America's Treatment of the Muslim World

Obama Just Flatters Himself
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 30, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims with "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.

Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somali intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on earth. Why are we apologizing?

And what of that happy U.S.-Muslim relationship that Obama imagines existed "as recently as 20 or 30 years ago" that he has now come to restore? Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran's radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage.

Which came just a few years after the Arab oil embargo that sent the United States into a long and punishing recession. Which, in turn, was preceded by the kidnapping and cold-blooded execution by Arab terrorists of the U.S. ambassador in Sudan and his charge d'affaires.

This is to say nothing of the Marine barracks massacre of 1983, and the innumerable attacks on U.S. embassies and installations around the world during what Obama now characterizes as the halcyon days of U.S.-Islamic relations.

Look. If Barack Obama wants to say, as he said to al-Arabiya, I have Muslim roots, Muslim family members, have lived in a Muslim country -- implying a special affinity that uniquely positions him to establish good relations -- that's fine. But it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized.

As in Obama's grand admonition: "We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name." Have "we" been doing that, smearing Islam because of a small minority? George Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington six days after 9/11, when the fires of Ground Zero were still smoldering, to declare "Islam is peace," to extend fellowship and friendship to Muslims, to insist that Americans treat them with respect and generosity of spirit.

And America listened. In these seven years since 9/11 -- seven years during which thousands of Muslims rioted all over the world (resulting in the death of more than 100) to avenge a bunch ofcartoons -- there's not been a single anti-Muslim riot in the United States to avenge the greatest massacre in U.S. history. On the contrary. In its aftermath, we elected our first Muslim member of Congress and our first president of Muslim parentage.

"My job," says Obama, "is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives." That's his job? Do the American people think otherwise? Does he think he is bravely breaking new ground? George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and countless other leaders offered myriad expressions of that same universalist sentiment.

Every president has the right to portray himself as ushering in a new era of this or that. Obama wants to pursue new ties with Muslim nations, drawing on his own identity and associations. Good. But when his self-inflation as redeemer of U.S.-Muslim relations leads him to suggest that pre-Obama America was disrespectful or insensitive or uncaring of Muslims, he is engaging not just in fiction but in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead.

"Stimulus"

The Stimulus Shopping List: $1.17 Trillion in Pork Goodies

Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:00 PM

By: David A. Patten 

The $1.17 trillion stimulus bill passed by House Democrats on Wednesday bears little resemblance to the bill originally proposed by President Obama, with less than 5 percent of the funds now going to repair America’s deteriorating infrastructure.

GOP critics point out the bill is loaded with tens of billions for items ranging from Amtrak subsidies to sexually transmitted diseases to the National Endowment for the Arts -- much of which won’t actually flow into the economy until long after economists expect the current economic crisis to subside.

In late November, Obama promised: “It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America, and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges,” modernizing schools and stimulating development of alternative forms of energy.

Even some Democrats are now objecting that the measure contains too few highway and mass transit projects. Moreover Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, says most of the infrastructure spending in the plan won’t occur until 2010 or later.

Provisions of the bill that many legislators are questioning:

 $1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn’t earned a profit in four decades.

 $2 billion to help subsidize child care.

 $400 million for research into global warming.

 $2.4 billion for projects to demonstrate how carbon greenhouse gas can be safely removed from the atmosphere.

 $650 million for coupons to help consumers convert their TV sets from analog to digital, part of the digital TV conversion.

 $600 million to buy a new fleet of cars for federal employees and government departments.

 $75 million to fund programs to help people quit smoking.

 $21 million to re-sod the National Mall, which suffered heavy use during the Inauguration.

 $2.25 billion for national parks. This item has sparked calls for an investigation, because the chief lobbyist of the National Parks Association is the son of Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc. The $2,25 billion is about equal to the National Park Service’s entire annual budget. The Washington Times reports it is a threefold increase over what was originally proposed for parks in the stimulus bill. Obey is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

 $335 million for treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

 $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. $4.19 billion to stave off foreclosures via the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The bill allows nonprofits to compete with cities and states for $3.44 billion of the money, which means a substantial amount of it will be captured by ACORN, the controversial activist group currently under federal investigation for vote fraud. Another $750 million would be exclusively reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN – meaning cities and states are barred from receiving that money. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., charges the money could appear to be a “payoff” for the partisan political activities community groups in the last election cycle.

 $44 million to renovate the headquarters building of the Agriculture Department.

 $32 billion for a “smart electricity grid to minimize waste.

 $87 billion of Medicaid funds, to aid states.

 $53.4 billion for science facilities, high speed Internet, and miscellaneous energy and environmental programs.

 $13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, repair foreclosed homes.

 $20 billion for quicker depreciation and write-offs for equipment.

 $10.3 billion for tax credits to help families defray the cost of college tuition.

 $20 billion over five years for an expanded food stamp program.

Republican leaders say the stimulus package will add 32 new government programs at a cost of $136 billion. They object that many of the programs, once established, are likely to continue indefinitely.

Most media outlets are reporting the cost of the package at $819 billion. As Newsmax revealed yesterday, however, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the interest on the debt generated by the bill’s spending will cost another $347.1 billion, making the total cost approximately $1.17 trillion.

Of course, the measure contains hundreds of billions in tax cuts and infrastructure projects that conservatives will find palatable. But as House Minority whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told the media Wednesday, “This was not a stimulus bill. It was a spending bill.”

Affordable Housing

Lured to Disaster
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Behind the housing boom and bust was one of those alluring but undefined phrases that are so popular in politics-- "affordable housing."

It is hard for me to know specifically what politicians are talking about when they use this phrase. But then politics is about evoking emotions, not examining specifics.

In looking back over my own life, I find it hard to think of a time when I didn't live in affordable housing.

When I first left home, back in 1948, I rented a room about 4 by 8 feet, costing $5.75 a week. Since my take-home pay was $22.50, that was affordable housing. (Multiply these numbers by about ten to get the equivalent in today's prices).

After three years of living in rented rooms, I began living in Marine Corps barracks, and sometimes tents none of which cost me anything. That was certainly affordable.

As a civilian again, in 1954 I rented my first apartment, a studio apartment-- small but affordable. But a year later, I went off to college and lived in dormitories on various campuses for the next six years. None was fancy but all of them were affordable.

After completing my academic studies, I rented another studio apartment-- not a big advance, but it was affordable.

In 1969, I rented my first house, which I could now afford, after several years as a faculty member at various colleges and universities. A dozen years later, I began to buy my first house.

While the specifics will differ from person to person, my general pattern was not unusual. Most people pay for what they can afford at the time.

What, then, is the "problem" that politicians claim to be solving when they talk about creating "affordable housing"?

What they are saying and doing usually boils down to trying to enable people to choose what housing they want first-- and then have some law or policy where somebody else, somewhere else, somehow or other, makes that housing "affordable" for them.

If you think it through, that is a policy for disaster. We cannot all go around buying whatever we want, whether or not we have enough money to afford it, and have somebody else make up the difference. For society as a whole, there is no somebody else.

But of course political slogans are not meant to be thought through, are they? They are often an emotional substitute for thinking at all.

Sometimes some semblance of rationality is given to the phrase "affordable housing" by comparing the cost of housing to the income of those who live in it. That was certainly what I did when I rented my first room. That's not rocket science, then or now.

The difference is that today there is some arbitrary percentage of one's income that sets the limit to what the government will consider to be affordable housing. It used to be 25 percent but it might be 30 percent or some other proportion.

But, whatever the percentage, it is no longer the individual's responsibility to choose housing that fits within that limit. It is somehow the taxpayers' job to make up the difference, when someone chooses housing whose cost exceeds that magic number.

It is certainly no longer considered to be the individual's own responsibility to acquire the work skills and experience to be able to earn enough to afford better housing as the years passed. Why do that, when the government can simply "spread the wealth around," to use another political phrase?

The ultimate irony is that increasing government intervention in the housing market over the years has generally made housing less affordable than before, by any standard.

A hundred years ago, Americans spent a smaller percentage of their incomes on housing than they do today. In 1901, housing costs took 23 percent of the average American's income. By 2003, it took 33 percent of a far larger income.

In particular places where government regulations and restrictions have been especially severe, such as coastal California, rents or monthly mortgage payments have averaged as high as 50 percent of the average person's income.

Most of our problems are not nearly as severe as political "solutions." In housing, government policies have lured people into situations that were untenable to them and to the country.