I came across an article today on CNN about how many women are in the workforce today: http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/13/news/economy/women-work-force/index.html?iid=Lead The main point of the article was that the percent of working women has been flat since 1990 and that this is cause for concern. The solution, they believe, is more government laws that make it easier for women to make jobs more "family friendly".
This is yet another example of the big government idiocy that is prevalent in our media. Whenever there is a problem they always think more government is the solution. And even when there is not a problem, they conjure one up as an excuse for more government (see Global Warming). This article is a perfect example of the latter. Just because the number of working women grew dramatically from 1950 to 1990 and has stayed the same since doesn't indicate a problem.
The article compares the US to European countries and assumes that we need similar laws (even though it never mentions the percentage of women working in those countries), but they fail to recognize the differences in our countries. For one, we have a had a much stronger economy over the last 30 years and, therefore, likely have more families that can afford for the wife to stay at home. We also have a much more conservative society compare to many of the European nations. As a conservative and religious society, we put more emphasis on the value of mothers staying at home with their children over a full time career. (Sorry to all the liberals who just fell out their chairs over that notion.) Yes, women do choose to stay at home. They are not forced to by an inhumane government or non-family friendly employers. Some just do not subscribe to the liberal ideology of the women's lib movement that believes all women should be working and if they are not there is something wrong.
Ironically, this article does point out one concern that is worth noting: the declining birth rate. The irony is that more government and pushing women into the workforce would have the exact opposite effect. Big government policies has led to the breakdown of the family over the last 50 years and women going to work has caused them to delay having children and resulted in smaller families. If you really want to address the problem of a declining birth rate, you need to shrink government and re-emphasize the importance of strong families in our society.
Instead of wringing their hands over the 26% of women who choose not to work, this article should have celebrated the women who are still willing and able to put their families first. (I don't mean to attack those who have to or choose to work.) Since they didn't, I will. I am so grateful that my wife was willing to take time out of her career to focus on raising our children the best way we know how. She sacrifices every day by putting up with poopy diapers and a whiny toddler, when she could be working her way up the ladder with her MBA. She is cultivating the next generation and should be viewed by our society as a queen and not a problem that needs to be solved.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Media Deception
I had a conversation this weekend with my dad that disappointed me. I wasn't so much disappointed in my dad as the extent to which the liberal media has been able to deceive people. My dad is fairly conservative politically and has almost always voted Republican. However, even he has fallen prey to the left's propaganda through the so-called "mainstream media".
My parents came to visit our family for the weekend and while the kids were sleeping my dad and I were discussing life. The conversation turned to history and politics and I mentioned that I thought history was such an important part of politics because so few people understand the lessons of history and we are constantly repeating our past mistakes. That prompted my dad to make a point that he had heard recently from a radio host (I don't know who). He said that we have learned from history that "tax cuts for the rich" don't work and neither does massive government spending, so we have to find something else to help the economy. I found that to be an interesting and disturbing comment and decided to dig a little deeper. I asked him where in history we have seen that tax cuts don't work and he said "the Bush tax cuts". I wanted to give him a history lesson and an economic lesson right there, but I remembered this was just a casual conversation so I just gave him a brief rebuttal. However, I decided that I would use this platform to give a little deeper explanation of what was wrong with this comment.
This is an example of a two related lies that have been repeated over and over by the left to the point that most (or at least way too many) people think it is true. It is also a case where Republicans have done a pathetic job of challenging and refuting this lie. The first lie is that the Bush tax cuts were for the rich. The rich did get a tax cut, but so did every other tax paying American. This point was greatly illustrated by the recent "fiscal cliff" debate where the Bush tax cuts were set to expire. Even though they have been heralded as just for the rich, somehow it was everyone's taxes who were set to go up with the expiration. It just happened that since the tax cut was a rate cut, the rich who pay more also got a bigger cut when the same percentage was applied to the amount they pay. If you apply this same logic, then the rich are hurt more by tax increases, but the left still insists they aren't paying their "fair share". As usual, the arguments of the left have no logical basis.
The second lie that has been driven home over and over by President Obama through his Saul Alinksy like tactics, is that the tax cuts caused the 2008 recession. Remember that I said that the arguments of the left rarely are based on logic. In this case, we refer to this as a logical fallacy, which is the assumption that because one event proceeds another that the first caused the second. In other words, because the Bush tax cut proceeded the recession it caused the recession. In an economic vacuum this might make sense. However, we have to put this into the whole context of history. First of all, we have seen the effects of previous tax cuts by both Kennedy and Reagan that dramatically improved the economy. Second, the Bush tax cuts has actually been extremely beneficial to the economy until late 2007.
Many people forget that Bush actually inherited a recession from Clinton. The internet bubble that drove the great expansion in the late nineties burst in 2000 and led to a small recession that carried over into the Bush administration. Instead of spending his entire term blaming his predecessor, Bush passed a tax cut to turn the economy around. On top of that, the September 11 terrorist attacks provided another big blow to the economy. However, the tax cuts were so effective that, by the end of Bush's first term, we were experiencing near historic low unemployment rates. So did these same tax cuts somehow cause the recession? NO! Just as a bubble caused the 2001 recession, another more devastating bubble caused the 2008 recession. This was the housing bubble that had been growing for more than 25 years and accelerated by different law changes around the turn of the century (largely under Clinton). Even though the tax cuts proceeded the recession there was very little relationship between the two.
I wanted to talk about this, because I am so sick of hearing these lies. However, I think this also greatly illustrates how ineffective the Republican party has been at refuting these lies even among their base. Republicans need to be just as persistent in attacking these lies as the Democrats and their media are in spreading them. If Romney had learned this lesson, he likely would be President today.
My parents came to visit our family for the weekend and while the kids were sleeping my dad and I were discussing life. The conversation turned to history and politics and I mentioned that I thought history was such an important part of politics because so few people understand the lessons of history and we are constantly repeating our past mistakes. That prompted my dad to make a point that he had heard recently from a radio host (I don't know who). He said that we have learned from history that "tax cuts for the rich" don't work and neither does massive government spending, so we have to find something else to help the economy. I found that to be an interesting and disturbing comment and decided to dig a little deeper. I asked him where in history we have seen that tax cuts don't work and he said "the Bush tax cuts". I wanted to give him a history lesson and an economic lesson right there, but I remembered this was just a casual conversation so I just gave him a brief rebuttal. However, I decided that I would use this platform to give a little deeper explanation of what was wrong with this comment.
This is an example of a two related lies that have been repeated over and over by the left to the point that most (or at least way too many) people think it is true. It is also a case where Republicans have done a pathetic job of challenging and refuting this lie. The first lie is that the Bush tax cuts were for the rich. The rich did get a tax cut, but so did every other tax paying American. This point was greatly illustrated by the recent "fiscal cliff" debate where the Bush tax cuts were set to expire. Even though they have been heralded as just for the rich, somehow it was everyone's taxes who were set to go up with the expiration. It just happened that since the tax cut was a rate cut, the rich who pay more also got a bigger cut when the same percentage was applied to the amount they pay. If you apply this same logic, then the rich are hurt more by tax increases, but the left still insists they aren't paying their "fair share". As usual, the arguments of the left have no logical basis.
The second lie that has been driven home over and over by President Obama through his Saul Alinksy like tactics, is that the tax cuts caused the 2008 recession. Remember that I said that the arguments of the left rarely are based on logic. In this case, we refer to this as a logical fallacy, which is the assumption that because one event proceeds another that the first caused the second. In other words, because the Bush tax cut proceeded the recession it caused the recession. In an economic vacuum this might make sense. However, we have to put this into the whole context of history. First of all, we have seen the effects of previous tax cuts by both Kennedy and Reagan that dramatically improved the economy. Second, the Bush tax cuts has actually been extremely beneficial to the economy until late 2007.
Many people forget that Bush actually inherited a recession from Clinton. The internet bubble that drove the great expansion in the late nineties burst in 2000 and led to a small recession that carried over into the Bush administration. Instead of spending his entire term blaming his predecessor, Bush passed a tax cut to turn the economy around. On top of that, the September 11 terrorist attacks provided another big blow to the economy. However, the tax cuts were so effective that, by the end of Bush's first term, we were experiencing near historic low unemployment rates. So did these same tax cuts somehow cause the recession? NO! Just as a bubble caused the 2001 recession, another more devastating bubble caused the 2008 recession. This was the housing bubble that had been growing for more than 25 years and accelerated by different law changes around the turn of the century (largely under Clinton). Even though the tax cuts proceeded the recession there was very little relationship between the two.
I wanted to talk about this, because I am so sick of hearing these lies. However, I think this also greatly illustrates how ineffective the Republican party has been at refuting these lies even among their base. Republicans need to be just as persistent in attacking these lies as the Democrats and their media are in spreading them. If Romney had learned this lesson, he likely would be President today.
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