Scott R. Sullivan

April 20th, 2007 by Scott

I’ve said it before and this time, I don’t have to say it again. The Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat) said it for me. Yesterday, that head Democrat, Harry Reid said the “war is lost.”

It makes me sad and disappointed to think that the Senate Majority Leader would say the war is lost during a time of war, while our troops are fighting for his freedom to say something so demoralizing.

The Democrats never wanted to go into Iraq. They feel that if we just cut and run, if we just hide in our country, no one will hurt us and those pesky terrorists will go away.

Sorry, but they attacked us before we went into Iraq on September 11. In fact, they attacked us almost a decade earlier on the first WTC bombing. The attacked us before, they will try again.

What the Democrats still do not understand is that these terrorists want to destroy us becuase of what we believe. They despise our way of life and they hate everything for which we stand.

As long as we are on the offensive, we are breaking their network. We are slowly eroding their ability to be effective. It will be a long fight, yes. But a needed fight.

Meanwhile, the Democrats want to cut and run. They want to hand over the battle to the terrorists. If we cut and run today, the Democrats have no idea what type of propaganda that would give the enemy. It would embolden them and we would see more attacks closer to home.

Remember the last elections? Kerry had to be “against” the war and the current strategy. He couldn’t give a single thing he would do to fix what he said was broken. All he said we have to fight “smarter.” The entire election was “against” President Bush. They had nothing to offer of their own.

Of course, he then got caught saying that if you don’t study, you end up stuck in Iraq.

They don’t have respect for our brave military.

They don’t have anything to stand “for.” They can only oppose and be “against” something.

Doesn’t sound like a very happy way of life.

April 12th, 2007 by Scott

Just a quick update to my last article on ‘global warming.’

I thought these news stories were a bit interesting:

Record Snow in Chicago:
Falling fluff causes havoc, sets record — and more is on the way.
April snow’s the worst. Forget what the weather forecasters said — you didn’t really expect this: a record 2.9 inches of snow, topping the mark of 2.3 inches for April 11 set in 1957.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times: April 12, 2007

Bismarck sees record snowfall
A slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped a record amount of snow on Bismarck and even more on Mandan on Tuesday. Bismarck’s total for the month of April is 10.2 inches, Peterson said. This is 8 inches more than the average 2.2 inches the city receives.
Source: Bismarck Tribune: April 12, 2007

Record Snowfall in Milwaukee:
Milwaukee also broke a snowfall record for the date with 7 inches; the previous record of 3.2 inches was recorded in 1997. The town of Taylor, in west-central Wisconsin, had 9.5 inches. North Dakota and South Dakota got about 7 inches of snow. Some areas of northern Illinois reported up to six inches.
Source: AP - April 12, 2007

Those on the left seem to be frozen in the tracks (pun very intended). The cements my belief that the earth’s atmosphere is a very complex animal.

We can barely predict the weather a few days in advance, we all know. We can barely predict the weather a season in advance (as my last Hurricane article proved). In the 1970’s, scientists thought we were entering a global COOLING period with another ice age!

Let’s cool off on this ‘global warming’ is going to kill us all ‘the day after tomorrow.’ Let’s stop trying to make people feel guilty for driving an SUV. Let’s do something more productive.

April 10th, 2007 by Scott

The latest antics have just cemented the fact that there are those in Washington that have no sense of reality. They have opted to pull military and intelligence resources from the War on Terror to give the President the weather report.

According to The Boston Globe (April 9, 2007):
The CIA and Pentagon would for the first time be required to assess the national security implications of climate change under proposed legislation intended to elevate global warming to a national defense issue. The measure also would order the Pentagon to undertake a series of war games to determine how global climate change could affect US security, including “direct physical threats to the United States posed by extreme weather events such as hurricanes.”

First, notice that the left is too afraid to say ‘global warming’ and must now use the phrase “climate change.” You see, with the left, it is about semantics and word games. They can’t say they are liberals; they are progressives. But I digress.

Senator Dick Durbin (D) and Senator Chuck Hagel (R) are sponsoring this bill. Representative Ed Markey (D) is the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Dependence and Global Warming (a new bureaucratic committee formed by the Democrats in March, 2007, and a whole other topic, in my opinion), is going to introduce a companion bill in the House.

The key point in the Globe article comes to light on the second to last paragraph on the second page:
John J. Hamre , who served as deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, said global warming couched in security terms would make if far more difficult for politicians to ignore.

The Democrats know they are losing their fight to make ‘global warming’ an issue. People realize this is an issue that is over-hyped by the left. More and more scientists are speaking out, saying it’s not the dire emergency Al Gore and the far left are making it appear. They’ve even pointed out that there is global warming on Mars. And don’t forget that yesterday, the United States saw the coldest day in April in history in many places, like Charlotte.

As is standard with the far left, they cannot win on the issues, they must find other, covert ways, to get their beliefs passed. For example, the Democrats say they are against the war. They make public statements demanding we bring our troops home so we don’t “waste” any more American lives. Instead of refusing to pass a budget, forcing the troops home within months, they are using September of 2008 as the cut and run date (so they could have an issue in the 2008 election year) and filled the military spending bill with pork.

Now, they have made it clear that they’d rather have our military play war games against a possible heat wave instead of hunting bin Laden and the real danger of a possible nuclear bomb going off within the United States. Shows just how much they like the military. First Clinton’s military cuts, now they want the military to be weathermen.

What should be the focus of our military? Irritating heat waves or deadly chemical or nuclear bombs?

Let our military fight the real threats.

April 9th, 2007 by Scott

From the AP regarding baseball game cancellations:
For the fourth straight day, games were wiped out by snow at Jacobs Field, sending the Seattle Mariners packing without playing an inning that counted.

From Charlotte Today - April 8, 2007
The polar air outbreak that began Thursday reached the bottom this morning, when temperatures dropped to 21 degrees at 7 a.m. at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. That not only broke the low-temperature record for the date, but it was the coldest for any April day in Charlotte history.

Anchorage Daily News - April 8, 2007
An extra-cold winter on the Alaska Peninsula has frozen sea otters out of the bay and pushed them onto the tundra near Port Heiden where they’re easy prey for wolves, humans and hunger.

So is ‘global warming’ taking a vacation? Let’s not forget some of the hurricane “predictions” from last spring:

May 22, 2006 - CBS: A hectic, above-normal tropical storm season could produce between four and six major hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico this year.

May 22, 2006: NOAA: For the 2006 north Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become ‘major’ hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher,” added retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator..

August 3, 2006: Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project: We estimate that 2006 will have about 7 hurricanes (the average is 5.9), 15 named storms (average is 9.6), 75 named storm days (average is 49.1), 35 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 3 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 8 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0),” said meteorologists Phil Klotzbach and William Gray. They estimated the probability of a major hurricane making a U.S. landfall to be about 40 percent above the long-period average.

So what were the total numbers in the end?

Total Hurricanes to make U.S. Landfall: 0
Total Major Hurricanes: 2 (NOAA Prediction: 6)
Total Named Hurricanes: 5 (NOAA Prediction: 15, revised to 10)
Total Named Storms: 10 (NOAA Prediction: 28, revised to 16)

Meteorology is a tough gig, I’ll admit. I had to take several classes while attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. And that’s my point. It’s tough. You can’t get it right all the time. Heck, you’re lucky to bat .400 in this game.

Which is why I wonder why the religious attitude of ‘global warming’ is reaching such a fever (no pun intended). Just look at those headlines I mentioned above. RECORD COLD.

Yet those on the far left will shout as loudly as they can when there’s one single day that’s a bit warmer than the rest. Warmest January on record?

Big deal? Where are they to shout “Coldest April on Record”?

Just remember the frozen ocean and sea otters the next time someone shouts “Global Warming.”

April 7th, 2007 by Scott

It’s official. The economy is still growing. Probably why the left has dropped the economy as their slogan and switched to ‘global warming’ instead.

For those who may not know, yesterday’s Washington Times (here, reported that the unemployment rate hit a five-year low of 4.4% as 180,000 new jobs were created last month.

The left has made several false claims about why we should get rid fo the tax cuts:

1) It will destroy the economy
2) It balloons the deficit
3) It benefits only the rich

Let’s take them on one at a time.

Myth 1: Tax Cuts Hurt the Economy

First, let’s Just take a look at this nifty little chart I made:

As you can see, during the last recession (the economy began to slow during the fall election in 2000 and became an official recession in March of 2001 and then was devastated even more by the 9/11 terrorist attacts), the GDP was slowed and unemployment rose at a very sharp rate.

However, about the same time, President Bush and the Republican congress passed the tax cuts. As you can see, unemployment began to level off, the economy began to improve and ever since, the economy has seen fantastic growth.

Was this economic growth spurred by the tax cuts or just a coincidence? Allow me to cite an article published by the CATO Institute about state economies:

California: No state has turned around its fortunes as dramatically as California in recent years. In 1990 the legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson enacted a $7 billion tax increase, the largest in the history of the 50 states. The income tax hikes were noteworthy in that they failed to raise any new revenue while sinking the state deeper into recession as upper income families and entrepreneurs moved out. The already ailing economy continued to decline. From 1990 to 1993 the state lost 350,000 jobs. In 1995 the tax hikes were repealed. Since then California has gained 150,000 jobs and the unemployment rate has fallen sharply.

Pennsylvania: Gov. Robert Casey enacted a $2 billion major income tax increase–raising the rate from 2.1 to 2.8 percent–during the 1990-91 recession. From 1990 to 1995 there was virtually no net job creation in Pennsylvania. In his first year in office, 1995, Gov. Tom Ridge pushed through a $200 million business income tax cut and a workmen’s compensation reform measure that is expected to reduce premiums by as much as 10 percent. In 1996 he endorsed a reduction in the franchise tax and a $1,000 tax credit for new hires. He has also been tight-fisted on spending. His 1996 budget allowed spending to grow by just 0.6 percent. In 1997, for the first time in a quarter century, the general fund budget spends less than the year before. That combination of tax cuts and budget restraints has helped lead to a net gain of 100,000 jobs so far in 1996.
Source: CATO Institute

Ok, so now that we can say without a doubt that the tax cuts allowed the creation of jobs and increased economic growth, let’s tackle the next strawman: the deficit.

Myth 2: Tax Cuts Increase The Deficit

We know this to actually be not only false, but the opposite of what actually transpires. Cutting taxes will actually increase revenue for the government.

Ah, but I can hear you now. “Scott, how can cutting taxes RAISE revenue?”

First, if businesses (from large corporations to small businesses) pay less in taxes, they can invest that money in other areas of their business. For example, they can hire new employees or they could give current employees a larger raise.

Now if a business hires, that individual now has a job and now pays taxes. If a business gives a raise, that individual could move up into the next tax bracket and pay a larger percentage of taxes.

More jobs equals more taxes. This, in turn, will pay off the deficit, not increase it.

Here’s a quote from an article in USA Today from 2006:

Ever since the Senate approved the last major tax relief bill, in 2003, revenues have increased every year. In 2004, they went up 5.5%. Last year, they rose 14.5%, the largest increase in nearly 25 years. …
Republicans’ decision to reduce taxes on capital gains and dividends provides a good case study in effective tax policy. When we enacted these measures in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that revenues would decline by $27 billion over the next two years. Instead, it turned out that the tax cut stimulated investment and increased revenues by $26 billion — a $53 billion difference.
Source: USA Today, Feb 20, 2006

With this information, it can easily be seen why the left is no longer complaining and bickering from about how President Bush’s tax cuts and War on Terror was creating a huge deficit. They knew tax cuts increase revenue and would pay off the deficit much earlier than anyone had thought.

One more reason the left has abandoned the economy in favor of ‘global warming.’

Myth 3: The Tax Cuts Only Favor the Rich

I’m far from rich. I don’t own five vacation houses. I don’t own a private jet. I do, however, own and run two small businesses. Those tax cuts helped me.

Small business owners were able to invest in their company instead of giving that money to the governement.

Just like owning a house and building up equity in that house is better than renting and thowing away that money, owning a business lets you invest in something that is yours.

Many of my clients work at other companies. When their company recieved tax cuts, it allowed them to spend more on advertising and marketing. They spent more on video productions, which is what my one company happens to do.

Finis

In the end, we can clearly see that tax cuts help not just the rich, but everyone. They drive the economy and they help this country run. The Bush Tax Cuts must be made permanant, something the Democrat congress has vowed to fight.