Predicting the Future of Politics

I was reminded today about an old Yogi Berraism: "Predictions are always uncertain, especially about the future."

When you look back ten years, is there anyone who could have predicted then where we would be as a nation today? So why would anyone in their right mind believe ANYONE living today could possibly predict the future of politics in this country?

That said, I will venture a guess that things as they are today will not remain for much longer politically. The Republicans are still smarting from the election of 2012. There were many surprises. The old methods of analysis of the demographics have faded away, it would seem. Conversely, there were numerous allegations of voter fraud and stealing the election in key battleground states. Whatever the facts may someday reveal, it was a shock to the conservative base to which I belong.

We face some daunting challenges. The country is broke, at least by the traditional definitions of what that means. When we spend more than we take in that used to mean "broke." We have a federal government that is out of control in its spending habits. We can’t afford what they are doing. We now have a government that is doling out benefits across a broad spectrum to half the citizens. Our private industry, once the envy of the world in productivity is now stalled and mostly stagnant compared to China's output. The Republican Party, once the champion of free enterprise, limited government and individual freedom and responsibility lost its way in the darkness of progressivism a long time ago.

Democrats were historically the party of big government. There was hope in the 90s when Bill Clinton declared the end of big government, constrained as he was by the Newt Gingrich revolution in Congress that produced a balanced budget. Now they too have lost their way. Under Barack Obama it appears they would make everyone dependent upon big government. They believe they have discovered the golden ticket to winning elections in perpetuity among voters who like the dole they receive in whatever form it takes.

Sadly, about all we got Republicans to admit in this last election cycle is that they could manage big government better than Democrats. While I at one time believed there was a clear and obvious contrast between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, when it comes to the argument about Big Government versus small government, the argument became a blended mishmash that was nearly indistinguishable, especially in that last debate.

So I've mostly gone silent on the political front since that first week in November. Stunned and still recovering would be the best way to describe my reaction. This country has been without a true political freedom of expression and limited government party for many years.

That reality must change. The upstart "tea party" has received its death warrant from more than a few pundits, most recently from former Senator Bob Bennett, who was soundly thrashed in the Utah nominating convention in 2010, and whose seat is now held by Mike Lee (R-UT). But I have the sense predictions of the spirit it represents may be premature. I hear a lot of rebellion talk brewing under the surface in the Republican Party, at least here in Utah. You can describe "the base" any way you wish. I choose to think the true conservatives, moderates and independents who make up Utah's "base" were aroused in 2008, spoke up in 2010, and still shout, "Stop it! Reduce this out-of-control federal government! Wake up, Washington, and put a lid on the debt, the spending and the deficits that are enslaving our future generations. Reduce the taxes, abandon the regulatory agencies that are throttling down the economic engine of America. Stop it all!"

This ground swell of emotion and political action state by state made a decision to return to the Republican Party in 2010, hoping they would get it right. The grassroots elements of the tea party now seem to be opposed once again to the "establishment wing" of the Republican Party. We saw it play out in the primary elections held in the states during the last cycle. If all the establishment can give us is an argument they can be better managers of a bloated government, then my prediction is an easy one to make - those grassroots people will abandon the Republican Party, both here in Utah and nationally.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)

As an example, I suspect Mike Lee chose the Republican Party only because it was the most expedient vehicle in which to ride at the time. I might be wrong. I didn't discuss it with him personally during his run when he had my unabashed support, but everything he has done since being elected leads me to believe he cannot long endure the status quo I see promoted by the establishment in the party.

So here's my bold prediction, and I've held this view for some time now: The new political reality we will see playing out in the future is no longer going to be Republican versus Democrat. That's been a carefully managed political contrivance of convenience and expediency for way too long. No, instead, it’s going to be lovers of freedom and limited government versus Big Government dependency. We may be running out of time to make a conscious choice about that. Events may compel us into that path whether we like it or not.

Back in the day, Abraham Lincoln left the Whig Party and formed the Republican Party because he and others would not compromise on slavery.

In the future people like me will leave the Republican Party because we will not and cannot compromise on freedom and limited government. Finding candidates who believe in principle over party will be the next challenge.

The Great Big Fat Lie

Several months ago I attempted to explain what a ludicrous idea taxing the wealthy was to balance the budget and redistribute the wealth among the needy and worthy poor members of society. It's classic liberal drivel to pick an example of a poor person or family, then exploit their dire circumstances for political gain.

Last week, President Obama addressed the nation. He trashed the Paul Ryan 2012 budget on national television, putting forward instead a plan to tax the wealthy Americans, demanding that they ante up and pay their fair share to help us get out of debt and reduce the deficits.

I am appalled at the audacity, the boldness and the bald face lies this man tells. Either he has no one in his administration who can do the basic math, or he intentionally attempts to deceive. Whichever it is, the facts simply do not support his assumptions.

Take a few minutes and watch.



What do you think? Can we restore fiscal sanity to Washington by merely taxing the rich? If you need help with the answer, check out the opinion of this writer in The Wall Street Journal. The Cato Institute sets the facts straight in President Obama's attack against the wealthy.

We don't have a taxation problem in America, we have a spending problem. Better get it right, all you politicians, the clock is ticking with the S&P announcement this week that America is on a negative credit watch that could result in a downgrade of America's "AAA" rating two years from now.

Obama's Redistribution of Wealth Debacle

I get routine comments from my children that my blog posts are "just too long."  I know I violate all the nebulous "blog standards" and all the conventional wisdom that posts should be 250 - 500 words.  So here's some relief. . .  This won't take long.

Test question for today:  What's the best way to create more jobs?

This administration has a signature legislative achievement -- the healthcare reform bill, dubbed "Obamacare." The intent was to subsidize health insurance for low- and middle-income groups by taxing high-income earners.  Big problem -- it might level material wealth but it sure dampens economic growth.  Where's the incentive to work harder?  Instead, the message sent was don't work so hard, you'll just pay more taxes.

It also kills incentive among the low- and moderate-income earners.  They can maintain the same standard of living with even less effort.  This is all strangely familiar to me.  I witnessed it in the late sixties as a missionary in England.

Do high tax rates really harm the economy? The liberal progressives (such a strange term -- they're really throwing us backward into the dark ages it seems to me) will tell you "No."  However, the countries of the European Union since the end of the World War II have tried this experiment before.  Their attempts to "carve equal slices from the economic pie" have included offering their citizens generous social benefits such as government-provided health care and mandated lengthy vacations.  France is rioting today because the government, faced with entitlements they can no longer afford, dared to raise the minimum qualification for their retirement stipend age to 62 from 60 just to keep more worker bees in the hive.  The result?  Per capita purchasing power in the EU is two-thirds of what it is in the U.S.  The slices of the economic pie may be more equal, but they are doled out from a much smaller pie.

This accompanying projection shows what happens if we don't put a swift and effective end to government entitlement programs.  They are increasingly disastrous and the increasing payments from the government to citizens are unsustainable, just as they are today in France and elsewhere in Europe.

So what does President Obama do to fend off criticism that his policies are doing harm?  He just keeps talking and talking and talking.  In his mystical never-never land, he would have us believe expanding health care coverage is going to somehow lower costs.  He gives handouts to state and local governments and calls that "stimulus spending."  Climate change legislation became a “green jobs” bill, and the list goes on and on.  If my calculations are correct (and they are), voters on November 2nd will reject him the only way they can this year -- in a tsunami wave of anger about to be unleashed on both houses of Congress.

It could have all been avoided.  Obama could have done what he said he would do -- find unanimity on policies where more could have agreed instead of being so divisive.

A glaring omission was failing to stop the massive federal subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  If he had really been interested in attacking the economic collapse root causes, that would have been an obvious place to start where bi-partisan support could have been achieved.  Instead, the disastrous Dodd-Frank regulatory reform bill did neither -- it didn't regulate and it didn't reform either agency.  The ridiculously reckless low credit standards continue, and so do the taxpayer-funded subsidies.

During the boom, realtors, homebuilders, developers, mortgage lenders, securities traders, and others reaped enormous profits, then they sold short knowing the paper was bogus, and dumped their losses on taxpayers during the bust.  Private fraudulent gains resulted for which no one yet has been prosecuted.  Oh, we all took great delight in watching token figureheads like Lehman Brothers and its CEO, Richard Fuld, take it on the chin, but all that translated into was socialized losses absorbed by American citizens.  Eliminating all federal support for Fannie and Freddie would have immediately redirected equity where it could have helped most like building newer, more-efficient manufacturing facilities, creating jobs and stimulating economic growth.  As it is we're in a quadmire with foreclosures that still cannot be properly valued because of the federal government's attempts to "fix" it.

Maybe, just maybe, someone among "the smartest economists on earth" in the Obama administration could have taken a closer look at the idiocy we call the IRC, the Internal Revenue Code.  Currently, because of the permissible carve-outs, only 40 percent of personal income is taxed, pushing rates to more than twice what they need to be.  If you're going to tax the rich to provide for the poor, wouldn't it have been logical to close the holes in the sieve first to capture the income?  As it is now, everyone who can afford a smart CPA is free to game the system to lower their tax rate while others with similar income pay more.  That's inequity in its highest expression.  Companies who can afford the expensive lobbyists tend to do better than those who can't.  It's corrupt.  And the gaming continues.  If the adminstration were really interested in anything more than an audacious grab for gold, it would have considered true reform.

Close loopholes, broaden the tax base.  Simple right?  Obama and his advisors could have slashed rates, enhanced equity, and provided a huge stimulus to the economy.  Even if Congress had just written a personal check out to every American for $40,000, no strings attached, we'd be better off.  Instead, we got just the opposite -- even more loopholes and a promise to raise tax rates on the "wealthiest Americans."

I was accused last week by my good friend Marv of being too optimistic and idealistic about what might come out of the election results next Tuesday.  In his words, "You need to hear what my father once told me -- 'I'm a lot happier now that I've given up hope.'"

The problems in the economy might indeed prove to be too big to fix, but I'm still happier thinking we can make another new start.  Renewal is inspiring. 

It gives me hope, and we all need that right now.

Farewell from Reagan

Ronald Reagan bade farewell from the Oval Office on January 11, 1989.  It was the 34th time he had addressed the nation.

I'm not one for looking back with wistful wishes of "the good old days."  I'm always leaning into the wind looking ahead, but what Reagan had to say on that occasion for the most part was also a prophetic warning to be heeded, rather than a misty-eyed recounting of his past eight years of glory as President.

He was ever the "common sense" purveyor.  Everything he said was sensible and easily understood.  In part on that night he said:

"Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than ever because American industry became more competitive. And at the same time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home.

"Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons -- and hope for even more progress is bright -- but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola.

"The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it'll end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world. . . "

I pause to reflect that common sense in recent years in Washington D. C. has been anything but common.  Reagan continued:

"Nothing is less free than pure communism -- and yet we have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no because we're basing our actions not on words but deeds. The detente of this 1970's was based not on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Well, this time, so far, it's different. President Gorbachev has brought about some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met. . ."

"Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called, 'The New Patriotism.' This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

"But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs production [protection].

"So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who had fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, 'we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.'  Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of that -- of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

"And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

"And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

"And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

What are the mistakes we have made since Reagan's departure?  They are many and varied, but the one that screams more loudly than any other is the deficit spending and the debt we have amassed as a nation in the last few short months.  Obama has managed to spend more money in eighteen months than FDR did in twelve years of the New Deal.  He spent borrowed Chinese money future unborn generations of Americans will be burdened to repay unless our productivity as a nation overtakes our spending. 

An old wisened businessman once taught me, "Borrowing money is like wetting the bed; it keeps you warm for awhile but eventually you have to get up and change the sheets."

It is impossbile to spend the money of generations yet unborn to salvage an entitlement-drenched society.  The automatic commitments to the big three entitlements, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will soon outpace our revenues as a nation. 

That was never the vision of the founders, nor those who inherited the Oval Office and the Houses of Congress in subsequent generations. 

We have not been pulled back from the brink, as the current occupant of the White House would have us believe.  From a debt perspective we are over the falls in a barrel falling at the speed of gravity.  As long as debt and deficit spending continue unabated and human dignity is sacrificed on the altar of a bloated federal government daily eroding the American dream Ronald Reagan restored in the 80s, we are at risk. 

It's time to retrench, bite the bullet and do what we must do to restore her greatness once again.

The first step is to stop spending money we don't have.  When a Democrat says "investment" it has nothing to do with investment in the traditional meaning of that word.

Instead, it means TAXATION.  Beware their misuse and abuse of the English language.