Category Archives: Soapbox

Only 23 Senators Stand With Voters

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Yesterday, the Senate voted for cloture on a motion to bring S. 1348 to the floor for debate without going through a committee process. Approving the motion by a 69-23 margin. The Senate will debate an Amend the bill this week and next. There will then be another cloture vote to end debate and vote on the bill. If 10 “Yea” votes are changed by the next cloture vote this bill will effectively be dead for this session of congress. If not prepare to welcome 20 million new illegals -er- legals to the country.

Here are the Senators that stood with the vast majority of the American people on the cloture vote:

Nay Votes

Allard (R-CO)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bunning (R-KY)
Byrd (D-WV)
Coburn (R-OK)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Enzi (R-WY)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)

18 Republicans 4 Democrats & 1 Independant. More proof that this is not a party line issue. If anything it seems to be the politicians verses the people. One other interesting bit on the voting was some proof someone up there is looking at the polling data. Check out the number of Presidential hopefuls that neglected to vote:

Not Voting

Biden (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Nelson (D-FL)
Obama (D-IL)

Will Republicans Cave On Immigration?

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Monday the 21st could be a historic day in America. It could be the day that the most sweeping immigration bill ever passes. Leading the way for 12-20 MILLION illegals to start the road to becoming US citizens while INCREASING the number of immigrants in this country by as much as 50 million over the next 5 years.

“Comprehensive” immigration reform indeed!

What makes today a day to watch is weither Republicans allow this bill to get through the Sentor’s procedural vote process. This is the area where the Republicans still have great deal of control. As many American’s probably remember from Supreme Court nominations, 60 Senators are required pass procedural hurdles. With Democrats in control of 51 seats (including the two indies that caucus with them), that means 9 Republicans have to agree to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Since McCain’s name is on the bill we’re really only talking about 8 out 48 Republicans caving.

The sad part is that the underlying motivation seems to be adding the illegals to the voting public along party lines. And both parties seem convinced the citizens will vote with their party. The tragedy is that polls have over 80% of the American people AGAINST this bill. Senators that publicly supported this bill have been “Booed” South Carolina and Georgia. But apparently a crack at 12 million+ new voters is more important than angering the current voters.

Rush Limbaugh said last week that if this bill passes it will destroy the Republicans in the 08 elections. Perhaps job loss fear will steady the Republicans hands if their constituents’ calls and letters won’t.

Don’t worry though, the ARO doesn’t play favorites. We’re watching both the Dems and the Repubs up on the hill and will remind our readers who voted how come ballot time…

* TN Senators Alexander & Corker were not available for comment at the time of this writing

UPDATE: Senator Corker’s office got back to us and promised that the Senator planned to try and block the bill procedurally with a “Nay” cloture vote. And he lived up to that promise.

Fair Tax Anyone?

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I came across this info again today so I thought I’d post it out there again. People need to realize what the “tax cuts for the rich” that are about to expire under the Democratic congress entail:

  • Reducing the lowest tax bracket from 15% to 10%
  • Eliminated the tax penalty for married people filing jointly
  • $400 child tax credit
  • Reduced capital gains rates (55% of Americans own some stock)

Married? Kids? Have a 401k? Actually pay taxes? Congrats, welcome to the ranks of the rich. Your taxes need to go up to help support all those people that don’t pay taxes.

BUT WAIT! If its a money issue, what about the all time record for taxs collected in April? Some may wonder, how can you collect more taxes after reducing the tax rates? Its simple economics that can be simplified into a parallel involving burgers. If you started a restaurant that sold $100 burgers – well you’d probably have a lot of free tables. Meanwhile, McDonalds has proven you can sell a crap load of burgers for a buck. The point is that just like with selling something: raising the price/rate doesn’t always generate more total profit. Sure that one $100 burger has a great profit margin but selling 2 verses 2 billion changes which business model wins. (Now to be fair you could sell even more burgers for a penny, but your margins at that point would be negative. So the same arguement can be made that you a certain minimum tax rate to generate significant revenues — which is true. The point here however is that raising the rate does not always raise the revenues.)

Still don’t believe me that you are “RICH”? Check out the numbers below and you’ll discover that if you make at least $30k – you’re rich.

This is the data for calendar year 2003 just released in October 2005 by the Internal Revenue Service. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:

  • The top 1% pay 34.27% of all income taxes.
  • The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes.
  • The top 10% pay 65.84% of all income taxes.
  • The top 25% pay 83.88% of all income taxes.
  • The top 50% pay 96.54% of all income taxes.
  • The bottom 50% pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes

Think of it this way: less than 3.5% of income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. I need to repeat that: the bottom 50%. We’re not talking about the bottom 10% poorest of the poor here, or even the bottom quartile of the country. We’re talking HALF THE COUNTRY. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like “thousandaires.” The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $29,019 and up in 2003. (The top 1% earned $295,495+)

So I say again: Fair Tax anyone?

Civil Rights Activist Opposes Immigration Amnesty

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It’s good to see admist all the news hype about criminals on the march more and more prominent American’s are realizing the true result of Amnesty. The term de jour keeps changing in the push for immigration “reform” but the end results remain the stay the same: eventual amenesty for 20 million illegals.

T. Willard Fair, a prominent Miami civil rights activist has taken a leading role in protesting immigration legislation that take jobs away from black Americans: “Amnesty for illegal workers is not just a slap in the face to black Americans. It’s an economic disaster.”

Reid Waves The White Flag

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“this war is lost” – Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid

Hard to believe that THE most senoir member of congress and the Democratic party could utter those words – ok, maybe not that hard to believe. Here’s more from the story:

The war in Iraq “is lost” and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

“I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Reid told journalists.

… I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically.”

Do they not have basic primers on this sort of stuff when you’re elected to major political office? Did he not learn anything from all those history classes at his ivy league schools?

You simply CAN’T win wars diplomatically, politically or economically. Now, economics can provide a strategic advantage in a war but it is one of many such factors. Bullets, bombs, and soilders – THESE win wars. The diplomats simply sort out the necessary paperwork AFTER the war has been won or lost.

The diplomatic corps is not kept on staff to “win wars” such an idea is lunacy. Diplomats exist to prevent wars. A noble job, but once the bullets start flying they rushed home on a helio and the military takes over.

In the history of the world no politician has ever won a war – they have however lost quite a few. Vietnam comes to mind. Which is interesting because many people want to compare Iraq to Nam — proving that they don’t realize why we lost there. The United States lost in Vietnam because the politicians wouldn’t call it a war and fully support it. Instead of pressing ahead for victory, they sought a vague middle ground of military action while lamenting ANY action back home. So while the parrallels are obvious, the realization that we sabotaged our own forces until we cried uncle – is apparenty not.

There is only one way to leave a war: the victor. Afterward you can discuss and mediate and make deals and such. If you don’t win, you don’t have much negotiating power.

Perhaps this example will simplify the point: You can’t start a fight with a bully and stop half way through. You can doubt the sanity of starting such a fight, but you can’t stop. No appology or appeasement will work at that point, only two options remain: 1) Total, unquestioned victory and the bully will never bother you again. 2) Anything else and the bully will revisit his pain upon you a hundred fold.

I understand that politicians like Senator Reid are simply short sighted people that are beholden to the MoveOn.org crowd and that they would do just about anything to hold on to and grow their own personal power. It’s just really sad when they prove me right.