Hasn't this been quite a first week of 2011?  It started bizarrely for me with a flood of emails and calls Monday morning (1/03) asking if I was still alive or dead in a dumpster.  The Drudge Report was carrying this headline in red letters:

Reagan Aide Jack Wheeler Murdered, Body Found in Landfill

I had to reassure everyone that: 

It's not me.  I'm not in a dumpster in a landfill -- I'm home in my easy chair  writing this. John Wheeler was always getting confused with me in Washington as he liked to be called by his nickname Jack (like John/Jack Kennedy). I ran into him several times at different DC functions and found him to be a very nice fellow. But I'm no John, just Jack.

This is a terrible tragedy and a mysterious one. But for all those who've emailed their concern, it's not me, I'm fine.

Do you think more government spending helps economic growth or harms it?

Last Friday (7/23), the White House again increased its federal budget deficit forecast and reduced its economic growth forecast for 2011. It is abundantly clear that the economic program the Democrat Administration and Democrat Congress instituted 18 months ago - primarily massive increases in government spending - is not working as advertised.

Surprise, surprise.  Isn't it interesting how Democrats are always surprised by their ignorance?

US election season is clearly upon us as President Barack Obama has moved into full campaign mode. Part and parcel of that mode is a new bid to woo Jewish voters and donors upset by Obama's hostility to Israel back in the Democrat Party's fold.

Trying to portray Obama as pro-Israel is not a simple task.  From the outset of his tenure in office, Obama has distinguished himself as the most anti-Israel president ever.

It is an open question whether American Jews will be willing to buy the bill of goods the administration is trying to sell them through their media proxies in next year's presidential elections.

But if next Tuesday's (8/13) special election for New York's Ninth Congressional District is any indication - remember Weinergate with Anthony Weiner resigning his seat? - the answer is apparently that an unprecedented number of American Jews are unwilling to ignore reality and continue supporting this anti-Israel president.

Finally, finally,  finally... 2010 is over.  At last we can get on with 2011, the year America's Rescue begins.  I can hardly wait.

So can the TTP Forum's "Mae" - Lynda Mae Calhoun, who thanks in no small part to your prayers had a successful surgery and is well on the road to recovery.  Congratulations, Mae!

Paul Ryan can't wait for 2011 either.  You learned about what he's up to in Barry’s Dream yesterday (12/30).  Now there's an Update.  House Dems got the vapors last night when they learned that Ryan, as Chairman of the Budget Committee, will have the power to set spending ceilings without a vote of the full House.

This is a big deal.  Any budget that comes out of Congress now cannot exceed Ryan's limits, which will force really serious spending cuts. 

Add this to Boehner's replacing the Dems' "pay-go" fraud (they exempted all their giant spending bills from it), with the Pubs' "cut-go" rule.  This requires that any increase in one government program (including entitlements!!) mandates a concomitant decrease in another.  Cut-go forbids any entitlement spending increase be made up with tax increases.

All next year, it's going to be like witnesses to Dante's Inferno to sit in the House Gallery and gaze down upon Dems writhing in agony on the House Floor like it's the bottom rung of Hell.  When they realize the torture is likely to be eternal - i.e., for the rest of their political lives - expect a lot of them to call it quits.

Did you know there are nine states that have no state income tax? The non-income-tax states (see chart below) are geographically and economically diverse, ranging from the state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest, to Texas and Florida in the South, and up to New Hampshire in the Northeast.

Why is it that some of the states with the biggest fiscal problems have the highest individual state income tax rates, such as New York and California, while some of the states with the least fiscal problems have no state income tax at all?  Further, on average, schools, health and safety, roads, etc. are no better in states with income taxes than those without income taxes.

Where is all the extra money from these state income taxes going? It is going primarily to service debt, and to pay for inflated salaries and employee benefits.  Thus, as two recent studies by my colleagues at the Cato Institute show, the keys to state solvency are no state income taxes and no public worker unions.

[This is the full text of Sarah Palin's speech in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday, September 3. I consider this to be one of the greatest political speeches of modern times.  The video follows after the text. ---JW]

The reality is that we in America today are governed by a permanent political class, who derive power and wealth from their access to our money - to taxpayer dollars. 

They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is a name for this: It's called corporate crony capitalism.

This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare.

I believe in the free market, and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids.  It will lead to our downfall if we don't stop it now. We will not solve our economic problems until we confront the cronyism of our President and our permanent political class.

Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses' security and "green energy" giveaways, he took care of his friends. And now they're on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again. Are you going to let them do it all over again? Are you willing to unite to do all we can to not let them do it again so we can save our country?

Merry Christmas Eve!  It's a good time to turn our eyes towards Heaven, for the Congress from Hell has finally ended.

The Enemedia is celebrating the 111^th Congress and its Lame Schmuck Session as "the most productive in history," modern or even ever.  That's certainly true if you, as does the Enemedia, have a Hate-America agenda.  For anyone Pro-America, the 111^th has been the most destructive in US history, modern or even ever.

So - the multi-trillion dollar, fate-of-America question is:  will the 112^th ride to America's rescue and undo the damage?  The scientifically precise answer is... Maybe.

The Zero Presidency and Reid-Pelosi Congress have made many folks aware of this terrifying truth:  that Democrats are more dangerous to America than terrorists.

The damage any conceivable attack on America perpetrated by Moslem crazies is miniscule compared to the damage Democrats have already wrought upon our country in the last two years - and they intend via their Man in the White House to perpetrate vastly more.

This just-ended Lame Schmuck Congress adds an instructive codicil to this:  that RINO Republicans are just as dangerous as America-destroying Democrats.

If those managing a company had acted as recklessly and irresponsibly as has Congress with the U.S. economy, they rightly would be fired.

Congress by its actions is driving away foreign capital, new and existing companies and jobs; burdening the people with excessive debt - and even providing an incentive for murder.

The death tax rate this year will be zero as a result of the Bush-era phaseout of this destructive tax, but it is set to jump to 55 percent as of Jan. 1. There have been many articles about the likelihood of individuals attempting to time their deaths before the end of the year to save their heirs many millions of dollars in "death taxes."  

When incentive is given to cause a premature death by an interested party in order to gain a great deal of money, the probability is that it will happen in some cases.

Members of Congress normally are exempt from civil prosecution for actions and statements made in Congress, but it would not be beyond possibility to see some enterprising lawyer charge those irresponsible members of Congress with abetting murder (which is not protected by congressional immunity) because of their lack of action to "fix" the death tax. How just!

Many in Washington care little or nothing for the well being of Americans, other than themselves and their cronies. The widespread continued lying about the soundness of Social Security and Medicare isn't due to ignorance -- it is due to politicians aggrandizing  power regardless of the cost to others.

Either their careers will have to be terminated by a better informed electorate - not impossible, as demonstrated by Canada and Sweden - or the US central government and the scores of millions who depend upon it will crash and burn. 

The US central government is on the road to either radical reform or self destruction. Continued kicking the can down the road would soon send it over the economic cliff where the USA would join the USSR on the ash heap of history.

Radical reform could be as simple as refusing to increase the debt ceiling, auctioning the Ponzi scheme operator's assets off for the benefit of the Social inSecurity and MediScam victims, allowing unlimited expensing for all business capital investments, requiring that all regulations be voted on by Congress before becoming laws, and legalizing competing precious metal currencies.

It's this simple:

Most of the current problems facing America stem directly from the failure of our elected representatives to follow the Constitution. Much of what the Tea Party activists are demanding is a return to the principles and procedures found in the Constitution.

Many of those running for office are venting about excessive spending, deficits, taxation, regulation and so forth, but are struggling to say what they are for and what they would actually work to accomplish once they are elected.

To deal with this problem, candidates for office should state that, if elected, they will have a "Contract with the Constitution," much like the Contract with America that Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey developed for the Republicans in 1994.