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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Feb 20, 2012/ 27 Shevat, 5772

Gobbledegook galore: How to have fun on a budget

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan."

-- Ronald Reagan

It's hard o imagine how anyone can take President Obama's latest budget seriously, including President Obama. After all, he's an intelligent man. He can recognize 2,000-plus pages of gobbledegook in the guise of a budget, especially if he's the one who's rolling it out like the latest model hula-hoop from Wham-O Inc. What fun. But nothing more.

How is this president's budget less than serious?

Let us count the ways, or at least begin counting them. For there may be no end to the ways this budget piles on debt in the name of economizing, hinders the country's economic recovery in the name of helping it, and generally lays traps for the unwary.

Happily, the tricks are so transparent there's little doubt anybody will be fooled. We're all wary of government numbers by now. And there's no hiding the fact that, for the fourth straight year, this president has failed to keep his promise to cut the federal deficit at least in half by the end of his first term.

Instead, he's run up another trillion-dollar deficit this year and his budget projects one almost that large ($956 billion) for next year. And next year's deficit, like this year's, could easily top the administration's rosy-hued projections.

It's enough to make the innocent taxpayer wonder why the president bothers to submit a budget at all. Since he's just going to keep on doing what he's been doing for the last four years: Spend, spend, and, when all that spending doesn't produce the desired results, spend more.

Why draw up a budget that has so little relation to reality? Because the president is obliged to submit one, even if it's nine parts fiction to one part wishful thinking. The formalities must be observed. And this budget is only a formality.

All those deficits add up -- in this administration's case to an additional $5 trillion of national debt accumulated in just one presidential term. That's got to be a record, but records are, yes, made to be broken. Just wait till his second term. Barack Obama may only have begun to spend. Spending is his substitute for an economic policy.

When times are bad, as they have been, this president's response has been to spend. When times are a little better, as they have been of late, his response is the same and more of it: keep spending. The day of reckoning will never come; government can just keep taxing and borrowing and spending, then repeat.

The economy may change, but not this president's approach to it. He's like a doctor with only one prescription -- Spend! -- and when the patient still fails to thrive, Dr. Obama just rachets up the dosage.

The possibility that the patient might recover on his own, if just given the chance, never seems to occur to the doc. He is forever fiddling with the struggling American economy, poking it here and jiggling it there, prescribing everything except what it may need most: a good leaving-alone. Especially now that the economy is showing the first signs of recovery.

But our economist-in-chief just won't be still. He's always got more taxes to impose, more stimuless (sic) programs to propose. And the more he taxes and spends, the more unstable the economy seems, and the less certain its prospects.

The administration's theories about the economy would work out beautifully if not for people. Contrary bunch, they keep going their own way, making their own decisions, and generally making a hash of the president's projections.

Somehow unemployment never fell to less than 8 percent, but actually rose on this president's watch. Despite his grand designs and sophisticated economic policies. ("The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." --Friedrich Hayek.)

But with the determination of a true believer, this president presses on. Every time he loses a bet on this roulette wheel of an economy, he just doubles down on debt. How can he lose? Every time one stimulus fails to stimulate, he comes up with another. He's nothing if not game, so long as the money is somebody else's.

It was Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady herself, who pointed out the big problem with such a happy theory: Eventually the spenders run out of other people's money. Which is another reason it's hard to imagine how anyone can take President Obama's latest budget seriously, including President Obama. After all, he's an intelligent man. Surely he can see through himself.

Paul Greenberg Archives

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