Kobach Endorsements Generate Campaign Energy
Kris Kobach, candidate for Kansas Secretary of State, continues
to energize his campaign by getting powerful endorsements from
across the country. Major political figures such as former
Attorney General John Ashcroft and former United States Senator
and actor Fred Thompson have given their full support to Kobach in
the heated race for Secretary of State.

Former Attorney General Ashcroft worked with Kobach in the United
States Justice Department after the 9/11 attacks to streamline the
agency in order to more quickly identify threats to national
security. Ashcroft was very pleased with the intricate work and
bureaucratic re-alignment that Kobach was able to achieve at the
DOJ.

Ashcroft had this to say about Kobach: “As my counsel at the
Justice Department, Kris Kobach had a tremendous impact. He saw
what needed to be done, and succeeded in making dramatic reforms
quickly….He is a resourceful man of principle who will protect the
integrity of the elections process. And he knows how to cut red
tape to bring new jobs to Kansas.”

Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson got to know Kobach when he
served as Thompson’s policy advisor during the 2008 presidential
campaign.
Thompson had this to say about Kobach: “He knows the law and he’s
a straight shooter. Kansans can trust him to protect the integrity
of elections.”

Kobach has also been endorsed by a variety of other figures
including former Congressman and Presidential Candidate Tom
Tancredo; John Fund of The Wall Street Journal who wrote the bestseller,
“Stealing Elections, How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy”;
syndicated columnist and auhor, Star Parker; author Michelle Malkin;
Phyllis Schafly, president of Eagle Forum, and others.

These endorsements are significant because they show that national
political and media leaders in the Republican Party feel that
Kobach is far more qualified for the position of Secretary of
State than any of the other candidates running against him.

Responsible Reform

• Promote Personal Responsibility and Work: Able-bodied welfare recipients should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. Food stamps and housing assistance, two of the largest programs for the needy, should be aligned with the TANF program to require able-bodied adults to work or prepare for work for at least 30 hours per week.
• Loans, Not Grants: Welfare to able-bodied adults creates a potential moral hazard because it can lead to an increase in the behaviors that generate the need for aid in the first place. A reformed welfare policy can reduce the moral hazard by treating a portion of welfare aid as a loan to be repaid rather than as an outright grant from the taxpayer.
• End the Welfare Marriage Penalty: Current means-tested welfare programs penalize low-income recipients who choose to marry; these anti-marriage penalties should be reduced or eliminated. In addition, government should provide information on the importance of marriage to individuals in communities who have a high risk of having children out of wedlock, with an emphasis on the benefits to children of a married two-parent family.
• Limit Low-Skill Immigration: Around 15% ($100 billion/year) of total means-tested welfare spending goes to households headed by immigrants with high school degrees or less. One-third of all immigrants lack a high school degree. Over the next 10 years, America will spend $1.5 trillion on welfare benefits for lower-skill immigrants. Government policy should limit future immigration to those who will be net fiscal contributors, paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits. The legal immigration system should not encourage immigration of low-skill immigrants who would increase poverty in the nation and impose vast new costs on already overburdened taxpayers.

Link.

ACRU Policy Board Member Walter E. Williams wrote this column appearing on the Townhall.com website on May 19, 2010.

My sentiments on immigration are expressed by the welcoming words of poet Emma Lazarus’ that grace the base of our Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Those sentiments are probably shared by most Americans and for sure by my libertarian fellow travelers, but their vision of immigration has some blind spots. This has become painfully obvious in the wake Arizona’s law that cracks down on illegal immigration. Let’s look at the immigration issue step by step.

Link.

The Obama administration and its Democrat colleagues in Congress seem determined to rob Americans of one freedom after another. From health care reform to economic recovery, the administration continues to rely on greater federal control and top-down policies.

Now they’re looking to curb free speech.

As I wrote earlier this month, the FTC recently released a report, Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism aimed at addressing “the challenges faced by journalism in the Internet age.” Some of the recommendations they put forth include increasing postal subsidies for newspapers and periodicals, implementing new taxes on websites like The Drudge Report, and adding taxes to new consumer electronics.

Millions Still Without Coverage: One of the goals of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was increasing health care coverage for Americans. However, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 23 million people will be uninsured even with the new law.

Higher Taxes: President Obama’s health law broke his campaign promise to not raise taxes on American families making less than $250,000 a year. New taxes on health care products and services will ultimately be passed onto consumers regardless of their income status.

Link.

Consumer-directed health plans have been useful in controlling the rise of health costs over the last several years, but the survival of these plans is threatened by the new health overhaul law.

Mercer’s latest National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans found that major employers held total health benefit cost increases per employee to 5.5 percent in 2009 – the lowest increase in a decade (see chart below). Participation in consumer-directed health plans, as well as health management programs, has been growing over the last few years as companies sought ways to successfully engage employees as partners in managing costs and care.

With the signature of Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, Tennessee became the first state today to protect the rights of businesses to have English-in-the-workplace policies where there is a “legitimate business necessity.”

The bill, which passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support in the state House and Senate, was designed to comply with rules set by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and to protect businesses from lawsuits. Federal courts have affirmed that businesses can require their employees to speak English during business operations and for safety reasons.

by Jack Cashill
Published in WorldNetDaily.com – July1, 2010

In reading David Kupelian’s exceptional new book, How Evil Works, a worthy sequel to his bestseller, the Marketing of Evil, I had to ask myself a basic question.

In America, with what Kupelian rightly calls our “transcendent heritage of liberty rooted in self-government,” could we produce someone who is as genuinely evil as, say, a Saddam Hussein, whom Kupelian cites as its very embodiment? (more…)