Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

We should see the Trump budget as a cultural as well as fiscal initiative.

It attempts to restore fiscal sanity while restoring individual freedom and personal responsibility to our culture. (Starr Parker, Trump Budget fixes our Broken Culture)

I think the most disturbing thing the present partisan discussion of the Federal budget is that its predicated on a patently obvious lie. As Starr Parker observes in the article quoted above, at present we are not dealing with Federal budget cuts. At best, were dealing with cuts in the rate at which overall Federal spending increases. So-called budget cutters (including Donald Trump) pretend they achieve that goal by proposing cuts here and there, affecting the activities of this or that agency or Department. But these cuts are not expected, or ever intended to reduce Federal spending overall.

Implicitly, this understanding of the budget process leaves our nation wallowing toward bankruptcy, with the implied day of reckoning seemingly postponed by expedients and jerry-rigged projections of future results. This is far from anything like what is needed actually to reduce the governments spending and indebtedness. For that result, we would have to look to the example of past generations, for instance, in the aftermath of Americas war for independence. Put simply, they drew up a plan to discipline the governments spending, curtail any increase in its debt, and increase inflows of revenue. Then, in each budget cycle, they set aside a fixed portion of the surplus this discipline produced, and used it exclusively to reduce the governments indebtedness.

Of course, such plans were implemented before the American people ran afoul of the delusions of the so-called welfare state. Those were times when people didnt just talk about individual freedom and personal responsibility, they, perforce, accepted the fact that living according to those concepts required self-disciplinei.e., the willingness to keep their behavior within boundaries of right they could not whimsically disregard. This is reflected in the thinking expressed in Americas Declaration of Independence. It speaks of unalienable rights, with which all humanity is endowed by our Creator. This thought refers to necessary activities, inseparable from our existence as human beings, which we are bound to undertake in order to preserve our humanity.

Liberty, as it is listed among these God-endowed rights, retains the sense of freedom. But by listing it among the rights with which God provisions humanity, the Declaration makes liberty a distinct species of freedom. It involves doing what right requires, according to Gods prescription of right. That prescription distinguishes human beings from others of Gods creation. As part of that distinction, God endows us with a capacity for deliberate choice, along with the inclination (good conscience) to use it rightly.

The Declarations logic, in this respect, implies that, unless we rightly limit our use of freedom we cannot perpetuate our exercise of rights. For there can be no exercise of rights when the premise of right (which is the standard of God that makes it right) is no longer observed. In concrete terms, for example, do we not accept that it is right to preserve and perpetuate humanity? But to do so requires that we undertake the different activities required to do so. But, whereas it appears to us that other creatures have no choice but to respond to the imperatives of self-preservation, we humans have a choice. We may accept or reject our natural programming, going so far even as to deny and reject the limitations that serve humanity, in order to pursue, instead, activities that satisfy our own passions and self-conceits.

In our day, this goes so far as to reject what even our empirical science verifies as the natural distinction between male and female. Humanity conceives and perpetuates itself in terms of this distinction. Nonetheless, we now being forced to pretend that individuals can change from man to woman, from woman to man, as easily as alchemists once thought to change lead into gold. But if we may thus whimsically change our nature, why not change from man to wolf, from woman to eagle, or any other flight of fantasy? It sounds harmless enough until we contemplate what may be the consequences of these self-conceits. For if, by our own conceit, we change from human to wolf, when we rip out someones throat, as wolves are inclined to do, should we be held accountable as a beast or as a human being? The human must be tried for the crime. The beast we may shoot on sight.

But what of those who look like the self-conceived wolf, but choose to act as humanity requires? Will the confusion we encourage, by obscuring the difference between them, excuse those who see someone who looks like the self-conceited wolf, and shoots on sight; only to find the appearance was deceiving, with no mad, wolfish mind attached to it?

People who are pushing for this species of individual freedom pretend that they are serving humanity. But they may. In truth, be returning us to the days when human beings, mistaken for beasts on account of how they looked or publicly behaved, could be treated like beastskilled and/or enslaved according to the powerful whims and self-conceits of those powerful enough to do so.

Think this through and we begin to see the common sense involved in insisting that, for public purposes, people must be brought to behave according to a common standard of what humanity entails. Whatever people may fancy themselves to be in private, shouldnt they be required to conform, in their public lives, to a general standard of humanity whenever they interact with others? If not, isnt it society itself that, in the end, must pay the consequences?

Time and again Ive read articles in which people lament the costly results of the breakdown of family life. Our present budgets are burdened by those results, especially in respect of poverty, ill health and criminal behavior. Thanks to the delusions of the so-called welfare state. we have become inured to budget discussions that take it for granted that these costs must be met by public expenditures This, despite the fact that it means bankrupting our constitutional self-government. This makes no sense except to those who will benefit from its collapse, and are counting on positions of power in the oppressive regime that replaces it.

There is no way to avoid this tragic prospect but to end the delusion that makes it inevitable. Public monies should be spent for the good of the community as a whole. As for individuals, instead of encouraging their insane fantasies of unfettered existential freedom, we must confront them with the truthIndividual rights are rooted in responsibilities, responsibilities that are not personal to ourselves, but applicable generally to all humanity; responsibilities not toward our own conscience but toward the demands of human conscience as informed by our Creator, God. We will never end the nations spiral toward bankruptcy until we acknowledge that its true cause is our abandonment of the true meaning of rights, including liberty.

Excerpt from:

The Delusion That's Bankrupting America - The Daily Caller

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen has just published a timely new book, The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.

Cowens message is that America is a nation that has lost its edge.

Entrepreneurism and the willingness to take risks key factors that once defined the American economy and made it the growth engine of the world are in decline.

Income is stagnating; productivity is down; startups as a percentage of overall business activity is down; the percentage of Americans under 30 who own a business is less than half of where it stood in the 1980s; the percentage of Americans who stay in the same job is up; the interstate migration rate declined 51 percent from the 1970s to 2013.

Cowen attributes this stagnation to a complacency that now grips our culture. He offers a number of explanations, but key factors include adversity to risk and a sense that a society can be created in which risk is eliminated.

Its a dangerous illusion and were paying a dear price for it.

Cowens book is timely. It has arrived at the same moment that President Trump has submitted his new budget to congress.

Its a courageous budget designed to turn around a ship of state that is sinking from fiscal excess.

Whats the connection to Cowens book? Our federal budget is bloated with social spending programs that have expanded massively over the years, whose real objective is to take any risk out of life.

Few would argue that the government should provide some temporary safety net for citizens that fall on hard times.

But these spending programs arent that. They are the product of an illusion, the result of a culture of rampant materialism, that all of life is a social engineering problem. If designed correctly, the thinking goes, society can purr like a well-oiled machine with all pain and suffering engineered out of it.

This great lie is bankrupting us and producing a culture of victimhood, and, as Cowen defines it, complacency.

Regarding our federal budget, heres what the Congressional Budget Office says: If current laws remain generally unchanged, the United States would face steadily increasing federal budget deficits and debt over the next 30 years reaching the highest level of debt relative to GDP ever experienced in this country. ...The prospect of such large debt poses substantial risks for the nation...

Liberals are crying about cruel budget cuts in the Trump budget.

But as Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute points out, what liberals call cuts are not cuts at all they merely slow the rate of spending. The Trump budget increases federal spending over 10 years by $1.7 trillion.

Medicaid, one of the largest items in the federal budget, increases from $378 billion in current spending to $524 billion. Not exactly a cut. And consider that Medicaid spending in 2000 was $118 billion.

Or consider food stamps. Spending has increased from $18 billion in 2000 to $71 billion now. Or Social Security Disability spending, that has increased from $56 billion in 2000 to $144 billion. Reforms are being proposed to add a work requirement to qualify for these programs.

American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry notes that direct payments to individuals have increased from less than 30 percent of the federal budget to 70 percent today. He says that the federal government has essentially transformed into a gigantic wealth-transfer machine.

We should see the Trump budget as a cultural as well as fiscal initiative.

It attempts to restore fiscal sanity while restoring individual freedom and personal responsibility to our culture.

This is essential if we are to restore badly needed economic vitality to America.

Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at http://www.urbancure.org.

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Trump budget fixes our broken culture - Times-Enterprise

The Trump administrations proposed budget includes a light cap on spending for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). This represents only a very small anticipated decrease in certain Pentagon spending, but that hasnt stopped neoconservatives from crying foul.

OCO spending is capped at $65 billion in the Trump spending request being touted by budget director Mick Mulvaney. This is no small number, but it is down from the $83 billion that Congress approved for OCO spending in 2017. Mulvaney, a former member of the House Freedom Caucus, is intent on slowly reducing federal spending back to responsible levels, and that is wholly unacceptable to neocons insatiable in their lust for endless militarism.

If we implemented this budget, wed have to retreat from the world and put a lot of people at risk, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said. The prominent neocon threatened a lot of Benghazis in the making would take place unless federal spending was restored to the levels reached by the Obama administration.

More than likely, [Mulvaney] is pleased with the prospect of a congressional trainwreck that will work to constrain federal spending closer to the austere levels set in the Budget Control Act. For budget hawks like Mulvaney, disrupting the Pentagons fiscal planning is a virtue, neocon commentator Thomas Donnelly said in a Weekly Standard op/ed attempting to convince conservatives that the sky is falling over paltry cuts to the budget.

According to the National Priorities Project, the OCO accounted for 11 percent of discretionary defense spending in 2015. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows that 70 percent of the OCO fund in 2017 goes to Operation Freedom Sentinel and government operations related to Afghanistan while the other funds are split amongst Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, the European Reassurance Initiative, and the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund.

The OCO funds many interventionism in a myriad of ways, and is completely exempt from the 2011 Budget Control Act. Because of the lack of Congressional accountability and oversight, it has become a favorite slush fund for neocons. With the purse strings being tightened, the neocons may have to find other sneaky ways to divert taxpayer resources into fueling empire abroad.

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Neocons Cry As Trump Administration Imposes Fiscal Discipline Onto The Pentagon - The Liberty Conservative

Leaks are crucial part of Americans' freedom Wichita Eagle (blog) Trump, known as a relentless litigator willing to wage wars of fiscal attrition in court, is also famous for his animosity toward news organizations and journalists who displease him. Unlike conventional elected officials, he probably would not shrink ...

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Leaks are crucial part of Americans' freedom - Wichita Eagle (blog)

Go through the report of any Finance Commission and there will be one common strand running through their chapters state governments chafing at fund transfers tied to centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) and pleading for more untied funds, giving them the freedom to set their own priorities.

The Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) treating states as responsible adults instead of children whose pocket money needed to be monitored gave them that freedom, by increasing states share in central taxes but without strings attached. The central government accepted these recommendations (no central government has gone against the core recommendations of any finance commission). And what was the immediate reaction from a range of economic commentators? That this will only encourage fiscal imprudence by states and that social sector spending and capital expenditure will suffer.

Did this happen? At an aggregate level, no, but this does seems to have happened in the case of individual states. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, for example, see a drop in spending on health and education.

This is the picture emerging from a NITI Aayog working paper, Social Sector Expenditure of States, Pre & Post Fourteenth Finance Commission. The paper is based on a study of state budgets of 2014-15 (actuals) and revised estimates (RE) of 2015-16, which is the first full year that followed the FFC recommendations.

Central transfers to states increased 21.19 per cent in 2015-16 over 2014-15, the paper notes, and social sector expenditure by states has increased 28 per cent (from Rs 6.9 lakh crore to Rs 8.9 lakh crore). In terms of percentage to gross domestic product (GDP), social sector expenditure by states increased from 5.62 per cent to 6.58 per cent. This is true also for social sector spending as a percentage of gross state domestic product (GSDP) 5.87 per cent in 2014-15 to 6.68 per cent in 2015-16 and as a percentage of total expenditure (from 32.04 per cent to 33.78 per cent).

There are, however, state-level differences. Manipur and Tamil Nadu saw a drop in social sector expenditure as a percentage of GSDP (though of less than 1 percentage point). Eight states saw a decline in social sector expenditure as percentage of total expenditure, ranging from 0.99 percentage points in the case of West Bengal to 4.04 percentage points in Meghalaya. (Decline in spending in Andhra Pradesh was also quite high but this is because of the bifurcation of the state, as a result of which some of the spending share goes into Telanganas account, which sees a spike.)

Chhattisgarh saw the largest increase in social sector spending as percentage of GSDP (2.49 percentage points) followed by Madhya Pradesh (2.46 percentage points). In both states, social sector accounts for 10 per cent of GSDP. Both these states also have the highest share of social sector spending in total expenditure 42.71 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and 40.96 per cent in Chhattisgarh. In terms of increase in this ratio, however, Himachal Pradesh tops with 9.10 percentage points followed by Madhya Pradesh with 7.30 percentage points.

But social sector is a large category, ranging from education and health to information and publicity and secretariat. The working paper looks at spending by individual states in the two crucial areas of health and education.

West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are the only states where there was a drop in spending on both health and education. In West Bengal, expenditure on health as a percentage of GSDP fell from 0.80 per cent to 0.77 per cent between 2014-15 and 2015-16, while that on education dropped from 2.64 per cent to 2.33 per cent. The decline in the case of Tamil Nadu is more muted from 0.70 per cent of GSDP in 2014-15 to 0.62 per cent in 2015-16 in health and from 2.22 per cent to 2.05 per cent in education. No other state saw a drop in spending on health. In education, Karnataka and Kerala were the only other states to register a decline 0.10 percentage points in the former and 0.09 percentage points in the latter.

Jharkhand saw the highest increase in health expenditure as percentage of GSDP (0.55 percentage points) between 2014-15 and 2015-16, but Goa and Uttar Pradesh had the highest spending in this category 1.52 per cent of GSDP in the former and 1.33 per cent in the case of the latter.

In education, Bihar tops both in terms of increase between 2014-15 and 2015-16 (1.14 percentage points) as well as highest spending in 2015-16 (5.17 per cent of GSDP). In terms of spending, it is followed by Chhattisgarh (5.05 per cent of GSDP) and Uttar Pradesh (4.05 per cent).

The Reserve Bank of Indias annual survey of state budgets shows that capital expenditure by states has also not suffered unduly. It does note that there was fiscal slippage in 2015-16 the consolidated fiscal deficit of all states rose from 2.6 per cent of GDP in 2014-15 to 3.6 per cent in the RE of 2015-16 (much above the recommended threshold of 3 per cent). But it also underlines the fact that the quality of deficit had improved. Much of the deficit, it notes, was because of a significant increase in capital outlay and loans and advances to power projects (the second is a reference to the power ministrys Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana).

Growth in capital expenditure, the report shows, was 3.4 per cent between 2014-15 and 2015-16 against 2.4 per cent between 2013-14 and 2014-15. Growth in development spending at 12.8 per cent in 2015-16 was a significant increase against the 10.7 per cent growth in 2014-15 and was sharper than growth in non-development spending, which has hovered around the 4.5 per cent mark since 2011-12. The increase in capital outlay was not frittered away, but used for what the report calls growth-enabling infrastructure major and medium irrigation and flood control, energy as well as roads and bridges.

Will this be sustained in the future? Now, that is something to watch out for.

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Read This Before You Accuse States Of Fiscal Imprudence - Swarajya

Holding an artificial red poppy, the flower associated with fallen U.S. service members since World War I, retired Marine Col. James OKelley said Americans must remember the nations fallen troops and learn from history.

The question is whether we will learn from the lessons of the past or will we repeat the same mistakes?

At a Memorial Day ceremony hosted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2044 at the Earlysville Post Office, OKelley spoke about the history of Memorial Day, the waning number of those who observe it and the poppy, an internationally recognized symbol used to commemorate fallen military personnel.

His speech Monday also included a commentary on contemporary politics, highlighting comparisons of the United States and the Roman Empire, particularly as they relate to social welfare, popular entertainment and foreign policy in the Middle East.

The story of the Roman Empire offers us instructive lessons that hopefully we read not as a blueprint, but as a warning, he said.

Invoking 18th-century historians Alexander Tytler and Edward Gibbon, OKelley suggested the country could be on a wayward path to degeneration.

Quoting Tytler, OKelley said a democracy is always temporary in nature, and that its demise will come when the public eventually supports loose fiscal policy that will be followed by a dictatorship.

I find myself asking the question, what has all this bloodshed accomplished? he said. Does the present generation even know or care about what we have done or what has been required to get us to this point in our history?

Have we veterans, who have borne and understand the cost for freedom and liberty, failed to pass on to our generations the important lessons of history, perspective, context and consequences? Are we allowing the ideologies that many of our fellow veterans died to protect us from destroy our freedoms and liberties?

We have a moral obligation to our fallen comrades of the last 242 years to not break faith with their great and ultimate sacrifices.

Following the ceremony, Douglas Caton, a retired Army officer who helped organize the annual Memorial Day observance, said OKelley gave a sobering speech.

Hes dead right. Weve become very apathetic and dependent, he said.

Caton said the country should focus on becoming great again, and that there has to be a commitment from the American citizenry to do that.

I dont think we have that now. I think everybody wants more welfare, more retirement, more health care and more everything ... we have to change that attitude. We have to be more selfless and committed to each other, Caton said.

OKelley also spoke about the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial in Charlottesville, noting the 28 names of fallen service members who are memorialized there. In recent years, OKelley and other veterans have been involved in an effort to learn more about troops from the area who died during the Vietnam War.

Mondays ceremony included remarks from VFW member Michael Reichard, who spoke about the history of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The ceremony also included a wreath laying, a three-rifle volley and music by the Second-Wind Band.

Michelle Bickley, a retired Air Force officer who completed tours in Afghanistan and Iraq during her 21-year career, said she appreciated hearing about the Vietnam veterans and tidbits of American history.

Its neat for all the veterans to get together and to remember the people that have sacrificed their lives to give us the freedom and liberty that we enjoy today, she said.

More:

Local Memorial Day observance comes with strong warning - The Daily Progress

Assembly prorogued for budget session

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly was prorogued on Monday after adopting a resolution supporting the freedom struggle by the Kashmiri Muslims against the occupant Indian Army which had been committing atrocities on the unarmed Kashmiris to crush their freedom movement.

The assembly session is likely to be summoned again on June 2 later this week for presenting the provincial budget for the fiscal year 2017-18. Tabling a resolution and speaking after its adaptation, Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed demanded removal of the chairman Kashmir Committee of parliament who, he said, had badly failed in highlighting the Kashmir cause and mustering support for the innocent Kashmiris struggling against the 800,000 Indian Army officials deployed to crush their freedom movement in the valley. He said despite that a huge sum of Rs2 billion from the public exchequer had been doled out for the Kashmir Committee yet its performance had been practically naught and it was as good as non-existent.

The resolution demanded the government to make the all-out effort to represent the Kashmiri people on the world fora and take the case to the UNO and OIC and other platforms to stop the Indian atrocities on the innocent Kashmiri women and youths.

Earlier, replying to queries, Punjab Agriculture Minister Naeem Bhabha told the House that the government had stopped giving subsidy to the growers on the Green Tractor Scheme and the subsidy was only being given on agricultural equipment.

The questioner, Mian Tariq, asked if the tractor was not included in agricultural equipment or if the government was oblivious to the situation of growers running from pillar to post to obtain tractors with money in their hands.

The minister replied that since the government had stopped subsidy on tractors; therefore, no facilitation could be provided to such growers. The questioner asked if it was the service to the agriculture sector the government had been claiming for the last four years. But the minister remained clueless about reply on that question.

The provincial minister Khalil Tahir Sindhu drew the Houses attention towards a social media message sent anonymously to him accusing him of trying to sell church properties with the help of the government. He denied such an impression and said the message was aimed at creating a wedge between the government and the church custodians. He said the government had already banned the sale of church properties.

Read more from the original source:

Punjab PA backs Kashmir freedom struggle - The News International

The Trump administration got caught attempting to commit fake math last week. It didnt succeed.

Heres what happened: Every year, the president is required to send Congress a budget proposal, to lay out his wish list for taxes and spending. President Trump ordered up a plan that would lower taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget within 10 years, all without cutting Social Security or Medicare.

And thats what his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, delivered. But to meet his bosss unrealistic goals, Mulvaney produced a document that didnt make much sense.

Thats not just my view; its the view of fiscal experts in both parties, including several senior Republicans in Congress who quickly declared the presidents budget dead on arrival.

To reach Trumps target, Mulvaney assumed that the economy will grow by an average of 3% a year for the next decade, a rate higher than any mainstream forecast. And he cut spending deeply on almost every non-defense function, from cancer research to Medicaid and other programs for the poor.

Even Republicans said the cuts were unrealistic.

Meals on Wheels, even for some of us who are considered to be fiscal hawks, may be a bridge too far, said Mark Meadows, chairman of the achingly conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Then it got worse. Budget experts noticed an oddity in Mulvaneys arithmetic. The proposal estimated that his 3% growth in the economy would produce more than $2 trillion in increased tax revenue, helping to balance the budget. Most of that growth, in the administrations view, would be produced by the big tax cuts its seeking.

But the budget didnt mention the revenue that would be lost by the tax cuts a number that could reach, oh, $2 trillion or so. Instead, it listed the tax cuts as revenue neutral, meaning theyd produce as much revenue as they lost thanks, of course, to 3% growth.

In short, the White House counted the same $2 trillion twice once to pay for the tax cuts and once to reduce the deficit.

That wasnt the only oddity. The budget called for abolishing the estate tax, but nevertheless counted $330 billion of revenue from estate taxes. It called for funding Trumps wall on the border with Mexico, but provided less than 10% of what the Department of Homeland Security says a wall would cost.

Of course, the Trump administration and its allies have had problems with arithmetic before.

Theyve raged against the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which last week estimated that the House Republicans healthcare bill would result in 23 million more people without health insurance and raise costs for millions more.

The [CBO] is simply incompatible with the Trump era, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote with a double meaning that was presumably unintentional. It is a left-wing, corrupt, bureaucratic defender of big government. (The current CBO director was appointed by the Republican leaders of Congress.)

Trump officials have also contested the governments estimates of unemployment except when the number goes down, in which case they claim credit for the change.

Theyve claimed that Trump was the victim of widespread vote fraud on Election Day, despite the absence of evidence, arithmetical or otherwise. Theyre even spending federal money to investigate the problem.

And the president still thinks he drew the largest crowds in history to his inauguration, even though photographs and calculations prove him wrong.

This refusal to accept that 2+ 2 = 4 isnt ordinary political spin or the quirk of a former real estate developer who once promoted a 58-story building as offering 68 floors. The Trump administrations war on math is just one front in a broader war on facts including the new practice of dismissing any negative report as fake news.

And its strategic. Its aimed at avoiding accountability.

Trumps proudest claim, now that hes president, is that hes keeping the promises he made to voters in his campaign. Only he isnt. His unrealistic budget plan wont produce a balanced budget. The health care bill he backs wont cover everyone, wont reduce their costs, and wont protect Medicaid. The tax cuts he said would benefit the middle class would flow mostly to the wealthy instead.

Whats an embattled president to do when he cant deliver? Attack the scorekeepers whether they are journalists, the CBO, or the budgeteers.

Most people, however, arent buying what Trumps selling.

Being president, as Trump has complained, is harder than being a real estate promoter. Theres far more scrutiny.

In the case of the budget flimflam, for example, Trump may have outfoxed himself. One budget expert, former Senate Democratic aide Stan Collender, says the administrations unrealistic numbers have probably killed Republicans chances for passing a tax bill this year and maybe next year too.

If hes right, thats a big problem for Trump. Those tax cuts were the core of the presidents economic program, the key to producing anything like 3% growth. No tax cuts means no Trump bump. And voters would notice.

Trump is still waging his war on facts. But the facts are pushing back.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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The Trump administration wants us to think 2 + 2 = 5 - Los Angeles Times

Air Force leaders met with media to discuss specifics of the services fiscal 2018 space investment budget at the Pentagon May 24, 2017. The request totals $7.75 billion, an approximately 20 percent increase from fiscal year 2017.

Dr. David Hardy, the acting deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space, and Maj. Gen. Roger Teague, the director of space programs for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, highlighted the importance of the fiscal 2018 space budget to the nations security and the Air Forces strategic understanding of the space environment.

According to Hardy, for decades, the U.S. has enjoyed unimpeded freedom of action in the space domain. However, the global space domain is evolving and in the not too distant future, near-peer competitors will have the ability to put U.S. space assets at risk.

As in every other domain, when an adversary understands that something provides a strategic advantage they do two thingsmirror our capabilities and work strenuously to figure out means by which they can deny us, said Hardy. You can summarize the progress we have made over the last three budget cycles by saying we really do have a much firmer understanding of all the component parts that are required to build an overall resilient enterprise.

The Air Forces fiscal 2018 space budget emphasizes investments and improvements in future technology in three major focus areas: space superiority, space support to operations and assured access to space.

Teague explained the focus areas emphasize developing the resilient capabilities the Air Force needs to negate adversary actions and ensure America maintains the critical space capabilities required for national security.

Space is increasingly congested and contested, he said. With this evolving and changing environment, its increasingly critical we must ensure that our capabilities, our future capabilities, outpace the advances in space threats.

To gain and maintain space superiority, the Air Force plans to increase investments in advanced space situational awareness, counterspace and command and control. In addition, the service is committed to the continuation of investments in the Space Fence.

All of these capabilities are going to continue to enhance our ability to understand our operational environment, Teague said. We need to be able to command and control our space forces and capabilities to preserve freedom of operations as well as freedom of maneuver.

The Air Forces space support to operations is integral to combat, mobility and nuclear forces. The budget reflects this role with support to programs including the Space-Based Infrared System, Space Modernization Initiative, Tech Maturation and Cyber Security, space-based environmental monitoring and modernization of protected satellite communications.

To ensure the Air Forces ability to continue to own the high ground, the space budget provides funding for infrastructure, studies and analysis for the three evolved expendable launch vehicle launch services, which are competitive launch opportunities. The Air Force has a total of six launches planned for fiscal 2018.

Teague said the Air Force will continue to evolve the space enterprise to be more flexible, survivable and resilient to ensure the capability to provide space superiority across the spectrum of conflict for tomorrows highly contested environment.

We must, as the (chief of staff of the Air Force) has emphasized several times, normalize space as a war fighting domain and focus our efforts to outpace and defeat advanced, demonstrated and evolving threats, said Teague. (The) increases in investment will continue to be necessary to maintain our space superiority and our capabilities in FY 18 and in the future.

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AF rolls out fiscal 2018 space budget - Aerotech News - Aerotech News (blog)

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Posted: May 24, 2017 12:01 AM

Intolerance, at times exploding into violence, is spreading throughout our society. And it's coming from the political left.

It's happening on college campuses. Most recently, students walked out on Vice President Mike Pence's commencement address at Notre Dame University.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was interrupted by boos and jeers at her commencement address at historically black Bethune-Cookman University.

Conservative scholar Charles Murray was met with violent protests and physically assaulted at Middlebury College. Another conservative scholar, Heather MacDonald, was violently shut down in a presentation she was giving at Claremont McKenna College. These are just a couple examples.

Now it's spreading off college campuses with reports of violence and threats toward Republican members of congress, and their families, as they hold town halls in their districts.

A column in The Hill newspaper bears the headline, "Republicans fearing for their safety as anger, threats mount."

What is happening?

A recent commentary in Forbes Magazine from a London School of Business professor calls this "The Post-Truth World."

He describes a prevailing feeling of helplessness as individuals inhabit a world in which knowledge is, in general, exploding but each individual knows, relatively, less and less. And he points to a world in which business and politics are becoming increasingly interdependent.

New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt attributes what's happening to a culture in which young people are not forced to deal with opposing viewpoints. This, says Haidt, is amplified by social media, which serves to reinforce existing biases.

But all this doesn't explain why the intolerance and violence is coming mainly from the political left.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center sheds light on this. Sixty-six percent of Republicans compared to 29 percent of Democrats say that a person is rich "because they worked harder than most people" rather than because of having personal advantages in life. This 37 percent difference in attitudes of Republicans and Democrats about why some people are rich is 12 points larger today than where it stood just three years ago in 2014.

Seventy-one percent of Democrats compared to 32 percent of Republicans say someone is poor because of "circumstances beyond a person's control," rather than because of "lack of effort." This 37 percent difference between Republicans and Democrats in attitudes regarding why someone is poor is 19 points larger than where it stood three years ago in 2014.

The nation is becoming increasingly polarized on the very fundamental question regarding the extent to which individuals have control over their own life.

Across the nation's whole population, 53 percent feel poverty is the result of circumstances beyond an individual's control compared to 34 percent who see poverty as the result of lack of effort.

What is the meaning of freedom in a country where more than half its citizens feel fate rather than choice governs their life?

Not surprisingly, for the first time in 8 years, according to Pew, more Americans (48 percent) say they want bigger government than say they want smaller government (45 percent).

Conservatives are exposed to the same cultural and technological forces as liberals. But it's not what comes from outside that determines human behavior. It's what comes from inside -- the individual's attitudes and approach to life.

Liberal mentality, increasingly dominated by moral relativism, produces a culture of victimhood. The victim sees life exclusively in political terms, seeing political power and government as the means to a better life, rather than freedom and personal responsibility.

With Republicans now in power, trying to restore economic vitality and fiscal balance by limiting government and expanding personal freedom, the left sees this as a threat, not an opportunity.

We all should be deeply troubled that, in the "land of the free and home of the brave," some are turning to violence to battle the prospect of becoming freer.

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Liberal Fight Against Freedom Turns Violent - Star Parker - Townhall - Townhall