OPINION: Is It Good To Be Rich?

When a poor guy robs a rich guy, he goes to prison. But when the mostly-white rich guys screw over poor minorities – no one goes to jail. 

Bailed out Bank of America will pay a $335 million “settlement” to the federal government – after it was found that a subsidiary of the bank – Countrywide Financial, “systemically discriminated against minority home-buyers at the peak of the U.S. Housing bubble.” The banksters charged Blacks and Latinos much higher interest rates on homes than they did to whites of similar financial backgrounds. 

The investigation found that minorities were far more often conned into subprime exploding home mortgages – the stuff responsible for the Housing bubble and crash, and the foreclosure crisis. So now Bank of America will dish out a couple hundred million dollars to make the crime go away – and not one executive will go to jail for robbing poor people. 

It’s good to be rich in America.

OPINION: The Biggest Lie

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

We’ve all heard some really infamous lies. Such as, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”

Now the fact-checking group Politifact has picked what they dubbed the biggest lie of 2011:

It’s the claim by Democrats that Republicans had voted to abolish Medicare. Democrats even ran TV ads showing Grandma being pushed over a cliff in a wheelchair.

Politifact says it’s the whopper of the year. The plan was not to change Medicare for anyone 55 and over. But for everyone younger, at retirement they would instead receive an insurance premium subsidy, which they could use to buy their own choice of health care.

That concept still has merit and recently got some bipartisan support.

There’s a simple lesson here: Don’t believe all the political accusations that you hear. But you probably already knew that.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook. (0:56) 

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OPINION: Boehner And The Tea Party As The Grinch

Congress is now taking their payroll tax cut fight to the media. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner and his Tea Party zombies played the Grinch yesterday – refusing to even hold a vote on the Senate’s payroll tax cut extension bill – meaning in just 10 days – taxes will go up on 160 million Americans. 

You can call it the Tea Party Tax Increase. 

House Republicans left town last night to head home for the holidays – leaving behind a few members to stick around in DC to put pressure on the Senate to come back in session. House Democrats plan to stay in town, too – to put pressure on House Republicans to pass the Senate’s bipartisan compromise bill on the payroll tax cut. 

So now it comes down to who’ll blink first. As House Republicans make it virtually impossible to pass a tax cut for working Americans – it’s glaringly obvious why Congress has it’s lowest approval rating ever of just 11%.

OPINION: Role Reversals

Some in Washington are switching sides.

President Obama and his fellow Democrats had insisted that a reduction in payroll taxes be extended for a full year for 160-million American wage-earners.

But the Democrat-led Senate agreed only to a two-month extension of the tax cut, then left town for the holidays. President Obama changed his tune and now insists the Republican-led House should agree with the two-month tax cut, and talk about the rest next year.

Instead, the House insists on a full year tax cut just like Obama first requested. But Senators are gone from Washington and Leader Harry Reid refuses to call them back.

Why the role reversal? Maybe because the Republicans are linking the tax cut to a reduction in the federal workforce and a freeze on pay for bureaucrats? And the Democrats don’t even want to talk about that.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

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OPINION: Hefty Problem

America is the land of the free and the home of the overweight—and that’s a problem.

Some governments play nanny and try to tell us what we can and cannot eat. Even worse is Japan, which punishes people if their waistlines are too big.

But there’s one response that seems justified. The Coast Guard sets weight limits for commercial boats, like ferries, and calculates the maximum number of passengers permitted. Since 1960, they’ve used 160 pounds as the weight of an average person. But now they’ve raised it to 185 pounds. So vessels are being told to carry fewer passengers. That might mean fares would go up, but at least it’s a safety rule that makes sense.

Maybe next, unless we all lose weight, we could get the airlines to make those middle seats a little bit bigger.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

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