The Blue Site

Jacoby on Republican Spending/ Falwell on so called "Diversity" and Religious Rights

Two articles- one in the entry, and the second under "read more."

First is Jeff Jacoby from the Boston Globe on overspending by the Bush administration (proving he's a fair commentator), and the second from Falwell on a small victory for Christians and so-called "diversity" weeks, which are nothing more than celebrations of homosexuality for the most part...

THE PARTY OF BIG SPENDERS
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe

Thursday, December 11, 2003

(on the boston globe site)

Once upon a time a Republican candidate for president named George W. Bush painted his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, as a reckless big spender whose fiscal policies would mean that "the era of big government being over is over."

Elect Gore, the Republican predicted, and before you know it the federal government would be as bloated and malodorous as a beached whale under a hot sun. "He is proposing the largest increase in federal spending . . . since the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson," Bush warned. "His promises throw the budget out of balance. He offers a big federal spending program to nearly every single voting bloc in America."

So where do things stand three years later? Federal spending is growing faster than at any time since LBJ, the budget is hundreds of billions of dollars out of balance, and the president appears to support new or expanded government programs for just about every voting bloc in America.

It all calls to mind a political joke that made the rounds in the late 1960s: They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we'd have race riots in our cities and half a million troops in Southeast Asia. Well, I voted for Goldwater -- and they turned out to be right!

But the fiscal debauchery of the Bush administration is no joke. Even before signing a huge expansion of Medicare into law this week, Bush was presiding over record-busting levels of federal spending. Brian Riedl, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, points out in a new monograph that government outlays in 2003 -- a staggering $2.15 trillion -- came to more than $20,000 per household. By that measure, government spending (in real dollars) is the highest it's been since World War II.

To be sure, some new spending was necessitated by Sept. 11. But as Riedl notes, most of the Bush budget bloat has had nothing to do with the war on terror, homeland security, or military operations. Between 2001 and 2003, the federal budget exploded by $296 billion, of which $100 billion (34 percent) was for defense and $32 billion (11 percent) was for 9/11-related costs, including compensation for victims and reconstruction in New York. The remaining $164 billion -- 55 percent -- went for programs and projects unconnected to 9/11.

To accommodate the extra costs of the war, the president and Congress could have cut back on nonsessential spending. Instead they lavish more money on both. The entire spending spree, meanwhile, is being financed with borrowed funds, which is why the Congressional Budget Office forecasts a deficit of $401 billion this year, $480 billion in 2004, and nearly $1.5 trillion over the next five years. (And that doesn't include the new Medicare drug benefit, which will add tens of billions of dollars to annual federal outlays). Sooner or later, every penny of those deficits will have to be repaid -- if not by us, then by our children.

What is even more outrageous about this Republican immoderation is how much of it is devoted to pure pork -- local projects that have no national significance or constitutional justification. As recently as five years ago, there were fewer than 2,000 pork projects, or "earmarks," in the federal budget. In 2003, there were more than 9,300, and the number will be even higher in 2004. The pork-packed omnibus appropriations bill now making its way through Congress, for example, contains hundreds of earmarks, including:

* $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia;

* $1.8 million for the Women's World Cup tournament;

* $325,000 for the construction of a swimming pool in Salinas, Calif.;

* $220,000 for the New Mexico Retail Association in Albuquerque;

* $270,000 for "sustainable olive production";

* $400,000 for the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Ky.;

* $2 million for the First Tee golf program in St. Augustine, Fla.;

* $315,000 for Formosan Subterranean Termite research;

* $270,000 for potato storage in Madison, Wisc.

Long, long ago, in what now seems like a galaxy far, far away, Republicans opposed this kind of fiscal gluttony. The GOP was the party of budgetary sobriety -- the party that believed in local responsibility for local budgets and that didn't raid the federal treasury to buy off special interests. Back then, Republicans criticized Democratic profligacy. Now they seek to outdo it.

When Bill Clinton was president, Republicans in Congress fought hard to cut spending and balance the federal budget, with the result that government outlays during Clinton's first three years rose only 3.5 percent. But once there was a Republican in the White House, the GOP's fiscal discipline evaporated. Spending during Bush's first three years has skyrocketed nearly 16 percent, a record of fiscal irresponsibility we haven't seen since the Johnson administration.

Now, what he did say was going to happen if we elected Al Gore?

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)
-- ## --

Falwell Confidential

Date: December 11, 2003
From: Jerry Falwell

FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS PUBLIC SCHOOLS CANNOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST CHRISTIAN VIEW
ON HOMOSEXUALITY

Last week, a federal judge issued an important ruling that bears
significance for public school families that take seriously historic
Judeo-Christian values.

Detroit Federal Judge Gerald Rosen's ruling upheld the right of a Christian
student to express her religious beliefs that countered the one-sided
information campaign at her high school's "Diversity Week."

As we've seen many times, "diversity" is a misleading terms that typically
means that those holding Judeo-Christian values are eliminated from
so-called public dialogue.

In this case, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomas More Law Center, a national
public interest law firm, filed suit on behalf of student Betsy Hansen whose
sincerely-held religious views were disallowed at the "Diversity Week"
program at Pioneer High School two years ago.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Law Center, praised the
ruling, saying, "Judge Rosen displayed judicial courage by refusing to bend
to the winds of political correctness, and he decided the case according to
the well established law. This is a tremendous victory for the First
Amendment rights of Christian students and a tremendous defeat for those who
consider public schools as their private platform to advance the homosexual
agenda."

Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney handling this case, added, "This is a
victory for Christian students who desire to speak the truth about
homosexuality in their public schools. And it is a warning to public school
officials across this country: stop silencing the Christian view of
homosexuality and stop using the public schools as a forum to promote the
homosexual agenda."

The problem is that many public schools have become a haven of weighted
information programs that are designed to advance homosexuality as a viable
lifestyle. Those promoting these programs don't want even a hint of
opposition. As a result, those students who are raised in families that
uphold biblical values are subjected to teachings that radically differ from
what they learn at home.

In essence, family values are completely disregarded in order to promote the
homosexual agenda. Christian students are deceitfully instructed that those
who oppose homosexuality are purveyors of hate. If you disagree with us,
Christian students are told, then you hate us.

At Pioneer High School, education officials prohibited Betsy Hansen from
expressing her biblically-based beliefs at what was called a "Homosexuality
and Religion" panel. Apparently the Bible is objectionable material when
discussing religion these days.

In addition, Miss Hansen had planned to give a speech on the topic, "What
Diversity Means to Me." But hip school officials balked at the speech,
saying that Betsy's religious view toward homosexuality was a "negative"
message and would "water-down" the "positive" religious message being
conveyed.

That message - that homosexual behavior is not sinful even though the most
significant religious book in history takes a different view - has become a
source of indoctrination in these schools and any view that opposes it
simply will not be allowed.

It's called diversity.

Attorneys at the Thomas More Law Center (http://www.thomasmore.org) said
that school officials at this event handpicked religious leaders who
endorsed the school's pro-homosexual "religious" belief to sit on the panel,
and they denied the young student's request to have a panel member who would
express her own belief on homosexuality.

Thankfully, Judge Rosen saw through this "education" charade and issued a
70-page opinion that harshly criticized the school for outlawing a student's
legitimate religious views.

"This case presents the ironic, and unfortunate, paradox of a public high
school celebrating 'diversity' by refusing to permit the presentation to
students of an 'unwelcomed' viewpoint on the topic of homosexuality and
religion, while actively promoting the competing view," Judge Rosen wrote.
"This practice of 'one-way diversity,' unsettling in itself, was rendered
still more troubling - both constitutionally and ethically - by the fact
that the approved viewpoint was, in one manifestation, presented to students
as religious doctrine by six clerics (some in full garb) quoting from
religious scripture. In its other manifestation, it resulted in the
censorship by school administrators of a student's speech about 'what
diversity means to me,' removing that portion of the speech in which the
student described the unapproved viewpoint."

Judge Rosen ruled that the Ann Arbor Public Schools and several of its
employees violated the student's constitutional rights to freedom of speech
and the equal protection of the law. He also found that school officials
violated the Establishment Clause by inviting the pro-homosexual clergy
member to hold a panel on "Homosexuality and Religion."

This decision is great news for students who are confident enough to
challenge school officials who attempt to impose a narrow and misleading
campaign promoting homosexuality in the classroom. The ruling should
empower these students to boldly stand on the truth of the Bible when
confronting social issues at school. I pray that there are thousands of
Betsy Hansens across this nation who will not stand idly by while their
religious views are trampled on by politically-correct school officials.

Posted by Josh at December 12, 2003 12:16 AM | TrackBack