Economics 101

The flaw in their logic is that when it comes to higher unemployment benefits or any other stimulus spending, the resources given to the unemployed have to be taken from someone else. There isn't a "tooth fairy," or as my former colleague Milton Friedman repeated time and again, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." The government doesn't create resources. It redistributes them. For everyone who is given something there is someone who has that something taken away. While the unemployed may spend more as a result of higher unemployment benefits, those people from whom the resources are taken will spend less. In an economy, the income effects from a transfer payment always sum to zero. Quite simply, there is no stimulus from higher unemployment benefits.
(Arthur Laffer, Wall Street Journal, 7/8/10)

Standing on a sparkling clean factory floor, with a fleet of battery-powered trucks behind him, President Obama on Thursday confronted a challenge: how to reconcile the grim reality of 9.5 percent unemployment with the necessity of defending his economic policies in a midterm election year. He resolved it by blaming Republicans — and crediting himself. (NYT, 7/9/10)

To The Point
Obama hasn't ramped up the war in Afghanistan based on a careful calculation of America's strategic objectives. He did it because he was trapped by his own rhetorical game of bashing the Iraq war while pretending to be a hawk on Afghanistan. (Ann Coulter, 7/7/10)

If Ann Coulter could be convinced to write a daily – instead of weekly – column, there would be little need for RedStateVT or others to blog. Her analysis is never less than brilliant.