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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Standing up to hostage-takers


The president has already compromised too much over a debt ceiling that was raised seven times under President Bush VIDEO

The Economic Case for Supporting Israel


America needs the Jewish state's technology and innovation as much as it needs us.

America's enemies understand deeply and intuitively that no U.S. goals or resources in the Middle East are remotely as important as Israel. Why don't we?
Israel cruised through the recent global slump with scarcely a down quarter and no deficit or stimulus package. It is steadily increasing its global supremacy, behind only the U.S., in an array of leading-edge technologies. It is the global master of microchip design, network algorithms and medical instruments.
During a period of water crises around the globe, Israel is incontestably the world leader in water recycling and desalinization. During an epoch when all the world's cities, from Seoul to New York, face a threat of terrorist rockets, Israel's newly battle-tested "Iron Dome" provides a unique answer based on original inventions in microchips that radically reduce the weight and cost of the interceptors.
Israel is also making major advances in longer-range missile defense, robotic warfare, and unmanned aerial vehicles that can stay aloft for days. In the face of a global campaign to boycott its goods, and an ever-ascendant shekel, it raised its exports 19.9% in 2010's fourth quarter and 27.3% in the first quarter of 2011.
Israelis supply Intel with many of its advanced microprocessors, from the Pentium and Sandbridge, to the Atom and Centrino. Israeli companies endow Cisco with new core router designs and real-time programmable network processors for its next-generation systems. They supply Apple with robust miniaturized solid state memory systems for its iPhones, iPods and iPads, and Microsoft with critical user interface designs for the OS7 product line and the Kinect gaming motion-sensor interface, the fastest rising consumer electronic product in history.
Vital to the U.S. economy and military capabilities, tiny Israel's unparalleled achievements in industry and intellect have conjured up the familiar anti-Semitic frenzies among all the economically and morally failed societies of the socialist and Islamist Third World, from Iran to Venezuela. They all imagine that by delegitimizing, demoralizing, defeating or even destroying Israel, they could take a major step toward bringing down the entire capitalist West.
To most sophisticated Westerners, the jihadist focus on Israel seems bizarre and counterproductive. But on the centrality of Israel the jihadists have it right.
U.S. policy is crippled by a preoccupation with the claimed grievances of the Palestinians and their supposed right to a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. But the Palestinian land could not have supported one-tenth as many Palestinians as it does today without the heroic works of reclamation and agricultural development by Jewish settlers beginning in the 1880s, when Arabs in Palestine numbered a few hundred thousand.
Actions have consequences. When the Palestinian Liberation Organization launched two murderous Intifadas within a little over a decade, responded to withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza by launching thousands of rockets on Israeli towns, spurned every sacrificial offer of "Land for Peace" from Oslo through Camp David, and reversed the huge economic gains fostered in the Palestinian territories between 1967 and 1990, the die was cast.
It's time to move on.
For the U.S., moving on means a sober recognition that Israel is not too large but too small. It boasts a booming economy still absorbing overseas investment and a substantial net inflow of immigrants. Yet it is cramped in a space the size of New Jersey, hemmed in by enemies on three sides, with 60,000 Hezbollah and Hamas rockets at the ready, and Iran lurking with nuclear ambitions and genocidal intent over the horizon.
Clearly, Israel needs every acre it now controls. Still, despite its huge technological advances, its survival continues to rely on peremptory policing of the West Bank, on an ever-advancing shield of antimissile technology, and on the unswerving commitment of the U.S.
But this is no one-way street. At a time of acute recession, debt overhang, suicidal energy policy and venture capitalists who hope to sustain the U.S. economy and defense with Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, U.S. defense and prosperity increasingly depend on the ever-growing economic and technological power of Israel.
If we stand together we can deter or defeat any foe. Failure, however, will doom the U.S. and its allies to a long war against ascendant jihadist barbarians, with demographics and nuclear weapons on their side, and no assurance of victory. We need Israel as much as it needs us.

The Timely Constitution



Medicare: Fix It Now, Fix It Later

 

Listen to the Audio Version

Sens. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Joe Lieberman (I., Ct.) have produced a Medicare-reform proposal. The bill would save Medicare $600 billion over ten years and extend the program’s solvency by 30 years. It would save money by raising the eligibility age to 67 by 2025, increasing premiums and co-pays, and means-testing benefits so that wealthier beneficiaries paid more. It would also curtail “Medigap” plans — which cover the difference between what Medicare pays and the total cost of a procedure, reducing the program’s already-modest incentives for seniors to economize on care.
The proposal is a good one, and it would be even better if its means-testing provisions were modified so as not to reduce incentives to work, save, and invest. Coburn-Lieberman could gain some Democratic support, and it makes a good bargaining chip for fiscal reformers in the debt-limit debate. But nobody should be under any illusion that this legislation makes the Ryan plan’s Medicare reforms unnecessary. It is a complement rather than an alternative to the Ryan plan. It would achieve short-term cost savings while leaving the fundamental problems of Medicare untouched. Ryan’s plan has the opposite virtue and vice: It would take years to go into effect, but would truly fix the system.

The reason this bill would make Medicare solvent for 30 years, rather than for the foreseeable future, is that even deep cuts won’t change the incentives the program creates. Medicare would still operate on a “fee for service” model — which pays doctors more whenever they perform additional procedures, regardless of the expected health benefit, and also makes the program a target for fraud. The best way to fix this problem is to give seniors money to put toward premiums, and allow private insurance companies to compete for the money. This approach would reward insurance companies for designing plans that both cover important procedures and give doctors an incentive to control costs. That’s what the Ryan plan would do, albeit years down the road.

Coburn-Lieberman also eliminates one of the few remaining arguments for IPAB, Obamacare’s Medicare-rationing board. The board’s defenders point out that it would yield savings in the short term, unlike Ryan’s plan. But Coburn-Lieberman would do the same thing, only without setting up an unelected board whose only power is to cut payments to doctors and pharmacies — that is, to ration — and that can in some cases enact policies without input from elected officials.

The question we should be asking is not which of these proposals to support, the Coburn-Lieberman cuts or the Ryan reform. It is: How can we enact both?

Sen. Cornyn on Debt Talks; Sens. Graham, Lieberman Talk Afghanistan; Gary Sinise on Helping Wounded Warriors

Special Guests: Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gary Sinise




July 3, 2011

Sen. Cornyn on Debt Talks

Key GOP senator on 'Fox News Sunday'



The following is a rush transcript of the July 3, 2011 edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace." This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SHANNON BREAM, GUEST HOST: I'm Shannon Bream, in for Chris Wallace.
As the default deadline approaches, the political pressure increases.
Republicans and Democrats are talking tough. With just a month ago in the debt ceiling negotiations, is a deal still possible? We'll ask John Cornyn, one of the GOP's Senate leaders.
Also, with the terror attack rocks Afghanistan, should the U.S. rethink its drawdown plan? We'll get an on-the-ground account from two influential Washington voices on foreign policy: Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
Plus, what do the fundraising numbers tell us about the Republican presidential field. We'll ask our Sunday panel, which candidates are making a move and which ones are stalled.
And on this Fourth of July weekend, actor Gary Sinise tells us how he wants to help our veterans and the wounded warriors.
All right now on "Fox News Sunday."
And, hello again, from Fox News in Washington.
As the nation celebrates the Fourth of July holiday weekend, it is getting to be crunch time in the Capitol, in a high-stakes battle over increasing the debt ceiling.




July 3, 2011

Sens. Graham, Lieberman Talk Afghanistan

Influential senators on 'FNS'





July 3, 2011

Gary Sinise on Helping Wounded Warriors

Hollywood star on 'Fox News Sunday'





July 3, 2011

Panel Plus: 07/03

Watch the ‘FOX News Sunday' panel Bill Kristol, Nina Easton, Chris Stirewalt and Kirsten Powers, as they discuss the 2012 Presidential field, in our web exclusive - Panel Plus. See what happens after the show.



July 3, 2011

Panel Plus: 07/03

Watch the ‘FOX News Sunday' panel Bill Kristol, Nina Easton, Chris Stirewalt and Kirsten Powers, as they discuss the 2012 Presidential field, in our web exclusive - Panel Plus. See what happens after the show.

Roundtable: Immigration Debate


George Will, Michelle Rhee, Mel Martinez, Jose Antonio Vargas.
07/03/2011
 

Roundtable: Battle for the Constitution


George Will, Michael Eric Dyson, Jill Lepore, Richard Stengel.
07/03/2011
 

Roundtable: Constitution Politics


George Will, Michael Eric Dyson, Jill Lepore, Richard Stengel.
07/03/2011
 
 
 

A Look at the Constitution ABC's John Donvan examines the Constitution and its use throughout history.

 07/03/2011

Illegal Immigrant: 'I Represent How Broken the Immigration System Is'







Despite being known as a nation of immigrants, American politicians are locked in a longstanding stalemate over how to best solve the country's immigration problems – a debate also taken up by a panel on ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" which included among others, a self-admitted illegal immigrant.
"In many ways, I represent … just how broken the immigration system is," former Washington Post reporter Jose Vargas said on "This Week" of his decision to publish an account of his illegal status. "In many ways the goal was to expose just how incredibly dysfunctional and irrational the whole system is and has been for quite some time."

Meeting the Demand for Highly-Skilled Workers

Vargas was joined on the panel by former Florida Senator Mel Martinez, former chancellor for the District of Columbia Public School system Michelle Rhee, and ABC News' George Will – many of whom argued that the shortage of highly-skilled laborers demands a more inclusive immigration approach.
"There are some things that we need to do just for the good of the country, for the good of our economy," said Martinez. "We have a tremendous shortage of people in the high-tech fields, the STEMS as we call them – science, technology and mathematics – where we really need people from other countries who are learning these skills to be able to come here and create jobs."
Roundtable: Battle for the Constitution Watch Video
A Look at the Constitution Watch Video
Michelle Rhee, who has devoted much of her time to founding the group Students First since leaving her controversial tenure in the Washington school system, described a gap between the skills American schools are preparing students for and the skills needed to sustain a strong American economy. "In the next twenty years in this country," Rhee said, "we are going to have 125 million high-skilled, high-paid jobs. And at the rate that the current public education system is going, we're only going to be able to produce 50 million American kids who have the kills and the knowledge to take those jobs. That means we're talking about potentially outsourcing the rest of those jobs, the majority of those jobs, overseas."
"Let me give you another reason why we need immigrants," Will told Amanpour. "When we started Social Security there were about 42 workers for every retiree. Today we're down to three point some. … The Social Security Trustees Report assumes the continuing high level of immigration to replenish the workforce, to make the entitlement system work."

Prospects for Comprehensive Reform

Politicians like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have called the lack of comprehensive immigration reform national suicide, but few lawmakers have been willing to risk the political capital needed to stake a certain claim in this highly polarizing topic.
"I think perhaps a piecemeal approach could be obtained," said Martinez, who once served as chairman of the Republican National Committee. "We need to talk about the fact that this is a country that people still yearn to come to. People love this country and when they come here, they get invested in America, they want to become Americans."
"At the end of the day we're not facing the facts on this issue," said Vargas. "This is not an abstraction. These are people who have very much woven into the fabric of our lives in every possible class."
The roundtable discussion aired on ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" on Sunday, July 3, 2011.