How Miserable Are You?

"So I says to Barack, 'I knew Abe Lincoln, and you ain't no Abe Lincoln'"

It was Abraham Lincoln who once observed, "People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be." In other words, happiness is a choice. Do you believe it?

During the Reagan-Carter campaign of 1979, somebody came up with something called the "misery index." It's the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates, two nasty statistics when totaled together equate to economic misery. You'll be relieved to know the Obama administration's misery index hasn't reached the highs hit by Jimmy Carter's.

It's hard to believe but I still remember, so I looked it up today to be sure. Carter's yearly average of 20.8 was reached by 1980 and was the all-time modern high. Obama's administration hit a monthly rate of 12.8 in June of this year. Just so you can compare and remember the "good old days," the average misery index over George W. Bush's two terms was only 8.1, and Bill Clinton's administration was even lower at 7.8.

In one of their debates toward the end of the campaign Reagan quipped, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" He closed the deal with the American people, who decided they weren't and handed Reagan the presidency, making Jimmy Carter the poster child for one-term failure.

There are many today who are comparing the Obama administration to the Carter administration and coming up with the obvious similarities. Many of us hope the crowning likeness will be the one-term comparison.

However, nobody in America wins when the president is weak. I had at least hoped for the best a few months after Obama took office, but his steadfast adherence to his flawed Keynesian economic model is killing us. The lurch to the left went beyond traditional Democratic tax and spend philosophy. It went right off the charts into Democratic Socialism. His stimulus spending to the tune of $825 Billion did nothing. You can ignore all the rhetoric about "creating jobs" or "saving jobs." When the August number came in there were zero jobs created, and that hasn't happened in America in a very long time.

Add to it something called the "Public-Private Investment Partnership," nothing more than Obama's version of Bush's TARP, and all that happened was more toxic assets were transferred to the government, which of course translates into the taxpayers - YOU!

Remember how successful "Cash for Clunkers" was? Remember nationalizing the automotive industry to rescue it from bankruptcy? Somebody at Ford should be crowned King of Captialism for refusing the government handout when GM and Chrysler are still owned principally by the taxpayers.

Remember Obamacare? I have hated the idea since it was first introduced, largely because of the staggering costs involved. It reformed little and the cost was extraordinary in a time when America could afford it least. We won't know what its full effect will be until (and if) it takes root. I'm betting the SCOTUS will strike it down as unconstitutional because of the individual mandate. Whatever that eventual outcome, the short-term effect has been businesses by the droves are getting out of the business of providing private healthcare coverage for their employees. If you've loved Medicare and Medicaid, then you're just going to love government-sponsored health insurance exchanges.

Remember the national debt clock? It's still ticking at a more rapid pace now than ever before in our history. It has now exceeded $14 Trillion and will hit $15 Trillion by the end of September (yes, this month). When it happens, don't expect a flurry of headlines, because the story will be tucked away somewhere on page 10 below the fold. It will be the first time since World War II that the debt will exceed the GDP.

Remember the first downgrade on our debt in our history from "AAA" to "AA?" Unless Congress takes substantive steps to change course this fall in the supercommittee, the credit markets will continue to react negatively.

Remember "tax the rich?" He's still thumping that theme as recently as yesterday in his stump speech. I was heartened yesterday to hear a report that thirty-six senators from both parties are now calling upon the super committee to enact sweeping tax reform as part of their work product. Knock on wood. With an approval rating of 12%, Congress had better do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to demonstrate their willingness to do the bidding of the American people who employ them. The polling data is suggesting there are very few who are inclined to send the same members of Congress back in 2012 unless they prove worthy of their hire.

We're running up debt for the next generations of Americans that will prove to be impossible to repay unless the growth engine in our economy is jump-started and begins to hum again.

There are those who say it isn't fair to hold Obama or any POTUS to the same standard as private business measurements for success. Honestly, why not? If he were CEO of America, Inc., no board of directors worth its salt would retain him given his record. Here's a stunner for comparison: This "recovery" has been underway for two and half years and employment has actually dropped by a full percentage point. The only other president in American history to have witnessed negative job growth for a comparable period is Herbert Hoover. I'm certain when Barack Obama took office he wanted to be considered an historic president, but I doubt this is what he had in mind. Nor did any of us.

Despite the clear record, he continues to blame George W. Bush for the mess we're in. I have stated repeatedly it is more complicated than blaming your successsor. Presidents, let me say it once again, DO NOT create jobs. Their policies, however, provide either an environment for job growth or an environment that stifles job growth. So what does this failing president flail away at? The same failed European economic model that won't work, and he keeps doubling down on his bets.

Obama might do well to take a page out of Bill Clinton's playbook. Clinton lost control of both houses of Congress in 1994. But Clinton the pragmatist, wanting to be re-elected, decided a 180-degree turn was in order. He put Al Gore in charge of downsizing the federal government and he worked with Republicans in Congress. Together they passed the North American Free Trade Act, they reformed a badly broken welfare system, and (listen for the drum roll) they enacted and achieved a balanced budget!!!

It's been done before. When correct principles are applied they work.

Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton, and he's certainly proven he's no Abe Lincoln, but he needs to pick a new path and try something dramatically different than giving another speech before a joint session of Congress about all the jobs he's going to create with government debt and deficit spending.

I just hope it's not too late before he becomes another Jimmy Carter.

On the other hand, there are only thirteen and a half months left until the next election. Maybe we'll all just have to be patient.

Until then, I choose happiness instead of misery.

A Calf's Tail

"So I said to Barack, I knew Abe Lincoln, and you ain't no Abe Lincoln!"

On this Presidents Day weekend, language used by politicians is worthy of comment.

We used to observe Lincoln's birthday on February 12th and then Washington's on the 22nd. Wouldn't you know it was the commercialization of their birthdays that prompted a change? Led by automobile dealers in the late 1980s, their need for a long weekend in which to hold a sale is what eventually produced "Presidents Day." It splits the goalposts between Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays and gives us three days and a shopping weekend mid-winter. Now it's not just those two we cite, but every president.

President Bill Clinton

I'm always fascinated with what presidents say and have said. Perhaps the most famous use of language and how it could be parsed was Bill Clinton's lamentable, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Or when questioned under oath, his "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is." I'm almost certain Bill Clinton said some things that are far more astute than those two statements, but they will forever be attached to him as the most memorable.

Jimmy Carter had a memorable quote along those lines long before Bill Clinton acted upon his thoughts and temptations, however. Carter once gave an interview for Playboy Magazine, in which he famously said, "I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me."

President Jimmy Carter

No matter what their political enemies may say, most U.S. Presidents have an abiding love for this country, its heritage and its values. Carter underscores that idea with this statement: "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself -- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity."

Three years into his failed presidency he was on national television giving what later came to be known as his "Crisis in Confidence" or "malaise" speech in which he said, "I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you."

Then along came Ronald Reagan who asked voters a simple question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" They went for Reagan in a landslide election a year later in 1980.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

There's a story attributed to Abraham Lincoln, when he was faced with some thorny issues. He would ask his opponent who thought a question could be settled with a twist of language or a slight abuse of power, "How many legs would a dog have, if we called the dog’s tail, a leg?" Confident of simple math, Lincoln's opponent would respond, "Five,” to which Lincoln would respond, "No, calling a dog’s tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.”

The genesis of that story is interesting. Because it has been so widely quoted, most have assumed the use of the dog in the metaphor is accurate, but I found a source this morning that is the most credible I've seen in print. This source contends beginning on page 241, continuing into page 242, that the animal was actually a calf and not a dog.

Here's the source for the quote: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by distinguished men of his time / collected and edited by Allen Thorndike Rice (1853-1889). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1909. The University of Michigan has the entire text on-line, in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, an on-line source whose whole text is searchable.

President George Washington

George Washington, hailed as the Father of our Country by his peers, and fully aware that every move he made was being logged into the history books for future generations, observed, "I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent."

Knowing there would have been no agreement on the Constitution without leaving the question of slavery untouched and having to pragmatically kick the question down the road for another generation of Americans to deal with, Washington lamented:  "I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."

President Ronald W. Reagan

Ronald Reagan, recently confirmed once again by American citizens (as he has been for the last twelve years in eight different polls) as the "greatest president in U.S. history," left many memorable quotes in the history books. This is one of my favorites: "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."

Reagan recognized, as few ever have, where the horsepower behind America's economic engine comes from: "Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States."

Ronald Reagan was always warning about the fragility of our heritage as free people: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

Reagan was the people's president. He had an uncanny ability to tap into their psyche and he routinely used his sense of humor to poke fun at the politicians we love to hate. This is only one of his many gems:  "It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

President John Adams

Readers of this page will understand my affection for John Adams, who said, "Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

In his defense argument of the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre in 1770, where his clients were acquitted, Adams famously observed, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

To all the bloggers in our enlightened age, Adams would say, "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."

Like most of the founders, John Adams had a reverence and a complete awareness of what they were creating in the American experiment. Lest we forget in our day, he reminds us, "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."

President George W. Bush

In more recent years as the politicians have sparred, criticized and lampooned (get ready, it's coming again soon in the run up to the 2012 election), it was refreshing to hear George W. Bush stand down: "I just didn't want to get out there anymore; I didn't want to get back into what I call 'the swamp.' And the other reason why is I don't think it's good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama's got plenty of critics - and I'm just not gonna be one."

President John F. Kennedy was inspirational in so many ways. As a young man I loved reading his Profiles in Courage compilation. He reminds us, "A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten."

President John F. Kennedy

It was Kennedy who offered the unforgettable line in his first inaugural, "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Kennedy is credited with "breaking through" the unspoken barrier of religious affiliation as a litmus test for presidential candidates when he asserted, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic."

No matter what your political affiliation or persuasion might be, you can rest assured of one thing: Presidents of the United States of America generally do what they believe in their hearts is the best course for America. Recently, Bill O'Reilly, the number one rated cable talker in America these days, interviewed both former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama. He came away with the surprising conclusion that each man sincerely believed he was right, even though their policies could not be more diametrically opposed.

O'Reilly observed:

"But what happens when a person's conviction is wrong? There is no question that Saddam Hussein could have been destroyed by other means. Surely the world is a better place without him, but would most Americans support the Iraq invasion if we could do it all over? I don't think so. In hindsight, the Iraq situation should have been handled by the Air Force and Navy. Saddam's regime could have been strangled without so much American blood.

President Barack Obama

"Things are a bit murkier on the economic front. Since the Obama administration has been in power, the feds have spent an astounding seven trillion dollars. This has left the United States vulnerable in the world marketplace because we need to borrow so much money from nations like China. The massive $14 trillion debt has now become as big a threat as the economic meltdown of three years ago. No matter how you frame the issue, federal spending must be cut back, and Mr. Obama has to know this. But, like Mr. Bush, the president does not regret his controversial policies."

So let's remember the calf's tail when it comes to measuring "truthiness" from politicians on this Presidents Day honoring not just Lincoln and Washington. Just because Bush or Obama calls a calf's tail a leg, doesn't make it a leg after all.

Sometimes the statements politicians write onto the parchment of time must age a bit to be fully understood and appreciated. We celebrated the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan recently. During his presidency he was anything but beloved. People were scared to death about this "cowboy" who had his finger on the trigger of nuclear weapons and didn't seem shy about pulling it as he took on the "Evil Empire." But the one thing he had going for him was his authenticity. He connected with people, even Mikhail Gorbachev eventually. We had to have a bit of perspective as Americans before we embraced Reagan and fully credited him with the end of the Cold War.

Only time and experience will tell the whole "tale" with accuracy.

In the meantime, let us give a wide berth to political "truth" in the here and now and wait upon history to make its judgments someday.

My Top Quote from 1974

Every year, Fred Shapiro puts out his "Top Ten Quotes of the Year."  This year, he created a new list, and gives his reason for his top pick:

Fred Shapiro, Yale University

"People resented the fact that [Hayward] was wanting to get back to his yacht races and other aspects of his normal life when those little problems were dwarfed by the magnitude of what people on the Gulf Coast were dealing with," Shapiro said.

Here's the whole top 10 list (courtesy of the AP):

1. (TIE) "I'm not a witch." Christine O'Donnell, television advertisement, Oct. 4.

1. (TIE) "I'd like my life back." Tony Hayward, comment to reporters, May 30.

3. "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested." airline passenger John Tyner, speaking to Transportation Security Administration worker at San Diego International Airport, Nov. 13.

4. "Don't retreat. Instead - reload!" Sarah Palin, Tweet, March 23.

5. "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le! Los mineros de Chile!" Chant at Chilean mine rescue, Oct. 13.

6. "I hope that's not where we're going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies [it's about guns]. They're saying: My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?" Sharron Angle, radio interview in January.

7. "We have to pass the [health care] bill so you can find out what is in it." Nancy Pelosi, speech to National Association of Counties, March 9.  [Jimmy Carter must LOVE this woman!]

8. "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach." LeBron James, television broadcast, July 8.

9. "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" Christine O'Donnell, Delaware senatorial debate, Oct. 19.  (The Associated Press reported the quote: "So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?")

10. "They should never have put me with that woman. ... She was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour." Gordon Brown, commenting about a voter he met while campaigning during the British general election, April 28.


Piggybacking on Shapiro, local Deseret News columnist Lee Benson added his own list of Top Ten Quotes with a Utah flavor.

* * *

It seems the standards of public discourse have slipped substantially if all that is required to make Shapiro's Top Ten List of Quotes these days is to say something so totally dumb and stupid it makes people laugh out loud.  Case in point:  Tied at Number One, Christine O'Donnell said a lot of stupid things in her unsuccessful Senate bid this year, including "I'm not a witch," after admitting she had once "dabbled" in witchcraft earlier in her life.

LeBron James, pretending anyone out there really cared all that much, declared he was taking his talents to South Beach.  It has to be right up there on the top ten list of ego indulgence ever foisted on America.

It started me thinking, what's my favorite quote as I thought back on the 2010 topsy-turvy year in politics?  There are so many who have given up hope in politics and politicians in general.  The country is mired in debt that is escalating now at a quicker pace than revenue (taxes) coming into the Treasury.  It's a dismal time for some, reminiscent of the "malaise" Jimmy Carter once described in a pivotal speech that eventually toppled his miserable presidency. 

It now seems there are many who have been transported back to that time in their minds, if not their stated opinion, of where we are in America.

President Ronald Reagan

Then along came Ronald Reagan, who would have none of it.  At the end of 1974, then Governor Reagan of California gave one of his most famous speeches, known as his "City upon a Hill" speech.  Reagan, of course, went on to beat Carter in the 1980 presidential election and touched off a period of economic recovery, national optimism, and sustained prosperity.   I've already quoted Reagan when he gave his famous farewell address in which again he used the image of the "city on the hill."  So it appears Reagan had a "bookend vision" for America when he commenced his bid to be President as early as 1974, spanning the years he served as President until January, 1989. 


Strange, how Carter was advocating back then for a government-run health care solution, and Reagan was opposed.  "There you go again," he said as Carter rattled off his government program wish list.  It would take 30 years, but finally the "progressives" in government imposed their will on health care and now it is the law of the land at a time when America can least afford another trillion dollar entitlement program.

I make no pretensions about government being able to solve all our social problems, even as laudable and desirable as it may seem to provide health care for everyone.  In fact, I would assert with Ronald Reagan that a bloated government with a voracious appetite for tax dollars has become the problem, exactly as Reagan predicted it would.

So as we come mercifully to the end of the 111th Congress, the end of 2010, the year marking the re-awakening of the American citizenry now aroused over the tyrannical treatment it has been subjected to, it is well to hearken back to another time, another year, when the infusion of optimism was as needed then as it is today.

So my favorite quote of 2010 isn't from 2010 after all.  It comes from 1974, but it is worth repeating and setting the tone for the 112th Congress to be sworn in next week, and for all of us to reconsider as we embark on 2011.  Note unapologetic references to God in Reagan's speech, and compare and contrast with quotes from 2010 that were considered noteworthy, not a single reference to God among them:

You can call it mysticism if you want to, but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.

This was true of those who pioneered the great wilderness in the beginning of this country, as it is also true of those later immigrants who were willing to leave the land of their birth and come to a land where even the language was unknown to them. Call it chauvinistic, but our heritage does not set us apart. Some years ago a writer, who happened to be an avid student of history, told me a story about that day in the little hall in Philadelphia where honorable men, hard-pressed by a King who was flouting the very law they were willing to obey, debated whether they should take the fateful step of declaring their independence from that king. I was told by this man that the story could be found in the writings of Jefferson. I confess, I never researched or made an effort to verify it. Perhaps it is only legend. But story, or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain, the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls resounded with the dread word of treason and its price — the gallows and the headman’s axe. As the day wore on the issue hung in the balance, and then, according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had brought them to this moment he said, "Sign that parchment. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope, to the slave in the mines — freedom." And he added, "If my hands were freezing in death, I would sign that parchment with my last ounce of strength. Sign, sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, sign even if the hall is ringing with the sound of headman’s axe, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the bible of the rights of man forever." And then it is said he fell back exhausted. But 56 delegates, swept by his eloquence, signed the Declaration of Independence, a document destined to be as immortal as any work of man can be. And according to the story, when they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he could not be found nor were there any who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, as I say, whether story or legend, the signing of the document that day in Independence Hall was miracle enough. Fifty-six men, a little band so unique — we have never seen their like since — pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Sixteen gave their lives, most gave their fortunes and all of them preserved their sacred honor. What manner of men were they? Certainly they were not an unwashed, revolutionary rebel, nor were then adventurers in a heroic mood. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, nine were farmers. They were men who would achieve security but valued freedom more.

And what price did they pay? John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. After more than a year of living almost as an animal in the forest and in caves, he returned to find his wife had died and his children had vanished. He never saw them again, his property was destroyed and he died of a broken heart — but with no regret, only pride in the part he had played that day in Independence Hall. Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships — they were sold to pay his debts. He died in rags. So it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston, and Middleton. Nelson, learning that Cornwallis was using his home for a headquarters, personally begged Washington to fire on him and destroy his home — he died bankrupt. It has never been reported that any of these men ever expressed bitterness or renounced their action as not worth the price. Fifty-six rank-and-file, ordinary citizens had founded a nation that grew from sea to shining sea, five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep — all done without an area re-development plan, urban renewal or a rural legal assistance program. . .

Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world." Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom. . .

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind."

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.