photo by Kevin Dooley

One of the main reasons the current economic problem is so hard to solve and the battle lines are so starkly drawn is that there is strong disagreement on what the problem is and likewise the solutions. The mantra from the left is that the problem is Bush’s fault, there was too much deregulation under Bush, although no one points to any particular regulation repealed under Bush that caused the crisis, and that we don’t tax enough. Those on the right have a different view.

Conservatives believe that President Obama is hell bent on changing America from a world leader to just one part, co-equal with many others in a world government. Think of the European Union with America added. In addition, we believe, that Obama wants to remake America as another socialist state on the European model instead of fertile ground for creative entrepreneurs to plant the seeds of their dreams and watch them grow. Instead he wants to redistribute the wealth by taking from those who produce to those who do not.

At first blush this may seem compassionate even fitting within the Judeo-Christian philosophy of helping the least of our brothers. However, I don’t recall learning anywhere in my Catholic upbringing those passages in the Bible or among the church scholars where we should all defer to the government and shirk our individual responsibilities. In other words if the story of the Good Samaritan was played out today, the Samaritan would see the man beaten and lying on the side of the road, dial 911, and then go about his business without soiling his hands to help the poor man himself. No worry, there must be plenty of government programs to help the poor guy and better yet, we can tax the rich to pay for it. He would not be so crazy as to put the man in his car, take him to a private hospital, leave some money for expenses and promise to pay any shortfall on his return. That would be viewed as nutty. However, when Obama’s philosophy is in place for a long enough time it changes from that of helping those truly in need, to one of entitlement. If you doubt this you need only look and listen to the recent rioting in Britain. They can rob and loot from business owners, because they say they’re the rich and they deserve to get taken down a couple of pegs. But who is paying for their handouts?

But aside from our view of the role of government what about what has worked in the past and what has not? What about the lies that pack political punch but do not stand up to scrutiny. Let’s take a look at the “we have to tax more” lie.

President Bush was not a fiscal conservative. For example, he added the prescription drug benefit to Medicare without providing funding for it. But in an article in the Wall Street Journal giving a primer on the debt situation, John Steele Gordon says this:

That decline {of debt relative to GDP] ended in 2001 following the collapse of the dot-com bubble and rising unemployment in the resulting recession. By 2003 the debt-to-GDP ratio had risen to 61.7%. Many blame the Bush tax cuts for adversely impacting federal revenues, causing the debt to spiral upwards. But that is just not true. Federal revenues declined by almost 12% in the early years of the decade, but when the tax cuts fully kicked in in 2003, the economy began to grow strongly again and federal revenues increased 44% in the next four years, while unemployment fell to 4.2% from 6.2%. Federal outlays in those four years increased by only 26.4%, and while the debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 64.8% by 2007, that was still well below what it had been in 1994.

First, the Democrats love to hark back to the Clinton years, the last time we had budget surpluses, as proof of the genius of Democratic leadership. But when Bush became president and was hit with a recession and the bursting of the dot com bubble, why was that not Clinton’s fault? Answer: President Bush had more class than to point fingers. He took the hand he was dealt and played it. Likewise, when he left office he made no comments about his successor, unlike the equally classless former Presidents Carter and Clinton who can’t bring themselves to get off the political stage.

Bush cut taxes and brought the unemployment rate down to 4.2% from 6.2%, while Obama jacked up spending and the unemployment climbed from 7.7% and is stuck at over 9%, two years after the recession officially ended.

Second, the argument from the left is that we have to repeal the Bush Tax cuts because we cannot afford them. As Mr. Gordon points out we had a revenue boom. In 2007 the Treasury took in more revenue than at anytime in history. This is plainly a spending problem and we have to unwind the reckless spending. The spending under President Bush was out of control and under President Obama he has kicked into overdrive.

The “solutions” being floated talk about it taking 10, 20, 30, 40 years to get things under control. It didn’t take that long to get into this mess, why should it take that long to get out? Granted, we are facing the Baby Boomers going from paying into Social Security and Medicare to drawing out and addressing that has to be front and center. The ponzi schemes that are Social Security and Medicare, like all ponzi schemes, have reached the point where we don’t have enough new people paying in to keep the con going. It is collapsing and we need our representatives to come up with a workable solution. We need to return to Constitutionally limited government, and let the states handle those things that are not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution as is clearly spelled out in the tenth amendment.

But first we need our representatives to act like grown ups and stop trying to score political points to get themselves reelected, and face up the what the problem really is, spending, and fix it. The golden goose is dead. It’s time to live within our means.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Groundbreaking? Earth shattering? Paradigm shift? What is the right word or phrase to describe what just happened in Colorado where a local school district implemented a school voucher program where any student can go to any school and the money will follow them.

This was not done by the state legislature. It was not done by Washington bureaucrats. It is instead a free market solution to a nagging problem of not enough competition to keep schools on top of their game and work hard to attract students (and funding) rather than sitting back, raising taxes, protecting incompetent teachers, and not rewarding good ones. Despite all the union blather about being for the children, this is a masterstroke that will actually empower parents and their children to get the best education available where they live.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7QRV4sSHdc

I hope this spreads like wildfire and we can then get serious about shutting one of President Carter’s legacies, the Department of Education which has accomplished little with the over one trillion dollars they have spent since the deparment was created. Expect a massive counter attack from the teachers’ unions because if this takes hold schools will not be able to afford putting a sub-par teacher in your child’s classroom. It will also enable teachers to negotiate individual employment agreements based on what they bring to the job and let them truly be treated as professionals, not assembly line workers.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

President Barack Obama, took office with historically high approval ratings.  Congress ended its last session with historically low approval ratings.  So why is Barack Obama, the head of the Democratic Party, taking a back seat on the economic stimulus bill while Nancy Pelosi calls the shots?

President Obama campaigned on ending the divisiveness in Washington, as did George Bush, but bipartisanship is far more than dinner parties with conservative columnists, cocktails with leaders of Congress, welcoming ideas from Republicans that will eventually be ignored by Speaker Pelosi.  If bipartisanship was one of your themes, pay attention, there was bipartisanship on the stimulus vote, it was bipartisan opposition.

Taking family planning and some sod for the Washington Mall out of the package, does not magically turn this turkey into a stimulus.  It’s time for President Obama to do some arm twisting within his own party or his critical first 100 days will be a flameout.  Take a lesson from history, Presidents Carter and Clinton both took office with large Democratic majorities in Congress and tried to please them and neither could.  Clinton had a Republican Congress two years later and ended up with a pretty successful presidency.  Carter didn’t.

It’s your administration Mr. President, don’t let Nancy Pelosi snuff it out.

Here’s where we are four weeks after the election:

1. Appointments — With the Thanksgiving shortened week, it was mostly packaging of the previously announced appointments.  Monday was going to be the big day, with the formal announcement of Hillary and Holder.  They had to get Bill Clinton’s ducks in a row, and have him measured for a leash.
2. Dow Jones Industrial Average — Up 675 points. Team Obama finally got a win.  One of the reasons is that Obama has stopped talking about eliminating the Bush tax cuts early, but letting them expire in 2010.  Also, he seems to be assembling an experienced economic team, well known to Wall Street, which doesn’t hurt.
3. The New Leader – Obama has answered critics who say the team he is assembling looks a lot like the old Clinton White House, by saying that they are “Experienced, Yet Fresh.”  He is facing grumblings on his left, which brings into question how is he going to keep this team of wild horses under control?

The Challenge for Obama

Where is Obama’s base of support?  Where can he fall back on for strength?  He may well be pulling together a team of experienced hands for the various departments, but not all of them are cut from the same mold and there will be some tugging and pulling.  How does he keep them in check and how does he get them back in line?  In other words, where are his reinforcements?

In another post, I mention how past presidents, most of whom had executive experience as governors, brought some of their loyal people with them.  These were people who believed in their candidate and had been with him for a number of years.  That loyalty can be called in, like chits, when you need to win a battle.

It took Johnson a while, about two years, to get his people in the administration since he had inherited the Kennedy team when he ascended to the presidency, but he did have eleven years in the House and twelve years in the Senate, including six years as Senate Majority Leader.  So he had a lot of markers to call in if he needed them.

Kennedy was probably closest to Obama in lack of experience including no executive experience outside of the Navy, but he did have eight years in the Senate.  In addition, he had Papa Joe Kennedy, who had many strings of his own including being a former Ambassador to England; he had his own blood brother as Attorney General; and another brother Ted would be elected to the Senate two years later.  So while Jack Kennedy may not personally have had a lot of pull, his family had plenty.

Nixon was a former two term Vice President.  Ford had been House Minority Leader.  Carter had been governor and was able to bring some of his former team with him, as was  Reagan who had served two terms as governor of California, and Bill Clinton who was both Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas.  George Bush Senior was Vice President, and George W. was governor of Texas.  They all had many connections and a lot of political IOUs.

But what does Barack Obama do, after the glow of history is replaced by the hard work of governing?  It is more likely that Barack Obama wrote a lot of political IOUs rather than him holding them.  Many of his confidents uncovered during the campaign, turned out to be less than appealing to the nation as a whole.  When the going gets tough, who’s going to have Barack Obama’s back?  Who can he turn to and say, I need this one and because of thus and so, without having to say it, you owe me?  He has very little history with his team.  So when he needs a favor, he will have to deal almost from the get go.  Whose career has he made, such that he can ask for payback?

Experience Counts

Experience counts not just in knowing how to do a job, but it also counts in terms of who you know.  Rarely in our history has there been someone who has so little experience inside or outside the beltway.  This may well result in a very weak president.  For all of our sakes, I hope I am wrong.

As Barack Obama builds his Administration team you can sense the frustration starting to build on the left and among those who are still paying attention.  In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, Obama Describes Team as Experienced Yet Fresh, you can anticipate the eloquent gymnastics you are about to read as you would watching the young Chinese girls at the Beijing Olympics.

The Perception of Change

As the agent of hope and change, some people are beginning to wonder that if this is so, why is he populating his administration with so many people from the Clinton administration, causing one pundit to ask if we wanted a return to the Clinton Administration we would have voted for Hillary.  The master politician responded to this line of thinking thusly, “Americans would be ‘rightly troubled’ if he overlooked experience to create the perception of change.’”   Let me see if I have this right.  If you actually change, it is a perception of change, but if you don’t change, it is real change?  I got it.

He went on to elaborate, “What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.  But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost:  It comes from me.”  Okay, let me take a hack at that one.  Barack Obama is bringing together all these people with long resumes in government, with years of experience, and confident in knowing what to do and how to do it, but they are all going to follow Barack Obama’s direction and apply fresh thinking to their settled ways.  Or might they say, yeah kid, go back to the Oval Office and we’ll call you when we need you.

The Voice of Experience

Painting the picture further Obama says, “I suspect that you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.”  But an inexperienced president?  No problem.  Even JFK, who was elected the youngest president in our history, had served one full term in the Senate, was reelected, and was two years into his second term before becoming president.  And he had a pretty rocky time between the Bay of Pigs, his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Viet Nam, in less than three years.  Barack Obama was four years into his first term and half of that time he spent running for president.  Should we not be concerned at the lack of experience at the top?

The Definition of Freshness

To prove his point about the freshness of hope and change, he spoke of Paul Volker.  Now, I think very highly of Paul Volker.  I believe it was he who got inflation under control after the disasterous Carter Administration economic policies.  Obama appointed Volker to lead his economic advisory board.  At 81 years old, he is the epitome of freshness.  How is that you wonder?  Obama masterfully spins it this way, “Paul Volker hasn’t been in Washington for quite some time and that’s part of the reason he can provide a fresh perspective.”  So where does that leave Obama?  Is he stale because he has been in Washington or his he fresh because he has been out campaigning for the last two years?

To cap it off in a question and answer period Obama said, according to the Times, “his [Obama's] call for new ways of thinking on the economy should not be interpreted as a reflection of frustration and disappointment with the Bush administration’s recent economic-recovery efforts.  He signaled his support for the latest $800 billion government bailout plan, which is intended to provide new lending for consumers as well as push down home mortgage rates.”

Anyone Out There Feeling Buyer’s Remorse?

So the purveyor of hope and change wants us all to believe that bringing back the Clinton administration is change; that 81 year old Paul Volker is fresh, but 72 year old John McCain is ancient; that Bush is the cause of all that is wrong with America, but fresh thinking should not be interpreted as frustration with Bush.

My sense has been that Barack Obama was painting himself into a corner.  All the while he believed that with his adroit political and verbal skills he would be able to slip out of the corner unnoticed.

The Democrats have only held the White House for eight of the last twenty-eight years.  So realistically, where else would Obama go for experienced executives?  With no executive experience himself, it’s not like he can bring colleagues in from his past executive positions, like Carter from Georgia, Reagan from California, Clinton from Arkansas, and Bush from Texas.  With only four years in Washington, two of them spent on the road campaigning for president, it’s not like he built a network of experienced executive branch contacts there either.

He is also in the precarious position of having built up expectations so high, there is really no where for his job approval ratings to go, once he takes office, but down.  In addition to all this, he has to watch his left flank.  There are a lot of grumbling noises coming from that direction from a bunch of people with balled up IOUs in their fists, thinking we got you here, where’s the payback?

Despite the economic turmoil, the bruising two year run for the presidency, and the continued danger around the world there is still much to be thankful for.

• We have not been attacked since 2001 due to the efforts of President Bush and his administration
• We have had another election, this one a particularly historic one, and we are in the midst of another peaceful transition of power, something that is the marvel of the world that we have been able to do this for over two hundred years.
• There is talk about the worst economic times since the Great Depression, which is what we typically hear each election season such that it trivializes those hard times.  These are probably the worst economic times since the Carter Administration, but even with that interest rates are no where near the 20%+ they were back then, unemployment is still in single digits, lower than in the Carter years and no where near the 25% of the Great Depression
• Business is being conducted,  jobs are being posted, and we will get through this

It is a time to reflect on what we have, despite the challenges, and how great this country is.  To help me stay grounded I have always enjoyed reading two articles that are published each year at this time in the Wall Street Journal.  The first tells the story of the Pilgrims and their journey to the New World and how having made that decision there was no turning back. You can follow the link to it here, The Desolate Wilderness.

The second article is called And The Fair Land which was written in 1961.  It seems that a number of the things it mentions are still current.  It is a testament to the fact that we will always have challenges, but as Americans, we will find a way to overcome them.  The key to this is to allow the American people the freedom and liberty to try, experiment, and find solutions.  The less government gets in the way, the more confident I am that we are only limited in by our imagination.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

For all the Bush bashing that has gone on since September 11, 2001, it is a pretty sure bet that when he leaves office on January 20, 2009, part of his legacy will be that he kept us safe for the last seven years.  The fundamental difference between the polices of the Bush administration and those of Clinton and Carter was that Bush saw it as a war, Clinton and Carter as crimes.  On a war footing, you take the battle to your enemies with the objective of destroying them.  On a law and order footing, you investigate the crime after the fact, arrest suspects, give them their Miranda rights, put them on trial, and if you are lucky, they may spend some time in jail.

Law and Order

In 1979, where it all started, Iranian “students” took over the U.S. Embassy and held it for over 400 days.  Jimmy Carter tried to negotiate a settlement, sponsored a botched rescue, and saw the hostages finally released his last hour in office.  The Iranians didn’t want to be holding American hostages when Ronald Reagan was president.  Reagan would have seen the taking of the U.S. Embassy as an invasion on U.S. soil, which is what our Embassies are.  He would not have tolerated a ragtag bunch of radical students occupying U.S. soil.

From that, and Somalia, Osama bin Laden saw the U.S. as a paper tiger that would cut and run if hit hard.  Clinton’s law and order approach can be seen in the response to the first World Trade Center bombing and the constructing of a “wall” between the CIA and the FBI.

War Footing

President Bush saw the attacks on the U.S. as a war.  He mobilized the country and struck back hard.  By going on offense rather than hanging back playing defense, he has kept the enemy pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan, while simultaneous rooting them out aggressively wherever they went.  Those captured on the battlefield were sent to Guantanamo, where they were interrogated and held.  Lawyers in the U.S. began to complain that these prisoners were being held without being charged and that was unconstitutional.  Again, that is seeing it from a law and order perspective.  On a war footing, the enemy that is captured on the battlefield is held until the end of hostilities, like we held Japanese and German prisoners during WWII.  If it takes 50 years until the war is won and hostilities ended, then they should be held for 50 years.

Rooting Them Out

In trying to prevent another attack at home, Bush also aggressively sought to disrupt their operations.  Part of that process was to intercept their communications and learn what they were up to.  This caused an uproar over eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant.  However, the program was designed to intercept international phone calls, even if one end was in the U.S.  For example, if an Al Qaeda terrorist is captured or killed on the battlefield but their cell phone is recovered and their cell phone has an address book in it, the administration would set up all the numbers in the address book to be monitored and calls listened to. The purpose was to keep all Americans safe.

Many on the left believe that people in the Bush administration should be prosecuted for this practice.  They call this activity criminal.

Who Are Your Enemies?

President Bush tried to prevent our enemies, those who wished to kill as many of us as possible, from doing us harm.  He knew our enemies to be deadly and ruthless.

And then you have Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber.  Joe the Plumber had the audacity to ask Barack Obama a question about how Obama’s policies would affect people like Joe.  Pretty dangerous stuff, no?  Since that chance encounter, Joe the Plumber has been investigated by six Ohio state agencies.  Did you see the ACLU representative on the evening news demanding what the Obama campaign knew about this and when they knew it?  Did you see Chris Matthews slamming his hand on his desk and saying, “This is AMERICA, not the Soviet Union!  We don’t investigate citizens because of their political beliefs.”?  Did you hear Senator Dick Durban rise in the senate to decry what happened to Joe the Plumber and compare it to the Nazis, the Soviet Gulags, and Pol Pot?

Neither did I.