The question Left of center is, “How do you feel about it?” How do you feel about ObamaCare? How do you feel about gun violence? Do you feel that the rich pay their fair share? Feelings are legitimate, but they apply to relationships and people, not public policy issues. I love my family. But I think about public policy.

Sadly, too many Americans “feel” about public policy issues which unfortunately “liberates” them from thinking. As a result, more and more people are becoming unaccustomed to rational analysis and thought.

I don’t visit the doctor to hear how he feels about my health, nor a plumber to learn his feelings about my leaky pipes. We want expertise, not feelings.

Cloaking one’s views in the shroud of “feelings,” dumbs down the conversation. In today’s political environment, too often feelings pass for analysis, emotion replaces logic, and facts become irrelevant. Intellectual laziness cannot be the hallmark of a free people.

Here is a real life example of how feelings dilute and even pollute the political discourse. Earlier this week, news broke about a knife attack in Texas in which 14 people were injured by a madman with a knife. A friend, whom I will call Paul, said, “Congress should immediately pass an Assault Knife Ban!”

In the context of the last four months of intense debate over new gun control laws, Paul was making an analogy to illustrate his view that it is absurd to pass more bans. While a very brief statement, Paul actually made a complex policy argument. Implicitly, he said that labeling a gun an “assault” weapon is not a useful exercise. Otherwise, we could end up with “assault” hammers, “assault” baseball bats, and “assault” automobiles – to name only a few things that could be “assault” items. Additionally, he was arguing that the problem isn’t knives or guns, but the madmen who wield them.

Whether you agree or disagree with Paul is not the point. Reasonable people can disagree. But it is clear that Paul was engaging in a current policy debate. But interestingly, another friend, whom I will call Harold, said, “So you’re saying we should do absolutely nothing to curb gun violence.”

Harold mischaracterized what had been said. No one had said or even implied that nothing should be done. Only in a world where it is acceptable to feel about issues, rather than think about them, would it be acceptable to assert that opposing a particular proposal, means that nothing should be done.

If in response to a sprained ankle, a doctor suggested amputation, any rational person would say, “No.” But that doesn’t mean the person is refusing any and all treatment.

If we don’t care about actually improving things, but will be satisfied by merely doing “something,” than anything will do – even stupid things. But if we actually care about solving problems, we must tailor the solution to fix the problem.

If your went to a doctor with a serious illness and he was content to simply do something or anything, you’d want another doctor – one who would tailor the treatment to cure the ailment. We should be just as serious about public policy.

Nancy Pelosi thinks it makes sense to pass legislation so that we can find out what’s in the legislation. But no rational person could agree. Imagine having your doctor tell you that you’ll have to take the medicine to find out what’s in it — whether it’s the cure or poison. That is insanity in medicine and public policy.

Back to my friends. Harold said, “This isn’t political correctness. This ‘assault knife ban’ talk is making a joke of a tragic mass stabbing.” First, despite the preemptive protestations, Harold’s response was 100% political correctness. Second, Harold’s claim that Paul was “making a joke of a mass stabbing” was simply false. To turn Paul’s comment – which poked fun at Congress for its silly policy prescriptions – into a mean-spirited joke about injured crime victims, is a fantastic leap of logic.

Paul was using an analogy to debate the very issues that are being discussed in the halls of Congress, in newspapers, and on the airwaves. Only if you ignore what was said and its context and ascribe false motives, can you justify such a breathtaking leap of logic.

It is not important whether you agree with Paul. Reasonable people can disagree. But reasonable people disagree by stating why they disagree and explaining why the opposing position is mistaken. But it is not reasonable or even fair to respond to policy arguments by mischaracterizing what was said, ascribing bad motives, and then attacking the mischaracterization.

Harold was so blinded by his feelings that he was unwilling or unable to have a serious, well-reasoned and fact-based discussion on the issue. Instead, his feelings on the matter muddled his thinking.

Harold said that Paul’s points were insufficiently sensitive. I asked why he was trying to limit an otherwise serious policy discussion. Harold’s responded, “Stop trying to justify this. There are better ways to express your opinions.”  The truth finally came out. Harold wanted to determine what arguments Paul could make. As long as Paul made arguments that Harold approved of, then Paul could speak. Otherwise, Harold wanted Paul to apologize and shut his mouth. This is what happens when feelings become the currency of policy discussions.

Only when “feelings” crowd out facts and rational thinking, could President Obama get away with saying the Republican’s plan is “let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance” or could Harold say that Paul and I wanted to do nothing about gun violence, or that Paul was joking about crime victims when he clearly was not.

Whether it is the arguments proposed by Pelosi, Obama or my friend Harold, they are not well-informed, well-reasoned arguments. Such arguments are both intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had have been with folks who disagree with me, but present rational, thoughtful and fact-based arguments in favor of their positions. They explain why they disagree without falsely accusing me of wanting dirty water and air or callously joking about victims of crime.

We don’t have to agree on policy or political matters. But heaven help our nation, if we cannot agree that our public policy debates should be robust and open and based on facts, sound analysis and logic, not mere feelings.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia. You can follow George on Twitter @GLandrith.

by Horace Cooper

Much has been written about the over-reach of Dodd-Frank and the drag that law and its progeny will have on the financial services sector, the economic recovery, and job creation. Evidence continues to mount that the specter of over-regulation is crowding out free market solutions and restricting credit in the markets. Worse, the negative effects of government interference in the financial services industry extend well beyond large commercial banks deemed “too big to fail.” A case in point is credit unions.

Credit unions serve an important source of credit for consumers and small businesses. Historically this has been especially true during economic downturns, when the banking industry either tightened or in other ways limited credit.

Credit union lending helps stimulate the economic recovery and jobs by facilitating consumer purchases (consumer loans, car loans, home loans) and small business starts. This is a good thing. Step-by-step these modest loans help to ensure that market downturns do not spiral into economic downturns.

Unfortunately, due to restrictions imposed by Congress many healthy credit unions have been prevented from fully assisting in the economic recovery. This is because under current law retail credit unions, unlike all other federally insured depository institutions, cannot raise capital. Without access to capital, otherwise healthy credit unions are penalized for growing to meet the needs of the communities they serve. Existing law forces some healthy credit unions to discourage deposits and pare back on member service offerings. As a result, consumers and small businesses do not have access to affordable credit. While credit unions are needed now more than they’ve been needed in a generation, the capitalization rules keep them out of reach for millions of Americans. That’s billions of dollars for new purchases and new business startups that can’t happen. This makes no sense.

While comprehensive reform, including the repeal of Dodd-Frank, may require more time, there are a number of common sense, Main Street, pro-growth measures that ought to be adopted immediately to jump start lending and help stimulate the economic recovery. One such measure is H.R. 3993, the Capital Access for Small Businesses and Jobs Act.

H.R. 3993 would authorize the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) to allow qualified credit unions to accept supplemental capital. Supplemental capital is a tool that would help well-managed credit unions, large and small, meet their members’ demands for affordable financial services.

The Capital Access for Small Businesses and Jobs Act would give credit unions access to supplemental capital so that credit unions can continue to serve their members by opening deposit accounts, making loans, opening new branch locations, and expanding service offerings. Modernizing the capital standards for credit unions would give more Americans access to affordable retail financial services and consumer credit. By expanding the availability of affordable credit, H.R. 3993 benefits consumers, small businesses, and the economic recovery, thereby facilitating job growth. H.R. 3993 is clearly necessary as a regulatory reform measure. Granting the NCUA the authority to regulate capital standards would give it the very same authority that has been granted to every other federal banking regulator.

We need to keep our focus on the big issues. But we also need to build an economic recovery brick-by-brick. Passage of H.R. 3993 is an important step that Congress can take right now to help stimulate the economic recovery and help create jobs. Now more than ever Americans need access to affordable financial services and access to new sources of credit.

-   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   -

Horace Cooper is a senior fellow with Frontiers of Freedom’s Center for Economic Liberty and Property Rights

by John Hawkins

Liberalism is like a restaurant with ugly decor, terrible food, overflowing toilets and roaches scurrying across the floor — that stays packed every night. Sure, liberals may be sanctimonious, mean spirited and advocate policies that don’t work, but you can’t help but admire the excellence of their public relations network. They can laud themselves for courage because they take a stand everyone they know agrees with, pat themselves on the back for their compassion as they maliciously insult someone that disagrees with them and congratulate themselves for their charitable behavior as they give other people’s money away. Liberal mythology is one thing, but what it actually looks like is a different beast entirely.

1) Liberals love science: As Ann Coulter says, “Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional. Both words are nothing more or less than a general statement of liberal approval, having nothing to do with either science or the Constitution.” The liberal commitment to science consists entirely of talking about how important science is when they believe they can use it to further the liberal agenda. On the other hand, when science shows that adult stem cells actually work better than embryonic stem cells, millions in Africa have died because liberals needlessly insisted on banning DDT or the evidence shows AIDS is never going to take off in Western, non-drug using heterosexuals, liberals have about as much interest in science as they do in supporting the troops.

2) Liberals care about education: If you define “education” as doing as much as humanly possible to toss plums to the teachers’ unions who help fund and elect Democrats, liberals love education. Alternately, if you define education as the rest of us do, making sure our kids learn as much as possible and are prepared for the working world, liberals don’t care about education at all. They fight merit pay, oppose firing bad teachers and try to kill even effective school choice programs. Any time there’s a divergence between what’s best for the teachers’ unions and what’s best for the kids, the kids ALWAYS lose with liberals.

3) Liberals are tolerant: In a very real sense, liberals don’t understand tolerance. To them, tolerance is promoting whatever position they happen to hold while excluding all competing views. So, if a conservative speaker shows up on a college campus, liberals try to shout him down. Liberals have tried to censor conservative talk show hosts with an Orwellian “Fairness Act.” They work tirelessly to try to silence Fox News, which is the one center right network up against ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC. They block professors for their conservative views, blacklist conservative actors and lock conservatives out of almost every major newspaper in America. That’s not open-minded; it’s a level of dogmatic intolerance that could rival the most radical cult.

4) Liberals don’t moralize: Liberals believe in allowing children to have abortions over the protests of their parents, they want to force churches to perform gay weddings that violate their Christian beliefs and they demand that the Catholic Church provide abortion and birth control over its strenuous moral objections, but then they turn around and deny that they’re moralizing. Getting beyond that, they couch their arguments about tax rates, government programs and economics in distinctly moral terms. After all, what is the term “fair share” if not an appeal to morals? If liberals are going to continue to pretend that they don’t moralize, at least they should admit that they’re morally inferior to conservatives.

5) Liberals love the poor: For both philosophical and practical reasons, conservatives believe in helping the poor escape poverty. We agree wholeheartedly with Ben Franklin’s words of wisdom,

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

On the other hand, liberals “love” the poor like a cat loves mice. The cat gets fat off the mice and liberals get elected off of sadistically keeping as many Americans mired in poverty as they can. Then, they can give the poor just enough money to get by on while railing against those mean old conservatives who’re claiming the destitute can have better lives when any “compassionate” person would realize food stamps and welfare are the best most of these people can ever do. That’s not love; that’s a gang of pushers trying to hook as many customers as possible.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

This piece by John Hawkins, who runs Right Wing News, was published at Townhall on Dec 11, 2012.

by Paul Sperry

While President Obama insists the Bush tax cuts caused the recession and record deficits, his own economists say otherwise.

He might want to consult their data for the truth.

Kicking off fiscal cliff negotiations last month, Obama said: “What I’m not going to do is extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% that we can’t afford and, according to economists, will have the least positive impact on our economy.”

During the White House press conference, he added, “If we’re going to be serious about deficit reduction, we’ve got to do it in a balanced way.” Obama argued voters made it clear in the election that they don’t want to go back to Republican policies that “cost” the Treasury revenues and “blew up the deficit,” as he told them repeatedly during the campaign.

The Washington media by and large share these assumptions. And they’re driving the debate over what to do about the federal budget crisis before Jan. 1, when the tax cuts and spending programs are set to expire.

But the assumptions are faulty, based largely on political demagoguery rather than hard numbers — including ones certified by Obama’s own fiscal policy advisers and bean counters in the White House.

Turn to Pages 411-413 of his 2012 Economic Report of the President, published by the Council of Economic Advisers. They show that “the math,” as Obama is wont to say, in fact does add up for tax cuts. After President Bush in late May 2003 signed the largest tax cut since President Reagan — including dropping the top marginal rate to 35% from 39.6% — government receipts from individual income taxes rose from $793.7 billion to a peak of $1.16 trillion in 2007, when the mortgage crisis began, a 47% jump. Stronger economic growth expanded the tax base and brought in so much revenue that Bush more than halved the deficit over that period. The budget gap plunged to $160.7 billion from $377.6 billion, according to the president’s report.

Perhaps the most impressive statistic appears on Page 412, one that undercuts Obama’s core argument against continuing the Bush tax cuts. The post-tax-cut surge in economic growth and tax revenues helped drive down the deficit from 3.5% of gross domestic product in 2004 to 2.6% in 2005, to 1.9% in 2006 and to a manageable 1.2% in 2007. Based on Bush fiscal policies, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected budget deficits of 0.7% to 1.5% of GDP for the years 2008 through 2011. The CBO even predicted surpluses for the subsequent years through 2018.

What derailed the forecast was the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.

This financial anomaly threw the economy into a deep recession, beginning in December 2007, and forced a collapse in federal tax revenues. As a result, the deficit-to-GDP ratio shot up to 10% in 2009 and has remained around that level, thanks to record Obama spending. (The recession technically ended in June 2009.)

Obama’s economic report shows that the average deficit-to-GDP ratio during the entire Bush administration — 2001 to 2009 — was 2%, which is well below the 50-year average of 3%.

During the Obama years, in contrast, the same deficit ratio has averaged 9.1%.

The Bush tax cuts did not “cost” the Treasury revenues. Nor did they increase income inequality. When fully implemented, they increased the portion of the income tax burden that fell on the wealthiest Americans. The top 1% of taxpayers went from paying 38.4% of overall taxes to 39.1%, while the bottom 50% saw their share drop from 3.4% to 3.1%. And as a percentage of the economy, deficits shrank to historically low levels. Record red ink flowed much later as the housing market toppled and government spending shot up.

New spending on welfare programs and Obama’s $1.9 trillion national health care entitlement threaten only to compound the budget crisis.

Yet he proposes backloading any promised spending controls while front-loading “revenue increases” from tax hikes.

~

First published in Investor’s Business Daily, November 30, 2012.

With a long history of federal overspending and the recent explosion of more federal debt, it is obvious that the federal budget must be cut back to a reasonable size. We need an intervention. But the Budget Control Act — which would force an “automatic sequester” of $500 billion in across-the-board defense spending cuts over the next decade, in addition to the $487 billion in defense cuts already scheduled — is not a good solution to our spending crisis.

Defense is far from overfunded – it is only 16 percent of federal spending, down from 40 percent in the 1970s. Investment in research and modernization, the bulwark of our battlefield supremacy, is just a quarter of that. But these vital investments will bear the brunt of defense cuts if President Obama and the House and Senate do not agree on more sensible spending cuts.

Defense spending is not driving the deficit, and it would pose terrible consequences for our national security if liberals successfully perpetuate the myth that it is.

If no agreement is reached, the budget ax could fall on critical defense programs that protect our war fighters and make America safer. Research that gave us smart bombs, stealth technology, drones, technology that prevents improvised explosive devices from killing our soldiers, and electronics that prevent our enemies from tracking and targeting our warfighters, would be at risk. Even the replacement of aging and failing old equipment would grind to a halt. America would be less secure and our war fighters would be at greater risk and suffer greater casualties.

The problem with the defense sequester is not that it cuts federal spending too much. It is that it disproportionately slashes the military and allows Solyndra style boondoggles to continue while cutting vital and needed defense spending. The Budget Control Act was designed to impose a result so awful and so draconian that the President and Congress would feel forced to find an equal amount of budget cuts in other noncritical areas. In theory, these smarter cuts would then take the place of the draconian defense cuts.

The problem is the President and Congress have not come to an agreement on alternative spending cuts. While the House has passed a plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will not allow the Senate to even vote on the plan and the President now wants only tax increases and hopes to defer talks of balancing the budget for another year. History shows that promises of future spending cuts in exchange for immediate tax increases never materialize. In fact, spending increases more rapidly.

Given this history, Obama’s offer makes zero sense. And his expressed willingness to drive off the “fiscal cliff” unless Congress agrees to the tax increases he demands is irresponsible. It would harm our military’s ability to defend themselves and protect us — not to mention the economic harm it would do.

Trying to solve this problem with tax increases is like a college kid spending $800 a week on pizza and beer and calling home and trying to convince his parents that they haven’t given him enough money for school. Not surprisingly, mom and dad will point out that their child’s money problems are caused by spending too much, not because mom and dad were too cheap to provide adequate funds.

What would make sense is an agreement to: (1) continue with current tax rates given the weak economy — particularly since the tax increases Obama advocates will generate only enough money to fund the government for a few days; and (2) significantly and carefully cut government spending so that within the near future the federal budget is balanced.

In 2009, the first year President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were in charge, federal spending jumped to over 25% of GDP. As a result, federal deficits have exceed a  trillion dollars for four straight years. Since World War II, the federal budget has typically been about 20% of GDP. After four straight years of balanced budgets passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton, federal spending was 18% of GDP.

The President and Congress must cut spending. Period. But slashing defense is short sighted and dangerous. In 2001, after almost a decade of viewing defense as a low priority and extracting a “peace dividend” from the defense budget, we suffered a devastating attack on American soil. We must not repeat that mistake.

by Conrad Black

Last week, Fareed Zakaria and Charles Krauthammer appeared in Toronto (where I live much of the time), and while I did not go to their main debate, I went to a tasting of it at a luncheon. There was, I regret to write, as a longstanding friend of both of them, a surreal aspect to the exchange. After the usual compliments one exchanges (as I know from my time on that circuit), they embarked on a dialogue of the deaf, and a mutual flight, joined at the wingtip like Jurassic pterodactyls, soaring above the mighty chasm of American fiscal problems below. The otherworldly discussion of whether the Republican leaders in Congress will reach an agreement with the president about the automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts of a decade ago vastly overshadowed the issue of reinserting spontaneous growth into the U.S. economy and grappling with the deficit at last.

Fareed is now an outright flack for the Democrats, down to misrepresentations of the generally positively remembered Eisenhower and Reagan administrations. Tax levels on upper incomes were high in the Eisenhower years, but there were many exemptions, and Reagan may have been the only person in the country who paid them (which propelled him into the Republican party). Eisenhower did not, other than to a slight degree, follow the advice of his vice president, Richard Nixon, to cut income-tax rates, but he did soak up the unemployed in the workfare projects around the Interstate Highway program. Reagan didn’t really shrink government, but he did cut and simplify tax rates and the tax system, produce tremendous increases in productivity, and preside over the creation of 18 million new jobs — jobs being “the only welfare system that worked,” as he famously said.

The two panelists chatted amiably and knowledgeably about the fiscal cliff, as well as where the parties stand now, competitively. Fareed had a lot of information on the inexorable growth of the Democrats and the decline of the Republicans, and Charles discounted all that and spoke of the Latinos’ assimilating into the Republicans as the party of conservative family values and self-help. Neither man showed much concern for the fragility of the entire American economy. The issue was entirely whether there would be a deal to avoid the cliff, and whether cutting exemptions (it is irritating to qualify all departures from 100 percent taxation as “loopholes”) could raise revenues sufficiently to justify, from the Democrats’ standpoint, not raising rates on the 3 percent who have incomes above $250,000 per year.

The president has dug in his heels on the point that Republicans must abandon their pledge against no tax increases, as George H. W. Bush did; and the Republicans are concerned, with reason, about being the “Party of No” again. It is an inane debate. I assume that some compromise will be arrived at that will buoy both parties and enable their elected legislators to sing some of America’s splendid patriotic anthems in the halls and on the steps of the Congress and masquerade as problem solvers in the nation’s hour of need. While important, up to a point, this isn’t the issue. There will be a tax increase, to give the president his fleeting moment of juvenile triumph, like that of a child protecting a sand castle from one wave. The automatic elimination of the post-9/11 tax cuts, as a matter of the mere passage of time, would raise public and international contempt for the U.S. political process to such vertiginous heights that something will have to be agreed upon to avoid that.

But, as I among many others have recounted here and everywhere, economics in a sophisticated economy like that of the United States is half Psychology 101 and half Grade 3 arithmetic. But no one, including the learned debaters last week, at this point seems to have grasped that both tests will be flunked, unless the avoidance of the fiscal cliff includes measures that radically cut the deficit and end the unspeakable fraud of 70 percent of the country’s $1 to $1.5 trillion federal deficit being covered by phony notes cyber-clicked into existence from the Treasury’s 100 percent subsidiary, the Federal Reserve. No test of psychological confidence will be passed by this charade, nor any test of Grade 3 arithmetic either. The administration swaddles itself in a few weeks of a record-breaking rise in economic-growth and tax-collection rates. But this is only three weeks, and applies to a built-in annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion on top of an accumulated national debt that took 232 years to get to $10 trillion in 2008 and made it to $16 trillion this year. (And there are still 5 million fewer people working in the U.S. than there were four years ago.)

No sane person can have any confidence in economic policies that perpetuate this shell game and take refuge in the worm-eaten chestnut that the economy will grow out of recession. No economy will do anything of the kind that is as over-committed as this one is to the myth of the service-industry economy, in which too few people actually add value to anything. Ten percent of the economy goes to the legal cartel and 7 percent to overages in medical costs (compared with the costs in such prosperous democracies as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, whose health-care systems are at least as good as the American one): That’s about $2 trillion that goes to these eminent learned professions, beyond what other sophisticated and prosperous democracies spend, proportionately, on the law and medicine. And there is little sign — despite the entertaining embarrassment of some big law firms, who have to short-shrift partners to pay promised starting numbers to recent law-school recruits — of any disposition to do anything about it, or to reform entitlements or get serious about health-care reform. The fiscal-cliff question is a test of public-disgust levels at the inoperability of the political system, but if the cliff is avoided, that is far from a deliverance from the impending doom that has caused the whole world to look upon the U.S. as an economic chronic-care country.

Even The Economist, which has drunk and served the Kool-Aid for a federal Europe, Obamanomics, and post-gold currencies since time immemorial, in a recent hopeful outline of what might be possible — including an increase in the age of Social Security eligibility to 67 — foresees only about a $1.1 trillion reduction in the predicted nearly $10 trillion in federal deficits in the next decade, leaving any further deficit reduction to tax increases. These could possibly be effective only if they applied to elective spending, which would reduce the penetration of America by the French and Italian luxury-goods and German and Japanese engineered-products industries — not a bad thing in itself, but it would have to be a pretty hefty tax to reduce the deficit for the decade by as much as half, which would still leave it at $500 billion per year (and this is premised on the president’s passing his own tax increases on the so-called wealthy, which is all that gets the ten-year forecast down to $10 trillion in the first place). The greatest bright spot is the continuing decline in oil imports, which should cut the current-account deficit by half and put financial pressure on the world’s most despicable (Iran) or just mischievous (Russia) states.

The answer to the Zakaria-Krauthammer exchange is that the party that addresses this problem seriously and effectively will be the growth political party of the next ten years or more. If a Damascene bolt of lightning galvanizes the incumbent president and he, even after all the false starts, makes a comprehensive compromise proposal for entitlement reform — including a radical overhaul of Obamacare, stretching out entitlements to correspond to actuarial expectations and means-testing the payments, keeping income taxes down but closing down some of the free rides and raising sales and transaction taxes on non-essential spending, and tax-incentivizing work that adds value and does not just indulge society’s self-important disdain for work in primary and secondary industry — he will be acclaimed as the transformative president he seeks to be and his party will reap the benefit for years to come.

If he holds to his indicated course, though, America will hit the wall and the Republicans will be asked to implement the program Obama should enact now. The United States is in a shocking condition. Both parties are responsible; both will be required to assist in a drastic course correction, and only the party in the White House can lead. It will happen, because it must, and the U.S., unlike much of post-war Europe, does not have a collective death wish; though careful scrutiny is sometimes necessary to be confident of that.

~

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and the recently published A Matter of Principle.

With the budget and fiscal crisis facing the United States and difficult economic times surely ahead for the foreseeable future, President Barack Obama has vociferously argued that Republicans must agree to tax increases. He argues for what he terms are modest tax increases on the wealthiest Americans that are equal to the tax rates during President Bill Clinton’s time in office. Why is Obama only interested in Clinton era tax rates, but not Clinton era federal spending rates?

There is one correction that must be made  from the outset — despite Obama arguing that he wants to return to Clinton era tax rates, Obama’s tax proposal is actually substantially higher than the Clinton era tax rates. Obama’s plan taxes income on capital gains and dividends at much higher rates than during the Clinton years. Obama’s plan almost triples the taxes on dividends from 15% to 43.4%. Likewise, Obama’s plan for taxes on capital gains is more than 15% higher than the applicable Clinton tax rates. Obama is not actually proposing that we return to the Clinton era tax rates — he just says he is.

Nonetheless, Obama is at least rhetorically fond of Clinton-era tax policy. Why isn’t he equally enamored with Clinton era federal spending?

While Clinton did force a tax increase after his election in 1992, the budget was not balanced until the GOP took control of the House and Senate and insisted on fiscal discipline. Nonetheless, if in Barack Obama’s mind, the Clinton era is the loadstar for tax policy and economic good times, why isn’t the spending policy of the same era also interesting to Obama?

The Republican Congress passed a balanced budget in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. The first three of those years were during Bill Clinton’s second term in the White House. Thereafter, balanced budgets seemed to take a back seat to other political priorities.

In 2008, Barack Obama won election to the White House and Democrats won control of both the House and Senate. The federal budget deficit exploded and the U.S. had four record setting years of trillion dollar deficits. Those growing trillion dollar deficits will continue unless spending is brought back under control.

So far, Obama has shown no seriousness about controlling spending. In fact, Obama has demanded that Congress give him no limit on future borrowing and said that he will discuss spending cuts next year after Congress gives him the tax increases he is demanding.

When President Clinton took office in January 1993, the federal government was spending 22.1% of GDP. Eight years later, when Clinton concluded his second term, in January of 2001, the federal government was spending almost 4 percentage points less of GDP — at 18.2%.

During Obama’s four years, federal spending has grown to an average of 24.4% of GDP. That means that under Obama the federal government is spending virtually one dollar out of every four dollars in the entire U.S. economy. Given Obama’s current plans, the federal government will continue to gobble up more and more of the economy — leaving less and less for hard working, entrepreneurial Americans.

Obama says he wants a “balanced approach,” but this is merely a cynical rhetorical trick. The truth is he wants tax increases and has little interest in reducing spending.

America’s need for robust economic growth strongly argues for maintaining lower tax rates which will spur growth, encourage job creation, and increase incomes. Higher tax rates in the face of recession make no sense at all. At the same time, we cannot continue to spend as we have the past 10 years. Our current deficits are caused because government has been spending too much. Way too much. While American families have seen their average incomes decline over the past four years, the federal government’s appetite for our tax dollars has grown at a record pace. Obama’s solution is to demand more tax dollars. He calls that “balanced.” That is Orwellian doublespeak.

If President Obama wants to return to Clinton era tax rates, he should also be willing to return to Clinton era spending rates. If and when Obama begins talking about Clinton era tax rates and Clinton era spending rates, then you will know he is at least serious about a “balanced approach.” Short of that, Obama is simply an advocate for bigger, more expensive and more intrusive government.

In other words, Obama believes Americans should pay more and have less while he spends more of America’s hard-earned dollars. That isn’t balanced. That isn’t right. That isn’t fair. And it won’t return America to prosperity.

-   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   -

George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District. You can follow George on Twitter @GLandrith.

President Barack Obama repeatedly chided Mitt Romney’s budget plan during the presidential campaign on at least two grounds: (1) it lacked detail, and (2) the math didn’t add up. Perhaps, we should use these two standards to see how Barack Obama’s plan stacks up. There is more than a little irony in Barack Obama criticizing others for not providing details or for their math not adding up. Obama has always been short on details and his math has almost never passed even the straight face test, much less actually adding up.

Nonetheless, let’s apply these two standards — (1) are there sufficient details? and (2) does the math add up? — to evaluate Barack Obama’s proposals for solving the so-called fiscal cliff.

What detail has Obama provided? The answer is virtually none. His position is that top earners need to “pay their fair share.” He says that top earner should pay more taxes (or higher rates) than the middle class. But the truth is the top earners do pay higher rates than the middle class and they certainly pay their fair share.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s most recent study on tax burdens reveals that the ten percent of households with the highest incomes paid more than 70% of all federal income taxes. The remaining 90 percent of American taxpayers only pay 30% of the income taxes. And the bottom 20% of American earners paid less than 1/2 of one percent of federal income taxes paid. That is a rounding error to zero.

Obama also criticized Romney for paying an average effective tax rate of 14% which Obama argued was less than most middle class Americans pay. Obama said, “The fact is that [Romney] only has to pay 14 percent on his taxes when a lot of you are paying much higher.” But that is simply false.

Again, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the average family in lowest quintile (earning $18,400) actually pays no federal income taxes and receives a bonus of 6.8% paid to them. The average family in the second quintile (earning $42,500) also paid no income taxes, but got back a smaller bonus from the government. The average family in the middle quintile (earning $64,500) had an average income tax rate of 3.3 percent — about 1/5 as much as Romney’s 14% rate. Those in the fourth quintile (earning $94,100) had an average income tax rate of 6.2 percent — less than 1/2 has much as Romney’s 14% rate. Those in the highest quintile, which is the group Romney belongs to (earning an average of 264,700) pay an average income tax rate of 14.4%.

So who are all these people in the middle class who pay more taxes or pay a higher rate of taxes than Mitt Romney? Perhaps this is why Obama never got into the specifics — they prove him wrong. Obama provides few, if any, meaningful details, and many of the details he provides are false. Obama fails his own details test. Will the lazy and dishonest media cover this? Never mind.

Now let’s look at the second Obama test — does the math add up? No it does not. And it isn’t even close. Obama claims he wants to go back to the “Clinton-era rates,” but his plan taxes both capital gains and dividends at much higher rates than during the Clinton years. Obama’s plan almost triples the income taxes on dividends from 15% to 43.4%. Likewise, Obama’s plan for income taxes on capital gains is more than 15% higher than the Clinton tax rates. Obama’s math doesn’t add up.

But it doesn’t stop there. When it comes to how to balance the budget, Obama says it cannot be done without increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Yet even if we completely confiscate all the income of the wealthiest Americans, it would hardly make any difference.

The problem is one of spending. But Obama hopes to convince Americans that the real problem is those greedy wealthy people who don’t pay enough taxes — the ones who pay 70% of all federal income taxes.

The budget deficit crisis is clearly a problem of out of control spending, compounded by a stagnant economy. From fiscal 2007 to 2011, federal spending exploded by 32%. During the same period average household incomes dropped by more than $4,000. American’s learned to get by on less, while big government accelerated its spending at historical rates. But Obama won’t admit it is a spending problem.

We could resolve the vast majority of the budget deficit by simply returning to 2007 spending levels. That coupled with some robust economic growth would be a powerful step in the right direction. We had schools in 2007. We had a safety net in 2007. So it isn’t as if returning to 2007 spending levels would be draconian. Let’s be honest, the federal government was spending too much in 2007 too. But at least that would be a serious start.

But Obama says, “We can’t just cut our way out of this hole.” The truth is — big government spent us into this mess and we can cut our way back out. That is just simple math, Mr. President.

Obama portrays his approach of increasing taxes and maybe cutting a little spending as “responsible” and “balanced.” But it is neither responsible nor balanced. And Obama’s math simply does not add up. With his announcement this week that he wants a tax increase now, and next year, he’ll consider possible spending cuts — it is clear Obama has no intention of making the needed spending cuts.

Obama’s plan lacks serious and credible detail. His math does not add up. And worst of all, Obama continues to fail the leadership test.

- – – – – – – – – – – -

George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District. You can follow George on Twitter @GLandrith.

Share this:

by Scott L. Vanatter

The things of politics and public policy are of deep import. It takes time, experience, and careful and ponderous and even solemn thoughts to inform whether and how we act. Politicians, by their words or policies, either expand or contract the frontiers of our freedoms. We, The People, need to encourage and benefit from its progress, or mourn and suffer its decline.

The more we as citizens stand informed and aware, then the better able we will be to advocate for those principles which will tend to the greater public good. Then we can act with confidence in this great undertaking. As Lincoln called it, the last best hope of mankind.

As George Washington laid out in his first inaugural address,

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” (George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

VISION

We are fortunate to live in a sacred part of the country. We tread every day where great souls once did great things. The following words come from one of the heroes of the second day of the battle of Gettysburg. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, then a college professor taking leave to lead a regiment from Maine, later to become the college president and then governor. He said this about the battlefield there, but the ideas he employs apply to ANY great place, or any great set of circumstances [even yours]:

“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.”

I cite this because this is the type of “vision” we need to effectively maintain the last best hope, and successfully maintain and transmit our freedoms to our posterity.

When I was younger, and delved into politics, I was perhaps invested 80:20 — or, more likely, 60:40 decades ago — into the Contest, the Competition, the Fun of it all. More so than the impact of positive results we needed for the benefit of the county. But as I became a grandfather, the ratio of Fun to Needed blessings turned upside down — or, rather, to its proper proportion. Now, I am fully invested 80:20 in the better reasons to be involved, the effectiveness of our government for our posterity (more than the fun of the contest, the intrigue over the contest of ideas.

CULTURE

The following definition culture describes how we create and define our American Culture.

“Culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life.” (Geertz, 1973)

If we abandon the establishment of what that “inherited conceptions” are, then we lose the best of what the Founders bequeathed us. A candidate for president once said that, “It is our duty to concentrate all our influence to make popular that which is sound and good, and unpopular that which is unsound.”

Lincoln said we could trust the people to make wise decisions if we can get them the facts. If we can get them the facts in the correct setting and context, and help build a vision, if you will, in their minds and hearts, then we can trust the people. As most quality and effective politicians have. Reagan had a deep trust in the people and in America’s potential and future. We need not despair for our future, if we work together for the common good. If we get them the facts, in the context of the story of who we are as Americans – and the purpose of our founding: to vouchsafe “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

So, this begs the question: Which facts? What story? What vision?

Our objective is to urge us on to invest ourselves in becoming more informed and active citizens – that we might keep this great nation free. We need an increasing and compelling vision of why the story of our Founding is important.

“Our forefathers left us a free government which is a miracle of faith – strong, durable, [and] marvelously workable. Yet it can remain so only as long as we understand it, believe it, devote ourselves to it, and when necessary fight for it.” (Ezra Taft Benson, June 2, 1978)

WHY SERVE?

I suggest, again paraphrasing, we must catch this vision of our Founding and the Founding Fathers – and Mothers. And we can – at least in a couple important and kind of neat ways.

I am not speaking to the issue of actual spirits of the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) lingering here. But I do know the spirit OF their great lives DOES live here. At least through our imagination we can see through the years and though the fog of our modern world to see and truly appreciate these “great deeds.” We can go to these places in our mind’s eye, by engaging our minds and hearts into this living history. This Vision can impel us on in our own quest to do what’s right and improve the world.

Both George Washington and John Adams only to name two felt keenly this overwhelming need to be of service. Why? Why did they feel such a passion to serve? To create something which will last, with the other Founders — to create such things as, a written Declaration of Independence, to win that Independence, then to establish a means to keep it — through a written Constitution.

PROMISSORY NOTE

Yes, the great Washington held slaves, but he freed them upon his death and provided for many of them an annuity till they died. He and Jefferson both desired to do away with Slavery, but could not figure out how to do it. Though this was a troublesome thing for blacks (and for women for similar reasons), the founders created, as Martin Luther King termed it, a Promissory Note to those people not immediately covered in the rights and privileges of the Constitution – but which were announced to the world in the Declaration.

On this topic, Martin Luther King, Jr. said that:

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He went on to say, that the time had “come to cash this check – a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

The paradoxical nature of both the Declaration and the Constitution plants the seeds of an effective and sure way to vouchsafe – ultimately — to ALL peoples of the world their God-given Natural Rights, by securing what stability and rights which could be agreed upon by the great minds of the day; this in an atmosphere of competing and contending interests. This nation was created – with purpose – formed and crafted on respect for individual liberty of conscience.

AN ASIDE

A note on religion, or having none at all, George Washington wrote:

“The bosom of America was to receive . . . the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges . . . if they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of ANY sect, or they may be Atheists.”

And so this promise goes to all. America still stands as a model and a beacon of liberty and hope to freedom loving peoples across the world.

TOP TEN

Now, I will list a few of my favorite Founding Fathers — a kind of Top Ten:

Honorable Mention: Abigail Adams, faithful counselor and Friend to her husband, John Adams. I’ll also mention their able son, John Quincy Adams. He is a fascinating transition between the Founding Fathers and our day. As a young teen he apprenticed in the most extraordinary diplomatic positions. Later he formally represented the United States across Europe. He was the real author/creator of what became known as the Monroe Doctrine. After serving as president he served for 16 years in the House of Representatives.

10. Benjamin Franklin, printer, writer, scientist, inventor, diplomat — the first American (and the polar opposite to Adams’ tact in their diplomacy overseas).

9/8. Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, urging us on — and acting — to light the fire of Independence. Samuel Adams played a critical role in the earliest days of the Revolution, sparking the people to desire Independence.

7. George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights.

6. Thomas Paine, English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, classical liberal and intellectual for rationally putting forth strong reasons for Independence — and in sustaining us with inspiring words in our deepest trials. Common Sense. The American Crisis. John Adams remarked that, “without the pen of the author of Common Sense the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”

Washington had the following words written by Paine read to the soldiers encamped at Valley Forge:

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” (The American Crisis, Thomas Paine, 1737-1809, written 1776)

5. Alexander Hamilton, a self-made man, for setting the stage for America to change from an agrarian society to a modern industrial nation.

4. James Madison, Father of the Constitution.

3. Thomas Jefferson, a Renaissance man for the complex, comprehensive, and compelling life he led — and for the stirring way he formally announces our Independence to the world.

2. John Adams, for pushing, and pushing, and pushing some more – all the way through to Independence; Jefferson called Adams the Atlas of Independence. With Jefferson, the two of them were called the North and South Poles of the new Union. George Washington let it be known that this stalwart, Adams, was his desire to succeed him as U.S. President. [I believe Washington desired Adams’ for his firm belief in a strong executive, desiring to give the new nation a bit more stability. Then, we’d get to Jefferson.]

1. Of course, George Washington, the only truly indispensable Founding Father. He won the war; then laid down military power. He inspired almost superhuman trust among his fellow Founders that we could overcome our differences and come together to craft a Constitution; he turned down talk of monarchy. He was the glue which held the Constitutional Convention together. He was trusted to hold the executive power, to hold the country together; then again, he laid down political power. His friend Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee called him, “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.” Unparalleled. He was the one they all looked to in times of trouble; he was the glue that welded together those strong personalities of our Founding. He was the rock upon which this country was built.

THE DEBT WE OWE

I respectfully submit we owe a debt to our own ancestors, to our Founding Fathers, and to our posterity to carry on this sacred fight for Liberty.

And with Martin Luther King, we then can say, and sing with gusto the song we sang here as we began this meeting:

“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’ And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring . . . From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

OUR OWN LEGACY

Now, think of Chamberlain’s stirring words once more, where it is your great grandchildren coming to see where you lived, and to consider what you taught and lived by:

“In [the] great deeds [of yours] something abides. On [the] great fields [where you labored] something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate [the] ground [you trod] for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar [your great grandchildren], and generations [of our posterity] that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field [of your labors] to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision [you had burning within you will] pass into their souls.”

CHALLENGE

I conclude with an interesting and kind of a neat challenge my wife extends to the student teachers she brings into inner city DC. After having taught for 15 years here in Northern Virginia, she now works for a university helping train, oversee, mentor and launch these new teachers into a career of teaching. Her challenge: That they somehow creatively introduce George Washington to their students every year — no matter what subject is being taught.

My challenge: That somehow we introduce George Washington (and the important principles of the founding of America) to our grandchildren every year. Yes, we also need to be vigilant in monitoring our public servants. And yes, we need a healthy and positive Vision of America to propel us onward in so great a cause.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us… that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom… and that government of the people… by the people… for the people… shall not perish from this earth.” (Gettysburg Address)

After returning to France, Lafayette acquired prominence as the commander of the Paris National Guard when the Bastille fell on July 14, 1789. After ordering the destruction of the Bastille, Lafayette wrote to Washington:

“Give me leave, My dear General, to present you with a picture of the Bastille, just as it looked a few days after I had ordered its demolition, with the main key of that fortress of despotism. It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adoptive father, as an aid de camp to my General, as a Missionary of liberty to its Patriarch.”

It is my challenge that we all become missionaries of liberty to, at least, our grandchildren — if not our neighbor, and the whole world.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A version of this piece was presented by Mr. Vanatter in a May 10, 2012 speech to a group of Rotarians in Northern Virginia.