The Arsenal of Liberty

Draft Mitch Daniels

2012-01-25T09:38:00.000-05:00

If, as appears to be the case, Ron Paul is not going to be able to overcome the neo-con aversion to military interventionism, we are looking at three weak and flawed candidates to face President Obama in the fall. Perhaps one of them can beat Obama. Perhaps not. All three of them, in one way or another, will allow Obama to change the focus of the election from his own failures to the personal quirks and foibles of Gingruch/Santorum/Romney and that is a recipe for danger. President Obama promised to double down on every failed government initiative last night and intrude even further into the lives of American citizens. Four more years of enormous deficits, politically motivated assassinations of private sector job creation and more crony capitalism favoring his political allies and punishing his enemies will push America over the precipice.

It doesn't have to be this way. Watch my governor Mitch Daniels give a measured, sober, serious and strong response to President Obama's big government love fest masquerading as a "state of the union" (he should have called it the "state of the government")

Compare Governor Daniels to the three "conservatives" still in the race and ask yourself who would better represent our party.

Mona Charen wrote a searing statement last night in her note What Might Have Been

That our best leaders, such as Mitch Daniels, who tonight delivered the finest response to a State of the Union ever, have chosen not to serve, leaves the country to the second-raters. And if we are led by second rate people, we will become a second rate country.

We are looking at an election between a second rate Republican candidate facing a failed sitting President. We need a better choice. It is not too late, not by a long shot. Governor Daniels it is time to get in the race and save us from ourselves.

The Neo-Con Quandary

2012-01-24T15:37:00.000-05:00

I read something today that captures brilliantly the quandary that neo-cons are in. The National Review features a piece about the dangers of nominating Newt Gingrich, Hour Of Newt. This paragraph is the key from this article (emphasis added):

Among the present candidates, we continue to prefer Romney and Rick Santorum over Gingrich and Ron Paul. Our opposition to Paul is based on our disagreement with a foreign policy based on what we consider a dangerously naïve and narrow conception of U.S. interests. Our opposition to Gingrich, by contrast, is not based on any philosophical disagreement. Among Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum, we find only minor ideological differences. None has been a consistent small-government conservative in office; all are running on conservative, and similar, platforms this year.

Did you catch that? Romney. Santorum. Gingrich. All have held office in the past. None have been a true small-government conservative when in office. All are promising to be that sort of conservatives if elected. One man is missing from that list. Ron Paul. No one can seriously charge Paul with failing to be a consistent small-government conservative. Yet he is treated like a leper by the National Review and other neo-con dominated organs. Why? Because of his non-interventionist stance on foreign policy, a foreign policy that is in line with the Constitution but out of step with the military worshipping mindset of the modern GOP.

So for conservatives the choice this year for the candidate to face Obama comes down to three men who have failed to lead as conservatives when given the chance but who say the "right" things about foreign policy and promise to be better conservatives this time arounf or the one man who has consistently over the years been an unwavering conservative voice for drastically smaller government. One actual conservative, three men who promise to govern differently now than in the past. The choice seems simple.

The Gingrich Campaign Strategy

2012-01-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

1. Challenge Obama to “Lincoln-Douglas” style debates, whatever that means. Perhaps Newt is going to wear a stove pipe hat? Everyone knows that is not going to happen but that seems to be his primary focus.

2. Invoke the name of Reagan at every opportunity. You can’t invoke the Gipper too often but absolutely no less than once every third sentence.

3. Rail against the media for asking questions. Any questions. Only Newt could turn an ugly event from his past into an applause line at a debate.

4. Hope no one looks too closely at your actual Ieadership experience (that didn’t end so well) or what you have been doing with yourself since being run out of leadership in disgrace (you know, ~~lobbying~~ er, being the official historian, for Freddie Mac; playing snuggle-bunnies with Nancy Pelosi on a love seat, etc.). Given how quickly he flamed out the last time we made him the leader of the party, what makes anyone think a megalomaniac like Gingrich is going to handle being President any better?

Someone needs to go to South Carolina and smack the entire GOP voting population upside their collective heads. I support Ron Paul and what he is trying to do in moving the party away from a “conservatism” that is only slightly to the right of the Democrats and a state of constant war to prop up military spending. I can live with Mitt Romney in spite of his flaws because I think he will do the right thing in office out of pragmatism if not heartfelt belief. I can live with Rick Santorum although I think he is pretty far off the mark on many issues because he seems like a sincere guy.

Newt? I actively dislike him. Not as much as Obama but far more than any other current or past candidate on the GOP side. I thought it was a huge joke when he announced he was running, something that was reinforced when his staff quit en masse. I mean, Newt Gingrich? Seriously? Then it turns out that we don’t have much of an alternative to Romney other than Ron Paul and few Republicans seem to give Paul a fair shake, thus leaving us with Romney or Gingrich. Tim Pawlenty should be ashamed of himself for dropping out so quickly.

I am not keen on the idea of a candidate up against Obama with enormous (and warranted) personal baggage with a lot of negatives and very few positives other than being able to think on his feet and deliver applause lines in a debate. Will I vote for him if he is the nominee? Sure but I will do it while holding my nose. A lot of other less engaged voters might not bother showing up at all if the choice is between Obama and Gingrich, and I can’t say that I blame them.

South Carolina is only one state and I assume once people start to actually look at Gingrich as a candidate he will wilt like he did in Iowa. For the sake of the next election and the future of our country, let’s hope so.

Charging Toward War

2012-01-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

Mark Halperin, writing for the Wall Street Journal, paints a hyperbolic picture of the danger of a nuclear attack by Iran worthy of the sort of breathless predictions of calamity one would read from a "climate change expert". Even the title is risible: The Mortal Threat From Iran , at least it would be if what follows was not so terrifying. After several paragraphs of ominous warnings, each one more dire than the prior including the threat of the Iranian navy launching nukes at American cities from their leaky speedboat navy, Halperin ends with this doozy:

Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.

Can you hear the Star Spangled Banner playing softly in the background while Old Glory is snapping in the wind? Brings tears of patriotic joy to my eyes. Of course no mention is made of the Iranian children cowering under their beds while our bombs fall on Iran. Iranian children are unimportant or at least no more important than the Japanese children incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki or dying slow and gruesome deaths from radiation poisoning. You do remember that of all of the nuclear armed nations in the world only the land of the free and home of the brave has actually used them, twice and on civilian targets to make a point, right?

So based on the President's oath....

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." (Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:)

....Mark Halperin suggests that the aforementioned President is free to rain destruction on Iran based on the possibility that they might obtain nuclear weapons that they might be able to shoot at Iran or even America from their fishing trawlers and they might someday use them even though even a nutjob like the Prez of Iran realizes that doing so would be the end of himself, his country and his people. Dictators and despots may not care much about their people but they do love their own lives.

The oath of office for the President requires him (or her) to preserve, protest and defend what? The Constitution of the United States. What does the Constitution have to say about this? That the President must go to the Congress for a declaration of war. That is awfully inconvenient but one would hope that someone given space on the opinion pages of an august publication like the Wall Street Journal would be familiar with the oath he invokes as justification for a preemptive attack without provocation on a sovereign nation.

What Mark Halperin is proposing is a complete overthrow of our Constitutional system of checks and balances, placing the decision to go to war solely in the hands of one man. In the name of "security" and for the sake of our children snugged safely in their warm beds while Iranian children burn to death, he would have us abandon our liberties. The only guarantee of liberty in this country is the Constitution and he would have us chuck the whole thing in a seizure of power. If you can ignore something as serious as the system of checks and balances that prevents one man from taking us to war, you can ignore pretty much anything you want.

We stand at the precipice of yet another war and many "small government conservatives" can't wait to borrow and spend more money for another foolish war based on false pretenses predicated on a possible threat. Didn't we just finish a war that we engaged in under the same pretenses and similarly without a declaration of war? Like it or not, we live in a country governed by a clearly written document called the Constitution, the very Constitution that each President swears an oath to uphold and defend with his hand on a Bible. I for one am glad of that and I wish more people would remember that Constitution even when it is not convenient for their political platform.

Too many people taking out and not enough people paying in

2012-01-17T16:02:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal reports on a troubling statistic regarding the percentage of Americans living in a household that receives government benefits: Nearly Half of U.S Lives in Household Receiving Government Benefits

The pool of Americans relying on government benefits rose to record highs last year as an increasing share of families tapped aid in a weak economy.

Some 48.6% of the population lived in a household receiving some type of government benefit in the second quarter of 2010, up a notch from 48.5% in the first quarter, according to Census data.

Not to get all conspiratorial but that is exactly what the Left wants because the more people depend on the government, the more likely they are to vote for politicians who will protect that benefit. Politicians get to bribe voters with the hard earned money of other people or with borrowed money that they will never have to worry about paying back.

Half of all people in the U.S. live households that receive some sort of government benefit. A similar percentage of American workers pay no income taxes. It is probably safe to assume that there is a lot of overlap between these two groups (I am the exception, paying no income taxes but not receiving any government benefits unless you count my tax “refund”). More and more Americans get to vote in our elections but don’t have to pay for the consequences of those voting decisions. How else do you explain the current President and the "Occupy Wall Street" movement?

This is a dangerous and unsustainable system. When a majority of people start to realize that they can vote to steal from others, democracy is doomed. As more and more people live in households that are on the government dole and more and more people don’t pay income taxes that fund those government benefits, the burden shifts to a shrinking population of workers who sustain this system by their taxes. We face a double-whammy of increasing the pool of Americans who don’t pay into the system and a gradually more and more skewed ration of tax paying workers to benefit receiving seniors as older Americans live longer and younger Americans have fewer children to replenish the workforce.

We need to reduce the number of people who a) have no stake in the spending decisions of politicians by ensuring that all Americans pay something in income taxes and b) receive some sort of benefit from the government paid for by someone else. Getting financial goodies from the government shouldn’t be the default, it should be rare and it should be temporary. A society that devours those who work and earn to benefit those who don’t is not going to survive for long.

Is there a double standard?

2012-01-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

News reports today indicate that an Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by a bomb under his car. From CNN:

A nuclear scientist was killed in a blast in a Tehran neighborhood Wednesday morning, an Iranian news agency reported, the latest in a string of attacks against such scientists that Iran has blamed on Israel.

A motorcyclist placed a magnetic bomb under Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan's Peugeot 405, the state-run IRNA news agency said. The blast also wounded two others, IRNA said.

State television channel Press TV reported later Wednesday that Roshan's driver, named as Reza Qashqaei, had died in a hospital from his injuries.

Roshan, 32, was a deputy director for commercial affairs at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province and a graduate of Iran's Oil Industry University, according to the semi-official news agency Fars.

As CNN notes, this is the latest in a string of targeted assassinations of Iranian scientists...

Now let's compare that to

Wednesday's attack followed a similar mode of operation as others that have killed nuclear scientists in the capital city.

Iranian nuclear physicist Daryoush Rezaie, 35, was killed in an attack last July in front of his Tehran home by assailants on a motorcycle, Iranian media reported.

And on January 12, 2010, Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed in a blast when an assailant stuck a bomb under his car. Majid Jamali Fashi, an Iranian, reportedly confessed to the bombing and was sentenced to death in August, IRNA reported at the time.

Now let's compare that to an event here in the U.S. last year. From Fox News: U.S. Ties Iran to Assassination Plot Against Saudi Diplomat on U.S. Soil (emphasis mine)...

Authorities foiled a plot that was directed by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday at a press conference.

A criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in New York Tuesday naming Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri as the two alleged plotters, both with ties to Iran. Arbabsiar has been jailed in New York since September and Shakuri remains at large.

The complaint alleges that Iran helped conceive, sponsor and direct the plot. Holder called the alleged plot a "flagrant violation of U.S. and international law" and said the U.S. will hold Iran accountable.

The allegations in the 21-page complaint may further isolate Iran, which has a track record of supporting international terrorism.

So Iran is accused of a plot to assassinate someone and we cry foul, complaining that this alleged plot is a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. If the allegations are true, it certainly is. What then do we say about the successful assassination of not one, not two but three Iranian citizens in Iran over the course of a year? An unsuccessful plot against a foreign national on our soil is a major international incident that comes with an ominous warning directed at Iran but three successful assassinations of Iranian citizens on Iranian soil is met with a knowing smile and a wink? Can you imagine if someone assassinated some of our nuclear scientists or tried to block commerce from U.S. ports?

Look, Iran is a rogue nation led by a nutjob and I get that and yes the U.S. and Israel are democracies and the "good guys" and Iran is the "bad guys" but there comes a point where we have to start asking hard questions about our foreign policy. The Middle-East is on the brink of way yet again and everyone is pointing fingers at Iran for its dogged pursuit of nuclear technology (the technology that we possess and have used, that Israel posses, that France possesses, that Russia, China, India and Pakistan among others possesses). Meanwhile we are threatening to cut off their only real source of income, i.e. oil. Someone is assassinating their citizens on their own soil and the most likely culprit Israel is not denying responsibility. It is kind of understandable that Iran is being less than cooperative.

Maybe we need to take a step back, quit rattling our sabres and try to look at this situation from a position other that "might makes right", the attitude that the U.S. and Israel get to dictate who is or is not worthy of having nuclear technology and enforcing our edicts by economic sanctions, targeted assassinations and quite likely military action. If our intent is war and the removal of the current Iranian regime, we should declare war as provided for under the Constitution. If we are unwilling to do that perhaps we should find an alternate strategy because the path we are on is going to leave Iran with very few options other than capitulating to pressure from the U.S. and Israel or a devastating war that will lead to the deaths of thousands. That is not much of a choice.

Libertarianism and War

2012-01-08T19:03:00.001-05:00

Very interesting video, given the hyperbole, silliness and outright falsehoods that accompany so many discussions of Ron Paul and national defense....I especially like the point that standing armies and endangerment of liberty go hand in hand....

What Happens After Iowa?

2012-01-03T09:43:00.000-05:00

Today is the big day in Iowa after a ridiculous amount of time and money has been spent by candidates jockeying for position.

A few predictions...

I think that Ron Paul pulls it out tonight in Iowa. Given the fluidity of the race and the huge "enthusiasm" disparity between Paul supporters and everyone else, it seems that Paul's support is rock solid. Santorum's supporters just came to him and could leave just as easily. Paul's supporters generally speaking won't support anyone else. I have a hard time seeing a lukewarm supporter of Santorum or Gingrich or Romney putting forth the effort to come out for them but Paul supporters would walk a mile barefoot on broken glass for him!

After tonight the field needs to winnow down. A lot. Huntsman won't leave because he didn't bother to show up in Iowa at all, instead putting all of his efforts into New Hampshire where he competes with another moderate mormon who has an enormous lead. He is kind of delusional but he is a politician after all and he is done after New Hampshire. I don't see Bachmann making it past tonight. She peaked at the straw poll earlier and has zero traction. Those who supported her have been siphoned off to Santorum so I am not sure how she sees a path to the nomination. I am not sure where Perry goes after tonight, it doesn't seem that he has much of a chance to do well in New Hampshire. I don't know if he drops after tonight but he should. I think Gingrich comes in fourth tonight but continues with "the worst organized campaign ever". After a mediocre showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina I think he, along with Perry if he is still kidding himself, will finally bow out.

In the weeks and months to come, it looks like a three man race between establishment favorite Romney, running on the "electability" platform as the guy best able to beat Obama; Ron Paul who has a pretty hard ceiling on support among traditional Republicans because of his refusal to pander to the military interventionist party line; and someone else. That someone else looks like Santorum at this point esp. if Bachmann and Perry drop out and their supporters coalesce behind him. Paul has the enthusiasm and organization for the long haul and no real compelling reason to drop out. It isn't as if there is a similar voice competing with him. I unfortunately don't see him winning the nomination because of the oft mentioned disconnect between his Constitutional principles on national security and the party line that sees nothing wrong with getting entangled in a new foreign engagement every couple of years. The end result is still what I figured it was a while ago, Romney with the nomination. I think Romney can and does beat Obama and will be a much better President, although that is setting the bar pretty low. Had Pawlenty not flinched and dropped out so soon or if Mitch Daniels or someone like him had entered we might have a different race but that die is already cast.

Longer term, this is Ron Paul's last run but his legacy will be more lasting. I can see another, younger champion of actual limited government rising up, one without the bogus baggage of the newsletters to deal with. The traditional two parties are rapidly losing their base of support as the Tea Party movement on the right in 2010 and the Occupy movement on the left in 2011 show. If the Democrats keep pandering to the far left fringe, the homosexual lobby, organized labor bigwigs and leftist academics and if the Republicans keep pandering to the corporate interests lobbying for kickbacks and a state of perpetual war, they will both be setting the stage for something else. We have had the current political set-up for a long time but not forever and it is high time that something new comes out.

Anyway, those are my predictions. They will probably all be wrong

A Map of the world of debt

2012-01-02T08:56:00.001-05:00

Wow, this is unpleasant (you need to click on the picture and then click again to see it full sized)

My path to Ron Paul

2011-12-29T11:15:00.000-05:00

I am a fairly recent "convert" to Ron Paul. While I have been a conservative for as long as I can remember having political convictions, I was always more of a National Review kind of conservative which morphed somewhat when I became a Christian to include the social issues. I read National Review as a young adult, we watched The McLaughlin Group and Crossfire as a family when I was young and our bookshelves were stocked with conservative political titles. In recent years I was a pretty straight forward Evangelical conservative, pro-life, pro-military, pro-lower taxes, etc. Up until recently I stayed true to form by rejecting Ron Paul for his foreign policy positions.

My first real exposure to Ron Paul was similar to how a lot of people encounter Paul, through one of his, um, ardent followers. In my case it was a guy in Northern Michigan and this guy was the epitome of the stereotypical Ron Paul supporter, a somewhat crazed acolyte who accosted people in the bank I was managing to drill them about the Constitution. This guy was a perfect example of the contention I have long held that Ron Paul's greatest strength is his rabid following and it is also his greatest weakness. He confirmed for me that Paul was not someone I was interested in supporting because only someone crazy would attract such crazy followers! I sort of compare some Paul supporters to some Calvinists, zealous in the extreme and angrily attacking anyone who disagrees. I even blogged a brief post about him in 2008 that was not terribly complementary: Why Not Ron Paul? (I initially supported Huckabee in 2008 until he dropped out). So what changed.

I did.

Ron Paul certainly didn't. Unlike a lot of the other candidates and politicians in general he has been very consistent over the years. I always liked most of Paul's fiscal positions but his foreign policy scared me. As someone infected with the notion of "American exceptionalism", a notion that is deeply intertwined with our notion of America as a uniquely "Christian nation", I assumed that our cause was always right and we had both a right and an obligation to make the rest of the world conform to us. If we had to break a few eggs to make that omelet, in the form of dead civilians in foreign lands and dead and maimed American soldiers, that was a price we were willing to pay to spread our understanding of freedom and liberty. Over the past few years my conviction regarding U.S. military interventionism has changed coinciding with my evolving position on the sword as a Christian. As I study and examine history, especially regarding the two world wars and the Western interference in the Middle East, I am convinced that our foreign policy over the last hundred years is largely counter-productive and likewise outside of the Constitutional boundaries. How many Americans died in Korea and Vietnam without so much as a formal declaration of war?

It is without question that Ron Paul is the most consistent and most vocal advocate of a drastically smaller Federal government. I think his foreign policy is likewise the most consistent with the Constitution and with my convictions as a follower of Jesus Christ. Other candidates are professed Christians although at least one of them is pretty suspect in that regard and two of them are members of a cult. All of the candidates to some extent are advocating smaller government. But of all of this crop of Republican candidates, only one is consistent in his fiscal conservatism and consistent and faithful to the limited scope of the Federal government in matter foreign and domestic. That man is Ron Paul and while no one is perfect, he is in my opinion the best man for the job of undoing the last four years of Obamanation and the last century of exploding Federal spending on all manner of Constitutionally dubious programs, including an enormous standing army stationed in permanent bases around the world. America cannot keep spending, taxing and regulating the way we have been. Our inverted demographics make that impossible and common sense makes it untenable. We cannot afford to be the world's policeman (or enforcer or bully depending on your perspective) and we have no moral or Constitutional authority to do so in the first place. For the sake of the Constitutional integrity and the fiscal security of the United States, I am supporting Ron Paul for the office of President of the United States.

There is a lot of misinformation about Ron Paul, much of it unfortunately being spread by other alleged conservatives. I would encourage you to read where Ron Paul stands on the issues from his official webpage and decide for yourself rather than just taking the slanderous comments of others at face value.

A quick word about the rest of the GOP field and the upcoming general election.

If you have read anything on this blog or know me in person, you know that I think that President Obama is a horrible President and in real contention to replace Jimmy Carter as the worst President in my lifetime. I will therefore support, fervently, any of the announced Republican candidates for President who wins the nomination even if it is not Paul and even if it is Newt Gingrich. I am not in favor of Ron Paul running as a third-party candidate and don't think he has any intention to. That rumor seems more of a slander spread by media types who don't like him than any real concern. If Ron Paul is the candidate, I hope all conservatives rally behind him. If he is not, I strongly encourage those who supported him to support the GOP nominee. There is a fine line in a two party system between ideology and pragmatism and we cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama.

RON PAUL 2012!

Irony Alert!

2011-12-28T11:12:00.001-05:00

Newt Gingrich, during an interview with Wolf Blizter, says he would not vote for Ron Paul if he becomes the Republican nominee and furthermore suggested that anyone who holds similar views to Ron Paul is not a "decent American"....

"I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."

Gingrich continued: "He's got to come up with some very straight answers to get somebody to take him seriously. Would I be willing to listen to him? Sure. I think the choice of Ron Paul or Barack Obama would be a very bad choice for America."

When asked if he would be able to vote for Paul if his rival won the 2012 GOP nomination, Gingrich said unequivocally "No."

Um, under what standards would Newt Gingrich qualify as a "decent American"? A man who is a serial adulterer, a man who divorced the woman he had left his first wife for and replaced her with another woman twenty years his junior that he was having an affair with and blamed his infidelity on his love of country? A man who four years after engineering the GOP takeover of the House and rising become Speaker of the same was disciplined for ethics violatons and fined $300,000, resigned as Speaker and left the Congress in what can only be described as disgrace? A man who profited enormously from his connections in Washington D.C. and seems willing to change positions on issues whenever convenient? A man who can charitably be described as pompous and arrogant?

It seems to me that there is more to being a "decent American" than blind support of Israel and a willingness to attack other nations for possessing the same weapons we have possessed for half a century and that we used on a civilian population not once but twice. If Newt Gingrich is the standard by which we determine who is or is not a decent American, I will gladly accept the charge of not being one.

What he must swear

2011-12-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Under the Constituion of the United States, any man (or woman) who assumes the office of President of the United States is required to swear the following oath:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." (Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:)

Let's read that again. Is there any mention of support for the nation of Israel in that oath?

As a matter of geo-political policy, you can make a case for support of Israel. As a matter of inviolable national policy? No. Even less so as a theological obligation. If you base your support of a candidate on some perceived (and likely bogus) lack of zeal in defending the nation of Israel, you need to reread the Constitution.

I fear those who would enslave me in the name of security

2011-12-22T09:03:00.000-05:00

We are supposed to believe that Ron Paul is unelectable because of a non-interventionist foreign policy. Americans just won't support someone who might let America go a few years without bombing, invading or otherwise tinkering with the government of another nation. How can America survive unless the government is spying on us and looking with suspicion at the

Meanwhile the Federal government seems quite comfortable in slowly carving away individual liberty in the name of "security". We trade what is ours for a false hope of security placed in the hands of the least competent institution in most of our lives but were are told that "they", i.e. those people over there, are the enemy.

Doug Wilson rightly points out that the danger from the Federal government is far more real for the average America than the threat posed by a Muslim terrorist....

Now let me be reasonable here. I understand the tangled legal issues when an American citizen heads over to Yemen in order to start his DeathtotheGreatSatan.com. I understand the legal issues when an American tries to light the fuse on his sneakers mid-flight while yelling inspirational phrases from the Koran. I get the fact that there is a difference between true enemy combatants and a shoplifter at the mall. So I do believe that the libertarians falsely underestimate the threat that bona fide Islamic terrorism poses to us.

But I do not believe that the libertarians underestimate the threat that our overweening government represents to us. Scale of 1 to 10, how concerned am I that Muslim terrorists are going to successfully do something really bad to me or to my family? Oh, 1 or 2. Same scale, how concerned am I that the federal government is going to do something really bad to me or to my family? More like a 6 or 7, and I am not counting the bad things they are engaged in doing right this minute.

Surely the government will use this power responsibly and wisely, right? Right . . . who would oversee this whole thing? What department would be responsible? Ah . . . the same guys who came up with Fast and Furious? No problem then. I drop my objections. I can see now that I was just being silly.

A nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. is far more dangerous to America life and liberty than a Muslim terrorist. On January 22, 1973, seven American men created the right to murder children in their mother's womb with the proverbial stroke of a pen, leading to 50,000,000 abortions in America. If you divide that number by 38 (the number of years Roe v Wade has been "the law") and further divide that by 365 days per year (skipping the leap years), you come up to 3,605 abortions per day. More American children are murdered in the womb every day than died in total on 9/11/2011.That is the power of the Federal government, the power to tax, to imprison, to murder and it is a power we willingly abdicate in return for a false sense of "security" in the name of patriotism and the occasional return of some of OUR money that we are supposed to gratefully accept from our Federal overlords like a benevolent nobleman dispensing a few coins to his subjects.

Support the man the troops support

2011-12-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Support the troops! God bless our troops!

We hear that all of the time and often the people who say those phrases are the ones who support policies that put those men and women in danger and do nothing to defend the security of the United States. What is telling is the level of support Ron Paul gets from our active duty military. Watch this outstanding video...

9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum. The history of the U.S. involvement in the Middle East has consequences but because we assume that America is always right, we ignore them. The video of Donald Rumsfeld chumming around with Saddam Hussein is stunning. We supported the majahideen when it served our purposes and then a few decades later we have been fighting those same people. Our Constitutional mandate does not give America the responsibility or the right to tinker around with the affairs of foreign nations that pose no threat to us without a formal declaration of war, something we haven't done since World War II even though in the interim we have been involved in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East in general, Grenada, Iraq twice and Afghanistan plus countless other conflicts in places like Somalia and Haiti.

Let’s look at the example of the Korean peninsula since the nutcase dictator of North Korea just died. While information is hard to come by, it is assumed that North Korea has a population of around 24,000,000. South Korea has twice the population at around 48,000,000. South Korea’s GDP is well over $1 trillion while North Korea has a GDP of around $40 billion, in other words South Korea’s economy is 25 times larger than North Korea’s. So we have two nations in a state of conflict for the last sixty years. One of these nations is a major economic power and has double the population. The other nation saw millions of its own citizens starve to death in the 90’s because their economy is such a disaster and they have isolated themselves from the rest of the world. Although North Korea has a huge military, so does South Korea. According to Wikipedia (references provided): Consequently, South Korea has the world's sixth largest number of active troops, the world's second-largest number of reserve troops and the eleventh largest defense budget. So it is not like South Korean can’t take care of itself.

Meanwhile the United States has had a sizeable military presence in South Korea since the Korean War, from 1950 to present day or over 60 years. We maintain a presence of over 28,000 troops in South Korea even though South Korea has some 687,000 active duty personnel and 8 million various reservists. Granted the North has over 1 million uniformed personnel but given the economic disparity it is without question that the South has far better equipment. What a lot of people forget is that during the Korean War, the UN forces drove all the way through North Korea and captured Pyonyang. That precipitated the Chinese response which led to the current stalemate. Were it not for Chinese intervention, Korea might well have been unified. Unlike the Korean War, in the event that North Korea initiated new hostilities with the South, the Soviet Union is gone and China has no interest in seeing a shooting war on their borders.

Meanwhile we have stationed tens of thousands of troops in Europe, in Asia and around the world for decades preparing to fight an enemy that no longer exists (the Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Pact). Our former enemies in World War II (Germany, Japan and Italy) are now some of our closest allies and trade partners. The world has changed but the Constitution has not and unfortunately neither has the unwavering support for the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul’s foreign policy is neither naïve not dangerous. What is naïve and dangerous is giving virtually limitless spending to the Federal government no matter what it is spent on. Likewise trusting that the Federal government can be trusted with control over the world’s most powerful military force with little more oversight than “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers.

Let me say it again. It is stunning that "conservatives", people who mistrust the government and want to shrink it put on blinders when it comes to the enormous military budget supporting a huge standing army that clearly is benefiting a small subset of people financially but costing America hundreds of billions in debt and worse thousands of America lives, not to mention the tens of thousands of civilians killed as "collateral damage".

If you disagree with Ron Paul’s foreign policy, that is your prerogative. I just ask that you actually think through the subject before parroting back what you hear from talk radio hosts.

Consistency

2011-12-08T07:28:00.000-05:00

Most politicians change direction with the wind. One guy has been consistently speaking common sense for a long time.

Ron Paul 2012!

Mitt Over Newt

2011-12-06T15:42:00.001-05:00

Let me say at the outset that neither of these guys is my first choice. At this stage if I were voting, I would vote for Ron Paul (and still will if he is on the ballot when my state finally votes in the primaries). Paul is unique among the GOP candidates for his refusal to embrace militaristic interventionism and his plan for shrinking government is far more comprehensive and serious than that of other candidates. Ron Paul has been consistent on the issues for a very long time and hopefully will emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire with solid footing if not an outright win. Anyway, the media is all abuzz with the news of Gingrich, left for dead like road kill, rising Lazarus-like from the dead to become the latest “Not Romney” and seizing the lead in many polls over Mitt Romney who seems stuck at a modest level of support.

Gingrich, on paper, seems like a solid conservative choice but the closer I look at him, the more convinced I am that he is a poor candidate to unseat Obama and that Mitt Romney is the better choice.

A lot of conservatives, including me, view Romney with some level of suspicion because of his flip-flopping on important issues and particularly because of Romney-care in Massachusetts. But as James Taranto states, writing for the Wall Street Journal, Mitt Romney has hardly cornered the market on flip-flopping…

So Newt is hardly a paragon of consistent conservative values (unlike say…Ron Paul). Even his recent potshot at Paul Ryan’s budget plan (describing it as “right wing social engineering”) caused a great deal of consternation among conservatives. Don't forget his questionable dealings with Fannie Mae, one of the great boondoggles in the history of America.

The main Republican objection to Romney is that he is inconstant, and thus not a true conservative. But is Gingrich really any better in this regard? In the past he has endorsed the individual mandate for medical insurance and even made a global-warmist video with Nancy Pelosi in which the two ex-speakers share a love seat!

Oddly, Newt is also not nearly as popular with people he was worked with in the past than he is with the primary voters. He seems to have a knack for rubbing people the wrong way, not for his principled stands so much as for being a jerk. Romney is by all accounts a nice guy and in my eyes has been a loyal soldier for some time. During the last election when Mitt finally conceded the nomination to John McCain, he was a good trooper and did all of the right stuff to support the doomed candidacy of Senator McCain. I think few people noticed it but I certainly did and applaud him for it.

When it comes to personal issues, issues of character, there is no contest. A co-worker often remarks to me that when you are on an airplane, you don’t care what kind of guy the pilot is, just that he lands the plane safely and gets you to the gate. Being President is somewhat more complicated because when you are the leader of the free world, a man with enormous power and influence unlike anyone else, personal issues matter. You represent us as a people to the world. While you might think that personal issues are not terribly important in this election given the dire straits our nation finds itself in, I still think that the personal life of a candidate speaks to their character. In other words, character counts. A man who is untrustworthy as a person is not someone I am keen on putting at the head of the world’s most powerful military. I trust Newt far more than I trust Obama but that is the equivalent of stumbling over a pretty low bar.

The sordid story of Newt Gingrich as a person is well known. Newt is thrice married, twice divorcing his wife at the time for the woman he was having an affair with. His current wife is 23 years his junior. In an interview earlier this year, Newt blamed it on his love for country:

Wearing white after Labor Day is not appropriate. Cheating on your wife and getting divorced twice is sinning. Big difference. Newt might be one of the few politicians who can match Barack Obama in terms of narcissism and utter lack of self-awareness. No President other than Ronald Reagan has been divorced and The Gipper met Nancy after his divorce was in process. Callista Gingrich would be the first home-wrecker to serve as first lady, not a particularly noble distinction.

There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.

Mitt Romney meanwhile married his first wife in 1969 and 42 years later is married to…that same woman.

There are concerns that many evangelical voters will shy away from Mitt because he is a mormon. As a former mormon Mitt’s faith concerns me as well but as a former mormon I also can see pretty clearly that Mitt’s mormonism plays second fiddle to his political career. Besides, when push comes to shove and I have to choose between unbelievers for President, I choose Mitt over Obama 100 times out of 100. It is not exactly as if Newt Gingrich is a poster child for evangelicalism. Newt Gingrich converted fairly recently to Catholicism, the faith of his current wife (that he left his prior wife for (who of course was the wife he left the wife before that for)). Not exactly a Damascus Road type conversion story.

So in summary. Romney is no less a conservative than Newt, he is not more of a flip-flopper and he is far and away a man of better character. By any rational measure he is more electable because he will draw more independents and Newt certainly carries an enormous amount of personal baggage that will cause voters to think twice (polling numbers show this fact quite starkly). While Romney doesn’t have Newt’s knack for casting random historical facts around, I have a hard time believing that voters will find Gingrich’s pompous self-importance very endearing and lest we forget Romney has a B.A. from BYU and a M.B.A. and J.D. from Harvard, so he is no dummy. By almost any measure other than personal repugnance, Mitt Romney is a better choice than Newt Gingrich. I still can’t believe that we are at this point where Newt Gingrich is the front runner. Where is Mitch Daniels when we need him?

Of course the best choice is still Ron Paul

Am I A Suspect?

2011-12-05T09:31:00.000-05:00

Apparently I might be a terrorism suspect. Watch this video, esp. the first part where Senator Rand Paul lists some of the ways that the National Defense Authorization Act allows the government to detain American citizens who are suspected terrorists and some of the tell-tale signs include having several guns in your possession and food stored for more than seven days.

There are not nearly enough voices speaking out against this. One of the easiest ways to take away liberty is to do it under the pretense of security. A people who will trade their liberty for state sponsored "security" quickly stop being citizens and start being subjects.

(Hat Tip: Bubbling Brook Farm)

The bogus issue of wealth and income disparity

2011-10-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

Income disparity has grown in America over the last few decades.

So what?

Obviously some people have more wealth and make more income than others. That is not in dispute. Here is the real question. So what? What exactly are we to do about it? Should we do anything about it at all? Why do some people think that the government has the right and obligation to even the playing field or redistribute income from those who earned it to those who did not? The government has no obligation and frankly no right under the Constitution to mandate a certain acceptable level of wealth or the appropriate difference between the richest 1% and any other citizen.

This is an important issue because I can already see that President Obama is clinging to class warfare and appeals to envy like a drowning man. When all else fails, the Left always pulls out the class card and whispers of the unfairness that the guy over there makes a dollar a year more than you do. With one exception there is always someone in America who earns more, who has more, than any other given person and appealing to entitlement and envy has been a political winner for the Left forever. The “Occupy Wall Street” hordes are playing right into this by publically protesting against “greed”, an easy target, while their so-called solutions are toxic to most Americans. The irony of the middle and upper class children of a privileged upbringing protesting against the very system that has provided them with easy and comfy lives for most of their existence, the entertainment they demand and the ridiculously overpriced educations that they borrowed enormous sums to finance is lost on most of them, so caught up are they in their own self-righteous indignation.

The truth is that in any free society there will be disparity. In fact that is true even in controlled economies and totalitarian societies. In the Soviet Union the party bosses were at the top of the food chain and lived lives of privilege unimaginable and unattainable by the rest of their comrades. There will always be a “1%” that is better off than the other “99%”. The question is what determines the population that makes up that 1%: hard work and success or government bureaucracy and totalitarianism.

The other issue is that people who are the wealthiest have also created an enormous amount of economic benefit for those on the bottom rungs of society. Let’s look at an example. Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 and through the decades since he has become one of the wealthiest men in the world. He is one of the “1%”. He might be in the top 1% of the top 1%! Of course he also gives away enormous sums in charitable giving but that is irrelevant to this conversation.

The company gates co-founded, Microsoft, also employs 90,000 people. 90,000. Many of those jobs are low skilled jobs but an awful lot of them are very high paying, great benefit jobs. Microsoft has created hundreds of billions in wealth via profits. Much of that wealth has gone to Mr. Gates but a lot of it has also gone to the employees and shareholders of Microsoft. Most people with a 401k plan probably hold a number of mutual funds that invest in Microsoft and have reaped the benefits of its profits. Companies like Microsoft, created by an entrepreneur and growing into an enormous company that in spite of the various flaws of Windows have made personal computing available to virtually everyone in America and billions of people around the world. The entire personal computer industry as it exists today can be traced back to Bill Gates and he has reaped the profits. Should Bill Gates be punished because of his success? Would we rather that people like Bill Gates just worked in a factory rather than being innovative risk takers? What about the Walton familty? In the 80’s and 90’s Wal-mart exploded in size and the Walton family reaped enormous benefits. Sure the Walton heirs are incredibly wealthy and Sam Walton was the richest man in America for many years but Wal-Mart also not only provides low cost products to hundreds of millions of consumers, it also employs 2.1 million employees worldwide. Think about that, over 2,000,000 employees, most of whom are low or no skilled service industry employees, that can trace their jobs back to the hard work and risk taking of a man, Sam Walton, who became supremely wealthy and rightfully so.

Even if we assume that rectifying income disparity is a legitimate function of the government, which it is not under any rational reading of the Constitution, there are two ways to address the issue. One is to seize, under threat of imprisonment, the generally hard earned income of the most successful among us, those who have often taken enormous risks to start a business or invest in an education. This method punishes the achiever and rewards the non-producers and the risk averse among us. This method is designed to encourage “fairness” but instead is more likely to reduce the overall wealth in our society by punishing achievers and quashing risk taking.

The other option is to take steps to encourage risk taking (real risk taking, where failure has consequences and the government is not going to bail you out) and investment. A strategy designed to facilitate the expansion of wealth so that more people have an opportunity to achieve. This strategy makes sense and has proven successful in the past but it is unpopular because it means that ultimately people are responsible for themselves and some people will end up being more successful than others.

We will be faced with two visions next November. On the one hand is a vision we see on display already in America, a vision of punishing achievement and rewarding failure, both on an individual level and an institutional level. A vision that has dominated our political discourse for decades, under Republican control and Democratic alike. The alternate vision, the vision I believe set in place the foundations for our prosperity that we have been trying to undermine for a long time and is in the spirit intended by the Founders of a system of limited government, would create an environment where hard work, risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit is permitted to flourish. The government cannot make people entrepreneurial, it can only hamper that spirit. The government cannot create wealth, it can only shuffle existing wealth from one person to another. The government cannot create jobs, it merely replaces private sector jobs with public sector ones. For far too long we have turned over our lives, our economy, our daily bread even, to the government and with each passing year it becomes more obvious that the government is not the solution, it is the problem. Our greatest challenge, the number one factor that is endangering our economic future, has nothing to do with the richest 1%, it has everything to do with the size and scope of the government, a government that creates crippling regulations, convoluted tax codes to reward favored industries and companies, borrows money and makes untenable economic promises with the intent of letting future generations pay the bill and generally makes individual Americans into members of a dependent class that is capable of little other than holding out our collective hands.

Is there income disparity in America. Of course there is, just as there is in every civilization that has ever existed or that will ever exist this side of eternity. Is the gap getting worse? Yes. The solution has nothing to do income redistribution but instead is centered on shrinking the size and scope of the Federal government, empowering up the free market by staying out of its way, encouraging investment and reasonable risk taking and making people responsible for their own prosperity. Unless we are willing to do that we are headed for a mess that will make the current European crisis look like the proverbial walk in the park.

Ironic

2011-10-24T16:05:00.000-04:00

Many Republican voters won't support Ron Paul because they say he is an isolationist, unwilling to commit U.S. troops to foreign conflicts. Then you read something like this from the Wall Street Journal...

Mr. Paul draws a large share of his support from the military. The top three employers listed by his third-quarter campaign contributors are the Air Force, Navy and Army.

So apparently the people who actually have to fight in the wars other Republicans are so eager to engage in make up a large share of Ron Paul's supporters. Maybe that should tell us something.....

I can has jobz?

2011-10-18T14:19:00.002-04:00

For all of the talk that comes out of Washington on both sides, the reality remains the same. There are too few jobs for the people who want work, at least too few full-time, permanent jobs. Worse, there is no plan to fix it and I suspect there is not really a plan being proposed that will work. This is especially true among men without college degrees. Why do young men without a college degree have such a hard time finding career type work (as opposed to transitory jobs, i.e. working in a factory rather than working in fast food)? Is the problem a lack of government spending? Or is it a wage environment that makes hiring these men to do what amounts to unskilled work too expensive? Is the underlying problem that we have priced unskilled labor, the kind of work young men right out of high school used to transition into that has now disappeared, out of competitiveness? American consumers, the vast majority of whom are precisely the sort of middle- and lower-class Americans who have a hard time finding a job, demand cheap and plentiful consumer goods. To produce those goods in the quantities and at the prices demanded by consumers usually means that the products must be produced overseas. We have created a vicious circle where the very consumers who demand constant, cheap consumption cannot find work that provides a sufficient wage to satisfy their demand.

Americans are victims of our own affluence. Our demand for cheap goods and services coupled with our expectation of a certain wage level has driven many unskilled jobs that formerly were in America to locations overseas. It is easy to rail against evil and greedy corporations for doing this but what drives them to move jobs overseas is the demand for cheap consumer goods. Making consumer goods in America requires paying more and it just is not the case that American consumers by and large have shown a willingness to pay a premium for “Made In America”. Sure we talk a big game about it but look at a Wal-Mart parking lot and you will see that talk is cheap until you have to swipe your debit card. The combination of minimum wage levels that artificially inflate the wages of the least qualified workers, unionization which has dramatically escalated the cost of hiring blue collar workers and the flooding of women into the workforce that dilutes the demand for labor has led to a situation.

The result is found in the inevitable situation we are in. As the world shrinks and it becomes easier to mass produce in low labor cost countries and transport those goods to the more affluent market, it was inevitable that we would arrive at this situation.

Thus we have the foolishness and hubris of the “Occupy Wall Street” folks. What is happening here, and in pitiful assemblies in cities around America, is not a representative demonstration of the “99%” but rather a very small, very radical fringe on the Left. They have succeeded thus far in framing the “protests” as an uprising of 99% of Americans against the evil and greedy successful people when in reality they not only do not represent “99%” of Americans, they don’t represent even a majority of Americans but rather a very small, radical fringe. The Wall Street Journal reported on an informal survey of the protestors and the findings are about what I expected.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

Perhaps most disturbing was the stat that almost 1/3 of those informally polled were OK with the use of violence to achieve their “goals”. The gentlemen I have seen look perfectly capable of hooligan violence, i.e. tossing a garbage can through a store widow, but just as likely to wet themselves in the face of actually violence. The rumblings of this have been building for some time in the far Left violence at the meeting of various world economic conferences (like the G-8) and in some places in Europe as a reaction to the austerity measures being forced upon the most indebted nations. We are standing on the precipice of a very dangerous cliff but the various left wing causes being championed by the Occupy Wall Street crowd are likely to exacerbate the problems rather than alleviate them.

There are really only two ways to approach this economy with its utter lack of job creation. One is for the Federal government to tax and borrow enormous sums of money that will be used to “create” or more likely retain jobs, most of which will be in the public sector. The canard that Federal spending will go toward “shovel ready” jobs in the private sector has been shown to be false. The stimulus spending we already tried went largely to unionized public sector workers, in essence a tax payer funded payback to the public sector unions that overwhelmingly support Democrats who in turn seek to increase the number of public sector union worker who pay union dues….you get the picture. The other is for the country to swallow hard, prepare for some lean years and do everything possible to make the environment for hiring, investing and expanding as attractive as possible. There are no quick fixes here. Writing yet another check being cashed against the tax dollars of future generations is not a solution. We need genuine leadership and it is pretty clear we are not going to get that from the current inhabitant of the White House.

America's Unhealthy Love Affair With The Military

2011-10-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

America was founded by people who had a healthy suspicion of a standing military. Many of the articles in the Bill of Rights had their genesis in the tendency toward corrupt rule by a government with a standing army, including mention of civilian militias in the Second Amendment (the best protection against a tyrant is an armed citizenry) and a specific article outlawing the quartering of troops in private homes in the Third Amendment. It is almost unthinkable today that the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, right after the protecting of freedom of speech, religion and assembly and the protection of the right of private citizens to be armed, is a protection against the excesses of a standing army. Of course we don't have soldiers being quartered in the homes of private citizens anymore. We just have hundreds of military bases around the world housing hundreds of thousands of soldiers at enormous expense paid for by the seizing of tax money from...private citizens.

Prior to the start of World War II, the United States military was barely a blip on the radar, smaller than many minor players in Europe. Some may argue that our relatively weak standing military was a provocation for Japan to attack what perhaps they saw as a toothless tiger. They quickly learned, as did Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, that poking the sleeping giant gets you stomped. The huge military build-up in the years leading to Pearl Harbor and then in the post Pearl Harbor entrance of the United States is remarkable. America at that time was uniquely suited with industrial capacity, a large population and a self-sufficient food supply to go from a military also-ran to an unstoppable fighting force. Furthermore we don’t face that sort of wide scale pitched warfare anymore. Who would we go to war with? China, our largest lender (and we are their largest consumer)? India? Russia? There is not a realistic scenario where we would face the sort of massive mobilization on the horizon. Suggest that maybe we can afford to cut back on military spending and you will find yourself accused of undermining the troops and outright “un-Americanism”.

Our current love affair with the military goes back oddly enough to the end of the Vietnam War and the popular culture that surrounds the treatment of returning Vietnam veterans. The well known events of people screaming at, spitting on and otherwise mistreating soldiers who by and large had been drafted into the war against their will is an ugly stain on our cultural history. I don’t know of anyone who is proud of those events outside of a few relics of the hippie era on the campus of some universities. Even if they are proud of that behavior they generally have the common sense to keep their mouths shut.

Today and really since the first Gulf War (perhaps even back to the Reagan Presidency) the attitude in America has changed. Today the military is revered above almost any other public institution by most Americans. “Support our troops” is assumed by most people. Citizens thank uniformed serviceman in public for their service. In an age when most public institutions are looked at with suspicion if not outright hostility (governments, schools, churches, sports, doctors), the military sits alone on a pedestal. Along with that comes with political cover that prevents any discussion of reducing the size and scope of our military or restraining military spending. In an era of record setting crippling deficits, cutting military spending is virtually off the board. Mitt Romney even called for increased military spending in a speech last week without a hint of where the money would come from.

The reverence for the military is understandable. With the death of the “Greatest Generation” of World War II vets and the near constant service of so many men and women in the years following September 11th, it is little wonder that the military holds a unique place of reverence in America in a time when few of our cultural pillars are unstained. How can one not see the young men and women in uniform in an airport, coming from or going to a new base or perhaps Afghanistan or Iraq and not be touched? However, this reverence has the potential for some serious problems.

First, the military budget. National defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the Federal government as something that is not realistically able to be handled by the states. That Constitutional function does not provide a blank check for military interventions and nation building. I have a hard time believing that the Founders would approve of a ten year war in Afghanistan. Given our trillions upon trillions of dollars in national debt that shows no sign of shrinking, we need to be willing to cut defense spending in a meaningful way. We can do so without putting our nation at risk and it is high time that the rest of our allies step up and shoulder some of the burden.

Second, a skewing of opinion when our troops are “in harms way”. When the military is in the field, we are supposed to rally around the flag and support them, no matter what. Questions about whether or not we should be engaged in a theater of operation is virtually forbidden and suggestions to that effect invariably lead to charges of “not supporting the troops”. This attitude quashes legitimate questions. A decision to put American troops into combat is by far the most critical decision a President can make and that decision needs to be open to discussion. That means that neither blind support nor blind opposition to any military action is a sign of a health republic.

Finally, although this seems unlikely, it should worry us that we have a huge and often politicized standing army in our midst. Too often around the world the government has seized power beyond its mandate by using the military. Of course that wouldn’t happen here, right? Almost certainly not but we are also facing a great deal of social unrest, discontentment, extended unemployment and almost certainly huge cuts to entitlements and benefits people expect from the Federal government. Never underestimate what fear and uncertainty can do to a populace and never underestimate what steps those in power will take to stay in power.

Americans should absolutely respect the service of those who serve in the military and remember the sacrifices they have made. We should also remember where we came from and remember that the military is for our national defense, a mandate that it has been called to exceed for my entire life. Likewise we should recall that the military is part of the government and that we should always pay attention to how it is run, where it is sent and how it is funded. The military is not and must not be above reproach or examination and we need to keep that in mind. Honor the troops but be realistic about the military.

Good video from Ron Paul

2011-10-08T09:29:00.002-04:00

Enormous deficits? Unending wars? Spend MORE on defense!

2011-10-07T15:13:00.000-04:00

I am gradually coming to terms with the reality that Romney is likely to be the nominee. The way Rick Perry fizzled means he is virtually out of contention a month after he got into the race as the instant front-runner. Ron Paul gets ignored consistently by the media and is not enough of an interventionist for the rank and file GOP voter. The rest of the field is fading fast. The fact that Herman Cain, who is a solid conservative but not likely to win the nomination, is getting so much attention tells you that the GOP base is looking for someone other than Romney but in the end I think he is going to end up being the nominee. Today he gave another speech, this time in front of a crowd at the Citadel where he called for additional defense spending...

Mr. Romney proposed a big increase in naval shipbuilding, to as many as 15 new ships a year from the current rate of nine, as well as the deployment of a full national ballistic-missile-defense system.

How exactly are we going to pay for that? Borrowing money from China?

Here we see Romney's biggest flaw. He is a chameleon. In front of a pro-military audience he is a defense hawk. Unlike Ron Paul (Air Force, 1963 to 1968) and Rick Perry (also Air Force, 1972-1977) who actually served in the military, Romney has no uniformed service experience but when faced with a military audience he is all about spending more on the armed forces, especially the Navy (where we already hold an unbelievable advantage over the rest of the world, see here ). This was clearly a speech that was as much about drawing a contrast with his rivals, chiefly Ron Paul who is not mentioned by name but clearly in view, as much as about contrasting himself with President Obama.

He also appeared to take swipes at some of his GOP rivals, who have argued that the U.S. should concentrate above all on controlling spending and rebuilding the U.S. economy.

"We should embrace the challenge, not shrink from it, not crawl into an isolationist shell, not wave the white flag of surrender, nor give in to those who assert America's moment has passed," Mr. Romney said. "That is utter nonsense. An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender."

Mr. Romney said that, if elected, he would "reverse President Obama's massive defense cuts" on his first day in office, even though significant cuts in defense spending haven't taken effect under Mr. Obama. Romney aides said the governor was referring to projected defense cuts, most of which were part of the debt-ceiling negations that both parties agreed to in August.

The bogeyman of isolationism. The favorite slur of "conservatives" when confronted with even the suggestion of cuts to defense, as if modest cuts in defense spending would cripple the American military. As I pointed out in a prior post, The Most Sacred of Conservative Cows, many conservatives are all about cutting spending excpet when it comes to the military.

If we are going to have a serious conversation about reducing the national debt, military spending must be on the table. America can no longer afford (and honestlynever really could) to be the world's policeman, spending hundreds of billions a year on a military that does very little that is national defense oriented. It would be nice if the media gave more air time to Ron Paul who is alone in the major candidates in talking about this issue. We clearly are not going to get a serious conversation from either Obama or Romney....

We're not sure what we are protesting but by golly we are awful mad about it!

2011-10-03T07:51:00.007-04:00

In the "empty and futile gesture" category we have the knuckleheads "occupying Wall Street", a motley crowd that doesn't seem to know what exactly they are protesting against or what they want. "We're mad as heck about...about...well about something Important and we are Protesting!", even if protesting looks a lot like "squatting" or hanging around instead of looking for gainful employment. Look at this pic, you can tell these people are being repressed by The MAN, just look at these brave protesters. They are reduced to updating Facebook OUTSIDE!

Here is one "protester" making known her...um, demands?

Erin Larkins, a Columbia University graduate student at who says she and her boyfriend have significant student loan debt, was among the thousands of protesters on the bridge. She said a friend persuaded her to join the march and she's glad she did.

"I don't think we're asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent, or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again," Larkins wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "No one is expecting immediate change. I think everyone is just hopeful that people will wake up a bit and realize that the more we speak up, the more the people that do have the authority to make changes in this world listen."

Boy, you would think someone working on a graduate degree at Columbia would be, oh I don't know, studying? Or at least be able to articulate just what they are protesting against because from the news report she apparently wants someone to provide more groceries and is not keen on paying back her substantial student loans. Forced to eat rice and beans? She is just like a Haitian orphan. You know except for the part about being a grad student at Columbia. Other than that she is just like a Haitian orphan! Good thing she is not going to school in an insanely expensive city like...New York...oh.

It is hard to take seriously someone in grad school at Columbia talking about economic justice. Oh the humanity that she is living frugally in college! That has never happened to any college student until just recently! We used to think that struggling by, eating cheap pizza and ramen noodles, was a part of the college experience and character forming. Now? Looks like those meanies on Wall Street are making college students eat rice and beans! This whole thing smacks of a bunch of spoiled children of privilege having a fit because the rest of the country isn't interested in funding whatever it is that they want them to fund. You know like Justice and stuff.

In Greece, a country up to its eyeballs in debt, mass protests including some violent ones greet any attempt to rein in spending as demanded by other nations that kind of would like to get their money back. You know, 'cause that is what you are supposed to do with loans. Pay them back. Anyway Greece is suffering through the effects of decades of unsustainable social programs and like most of the rest of Europe is finding out that you can't provide incentives to the population to not work without eventually having some consequences. Thanks to the instability of Greece and other European nations, coupled with the cruddy economy in America and worldwide, the markets are in turmoil and the job picture is muddled because companies don't like uncertainty.

So in America we are seeing the start of same thing. Groups of young pseudo-intellectuals talking about anarchy and fighting the power while posting status updates on the iPad they bought on credit they don't want to repay. State workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere demanding that tax payers fund their ridiculous benefit packages no matter what the cost. We have been riding high on borrowed money, at the Federal, state and household level for a long time and now that has dried up. That in turn has put the economy, job market, housing market, etc. in the tank.Can violence in the streets and general uprisings be far away? Few things are more dangerous than a violent crowd and almost nothing is more dangerous that an violent mob that has no idea what they are rioting about.

Only in America.

For some reason the "protestors" in New York remind me of this video...

The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share

2011-09-29T10:30:00.000-04:00

Seriously can we dispense with the whole "the rich need to pay their fair share" baloney?

It is undisputed that the top wage earners in this country pay an enormous percentage of income tax receipts. The top 10% of wage earners pay 70% of all income tax. Apparently that is not enough. Ask your average citizen who is eligible to vote if the rich should "pay their fair share" (the question presumes that whatever they are paying now is not "fair") and you will get overwhelming support, often even among Republican voters.

It is also undisputed that nearly 50% of adults in this country pay nothing or less in Federal income taxes. I am among that group thanks to the tax laws and my large family. I still get to drive on roads and bridges funded by the gubmint. I still enjoy the protection of the United States military. I buy meat stamped "USDA" from the store. Non-taxpayers like me get all of the benefits with none of the costs. Yet many of us think the rich need to pay more because we want to benefit more from the system that we don't pay for. We have a RIGHT to benefits from the Federal government, paid for by someone else, because...well because we have been told we deserve it and have been given the means (i.e. voting) to confiscate the property of others to benefit ourselves.

Huh?

The rich get one vote on the ballot just like the non-taxpaying citizens. Sure you can argue that they influence politicians with campaign donations but so do unions. So does the NRA. So does the AARP. So do tons of advocacy groups that claim the allegiance of all sorts of people. They don't get special lanes on the highway to drive upon. They get taxed heavily on their income. If they invest part of what is left over they get taxed on their gains. If they pass on their accumulated wealth that they earned and is left over after taxes, their heirs get taxed on that inheritance again. Meanwhile the same politicians speechifying about "fair share" have created a hopelessly complex tax system that allows the ultra-rich (i.e. donors to the Democrats) to hide and shelter their money.

Let me ask. What would be "their fair share"? If the top ten percent of wage earners paid 90% of all taxes and the other 90% of Americans chipped in the remaining 10%, would that be "fair"? Maybe if nobody paid any taxes but the top 10% of wage earners, would that be "fair"? Maybe we should just seize every nickle someone makes above and beyond the median income so that no one has more than anyone else. That would be "fair", right? Politicians like our President never name a number because that might get people thinking. The answer is always "more".

Or perhaps the problem is not that the Federal government is not taxing the "rich" enough but that it spends too much and does so inefficiently and in areas that have no basis in the Constitutional mandate of the Federal government. When an alcoholic refuses to leave the bar, you don't take away the drink from the guy sitting on the next bar stool and give it to them. You cut him off. It is high time we cut off our Federal overlords. Take away their checkbook and you take away their power and perhaps then we can see some real reform in this country.

Most accurate political cartoon ever?

2011-08-30T10:44:00.001-04:00

A four man race

2011-08-15T10:17:00.000-04:00

Well a lot happened over the weekend politically. Tim Pawlenty, who on paper looked like a great candidate, turned out to be a horrible campaigner. Michelle Bachmann has shown some real support. Rick Perry got in and since he draws from a similar pool as Bachmann could spell real trouble for her. He has everything she does not: he served in the military, he is a guy, he has executive experience (and we have proof of how disastrous a President with no executive experience can be. See: Obama, Barack) and he seems....less kooky. I liked this paragraph from the Wall Street Journal today (emphasis mine)

Americans are already living with the consequences of electing a President who sounded good but had achieved little as a legislator and had no executive experience. Mrs. Bachmann will have to persuade voters she isn't the conservative version of Mr. Obama.

There it is.

So we are left with Ron Paul, who gets no respect from the media on either side, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and of course Mitt Romney who has a great organization, a ton of money and a huge albatross around his neck in the form of the proto-Obamacare he oversaw and still defends in Massachusetts. I assume Gingrich will stop embarassing himself and get out, although he might be delusional enough to stay in for a while. Huntsman, Santorum, Cain, McCotter (huh?!) never were in this in the first place and shouldn't even really be considered in future debates. The question comes down to who emerges from those four. I can see Paul hanging around for a long time which is healthy. I think Bachmann is peaking too soon and will fade as her supporters bleed off and Pawlenty supporters run to Perry. Romney is the "front runner" but only because he has been running since the day after the last election and has lots of money. No one I know is enthusiastic about him at all. A lot of people would like a President Romney more than a second Obama term but he is nobodies first choice that I know of.

Should be an interesting couple of months. Once the snow starts flying we should know who is likely to face Obama. At this point, even though he is new into the race, I think this is Perry's race to lose.

And please, please, please let's all hope Sarah Palin quits muddying the waters and leaves the GOP alone. This next election is too important for Palin and her ego trip.

Charity is not the role of the Federal government

2011-08-10T18:39:00.000-04:00

Wow, just read a great post from CATO, Charity and the Federal Government. It starts off with a great quote from James Madison:

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.

How far we have strayed from the founding principles of limited government! I also liked this paragraph:

Today, most young Americans grow up in federally subsidized schools offering federally subsidized meals. They are inculcated to view the federal government as a benevolent caregiver that exists to provide Americans with housing, food, health care, and even income (to name just a few). Madison’s unfortunately quaint notion that the federal government isn’t supposed to be engaged in “charitable” activities would probably leave them dumbfounded.

That is outstanding. If you don't think that there is a sizable portion of the Left that is bent on getting as many people possible as dependent as possible on the Federal government, you are naive.Now, having said all of that, I do worry that if we were somehow to magically dismantle the welfare state would those on the political Right step up and give via private charity or just be glad to have more money to spend on stuff? That is a hard question. I like to think so and given how generous many people already are I think you can make a case for it but it is a nagging question nevertheless. Even the most conservative among us seem to have bought into the notion that it is the government's job to care for the poor, we just don't want them doing it with our money.

America needs freedom from government, not deficit spending fueled "nation building"

2011-06-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

President Obama promised to start bringing home the troops from Afghanistan last night, rather slowly but I get where he is coming from. The bigger problem has nothing to do with Afghanistan. The ominous tone that he struck tells the story that he still seems to not get what is going on here at home. He said:

America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.

Dear President Obama. We already have a nation. We don't need "nation building" in America. While I am not 100% sure what that means, I am pretty sure that what you mean is "more government spending". That is the last thing we need. When the Left speaks of "investment" they mean more deficit spending aimed at making an ever larger part of the U.S. economy dependent on the Federal government. We never could afford that and that sort of interventionism cripples the economy. The prolonged recession and ballooning deficits speak to the truth of that statement, not to mention the looming entitlement crisis that we have no way of paying for.

What President Obama is hinting at with "nation building here at home", what he really means is remaking America in his image, an America that looks more like Europe and less like the entrepreneurial risk taking capitalism that has made America the envy of the world. I hope that my fellow Americans will see through this and reject the false hope we are promised by trading opportunity for perceived economic security.

The most foolish and illogical New York Times editorial ever?

2011-06-22T12:54:00.000-04:00

That would be a bold claim but I think I can substantiate it. Nelson Lichtenstein is outraged over the Supreme Courts rejection of the class action lawsuit lumping 1.6 million women into one enormous suit. According to Mr. Lichtenstein, Wal-Mart is just a step down from a North Korean prison camp and his editorial, Wal-Mart’s Authoritarian Culture (you know, unlike all of the other corporations out there that don’t have authoritarians hierarchies) demonstrates an amazing lack of understanding about even basic economic concepts.

Apparently the very corporate policies that have made Wal-Mart successful and provided hundreds of millions of consumers with the low cost consumer goods that they demand are somehow inherently discriminatory to women. The solution Mr. Lichtenstein proposes will shock you!

Warning. Hyperbole ahead.

There are tens of thousands of experienced Wal-Mart women who would like to be promoted to the first managerial rung, salaried assistant store manager. But Wal-Mart makes it impossible for many of them to take that post, because its ruthless management style structures the job itself as one that most women, and especially those with young children or a relative to care for, would find difficult to accept.

Why? Because, for all the change that has swept over the company, at the store level there is still a fair amount of the old communal sociability. Recognizing that workers steeped in that culture make poor candidates for assistant managers, who are the front lines in enforcing labor discipline, Wal-Mart insists that almost all workers promoted to the managerial ranks move to a new store, often hundreds of miles away.

For young men in a hurry, that’s an inconvenience; for middle-aged women caring for families, this corporate reassignment policy amounts to sex discrimination. True, Wal-Mart is hardly alone in demanding that rising managers sacrifice family life, but few companies make relocation such a fixed policy, and few have employment rolls even a third the size.

Egad, the horror of common sense! Promoting someone to manage people who were their peers few days ago is problematic, so they move promising future managers to stores where there are actual openings. What sort of crazy talk is that?! Doesn’t Wal-Mart know that making promotions as easy and convenient as possible is their primary corporate priority?

Moving for promotions is typical in much of corporate America and especially so in retail. There are hordes of nomads who relocate year after year as part of new store set-up teams. They move to a town where a new Wal-Mart/Home Depot/Lowes etc is opening, spend a year or so setting up the store for its grand opening and then relocate to open the next store. That is just reality, a place unfamiliar to most of the authors invited to pontificate on the hallowed pages of the New York Times. Wait, there is more!

The obstacles to women’s advancement do not stop there. The workweek for salaried managers is around 50 hours or more, which can surge to 80 or 90 hours a week during holiday seasons. Not unexpectedly, some managers think women with family responsibilities would balk at such demands, and it is hardly to the discredit of thousands of Wal-Mart women that they may be right.

Maybe, just maybe, there are real trade offs that people have to make in balancing career and family. Wal-Mart offers jobs with particular requirements. One of those requirements is that Wal-Mart managers work tons of hours. That is pretty typical in retail where the small number of managers are almost always salaried and work long hours. My first job out of college was in retail store management and my work week was five “regular” days where I worked 11 hours and one “half day” where I worked six hours. A typical week saw me working more than 55 hours for an annual salary of about $21,000 or the equivalent of around $7.34/hour. I made less per hour in management than many of the regular workers in the store, including cashiers. That is simply the reality of the retail world. Don’t fret though, Mr. Lichtenstein has a radical solution: unionize!

There used to be a remedy for this sort of managerial authoritarianism: it was called a union, which bargained over not only wages and pensions but also the kind of qualitative issues, including promotion and transfer policies, that have proved so vexing for non-unionized employees at Wal-Mart and other big retailers.

There “used to be” something called a union? I think we still have them although they are rapidly falling out of favor in the private sector. So according to this fella, the solution to Wal-Mart’s “managerial authoritarianism” is to unionize Wal-Mart employees, the fantasy of every leftist in America. What will that accomplish? Typically unions don’t cover management, so that does very little to alleviate concerns over working hours and required relocations. Plus unionizing Wal-Mart workers will invariably lead to higher costs. Guess who is going to pay those higher costs? If you answered “the consumer”, i.e. “the little guy” you are correct! It probably goes without saying but given that we are dealing with the New York Times here even the most obvious, common sense statements bear repeating: The “rich” are not the primary consumers of Wal-Mart’s products. They can afford to shop wherever they like. It is middle and lower class Americans who are able to buy products at the lower prices offered by Wal-Mart because of Wal-Mart’s culture of purchasing in massive quantities and corporate austerity. Those are the very consumers who would be hurt by unionizing Wal-Mart. Raising the cost of wages doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Those costs are built into the price of goods and services. Raise wages and you inevitably raise the prices paid by consumers. This is precisely why minimum wage laws are illogical. The only way this would conceivably work is to couple price controls with wage controls and we all know how well that worked in the Soviet Union.

Wal-Mart, for all of its flaws, is first and foremost a corporation run by a board of directors appointed by its shareholders. Just like every other corporation in the world including the New York Times. Like every corporation, it is driven by profit. Wal-Mart also happens to be the largest company in America, a company that provides both great prices on consumer products to consumers across America as well as jobs to literally millions of people. Unionizing Wal-Mart, which will never happen thank goodness, would lead to “higher” wages for low skill workers and higher prices for hundreds of millions of low to mid income Americans. If you don’t like Wal-Mart’s policies, don’t shop there. Pay higher prices somewhere else or make your own stuff. Just don’t make the rest of us pay higher prices because you have a beef with the largest private job creator in America

The Chinese menace and the national debt

2011-06-09T14:41:00.002-04:00

Many of the arguments against cutting defense spending revolve around a hypothetical war with China. The argument goes something like this. China is eager to establish itself as a military powerhouse in the Pacific. If the U.S. blinks on defense spending, the Chinese will slowly catch up to us and take away our numerical and technological superiority. That will leave us poorly positioned to defend Taiwan, Japan, Korea or Australia. Without the deterrent of an overwhelming U.S naval power in the Pacific either China will become ascendant and aggressive or Japan will have to rebuild its navy and no one wants that. In short, we have to maintain our level of military spending to prevent a disastrous war with China.

Guess what.

We are already at war with China and we are losing. Badly.

I don’t think the Chinese have much interest in getting into a shooting war with America. Why do that when they are defeating America little by little each day? They have turned around and adapted the U.S. strategy under Reagan during the Cold War but we are too dense and too apathetic to even realize it. We cannot keep spending at our current levels but no one is willing to make the cuts we need and that absolutely includes serious cuts to defense spending. As it stands we are slowly losing our economic dominance and China is intentionally building its economic juggernaut while we push ourselves further into debt, threatening our long term economic stability and position as the leader of the free world.

We simply cannot afford to spend upwards of a trillion dollars each and every year on defense, especially since what we are buying is not “defense” but “offense” in many cases. The news has long been full of stories out of Iraq and Afghanistan but we are seeing new stories as President Obama inexplicably extends our military even further into Libya and airstrikes on Yemen. How long until we get involved militarily in Syria where conditions are at least as bad as they were in Libya?

The US military of the future needs to be a lot of things: nimbler, more adaptable, more technologically driven, more focused. It also needs to be smaller and cheaper. We need to have serious conversations about how to make that happen in the context of drastic spending cuts now, not twenty years from now when it is too late.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal must read my blog

2011-06-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

Back in March, I put up a post, A Simple Solution, where I suggested that we could kill two birds with one stone by cracking down on illegal immigrants who do farm labor and cutting unemployment benefits to incentivize people to take on harder jobs. Turns out Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia must have read my post according to CNN, To address unemployment, Georgia governor proposes farm work.

Are you out of work? Are you looking for a job? Do you live in Georgia?

If the answer to those questions is "yes," Gov. Nathan Deal has an idea for you: Become a farm worker.
Governor Deal seems to have made the connection: a lot of people out of work, no money for unemployment, lots of openings in farm work because of actually enforcing immigration laws in his state.

Ah, but in the spirit of American entitlement, this is pretty unpopular among those getting free money from the government for not working…

For some unemployed Georgians, however, the idea is not so appealing.

Marci Mosley, who lives in Atlanta, has been out of work for more than a year. She said she would only work on a farm as a last resort.

"I have a phobia of snakes," Mosley said. "I hate spiders...You have to get up early in the morning, and it's hot."

Mosley, an African-American, said she used to work on her grandfather's farm in Texas, where he stressed the importance of a good education to get off the farm. Mosley believes Deal's plan would be a tough sell for many other African Americans, who saw their older relatives struggle farming.

"It could be a setback for people," Mosley said. "The only people that would even think about doing that are people who have nothing else left...An educated black person does not have time for that. They didn't go to school to work on a farm, and they're not going to do it."

That’s the spirit! It is hot and you have to get up early, so we ain’t doing it! It is apparently my right as an American to only do jobs that I really, really like doing and that are not too physically taxing or require me to change my sleep patterns or for crying out loud where I might see a spider!

I am willing to bet that if unemployment ran out a lot sooner, all of a sudden jobs that were “jobs Americans won’t do” would suddenly seem a lot more acceptable.

Double standard anyone?

2011-06-03T09:09:00.002-04:00

So the Obama administration has decided that amidst the budget crisis, the looming debt ceiling “catastrophe”, a still very weak job market, a similarly cruddy housing market, three wars, etc., etc. that it must make it a priority step in to prevent the people of Indiana (you know, the tax payers) from deciding to defund Planned Parenthood.

The administration, rather than admitting that the puppet-masters at Planned Parenthood are pulling their strings, are just throwing up their hands in helplessness. What can they do, this is “the law”!

"We expect Indiana will comply with the federal law. That's our position now," Berwick told Fox News. "Medicaid can't pay with federal dollars for abortion, but that does not mean the state can deny services from a willing provider. That's just what the law is and we're just implementing the law."

Huh. It seems like only yesterday that the same administration refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because they arbitrarily decided it was unconstitutional. Sure it was also “the law” but in this administration only certain laws are real laws apparently.

We of course have to set aside the fact that funding “family planning services” of any sort really is way outside of the Constitutional mandate of the Federal government. After all, this administration has demonstrated long ago that the Constitution only means what Barack Obama wants it to mean.

Defend DOMA? No. Defend tax payer subsidies for abortionists? Absolutely!

News Flash! Rich people are....rich!

2011-05-31T15:33:00.002-04:00

In a stunning piece of news, it turns out that rich people have more money than poor people. This report, Millionaires Control 39% of the World’s Wealth, will come as a shock to many people to be sure and spur calls from places like the New York Times to increase taxes.

I found this to be interesting:

As you can see from the accompanying chart, millionaires control 29% of North America’s wealth, while millionaires control about 38% of the wealth in the Middle East and Africa. While the chart makes it look like millionaire-wealth in America is more concentrated, we also have far more millionaires, so their wealth is more spread out among the millionaire population.

So in a capitalist nation, we have lots and lots of millionaires (5,200,000 of them to be more precise). In fact we have less wealth concentrated with millionaires than Third World countries (generally not functioning capitalistic states).

What is also not noted is that something like half of Americans don’t pay any Federal income tax (including your humble author) and conversely the top wage earners pay an obscenely high percentage of total Federal income tax receipts.

What is usually missed is that this is a good thing. 5 million millionaires means more and more people becoming wealthy and wealth is not static. In other words, they create more wealth rather than taking it from the “poor”. Having millionaires to invest means jobs for the working class. Taking money away from them means less investment and fewer jobs.

Do we want to make rich people poor or poor people rich?

A quick plug for Pawlenty

2011-05-25T13:41:00.002-04:00

Just as an FYI, the libertarian Cato Institute released a report card on fiscal policy in 2010, rating the various governors. They awarded an "A" rating to the following four governors:

Mark Sanford of South Carolina

Bobby Jindal of Louisiana

Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota

Joe Manchin of West Virginia

(Interesting that Manchin, now Senator Manchin, is a Democrat) .

So Pawlenty has quietly compiled a pretty conservative fiscal policy record. Just something to consider.

Pawlenty's blessing and curse are one and the same

2011-05-23T12:56:00.003-04:00

Gerald Seib nails it with this statement in Pawlenty's Moment May Have Arrived:

He isn't loved passionately by any of the important factions in the Republican party, but he's acceptable to all of them.

That is Pawlenty in a nutshell. Few Republicans dislike Palwenty so he has a leg up on Romney, Paul, Palin and Gingrich, all who have certain segments of the party who actively dislike them (or in Newt's case pretty much the whole party doesn't like him). He is also few people's favorite, kind of the perpetual bridesmaid. "So and so is my first choice but if they don't win, Pawlenty would be OK". With Romney stuck in neutral, Newt shooting himself in the foot again and again, Huckabee out, no one else imminently getting in and most especially with Mitch Daniels not running, this is his time to grab some attention. The Daniels decision is huge because I think they draw from the same pool of supporters. If Pawlenty can get Daniels, Christy, Barbour and other GOP governors to rally around he might just pull this off.

His big challenge is getting to the point of being a number one choice for people rather than an acceptable runner-up. As Seib points out, he is not a fiery guy and looks a bit silly when he tries to be. His campaign announcement video on YouTube is a prime example, it was good but he sounded like he was trying too hard sometimes. Now, if you paired him with Hermann Cain as his running mate, someone who could whip up the troops and let Pawlenty be the quietly capable and professional leader, that might be a great combo. We will see.

One other thing. Drop the T-Paw thing, it sounds silly when applied to a dorky white guy from Minnesota.

It is official, Ron Paul is in the race!

2011-05-13T12:54:00.002-04:00

The long expected announcement came out today. Ron Paul is officially in the race to be the GOP nominee taking on a very vulnerable Barack Obama in 2012. At 75, Paul would be a pretty old President but he is as sharp today as ever and compared to many of the other nominees is light-years ahead intellectually.

So is Ron Paul likely to win the nomination?

Probably not.

I actually think he would do better in the general election than in the GOP primaries. The biggest obstacle to Paul winning the GOP nomination is his dogged non-interventionist foreign policy. His announcement that if he were President he would not have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden came out at about the same time as his official announcement that he was a contender for the GOP nomination. That didn’t sit well with lots of people.

I am afraid that what can only be called blood lust and fear on the part of many conservatives, including many professed Christians, is an overwhelming factor in the GOP nomination process. A candidate calling for military restraint and reduced military spending is going to get labeled all sorts of ridiculous things and will face an uphill battle. Even suggesting vaguely that cutting military spending cannot be out of the question causes accusations of being soft on defense (as Mitch Daniels is finding out). As I have mentioned before, serious deficit reduction requires serious cuts in all areas and defense cannot and should not be spared.

The only way I see him winning the nomination is if guys like Mitch Daniels stay out and the clown car candidates like Palin, Trump, Gingrich and Huckabee split up the rest of the primary votes (Mitt Romney & Tim Pawlenty are also running but no one seems to care). That coupled with Ron Paul’s shall we say rabid fan base may be enough for Representative Paul to come out as the winner. He certainly is going to do better in 2012 than he did in 2008.

Regardless, Ron Paul should add a different perspective to the race for the GOP nomination other than the repetitive droning of sound bytes we get from Palin, Huckabee, etc. and I welcome his addition to the race.

A proposal that makes sense and therefore has no chance of passing

2011-05-11T09:04:00.002-04:00

In a crass and obvious political ploy Harry Reid and company are all of a sudden worried about the deficit. When you talk about cutting spending, the deficit is no big deal but if you can raise taxes in the name of deficit reduction, Harry and his cronies are suddenly deficit hawks to put Paul Ryan to shame! I assume many people will be taken in by this ploy because of the successful class warfare campaign waged by the Left and their lackeys in the "mainstream media".

Having said that, I am actually in favor of revoking the oil tax breaks. The less tinkering the Federal government does with the private sector, the better. However I have a proposal that should make everyone happy (but you can be sure liberals won’t like it).

So here is what I propose: tie the cuts in oil company tax breaks to the opening of more areas for drilling. As the Federal government opens up more licenses for oil companies to engage drilling and exploration, getting out of the way of the private sector, their tax breaks are revoked. The oil companies get more places to drill oil and the government gets more revenue.

That is a win-win of the highest order. We increase revenue by $21,000,000,000, although as anyone who watches Washington knows we would need to watch the Congress closely because any new revenue is always seen as money to spend. On the other side we get more oil exploration and drilling which increases the GDP, helps make America more energy efficient and would employ thousands of American workers in high-paying blue collar jobs with good benefits and take many workers off the the unemployment rolls where they are draining resources and add them back to the tax payer rolls which increases revenue and thereby lowers the deficit.

You can’t lose!

Anyone think a single Democrat would sign on to this?

Why oil company profits are good news

2011-04-30T08:58:00.005-04:00

$11 billion in profits at Exxon! Grab your torches and pitchforks, arrest them evil executives and string 'em up! A private, for-profit company making a profit? Why that is criminal, that is immoral, that is downright un-American!

So Exxon reported a huge profit last quarter. Great! Guess who owns Exxon? In large part, most of us do! Exxon stock is 44% held by institutional investors, i.e. mutual funds and pensions primarily. Guess who owns those? You probably do in your 401k and your pension plan. Over the last year, the Vanguard 500 Index fund, a commonly held fund in many, many 401k plans, is up 15.49%. Those results show up in your retirement plan statements, the same ones you were crabbing about a few years ago. Guess what the number one holding in the Vanguard 500 Index fund is?

Exxon Mobil

Oh. So that nice increase you have seen over the last year in your retirement plan comes from companies like Exxon making profits. We have recovered from the huge downturn quite nicely, a downturn caused in large part by government tinkering with the mortgage market.

So what I am telling you is that in spite of the overheated rhetoric that is inflamed by President Obama and his lackeys in the media, many regular Americans like me and probably like you benefit greatly when private sector companies make profits.

Now should the Federal government be giving oil companies special tax breaks? No, I think any sort of special tax breaks like that are bad policy. Not so we can raise more tax revenue but because the government has no business tinkering in the private sector like that. I think we should eliminate those special breaks and lower Federal corporate taxes because more profits=more jobs and higher stock prices. Will some rich people get richer? Yes and they should. Will more Americans be employed and enjoy comfortable retirements because their retirement portfolios are doing well? Absolutely.

Here is another dirty little secret. Raising taxes on oil companies, which makes them less profitable, is not going to lower your price at the pump. Not one nickle. It is nothing more than class warfare rhetoric. Obama can't be bothered to lower spending one red cent but never misses an opportunity to call for higher taxes. Drilling for oil here and making use of our rich natural resources? Now that would lower gas prices but our President is too concerned with his own reelection campaign and trying to score political points to worry about how the policies of his administration are hurting Americans at the pump. Well, that an his half-baked adventure in Libya which has managed to turn that whole thing into a stalemate and that is having a direct impact on oil prices because of the ongoing instability in the Middle East.

A privately held company making a large profit that benefits its shareholders is not criminal or immoral, it is good business. A Federal government that is running up trillion dollar deficits annually and that stands in the way of the private sector drilling for oil that would lower gas prices? Now that is immoral.

2012

2011-04-26T11:10:00.001-04:00

The presidential field is starting to shape up for the GOP although there still are a lot of question marks. In the space of a day, Haley Barbour has decided he is not going to run (and had no chance anyway) and Ron Paul is expected to announce an exploratory committee ahead of a probable run. Romney and Pawlenty are definitely in but Romney has all sorts of problems and Pawlenty is kind of unknown and boring. Donald Trump is getting the most press which is ridiculous but that is the celebrity culture we live in today, a culture where a guy who donated $50,000 to Rahm Emmanuel is getting all of the buzz in the GOP field. Still waiting on Palin and Bachmann, neither of whom is a decent candidate for different reasons and neither of whom I think will end up running. Bachmann might make a decent VP candidate but really anyone would look good compared to the Human Gaffe-A-Tron Joe Biden. My governor Mitch Daniels keeps getting mentioned and would be a serious and sober adult candidate but he needs to quit flirting and get in or get out fairly soon.

I am far more sympathetic to Ron Paul then I have been in the past. His fiscal ideas are the sort of medicine that we need to swallow. His big challenge in the GOP primaries comes from those who want a President to be willing to engage U.S. forces around the world without hesitation and Paul is more concerned with getting our own house in order rather than playing policeman to the world. Iraq is finally drawing to a close, Afghanistan is a mess and not much better than it was years ago and we have stepped in a giant mess in Libya with no plan and no stomach to either pull out or get in completely. Libya is exactly the sort of misadventure that anyone paying attention could see was coming when you have someone as unqualified to be Commander-In-Chief as President Obama calling the shots. We need a different direction for our foreign policy, not more of the same. The biggest threat to American freedom and prosperity is not radical Islam, it is the national debt and we need to treat the debt as the great challenge of our generation.

2012 looks like a golden opportunity for conservatives if we can just get it together. The longer we talk about Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, the harder it becomes to put together a coherent message. Don’t think for a second that the media doesn’t know this and isn’t exploiting this to weaken the GOP position. Obama has thus far: put us further in debt in a shorter time for less effect than any of his predecessors, enacted a horrible and unpopular health care bill, gotten us involved in a no-win situation in Libya, failed to take a single concrete step to reduce the debt, shown zero leadership on energy issues, made lots of promises that he has failed to keep regarding unemployment and generally squandered all of his hopey-changey goodwill in record time. He is vulnerable and by rights should be a one term President but to make that a reality is going to require a unified party and a unified message, one that pounds Democrats and the Left in general and President Obama in particular relentlessly about the $14 trillion national debt and trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

The longer we dink around with clowns like Trump, the longer we delay going after Obama and that only helps him. 2013 should roll in with a Republican President, an even more solid majority in the House and a GOP majority in the Senate (given all of the seats the Democrats have to defend in a year when they are on the ticket with a vulnerable President). We need a Pawlenty, Paul or Daniels to lead the party and send Obama back to community organizing. This country cannot afford to lose another election to the party of bigger government, more spending and endless debt.

Why the attack on Libya was unconstitutional

2011-04-17T09:07:00.002-04:00

Great presentation from the Cato Institute that should end the notion that Obama attacking Libya without congressional authorization is hunky dory under the "War Powers Act"

My letter to my Congressman

2011-04-14T09:19:00.002-04:00

I sent the following message to my Congressman, Marlin Stutzman, this morning to urge him to oppose the budget "compromise" that cuts all of $352 million rather than the much touted and already inadequate $38 billion we were told. This deal is an empty gesture and gives President Obama and Congressional liberals cover by allowing them to claim concern for out of control spending while actually not cutting much more than $1 per American.

----

Dear Representative Stutzman,

I am writing as a constituent to urge you to oppose the budget deal struck last week between Congressional leaders and President Obama. As more details come out, it is apparent that this compromise does little to address the out of control spending that is plaguing our nation. I am asking you to lead in rejecting this empty compromise and push for substantive deficit reduction before any budgets are passed and certainly before the Congress votes to extend our already massive national debt. The people of Indiana and especially the people of your district understand that when we borrow $.40 of every dollar that the Federal government spends, modest cuts are not what is needed. We need drastic and real deficit cuts and we need them today, not at some unspecified point in the future.

Representative Stutzman, thank you for your time and attention. I will be eagerly watching this process unfold.

Sincerely,

Arthur Sido

A nation of takers, not makers

2011-04-01T08:09:00.003-04:00

If you want to know why America is messed up, just read this essay from Stephen Moore, We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers. Moore points out that in the last few decades we have become a nation where people are taking from the economy in government jobs instead of making things that drive the economy.

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Staggering numbers. We have too many people who rely on tax dollars to pay for their jobs and benefits and not enough private sector workers to pay those tax dollars. He also points out that while we need fewer farmers because they have become so much more efficient, there are no corresponding efficiency improvements in the public sector.

Where are the productivity gains in government? Consider a core function of state and local governments: schools. Over the period 1970-2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington. That is what economists call negative productivity.

Schools are full of extra people. Teacher's aides, staffers, various and sundry other people. We keep adding staff and cost and delivering a mediocre product. But woe to the politician who tries to rein in the runaway public school spending train! Any private sector industry that ran that way would either be dependent on government subsidies or out of business.

As we turn into a nation of people who work for the government, we lose our risk-taking, entrepreunerial spirit, drive to succeed and replace it with mindless bureaucracy, job preservation and security. You can't compete in a global economy against nations with billions of people hungry and willing to work hard and take risks with a nation full of bureaucratic paper pushers who don't make anything and don't seem to mind.

Why Nobel Prizes Are Clearly Worthless

2011-03-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

Here are some samples of the sort of brilliant thinking that gets you a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and gets you a job in the Clinton White House. From the estimable Joseph Stiglitz, pontificating from the ivory tower on the proposed deficit reduction plan put forth by the Bowles-Simpson committee….

Years of underinvestment in the public sector—in infrastructure, education and technology—mean that there are ample high-return opportunities. Tax revenues generated by the higher short- and long-term growth will more than pay the low interest costs, implying significant reductions in deficits. Any firm that could borrow at terms similar to those available to the U.S., and with such high return projects, would be foolish to pass up the opportunity. ....
With a quarter of all U.S. income going to the upper 1 percent, and America’s middle class actually facing lower incomes than a decade ago, there is only one way to raise more taxes: Tax the top.

A quick glossary for you. “Underinvestment” means not enough government deficit spending. “Tax the top” means even more taxes on the people who already pay the lion’s share of taxes and who are the ones who invest and create private sector jobs. So here is the solution: Spend more money that we don’t have Raise taxes on the very people we need to invest in growth Brilliant!

The deficit doesn’t matter to Mr. Stiglitz, even though even someone with a high school education understands that when we spend trillions more than we bring in, we have a serious spending problem. Taxing the top? That makes sense in what way? It takes away the incentive for people who are already rich to invest their money. If I have millions of dollars socked away, I will leave that money in the most tax favorable investment I can find unless the potential gains – taxes is greater than the risk I have to take. The problem with people like Mr. Stiglitz is that they exist in a world of theory and not in the real world where incentives and behavior matter. People who are rich got that way by being fairly smart believe it or not. Raise taxes and they will find ways to shield their money. The reality is that, neat theories and charts aside, raising taxes on the wealthy does not raise tax revenue.

All of this also presupposes a basic misunderstanding of wealth and money. To people on the far Left, every bit of wealth is the property of the Federal government. The only question is how much of your wealth the government will permit you to keep. It is a fundamentally flawed system that assumes that the fruits of your labor are by default the property of the nation unless the tax laws permit you to keep a portion of it. If we want to see real growth in the economy (which will lead to higher tax revenues by the way), we need to stop borrowing money, stop deficit spending and start leaving more money in the private sector to invest and create jobs. Real jobs, not made up jobs funded by taxes and borrowed money.

The greatest threat to our long-term prosperity revolves around the deficit. Period. With around $50,000 per person in debt already (and another $10,000,000,000,000 in new Obama-Debt over the next decade), we are at a precarious precipice. Our continued government spending at current levels is predicated on our ability to borrow money just to keep the government running from year to year (and creditors willingness to keep buying our debt). We are adding another trillion and a half to the national debt this year alone. As I mentioned, we are going to add almost ten trillion in new debt in the next ten years. As the Heritage Foundation pointed out: That is more debt than the federal government accumulated from 1789 to 2010 combined. That should give even the boys in the ivory tower pause.

We all knew that the Obama Presidency was going to be a milestone in history. Who knew that he was going to set new records for deficit spending, not for being the first black President? If he gets his advice from people like Joseph Stiglitz, let’s hope that House Republicans can keep new spending at bay long enough to oust Obama from office and send the Democratic Senate majority out with him before these people bankrupt America.

The real reason to defund public broadcasting

2011-03-28T13:55:00.002-04:00

There are many in Congress and around the nation calling for a complete defunding of public broadcasting. This call has been going on for a long time but the recent “sting” operation where a leading NPR fundraiser was recorded slandering conservatives has given this movement new life. NPR and PBS know they are on the defensive more than usual and are broadcasting short informercials (at least on NPR) to try to rally support for public broadcasting. I am in full support of defunding public broadcasting but not primarily because of its liberal elitism.

While it is undeniably true that public broadcasting, especially NPR, is overtly liberal, that is not the prime motivation for defunding public radio and television. Granted there is something unsavory about a publically funded, unaccountable organization that is a shill for policies that will lead to more government spending and that presumably some of that spending will head their way. But there is more to it. Nor is the issue one of money. Public broadcasting is not a huge chunk of change in the grand scheme of things. Eliminate its funding entirely and the budget is still swimming in red ink. So why not leave it alone?

Public broadcasting should be defunded primarily because it is completely outside of the scope of what the Federal government should be doing.

Of all of the various ways that the Federal government finds to spend tax money (or more properly spending borrowed money on the hopes of paying it back someday with tax money), few are more egregiously outside of the scope of what the Federal government is Constitutionally tasked with than public broadcasting. Like hundreds of others Federal programs, public radio/TV is a luxury and a subtle example of social engineering. The underlying presumption is that the ignorant masses of Americans are too brain-dead to make consumer driven choices for quality programming. Without the tax-payer funded mechanism of public broadcasting, Americans would watch nothing but monster truck rallies and reality TV. That message might have made some sense when there were only three for-profit TV stations but in an age of hundreds of channels and the internet, that no longer holds true. Sure many people will watch mindless TV (much of which has the same subtle leftist slant) but many people also watch The History Channel, Discovery, a slew of news stations, National Geographic, etc. The days when PBS was the only station showing intellectually stimulating programming ended with the advent of cable and satellite TV. PBS is a relic of the days of rabbit ears and giant TV antennas next to houses.

The same with NPR which is even more overtly liberal. Once NPR was unique in terms of bringing substantive news and talk radio to the airwaves. Now talk radio is ubiquitous, news channels abound. Satellite radio gives listeners a ton of choices and those choices include what used to be something only NPR broadcast, i.e. classical music. Like baroque? There is a station for that! Like folk music? A station for that! Bluegrass, jazz, world music, on and on. Just like people don’t wait for the newspaper to get their news anymore, people don’t wait for All Things Considered to get their news. I listen to NPR because I have a fairly long commute but I do so understanding that the news I am getting is heavily slanted, in terms of what is said, what is not said, what is or is not covered and the expert talking heads that are called in to speak. When your weekly political round-up consists of two liberals (David Brooks and E.J. Dionne), you know you are not getting a balanced view of the issues of the day.

Is there a place for NPR and PBS? Sure. They just need to be self-supporting. If they really have a unique voice and a superior product, they should have no issue finding support from their affluent audience.

A simple solution

2011-03-25T12:09:00.002-04:00

A number of states are increasing their efforts to enforce the Federal immigration laws that the Federal government has failed to enforce for decades. This includes my state of Indiana. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece today talking about the reaction this is getting from farmers who are not in favor of stricter immigration laws: Immigration Bills Rile Farmers

Here is the argument that is made all the time to excuse lax immigration laws:

"Nobody wants illegal immigrants, but when you get down to the reality of the situation, farmers have to have workers to do the job," said Al Pearson, a peach and pecan farmer in Roberta. He said he hires only federally approved guest laborers to work his 3,600-acre farm, paying them $9.11 an hour plus benefits.

But the current federal system, involving approvals from multiple agencies, is slow and can't process enough legal workers for the state's large agricultural industry, he said. A bureaucratic glitch held up approvals for 100 Mexican workers for two weeks in February, setting back his tree pruning and other preparations for peach-picking season. "It frightened me because I didn't have a plan B. I don't have domestic workers," he said.

"There is no farm in this county that could continue without Mexican labor," said Robert Ray, a Crawford County farmer who for years led the agriculture committee in the Georgia House.

This argument boils down to: no one will do this work for low pay and people demand cheap food. What else are we going to do?

That is a bogus argument. The reality is that people make choices. Many people choose not to do the very difficult labor that immigrant farm workers do because...it is hard. It is backbreaking, it is hot and it is boring.

There is another factor to consider. An awful lot of people are on the government dole and there is little incentive for them to get off said dole. Some may say there simply are no jobs but the huge number of illegal immigrants working in America shows that to be a lie. There are jobs, they probably are just not jobs a lot of people want to do.

With millions of illegal workers in this country and a corresponding huge number of people out of work or on perpetual government assistance, isn't the solution obvious? I get that no one "wants" to work in farm fields, or landscaping or janitorial services or meat packing plants but if the incentive for not working (i.e. public transfer payments) is severely curtailed, all of a sudden plucking chickens doesn't seem that bad. Americans used to do these jobs in far less pleasant conditions but as we disincentivized work, more people choose to not work. Eliminate welfare and clamp down on illegal immigration and kill two birds with one stone!

That probably is too common sense though, better to keep wasting money maintaining a porous border, not enforcing immigration laws and paying people to not work so that we need illegal immigrants to do the work instead. Brilliant.

Four weeks later in Hoosier land

2011-03-15T09:25:00.002-04:00

While Governor Walker was finally able to pass the legislation he and Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate were elected to pass, here in Indiana we still are missing (well not “missing”, they are absent) our Hoosier House Democrats. Their absence has prevented the state House from conducting any real business for a month. I am very concerned that the Republican House leadership is considering “compromise” to coax the Democrats back because in this case compromise means that the majority with every right in the world to pass the legislation they choose through the democratic process will be required to abandon large pieces of their agenda and in return they get….Democrats coming back to Indiana. That is quite a deal. At least for the Democrats, not for Republicans or the citizens of Indiana.

The end result is that Democrats in Indiana have essentially declared the democratic process null and void. We held elections. In the course of those elections a majority of the state level legislative seats and the governorship were won by Republicans. By the will of the people, the legislative priorities and agenda of Republicans should at the very least be debated and voted on. That is just common sense and in keeping with the rule of law that has led to centuries of unbroken governance and peaceful transitions of political power in this country.

In spite of that, Democrats have decided to invalidate the votes of Hoosiers and declare that only complete surrender to the will and agenda of the minority will suffice. In the eyes of Indiana Democrats the only votes that counted were those cast for Democrats. The majority of Hoosiers who cast votes for Republicans were clearly duped and need to be saved from themselves. The whole thing is a stinking cauldron of arrogance, petulance and misplaced paternalism. Fortunately House Republicans are examining a way to get these bills passed even without the House Democrats gracing the Hoosier state with their collective presence:

Instead, he said, House Republicans will work with the Senate to have provisions that are caught in the standoff inserted into bills that have already passed the House and are awaiting Senate action.

The result: The House would need to take only an up-or-down vote on the Senate changes. If accepted, the bill could move to Gov. Mitch Daniels' desk.

Although those votes could not happen in the House unless Democrats return, this procedural end-run would allow Republicans to get legislative work done more quickly while stripping House Democrats of any chance to offer changes.

I think that is an excellent idea. House Democrats have abdicated their responsibilities and have forfeited their right to engage in debate and offering amendments.

Indiana Democrats made the case for their agenda last year and the voters rejected it. Now in a fit of undemocratic pouting Hoosier Democrats have declared that only their agenda can be advanced in spite of their minority status in both chambers. It is instructive to note that the GOP holds a 60-40 advantage in the House. This is not a razor thin margin, it is a solid majority. If the Indiana House GOP leadership capitulates here, it sets the stage for more shenanigans like this in the future.

Indiana and America as a whole needs strong leadership to face the serious financial issues that we collectively face. One party is making serious proposals to get our financial house in order. One party is proposing that any serious cuts are draconian and when they don’t get their way, they lead by fleeing.

Speaker Bosma, the issues we face are too serious and the time is too short to allow Democrats to derail any real reform in order to pay back their union puppet masters.

Every day you owe the Chinese another $50

2011-03-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

Here are some sobering statistics from the Washington Times today…

According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures released Monday, the budget deficit for February hit a staggering $223 billion - meaning the Obama administration added more in debt last month than was borrowed in all of 2007.

In one month, $223,000,000,000 in deficit spending. Wow. Here is another fun paragraph:

Since Barack Obama was sworn in as president, each American taxpayer’s share of the federal government’s IOU has grown to $50 per day - more than the average cell-phone user is billed in an entire month. The monthly share of the deficit is $1,500 per taxpayer - about what the average household spends on a mortgage. On an annual basis, each taxpayer owes $18,250 - more than an Old Dominion resident would pay in tuition at the University of Virginia or a nonresident would spend at the University of Maryland.

If you work and pay taxes, i.e. you are one of those working Americans liberals always claim to be speaking for, at the end of your work day today you inherit $50 in debt, spent by people in Washington D.C. on your behalf. Here is another way to look at it. If you make $10/hour, you need to work for five hours or more than half of a regular workday just to cover what the folks in D.C. are borrowing with your name on the promissory note.

Here is a final one to brighten your day….

Under Mr. Obama, government has been borrowing $4.6 billion each and every day.

Don’t worry though, Michael Moore says we aren’t broke.

Irony alert!

2011-03-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

The risible and hygienically challenged Michael Moore joined the fray in Wisconsin. Little shock there since Wisconsin is known for its cheese and sausage but while he was there he engaged in a little delusional ranting….

Repeatedly saying "America is not broke," Moore said "the country is awash in wealth and cash ... It has been transferred in the greatest heist in history from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich."

Uh, yeah. So Mr. Moore says we aren’t broke but rather the evil bankers and uber-rich (which I believe includes him) are hoarding it all. Apparently he doesn’t consider over a trillion and a half in deficit spending this year on top of our fourteen trillion dollars in debt to be a problem at all. In the magic world he lives in trees are made out of chocolate and trillion dollar deficits are not a big deal. He also said…

"Right now the Earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge," said Moore

If I were a mean person I might suggest that the Earth shaking has more to do with him being corpulent than with a seismic political change. If I were mean that is.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that our interest payments are a hidden threat that is only going to grow…

Without a change, in 10 years the federal government's net interest bill rises to $928 billion annually.

Almost a trillion dollars a year just to pay for debt that we accumulated decades earlier. That is more than our entire defense budget and those funds are largely going overseas, taking a trillion dollars in American wealth and sending it to China and other foreign nations. If you don’t see that as crippling to our economy in the near future, you simply are flat out ignorant. We are already paying $200,000,000,000 just to service the national debt this year. Guess how we are going to pay that $200 billion? If you said: by borrowing even more money, you are correct!

The extreme Left, guys like Michael Moore and John Kerry among others, seem completely oblivious to the reality that our nation is in really bad shape. Not because we tax too little but because we spend way too much. We get a lot of rallies and protests and vulgar shouting from the Left but no real solutions other than “raise taxes”. There is no leadership, no courage, no common sense on the Left. That leaves it up to conservatives to fix the mess liberals have created. Again.

John Kerry sez cuts of 1.649% are extremist and reckless

2011-03-07T11:38:00.002-05:00

Political courage, Massachusetts style:

"I don't believe what we have from the House is a serious economic plan," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said on CBS. "I think it's an ideological, extremist, reckless statement. If that were to be in fact put in place, it would contribute to the reversal of our recovery. ... It sets back GDP. We will lose 700,000, 200,000, 500,000 jobs, whatever we lose, 200 to 700, it moves against the recovery that we've worked so hard to achieve."

It takes some real effort to supplant Mike Dukakis as the most consistently inept Massachusetts politician but John Kerry keeps setting himself further in the lead every time he opens his mouth.

The House has proposed cuts of $61 billion. That sounds like a lot doesn’t it? When you look at it in the grand scheme of things though, it is barely a drop in the bucket. Cutting $61 billion from a $3.7 trillion budget is a reduction of 1.65%. Keep in mind that the budget is already spending over a trillion and a half in borrowed money that goes right to the national debt. Look at that number again, even if you subtract the proposed $61 billion in spending cuts:

$1,589,000,000,000.00

That works out to over $5000 for every man, woman and child in America in debt. That is just this year alone, that doesn’t take into account the existing $14 trillion in debt. When you look at that number, it is even scarier. The national debt right now means that every man, woman and child in this country is already on the hook for about $45,000 in debt. When you look at personal income in America, it is in the low 30’s and that doesn’t count children. So we are already on average in hock to the tune of more than a years pay for every worker. How exactly are we going to ever tackle that debt when people like John Kerry think that a cut of 1.65% is “extremist”? How does Senator Kerry propose to address this crisis we are in right now, especially since liberal Democrats refuse to even consider serious entitlement reforms.

Of course, given that Senator Kerry is a good, walking the liberal line Massachusetts Democrat, he saw nothing at all “extremist”, “ideological” or “reckless” in borrowing and spending hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in a laughable and humiliatingly failed attempt at “stimulus”.

This is the issue that will define the standard of living in America fifty years from now. This is the issue that demands America’s leaders step up to the plate. A few have done so, Representative Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann and Senator Rand Paul. Governors like John Kasich, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Scott Walker. The ranks are pretty thin of politicians who are willing to do what is needed even if it costs them their position later on. History will judge the leaders of this nation for how they respond to the debt crisis we find ourselves in. This crisis in many ways is as grave as World War II and the Cold War. It is already painfully apparent that men like John Kerry are not going to fare well in the review of this pivotal time in our nation’s history.

Two great editorials today

2011-03-04T18:00:00.000-05:00

Both from the Wall Street Journal...

The first is from Peggy Noonan and she has a great editorial on the public union issue and makes the very important point that this is about the unions and their power, not about individual union members: Public Unions Get Too 'Friendly'

Unions have been respected in America forever, and public employee unions have reaped that respect. There are two great reasons for this. One is that unions always stood for the little guy. The other is that Americans like balance. We have management over here and the union over here, they'll talk and find balance, it'll turn out fine.

But with the public employee unions, the balance has been off for decades. And when they lost their balance they fell off their pedestal.

When union leaders negotiate with a politician, they're negotiating with someone they can hire and fire. Public unions have numbers and money, and politicians need both. And politicians fear strikes because the public hates them. When governors negotiate with unions, it's not collective bargaining, it's more like collusion. Someone said last week the taxpayers aren't at the table. The taxpayers aren't even in the room.

This is not Republicans versus workers or the rich versus the middle class. In spite of the Left’s best efforts, aided as always by the willing accomplices and mouthpieces in the mainstream media, this is really a struggle within the middle-class.

I am not interested or attempting to bash union members. I have a sister who is a union public school teacher. My wife has a bunch of family members who are either active union members (electricians, operating engineers, etc.) or retired (carpenters, police officers). Union members are by and large just like non-union workers. There are hard workers and lazy workers in both camps. The issue is whether or not states can afford to continue offering the current salaries and benefits to state workers. The ability to pay them is not based on profits but on tax revenues and the sobering reality is that there is simply not enough revenue at the state level or handouts from Uncle Sam at the federal level to support the current levels of spending. Either the public unions need to go or people are going to lose their jobs.

The other editorial comes from Senator Jim DeMint making the case for eliminating the Federal subsidies for NPR and PBS: Public Broadcasting Should Go Private . As he points out, the executives at both organizations make a ton of money...

The executives at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes the taxpayer money allocated for public broadcasting to other stations, are also generously compensated. According to CPB's 2009 tax forms, President and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison received $298,884 in reportable compensation and another $70,630 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations that year. That's practically a pittance compared to Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, who received more than $1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.

If you think that is a lot, check out what the head of Sesame Workshop (i.e. Sesame Street) makes:

Meanwhile, highly successful, brand-name public programs like Sesame Street make millions on their own. "Sesame Street," for example, made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 in compensation in 2008. With earnings like that, Big Bird doesn't need the taxpayers to help him compete against the Nickleodeon cable channel's Dora the Explorer.

Gee Bert, why are we giving them Federal funds again?

It is not a "war on workers"

2011-03-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

I saw this picture of protestors holding a sign saying: Stop The War On Workers

Newsflash....

Some 88% of hard working Americans are NOT part of a union.

They work at least as hard as union workers.

They have families, mortgages, bills, car payments.

The 88% of non-union workers pay more for goods and services and pay higher taxes to support the inflated wages and benefits of unionized workers.

The real war on "workers" is the Federal government spending us into oblivion and expecting future workers to pay the bill.

That is all.

It is time to send this guy after the missing Democrats

2011-03-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

Your money=government resources

2011-03-03T14:49:00.002-05:00

Can anybody explain to me why anyone still reads the New York Times? The Times ran an editorial today, The Hollow Cry of ‘Broke’, that amounts to a 579 words of sheer partisan nonsense. According to the editors of the New York Times, what is really going on all around us is that mean Republicans are trying to crush unions (you know, the unions that give virtually every nickel of their ill-gotten “dues” to try to elect Democrats) and those dastardly elephants are using a phony debt crisis as cover. The Times wants you to believe this:

The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.

Ah, so it has nothing to do with overspending. I love it, the Federal deficit of over $1,000,000,000,000 is merely "too large for comfort", as if it is a slightly oversized sweater. What a marvelous example of gross understatement. It has nothing to do with spending though. It is all because of tax cuts for the rich which reduce the amount of money that Uncle Sam graciously gives to the states to support their overspending. Apparently the national debt is just a minor inconvenience, certainly nothing to worry about and besides we should raise taxes anyway! I love the language used here “drain government of resources”. See, here in fly-over country your money is….your money. In New York apparently your money merely amounts to “government resources” that Uncle Sam has graciously allowed you to hang onto (so far). One wonders if the New York Times editorial board would favor a 100% tax rate with the Federal government deciding how much to give each citizen as an allowance. I don’t think that is too far fetched.

Then in a mind-boggling switch, the next paragraph makes this ridiculous claim:

In a matter of days, the Senate will be forced to take up the House bill to make more than $61 billion in ruinous cuts over the next seven months, all under the pretext of “fiscal responsibility.”

Keep in mind that the 2011 fiscal year budget is around $3,690,000,000,000. Cuts of $61 billion amounts to a measly 1.65% of the total budget. 1.65% So $61,000,000,000 in cuts is “ruinous” while $14,000,000,000,000 in national debt is merely uncomfortable. What?! How can we survive as a nation without subsidizing Elmo and the butchers at Planned Parenthood?! We will be ruined, ruined I say!

Time for a little perspective here. As the CATO Institute points out, even with the “ruinous” $61 billion in “cuts” being proposed, the Federal government is still going to spend more in fiscal 2011 than fiscal 2010 in both total spending and discretionary outlays. Only at the New York Times can spending more money than the year prior be considered “ruinous cuts”. Imagine someone with a weight problem deciding to diet this year by ingesting only 3100 calories a day instead of 3000 calories like last year.

Because too many people still take the New York Times seriously and base their opinions on what it’s editorial pages say, we collectively have our heads in the sand. We have been kicking the can down the road for decades, under Republican and Democratic control alike, and it has to stop. What must be done is going to make people mad. It is going to be unpopular. It also must be done. Our national fiscal policy is like parents racking up credit card debt to buy themselves luxurious vacations and sumptuous meals out and then being able to pass that credit card debt onto their children. It is not merely irresponsible to keep spending ourselves into debt in this manner, it is immoral. Whatever modicum of respectability the New York Times once perhaps had has left the building.

Does this sound familiar?

2011-03-01T09:56:00.003-05:00

Stop by the gas station today and you are going to pay a lot more to fill up our tank than you did last week. Oil is over $100/barrel again and that could go higher depending on what happens in the Middle East. If somehow this conflagration extends to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, there is no telling how high oil prices could go. I don’t wish to sound alarmist but $200 is not out of the question and that would mean some crazy gas prices here in America. For many Americans doubling the cost of gasoline and diesel would be crippling. The costs to get to work, the cost of petroleum based consumer goods, the cost of food and other products, all would go up even more than they already are. Best case scenario, the revolutionary fervor settles down once Mad Dog Kaddafi gets his wish to die as a “martyr”. Worst case the U.S. gets militarily involved in Libya and the region continues to blow up. Regardless, it looks like we are headed for a summer of painfully high gas prices which is going to really hurt places that depend on travel and tourism.

If this all sounds familiar, well that is because it is. Just a few years ago gas prices were through the roof. At that time people finally started talking about adding to our oil exploration, domestic drilling and refining capacity. We finally seemed to be getting serious about energy independence. I know that complete independence is probably not feasible but certainly an independence that mitigates the huge swings we see when something bad happens in the Middle East and that allows the U.S. to be less beholden to OPEC is plausible. Exemplified by Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill!” mantra, the American public was on board with responsibly increasing American domestic oil production.

What has happened since the gas price spikes a few years back? Nothing.

As near as I can tell we have taken no concrete steps to increase oil production. The exact opposite seems to be true, fueled by the BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Along with the BP spill, gas prices settled down and Americans as is our modus operandi completely forgot the high gas prices, relegating them to the lore of Americana like the Wild West and Great Depression even though they occurred just a few years ago. Now we find ourselves with our proverbial pants down as gas prices skyrocket and we still have no control over production.

The problem is that building capacity, drilling rigs, refineries, etc. takes time. Lots of it. This isn’t like adding a few new sewing machines in a textile factory to increase production. The cost and time and regulations to build oil production capacity require that we get started before prices hit crisis levels. Once again our elected officials aided by an apathetic public have left America unprepared and at the mercy of sweethearts like Kaddafi and Hugo Chavez.

Instead of borrowing hundreds of billions in a failed gambit to stimulate the economy, a better course of action would have been to fast track oil exploration permits. Instead of trying to tax the huge profit of oil companies, give them an incentive to invest that money and in doing so create jobs now and in the future, jobs that unlike stimulus money not only don’t add to the deficit, they actually increase tax revenue by providing secure, high paying blue collar jobs, the exact sort of jobs that have disappeared in the economic downturn. We have been drilling for oil offshore since the late 1800’s for crying out loud! Given the need for jobs combined with the national security threat posed by oil dependence, it is high time that environmental alarmists take a back seat to the adults in this country.

I would rather have young American men at home drilling and refining our own oil than dying in the Libyan desert in an attempt to stabilize that region of the world.

What happened to democracy?

2011-02-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

The news is largely focused on Wisconsin and the circus that union supporters have made of the Capitol is getting most of the press but another, more troubling situation is happening in my state. What is going on in Indiana goes way beyond what is happening in Wisconsin. Instead of just one bill regarding public school teacher unions, Indiana Democrats are demanding that Republicans (who by the vote of the people control both houses and the Governorship) basically abandon their entire legislative agenda. From the IndyStar:

The Republicans already have relented on one piece of legislation Democrats called unacceptably anti-union and anti-worker: the so-called "right to work" bill.

"In many cases, that would have been enough," Gov. Mitch Daniels said. "I'm not sure why it isn't right now."

Democrats, however, produced their list of 11 bills they want dead, including education reform bills that are a priority for Daniels -- issues that at least appear to have the least opportunity for compromise on either side.

So the message from Democrats is, forget democracy. We are running away and not coming back unless you completely abandon your entire agenda even though the people of the state of Indiana voted you into the majority.

This all is a microcosm of what is happening in D.C. with yet another government shutdown imminent and a Democratic party that pays lip-service to deficit reduction but seems completely unwilling to cut spending, which begs the question of how exactly we reduce the deficit. They know the GOP house is not going to permit any tax increases and all but the most crazed Left wing loonies in the Senate know that raising taxes now is a bad idea. So the Democrats won’t cut spending, can’t raise taxes and expect the deficit to magically disappear….how?

Democrats across the country are either so beholden to union campaign dollars or so delusional (or both) that they have ceased to effectively function as a part of our republic. I think the Left needs to start a new party because the donkeys need to be put out to pasture.

Forced tax-payer funding of the Democratic Party

2011-02-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

Michael Barone put out a great essay, Public unions force taxpayers to fund Democrats. What is at stake here goes way beyond the issues in management-labor strife in private sector organizations. This fight is one that will determine whether states can get their financial houses in order or if we are inevitably going to see states resort to massive tax hikes, mass layoffs or defaulting on financial obligations. Barone writes:

Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.

Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.

That is a great way of putting it. I love that he points out that the money in question is not coming from some magic pot of money. It isn't like Governor Walker and Governor Kasich are just meanies who have plenty of money to burn and are just out to hurt "working families" (as if non-union families are not "working families"). There simply is no money left and every nickle that goes to a public sector employee comes out of the pocket of taxpayers and their children who will inherit the debt. We need to get smart about how we spend and tighten our collective belts.

The public sector union-Democratic party link gives Democrats a means to pick the pocket of every tax payer in a given state to fund their campaigns. If I don't like GM, I don't have to buy a car from them. If I live in Indiana, I have to pay Indiana taxes. I don't have a choice other than leaving the state. We don't get to shop for cops, teachers, bureaucrats, prison guards, etc. to see who has the best product at the best price. We get what we get. and what we get are highly compensated public union workers that provide steady stream of campaign funds almost exclusively to Democrats.

In the private sector, while I believe unions usefulness is long gone and they largely are the reason so much manufacturing has left the country, at least I can see the reasoning. A corporation makes a profit and the different parties seek to divide that up. On one hand is management, representing the owners/shareholders and on the other is labor representing the workers. Not a perfect system but it makes some sense. In the public sector there are no profits, only expenses. It is high time we cut back on the size and scope of the public sector, at the Federal, state and local level. We simply can't afford to spend and borrow to feed the bloated public sector.

Our government is supposed to serve the taxpayers but today the taxpayers are the ones who are serving.

The case against public unions

2011-02-18T13:02:00.002-05:00

I think this summarizes why public unions are bad idea (a reality being lived out in Wisconsin and Ohio right now). From the Journal:

Public unions have a monopoly position that gives them undue bargaining power. Their campaign cash—collected via mandatory dues—also helps to elect the politicians who are then supposed to represent taxpayers in negotiations with those same unions. The unions sit, in effect, on both sides of the bargaining table. This is why such famous political friends of the working man as Franklin Roosevelt and Fiorello La Guardia opposed collective bargaining for government workers, even as they championed private unions.

$5000 in deficit spending for every single citizen in America

2011-02-14T11:23:00.001-05:00

Deficit spending as far as the eye can see

President Obama is proposing a budget of $3,730,000,000,000 for the next fiscal year. Of that enormous number, deficit spending that increases our national debt makes up over $1,000,000,000,000 of it. In the 2011 fiscal year, deficit spending is going to be a new record of $1,650,000,000,000 or approximately $5344 in deficit spending for every man, woman and child (based on the 2010 census numbers). That means that my family alone is on the hook for of $53,000 in deficit spending this year.

That is what President Obama proposes after the “shellacking” they got in November? That is what he interpreted the message from the people to be? We are supposed to be encouraged that trillions of dollars later we are “only” going to be spending in deficit $627,000,000,000 in 2017. That is the good news in all of this!

The Republican party needs to ride this day and night from now until 2012. They need to hammer President Obama on a daily basis about this and put forth a serious, adult candidate who will actually cut government spending in this country. A business as usual Republican who will talk a big game in the campaign and then keep spending like a drunken sailor in office is no help at all. Everything needs to be cut. EVERYTHING. Defense, “education”, agriculture and most especially entitlements. This needs to happen right now before it is too late.

In fact, I think it is already too late.

How the GOP can lose in 2012

2011-02-07T11:40:00.002-05:00

The upcoming 2012 elections look overwhelmingly positive for Republicans. Lots of vulnerable Democrats have Senate seats to defend, several of which have already been left open due to retirement. The economy is still in the toilet and President Obama has no plan to even appear to be trying to solve the problem other than vague talk of “strategic investment” which everyone knows is code for “more stimulus spending”. So all conservatives need to do is sit back and coast to a win in 2012. Right?

Not so fast. We are dealing with politicians and we are also already seeing the Right start to splinter. The recent blow-up at CPAC is a prime example where a homosexual Republican group, GOProud, was allowed to co-sponsor the event leading to a number of social conservatives sitting it out. The latest salvo comes this morning from David Boaz, executive VP of the libertarian Cato Institute, writing in the Los Angeles times and taking shots at “social conservatives” in his essay Phony solutions for real social ills. Mr. Boaz seems miffed that people are letting issues like abortion and gay marriage interfere with the quest to lower taxes and spending. He had this to say regarding abortion….

Abortion may be a moral crime, but it isn't the cause of high government spending or intergenerational poverty.

That is very true (although it is instructive to see that Mr. Boaz hedges his statement by saying that abortion “may” be a moral crime). Of course, murder is a moral crime but it is also isn't the cause of high government spending or intergenerational poverty. Rape is a moral crime but it isn't the cause of high government spending or intergenerational poverty. So why worry about those issues? Lets just worry about lowering taxes and spending. He goes on to say….

And one thing gay couples are not doing is filling the world with fatherless children. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that allowing more people to make the emotional and financial commitments of marriage could cause family breakdown or welfare spending.

Also true but that misses the point and ignores a fact. What makes Mr. Boaz think that homosexuals are going to be more prone to stay married than heterosexual couples? That is simply insane. We live in a morally permissive society and there is nothing to indicate that homosexuals would be better marriage partners than heterosexuals. So you would seek to complicate the already muddled waters of marriage, divorce, adoption and child custody by adding a new dimension and a new pool of people who could legally marry and adopt and who could also legally divorce. Certainly Mr. Boaz must realize that a stable family of a mother and father who are married and stay married is the best environment for raising children all else being equal. The socially conservative stance against homosexual relationships being solemnized as “marriage” is that it further dilutes the meaning of marriage and is a major step on the road to delegitimizing marriage as an institution. This is not merely conservative rhetoric and hyperbole, one simply needs to look to Europe to see the results.

This splintering might just be the beginning. The question is going to come down to who the GOP nominee in 2012 is. Will it be a combo social and fiscal conservative like Mike Pence (who isn’t running) or will it be a polarizing individual focused on libertarian “pocketbook first” issues or a social conservative only candidate? The GOP needs to tread carefully here because following the playbook of Mr. Boaz is a sure way to alienate social conservatives and ensure a second Obama term. Libertarians need social conservative votes a lot more than the social conservatives need libertarians. A secoond Obama term is an outcome nobody on the Right wants but that we certainly will get if the various wings of the GOP spend the next year and a half attacking one another.

All the libel that is fit to print

2011-01-12T12:39:00.002-05:00

I read a great editorial from James Taranto today, writing for the Wall Street Journal: The Authoritarian Media. Amidst all of the shocking, baseless and libelous accusations floating around the "mainstream media", Taranto has nailed down the real reason behind the unseemly and frankly grotesque attempt by the Left in the media to create belief in a link between Palin/Beck/tea partiers/Fox News that doesn’t exist:

The campaign of vilification against the right, led by the New York Times, is really about competition in the media industry--not commercial competition but competition for authority. When Bob Schieffer and Steny Hoyer were growing up, the New York Times had unrivaled authority to set the media's agenda, with the three major TV networks following its lead.

The ensuing decades have seen a proliferation of alternative media outlets, most notably talk radio and Fox News Channel, and a corresponding diminution of the so-called mainstream media's ability to set the boundaries of political debate.

Its authority dwindling, the New York Times is resorting to authoritarian tactics--slandering its competitors in the hope of tearing them down. Hoyer is right. Too many news outlets are busy "inciting people . . . to anger, to thinking the other side is less than moral." The worst offender, because it is the leader, is the New York Times. Decent people of whatever political stripe must say enough is enough.

It is all about money and power, i.e. control. With liberals it always is. Health care “reform” is not about health care at all, it is about controlling a huge portion of the U.S. economy. Education “reform” is about controlling kids and tax dollars. The “War on Poverty” is a shell game for the Left to redistribute wealth and control who has what in our economy. When you push past the bleeding heart rhetoric, what you always find is an effort to control people.

The Leftist American media, back in the day, could control the public debate because they tightly controlled the three TV networks and the major newspapers. With the advent of talk radio, Fox News, the internet, etc. Americans now have the ability to listen to both sides of the debate and choose for themselves. As last November demonstrated, they increasingly choose to reject big government liberalism and as the TV ratings reflect they are also rejecting the old stalwarts of Leftist “mainstream” media. Losing influence, power and money is unacceptable to the journalistic priesthood and in the Tucson shootings they believe they have found a way to quash dissenting voices (ironic from so called “liberals”), enact onerous and controlling legislation and seek monetary advantage for themselves.

The New York Times used to content itself with merely twisting and manipulating the news. Now it has resorted to outright lies and slander, accusing its perceived enemies of being at least peripherally responsible for a heinous act of a madman without a shred of proof and clearly without a shred of common decency, respect or shame. Little wonder that the New York Times is rapidly losing its place on top of the media food chain.

Defending ourselves or projecting American power?

2011-01-07T13:25:00.002-05:00

I read this morning a tweet from Ambassador John Bolton, a brilliant national security guy and someone with a great understanding of foreign affairs. As expected he was less than pleased with the proposed defense cuts put out by Secretary of Defense Gates this week, saying in his tweet that these cuts would make the U.S. “less secure and able to defend itself”.

With all due respect (and I do deeply respect Mr. Bolton), I have to raise my hand and ask: in what way?

Who is a threat to the U.S. that these cuts would make us less able to defend ourselves, keeping in mind that the U.S. itself has not been attacked directly since Pearl Harbor, an attack that took place almost seventy years ago and was directed at a distant island from the mainland. Who exactly is threatening the United States militarily?

The Russians are not a threat to us.

The British are our closest allies and frankly not a threat either even if they were miffed at us.

Japan doesn’t really have a military.

France? The French military is only a threat to French freedom.

Germany is a military shadow of its former self and the whole world is happy about that.

China? Maybe a minor threat but the Chinese and the U.S. have such a symbiotic economic relationship that open warfare would destroy the Chinese economy. Each year that goes by makes it less likely that China will try to reunify Taiwan by force.

North Korea? They are a threat to start a war on the Korean peninsula but we already have a ton of forces in the area and such superiority in technology that a fight with the U.S. and South Koreans would be the end of that regime. The Chinese, for reasons above, are not going to bail them out like they did in the 50’s.

India is an economic partner and no threat to us militarily.

Iran? I think their armed forces would collapse faster than the Iraqis and one Persian Gulf liberation is our quota methinks.

Am I missing anyone? Lichtenstein? Madagascar?

Our biggest threat is terrorism and not a large scale pitched battle between multiple huge armies. I have come to two conclusions:

1. The U.S. military is designed to fight a war that we will likely never get into again. The world has changed dramatically and the mission of the U.S. military has likewise changed but we still build to fight some amorphous national military that doesn’t exist.

2. The military budget is the Republican version of liberal big government spending, a way for Republicans to spend tax dollars which is how politicians get and keep power but do so in a way palatable to Middle America and many conservatives.

Our military is designed less to protect America and more to project power around the world. I pointed out in a previous post that the United States superiority in aircraft carriers is overwhelming to the point of being ridiculous. We also have around 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines tooling around with a cargo of nuclear missiles that have been in place for around 30 years and are now prepared to launch their 20+ nuclear missiles at…who? We have between 2500 and 5000 nuclear warheads on hand, weapons that we haven’t used since we dropped two atomic weapons on Japan in 1945. As near as I can tell we haven’t even test fired one in almost twenty years. Yet there they sit in nondescript launch sites across the Great Plains, watched over by men who know they will never be used and maintained at enormous expense. Do we need 5000 warheads to cow a potential attacker (as if our incredible military might is not deterrent enough)? Might 1000 be enough given that even 250 warheads could probably snuff out most human life in Europe in the blink of an eye with plenty left over?

Like I said earlier, I find it increasingly odd that so-called “conservatives” wish to rubber stamp an infinite amount of military spending to fund an enormous standing military that I think would have shocked the sainted Founding Fathers. We simply cannot afford to maintain a military that can fight every war, deter every madman and keep every peace at a cost of hundreds of billions a year.

Here is the dirty truth of military spending, and really all government spending. What is being proposed is not a “cut”, it is merely not an increase. From the Wall Street Journal….

The projected five-year budget outlined by Mr. Gates doesn't include an actual decrease in the military budget. But it will stop growing by 2015. With salaries, health-care and fuel costs climbing every year, the Pentagon needs a 2% to 3% annual budget increase to avoid making cuts in programs.

So what is being proposed is just a halt to the ever increasing appetite for military spending. That will result in a decrease in personnel, some 69,000 in the Army and Marines, which is a reduction of about 9% from our current levels of 772,000 servicemen and women. The Iraqis want us out and we are probably going to oblige. Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular and it doesn’t seem like the government in place is ever going to be able to support itself. It actually appears that the situation has deteriorated militarily and diplomatically.

It is high time that “conservatives” who favor small government admit that our military spending is out of control and has been for some time. There is no credible major military threat to the United States or our territories. We have such a superiority in military firepower that any nation going to war against the U.S. would be like a middle school girls basketball team taking on the Miami Heat. We spend close to a trillion dollars on the military each year, much of it to defend the world that doesn’t bother to thank us much less chip in for the costs. We can make do with 600,000 men and women in uniform. We can do without the latest generation of landing craft that will never get used. We don’t need a two to one advantage in aircraft carriers against the entire combined navies of the rest of the world. We really don’t need thousands of nuclear warheads to provide a credible deterrence. One thousand warheads per continent (not counting our own or Antartica!) is a little excessive. Let the rest of the world pay for some of the military costs of deterring lunatics and despots. It is time for conservatives to get serious about smaller government even when that includes lower defense spending.

Winning the war is more important than fighting individual battles

2010-12-31T10:58:00.001-05:00

A very sobering assessment of the political landscape awaiting Republicans in 2011 comes from the Wall Street Journal this morning, The Liberal Reckoning of 2010. Here is the key section…

There is a lesson here both about modern liberalism and for Republicans who will soon have more power in Congress. For today's left, the main goal of politics is not to respond to public opinion. The goal is to impose the dream of an egalitarian entitlement state whether the public likes it or not. Sooner or later, they figure, the anger will subside and Americans will come to like the cozy confines of the cradle-to-grave welfare state.

This is the great Democratic bet with ObamaCare. The assumption is that once the benefits start to flow in 2013 the constituency for "free" health care will grow. As spending and deficits climb, the pressure for higher taxes will become inexorable and the GOP will splinter into its balanced budget and antitax wings. A value-added tax or some other money-machine will pass and guarantee that the government will control 40% to 50% of all economic resources.

It is a sad reality that this is exactly right. Americans are famous for yammering about taxes and spending except when it comes to taxes that impact them or spending that they “benefit” from. Conservatives and those who are concerned about the direction of our country need to see the big picture here and it goes beyond one policy change at a time. The big battle is not defeating liberals on Bill A and Bill B but rather thwarting the agenda of political liberals and changing public perception. I think that credit goes where it is due and in this case liberals, whether they mean to or not, have done a remarkable job at pushing their agenda by transforming American expectations of government and creating an atmosphere where American citizens are gradually more and more dependent on the government for their daily basic functioning. Each victory for encroaching government is permanent. Liberals may lose five battles but each one they win becomes permanent. That is why the article argues, and I concur, that it is imperative that Obamacare gets rolled back.

Conservatives have been handed an actual mandate to bring government under control but what does that mean? There is a lot of talking about “reining in government spending”. That sounds great but that is not what we need. Reining in a horse means tightening up the reins, slowing the horse down. We are way past that point. What we need is to rein the horse in, turn it around, head back to the barn and trade the horse in for a pony that is walked with a firm hand on the halter.

The last 100 years have seen a dramatic change in the United States. Some of it has been beneficial, like laws to prohibit race based discrimination. Most of it has transformed America into a far different place than it once was. One hundred years ago America was not a “superpower” that was expected to defeat tyranny again and again and eventually become the police force for the world on our dime. One hundred years ago we didn’t have a cradle-to-grave social welfare system that threatens to bankrupt America and that has trapped generations in a cycle of poverty and government assistance. I heard this morning that in the next twenty years the number of Medicare recipients will double to 80,000,000. Think about that number. 80 million people is a huge number to be on the government dole. Many on the Left argue that Medicare and Social Security are promises made to American seniors that we must keep and keep undiminished. I see these as promises made by past generations without the consent of the future generations who have to pay for them. There is no right to income security in retirement nor medical insurance. As more and more people stop paying into the system and start taking from it, replaced by a shrinking number of workers to fund this entitlement, we will go bankrupt. The weight of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Obamacare, public sector pensions and retiree benefits, enormous military spending, etc. will eventually crush this country. It is inevitable and unavoidable without some very hard decisions being made.

The question before us is two-fold: do Republicans coming into Congress in 2011 have the courage of conviction to make the hard choices now and if they do will voters thank or punish them for it?

The most sacred of conservative sacred cows

2010-11-26T13:30:00.000-05:00

Check out this video from the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute...

I have always been a supporter of the U.S. military and the men and women who serve in uniform. On more than one occasion I came within a step or two of going to officer candidate school. While I think it is inappropriate for Christians to serve in the military and I think the role of the U.S. military needs to be curtailed, I still have a patriotic spot in my heart for the young men who serve in the military.

Having said that, I am finding it increasingly odd that small government conservatives who distrust the federal government (rightly so) and seek to shrink the size and scope of said government (also rightly so) seek to have a huge standing military, something that I think would have been unthinkable to the founding fathers. I can't imagine what the Founders would have said about an army of 1.5 million active soldiers, in times of war and peace. I do think it would have scared the heck out of them as concerned as they were about the tyranny of an overly large central government. In the event of real tyranny from the Federal government, who do you think will enforce that tyranny? Nancy Pelosi with a rifle? A bunch of Department of Agriculture bureaucrats? TSA agents getting handsy with you in the security line? Nope, it would be the very same military that is funded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and is the home of some of the most wasteful spending anywhere in the Federal government. Any suggestion of cutting the enormous Pentagon budget is screamed down as tantamount to unilateral disarmament even though we could save hundreds of billions of dollars by making some common sense cuts as suggested by the video and not noticeably impact the military strength of the United States.

In the face of enormous deficits and a government that grew out of control decades ago and shows no sign of slowing, everything needs to be on the table. Everything. Conservatives will howl but military spending is going to have to be on the negotiating table. Instead of X number of new destroyers or jets, we might need to lower it by a third and Europe might need to start spending some money on their own armed forces instead of letting us shoulder all the danger and expense. We have 11 aircraft carriers that are far superior to anything else on the ocean and which allows the U.S. to project power anywhere in the world. The Russian Navy has all of 1 aircraft carrier and even back in the Soviet days never had more than 5-6. The Chinese don’t have a single carrier. India has 1. The British have 1 active aircraft carrier that is thirty years old and two new ones that are not going to be ready for a long time. The French have 1 carrier. The Germans have none. The Japanese have a couple of helicopter carriers which obviously are not a threat to one of our carriers, same with the Australians. So unless some country I am not thinking of has a carrier, we have 11 aircraft carriers and the rest of the world has 4 and half of those are run by our allies. I am going to go on a limb and say that none of the existing aircraft carriers in the world could take on one of ours. So we have an enormous advantage over the rest of the world in terms of numbers of ships (especially carriers which are the most important) and quality of ships. The story is the same in the other branches of the Armed Forces. Maybe we only need 9 aircraft carriers? Maybe we need to tell our democratic allies like the U.K. and Japan that we cannot afford to be the only functional military in the world and that they need to spend some of their own coin. We have over 20,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea that have been there for half a century, not to mention our bases in Europe and the Pacific. If the rest of the world won't support their own military, we need to start sending them invoices to offset the enormous cost the U.S. expends every year to keep them safe.

In many ways, Republicans are just as bad as Democrats. Both parties want to spend money because that is how they get control and power. The big difference is that Republicans hide their spending behind the waving flag and saluting young soldier. The motivation (power) and the cynical manipulation are the same. Any suggestion that we back down military spending is tantamount to treason and cowardice in many quarters. Granted, military spending is one of the few Constitutionally defensible spending areas in the Federal budget but when you have a budget well north of half a trillion dollars annually, it certainly seems that there is room to cut back. It isn't like there is a single nation on earth that threatens our safety and security and terrorists aren't much dissuaded by $4,500,000,000 aircraft carriers. If we are serious about reducing the size and scope of the Federal government, not just shuffling spending from one place to another, military spending has to be on the table.

Campaign 2012 starts…right now!

2010-11-03T08:38:00.000-04:00

I was up until midnight last night and finally had to go to bed. When I finished watching, the House was well in hand and as of this morning the number is looking like mid-60’s. A number of Democrats retained their seats because of poor candidates running against them in places like Nevada, Connecticut and Delaware that should have fallen and in spite of good candidates, the deeply liberal states of California and Oregon stayed blue but otherwise it was ugly for Democrats all around. It didn’t get as much attention but a lot of governors mansions are changing hands as well including a crushing defeat of Virg Bernero by Rick Snyder in Michigan as well as some state legislatures switching hands. That will have an enormous impact on 2012 as a lot of these states lost or gained seats and the GOP will control redistricting.

The situation we are left with is not one that is going to get a lot done. A fractious wave of new Republicans backed by the Tea Party in the House, an impotent Senate and a very unpopular President equals a crazy two years between now and Tuesday, November 6th, 2012. The campaign for 2012 starts this afternoon when President Obama addresses the nation. It will be very interesting to see what he has to say. I wonder how he likes the taste of humble pie?

I would imagine that we are going to see the jockeying for position start immediately among national GOP leaders. I have to think that lots of talk is going to center around Senator-elect Marco Rubio. He is my age but boy would he make a great VP candidate in 2012, what a contrast to “Bumbling Joe” Biden he would provide. He is a nightmare for Democrats, a young, eloquent conservative who is Hispanic. If the Dems lose a sizeable chunk of the Hispanic vote, they are sunk. There is already muttering about Sarah Palin and I sincerely hope the party coalesces around someone other than her. She is great at speech making and rallying the troops but at least now is not Presidential material. I am thinking maybe a GOP governor, like Tim Pawlenty, paired up with Marco Rubio perhaps? I expect to see Mitt Romney’s name start to crop up more and more as the serious, adult candidate and of course Ron Paul who has gone from fringe kook to mainstream but in the next eighteen months a lot can happen. 2012 seems a long way off but when you think about it, there isn’t much time between now and the start of the primary season, just a little over a year.

I would also expect to see Speaker Boehner start introducing lots of legislation to cut the size of government that will be neutered in the Senate and eventually vetoed. I can’t see President Obama compromising on the things he thinks are successes like Obamacare. Why would he compromise on something that he invested all of his political capital to push through even though voters soundly rejected it?

Another interesting dynamic is that there are a lot of uneasy bedfellows in the Republican Party this morning. I don’t think that the party old guard is nearly as excited as the rank-and-file. Career politicians like things to be predictable, it makes it easier to gather and keep power and as the last few election cycles have demonstrated, things are anything but predictable in politics these days. Senator Jim DeMint wrote this morning to warn Tea Party backed winners that Washington will try to corrupt them immediately:

Congratulations to all the tea party-backed candidates who overcame a determined, partisan opposition to win their elections. The next campaign begins today. Because you must now overcome determined party insiders if this nation is going to be spared from fiscal disaster.

Many of the people who will be welcoming the new class of Senate conservatives to Washington never wanted you here in the first place. The establishment is much more likely to try to buy off your votes than to buy into your limited-government philosophy. Consider what former GOP senator-turned-lobbyist Trent Lott told the Washington Post earlier this year: "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."

Don't let them. Co-option is coercion. Washington operates on a favor-based economy and for every earmark, committee assignment or fancy title that's given, payback is expected in return. The chits come due when the roll call votes begin. This is how big-spending bills that everyone always decries in public always manage to pass with just enough votes.

Very true. The party insiders are certainly happy to be back in charge in the House but they don’t like how they got there. It is like having an annoying guy with great tickets to the ball game. You want to go to the game and the seats are awesome but now you have to sit next to this guy you don’t really like for the next 3 hours.

The big question mark is President Obama. Can he shift gears like Bill Clinton in 1994? Will he admit that the American people have rejected his agenda? Or will he misread the message again and assume that his agenda is what people want and the only failure was one of communication? I am skeptical that he will read this election correctly. Even up to election night, the message was still that “the people” supported his agenda but were too scared about their jobs to think rationally.

Anyway, buckle up! We will have a few weeks free from political ads and with talk of working together but know that behind the scenes Campaign 2012 is already in full force.

The Reason Democrats Are About To Lose Big: Exhibit A

2010-10-29T09:24:00.001-04:00

This morning the business community in America is graced with an editorial from Robert Reich writing in the Wall Street Journal, an economist who openly favors income redistribution. As near as I can tell, Reich has done three things in his life: worked for the government, taught at universities and written books about topics that he understands only from an academic standpoint. I don't think he has ever had a private sector job but based on his decades in academia he feels qualified to offer advice to the private sector he has shunned his entire life. It is kind of like getting farming advice from people who have never been on a farm but have written lots of books about agriculture.

The target of Mr. Reich’s editorial? Those business hatin’ Tea Party types, that’s who! Apparently Robert Reich thinks he is going to scare CEOs into voting for liberals four days before the election and perhaps pour millions of dollars into the coffers of liberal candidates who, against all common sense, Reich seems to think are more business friendly. You know, liberals like Virg Bernero in Michigan who is trying to extort concessions from J.P. Morgan Chase and has essentially promised if elected to wage all-out war on business (luckily he is so far behind in the polls that the Governor’s race in Michigan has become an afterthought). Liberals like President Obama who vilifies business at every opportunity and has wasted not one second of his first term when it comes to making it harder and less profitable to do business in America.

When push comes to shove, Reich shows the same disdain as President Obama for people without Harvard degress. The only possible motivation must be fear, anger and thinly veiled racisim….

History has shown that people threatened by losses of jobs, wages, homes and savings are easy prey for demagogues who turn those fears into anger at major institutions, as well as individuals and minorities who become easy scapegoats—immigrants, foreign traders, certain religious groups. Were it not for their economic stresses, Americans wouldn't be receptive to abolishing the Fed and the IRS, or believe that government and big business were conspiring against them, or turn isolationist.

As usual, we get the implication that in spite of any concrete evidence, Tea Partiers all harbor racist feelings. They are, after all, anti-immigrant! The truth is that while there may be some racists in the Tea Party, there are certainly racists on the left as well among certain “civil rights” groups and leaders who have made blatantly racist comments but are given a pass (Jesse Jackson? Al Sharpton? Black Panthers?). Liberals have gotten away with accusations of racism without any proof for the last year and that is going to get worse as we approach the 2012 Presidential election. Mr. Reich is a pretty bright fellow, one would think he would understand the difference between being anti-immigrant and anti-illegal immigration. One involves someone immigrating to this country as my forefathers did following the laws of this nation. The other involves intentionally breaking the laws of this country, entering and working illegally.

Thanks to Robert Reich for demonstrating so clearly the sort of mentality that is going to lead to devastating losses next week for liberals. The business community has far more to fear from the onerous regulations, higher taxes and flat out disastrous policies of liberals than they do from people who want the U.S. to reduce its debt. Little wonder Obama and the Dems find themselves in their current pickle.

I am still uncertain what the root cause of this is. I would like to think, as terrible as it sounds, that this talk of fear, anger, racism, etc. is just political posturing. My gut instinct is that what we really are seeing are the results of a scorned self-appointed elite, people who look down their noses at the unwashed hordes of Americans who cling to guns and religion and have the nerve to question their betters. It cannot possibly be that the American people have actually examined the evidence and decided that the policies pushed by the Left in America by Obama and Pelosi are unhealthy for this country and have decided to vote them out. That leaves them with the conclusion that there must be something ugly underlying the wholesale rejection of liberalism. Ignorant fear. Anger and hatred. Racism. Anything but a rational decision. That attitude is going to be the death of the Democratic majority in the House and perhaps the Senate and with Obama’s popularity bottoming out and a bunch of vulnerable Democratic senate senates up for grabs in 2012, the long term picture is grim for Democrats. The real question now is whether Republicans can remember the lessons of 1994 and govern as the same conservatives they ran as. Otherwise we might see the Tea Party and other independents form a real third party.

The Condescender in Chief

2010-10-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

If you people weren’t so stupid and scared you would agree with me

More than any recent President in my lifetime, even more so than the former title holder Jimmy Carter, President Obama seems to have sought the office of President of the United States because he simply thinks most Americans are too stupid to be trusted to think for themselves. He is less of a Commander in Chief than a Condescender in Chief, patting the ignorant masses on the head when they do what he wants and scolding them with a wagged finger when they don’t.

Case in point, Obama’s recent comments that "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared." Of course. We are scared and not thinking clearly! How else can you explain people not walking in lockstep with our brilliant President. We clearly are too dumb to be allowed to make decisions for ourselves. If President Obama thinks we should vote for Democrats who will rubber-stamp his agenda, that must be what we should do. The only explanation for the upcoming blood bath is that we are too scared to think straight and listen to the wisdom of the wise and benevolent President Obama.

Here is a novel thought Mr. President. Maybe people DO understand what you have done and are trying to do and don’t like it! Maybe they elected you in 2008 thinking you would lead us out of the economic meltdown and instead you took the election results as a mandate to pass every liberal fantasy under the sun and actually managed to make things worse while burying us deeper in debt. The vote in 2008 was for leadership and what we got was a finger wagging, pompous knee-jerk liberal who thought the solution to a damaged economy was more government, more taxes, socialized medicine and a worldwide tour where the leader of the free world was bowing and scraping before the world’s tryants.

It is going to very interesting to see President Obama's response on Wednesday, November 3rd. Will he react strategically like Bill Clinton which ensured his second term or will be go off the deep end like Al Gore? I am betting on the latter and on a one term Obama Presidency.

One man’s political machinations are another man’s vote tampering

2010-10-18T14:50:00.003-04:00

Are senior citizens cheap and easy?

Apparently President Obama thinks so because his latest gambit to bribe them with $250 of their own money is Chicago vote buying politics at its best. The Social Security cost of living adjustment system is designed to increase benefits as the costs of living rise (hence the name) to protect seniors from losing buying power as prices for goods and services go up. Given the relatively low rate of inflation brought on by the poor economy, there are not going to be COLA’s this year. That is exactly how the system is supposed to work. People on social security don’t get an automatic increase every year just for being above ground, it is supposed to adjust with inflation. Minimal inflation=no increase. Makes perfect sense and works like it is supposed to.

Not in an election year and especially not when Democrats are not only collapsing in the polls but actually losing steam as we approach the one week mark ahead of the elections. Not with a Chicago politician in the White House and a Democratic majority desperate to retain power. Hence the gross spectacle of promising seniors a $250 check in a naked attempt to buy votes.

Apparently there are some 58,000,000 Americans getting social security benefits. If each of them gets a bribe, er bonus check, of $250, it amounts to $14,500,000,000 that we don’t have and that they shouldn’t be getting. It is an enormous transfer payment of fourteen billion dollars that is being given to seniors as a bribe to buy votes for Democrats that future generations will have to pay for. This is not only bad policy and something that on a smaller scale would be illegal, it is frankly immoral. In the eyes of President Obama? Who cares! Many of those future workers paying into the social security system with no hope of getting a benefit and who will have to pay for the crushing national debt cannot vote next week so their well-being is irrelevant.

If one political operative tries to give a voter $250 in an alleyway in the dark of night right before the election, he would be arrested on charges of vote tampering. When President Obama tries to bribe 58,000,000 voters right before the election he announces it on TV and no one in the media says a thing about it.

It is time for "Change" indeed.

Has it really come to this?

2010-10-14T08:44:00.001-04:00

This should be a much bigger story than it is. The President of the United States has accused a venerable organization, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with what amounts to breaking the law by taking foreign donations to influence U.S. elections. The head of the Democratic National Committee has suggested that several conservative organizations are also taking money from foreign influences. Karl Rover, the left’s favorite bogeyman and one of those falsely accused without a shred of proof responds in the Wall Street Journal: I Am No Threat to Democracy

These smears were too much even for the New York Times, which noted on Saturday that "Democrats have offered no evidence that the chamber is using foreign money to influence the elections." Brooks Jackson of FactCheck.org wrote the next day that "accusing anybody of violating the law is a serious matter requiring serious evidence to back it up. So far Democrats have produced none." And when CBS anchor Bob Schieffer asked White House senior adviser David Axelrod for corroboration that the chamber was spending foreign money on American elections, Mr. Axelrod answered, "Well, do you have any evidence that it's not, Bob?" Mr. Schieffer incredulously responded, "Is that the best you can do?"

When liberals are getting called out for playing fast and loose with the facts by the New York Times and CBS news, you know things are bad. Perhaps Republicans can accuse Nancy Pelosi of cannibalism and when asked for proof can simply retort: “Well do you have any evidence that she is not?!”

Is this the best the Democrats can offer? No solutions, no plans, just personal attacks and out and out lies. What has happened to the allegedly great orator Barack Obama that he is so toxic that Democrats around the country are running from him as fast as possible and he is reduced in this election cycle to false accusations of illegal activities? One can only imagine the outcry from the media if George Bush had made similar false accusations against the AFL-CIO or other liberal organizations.

The truth on the ground is that liberals were elected in 2008, led by Barack Obama, with a promise to make things better, to get the country back on track. Instead President Obama gave a blank check to the most extreme elements of the Left to enact the first steps in transforming America in a Worker’s Paradise. The results? Two years later the economy is just as bad, joblessness is just as bad and we have a ton of new debt that was frittered away for nothing along with an abomination of a “health care reform” measure that is weighing down Democratic candidates like a millstone. Barack Obama is about to become a first term lame duck President halfway through that term.

When people voted for “Change”, they didn’t expect that it mean “Change for the Worse” and when Obama called for “Hope”, who knew that the people who gained the most hope were Republicans.

Virg Bernero’s Plan For Michigan: Alienate Business

2010-10-08T08:33:00.002-04:00

So Virg Bernero, the titular Democratic “candidate” for Governor of Michigan, gets up in front of the Detroit Economic Club to talk about getting Michigan’s economy back on track and proceeds to….blast business?

"If you are part of the Wall Street breed that runs over people for ever-growing profits and growing bonuses, you will have a problem, because I've had it," Bernero said in his opening statement to a stony business crowd. "We're up to here with it. Enough is enough."

Bernero said news that some banks around the U.S. have erroneously foreclosed on homes or unwisely issued mortgage loans in the first place should prod Michigan to follow other states and block foreclosure proceedings or give homeowners a stronger hand to negotiate with banks.

Bernero said a priority as governor would be to withdraw $1 billion in state money from J.P. Morgan and Chase banks for their refusal to ease up on foreclosures and invest the money in Michigan-based banks and credit unions.

Bernero's aggressive challenge wasn't well received.

You can hear business leaders around the country getting ready to pack up and move to Michigan if Virg Bernero wins the governorship. Play ball with us or face extortion from the state! I think it is clear that mortgage companies have been seriously cutting corners on foreclosures but the fact remains that if you don’t make your payments, you lose your house. These sorts of petty threats are doing nothing to help home owners and do a lot of anger business. If you really want to help people who are being foreclosed on, lets try making this state more business friendly to bring more jobs so people can actually pay their mortgages instead of foolish blustering that is putting up a giant neon sign at the Michigan border that reads “Not Open For Business”.

It is kind of irrelevant. Virg is so far behind in the polls that you can hardly see him. I am not sure he is going to get a majority of the votes cast by registered Democrats and he might lose in Democratic strongholds like Detroit. In an important state like Michigan with lots of electoral college votes and a large number of representatives, you would think that Democrats could have found someone, anyone better to run but after the Jennifer Granholm experience, smart Democrats decided to sit this one out leaving an unstable demagogue running in the primary against a completely overmatched Andy Dillon.

What is instructive in this circus is that Bernero, in his clumsy and ignorant way of speaking, exposes the underlying error of liberal economic policies. Democrats in general see business as something that hinders prosperity for all Americans by making rich people rich and keeping poor people poor. Business is something to be controlled, restricted, regulated and demonized. The reality, as usual, is quite a bit different. For all of its faults, the American business community is the only real hope for any semblance of continued prosperity. We cannot continue to make up “jobs” by going further and further into debt.

What is going to kill Democrats this election cycle is their inability to read the electorate, an electorate that is in no mood for more and more government and has lost any faith at all in their elected officials. I think this election cycle is somewhat unique because in the past people seemed to like their Senators and their Representatives and not trust the others but being an incumbent this year is scary for people in both parties.

The real question is: how bad is it going to be? Bernero is going to get thumped and since Governor will be at the top of the ballot that really should hurt Democrats down ballot as well. Once the dust settles in Michigan and elsewhere, the hard work starts. Republicans have proven in the past that they campaign like conservatives but when in power they often govern like liberals. They better do better this time around or they will find themselves out the door in 2012. If there was ever a time for a legit third party in America, that time might be now especially if Republicans forget the core values that they ran on and are about to be elected on.

What’s yours is his

2010-09-21T10:30:00.000-04:00

There are two ways to view money in our economy. One is that it belongs to the person who earned it and that they are required to pay a certain level of it on taxes. In other words the default it that it is yours except what Congress passes for tax policy. The other view is that the government has claim to all of your money and permits you to keep some of it. In other words the default is that the government has first rights to all of your money and you should be grateful for whatever portion you are allowed to keep. Which view does this administration hold?

This is a telling statement from President Obama’s “town hall” meeting yesterday (transcript of his comments comes from the White House webpage):

The first thing you do when you’re in a hole is not dig it deeper. That's why this tax debate is important. We can’t give $700 billion away to some -- America’s wealthiest people. We’ve got to make sure that we are responsible stewards for our budget. That's point number one.

The grotesque mockery of that statement is amazing. You aren’t “giving away” money to rich people, it is their money in the first place. You are just taking less of it. If you take my wallet and pull out five twenties, put two twenties back and give me my wallet, you haven’t “given” me $40, you are just taking less of what was my money in the first place. Apparently no one has any claim to their money unless the government decrees that they do.

It is a troubling way to view the economy. Democrats seem to think that the best place for decisions about spending and investment is always the government. The private sector has plenty of foolish spending and investment but in the private sector poor decisions and unwise fiscal policy lead to failure and businesses going away. In the public sector, failure to spend wisely and insane fiscal policy is responded to with…demands for even more money to mismanage.

An unsustainable mix

2010-09-16T15:39:00.002-04:00

There was a troubling article in the Journal the other day that discussed the real source of difficulty in reducing the deficit. Almost everyone agrees that the deficit is untenable and that the level of national debt is unacceptable. Everyone agrees we need to get it in line. No one wants to have that impact them personally. We are becoming a European style nation of entitlements, where way too many people are receiving a perceived benefit from the Federal government and many of those people will fight tooth and nail to keep it. Here is the problem:

Almost half of all Americans receive some sort of government benefit.

Almost half of all Americans don’t pay Federal income taxes (I am in this group)

You can be pretty sure that the people in the first group are likely also people in the second. The problem is that the number of people in these groups is rapidly swelling and that is causing a major imbalance between those who directly benefit from government spending and those that pay the taxes that fund those benefits.

There is a huge issue lurking down the road in America and it is not spending. We all know about that. The more insidious problem is revenue. There are too few people paying into the system to sustain it even if we cut spending fairly dramatically. The answer to the revenue problem is not to punish the shrinking pool of workers and investors by discouraging them from investing and working via higher taxes. The answer is that we need fewer people on the government dole and more people legally working and producing and paying reasonable taxes.

We are on the path to economic and demographic catastrophe. Too few new workers to replace the old. Too few legal workers to support the retirees. Too much debt to be repaid by a shrinking workforce. Too many older workers retiring at ages set 50 years ago and drawing from the system for decades. We are rapidly approaching the day when life expectancy will be such that people will spend more time not working and paying taxes than working.

A society of people with one hand gripping their wallet and the other held out to Uncle Sam for goodies cannot long survive when the rest of the world is rapidly catching up to us. I fear it might be too late already.

Send in the clowns

2010-08-30T12:13:00.002-04:00

What happened to conservatism?

Conservatism used to the political home of ideas. We had the ideas that were solidly grounded in reality and logic. In contrast, liberals appealed to emotions in place of substantive positions. We won arguments even if we didn’t win elections. The leading liberal thinkers couldn’t hold a candle to the giants of conservatism.

Today? In place of William F. Buckley we have men like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. Gone are the days of shredding an opponent’s argument while seated and in a calm voice with the scalpel of superior arguments. Now we have self-promotion disguised under the veneer of patriotism and silliness in place of substance. The loudest voice rather than the best argument wins.

With the coarsening of society, conservatism has adopted the methods of the Left by appealing to emotions. We have shouting Bill O’Reilly and crying Glenn Beck. We have the acerbic Ann Coulter and the over the top Sean Hannity. In place of substantive arguments about free markets and individual liberty we have protests against mosques in New York City and a quarter of voters who think President Obama is a Muslim. The rational, calm voices like Peggy Noonan and Thomas Sowell are drowned out by the showmen. Maybe Americans are just dumber these days and can’t handle the substantive, meaty discussions and these banal entertainers we call “conservatives” have filled in the intellectual void.

What happened to conservatism that the leading voices on the political right used to be the intellectual heavyweights but now have been replaced by grandstanding kingmakers? Where did we lose our way and replace thoughtful discussion with self-promotional rallies?

How bad is it?

2010-08-17T16:00:00.003-04:00

When we talk about the national debt, the numbers being used are so astronomical that most people can't understand the magnitude. The numbers are just too big. Here is an example from the Wall Street Journal that gives you a picture of how bad it is:

Even among such diverse voices, the nation's fiscal problems were a central concern. At $1.47 trillion, the federal deficit this fiscal year exceeds all defense and nondefense spending at Congress's discretion by $110 million. In other words, lawmakers could eliminate the entire military, all federal education, agricultural, housing programs, federal prisons, the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Coast Guard and border patrol, and the nation would still be in the red.

Imagine that if you can. No military, no Federal education spending, no Federal prisons. All of that and the nation is still overspending! We will see if the voters finally say enough is enough this fall. Cutting spending sounds great until the cuts impact you.

Virg Bernero's Michigan

2010-08-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

"You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run”
- Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

In the GOP Primary to select a candidate for governor, businessman Rick Snyder came away the winner. Snyder is by far the most moderate of the candidates running for the nomination and the three other guys (Cox, Hoekstra and Bouchard) split around 2/3 of the GOP vote leaving the other 1/3 to vote for Snyder who came away with the victory. That is not sitting well with many conservatives who wake up this morning and realize that by splitting our votes we ended up with a candidate none of us are enthused about. Going into an important election led by a "hold your nose and vote" candidate is far from ideal but conservatives failed to coalesce around one candidate and this is what we got.

As many conservatives in Michigan stomp their feet over the nomination of Rick Snyder, we are hearing the predictable cries of “we will stay home in November”. I didn’t support or vote for Rick Snyder in the GOP primary and the guy I did support, Attorney General Mike Cox, came in third. I really have a hard time figuring out what Snyder wants to do as governor, he hasn’t mastered the political snippets that sound good and mean nothing. I read over several of his issues on his webpage and I think they need some work because I am fairly politically astute and have no idea what he is trying to do. Having said that, we are in a two-party system and our choices in Michigan come down to these three:

- Vote for Rick Snyder as the best option among the limited choices
- Stay home which increases the value of every liberal vote for Virg Bernero.
- Write in a candidate, which is never going to work, and likewise help elect Virg Bernero.

Options 2 and 3 guarantee a Bernero governorship and before we go in that direction, I thought it was worthwhile to look at Bernero's positions. Snyder may not be completely acceptable for conservatives but Bernero is completely unacceptable.

As soon as I went to Virg Bernero’s webpage, I was greeted with a news article touting his endorsement by “The Reverend” Jesse Jackson. So that is the sort of political circle of trust we are dealing with. Why in the world anyone cares who Jesse Jackson supports in the Michigan governors race is beyond me (or who Sarah Palin supports or who Joe the Plumber supports or who Mike Huckabee supports, etc.) Anyhoo, here is what Virg wants to do to..um, for, Michigan

All quotes taken directly from the Bernero for Governor official page…

On homosexuality:

Bernero was given the Ray of Light Award for “Outstanding contributions to the LGBT community.” Virg was also the primary sponsor of a Senate Bill to increase the sanctions to felony charges against those who intimidate, harass or commit hate crimes against another individual based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

On abortion:

Virg has always been a strong supporter of women’s reproductive rights. Virg feels that the extremely difficult decision as to whether or not to have an abortion is one that is best made between a woman, her family, and her physician. As Governor, Virg will uphold a woman’s right to choose.

On socialized medicine:

Virg has been an outspoken proponent of the President’s Health Care bill that was recently written into law. To people in Michigan, this means more than 141,000 people with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied insurance coverage. It also provides tax credits to nearly 800,000 people and tax cuts for more than 100,000 small businesses in Michigan.

To learn more about what this historic legislation means for Michiganders, click here:

Virg has never wavered on his support for this historic health care legislation. As Governor, Virg will continue to fight for universal access to quality, affordable health care.

On a state run bank (slogan: “Banking brought to you by the same people in charge of maintaining Michigan’s roads!”

Virg Bernero has proven that we can incentivize small employers to grow jobs here in Michigan. As Governor, Bernero will lay out the red carpet for business, not the red tape. That means facilitating the start-up of new businesses, making credit available, and easing the burden on startups. Bernero’s proposal to establish a state-operated bank that can make direct loans to businesses in emerging, job-creating industries will do just that. It has worked in North Dakota, and we can make it work here.

That is perhaps the most foolish of all of his ideas and that is saying something. A state run bank? From a state that can’t do anything right, a bank run by bureaucrats. Brilliant thinking! “It worked in North Dakota, why not here?” is not a slogan I want to approach the crucial next four years with.

Here are some of the endoresements Bernero touts:

Michigan National Organization for Women

Michigan Democratic Party -- LGBTA Caucus

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

AFL-CIO

UAW

Progressive Women's Alliance (PWA)

Women Progressive Activists (WPA) (The PWA and WPA are 2 different groups, go figure)

Equality Michigan Action Network (a homosexual activist organization)

Lansing Association for Human Rights (a different homosexual activist organization)

I love the groups that hide behind “progressive” and “justice” because they are afraid to say liberal. I am a political conservative and I don’t try to hide that behind buzzwords. If your agenda is so repugnant that you are afraid to call it what it is (i.e. calling pro-abortion “pro-choice”), what does that say about your agenda?

Bernero clearly has never met a tax he doesn’t like, a government that is too big, a perversion he won’t embrace, a baby he thinks should have a right to live, a union boot he won’t lick. I hate to describe Snyder as the lesser of two evils because I think he has some things going for him. He is not perfect, especially on the issues I think are important but he is far better than Bernero.

Still think Snyder is unsupportable?

News Flash: Soaking the Rich Doesn't Work!

2010-08-02T14:30:00.000-04:00

Shockingly, or not if you are even slightly observant, raising taxes on the rich decreases their share of tax revenue and lowering taxes on the rich increases their share of tax revenues. Arthur Laffer once again demolishes the notion that the rich don't pay their fair share and that taxing the rich helps the little guy.

Since 1978, the U.S. has cut the highest marginal earned-income tax rate to 35% from 50%, the highest capital gains tax rate to 15% from about 50%, and the highest dividend tax rate to 15% from 70%. President Clinton cut the highest marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains from the sale of owner-occupied homes to 0% for almost all home owners. We've also cut just about every other income tax rate as well.

During this era of ubiquitous tax cuts, income tax receipts from the top 1% of income earners rose to 3.3% of GDP in 2007 (the latest year for which we have data) from 1.5% of GDP in 1978. Income tax receipts from the bottom 95% of income earners fell to 3.2% of GDP from 5.4% of GDP over the same time period.

Why does it never work to “soak the rich”? Because the rich have better lawyers and accountants. People who are rich don’t get there by being stupid….

The highest tax bracket income earners, when compared with those people in lower tax brackets, are far more capable of changing their taxable income by hiring lawyers, accountants, deferred income specialists and the like. They can change the location, timing, composition and volume of income to avoid taxation.

As Laffer also points out, famous wealthy “tax and spend” liberals like John Kerry and Howard Metzenbaum have taken advantage of our screwy tax laws to shelter themselves from taxes, a strategy that is less available to those without the means to pay for fancy tax attorneys and accountants.

Increasing taxes on the rich doesn’t make the little guy less poor, it just discourages the rich from engaging in investment activities that in turn create jobs for the very people that raising taxes are supposed to help. Tax policy is little more than a cynical play used by politicians to curry favor with ill-informed voters. Those very same politicians, many of whom are fantastically rich, use the convoluted tax code to hide their own income from taxation. Meanwhile the nation continues to spend money it doesn’t have based on tax revenues it will never realize.

Wake up people!

It is not about taxes or fairness, it is about control

2010-07-29T15:30:00.000-04:00

I am beginning to think that the Left doesn’t much care who has money in this country or how much of it, especially given how many liberals are stinking rich. Certainly there are plenty of super wealthy liberal donors who could pay more of their “fair share”. The hypocrisy of ultra-liberal Hollywood types living in palatial mansions and paying tax attorneys to hide their wealth urging that successful Americans who make more than the average are somehow gaming the system is completely lost on them.

What seems more in character is that liberals don’t care who has money as long as it is filtered through the government first. In other words, I don’t think the issue is income or wealth equity. It is all about who decides where the money goes. In a true free market, the market decides. Those who work the hardest, have the most marketable skills, have the right idea at the right time, are the ones who benefit the most financially. In a controlled economy, the direction we are heading, it is the central government that makes those decisions. Wealth is redistributed based on a myriad of criteria: perceived past abuses, a social status that is in vogue, whether you live in the right congressional district.

In other words, I don’t think Nancy Pelosi and company care a lick about the poor or whether some people have substantially more money than someone else. All they care about is deciding where every penny goes. Fairness? Bah. There is only one word that matters in D.C. and that word is control.

Like picking a one legged blind kid for your kickball team

2010-07-16T10:47:00.002-04:00

The three stooges (Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Christopher Dodd) celebrating another Pyrrhic victory

The Congress is on the verge of enacting a sweeping financial services “reform” bill and it is going to be a problem. Anytime you see these three jokers yukking it up, you better grab your pocketbook especially when you are dealing with Barney Frank who has never held a real job in the private sector as far as I can tell and whos only experience in complex financial transactions involved a homosexual prostitute that lived in his home and worked as an "aide". Clearly what we are seeing is once again proof that Democrats are badly misreading the mood of the electorate. Statements like this one are indicative of why Democrats are heading for an ugly election cycle in the fall:

Democrats say the bill will cut the odds of another crisis and better handle one when it arrives. They also contend it will restore confidence in U.S. financial markets, protect consumers and spur growth. White House officials said it will put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts of banks, addressing the scars of the financial crisis of 2008.

We are supposed to believe that increasing the power of the Federal government over banking is supposed to make Americans more confident. I have worked for some of the biggest financial firms in the world and there are plenty of chuckleheads working for them but also some supremely smart and capable people who make tons of money by being talented. I also deal with government bureaucrats in the financial services business on a regular basis and have to deal with the laws and regulations they make up. If I have to trust one more than the other, the private financial services sector wins every time. Exhibit A are the government backed mortgages that created an artificial market for less than ideal loans. If I make a loan and keep it on my books and it goes bad, I have to eat the loss. That reality tempers my underwriting behavior. If on the other hand I can make a loan and then sell it to the government with no repercussions if it goes sour? That also impacts my underwriting, making it more likely that I will write riskier loans to people with substandard credit, with excessive debt or with a loan to value that is at 100%.

Here is what the government and most Americans don’t understand:

Business is all about risk and reward

Every business engages in risk every day. Hiring more people is a risk. Rolling out a new product is a risk. Extending credit to a customer is a risk. Buying a newer version of Microsoft Office is a risk. Every business owner needs to weigh the potential reward against the potential risk in every transaction. That risk/reward equation is how business functions. Take too much risk and eventually it will bite you. Take too little and someone else will pass you up. Businesses are phoenix-like in that businesses die and new businesses spring up. That cycle of renewal keeps the economy chugging along. That is until Uncle Same gets in the mix.

The government by nature governs. That is what it is supposed to do. Make laws and enforce them within narrow constraints spelled out in the Constitution. When the government starts to tinker around in the private sector, it messes everything up because a) the government has no motive to be efficient and profitable so it operates under entirely different assumptions than the private sector and b) it changes the risk/reward ratio and either causes behavior that normally wouldn’t be prudent or it quashes behavior that normally would be prudent.

I like what Senator Shelby said:

The bill "is a 2,300-page legislative monster…that expands the scope and the powers of ineffective bureaucracies," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.).

We are giving additional power, resources, money, staff, etc. to the least efficient and effective possible entity, the monstrous Federal government. What is worse, it sounds like the bill is going to make it possible for government bureaucrats to create the actual regulations that will govern financial services and that is where the real danger lies. At this point, no one really knows what this bill is going to do and no one will for several years but once these regulations get in place, it will be nigh impossible to untangle them. The cost of these regulations will, surprise!, be passed on to consumers. Don’t think for a second that this monstrous bill is going to do anything but make it harder and more expensive to do business. Rather than reigning in “too big to fail”, we are seeing a contraction in banking and the big banks are getting bigger and more profitable. J.P. Morgan Chase announced profits of almost $5 billion yesterday. Be sure that as these regulation get written, banking lobbyists are going to be all over the regulators making sure they are protected. The CEO of Chase, Jamie Dimon, is a sharp guy, perhaps one of the brightest guys in corporate America, and you can be sure that Chase and other big banks are going to weather this quite nicely. The small community bank in your town? Maybe not.

There are clearly dangers in the free market but the market has mechanisms to deal with companies that take too many risks. Rather than being bailed out, they go out of business via bankruptcy, closure or being acquired. In propping them up with bailouts we rewarded risky behavior that should have resulted in failure at enormous taxpayer expense and perpetuated the dependent behavior of poorly run companies who run to the Federal trough when they get in trouble. This bill is bad news, if for no other reason than it tries to do something far beyond the scope of the Federal government to understand or handle.

Giving even more power to the Federal government which has already proven unable and unwilling to regulate financial services is like picking a one legged blind kid for your kickball team. The problem is that when this team loses, we all have to pay.

This is exactly what Detroit doesn’t need

2010-07-12T08:52:00.000-04:00

Ah Jesse. Always showing up where he is neither wanted nor needed to show he still has clout.

UAW president, the Rev. Jackson to launch jobs and peace campaign today

United Auto Workers President Bob King and civic rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. intend to launch a new campaign that will call for more American jobs, beef up federal enforcement of the workplace and industry, and end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So explain this to me. How exactly is someone, i.e. “The Reverend” Jesse Jackson, who has to the best of my knowledge never held a job or ran a business and whose entire career is based on race baiting, profiteering on tragedy, opportunism and extortion of corporate America, going to lead a push to create jobs? By walking around Detroit and making a speech one afternoon?

When you combine the forces of Jesse Jackson, a race-baiting opportunist, with Bob King, a radical who sees his job as not only to squeeze as much money out of UAW employers as possible and then crying about it when they have to cut back but also to bring about global “progressivism”, you have a tsunami of the exact sort of thinking and activism that has Michigan in the toilet to begin with. Michigan is still riddled with an entitlement mentality fostered by decades of union leadership in this state coupled with executives too weak to stand against the unions and too eager to capitulate.

Bob King and Jesse Jackson haven’t the faintest clue how jobs are created or perhaps worse they do know but don’t care because all they care about is stirring the pot to justify their existence. Until Detroit collectively tells men like this to take their snake oil wagon someplace else, that city will continue to languish. Detroit doesn’t need “social justice”, i.e. leftist wealth redistribution policies. It doesn’t need more unionizing. It doesn’t need more racial polarization. Detroit needs an attitude adjustment and a business friendly atmosphere that will encourage private sector investment which will in turn lead to jobs. If I am a business owner even considering moving to Detroit, seeing demagogues like these two marching the streets would be more than enough for me to take my business and my jobs elsewhere.

Detroit’s last mayor is in prison, the recent president of the school board is an illiterate pervert, the schools are a disaster, everyone who can flee to the suburbs is fleeing and graft and corruption are the name of the game in virtually every corner of city government. It is high time Detroiters tell Jesse Jackson to take his tired act somewhere else. Detroit has enough problems as is without Jesse parachuting in to cause trouble and foment racial disharmony.

Draconian? Really?

2010-07-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

Only in the mainstream media can this sort of paragraph, found in this morning’s USA Today editorial, be considered reasonable:

Don't get us wrong: The Arizona law — which requires local police, in the course of a lawful stop, to question the legal status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being in this country illegally — is draconian and, as the lawsuit argues, potentially an unconstitutional infringement on federal powers.

Draconian? I would assume that somewhere in USA Today’s offices they have a dictionary (maybe not). Here is the definition of draconian.

1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of Draco or the severe code of laws held to have been framed by him
2 : cruel; also : severe

Given that Draco, the individual from ancient Greece referenced in the first definition, was infamous for severe laws that often put people to death for minor infractions, I assume that is not what USA Today meant. So I guess that they mean that Arizona’s law is severe and cruel. Really?

So asking people during the course of a traffic stop, for example, for proof that they are a citizen is “draconian”? I wonder if anyone on the editorial board of USA Today took a second to ask “Is this law even unreasonable, much less draconian?”. I am assuming not. When the media insists on using over the top rhetoric like draconian to describe a pretty mild law, it cheapens the word and makes a mockery of actual draconian laws that exist around the world. When people describe Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant or George W. Bush as a fascist, it exposes their inability to formulate a coherent argument which results in using overheated rhetoric in place of reason.

Let’s look at the way a traffic stop might go in Arizona. A police officer in Arizona pulls someone over for a traffic violation. They first thing they ask for is…drivers license and registration. If you produce these legally required documents, documents I always have with me, I am issued a ticket and go on my way. I am clearly a citizen of this country because I have a government issued ID. On the other hand, someone who refuses or is unable to produce such an ID (which is required for all sorts of stuff and rightly so) does and should raise suspicion. Keep in mind of course that being in the United States illegally is…..illegal. That is why they are called “illegal immigrants”. Since the Federal government has essentially abdicated its responsibility to control our borders, Arizona has taken matters into its own hands and done so in a way that is little different from states having their own drivers license laws.

Thankfully the Federal government is about to spend untold millions to engage in some political grandstanding that has no chance to succeed in overturning Arizona’s law. Perhaps we could try to secure the border, impose severe penalties on employers who hire illegal workers. That might make some actual sense so it probably won’t happen.

Giving us back a right that was never theirs to take away

2010-06-29T10:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down a ruling, by a five to four margin, that extends the Heller decision that recognizes the Second Amendment as an individual right nationally (rather than just in the unique legal situation of Washington, D.C.). For those of us who are supporters of the Second Amendment, this decision was a “Well, duh!” decision, an obvious recognition of an obvious right. That the Second Amendment is an individual right and not a reference to the National Guard is not as intuitive to others who have an irrational fear of guns, or more specifically an irrational fear of law abiding citizens owning guns.

That raises the question, is the Second Amendment an individual right as affirmed by the Supreme Court (and liable to be “unaffirmed” if one of the five majority votes changes their mind or is replaced) or was the Second Amendment never intended to preserve the individual right to own firearms. First, what does the Second Amendment say?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That is admittedly a little clunky in terms of the language employed. Some people emphasize the first part “A well regulated Militia” and others the second part “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”. So what did the Framers intend? To answer that let’s look at the other 9 articles in the Bill of Rights to give us a picture of what the framers had in mind.

The first amendment clearly is an individual right. It protects the right of individuals to practice religion without governmental approval, as well as the right of the individual to assemble peaceably and to take grievances to the government. Even the right of the press to be protected is a right that is given to an entity outside of the Federal government.

The third amendment prevents the government from quartering soldiers in your home.

The fourth amendment protects individuals from illegal search and seizure.

The fifth amendment deals with due process for individuals under the law.

The sixth amendment gives individuals the right to a criminal trial by jury as well as guaranteeing a speedy trial in his or her own locale.

The seventh amendment likewise deals with trials, but in this case has to do with civil trials where the amount in question is more than $20.

The eighth addresses the amount of bail required, that it not be excessive as well as prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

The ninth amendment protects individual rights not specifically spelled out in the Constitution, i.e. there are other rights that are not spelled out in the Constitution that are nonetheless the rights of the people.

The tenth amendment is more of a blanket amendment that defers all powers not specifically delegated to the Federal government to the states and the people. In an age of a Federal government that has placed this country into debt to the tune of more than $10 trillion dollars in spending on areas that are not Constitutionally mandated to the Feds, the Tenth Amendment might as well be stricken from the Constitution because it is by and large ignored.

What is the big, overall theme of the Bill of Rights? It is clearly a protection for individuals against the encroaching power of the government, protecting individual rights while at the same time limiting the power and scope of the government. The Bill of Rights is a check against a government that overreaches by spelling out very specific rights that we enjoy in this country. It is also clear that the Bill of Rights are individual rights, not rights of states or municipalities. So when read plainly, the Second Amendment clearly is protecting the right of the people, i.e. individual citizens, to keep and bear arms. This is consistent historically and contextually and as such the only rational interpretation is that the Second Amendment was put in place specifically to protect the right of citizens to own private firearms, an ownership that was pivotal in the independence that led to the drafting of the Constitution in the first place. The framers knew full well that an armed citizenry overthrew the mighty British army and subsequent tyrants have recognized this as well. There is no surer sign of a tyrannical government than the willingness of that government to disarm the populace.

What is sad, as many commentators have already pointed out, is that four justices who serve for life on the United States Supreme Court based on their keen judicial minds saw fit to vote against the clear language and intent of the Constitution on this issue in order to appease their own ideological prejudices. The people of the United States shouldn’t have to come before the Court, hat in hand, to beg it to recognize the very rights that are specifically laid out in the Constitution and are in place by the express design of that Constitution. This nation wouldn’t exist without the Constitution and the Constitution was expressly drawn up to limit the power of government, not to dole out minor rights to the people at the whim of the government. Our government is supposed to serve by the consent of the governed, not the other way around.

One can only assume that the “reasonable limits” language in the decision will be clung to opponents of the Second Amendment and will lead to years of laws designed to challenge the boundaries of this decision. There is nothing more frightening to a certain segment of the population than law abiding citizens, the ones who grant the government the power to govern, possessing a firearm. The people that I know who are law abiding gun owners are the least likely people to commit a crime with a firearm and yet for some people they are a dangerous group that needs to be controlled, regulated and ultimately disarmed.

Shut them all down

2010-06-11T08:54:00.004-04:00

Interesting editorial from Mona Charen, writing for National Review on the Nevada Senate race where GOP candidate Sharron Angle has called for the elimination of the Department of Education. Harry Reid is pouncing on this under the mistaken impression that Americans love it when their government pours tax dollars down a sinkhole year after year with no results. As an aside. Methinks that Harry has spent way too much time inside the Beltway and is wildly misjudging the mood of the electorate this year. I am not sure that anything is off the table for many voters. There is a current of hopelessness and anger in the country that is potentially very dangerous and I think a lot of politicians are going to be rudely surprised this fall. Anyway….

In the real world, when an institution fails over and over it goes away. Or at least they used to in the pre-bailout days . Today politically connected groups feel entirely justified in demanding the government help them out with taxpayer funds when they fail. Generally speaking though, if a business is run poorly or has a product no one wants they go out of business or are taken over by a more successful competitor. In the District of Columbia we fund departments based on the name on the building and little else. Department of Agriculture? Support the farmers! Department of Commerce? Support small business! Department of Education? Support the kids. It is the rare politician who will ask the hard questions, well the not so hard question actually, like “Is the Department of Agriculture actually helping farmers?” or “Is all of that money we spend on the Department of Transportation improving transportation in the U.S.?”. Lest you think I am being unduly harsh toward those selfless public servants at the U.S. Department of Education, take a gander at some numbers.

The Department of Education was created as a straight political payoff to the teachers’ unions by Pres. Jimmy Carter (in return for their 1976 endorsement). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, DE’s original budget, in 1980, was $13.1 billion (in 2007 dollars), and it employed 450 people. By 2000, it had increased to $34.1 billion, and by 2007 it had more than doubled to $73 billion. The budget request for fiscal 2011 is $77.8 billion, and the department employs 4,800.

All of this spending has done nothing to improve American education. Between 1973 and 2004, a period in which federal spending on education more than quadrupled, mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose just 1 percent for American 17-year-olds. Between 1971 and 2004, reading scores remained completely flat.

Comparing educational achievement with per-pupil spending among states also calls into question the value of increasing expenditures. While high-spending Massachusetts had the nation’s highest proficiency scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, low-spending Idaho did very well, too. South Dakota ranks 42nd in per-pupil expenditures but eighth in math performance and ninth in reading. The District of Columbia, meanwhile, with the nation’s highest per-pupil expenditures ($15,511 in 2007), scores dead last in achievement.

Gasp! You mean to say that giving a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. more than $70,000,000,000 a year has not led to improved education? That in fact by almost every measure American public education has gotten worse academically, more bloated administratively and more dangerous to students and teachers? That there is not a direct correlation between spending and education, that spending X dollars doesn’t invariably yield Y units of education? Say it isn’t so! Just look at the org chart to the left and try to figure out what any of these departments within the DoEd have to do with education. The WH Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities? The Office of English Language Acquisition? What does that even mean? Don’t we already have the English language, do we need to acquire more of it? Here is what the WH Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities “does” for American education.

The Board issues an Annual Federal Plan for Assistance to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to the President on participation by HBCUs in federally-sponsored programs; provides advice to the Secretary of Education and makes recommendations in reports to the President on how to increase the private sector role in strengthening HBCUs, with particular emphasis on enhancing institutional infrastructure and facilitating planning, development, and the use of new technologies to ensure the goal of long-term viability and enhancement of these institutions. Members are appointed by the President and include representatives of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, other institutions of higher education, business and financial institutions, private foundations, and secondary education.

So they don’t actually “do” anything but generate a bunch of reports that get filed and never looked at again. Outstanding! The Department of Education is a sinkhole, a money pit. No one wants to cut funding because then you are accused of not thinking about “the children”. There is nothing to gain politically from cutting spending and everything to gain politically from rubber stamping increases year after year. Funding the DoEd amounts to an easy political chip for politicians. It makes the teachers unions happy. It makes parents happy. It is great for everyone except the kids who get minimal benefit from the spending but are left with the future to bill to pay. It is analogous to a kid getting a huge present for their birthday only to find that the box is empty except for a credit card bill in their name.

I don’t think Sharron Angle is thinking big enough. I think we should lock down every department in Washington D.C. and make them justify their existence before they get one red cent of tax money. Is that so crazy? Corporations must report annually to their shareholders, shouldn’t we expect at least that much from our government? The rule should be that no department gets a free pass from year to year, much less an automatic increase in funding. Every department must have a reason for every dollar they spend with a measurable goal and if they fail to meet that goal, on time and on budget, then they lose their funding. It is insane to give a bureaucracy money intended to accomplish something and then when they fail to accomplish their goal respond by giving them more money. Little wonder we are $13,000,000,000,000 in debt with little to show for it.

Arthur Laffer is still the man

2010-06-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Some common sense economics from Arthur Laffer in today's Journal regarding taxation

People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.

Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—hold the bulk of their wealth in the nontaxed form of unrealized capital gains? The composition of wealth also responds to incentives. And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work. Incentives matter.

Oh my, who wants to listen to common sense these days? So if you make it easier to not work, more people will...not work? Huh. You need to read this editorial.

Most people who are rich didn't get there by being stupid and those who have the means to shift their wealth around to avoid taxes will do so. Obama and his cronies are promising to soak the rich but when the rich respond by moving their money into something with lower tax exposure, guess who is going to get left holding the bill for Obamacare, the "stimulus bill", state and municipal pension bailout, union payoffs, "climate change", etc.? You are. Congratulations, under Obama you are about to become part of the "rich"!

Now fork over your wallet.

Making the most of the BP oil spill

2010-06-02T14:53:00.001-04:00

No one on the left wants to miss out on a good crisis. Nothing better than using a disaster that threatens the nation to push an agenda. Never let a good crisis go to waste! Economy is in the doldrums? Push a massive pork barrel spending bill through, never mind the debt! Health care costs skyrocketing? Jam through an immensely unpopular, expensive and unfunded health insurance plan! Public debt exploding at an unprecedented rate? Borrow more and spend more, it has to get better sooner or later! A tragic accident that demands national attention in the Gulf? Use it to paint capitalism as a failure!

There is nothing more inane than those who label the BP oil spill as a failure of the free markets. Was the Chernobyl disaster a failure of the free markets? Did an overweening government prevent that disaster? As a little history lesson, Chernobyl happened in 1986 during the last days of the Soviet Union. It is not as if the communist dictatorships in the former Soviet Union or in present day China or North Korea have been “green” regimes. Accidents happen. They happen in communist countries and they happen in free market countries. It is going to take more than Barack Obama “thinking about it” to make it stop spewing oil and it is ridiculous that up until recently he has gotten a free pass from the media, the same media that scorched President Bush for not “doing something” about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The world’s most powerful nation with the biggest navy by far in the world and the most innovative minds anywhere is standing around on the shore and shaking our collective fists at the ocean.

What is ironic is that when something happens that people want the government to get involved in and that it makes sense for the government to get involved in like an oil leak in the ocean, the government has by and large been a big fat failure. Rather than seeing that as a warning sign, liberals want to give the government even more control over things that the government has no business in and that people don’t want them interfering with (i.e. health care). Far from an indictment of the free market, this disaster and the subsequent impotence of the world’s sole superpower is an indictment of the ability of the Federal government to solve our every problem. It cannot solve even one leak in the ocean, how can we expect it to cure the economy and keep every American healthy for free?

I wish liberals would take their collective heads out of the sand. Maybe they could cram them in the hole in the Gulf. That would be a win-win for everyone.

So what happened to the smartest guy in the room?

2010-05-28T08:51:00.004-04:00

For someone who is supposed to be a super-genius, our President seems pretty clueless when real life intrudes on his master plan. Peggy Noonan hit it out of the park with this quote from her editorial this morning, He Was Supposed To Be Competent.

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen.This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Obama wants to govern as if it were an academic exercise. He is not interested in reality, only in rhetoric.

It really does seem like Obama thinks he is President of a different country than the one the rest of us live in.

Another union bailout

2010-05-20T10:05:00.001-04:00

Today we get a plea from Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers for a bailout of teachers unions, um I mean, the children of America.

I have been traveling the country, watching teachers, administrators and unions striving to implement some of the most progressive and effective reform efforts in decades. But genuine school reform can't be accomplished with fewer teachers, unmanageable class sizes, and fewer intervention programs for struggling students. Children don't have a pause button—they need a great education during good economic times and bad.

I guess in union speak “progressive and effective reform” means “doing the same thing year after year at a higher cost and with a lower quality result while opposing any real reform that might cost union jobs”. I guess you can keep beating that drum until someone calls you out on it: A great education can only be achieved by a great deal of spending. It won’t even cost that much, just a pittance really:

The short-term solution to ensure kids start the next school year without major disruption is federal legislation to provide a $23 billion infusion to states to avert educational and economic disaster.

$23,000,000,000 That is quite an “infusion”.

What we are talking about is not a bailout for “the children”. It is a bailout for teachers unions, a bailout to preserve their jobs at taxpayer expense. It does nothing to address the underlying problems and will leave us in the exact same spot next year, when you can be sure the teachers unions and their cronies in Congress will come back looking for more money in what will eventually turn into a perpetual handout. This is little more than a money grab, an out and out transfer of income from non-teacher taxpayers to unionized public school teachers. Without this bailout, Ms. Weingarten is warning that “275,000 teachers and other school staff will receive pink slips”. That $23,000,000 bailout amounts to $83,636 for every unionized school employee job saved. That is pretty pricey for the end-result we are getting and that money has to come from somewhere. In case Ms. Weingarten missed it, we don’t have any money here in the good ole U.S. of A.. We are running enormous deficits already, soon to balloon even more when Obamacare comes into play. We have saddled the children that Ms. Weingarten is allegedly so concerned about with a crippling debt burden that no amount of education is going to resolve. This $23,000,000,000 that Ms. Weingarten is demanding will come from increased taxes and public debt. It is not like the Federal government is sitting on a huge pile of money that it doesn’t know what to do with.

As anyone who is paying attention knows, America is cutting back on everything. We have been spending and spending and spending for decades with virtually no restraint. School districts have been prime culprits of this behavior, coming to the taxpayers every few years for an increase in funding with the rallying cry “It is for the children!” to tug at the heart strings. That gravy train has come to a screeching halt. The voters are rejecting increased taxes on their homes as they watch their equity disappear. It is time for public schools to face the same reality that municipal governments and private sector employers are dealing with, i.e. we all have to learn to make do with less money.

Despite the enormous funding the taxpayers have poured into the public school system over the decades, the standard of education in America has grown progressively worse. By virtually any measure, our educational system is failing across the board and this in spite of years of seemingly limitless funding increases. If we want better results, we are going to have to change the way we do education in this country. Teachers unions expect more and more money on demand, seeing the tax-payers as a giant and unlimited ATM, but at the same time refuse to permit any actual reforms. It would be one thing if there was a direct correlation between spending and quality education but the reality is not so simple. Here is a personal example. We have a very nice school district in the town we live in (although we of course don’t utilize it). The high school in our town is enormous and has all of the latest gizmos and gadgets. Our high school boasts an incredible statistic that 95% of all graduates go on to colleges and universities. Put another way, there are about 4000 kids in our school district and 3800 of them will end up in college. That is a staggering number but it has nothing to do with class size or funding levels. It has everything to do with parents who demand academic excellence from their kids and have expressed an expectation that their kids will go to college. Even if we had a cruddy school building and bigger classes, these kids would still excel and go to college. Conversely, the newest and nicest school building with tiny class sizes in Detroit is not going to produce the same results.

The dirty secret that teachers unions don’t want you to think about is that education has a lot more to do with parental attitudes than it does with funding. All the funding in the world won’t help a kid who doesn’t have the desire to learn because it hasn’t been instilled in them. Private and parochial schools have been proving this for decades. It is just a reality that any system or institution that functions in a virtual monopoly and is insulated from the need to be efficient or deal with competition is going to be inefficient and more concerned with self-preservation than quality (a timely warning for what our health care system is going to look like in the future). What our educational system needs is not a bailout in the form of a blank check. Our education system needs to be bailed out from the influence of the self-serving teachers unions that block reform and stymie innovation. As long as we treat our public school system as a jobs program for college grads with education degrees, it will continue to produce underperforming students at enormous costs. As a society we cannot afford either the exorbitant costs or the mediocre results any longer.

A college education is now your right

2010-05-09T19:50:00.002-04:00

So sez Obama. In addressing the gradates of Hampton University, President Obama told the graduates that a high-school diploma just ain't gonna cut it anymore, an adequate education requires a college degree. Guess who is responsible for making sure this happens? You guessed it!

"All of us have a responsibility, as Americans, to change this, to offer every single child in this country an education that will make them competitive in our knowledge economy. That is our obligation as a nation," the president said.

So it is now our obligation to provide a college education to every child. Add this to the other responsibilities we have as a nation that magically appeared in the Constitution: Health care at a "fair" cost. A stream of income and health insurance in retirement. Food and money for the poor. A mortgage even if we can't afford it and our credit is shot. Jobs. On and on and on. There is very little, if anything, that this administration and its cronies thinks that the government is not responsible for and that the tax-payers are not obligated to pay for.

Of course, once everyone has a college degree it will no longer carry the same weight in the workforce. I guess no one thought that far ahead, after all they will be out of office when the bill comes due.

Here is the bed you made. How do you like sleeping in it?

2010-05-02T10:41:00.003-04:00

Remember the aftermath Hurricane Katrina and the criticism faced by President Bush for not doing enough quickly enough. Well, thanks to the world we live in where the nanny state is expected to resolve every problem in fifteen minutes, now President Obama is under fire for not acting quickly enough regarding the oil spill in the Gulf.

Moving to blunt criticism that his administration has been slow in reacting to the largest U.S. crude oil spill in decades, President Barack Obama has dispatched two of his Cabinet members to make the rounds of the Sunday talk shows.

Later Sunday, Obama was to fly to Louisiana for a visit to the Gulf Coast and a firsthand update on the massive spill that threatens to bring catastrophic environmental and economic damage in its wake.

What is he going to do in the Gulf besides be a distraction? Hold up his staff like Moses and turn back the tide of oil? Frankly, and I am clearly no fan of President Obama, I would rather he stay in Washington D.C. and coordinate from there but unless you put on the Presidential windbreaker and show up on site, everyone assumes you don't "care" enough. I do like that instead of having his cabinet members working on staunching the oil spill, they are on TV spinning the response of the administration. That is the world we live in. In demonizing President Bush for eight years as just slightly worse than Nero and Genghis Khan combined, the Left has poisoned the political discourse in this country to an extent we haven't seen since the Bork hearings. Little use in whining about it now Mr. President. Your most rabid supporters brought us to where we are now and if you find the bed a little too lumpy for your tastes, you know where you should be pointing the finger of blame.

Do as I say, not as I do!

2010-04-30T10:00:00.001-04:00

Ah, the environmentalist Left. Never a group to disappoint when it comes to double-standards. Demanding obedience from the poor, unwashed masses but refusing to follow their own admonitions (paging Al Gore!). Here is the latest example of the hypocrisy of our self-appointed stewards of the environment. The crying and moaning about "climate change" inexorably leads to calls for more responsible, renewable energy and what better resource is available than the wind (especially given how much hot air is generated by the windbags on the East Coast)? Well that is fine and dandy, as long as it doesn't impede the ambiance of Cape Cod, home to oh so many limousine liberals.

Gov't OKs 1st US offshore wind farm, off Mass.

BOSTON – A whole new way of generating electricity in the U.S. drew a big step closer to reality Wednesday, and it could look like this: 130 windmills, 440 feet tall, rising from the ocean a few miles off Cape Cod.

After more than eight years of lawsuits and government reviews, the Obama administration cleared the way for the nation's first offshore wind farm.

"We are beginning a new direction in our nation's energy future," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar declared in announcing his approval of the $2 billion Cape Wind project, which would finally allow the U.S. to join the list of major countries that are producing electricity from sea breezes.

The project has faced intense opposition from two Indian tribes and some environmentalists and residents, including the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who warned that the windmills could mar the ocean view. They would be visible from the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port.

Ah the late Senator Kennedy, hypocritical even from beyond the grave. How can one even consider marring the ocean view of the Kennedy's! They have done so much for America, like....um, like.....well I am sure they have done lots of improve this country. What next, a new nuclear power plant in San Francisco?! Put the windmills out among the dirty people of the Midwest, not where the elite of America live!

News flash: Obama sez women are individuals!

2010-04-21T11:52:00.002-04:00

Picking a pro-abortion Supreme Court justice is apparently NOT above his paygrade

No shocker here as President Obama predictably is seeking a pro-abortion candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

"You know, I am somebody who believes women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction," the president said. "I don't have litmus tests around any of these issues but I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights.

"Part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity and women are not exempt from that," he added.

That is great news! Individuals in America includes women! I can’t wait to tell my daughters that thanks to the courageous stance of President Obama, they are now included in the group known as “individuals”. It is a proud, proud day for America! Of course there is no surer sign of a person being an individual than having the right to kill a baby.

It would be nice if the President, the world’s most powerful man, had the courage and integrity to just say it like it is. He wants a nominee who will be a reliable vote in favor of legalized abortion. Everyone with half a brain knows it. If this is such an important right, shouldn’t we be able to actually utter the word “abortion” instead of dancing around it and hiding it in legalese?

I didn’t expect Obama to put forth a pro-life nominee. Nor did I expect him to actually show some honesty about what he is looking for. I just wish the pro-abortion forces would have the intestinal fortitude to say “abortion” instead of “women’s health” or “reproductive rights”. It says a lot about someone that they are afraid to even name what they are standing up for.

Our old friend Bill and his same old rhetoric

2010-04-18T18:18:00.002-04:00

I should have seen this coming. With the government growing at a break-neck pace and people starting to make some noise about it, the Left rolls out Bill Clinton with this same old rhetoric linking anyone who objects to the impoverishing of America through enormous government spending with the nutjobs who blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City.

Former President Clinton on Sunday broadened his warning that Tea Party protesters could feed violence reminiscent of the Oklahoma City bombing, suggesting "right-wing media" and the blogosphere could be culpable for any future politically fueled extremism as well.

The former president, speaking on ABC's "This Week," elaborated on his controversial comments from Friday, when he drew parallels between the modern Tea Party movement and the anti-government rage of the mid-'90s that preceded the 1995 Oklahoma City attack that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

Clinton said Sunday that political dissent is necessary, but "demonization" of government is dangerous -- citing the uptick in threats made against members of Congress and other officials.

That bogeyman never gets old for Bill. As soon as the people start getting uppity, roll out the dire warnings about domestic terrorism and raise the specter of Oklahoma City sprinkled with commentary suggesting that "right wing talk shows" are fueling the flames. I lived through the early 90's and the rage against the government now is infinitely greater and infinitely more justified.

I guess it is OK when the media demonized President Bush and protesters compared him to Adolf Hitler. When the Left uses over the top rhetoric it is merely exercising free speech. When a conservative dares to speak up, it is hate speech that inspires others to violence. What is forgotten is that Tea Party protests have thus far been violence free. In fact the only violent demonstrations we see on a large scale are those that are put on by leftist-anarchists types (like anytime there is an economic conference, the leftist crackpots are out in force striking a blow for the little guy by throwing rocks through the windows of a Starbucks!). The reason Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Fox News are thriving is that people are tired of the one-sided rhetoric we have been fed by the "mainstream" media for decades. At least conservatives admit what they are and that they have a bias.

Another day, another grim report on the future of America

2010-04-13T12:20:00.001-04:00

Yet another sobering message on the debt, this time in USA Today (aka News for people who don’t like to read). Here are a pivotal couple of passages:

Although a solution to the nation's $12.8 trillion debt remains elusive, most of the nation's power brokers agree on the problem: America owes too much money.

By 2020, the taxes it is projected to collect barely would cover the benefits it has promised and the interest it must pay. Without changes, almost nothing will be left for defense, education, veterans or anything else.

That is just staggering. I like the way it is described because when you deal with numbers like “trillions”, it loses any meaning to people. I have only seen $1 million once, in a sealed bag in a vault. I used to deal regularly with amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash but even a couple hundred thousand in cash is a tiny fraction of one trillion dollars. When you look at it as described above, it makes more sense. In ten years, TEN YEARS, we will have only enough tax revenue to cover the debt and the entitlement programs we have already promised with basically no money for defense (something the Federal government is supposed to do, unlike providing retirement income) or any of the other myriad “discretionary” programs the government funds.

We need some dramatic cuts in entitlement spending right now. Not in ten years, right now. Instead what we have been served up is a huge new entitlement that any sane person realizes is going to cost way more than expected and way more than the revenue it is going to bring in. We can keep printing up new money but that Ponzi scheme writ large is eventually going to collapse or lead to hyperinflation.

We are facing a future of job-killing tax rates, shared misery, collapsing credit worthiness for the U.S., civil unrest and likely out of control inflation. I don’t think there will be a safe place for any except the super-rich. The solutions to this problem are found in cuts, i.e. cutting spending and cutting it dramatically. We are going to have to essentially eliminate the old age entitlement programs for younger Americans. We will still have to pay for it until the current recipients all die off but we are never going to “benefit” from it. People in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s are going to have to not only fund programs for others that they will never see, they are going to have to find ways to save for their own retirement on their own while paying for a massive number of entitled seniors that live longer and longer with an ever shrinking number of workers to support them. Because we as a people have been too greedy, too selfish, too lazy and too spineless to address these problems, it is too late and we have destroyed America for our kids.

Ah, forget it. Let’s all just watch American Idol and pretend nothing is wrong. I am sure the problem will just fix itself.

Uncommon honesty from a climate change alarmist

2010-04-11T09:44:00.002-04:00

I read this a few weeks ago and appreciated the uncommon honesty exhibited by the interviewee. It appeared in The Guardian and the interviewee was one James Lovelock. The topic was climate change and the impact of the scandals on the movement. Near the end of the interview was this exchange:

On how humans will ever manage to tackle climate change:

We need a more authoritative world. We've become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It's all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can't do that. You've got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.

But it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

Ah, so there it is and I appreciate Mr. Lovelock having the courage to say it. Granted he is kind of a kook but in a prophetic kind of way, saying what others are thinking in the movement. In order to battle "climate change" people are going to have to give up their freedom and turn the governments and economies of the world over to self-appointed prophets of environmental doom based on dubious science. Mr. Lovelock is about the only one saying it out loud but it is clearly the goal of the climate change folks, people who see the bogeyman of global warming as a convenient cover to get rid of old-fashioned notions like freedom and liberty and replace them with a theocracy of scientists. I wish more environmentalists would be more open about saying this so we could see where there motivation really lies.

For all of the Glenn Beck devotees out there

2010-04-10T09:30:00.005-04:00

Glenn Beck really exposes his true motivation in an interesting interview in Forbes magazine:

With a deadpan, Beck insists that he is not political: "I could give a flying crap about the political process." Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. "We're an entertainment company," Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. He gets $13 million a year from print (books plus the ten-issue-a-year magazine Fusion). Radio brings in $10 million. Digital (including a newsletter, the ad-supported Glennbeck.com and merchandise) pulls in $4 million. Speaking and events are good for $3 million and television for $2 million. Over several days in mid-March Beck allowed a reporter to follow him through his multimedia incarnations, with one exception, his 5 p.m. daily show on Fox News, which attracts just under 3 million viewers.

Beck is about the money and the way he makes it is as an entertainer. People like Beck and Rush and Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter are no different from people like Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore and the erstwhile Senator from Minnesota Al Franken. They are entertainers, first and foremost, and in it for the money. That is understandable, after all as a conservative making money makes sense but the motivation here is important to understand.

Treating Glenn Beck as a serious political voice is like treating Joel Osteen as a serious theologian. Beck and company are great for sound bytes and overheated rhetoric. For actual substantive conversations? Not so much. Too many conservatives follow and defend Beck without question. Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck are fine for entertainment but always remember that they are entertainers above all else. I think this quote captures Beck perfectly:

"I don't necessarily believe that [what Beck says] is reflective of his own personal politics--I don't even know if he has personal politics," says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade magazine devoted to talk radio. "I see him as a performer."

Nah, Obamacare is not about socialism

2010-03-27T10:39:00.002-04:00

Or perhaps it is...here is a little slip of the tongue from Max Baucus now that "health care reform" has already been passed.

After the Senate passed a "fix-it" bill Thursday to make changes to the new health care law, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the influential Finance Committee, said the overhaul was an "income shift" to help the poor.

"Too often, much of late, the last couple three years, the mal-distribution of income in American is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy and the middle income class is left behind," he said. "Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America."

So our benevolent keepers in Washington have decided that they and they alone are the arbiters of how much one person can earn, what is too much and what is too little. As I have said before, this monstrosity was never about health care. It has always been about controlling the American people by seizing private wealth and making as many ill-informed voters dependent on the Federal government as possible.

What health care “reform” means for America

2010-03-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

I think most observers, on the left and the right, recognize that the recently (more or less) passed health care “reform” bill is not at its heart about health care at all. It is about what sort of country we are going to be in the future. This whole struggle has been just the latest battle in a war for the very character of our nation. Are we going to be an individualistic, entrepreneurial nation or are we going to be a nation that is focused on economic security? All of the massive governmental programs we have come to expect are part of this. Take Social Security for example. Social Security is basically the government making people do what they should be doing anyway: saving for retirement. If they stopped collecting social security, we should expect that people would set aside money on their own to pay for life in retirement. We all know that is not the case. Instead of saving, most people would be consuming the funds that used to go to Social Security. So the benevolent nanny state seizes a percentage of our pay and saves it for us, although that same benevolent nanny state has been using the money in the Social Security cookie jar to fund other pet projects for years.

Daniel Henninger, writing for the Wall Street Journal, sums it up nicely…

The U.S. has produced generations of upward strivers and competitors. Since 1950 til now, 82 of 150 Nobel laureates in medicine have been from the U.S. With enactment of this law, the U.S. will throttle down. Rather than spend our energies this century competing straight up with rising Asia for economic primacy, we'll work to pay for the fat but happy social-welfare state of the last century.

In the future it will be Asia that leads the world. At one time Europe was the world’s powerhouse, with the greatest military and economic forces. At one time it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire that spanned the globe from a small island. Today, Europe is a shell of its former self. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that all of Europe’s militaries combined couldn’t go toe to toe with America. Economically Europe appears most interested in doing as little as possible to support the secure, comfy state run economy. That is not an environment that promotes innovation, risk taking or reward. It is an environment of the status quo. The problem with the status quo is that in business and commerce and science, things are constantly moving forward. Maintaining your position means getting left behind which is precisely where Europe finds itself. Coupled with plunging birth rates, European nations find themselves importing cheap foreign labor and that influx of foreign workers is irreversibly changing the cultural landscape of Europe.

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the health care “reform” debate has seemed overheated but careful observers know that this was about far more than health insurance coverage. It was and is a debate over the very nature of the United States and who we want to be as a nation and a people. The only glimmer of hope is that this whole thing has been so clumsily handled, so clear jammed down our throats and so expensive that the American people will rebel in November and elect a more conservative majority that can overturn this fiasco before it takes effect. Liberals were guilty of a classic overreach and it may cost them. Of course that assumes that Americans will exhibit a longer attention span than normal, something I am not at all confident in.

Leave it to Rahm

2010-03-23T09:26:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the most accurate quotes come from those who don’t know how to filter what they say. This from Rahm “Never let a good crisis go to waste” Emanuel on the passage of the “reform” bill:

"There's a dawning recognition of the significance of this, both on policy and political grounds," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said. "At a certain point, winning is winning."

That is really it, isn’t it? This is a bad bill, no one has read it, it is full of flaws. Everyone knows it. That doesn’t matter because Obama put his prestige on the line with this thing and come what may we must pass this bill. Catastrophe for the economy, higher taxes, lower quality of care are all irrelevant because nothing is more important than Obama being perceived as “winning”.

At least Rahm Emanuel is honest, if a little creepy with the whole naked confrontation thing. This bill is not about health care. It is obviously not about reform. It is not about what is best for America or the American people. It is all about Obama, accomplishing what Clinton didn’t. The health care "reform" bill is a trillion dollar trophy for Obama to put on his shelf.

Maybe I am being unfair to Benedict Arnold

2010-03-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

I am thinking now that the comparison between Benedict Arnold and Bart Stupak may not be fair. At least Arnold got a commission in the British army and a fairly large sum of money in return for his betrayal. Stupak got nothing but an empty gesture. I think a different betrayal, one closer to home in Michigan might be more accurate.

A better correlation to the Stupak capitulation might be more recent (relatively speaking). In a fairly unknown event (the surrender of Fort Detroit) in a fairly unknown war (The War of 1812), General William Hull surrendered Fort Detroit to the British on August 16, 1812. I am somewhat familiar with this event because Hull is a family name on my mom’s side and I have always found the War of 1812 to be interesting because unlike the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, a lot of the action in the War of 1812 happened in Northwest Ohio near where I grew up. Anyway, through a combination of subterfuge and incompetence, General Hull surrendered Fort Detroit to the British after only token resistance. In fact he was court-martialed and could have faced a firing squad. Would he eventually have lost the fort anyway? Probably but the fact that in the face of a tough fight he chose to surrender at the end before the real fighting began speaks volumes. So I think that while “Benedict Bart” Stupak sounds better, perhaps a more apt comparison might be General William Hull. Of course, Hull’s surrender probably saved lives. Stupak’s surrender is going to cost lives.

The lesson here is one we should all have learned a long time ago. Politicians have as their first priority their own political protection. That is why party loyalty will trump principle every time. Putting our faith in politicians will invariably lead to disappointment, no matter which party they belong to.

How a (horrible) bill becomes a law (in 2010)

2010-03-22T07:48:00.004-04:00

If you have a strong stomach, check out this article from Kimberley Strassel on the wrangling, threats and capitulations that led to the passage of "health care reform" (just wondering: how one can inevitably lower quality and increase costs and call it reform?). The plain truth is that votes last night were bought, pure and simple, and no one is even really trying to hide it.

At the center of the maelstrom will be Bart Stupak who up until a few days ago was playing the part of principled pro-life Democrat and today is recognized (at least by me) as "Benedict Bart". Apparently someone shouted "baby killer" from the Republican side of the House, aimed at him. Rightly so. It is time that this faux-friend of life gets run out of Congress by Northern Michiganders. He is either too dense to realize that he was sold a pig-in-a-poke with the toothless "executive order" or he knows it full well and doesn't care. Either way, he has no business representing Northern Michigan.

Let's hope that the voters in this country run every one of these people out of our House in November so we the people can get started on the hard work of undoing this giant step toward socialized medicine. We have let these clowns run wild with our money and our country for too long. No more.

Isn't this our country?

2010-03-19T10:57:00.002-04:00

The way President Obama responds to questions, he apparently thinks we should just shut up and do what our betters tell us. His recent interview with Brett Baier apparently came across like he was irate to be questioned about a shady, perhaps unconstitutional end-around to shove through a trillion dollar health care “reform” measure that will cause unimaginable economic catastrophe. I guess we aren’t allowed to question what he is doing. Wrong. As Peggy Noonan wrote this morning, he seems to misunderstand the relationship between the President and the American people…

The president—every president—works for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be. Either way it's revealing.

We don’t answer to him, he answer to us.

For all of his supposed brilliance, President Obama exhibits some troubling personality traits, traits that would be seen as mental illness by the media in President Bush but by and large seen by that same media as admirable qualities in President Obama. President Obama is willing to destroy the enormous majority his party enjoys in Congress in order to pass a monstrosity that he admits he hasn’t read all the details of and in doing so writes the campaign slogan for every GOP candidate this fall. The whole thing doesn’t go into effect until 2013 and you can be sure that the GOP will do everything in its power to undo this bill if it passes.

How can someone who is supposedly so smart be so incredibly self-delusional?