that the president of the United States had to sit and listen to you for 30 minutes in a public setting. Imagine that he couldn't escape and had to endure whatever you said. If you disagreed with him politically, would you try to embarrass him? What would you say?

Well, this actually happened to me. A year ago I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, an event attended by the president, first lady, vice president, and 3,500 other dignitaries. No one was more shocked at the invitation than I. Previous speakers include Mother Teresa, Tony Blair and Bono. No pressure.

By the way, I disagree with the president in some important ways. But as a Christian, God commands me to love those with whom I disagree, to treat them with civility and respect, as creatures made in God's image. That's a command, not a request or a suggestion. Again, no pressure.

In my speech I spoke about my heroes, William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wilberforce's faith led him to fight for the Africans being enslaved by the British; Bonhoeffer's faith led him to fight for the Jews being persecuted by the Nazis. I used them as examples of people who passionately lived out their faith by standing up for their fellow human beings when most around them merely gave it lip service.

I also joked around a lot, because as any of my friends will tell you, one of the ways I show love is by joking and teasing people. Who said prayer breakfasts had to be boring?  At one point I said that George W. Bush had read my Bonhoeffer book, and then I glanced at President Obama and said "No pressure."  I'm glad he laughed!

Later in my speech, I talked specifically about the idea of loving our enemies. I said this was the test of real faith. Speaking to my fellow pro-lifers, I said that those of us who believe the unborn to be human beings must love those on the other side of that issue. I also said that those of us with a traditionally biblical view of sexuality are sometimes demonized as bigots, but we must love even those who call us bigots. I cited Wilberforce and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as two men who took seriously God's command to love their enemies in the midst of the most serious political battles of their day. They honored God in how they fought, and he honored them.

At the end of the breakfast the president told me he would read my book on Bonhoeffer, and Vice President Biden took my picture with the president. No kidding. It was an extraordinary day and I'm not telling the half of it.

President Barack Obama holds up a book given to him by author Eric Metaxas

But the reason I'm writing now is that during the past election I was disappointed to see the president's campaign utterly abandoning these ideals of treating your opponents as you yourself would wish to be treated. Good people with principled and profound convictions about when life begins were cynically demonized as "enemies of women." Americans who had worked hard to build businesses, and who had given millions to charity and to the government, were denounced as fat-cats who weren't "paying their fair share" and whose wealth was ill-gotten gain. These scorched-earth tactics were not presidential, much less Christian, and because the president openly professes a Christian faith, I feel I must speak about this.

Of course many will dismiss campaign hardball rhetoric as "what works." This is to miss the point. What we say matters deeply, and how we say it matters deeply.  All of it has serious long-term consequences.  For all of us.

For one thing, our children are watching and listening. We tell them it's less important who wins or loses than how we play the game. Is there no truth to this at all? Do we not see that this behavior erodes faith in the very political process and in democracy itself? Do we not see that by doing this we encourage our opponents to do the same - and worse - the next time around?  Shouldn't we care about that?
Any victory won in an ugly way is somehow a tainted victory. In this case, the president has "won" a deeply divided nation, one that he - alas - has had a hand in dividing. Now what?

If he is to succeed in the tremendous challenges that lay ahead, he must repent of these tactics and must make amends with his opponents, if it's not too late. Or else he will face gridlock and more gridlock.  He also must show the door to those who cynically encouraged this "winning is the only thing" behavior. His legacy and America's future depend upon it. Many will be praying for him. No pressure.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

#393 (12/21) "Holiday Intimidation" -

PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.
NOTE:  TODAY marks 33 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 
PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

AS I SEE IT: The increasingly hostile actions of atheists never fails to strike this time of year. The one referred to below particularly irks me because it happened in my home state AND it indirectly involved a church friends of mine attend.And yet, I am mostly saddened as God reminds me that those who call themselves 'atheists' are ignorant of and separated from the grace of God in Christ. PRAYER REQUEST: That those who are atheists will have someone in their circle of influence who will lovingly but boldly proclaimed the truths of Christ to them, especially before death keeps them separated from God forever.

- "The Grinches v. the First Amendment," - Eric Metaxas, Breakpoint.org, December 20, 2012;

For six years, the Moanalua High School orchestra in Hawaii has provided Christmas for poor African children. They hold a benefit concert that raises $30,000 each year for Mercy Ships, a fantastic Christian relief agency that provides life-saving, and life-enhancing surgery to the poor across the globe.

But this year, a local atheist attempted to steal Christmas for both the young musicians and African children by complaining to the state Department of Education. You see, volunteers from Hawaii's New Hope Church worked on sets for the concert, and sold tickets, including, horrifyingly, at their Sunday church services. So of course there MUST be a constitutional violation somewhere, somehow.

Worst of all, the state Department of Education agreed. And so—four days before the concert—the high school was ordered to cancel it. No Christmas concert, no $30,000 for suffering African children. In the words of that famous song, “You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.”

Of course, the high school was not even close to violating the Constitution. The concert was a school event, not a church event, and it was being put on by high school students and staff. So why do these Grinches get away with canceling Christmas in Hawaii and in other states every year? Well, as the Hawaii Reporter editorialized, this person “doesn't win in court so much as he gets his way by getting people in government to simply bend to his wishes through bullying and threats.” And as Hawaii radio talk show host Michael Perry notes, “There are all kinds of organizations that would be happy to take [this guy] on and win. But he wins because they quickly capitulate.”

In addition, as the Wall Street Journal's Bill McGurn points out, when it comes to church-state scrimmages, people in power seem unable “to distinguish between upholding religious pluralism and enforcing anti-religion.” Our country, he declares, is “ill-served by a government that reads 'no establishment of religion' as mandating official hostility toward even innocuous religious expressions of its citizenry.”

And McGurn points out that the Grinch who led another holiday fight—this one against nativity displays in Santa Monica—acknowledged that he did so, not because he and his cohorts wanted “an opportunity to express their own views but to ban those they disagreed with from expressing theirs.” Exactly!

When we see bullying tactics being employed during the holidays, we ought to direct the victims to religious rights groups like the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, or the Alliance Defending Freedom. They take on religious hostility cases with great gusto and, I might add, with great success.

We also need to demonstrate Christian love to these Grinches—and no, not by sending them Aunt Eulalie's fruitcake; we should also pray that their hearts—now two sizes too small—will expand to embrace those of different religious faiths, and that they’d stop their bullying ways.

By the way, you'll be happy to learn that—thanks to the Christmas controversy—Mercy  Ships is going to receive even more money than usual. New Hope Church invited Christian musicians called the Katinas to perform at their church to benefit Mercy Ships. Those who’d purchased tickets for the original concert could use them to see the Katinas. Plus, the church sold 200 additional tickets—and accepted a $2,000 donation from a non-Christian woman—non-Christian—who gave simply because “this is the right thing to do,” as she put it.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Grinch.

[Italics, underlined, and prayer request in yellow emhasis mine]

#392 (12/20) Over the "Cliff," Beware the ObamCare Tax Surprises!

PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.
NOTE:  TODAY marks 34 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 

PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRAYER REQUEST: [Note: Unsure how the present negotiations in Congress will affect you? As you will read below, there are already things awaiting Americans in terms of taxes in the New Year no one is much talking about. And they are hidden in what the majority of Americans continue to want repealed - ObamaCare.] PRAY that in the New Year there will be enough members of Congress to in effect repeal this monstrous legislation that as time goes on only reveals more hidden costs to Americans.

ObamaCare’s New Year Tax “Surprises,” - By: John Hayward 12/11/2012  http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/11/obamacares-new-year-tax-surprises/

As 2012 draws to a close, all sorts of stories are appearing about the shocked reaction of various constituencies to the massive tax increases built into ObamaCare. These aren’t “surprises” to lfew years.  But they’re coming as a series of jaw-dropping shocks to the people who were bamboozled by Democrat rhetoric about the program… including a number of Democrat politicians.ong-time critics of the legislation, whose every criticism has been richly vindicated over the past For example, Minnesota’s Democrat senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, just noticed that ObamaCare’s taxes on medical devices are poised to kill off “thousands of high-paying jobs that device companies support in Minnesota, headquarters to such giant devicemakers as Medtronic and St. Jude Medical,” according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  This has led them to agitate for a delay in the new taxes, which Klobuchar says “would give us the opportunity to repeal or reduce that tax.”

Such a repeal would knock another $28 billion out of the funding for the deficit-blasting ObamaCare, which was once hilariously advertised as “revenue-neutral” or even a cost-efficiency system that would actually reduce the deficit.  But as always with Democrat schemes, once the lollipop-dispensing vote-buying machinery is in place, it is no longer necessary to pretend that Big Government can actually pay for it.  We’ll pass the bills along to our children, and they’ll pass them on to their children, forever and ever.

The Star-Tribune article mentions that Klobuchar’s plea to lift the medical-device tax axe from the necks of her constitents is co-signed by Franken “and all the heavy hitters in the Senate Democratic leadership.”  Does that mean these ”heavy hitters” have finally figured out that tax increases kill jobs?  Are the planning to make a formal announcement of this dramatic revision to Party ideology any time soon?

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post gently warns its readers that “your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It’s a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.”
What?  What the ... is that all about?  Why, we were promised ObamaCare would “bend the cost curve down.”  But it’s already had the opposite effect, and now we’re getting hit with another $63 surcharge?  Why weren’t we warned about this?  Well, it’s because the change was “buried in a recent regulation.”  It will take the form of “multi-million dollar assessments” that companies have little choice but to pass along to their employees.

Where’s all this money going?  Much of it will pour into “a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department,” where it will “be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems.”  $5 billion of it will vanish into the bleak void of the U.S. Treasury, “apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees?”  Apparently?

Of course, you were told Obama and his brilliant central planners could predict everything, and easily run the nation’s health care from Washington better than millions of Americans making their own decisions possibly could.  Then again, Nancy Pelosi did chirp that we would need to pass ObamaCare to find out what was in it.  Well, it turned out to be stuffed with tax increases.  Surprise!

And there are plenty more to come.  The $63 surcharge described by the Huffington Post is just one small part of “a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama’s expansion of coverage to the uninsured.  It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000.  People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.” Whoa… you mean Barack Obama has already raised taxes on the people he wants to soak for “deficit reduction?”  You betcha!  And it’s an especially dishonest, economically damaging tax, as Bloomberg News explains:

"In the debate over the looming fiscal cliff, U.S. President Barack Obama often plays down any adverse economic impact from letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire for high-income Americans, claiming that the top tax rates would merely return to where they were during the Clinton years.Unfortunately, the president’s claim is incorrect because he ignores the impending arrival of the unearned income Medicare contribution tax, which will further raise tax rates on income from saving. Scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, the tax, which was adopted as part of the 2010 health-care law, is a 3.8 percent levy on interest, dividends, capital gains and passive business income received by taxpayers with incomes exceeding $200,000 (or $250,000 for couples). Because the new tax was added to the health-care law late in the process without congressional hearings, it received little attention at the time. With only a few weeks left before it takes effect, it remains largely unknown."

What we do know about this tax is that even its name is a total fraud:

One problem with the unearned income Medicare contribution tax is the name Congress chose for it, which is a triple misnomer. The income that will be subject to the tax isn’t unearned — it is earned by savers who receive market rewards for delaying consumption and providing funds to finance business investment.
Also, because the proceeds will be paid into the general treasury, the tax will have no financial link to Medicare. And, of course, the tax will be a compulsory payment, not a voluntary contribution.

I’m sure we’ll find out more about it when hapless taxpayers get fined by the IRS for failure to comply with every paragraph of its hastily-written 42 pages of regulations.  The economic damage from a surtax on savings and investment will make themselves felt much sooner.  And just wait until anyone who tries to repeal this tax is pilloried for protecting the “unearned income” of those despicable fat-cat Scrooges by class warriors!

It’s insane that Republicans ever allowed themselves to get outmaneuvered on the issue of middle-class tax reduction by Barack Obama.  Here’s Step One for taking the issue back: propose a huge middle class tax reduction by demanding the full repeal of a debt-exploding program that polls have consistently shown they hate.  Repeal ObamaCare.

#391 (12/19) The Answer That Is Not Gun Control

PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would  be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.

PRAYER REQUESTS: The Connecticut Shootings - http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/Prayerwatch?pw=978

For the families of those killed in Friday’s mass shootings

That God will use this tragedy to bring people to faith in Christ

For healing in the community of Newtown that has been devastated by this tragedy

NOTE:  TODAY marks 37 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I feel led to begin a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. I will share more in a later post(s), for now, may I ask you to

PLEASE PRAY:   1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2,  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 "Goodwill to Men"- By: Erick Erickson, December 16th, http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/16/goodwill-to-men/   It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

On Friday in Connecticut, more than two dozen, mostly children, were gunned down in an act of evil.

I once read an account that young men killed on the beaches of Normandy, as they lay dying, called out for their mothers. I tear up at even the glancing thought of the cries of the children in Connecticut and dare not take the mental walk down that road.

Children cry out for their mommy and their daddy. Young men on the battlefield, as death comes over them, do the same. It is a natural instinct at life’s end for the young. Just the thought of the children crying out for their moms and dads as they died overwhelms the senses of those of us far removed from the tragedy. It is an instinct, though, that we should confront.

Instead, two days removed from the horror of Friday, we [began] again the debate and confrontations about gun control. It is a debate worth having and, whether we want to or not, we will have it. Much, if any, of what will be proposed would not have stopped the massacre. But though the proposals that will soon be most seriously considered would most likely not have prevented what happened, men and women of goodwill — and most are — will make the proposals because it lets them feel in control. People want to do something. People, acting corporately, want to legislate and regulate because it is, next to election of leaders, the most powerful act of a democracy. The efforts, even if they are successful, will not stop this cycle of violence.

Discussions of gun control are easier to have than discussions about mental health. But they too are easier to have than those about the collapse of the American family. History and multiple studies show that the most stable foundation of a society is a two parent nuclear household with multiple

children. In the past year we have talked more and more about the rise of singles in this country, following the rise of single parents. Because much of the question of what it means to be single involves the discussion of choices, we cannot have a conversation about the nuclear family. The only conclusion that would benefit our society would be a conclusion that renders too many of the choices made by twenty and thirty somethings in our society today invalid.

Unless our culture shifts back toward recognizing the need for stable families with multiple children, the situation will only get worse. Coupled with that comes difficult conversations about equality and the roles young men in society must grow up to fit into. None of these horrific incidents have been committed by girls or women, but by disturbed young men — some, to be sure, in the very nuclear families most likely to help reduce these senseless acts. Nuclear families will not cure the problem and, in fact, mass incidents like this have declined over time though the 6 worst school shootings have been in the past decade. But we look at the tragedy in Connecticut and ignore the daily killings and life destroying acts across the nation. We focus on Connecticut, but not inner-cities or impoverished communities of broken homes.

When pointing out that two parent households of multiple children provide the greatest stability in a society, many deny the fact. Many demand data or more studies then try to discredit the studies. It says more about the denial of responsibility for the choices the deniers have made than it does about the studies or the facts. This is, however, why we will not change. But as government tries to spread its caring hands even further and replace or supplement the need for family, no child will ever in terror cry out for Uncle Sam, just for mom or dad.

Turning its back on the nuclear family, our society has concurrently turned its back on discussing evil. Evil, like God, is mythology to many in our country even when confronted with it at the barrel of a gun.

We have become accustomed in our vernacular to treat evil as the opposite of good or the opposite of God. Evil is not just a word and not the opposite of good or God, but the absence of God taking on a life of its own. The act in Connecticut may have been committed by a mentally disturbed individual, but the act was evil. The person, at the time committing the act, was evil.

God and good exist. The devil and evil do as well — the incarnation of the absolute void left in the absence of God. Colossians 1:15 states, ‘[Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” As our society drifts further and further from Christ, our society holds itself together less and less. The rise of secularism coincides with the decline of family and the rise of societal chaos.

In our society, it is impolite to say this. Many who reject this mock Christians. They wonder why God or Jesus were not in that school room protecting those children. Liberal gay-rights activist Dan Savage on Friday was openly ridiculing Christians and mocking God. Liberal pundits were retweeting him.They choose not to understand. They have chosen the very society that generates the heinous act we saw on Friday — a society replacing ourselves and our standards with those of God. It is a society St. Paul described quite accurately in Romans 1.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. . . . They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator . . . . Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Romans 1:21, 25, 28-31

On Friday in Connecticut, an evil creature entered a classroom and gunned down children in our ever increasing Romans 1 society.

At this Christmas season we should remember the part of the Christmas story we often do not dwell on. Two thousand years ago, King Herod sent his soldiers to Bethlehem where they slaughtered all the boys age 2 and under. The coming of the Risen Lord was answered by this world with the loss of the innocents.

The world is full of sin. It is easy for the non-Christian to look at what happened and rationalize away that the person was mentally ill, we need gun control, etc. It is harder, especially at this time of year, for those who do believe in God to find comfort in him instead of demanding “why?” But God does not spare us the effects of sin in the world, nor does he spare the little children.

But we know by faith that “Jesus wept.” He weeps now. He welcomes home the little children and calls for us to persevere and, if we will, to turn back toward him and bring our society with us. But our society must be prepared to have larger conversations than whether or not we should regulate guns or bullets.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”  

[bold and italics emphasis mine]