I just got a survey request from my Congressman Tim Bishop. I started to fill it out but it was limited in its responses. Limited to what could easily be tabulated and put into a self-serving graph, but the same limited responses also spoke volumes.

He introduced his survey with two wishes:

I’d like to know how you think Congress can best help your family this year.

I hope you will take a moment to tell me what you believe my priority should be in Congress for 2012.

The first question tells all about what is wrong with Tim Bishop’s thinking, Barack Obama’s thinking, and why we are heading off a cliff. So let me answer the question. Tim, get a copy of the Constitution. Go to a quiet room; sit down and read it. If you don’t immediately grasp the meaning of the document you took an oath to support, may I recommend you buy a copy of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, it will help explain it to you. It is not Congress’ job to help my family. That is my job. Congress’ job is primarily to defend our borders (think Mexico), interact with foreign nations, and to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations; to coin money, not print it without end so that it becomes increasingly worthless (see Bernanke); provide a federal court system and that’s about it. Everything else is left to the states and to the people (see Amendment 10).

To answer the Congressman’s second question, I would say, Tim, stop doing everything else. Stop spending money like there is no tomorrow because there is a tomorrow and my children, and yours too, will have to pay all this debt back. There is no one to bail out the United States of America.

If Barack Obama wanted to be a venture capitalist, perhaps he should have applied for a job at Bain Capital. It is not his job, nor yours, to gamble our tax dollars on your favorite pet project. It is not your job to tell Boeing where they can or can’t locate their factories.

Before I could stop myself I clicked on the link to get to the actual survey and here were Congressman Bishop’s choices:

• Lowering taxes for the middle class
• Access to affordable higher education
• Caring for our veterans when they return home
• Investing in transportation and water infrastructure
• Creating incentives for companies to insource jobs
• Other (where he provides a tiny box to type in your own priority

Let me take them one at a time.

• Lowering taxes for the middle class – Who decides where the middle class begins and ends? Where in the history of this country has class warfare led to greatness? We are perilously close to the point where the majority will pay no federal taxes but will have the power to demand from the minority that they provide and pay for whatever they want. Of course, I expect Congressman Bishop to shoot back that everyone pays payroll taxes. Payroll taxes do not fund the operation of the federal government. In the case of Social Security everyone who pays in expects to get every dollar back and then some. It is a lousy savings plan not a tax that funds government. Medicare/Medicaid is similar in that everyone expects to get it back in the form of free health care if they become impoverished or when they reach sixty-five years of age.
• Access to affordable higher education – This is building the next bubble. At some point students who graduate will not be able to afford to pay their skyrocketing college debts and will default and we will be forced to pick up the tab. Every time the federal government offers scholarship money, say, $1000 to students, you can bet colleges will increase tuition by $1000 shortly thereafter. Higher education is ripe for a new paradigm.
• Caring for veterans when they return home — I would bundle this under providing for the national defense and since that is included in the Constitution that is a legitimate function of the federal government.
• Investing in transportation and water infrastructure — the government doesn’t invest in anything, they spend money. The left which is constantly trying to hide what they are really doing stopped calling spending, spending because it was out of control. By calling it investing, they thought it had a degree of sophistication about it. When you invest in something you expect to get all your money back and a decent rate of return on it as well. We pay gasoline taxes that are supposed to pay for the roads and bridges that are falling down. Where is that money? What happened to it? Secondly, this is not a federal function. Every state has (or should) have taxes on gasoline or tolls on roads to maintain them. Someone in Maine shouldn’t be paying taxes to fix roads in Hawaii. If every state should take care of its own roads and water needs. If a bridge or road or river goes between two states, those two states can join forces to manage those joint properties, it doesn’t require Washington’s meddling. Of course, Tim Bishop will plead that the General Welfare clause of the Constitution calls for such meddling. Not true and here’s why (click for an explanation).
• Creating incentives for companies to insource jobs — This one is simply Tim Bishop’s manufactured campaign issue against his likely opponent. It is not the job or the talent of the federal government to pick winners and losers. Does Tim Bishop really want to send the thousands of auto worker jobs from Toyota, Nissan, and Honda back to Japan? BMW back to Germany? Chrysler jobs to Italy (Chrysler is now owned by Fiat of Italy)? Or does he just want to make American firms uncompetitive and force them to lay off workers. It was a study at Dartmouth University that showed that for every job outsourced overseas, two new jobs were created in America. So why does Tim Bishop want to do the exact opposite of what might actually create jobs here and lower unemployment (Hint: he thinks he can fool the people into reelecting him)

Nothing could be clearer than if we want to get America back on track, this kind of thinking has to go. If I have a problem that government is causing, I want to go first to the mayor of my village, next to the supervisor of my town, then the county executive of my county, then the governor of my state. I don’t need to try to hack through the massive bureaucracy of Washington to get anything done and Tim Bishop is only one of 435 representatives. Why would any sane person want to give away that much control to Washington?

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

At the conclusion of Newt Gingrich’s speech as CPAC a colleague and I discussed the Republican chances for the White House. That day we heard from Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt and we both agreed that winning in the fall should not be hard. But a couple of conditions had to be met.

The most important condition of all was that no matter who won the nomination, we all had to coalesce behind the nominee and fight hard to win. What that means is that Mitt and Newt have to stop the scorched earth personal attacks. So far, Santorum has avoided getting down in the mud, but with his new ascendancy, he will now be a prime target. Stop it and stop it now. It’s not about you. It’s about dislodging the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Tell us about your vision and stop hanging labels on each other. Forget the polls showing Obama beating all comers. In January 1980, Gallup had Carter beating Reagan 63% – 32%. This is how Time magazine saw it March of that year:

National opinion polls continue to show Carter leading Reagan by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President. This suggests that Reagan is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the November election and that he clearly faces an uphill battle. . .

Carter, for all his problems, has the power of incumbency. As President, he can react to challenges by changing the direction of the whole Government, which he has done recently by attempting to balance the budget in the coming fiscal year, a course urged by all Republican candidates. Carter is an undeniably deft—and extremely lucky—politician. He also is a relatively known quantity in the White House, whereas the inexperienced Reagan would require a definite leap of faith by voters supporting him. Says Northwestern University Political Scientist Louis Masotti: “There’s a variation on the old cliché: you don’t change horses’ asses in midstream. You’ve got one, and at least you know its contours.”

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was on his game at CPAC. He clearly outlined what he would do, within hours, of taking the oath of office. It was vintage Newt. It was Contract with America stuff and the crowd ate it up. This is the good Newt, who is very good. Besides putting down the sword against Romney, Newt needs to clean out his closet. Whatever he did for Freddie Mac, whether good or bad, get it out there now. Just saying you were a consultant is not enough. You can bet the Democrats know what he did and if it looks bad they will protect it like it is gold in anticipation of Newt winning the nomination. Then they will devise a scheme, with their allies in the main stream media, to release it about two weeks before the general election so that it will have maximum negative impact against Gingrich and the Republicans.

If Gingrich can get any bad news out now it will die down and be old news by election day. There is a risk, that it may kill his chance at the nomination, but for the sake of the country, it is better sooner than later.

Rick Santorum

Santorum has done a good job of laying out the moral argument for his candidacy. He has to shift his focus more on where he wants to take America rather than in the dismal place we find ourselves. He has to take a cue from Reagan and Thatcher and express an optimism that will engage his fellow Americans.

He has to avoid joining the Romney – Gingrich food fight. So far he has stayed above the fray, but he is climbing in the polls and that makes him a prime target, particularly for the Romney attack machine. He has to stay clean and ride the wave of disgust that people are feeling for all the mud-slinging.

Mitt Romney

Romney has to stop the attacks. He seems to be the one to fire the first spit ball. In one of the debates, when Santorum called for a ceasefire, Gingrich seemed inclined to go along, but Mitt couldn’t resist one last shot, which Gingrich naturally could not leave alone and off we went. Negative campaigning does work up to the point where we become sick of it and then it is a pox upon all your houses.

Romney also has to loosen up and lose his perpetual sunny disposition, that seems somewhat manufactured. It would be refreshing to see him without the perpetual smile and see some genuine concern for his fellow Americans who are having a tough time. If he doesn’t connect with the common folks, he will never climb above the 25% or so that typically vote for him.

Coming Together and Being Gracious

To get everyone to close ranks behind the eventual winner, we need to care for the ultimate losers. Toward that end I would like to propose a fallback job for each of the four remaining candidates in the administration of the winner. Here they are.

For Ron Paul, I would suggest appointing him Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. He could then freely find out what the heck they are doing there and make recommendations up to and including ending the Fed. For Newt Gingrich, I would suggest appointing him UN Ambassador. What better way to follow up a speech by Ahmadinejad than a critique by Gingrich destroying everything the little weasel said? For Rick Santorum, Secretary of State. He seems to understand there is more to the world than just the Middle East and that we have some work to do in our own hemisphere. For Romney, I would suggest Secretary of the Treasury. Bain Capital was not Goldman Sachs. I think between his finance background and his government executive experience as governor of Massachusetts, he could greatly help get us on the right track.

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

If you ask conservatives what their number one priority is in the 2012 election, most will agree it is to unseat Barack Obama. Yet unless Rick Santorum can expand his base beyond social conservatives, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney may hand the election to Obama on a silver platter.

When Newt Gingrich is good, he is very, very good, but when he is bad he is awful. Romney has not won the hearts and minds of conservatives because of some of his past positions, his fumbling when he should strongly be defending himself, and his personal tar baby, RomneyCare. In the last debate Santorum almost pleaded for a focus on the national issues, but it only took a moment for Gingrich and Romney to roll back into the mud.

Romney has not been able to break out of the 25% neighborhood, but he hasn’t much fallen below it either. Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich each have a win under their belts, but Romney has either been first or second in each contest, which the others can’t claim.

Gingrich can rightfully claim to have led the Republicans out of the wilderness that they languished in for forty years. He can rightly claim that he worked to reform welfare, balance the budget, cutting the capital gains tax, and has worked hard to strengthen conservative causes. He also has some good ideas on taxes. That is what he should run on.

On the flip side, he resigned from Congress when it was clear to him that his own party was not going to reelect him Speaker of the House. In 1997 there was an attempted “coup” where several Republican leaders told Gingrich to step down or be voted out. Newt stood firm and prevailed, but after the 1999 election it was clear that he would not retain the Speaker’s gavel and he resigned. At the time Gingrich said, “I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals.” On the one hand, Newt Gingrich through deft political skill got Bill Clinton to go along with welfare reform, balancing the budget and tax cuts which turned Clinton into a demigod among Democrats. On the other hand, his brinksmanship against Clinton, with the government shutdown and his handling of the impeachment, drove Republican approval ratings into the ground. Clinton was a masterful politician, so is Obama.

The Dark Side

In the nomination battle Gingrich has gone after Romney on some pretty bizarre points for a conservative. He has attacked him on being a free market capitalist. The super PAC that backs Gingrich put out a hit piece that was so full of errors, even Gingrich said it should be corrected or pulled. But is attacking free market capitalism conservative?

He attacked Romney for his investments and for having foreign bank accounts when he knew, or should have known that Romney’s investments were in a blind trust. For those who don’t know what a blind trust is, here’s a definition.

A financial arrangement in which a person, such as a high-ranking elected official, avoids possible conflict of interest by relegating his or her financial affairs to a fiduciary who has sole discretion as to their management. The person choosing the trust also gives up the right to information regarding the status of the assets.

The key point is that Romney “gives up the right to information regarding the status of the assets.” How can Newt attack him on his investments if Romney has no control or knowledge over them? So Newt either knew this and hoped no one would notice, or he didn’t bother to find out. Romney seems be more on top of his game, because in the debate when Newt attacked him on investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Romney shot right back that Newt had similar investments. Oops! Who would you rather have in the Oval Office, the guy who does his homework, or the guy who shoots from the hip?

The latest attack from Gingrich out today concerns Medicare fraud at a company called Damon Corporation. Damon was involved in Medicare fraud to the tune of about $25 million between 1988 and 1993. Bain Capital acquired Damon in 1989, while Romney was running Bain and he sat on the board of Damon. So according to the timeline Damon was already fraudulently filing Medicare claims before Bain bought them.

When tipped off by whistleblowers an investigation was started and Damon ultimately paid a fine of $116 million. Romney was never charged with any wrongdoing. So what is the point of Gingrich’s ad? Why are Democrats and unions running similar ads to Gingrich’s? This is not a new discovery. It was brought up when Romney ran for Governor in 2002 and a Google search finds a similar reference on a Huckabee blog in 2008. Romney said he learned of the issue and took steps to deal with it, prosecutors disagreed. More facts will certainly come out in the next few days, but it seems that Gingrich is writing Obama’s campaign playbook. It’s one thing for the Democrats to raise these petty issues, but it gives them a whiff of credibility if they can show clips of prominent Republicans mouthing the same charges.

The focus for both of them should be the guy in the White House. For Romney it’s about making the case that he is a reformed moderate and he has moved away from those positions and how he has to convince conservatives of that and of Republicans that he can beat Obama.

For Gingrich, he has to prove that he is not a flip-flopper between pro-free market or anti-free market; between government solutions or government being the problem; about creating an environment for success or demonizing success; about being pro-cap and trade or against the global warming hoax; about endorsing liberal Republican candidates because they can win or backing the most conservative, electable candidate.

I took up commenting on the political scene just before the last presidential election. I don’t want to try to survive another four years of Barack Obama. It will be no consolation to say,”Yeah, but do you remember how Gingrich ripped up John King of CNN?” Retiring Obama is job one.

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

With the economy in shambles and his campaign sound bites and early interviews as president coming back to haunt him, President Obama has ramped up the class warfare rhetoric. Let’s put the lie to these strategies.

The Payroll Tax Cut

The issue here is that President Obama wants to help the middle class and he claims the Republicans do not. The famous payroll tax cut puts about $8 a week in the pocket of individuals. But everyone who pays the payroll “tax” expects to get every dollar back, and then some, after they retire. So what is really going on here? The government forces you to participate in the Social Security system. It offers a lousy rate of return compared to alternatives and if you die before you start collecting, everything you paid into it is gone. Your heirs get nothing. If Obama believes in cutting back on payroll taxes, why not convert everything to private accounts and eliminate the tax altogether? Let people save for their own retirement. Let them put more away in the good times, and be able to scale back in the bad times.

The Republicans are not opposed to Obama’s plan, their only requirement is that we cut somewhere else in the budget to make up for the shortfall. This is nothing new. Former Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning raised this very point nearly two years ago, when the Democrats held both houses of Congress. In this enormous government can’t we find anything to cut? Find the cuts and the Republicans will sign on. If not, this is just another case of piling debt on our children and grandchildren, because they will have to make up the difference when we retire.

Taxing the Rich

This week we saw former senator and former New Jersey governor, Jon Corzine testify before Congress to say how sorry he was that he couldn’t find over a billion dollars of his customer’s money. But since he resigned from MF Global he doesn’t have access to any of the records to help in the search. Is the Justice Department beginning a criminal investigation?

Has anyone been charged with a crime for what happened in the fiscal meltdown of 2008? Has anyone collected more campaign cash from Wall Street than Obama? So is it unusual to conclude that President Obama, other than giving speeches, is perfectly fine with Wall Street ripping off the American people, as long as he can rip off the most successful people in America and claim he is looking out for the little guy. Let his pals get boatloads of government money to bail out their companies so they can keep getting richer and then say he wants to tax them more. Is it any surprise that a lot of rich Democrat supporters are coming out and saying they are all for paying more. Who wouldn’t?

President Obama says you can have billions of tax dollars and I just want a kickback in the form of higher taxes so that I can keep spending recklessly. However, ask anyone of these guys to write a check to the Treasury voluntarily, and they all balk. Why? Nobody gets any credit for donating their money to the government. They want the government to take it, not just from them but from every successful business person.

An Economic Winter

If President Obama gets another term, we may face an economic winter from which we may never recover. If the last three years were painful, the next four could be even worse.

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

Don’t pay attention to what you are hearing from Obama’s supporters. What they really want may be the opposite of what they are saying.

Let’s start with some basic math. Forty percent of Americans self-identify themselves as conservative, twenty percent as liberal, leaving forty percent in the middle. For a conservative to win, they have to hold their base (40%) and pick up twenty-five percent of those in the middle (25% of 40% equals 10%). That will give them fifty percent of the vote. Liberals, on the other hand, need to hold their base (20%) and pick up seventy-five percent of those in the middle. The last time the Republicans nominated a true conservative, Ronald Reagan it was two blow-out victories. Liberals will argue that the time before that Republicans picked Barry Goldwater and it was a blow-out the other way. This is true, but I believe there were some mitigating circumstances. First, if Goldwater was elected he would have been the third U.S. president in less than three years. America might not have been ready for that. Then there was the famous Johnson ad suggesting that Goldwater was ready to start a nuclear war.

What is different since then? America is ready for a new president, as they were when Jimmy Carter was in office. The is no threat of an all out nuclear war, although there are nuclear dangers. Last, I turn to a famous quote by Winston Churchill, “If you are twenty, and you are not a liberal you have no heart. If you are forty, and you are not a conservative, you have no brain.” We are a more conservative country now.

Mitt Romney

I believe Obama would prefer to run against Romney. Conservatives do not embrace Mitt Romney. So right out of the gate, he is at risk of losing part of his base. To succeed he has to pick up more of the middle. In an Obama vs. Romney match-up, don’t think the race card will not be played. It will be done in a subtle way. For example, the main stream media will probably run more stories about race in America, inequality, unemployment among minorities, suggesting it is racially motivated. If enough white guilt can be kept alive, Obama gets another shot. In a debate, Obama can go right after Romney and say I based ObamaCare on RomneyCare, and don’t deny it. Romney is immediately on the defensive. Obama will try to narrow the differences between him and Romney. As the governor of a blue state, Romney had to take some positions  to get elected. Obama will highlight those. If he can make the case of who do you want to vote for, the honest upfront liberal, or the pseudo liberal in Republican clothing, it will be another Obama-McCain match.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry has stronger conservative credentials, but has lost support over his immigration stance. That means an even tougher hill to climb, capturing more of the middle with stronger conservative credentials than Romney. The other negative is that Perry’s debate performances have been dismal. I don’t think Obama will have a hard time pushing Perry’s hot buttons in a debate and if he can bait him into an outburst, Perry’s done.

Herman Cain

I think Herman Cain is who Obama’s team fears the most. Conservatives are embracing Cain, so he seems to be in the best position so far to hold the base. The race card is out of play. Cain has been working on getting his positions down on policy, but when gets it, he knows his material. He does not need a teleprompter to deliver a speech. He has executive experience like Romney and Perry, but not in government. Which could be a bad thing, or it could be a good thing. The bad thing is that government experience helps in knowing what levers to pull. The good thing is that you don’t accept that’s the way it has always been, you ask why? If no one can give you a good reason, stop doing it. That could be huge with today’s bloated government. I have no concerns about a one-on-one debate between Obama and Cain.

The Abortion Issue

There is a big kerfuffle over what Cain said in response to a question on abortion. He said it was a personal decision. Here is the actual clip;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKYYDefMV4

Cain makes a couple of points and Piers Morgan tries to set the usual trap. Cain clearly and emphatically says he is pro-life. He also talks about the federal government’s role in abortion since, after all, he is running for a federal office. Abortion is not in the Constitution, either for or against. There is no Constitutional right to kill your child. Prior to the disastrous Roe v. Wade decision, it was left up to the states, which is where it should be. So Morgan goes for the trap, find a difficult personal dilemma, put your guest in that role and try to get them to contradict himself. Cain didn’t bite, but he fell short in his explanation. What he later explained he meant by a personal decision was that when faced with such a dilemma, you are going to follow your beliefs, talk about it with your family, maybe get spiritual counseling, but the last thing you will probably do is a Google search on what the law is. As Reid Buckley wrote about his family in An American Family: The Buckleys,  “The solidarity that our parents fostered in their children was remarkable. God, Family, Country…and in that order.” You do what you believe is right and sort out the consequences later.

The Media

The media is attacking Cain because he is the front-runner and they see him as a big threat to Obama, mainly because they will lose the race card, their favorite tool. After all what can Janeane Garafolo say now? What can they attack the Tea Party about? Obama will be forced to run on his record, his healthcare, his immigration policy.

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

Photo by Robert Scoble

And I’ll promise you this: I’ll work every day to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your life as I can. And at the same time, we’ll be freeing our families and small businesses and states from the burdensome and costly federal government so those groups can create, innovate and succeed. — From Rick Perry’s speech announcing his run for the presidency.

That is the pledge of a person who deeply respects the Constitution. It is the sentiment of a person who understands the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Rick Perry believes as the Founding Fathers did that the purpose of the national government is to do those few things that are best handled as a single nation, but then leave everything else to the states and the people. For the most part Washington should be inconsequential to our lives. Instead the leviathan has become anything but inconsequential  reaching deeper into our lives and with every law, every rule, every regulation, we lose more and more of our liberties.

Washington should be responsible, first and foremost, for our common defense and yet our borders are unprotected and those who come here illegally are shielded, and given benefits. Our president travels the world apologizing to those who would cause us harm, emboldening them. Of the enumerated powers granted to the federal government in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, seven of them pertain to national defense; more than any other category. But in our daily lives we should not have to think about national defense.

Other powers granted to Congress to act as one government concern naturalization, bankruptcies, the coining (not printing) of money, standards of weights and measures, to punish counterfeiting, establishment of the post office, patents and copyrights, and providing for a federal court system. Are any of these things something we should worry about each day as we get out of bed? The areas that are a concern are taxes and borrowing. However, if Washington stuck to what the Founders envisioned, taxes and debt would be an inconsequential concern.

But they are a concern because of the explosive growth of government brought to you by the Progressive movement. Many of their programs have failed to deliver on their promise and have saddled us and future generations with enormous debts. We are in the midst of an economic malaise because the tentacles of government have choked the life out of small and medium businesses, the very engines of job creation. Instead of Washington being inconsequential, there is hardly a day that goes by that a business owner does not worry about what regulation he is not following, what penalty is lurking around the corner, how quickly the crushing weight of our national government may come crashing down around him.

Private businesses don’t want to go public, a step they might need to grow, because of the burden of Sarbanes Oxley regulation. Banks have to find new ways to make money because Dodd-Frank has impacted their credit and debit card lines of business. Power companies and in turn manufacturing businesses that need affordable power are trying to calculate the cost of EPA regulations that will kill ten percent of our electric generating capacity. The National Labor Relations Board is dictating to businesses where they can or cannot open factories. Hardly inconsequential. Rick Perry is the first presidential politician who has spoken out strongly about where to draw the line between what the federal government can do and what they cannot.

Freedom

Rick Perry also understands the meaning of the First Amendment and the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Saying a prayer before a meeting or asking for a blessing to play your best football game without getting hurt is not the same as passing a law through Congress establishing the Church of the United States of America. I fully support the right of atheists to stick their fingers in their ears and holler “LA, LA, LA, LA, LA…” until the prayer is over. But I do not accept their marching into court to prohibit the free exercise of religion by anyone else. If you don’t understand the difference then you need to go back to grammar school and learn, once again, how a law is made. As Ann Coulter points out in her book Demonic, when the term “a wall of separation between church and state” was written by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, said Baptists were living in Connecticut where the state religion, you read that right, the state religion was Congregationalism. You see, the First Amendment restricts Congress, not the states.

Mitt Romney has taken a veiled swipe at Perry by talking about career politicians having gotten us into this mess and they don’t understand how to get us out of it. But Romney also had a spell in government as a one term governor of Massachusetts and while he turned that states finances around quickly he also left behind RomneyCare. He still seems to claim that that universal health care worked while ObamaCare doesn’t. It is not a strong argument. Romney has also changed his stripes on a number of issues and there is no reason to think that he won’t change them back. After all, he has not given a reason for why he changed in the first place, other than for political expediency.

Perry, on the other hand was elected governor in Texas three times. Job growth in Texas has been strong, he was able to put curbs on personal injury lawyers and their runaway lawsuits, which has resulted in malpractice insurance premiums on doctors dropping and the number of doctors applying for licenses in Texas to soar.

We can expect the main stream media to attack Perry mercilessly to try to reach a point where Barack Obama’s odious job as president might be palatable for another four years. But the media and Obama may just find out that Perry knows how to counter-punch, and Obama has a lot more vulnerabilities to protect than Perry. It is not a lock and there is a long way to go, but right now, Rick Perry is someone I can support.

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

Photo by cursedthing

We saw the beginnings with the Battle of Wisconsin. The one place were unions were growing robustly was in the public sector, surpassing the private sector for the first time in 2009. But then 2010 happened.

With states’ fiscal situations worsening and the runaway spending in Congress, voters across the country turned to Republicans, or should I say, the Tea Party. Promising to return to Constitutionally limited government and to go to Washington and state capitals, not to start a long new career but to fix the problem, the Tea Party backed candidates wasted no time getting to work.

From Chris Christie in New Jersey to Scott Walker in Wisconsin, they did not flinch from taking on the public sector unions. They knew that the current trajectory was unsustainable. In Wisconsin, the unions descended on Madison and threw everything they had into the fight. Democrat senators fled the state to prevent a quorum from voting on Governor Walkers measures, union thugs took over the state capital building, inflicting millions in damage to the people’s property, tried to defeat a conservative judge so that the law, if passed, could be struck down by the court, and if that didn’t work they tried to recall six Republican senators at the ballot box. All measures failed, Walker’s policies were implemented and job growth in Wisconsin started chugging along.

In other states like Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana similar setbacks for unions were proceeding more quietly. Meanwhile in the private sector, which has only about 7% union representation, the next major showdown is coming to a head.

The United Auto Workers’ contract with GM, Ford, and Chrysler expires on September 14th. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. As written in a previous post, the unions will be sitting on both sides of the bargaining table, as the Obama administration granted them large chunks of GM and Chrysler stock as part of the bailout package, while stiffing the bond holders, and now the unions as labor will be negotiating with the union as owners. And if they drive GM and Chrysler out of business again, who gets stuck with paying for the cleanup? That’s right, the American taxpayer. Why?

Because the Obama administration couldn’t keep their nose out of the automobile business, thinking if their didn’t bring their collective genius to the limited intellect possessed by the average business owners, how on earth could the auto companies ever function? They should have let the bankruptcy courts handle it, but they decided to drag the rest of us into the mess and now we own a stock that is worth about $31 per share that must climb to $52 for us to break even.

So will the unions commit suicide by making unreasonable demands, drive the auto companies out of business and at the same time kill their own investment in their stock? Or, will they quietly get rid of all of their stock before they trash the auto companies and then demand that the government step in again and bail them out?

Get ready to take it in the neck again, America. The most inexperienced president in US history with his most excellent panel of advisers who never worked in the private sector are about to tell the rest of us how it is supposed to all work. Brace for impact, my friends.

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

Texas governor Rick Perry announced on Saturday that he was running for president. In his teleprompter free speech he drew more distinctions between himself and Barack Obama.

His foreign policy seems to be based on alienating our traditional allies, while basing our domestic agenda on importing those failed Western European social values. We don’t need a president who apologizes for America. We need a president who protects and projects those values.

We all witnessed President Obama’s world apology tour shortly after taking office. The tour made those on the left feel all warm and fuzzy, while making those on the right hot under the collar. No longer would we have cowboy presidents throwing America’s weight around and causing the rest of the world to dislike and even attack us. He traveled to Cairo to bash the United States of America. Once you do that, you can’t walk it back. His replacement can, but he cannot. So what has his pro-world, anti-American view gotten him?

In a recent poll by Zogby, President Obama’s approval ratings in various countries around the Arab world are:

• Morocco 12%, down from 16%
• Egypt 5%, down from 9%
• Jordan 10%, down from 16%
• UAE 12%,down from 22%

But the real kicker is that President Obama’s approval ratings in the Arab world are now lower than President Bush’s ratings when he left office in 2008. In my book Liberty’s Lifeline, I write about the concept of “the strong horse,” President Obama is not a strong horse, President Bush was.

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

It cries out for an intervention. It is almost like a 1950s horror movie where the victim/villain begs for help to stop him before he runs amok and kills again. With a monstrous $14 trillion in debt and Democrats and Republicans about to do battle to increase that amount even more, newly elected Republican governor Rick Scott of Florida turns down white elephant spending on high speed rail, $2 billion worth. But instead of agreeing that Governor Scott’s decision was a prudent one in today’s times, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Frank Lautenberg waddle up to the trough, snorting in glee as they bury their faces in the slop and with the excess dripping off their chins, look into the camera and say, bad for Florida, goooooood for New York and New Jersey.

That’s just what we need when we are broke, more spending on projects that will be losing money for as long as they remain in existence. But who can turn down an opportunity to put their faces in front of the cameras and gleefully spend other people’s money? Some Republicans can, many Democrats cannot. Amtrak has lost billions of dollars since it came into existence. If the predictions are true, and they probably are not, the Acela high speed train time from New York to Washington will be reduced by 31 minutes from two hours and fifty-five minutes to two hours and twenty-three minutes. This is great for people who live in Manhattan and are traveling to a meeting in DC or vice versa, but anyone outside of Manhattan is probably going to go to one of the areas three airports and fly down.

The eagerness not to let money go unspent is more proof that the debt limit should not be raised without some concrete spending reductions as part of the deal. Senators like Schumer and Lautenberg simply cannot be trusted to do anyting other than spend you and your children into oblivion. They can’t help themselves. We’ll have to do it for them.

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

On a report that his challenger from last fall, Randy Altschuler, may be looking at a rematch, Tim Bishop’s team wasted no time throwing away all pretense of what they preach to get back in the gutter to revel in the politics of personal attack.

What Bishop Says

In a speech on the floor of the House during consideration of a vote to repeal ObamaCare, Congressman Bishop had this to say:

“Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time this Congress does what President Obama called on Americans to do last week: approach our debates and our differences with civility and honesty. We appear to be doing reasonably well with regard to civility, but less so with honesty.”

What Bishop Does

Jon Schneider, Tim Bishop’s spokesman responded to the report of a rematch with juvenile name calling:

“Randy Outsourcer couldn’t win in a once-in-a-generation year for Republicans,” writes Jon Schneider, the spokesman, using the campaign’s negative nickname for Altschuler. “While Tim Bishop will be able to run in 2012 on his record of fighting House Republican efforts to cut 1,000 jobs at Brookhaven National Lab, Randy will remain a fatally flawed outsourcer with a track record of getting rich by shipping American jobs overseas.”

“Randy Outsourcer”? That is hardly civil nor honest. It is the kind of discourse you would expect in a grammar school lunchroom or schoolyard.

The Facts

Congressman Bishop’s main argument for reelecting him was that his opponent created a successful company that provided services to businesses and some of those services were provided from offshore locations. We live in a global economy, but don’t let facts get in the way. Will Mr. Bishop tell Canon, USA, to close their North and South American headquarters in Melville, which employs 1,200 Long Islanders, because everyone knows outsourcing is bad? Let’s send those jobs back to Japan where they belong! How about SRI, a German manufacturing and engineering giant looking at Long Island; or WiseCon and Surikat, two Chilean companies? Let us not forget all the foreign based auto companies that employ tens of thousands of Americans here in America. Go home foreigners!

But don’t look too closely at Bishop’s record. After all, he voted for the bailout with taxpayer money of GM and Chrysler. After getting our money Chrysler announced the construction of a $570 million engine plant in Mexico. GM for their part quickly announced that they were increasing their offshore production by 53%. These are high paying manufacturing jobs. So what does Congressman Bishop have to say about his proclivity to outsource using not his own money and taking risks on his own, but with our money? I’m still waiting on a response to the letter I sent to him nearly two months ago asking that very question.

Perhaps it is just a lack of understanding of economics. A study by Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck school of business found that for every job outsourced overseas, two new jobs were create here. In a global economy it is foolhardy to try pick and choose among products based on their country of origin. In 1989, I bought a Ford Probe GT. It was built by Mazda, in Canada, but Ford owned 25% of Mazda. So what was it? Who cares? Pursuing this line of thinking will take us back to the days of Smoot-Hawley tariffs that plunged us deeper into the Great Depression, but that shouldn’t be surprising. The progressives, like Tim Bishop, are doing everything else to mimic the Great Depression.

Time for a New Strategy

It is interesting that Mr. Schneider picked Tim Bishop’s current efforts to save the jobs of 1000 workers at the Brookhaven National Labs. He doesn’t mention his votes for ObamaCare, the Stimulus, the auto bailouts. While saving 1000 jobs is admirable, what about the rest of the 700,000 citizens in his district. He just wants to hand them the bill. Since government has no money except that which it gets from its citizens through taxes, every big government program has an invoice that has to be paid. Take, for example, the stimulus. His constituents share of that bill is about $3 billion. He “successfully” brought home $679 million according to www.recovery.gov. That would be like getting a $679,000 house for “free” with a $3 million mortgage attached to it. Are there any takers out there for that deal?

Next time around Mr. Bishop may actually have to run on his record, but let’s leave the taunts and childish names behind and have an adult debate on the issues. The people of the district deserve as much.

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