It’s Tuesday, August 7th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of the WSJ, Arthur Brooks thoughts on….

Obama and ‘Earning Your Success’

The work mandate was the most successful welfare reform in 60 years. Ending it is a tragedy.

Within the space of just two weeks, Americans have witnessed two radically different philosophies about the free enterprise system from President Obama. In his notorious Roanoke, Va., speech of July 13, he said “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” That is, Americans have not fully earned their success.

Backpedaling after a public outcry, the president insisted he had been misinterpreted, and that he is fully committed to the values of competition, merit and opportunity. In a speech to the National Urban League in New Orleans on July 25, he asserted that “America says we will give you opportunity, but you’ve got to earn your success.”

The sentiments expressed in these two speeches are inconsistent. To find the truth, we need to look at the administration’s actions. (Now why didn’t the MSM think of that?!?)

As far as business is concerned, a great deal has been written about the myriad barriers the Obama administration has placed in the way of entrepreneurial success. From stimulus spending that benefited politically connected firms to Dodd-Frank’s expensive and onerous new regulations that disproportionately harm small banks, the deck is increasingly stacked against the entrepreneur. And proposed tax increases on “millionaires and billionaires” who allegedly don’t pay their “fair share” (though the top 1% of earners already pay 38.7% of all federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office) seem like more of a punishment for earned success than an incentive to achieve it.

But one recent administration action in particular contradicts the president’s claim that “you’ve got to earn your success.” On July 12, the administration unilaterally weakened the federally mandated work requirements for welfare recipients. Since welfare reform was passed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996, the states have been required to have at least half of adult welfare recipients in qualified “work activities”—actual jobs, or participation in education or training programs. Now, however, Mr. Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services has announced that the agency will issue waivers to the federal work requirement.

This is a dramatic change in direction. As Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, flatly asserts, “This ends welfare reform as we know it.”

The 1996 law was arguably the most successful policy change to help low-income Americans in the past 60 years. Welfare policies of the 1960s led generations of families to languish on the government dole at subsistence levels, never gaining the skills to work and with little hope to rise. It took more than a decade to get Congress to reverse course. But it was worth the effort.

According to the U.S. government, welfare reform helped to move 4.7 million Americans from welfare dependency to self-sufficiency within three years of enactment. The overall federal welfare caseload declined by 54% between 1996 and 2004.

Even more important, there is evidence that it improved the lives of those who moved off welfare. In the Berkeley Electronic Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy (2011), Santa Clara University’s John Ifcher showed, using data from the General Social Survey, that single mothers—despite lost leisure time and increased stress from finding child care and performing household duties while working—were significantly happier about their lives in the eight years after reforms led them into the workforce.

The central insight from welfare reform is that people flourish when they earn their success, and this requires real market work. They escape poverty—and they live dignified, better-ordered lives. They don’t just move out of welfare; they move up from dependence on the government. (And THAT, my friends, is something Dimocrats cannot afford, and dare not allow!)

When it comes to earned success, the administration’s actions—from business regulation to taxation, and now welfare—speak louder than the president’s words.

If only the MSM were listening.

In a related item, brought to us today by the lovely and talented Shannon Wood, which further demonstrates the MSM has their heads firmly locked up their kiesters, it’s the “MSM Bias….WHAT Bias?!?” segment, and another Romney-related “scandal”, the standards of which have yet to be applied to Tick-Tock:

Mitt Romney Report Card Shows Promise, Lack Of Discipline

High school students take note: That mediocre semester of freshman-year French may one day come back to haunt you.

As the presidential election draws closer, it seems like any and all documents relating to the candidates are fair game. (Except, of course, any remotely related to The Obamao.) Case in point: One of Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s old high school report cards, which was originally released by the Boston Globe in 2007, is making the Internet rounds again.

Young Romney, who would eventually go on to earn both law and MBA degrees from Harvard University, showed obvious intelligence, according to the prep school document. However, comments on his progress suggest an initial tendency toward overconfidence and underperformance.

The document is dated Nov. 10, 1961 — during Romney’s freshman year in high school — and includes marks for English 3, Elementary Algebra, Biology, French 1 and Art 3.

Romney’s lowest grade of the term was in French, in which he received a “C,” while his highest was in English, in which he earned a “B+,” but his teacher notes “He can do a lot better.” Romney also received a “B” in Algebra. The teacher complimented the politician’s initial performance on tests but notes “He wastes much time in class.”

At the bottom of the report, Romney’s instructor praises the student’s performance but hints at possible problems in the past. “Mitt is doing well,” reads the notation. “He is a more responsible citizen this year.” (Ooooohhh!!!)

Mitt Romney spent six years at Cranbrook Schools, a prestigious prep school in Michigan, while his father George Romney acted as CEO of American Motors Corporation and contemplated entering politics. First as a day student and later as a full-time boarder, Romney’s experience at the school played a large role in molding the young politician’s intellect.

However, Romney’s teenage years at the academy came under renewed scrutiny in May when the Washington Post reported an alleged bullying incident involving Romney and a classmate.

Those interested in comparing the presidential candidates’ early academic records will be disappointed, however. President Obama attended Punahou School in Honolulu and graduated in 1979, but his transcripts have not been released.

Neither have any of his records from Occidental, Columbia or Harvard.  Hmmm!  MSM bias….WHAT bias?!?  Where’s Hairball Harry’s secret source when we need him?!?

Next we turn to the Environmental Moment, and an article from The New Media Journal which relates how….

Reid Pushes Chinese Solar Firm Represented by His Son

Obviously a dick off the old blockhead….er,….chip off the old block!

Say this about U.S. Sen. Harry Reid: He really believes in renewable energy. Reid has beat up NV Energy pretty good in recent years. In the closing days of the George W. Bush administration, Reid blocked plans to build coal-fired power plants in Nevada. He said in April on the “Nevada Newsmakers” show, “I don’t think NV Energy has done enough to allow renewable energy to thrive.”

But that same month, NV Energy reported it had exceeded its state-imposed green-energy requirement of 15 percent by purchasing 16.7 percent of its power from renewable sources. And that was in spite of the Public Utilities Commission rejecting a handful of renewable contracts in July 2011, saying the company hadn’t justified the purchases were necessary to meet its quota.

Now Reid is pushing for a Chinese company he played a key role in recruiting to Nevada, ENN Mojave Energy LLC. The company plans a billion-dollar solar energy manufacturing and generating plant near Laughlin, but an ambitious development schedule is being threatened by a lack of green power customers.

Steve Tetreault quoted Reid in Tuesday’s Review-Journal saying the project “would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power,” but the company “has not been willing to work on this and that’s such a shame.” Reid added: “NV Energy is a regulated monopoly. They control 95 percent of all the electricity that is produced in Nevada and they should go along with this.”

They’re not, at least not yet.

And there are some legitimate reasons: Power costs are passed directly to consumers, and green energy currently costs more than power generated by coal-fired or natural-gas burning plants. State law mandates NV Energy buy power as cheaply as possible, except when it’s required to buy more-expensive green energy to meet state-mandated quotas. But the more green energy you buy, the higher bills climb.

NV Energy has already met its quota, and the PUC has already turned the company down when it proposed contracts that would have exceeded quotas. And when the company does buy power – which it plans to do next in 2014 – it does so by analyzing competitive bids.

Reid says those weak excuses. He said in that April interview that if “NV Energy wanted to do more with renewable energy, they could.”

There’s another factor, however, one more personal to Reid: His son, Rory Reid, is one of the attorneys for the ENN Mojave Energy project. A Reid spokeswoman said the senator did not suggest Reid’s firm – Lionel, Sawyer & Collins – to ENN, nor has the elder Reid spoken to this son about the deal. (Reid imposed a strict ban on family members lobbying his office in 2003 after the Los Angeles Times asked him about lobbying by three of his four sons.)

But success for ENN in finding customers helps Rory Reid, and its failure could cost him a client. It’s an undeniable conflict that Harry Reid should keep in mind as he twists arms at the PUC and NV Energy, lest he earn himself an ethics complaint.

Wow!  An ethics complaint; say it ain’t so!  That ought to put the fear of the angel Moroni in old Hairball Harry.  What’s next on the Senate punishment ladder; taking away his birthday?!?

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s this classic from Balls Cotton:

Next up, in the Sports Section, either another sign the Apocalypse is upon us, or evidence there’s a shortage of even minimally-talented receivers in the NFL:

Seahawks to bring T.O. in for tryout

That….or T.O. has concrete evidence Pete Carroll’s been running the West Coast chapter of….

….Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile.  Then again, maybe T.O. is just what the Seahawks need; all mouth in the locker room and….

….no hands on the field!

Finally, we’ll call it day with the “Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Water” segment, courtesy of the gluttons for punishment in Taxachusetts:

Cape Cod beaches working on plan of attack to combat shark attacks

Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain….  We’ll never put on a life jacket again.

Magoo