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.

To many conservatives Mitch McConnell is a sellout. To me, he is a parliamentary master who held off a filibuster-proof majority by his fingernails until reinforcements arrived in the person of Scott Brown. He kicked off his address to the crowd with a little humor.

McConnell said that conservatives are more fun because we are always right. He then quoted what Democrats believe in by quoting from Saul Alinsky. It is all about division and smearing your opponents. But it is going to be a tough task with the president’s record.

The president believes in rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. Examples include: the Keystone pipeline, Solyndra, Goldman Sachs. He preaches diversity and then attacks Catholics.

This is about Obama’s policies. He asked for and received from his Democrat Congress, nearly $1 trillion so that unemployment could be kept under 8% and since then it hasn’t been below 8%. The average length of unemployment under Obama is forty weeks. The unemployment rate for African-Americans is over 14%, for Hispanics it’s 10.5%, for recent college graduates it’s over 10%. He promised to cut the deficit in half and the deficit has been above $1 trillion for the fourth straight year. He ignored his own deficit commission.

Obama believes in bigger and bigger government. Today, the earnings of federal workers is 60% higher than those in the private sector who pay those salaries. Layoffs of federal employees is running at less than 300 per year, meaning there is a higher probability of a federal worker dying of natural causes than getting laid off. Meanwhile Obama has added 150,000 to the federal payroll. We are supposed to believe that there is no possible way to shrink the federal payroll because of how important government is to life in America.

In just nine months we will have a chance to let Obama know what we think of his vision of big government.

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

At CPAC Marco Rubio showed some of the traits that make him a leading candidate for Vice President no matter who the Republican nominee happens to be. He mixed humor and personal narrative.

Rubio spoke with a degree of awe about arriving in the Senate. He wondered to himself, “How did I get here?” But after spending time in Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate he looked around and wondered, “How did they get here?”

Getting more serious he talked about President Obama’s State of the Union address and how the president scrupulously avoided talking about his record. Why? Well, Rubio explained, for two years President Obama had a Democrat controlled House and a Democrat controlled Senate, which until the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy and the election of Republican Scott Brown to replace him, they had a filibuster-proof majority. So for two years he got everything he wanted and since then, everything has gotten worse.

So what did Obama say in the State of the Union address? He chose to pit Americans against each other. He is trying to sell the American people on a bill of goods that says we are a zero-sum society. That is, for someone to get ahead, someone has to get pulled down. But that is not true, but Obama needs us to believe it so that he can get people to vote for him.

Rubio then related to his own family saying that he felt his father and grandfather were better men than he, but Rubio has advanced as far as he has because he was born in the greatest country in the world.

He then made a telling point. He said that Republicans try to attract followers by arguing who is more like Ronald Reagan. Do you ever hear Democrats argue about who is more like Jimmy Carter?

What is government’s role, he asked? We should have an understandable tax code so that individuals and businesses can make decisions for business reasons not tax reasons. We need regulatory reform. Yes, we all want clean air and clean water but with sanity. We don’t have an energy policy, we have energy politics. While in office for three years President Obama had no plan for Medicare, but as soon as Republican Paul Ryan came up with a plan, he attacked it.

Summing up, Rubio said that President Obama seems to be a really good father; he seems to be a really good husband; but he is a terrible president. I couldn’t agree more.

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

President Obama is trying to walk back from the war he started with Catholics by trying to cram down their throats his dictates that go against their core beliefs. His administration says they are open to work something out. I am glad to hear that. The fix is simple.

The potential fix will not only end the war on Catholics, it will go a long way towards resolving the out of control escalation in healthcare costs. Here it is:

1. Repeal ObamaCare
2. Eliminate the tax deduction for companies to provide health care for their employees
3. Provide a tax deduction for individuals to buy and own their own policies. This would make policies portable, that is, you won’t lose your health care if you lose your job. You can choose any plan that works for you and fits your lifestyle and beliefs.
4. Eliminate government mandates that insurance plans cover elective procedures such as birth control, cosmetic surgery, abortion, sterilization, erectile dysfunction drugs, etc. If an insurance company wants to provide these services to attract subscribers, fine. If an insurance company wants to offer a plan that doesn’t provide them to lower costs to people who will never use the services, that should also be fine.
5. Eliminate third-party payers. Until consumers are actually writing the check they won’t care what the cost is and they won’t shop around. Pay up front, get reimbursed later.
6. Encourage Health Care Savings Accounts. This money, set aside pre-tax, can be used to write the check mentioned in item 5. Coupled with a high deductible plan it can save money and make health insurance like other forms of insurance where it protects you from economic catastrophe, and doesn’t pay for every visit to the doctor for the sniffles.
7. Fight for tort reform. Get the lawyers out of the examining room. Doctors won’t order every test under the sun just to cover their backs.
8. Let’s get serious about stopping Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The amount of money that gets stolen from these plans each year is more than the entire budget of the Department of Justice. Beef up the FBI and stop the theft.
9. Pay attention to your own health. Get healthy. Stay healthy. You shouldn’t need Michelle Obama to tell you what foods to eat. Your health affects you and your loved ones. It is your responsibility.

Let’s get the government busybodies out of our lives. Their policies are causing the problem, they aren’t bright enough to fix it. Just get out-of-the-way. We will fix it ourselves.

The Obama argument is that there are employees at these religious affiliated organizations who are not, for example, Catholics and who want birth control. Forcing the Catholic church to provide birth control services goes against their core beliefs and is an attack on the church and the First Amendment. By switching from employer-provided health insurance to individually purchased health insurance, the problem is solved. The institution won’t be providing health care insurance for any services whether they approve of them or not, and the individual can purchase any plan they want regardless of the philosophy of their employer.

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

NOTE: I will be reporting from CPAC in Washington over the next few days.

While wiping his feet on the First Amendment by trying to force Catholic institutions to bend to his will and force them to provide services that go against their core beliefs, President Obama took time to lecture us on the Bible, and twist it to fit his reelection campaign. This outrage doesn’t get a pass.

The Bible Supports Obama’s Tax Plan

Obama tried to use the bible verse about from those who have been given much, much is expected, as a call from God to pay more taxes. To follow the Buffett Rule, if you will. Here is the verse from Luke 12:48:

When much has been given a man, much will be required of him.

But the context is in terms of doing the master’s will, not paying taxes. When it comes to paying taxes, Jesus was asked specifically about it. Here is that passage:

They sent some Pharisees and Herodians after him to catch him in his speech. The two groups came and said to him: “Teacher, we know you are a truthful man, unconcerned about anyone’s opinion. It is evident you do not act out of human respect but teach God’s way of life sincerely. Is it lawful to pay the tax to the emperor or not? Are we to pay or not to pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you trying to trip me up? Bring me a coin and let me see it.” When they brought one, he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose inscription is it?” “Caesar’s,” they told him. At that Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.” Their amazement at him knew no bounds – Mark 12:1-17

When asked specifically about taxes Jesus dismissed them, seeing the political trap. Jesus didn’t say let’s go to Rome and lobby for the least of our brothers. He didn’t say, you know, we need a new government program. He didn’t tell of the Good Samaritan, calling his Roman Senator to pass a new law to provide free health care for victims of highway robbery found laying in a ditch. He said we should take care of such things ourselves, not pass the buck to someone else. So instead of asking the rich like Romney to pay more in taxes, ask Joe Biden how much he gives of the public’s money, that he has been living off most of his adult life, to charity. See if Obama wants to brag about so-called Catholic Biden, giving an average of $1 a day to charity while pulling down a tidy six figure income. Since 2010, Romney gave $7 million to charity. What about the Obamas? Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent. As former Louisiana Senator Russell Long famously said, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.” It is hypocrisy at its boldest. But then this president has never been shy.

Wasted Gifts

What should be embarrassing to Obama is that the passage he used really refers to him. Who has been given more than Obama?  He grew up in Hawaii, he got an Ivy League education, he has drawn a salary from the public trough as an Illinois state senator, a U.S. Senator, and President of the United States. What has he done with these gifts? We know he has played golf over ninety times, he has taken long vacations, he plays basketball every week, and rather than meeting with members of Congress he stonewalled them and then blames them for the state we are in. Let’s take the passage from Luke that Obama quoted and back it up a few verses:

The Lord said, “Who in your opinion is that faithful, farsighted steward whom the master will set over his servants to dispense their ration of grain in season? That servant is fortunate whom his master finds busy when he returns.”

It is not the rich who according to Obama do not pay enough taxes that the Bible refers to, but him, who was given bountiful gifts from God but squandered them. What would Jesus say to Illinois Senator Obama who opposed legislation that if a woman went to a hospital to have an abortion and if the child was actually born alive, the surviving child should be given all necessary medical care? Is that caring for the least of his brothers? Is that emulating the Good Samaritan? Is there no level to which Obama will not stoop to get himself reelected? America has had enough of this president. America deserves better.

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

President Obama, always on the campaign trail, is now on the road trying to explain why his class warfare strategy is not class warfare. In his State of the Union address, he once again invoked the “Buffett Rule”, which is little more than a fig leaf to allow Obama to raise taxes. But what about some other “Buffett Rules”?

Spending

What is the Buffett Rule on spending? Does Warren Buffett agree with President Obama that we should spend 150% of what we take in? Did Warren Buffett become one of the richest men on the planet by spending 150% of what he takes in and borrowing the shortfall? I think Buffett’s counsel would be to live within our means; don’t spend more than you take in, but I didn’t hear President Obama invoke the “Oracle of Omaha” when he submitted his budget to the Senate that was voted down 97-0. I didn’t hear Obama mention spending at all other than to say some nonsense about cutting spending by $2 trillion over ten years. At the rate we are going that level of spending “cuts” will mean we are $8 trillion deeper in debt ten years from now rather than $10 trillion. We need to cut $1 trillion in spending next year. So let’s hear what Buffett has to tell Obama about spending.

Investing

Warren Buffett is regarded as a masterful investor. What’s the Buffett Rule on investing? President Obama took credit for saving the auto industry. Really? If that is his idea of a good investment why does the price of GM stock have to rise to $52 before the American people’s investment to break even? GM stock is currently trading around $25. How many people are expecting GM’s stock to double in the near future? Or is it more likely that union contracts will once again, drag GM beneath the waves? My research indicates that Warren Buffett does not hold any GM stock. I wonder why? I do know that Warren Buffett made a very tidy profit by investing in Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile American taxpayers, you know, the ones who are under taxed, bailed out that company and many others. How much did Buffett invest in Solyndra? How much money is Warren Buffett investing in high-speed rail in California? Why should the American people believe that someone who has never held a job in private industry (Obama) is suddenly the smartest venture capitalist in America? How big of a portfolio do the real venture capital firms put in the hands of new hire fresh out of college? But this president takes billions of our tax dollars and squanders them on his pet projects and then lectures us how we need to invest in our future when they go belly up. When is Warren Buffett going to tell him to stop?

The Buffett Rule on Taxes

At the State of the Union address we were introduced to the famous secretary of Warren Buffett. She’s the poor woman who pays a higher tax rate than Mr. Buffett on her income. It is estimated that the poor dear makes between $200,000 and $500,000, otherwise she would not be paying double the tax rate of Buffett. That could put her solidly in the top 1% of earners in the country, if she is at the high-end of that range (the top 1% is earnings above $343,000). So Barack Obama actually lamenting that the top 1% is over taxed? Of course not. It is not about who is paying too much, it is about who is not paying enough.

The problem is spending, plain and simple. There are not enough rich people in America, even if taxed at 100% to close the budget gap. What Obama is doing is class warfare. Let’s get people angry enough at the wealthy so that Obama can then link the wealthy to the Republicans and sneak back into a second term.

If Obama thinks he is playing by the rules, Buffett’s rules, then he should at least play by all of them.

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

They are still using the same tired rhetoric, about inheriting the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. The truth is that the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression is the Obama administration. Barack Obama stands with Herbert Hoover as the only presidents with negative job growth during their administrations. As if stuck in the 1930s, Obama dusted off FDR’s playbook, since he had no personal executive experience to draw on, and that playbook didn’t work then and it’s not working now.

So along comes an opportunity for a major “shovel ready” project, backed by unions, that can create thousands of jobs, move us closer to energy independence, help us depend less on getting oil from Middle East despots, and what does Obama do? He kills it. What he wanted to do, was defer a decision on this until after the election, eleven months away. He wanted to do what he does best, vote “present”.

Congress, particularly the Republicans who seem to be the only adults working on Capital Hill, included a provision in the payroll tax holiday extension, to make a decision within sixty days. People are hurting, gas prices are creeping up, unemployment benefits have been extended to extraordinary lengths, and this incompetent president says that sixty days was not enough time to review the proposal so he had to, sadly, reject it. Perhaps if he hadn’t played all those rounds of golf, perhaps if he had studied it a little closer instead of spending all that time in Hawaii, perhaps if he put this job creating proposal on the top of the EPA’s to-do list instead of their focusing on the job killing regulations to limit power plant emissions, he would have gotten his job done. But no, sorry, I don’t have my homework, teacher, I dunno, I forgot, my dog…. Enough!

Let China make an oil deal with Canada. We can always buy the oil back from them at a premium. Why not, they probably don’t have enough of our dollars as it is now. Why not give them more? This president is making decisions that will cobble together a coalition of supporters to get him reelected. This is about appeasing the environmental movement so that they won’t abandon him.

At an event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Dec. 31, Rick Santorum mocked the idea that the pipeline posed the threat of environmental damage, noting that there were already many other pipelines in the area it would go through. “This is just, again, pandering to radical environmentalists who don’t want energy production, who don’t want us to burn more carbon,” Mr. Santorum said.

The State Department, which has authority over this since it goes between us and Canada, “said there was not enough time to draw a new route for the pipeline and assess the environmental harm.” Bullfeathers. It’s a 1700 mile pipeline. The area in question is a fraction of that length. Agree to the pipeline, get started hiring people and building it in areas not in dispute, and work to resolve the section in question. But unless it is killed, Obama risks losing the green vote and what is more important, America or Obama’s reelection?

I’d like to ask my Congressman, Tim Bishop, to weigh in. What do you have to say about this, Tim? Or are you too busy manufacturing your own campaign issue around outsourced phone center jobs. If jobs are really important to you, you would stand up and challenge Obama for killing an opportunity for good, high paying, union jobs in America. On the other hand you can stay silent, not challenge President Obama’s error and risk his ire and possibly lose campaign funds and support. So what do you stand for, Tim? Putting America first or putting your interests right up there with President Obama’s and above America’s.

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

As if sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi talking about global warming wasn’t enough, Newt Gingrich seems to have taken a seat next to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to attack free market capitalism.

The positive, knowledgeable “Uncle Newt” has left the stage to be replaced by his alter ego, “Nasty Newt.” These two personalities seem to be behind the lack of support for his candidacy from those who have worked with him in the past.

Gingrich is now going after Romney on his track record at Bain Capital and like the Obama administration that likes to pick winners and losers, Gingrich has decided what it good capitalism and what is bad capitalism.

“If somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company and then leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that’s not traditional capitalism,” Mr. Gingrich said on NBC’s “Today” show.

I think what Gingrich is describing is robbery, not capitalism and he should call the police. How does someone come in and take all the money? You are either brought in by management or you buy your way in. In the former case you are a hired hand and you get paid a fee for your services, you don’t dip that hand into the till. If you buy your way in, you own the company and that includes the cash.

When you buy your way in you are putting your own capital at risk which includes losing it. If a company is in a turnaround situation it means there is a problem. If the problem isn’t fixed the company will probably go under and all jobs will be lost. In conducting a turnaround, yes some jobs are eliminated; uncompetitive plants are shut down; the resources consumed by those inefficient plants are put to better use elsewhere. That is capitalism. On balance it creates more jobs than it eliminates in the overall economy, because capital is free to move to where it is most productive. If Gingrich doesn’t like that, well, neither does Obama and we’re trying to get rid of Obama, not just change the name on the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I Like to Fire People

That quote from Romney was taking out of context. The context being ObamaCare. Romney was saying that if our only provider of health services is ObamaCare, we have no choice and health care will not improve. He said if his health care provider was giving him lousy service he would fire them. He likes to fire people who give him lousy service. This is not about firing your own employees. That is always a difficult an unpleasant task. It is no wonder that Debbie Wasserman Schultz took that snippet and is making an ad to imply that Romney likes firing his employees. For proof of Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s intellectual dishonesty here in an appearance with Chris Wallace she tries to say that Romney is a bad guy because people lost their jobs at companies he invested in, but President Obama is not a bad guy for taking taxpayer dollars and investing in Solyndra which went bankrupt costing 1,000 jobs. At least Romney was not using our money for his investments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPAjxij9MZM

So the Democrats are attacking Romney because some people lost jobs in turnaround situations, and Gingrich, Huntsman, and Perry are doing the same. Ron Paul is holding his fire.

The term “firing” is completely different if shown in the full context. Many management books today say you should fire some customers. By that they mean that if a customer takes up more time and resources than they generate in revenue for you, let them go be someone else’s customer. Is that “firing” in the same sense of letting one of your employee’s go? No. Is firing the guy who cuts your lawn because he keeps running over your rose bushes  the same? No.

I am undecided on who I support for president. I have, at various times, considered Perry, Cain, Gingrich and Santorum. But if this line of attack is perceived as a winner by any Republican or conservative, it is more likely to push people into backing Romney. Capitalism is not always pretty, but if Americans want a shot at a better future, capitalism is the system that gives them the best long-term chance at it.

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

Rick Santorum timed the wave perfectly and rode it to within eight votes of Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Whether it was timing or real support is not certain, but where does he go from here, and I don’t mean geographically?

In the 1964 Olympic 10,000 meter race there was an American named Billy Mills. Back in those days they ran on a cinder track and after a while the track would get chewed up and you would lose a little push on each step, sort of like how it feels running on the soft sand of the beach compared to the packed, wet sand down by the water. Toward the end of the race there was some jostling and Mills got bumped out a couple of lanes, but he found firmer footing there and started gaining ground, ultimately taking the gold medal. Rick Santorum in Iowa reminds me a bit of Mills. He chose to run on social issues, while the other candidate focused on economic issues. This gave Santorum some traction with those voters who felt strongly on those issues. But to quote former Clinton adviser James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Santorum’s strategy gained for him one of the coveted “tickets out of Iowa.” Well done. But that strategy won’t carry him very far in the nominating process, and definitely not in the general election. He needs to shift his focus to the economy and come up with something bold, if he hopes to beat Romney. If you go to Santorum’s web site and dig a little he has some sensible economic proposals, but they are too timid. If he want’s to beat Romney he needs to put more daylight between him and his opponent’s plans.

For example, he calls for cutting $5 trillion over five years. Mathematically that may not be very different from Ron Paul’s cutting $1 trillion in one year, but if so, just say it. Who knows if Santorum will be around in five years if he was to get elected and in Washington all spending cuts seem to come at the back-end of any time period, while tax increases always happen now. It didn’t take Obama five years to find a way to add more to the national debt than every president since Washington, combined, so why should it take five or ten years to unwind that disaster?

On taxes, he needs to be bold. If you read the tax policies on his website, it is a tweak here and a tweak there. Cain, Gingrich, and Perry all had bold plans. Scrap the IRS and you will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy, without raising a nickel in taxes. It may increase unemployment among tax preparers, accountants and lawyers, but that will be more than offset by businesses adding jobs with resulting from their new-found windfall. Eliminate the payroll tax. Congress has revealed what a fraud that is by creating a payroll tax holiday and then saying the Social Security Trust Fund will not face any shortfall. Why have multiple tax structures and mechanisms and associated bureaucracy if Treasury will just shuffle the money around as they see fit anyway? Why not pick up Cain’s 9-9-9 plan? Cain is out of the race, but Santorum would almost immediately pick up Cain’s support and many of his followers. Hell, for that matter, he should be even bolder and ask Cain to be his running mate if nominated.

Without a stark choice, Romney will probably end up the nominee. If Romney doesn’t start convincing conservatives that he has mended his ways, they may choose to stay home, but if they do, I don’t want to hear any griping about Obama if he gets reelected. If Santorum is bold, it will force Romney to be a little bolder to protect his right flank. If nothing else, we need whoever is the nominee to be battle hardened for the general election. This one won’t be pretty.

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

Congressman Tim Bishop held an online town hall meeting to hear questions from constituents and give his answers. Perhaps he thought this a safer forum than a live town hall meeting. Last year’s meeting in Setauket did not go well and was soon viral on You Tube.

I will comment on three of the topics from that meeting: the payroll tax cut, regulations, and manufacturing jobs.

Payroll Tax Cut

Congressman Bishop came out heavily pitching the extension of the payroll tax cut, from the normal level of 6.2% to the current level of 4.2% and even to go lower to 3.1%, for at least another year. He made the startling claim, quoting some experts that if the payroll tax cut wasn’t retained it would cost 400,000 jobs. It must be from the loss of all that spending power generated from a 2% cut in the payroll tax. I am sure pizza parlors will be devastated, as the weekly savings to a typical family will be about the cost of a pizza pie. The other statistic was that if the payroll tax was cut further to 3.1%, 750,000 new jobs would be created. Interesting. Raise the tax by 2% and 400,000 jobs would be lost, cut it by an additional 1.1% and nearly twice as many jobs would be created. Like prior predictions of how government intervention would affect jobs, we are supposed to believe that employers will start hiring if the cost of hiring a new employee  is reduced by 3.1% for just one year, before going back up. Only those people who never worked in private industry, like Bishop, Schumer, Obama, would believe that.

Bishop insisted that these cuts would have no impact to the Social Security Trust Fund. Considering that there is nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund other than a bunch of IOUs from Uncle Sam’s other pocket, he may be correct on that front, but he said that the cut would be paid for cutting spending elsewhere. Not surprisingly, he didn’t say where exactly “elsewhere” was.

Throughout the call, Bishop’s press secretary was conducting a dopey poll. To paraphrase, “If you are in favor of the payroll tax cut that will put $1,500 in your pocket, press 1, if not, press 2.” Who wouldn’t press 1? What would the results be if he asked, “If you are in favor of borrowing $600 from China that your children and grandchildren will have to pay back, so that we can give you $1,500 today, press 1, if you think more borrowing and debt is a bad idea, press 2,” I think the poll would turn out quite differently.

Regulations

A caller who owned a small construction company asked about all the regulations and paperwork that businesses had to deal with. Bishop said that President Obama had things well under control forming a commission to “zero base” all regulations and hundreds and hundreds of regulations have been taken off the books. In the Wall Street Journal today there is an editorial titled, “Regulation for Dummies,” that paints a very different picture.

To answer the most basic question—has regulation increased?—we’ll focus on what the government defines as “economically significant” regulations. Those are rules that impose more than $100 million in annual costs on the economy, though there are hundreds if not thousands of new rules every year that fall well short of that.

According to an analysis of the Federal Register by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the Cabinet departments and agencies finalized 84 such regulations annually on average in President Obama’s first two years. The annual average under President Bush was 62 and under President Clinton 56

As the graph clearly shows the number of “economically significant” regulations under Obama has skyrocketed. This is what is causing the uncertainty that is hindering employment. How can this be curtailed? A bill just passed in the House of Representatives called the “Regulation from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS)”. This would require any of these economically significant regulations to be sent to Congress for approval before becoming being enacted. What the process is today is that Congress can vote against regulations, but that can be vetoed by the President. If the regulations are coming from the president, wouldn’t you expect him to veto it? This turns it around so that the Congress has to approve the regulations, if they don’t, there is nothing for the president to veto. The Democrats say this is a Congressional encroachment of the Executive.

“The REINS Act would undermine our ability to protect children from harmful toys, prevent asthma and lung ailments resulting from pollution, and ensure that our small businesses can compete fairly in the marketplace,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer added. “At the same time, it would force Congress to play a larger role in the regulatory process, leading to even more gridlock in Washington.”

Surely he forgot to mention killing bunnies in there somewhere. But let’s look at the process: Congress passes a law; departments in the Executive branch write regulations to carry out the law Congress passed. So why is it an outrage that Congress reviews economically significant regulations to see if the Executive is actually implementing what they passed? Tim Bishop voted against the REINS Act. This is another case of Democrats focusing on piddling regulations while saying “hands off” the really impactful ones.

Manufacturing Jobs

Another caller asked the Congressman about manufacturing jobs. He patted himself on the back for helping to bail out the auto industry. He said if he and others hadn’t done that that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost. I addressed the implausibility of this in an earlier post. In that post I argued that if GM and Chrysler went bankrupt and even if they didn’t come out of it leaner and meaner, people still needed transportation. They would buy Fords, Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, etc., that are currently built here in the U.S. Those car companies would need to increase their purchases from suppliers and those who formerly supplied GM and Chrysler would be well situated to supply the remaining car companies. The argument that we don’t manufacture here anymore is a myth. On a dollar volume basis, we still manufacture more than any country on earth. A few miles from where I am writing this, in Georgetown, Kentucky, is the largest Toyota factory outside of Japan. Due to a free trade agreement with South Korea that the Democrats blocked for years, that Toyota plant will begin exporting about 6,000 Camrys a year from Kentucky to South Korea.

One of the reasons we don’t build more here is our lousy tax code. Fix it. A reason there is not more manufacturing in Mr. Bishop’s district on Long Island is high electric rates. Factories run on power and power on Long Island is expensive. One of the reasons for that is that government approved the building of a $5 billion nuclear power plant on Long Island, and then when it was ready to throw the switch, they changed direction and said it couldn’t open. So Long Island rate payers had to find and buy electric from other sources and pay for the mothballed plant that produced nothing. Once again, the government helping us out.

But Tim Bishop has a solution. He wrote a bill to ban offshore call centers from federal contracts or loan guarantees for five-year. Nothing like micromanaging a corner of the economy while the rest of it burns. Why not look to the root cause? Tax structure, too much regulations, ObamaCare, out of control government spending. If Congress would fix those problems maybe companies wouldn’t look offshore to set up call centers.

The Budget

Tim Bishop also touched on the deficit and debt. He said we need to cut spending, but he never said what he would cut; he said we needed to control entitlement spending, but he didn’t say how he would do that; and he said we needed to add revenue, but he knew exactly how to do that, tax the rich. Here’s how I see it. The government got us into this mess by spending too much money, they should get us out of it by spending less money. Asking for any more tax revenue is just shirking their responsibility for which they are paid handsomely, and passing the problem on to us. Who couldn’t solve the problem with enough money?

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