Why would people want to choose slavery to freedom? by: Laura Mirabal

Why would people want to choose slavery to freedom?  When people choose to live from the tit of government by accepting and demanding entitlements, they are choosing slavery to freedom. 

Why would a teenage girl choose pregnancy to abstinence or to use birth control?  If she decides to give birth to that baby, she can surely be guaranteed to be enslaved to a life of demands from that child that she should not have to deal with at such a tender age.  Her teenage years should be years of freedom to enjoy her youth without a care or worry other than when and where is the next party or what movie friends want to see that weekend.  Because this teenager, if she chooses to have the child, has no work skills, no education, and a phantom baby daddy, she will be saddled with a mouth to feed which she cannot.  So what is she to do? - Apply for government entitlements – here begins the enslavement of this young life. 

Unless this misguided child has a strong support group in her family, she is doomed to remain a slave of the state, and there is a good chance that her child will repeat her mother’s story when he/she reaches that age.  We see some families where this cycle of dependence on government entitlements cannot be broken.  So I ask myself, why would people want to choose slavery to freedom?

Is defrauding the government to get lifetime disability entitlement benefits so enticing that people will give up their freedom for it?  Apparently yes, it is.  I know 4 people personally, 2 women and 2 men who have done just this.  The 2 women proved that they suffer from bad nerves and, therefore, cannot be useful to society, and the 2 men proved that they have bad back problems so they cannot work – all 4 are receiving disability benefits for life.  We The People of the United States are funding the disability benefits for these 4 people and who knows if it is millions more just like them.

And these entitlements don’t stop here – we also have the entitlements to Cubans who are fortunate to reach our country.  I am Cuban and I have no qualms about receiving these exiles into my homeland, but these people should not be guaranteed and automatic receive monthly stipends, Medicaid, free education and food stamps from the government by virtue of their political status.  Many of these exiles were invited by their family members, who live here, especially in the case of parents, and then these parents stay here and immediately their families take them to the Social Security Administration to apply for food stamps and Medicaid.  Then they also place their parents on a waiting list for Plan 8 government housing subsidies.  The families of these exiles had to fill out a financial affidavit that they would be able to support their family members so that they would not become a ward of the state, but we know how quickly they take advantage of the entitlement programs.

A public worker pension paid by the private citizens of this country is another entitlement that needs to be stopped too.  Here is another example of slavery.  Why should private citizens be required to pay the pensions of public employees?  How can Wisconsin or Florida public employees demand that private citizens be responsible for their retirement benefits?  These retirement benefits are for public employees not for private citizens.  Paying these pensions is not an essential cost which should enslave us.  Each public employee, I included, should pay a percentage of our wages towards our own pensions – I do not find this to be an outrageous request of these governors.  It is audacious that union leaders are rabblerousing their union members to demonize these governors for doing their jobs in trying to balance an unsustainable state budget.

I am a proponent for teaching people to fish, rather than just giving them the fish.  If they only know that a fish will be supplied by the fisherman, and they never learn the skill of catching the fish, then they are slaves to the fisherman.  By relying solely on the fisherman for their survival, if the fisherman gets sick or dies and the fish cannot be supplied to them, they might die or suffer tremendous hardship because they have come to expect it.

We can learn much from the animal kingdom.  Momma and papa teach their offspring to hunt, fish and/or forage for their meals which in turn prepares them to survive out in the wild.  Then, when they are ready, the parents push their offspring out of the lair, out of the nest or out of the cave into the wild for their offspring to face the stark reality of their lives and these offspring survive.

I think it is time for us to push these people out into the stark reality of this world, as we live it by working for our meals and comforts, and teach them to provide for themselves – and we can be there to help them all the way.  I believe that this is true compassion - freedom.

Chairman Ryan's Budget Resolution Changes America's Course

America needs to change course. Our current direction is fiscally and economically unsustainable and politically and culturally bankrupting. It is threatening the well-being and future of our country.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R–WI) budget proposal, for the first time in recent memory, sets our nation on a different and better path. It tackles the massive spending excesses of the recent past and the entitlement crisis that is beginning to command our fiscal future. It rejects the politics of government dependence, massively higher taxes and the inevitability of national decline. No budget in decades has had the potential for so fundamentally improving the nation's prosperity and restoring its vast promise. This is a monumental budget proposal for monumental times, and it opens a serious and necessary conversation about the future of our nation and its great legacy of freedom, opportunity, and self-government.

Chairman Ryan's path toward solving the twin crises of spending and debt is achieved through real spending reductions and reforms—not new taxes or higher rates. The proposal includes welcome changes to the budget process, which, after all, is partially responsible for allowing spending to explode. This budget pares back non-security discretionary spending—the small part of the budget that Congress actually writes a budget for—and tackles other parts of the budget such as farm subsidies and the federal bureaucracy. The budget also repeals Obamacare. Most crucially, Ryan's budget tackles entitlement programs with transformative changes in Medicare and a solid approach to controlling Medicaid's spiraling costs. These changes will result in a stronger and bigger economy with more job creation, more savings and investment, and higher household incomes.

Ryan's budget resolution proposal brings non-security discretionary spending back below 2008 levels and then freezes it for five years. The budget cuts corporate welfare, rolls back Pell grants, reduces the size of the federal bureaucracy by 10 percent, and reforms federal workers' compensation. It also reins in mandatory spending by addressing food stamp spending and trimming farm subsidy programs that predominantly go to large agribusinesses; they cost taxpayers $25 billion annually even as farm incomes climb.

For Medicare, Ryan creates a new premium-support program for all future retirees in 10 years. With a premium-support program, each Medicare enrollee would get a fixed government contribution to the health plan of his or her choice. That is the essentially system that Members of Congress themselves enjoy. Health plans and providers would be compelled to compete directly for enrollees' dollars. The record shows that this approach to reform would control the growth of health care costs while increasing patient satisfaction. For good measure, the Ryan budget guarantees cost control through a cap on the growth rate of Medicare spending.

The Ryan budget puts Medicaid on a more fiscally sustainable path for both federal and state taxpayers through a block grant. The proposal replaces the open-ended financing arrangement with a fixed federal contribution to the states. In exchange, states would have greater flexibility to design their programs to better serve those in need. As Congress fills in the details, the best way to implement Ryan's budget changes would be to mainstream moms and kids from the poorly performing Medicaid program into more popular private health insurance options and then focus on delivering more patient-centered care to the disabled and elderly.

The Ryan budget would finally begin to take entitlements off autopilot, forcing Congress to consider the long-term costs of new entitlement programs beyond just the 10-year window. Importantly, the Ryan budget would lock in savings and require continuous cuts with multi-year enforceable spending caps not just on discretionary spending but on total government spending.

On the tax side, the budget resolution focuses on economic growth by reducing key tax rates. The plan reduces the highest-in-the world corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and the top individual income rate to the same level. The lower corporate tax rate would reverse the flow of jobs to foreign countries, and the lower individual income tax rate would improve incentives for workers and businesses to produce more and for investors and businesses to create new jobs.

Like any budget plan, which is the result of give and take, there are also elements in this plan that are missing and places where it is deficient. America's prosperity depends on the security we provide. This budget proposal rightly does not recommend pulling back on America's military commitments. This creates a challenge; the defense funding in this budget is inadequate. Lawmakers must fully fund forces to protect America and its interests around the globe. Doing so requires an average of $720 billion per year (to be adjusted for inflation) for each of the next five fiscal years, plus funding for ongoing contingency operations. Without a strong national defense, America cannot reap the benefits of a strong economy.

Although this budget does rein in welfare spending on Medicaid and food stamps, it continues to approach the rest of the $950 billion welfare system in the same piecemeal fashion of the past. More notably, Ryan has not touched Social Security, preferring instead to fast-track solutions outside the budget process. He has also opted to essentially grandfather the grandparents: Benefits for those in or near retirement will not be touched. That also means that spending reductions will come slower than they might otherwise. Must we exempt so many baby boomers from contributing to the most urgent economic problem we face? While it is politically difficult to consider benefit changes for this group, it is virtually impossible to balance the budget within the near term without doing so. This is a discussion we must have as a nation.

But in the end, let's remember where we are and what Chairman Ryan has accomplished. Last year, neither the House nor the Senate passed a required budget resolution. This year, President Obama proposed a budget that more than doubles the national debt. In the first budget of the new Congress, Chairman Ryan has forged a serious path to fix our nation's fiscal and economic crisis. The House, the Senate, and the President must now do their part so that we may reclaim our nation's future.

DOS CIUDADES TAN CERCA UNA DE LA OTRA Y TAN DIFERENTES

LA HABANA Y MIAMI, MEDIO SIGLO DESPUES
Autor: Juan Carlos León

La Habana solía ser la urbe que todos querían visitar hace 50 años atrás. Turistas de todas partes del mundo, especialmente de Estados Unidos, llegaban a la capital cubana atraídos por su vida nocturna, sus abanos, mujeres esculturales, playas, etc. Con la llegada de Fidel Castro al poder por medio de la fuerza todo esto cambió para desgracia de los cubanos.

Dice un viejo refrán que “A río revuelto, ganancia de pescadores”. Eso mismo sucedió con Miami, quien se ha visto beneficiado en gran medida gracias a la destrucción total que ha provocado en la isla el castrocomunismo. La Capital del Sol es hoy en día una de las ciudades más codiciadas por los vacacionistas que nos visitan desde los cinco continentes.

De acuerdo a testimonios de nuestros padres y abuelos, La Habana era un lugar encantador antes de 1959. El peso cubano tenía el mismo valor que el dólar norteamericano, los autos del año se paseaban por El Malecón acabados de salir al mercado, el Cabaret Tropicana –de fama internacional- entretenía a los más exigentes espectadores y se respiraban aires de abundancia y prosperidad. Hoy el panorama que se ve en nuestra capital es todo lo contrario: ruinas, miserias y calamidades se observan por doquier.

Por otro lado, los primeros cubanos que llegaron al sur de la Florida a finales de los años 50 y principios de los 60 nos cuentan que Miami era prácticamente un campo, con Flagler como su calle principal y contados negocios. Poco a poco estos exiliados se fueron encargando de abrir grandes corporaciones, de desarrollar la construcción de casas, empresas, restaurantes, clubs nocturnos y cadenas hoteleras. Con el tiempo llegaron otros inmigrantes que también contribuyeron con nuestro crecimiento económico y cultural hasta convertir este lugar en el hogar adoptivo de todos los que vivimos aquí.

Tenemos que reconocer que en la actualidad experimentamos sentimientos encontrados: por un lado nos entristece ver lo que han hecho los Castro con nuestra Habana en el último medio siglo pero, por el otro nos enorgullece saber que hemos sido parte del éxito que ha logrado Miami con nuestro esfuerzo diario, trabajo duro y dedicación.

Esperamos que los aires de democracia que soplan por el mundo árabe lleguen a nuestra querida Habana pronto para que, no solo sea bella y próspera como lo era antes, sino también para que sea libre y democrática como lo es Miami hoy.

Miami, FL., USA
03/21/2011