Works and Days » Stay Worried
Economics 101
What worries me about President Obama is really one general issue: his very concrete enjoyment of the good life as evidenced by his golf outings, Martha’s Vineyard vacations, and imperial entourages that accompany him abroad, and yet his obvious distrust of the private sector and the success of the wealthy. Yet my discomfort here is not even one that arises from an obvious hypocrisy of, say, a Michelle on the 2008 campaign trail lecturing the nation about its meanness or her own previous lack of pride in her country, juxtaposed with her taste for the publicly provided rarefied enjoyments of a Costa del Sol hideaway at a time of recession.
No, my worries run deeper. Apparently, the president is unaware that after some 2,500 years of both experience with and abstract thought about Western national economies, we know that a free, private sector increases the general wealth of a nation, while a statist redistributive state results in a general impoverishment of the population. At the root of that truth is simple human nature — that people wish to further their own interest more fervently than the more abstract public good (e.g., why the renter does not wash the rental car, or why the public restroom is treated differently from its counterpart at home), and can be encouraged to invent, create, and discover which in turn helps the less fortunate, lucky, healthy, or talented.
Texas or California?
We all accept, of course, that the question is not one of a laissez-faire, unchecked robber baron arena, versus a Marxist-Leninist closed economy, but rather in a modern Western liberal state the finer line between a Greece and a Switzerland, or a California and a Texas.
In the former examples, the desire to achieve an equality of result through high taxes, generous public employment, and lavish entitlements destroys incentive in two directions — creating dependency on the part of the more numerous recipients of government largess, and despair among the smaller but more productive sector that sees the fruits of its labor redistributed to others — with all the obligatory state rhetoric about greed and social justice that legitimizes such transfers.
In the latter examples, an equality of opportunity allows citizens to create wealth and capital on the assurances that the incentives for personal gain and retention of profits will result in greater riches for all.
Neither Baron nor Insect
We in America more or less understood that dichotomy, and so neither idolized a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett with titles like count, lord, or baron, nor demonized them with revolutionary spite (i.e., “insect,” “enemy of the people,” or even “greedy” and “selfish”). Instead, we assumed that Buffett had enriched his investors and more or less could not possibly use all the vast billions he accumulated (he, in fact, lived rather modestly and much of his treasure will probably end up in the Gates Foundation). One way or another, it was worth having Microsoft Word with the expectation that the zillionaire Bill Gates’ shower is still no hotter than ours, and his private jet goes not much faster than our own cut-rate Southwest Airlines flights. All that seems simple enough — until now.
So, again, what troubles me is that the president seems unaware of this old divide — that what allowed the pre-presidential Obamas, respectively, to make quite a lot of money as a legislator, author, professor, lawyer, or hospital representative was a vibrant private sector that paid taxes on profits that fueled public spending and employment or made possible an affluent literary and legal world. All that was contingent upon the assurance that an individual would have a good chance of making a profit and keeping it in exchange for incurring the risk of hiring employees and buying new equipment.
Grows on Trees?
Instead, Obama seems to think that making money is a casual enterprise, not nearly so difficult as community organizing, and without the intellectual rigor of academia — as if profits leap out of the head of Zeus. I say that not casually or slanderously, but based on the profile of his cabinet appointments, his and his wife’s various speeches relating Barack Obama’s own decision to shun the supposed easy money of corporate America for more noble community service in Chicago, and a series of troubling ad hoc, off-the-cuff revealing statements like the following:
As a state legislator Barack Obama lamented the civil rights movement’s reliance on the court system to ensure equality-of-result social justice rather than working through legislatures, which were the “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.” To Joe Wurzelbacher, he breezily scoffed that “my attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” When Charlie Gibson pressed presidential candidate Obama on his desire to hike capital gains taxes when historically such policies have decreased aggregate federal revenue, a startled Obama insisted that the punitive notion, not the money, was the real issue: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” And as President Obama, again in an off-handed matter, he suggested that the state might have an interest on what individuals make: “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
In other words, for most of his life Barack Obama has done quite well without understanding how and why American capital is created, and has enjoyed the lifestyle of the elite in the concrete as much as in the abstract he has questioned its foundations. Does he finally see that the threat of borrowing huge amounts to grow government to redistribute income through higher taxes risks greater impoverishment for all of us, despite the perceived “fairness”? That suspicion alone explains why those with trillions of dollars are sitting on the sidelines despite low interest, low inflation, and a rebounding global economy. In short, millions of profit-makers believe not only will it be harder to make a profit, but far less of it will remain their own— and all the while the president will deprecate the efforts of those who simply wish do well for themselves. With proverbial friends like those, who needs enemies?
Until that mindset changes and can be seen by the public to change, the recession will not so easily end.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/stay-worried/
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
We’re Listening to the People, Day II: Mitch McConnell’s Confidence in Principled Opposition
We’re Listening to the People, Day II: Mitch McConnell’s Confidence in Principled Opposition - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online
Excerpts from Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Heritage Foundation later this morning (as released by his office):
Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.
On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can’t expect the president to sign it. So we’ll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions.”
*******
The White House has a choice: they can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected… When the administration agrees with the American people, we will agree with the administration. When it disagrees with the American people, we won’t. This has been our posture from the beginning of this administration. And we intend to stick with it. If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.
Republicans have a plan for following through on the wishes of the American people. It starts with gratitude and a certain humility for the task we’ve been handed. It means sticking ever more closely to the conservative principles that got us here. It means learning the lessons of history. And, above all, it means listening to the people who sent us here.
*******
While the media was still groping to define the 2008 election, Republicans were taking stock. We knew the principles that had made our party great were the same principles that had made America great, and that if we were going to solve the problems of the day, we would have to embrace and explain those principles, not discard or conceal them. So we renewed our commitment to our core principles — win, lose, or draw.
And that’s why this, in my view, was the single most important thing Republicans in Congress did to prepare the ground for Tuesday’s election. By sticking together in principled opposition to policies we viewed as harmful, we made it perfectly clear to the American people where we stood. And we gave voters a real choice on Election Day.
*******
For the past two years, Democrat lawmakers chose to ignore the American people, so on Tuesday the American people chose new lawmakers. They held their elected representatives to account. And they demonstrated to all of us that Constitutional conservatism is alive and well. This isn’t a reason for Republicans to gloat; rather, it’s a time for both parties to realize who’s really in charge — the people
*******
Oversight will play a crucial role in Republican efforts going forward… Through oversight we’ll also keep a spotlight on the various agencies the administration will now use to advance through regulation what it can’t through legislation.
We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending. We will fight to make sure that any spending bill that reaches the Senate floor is amendable, so members can vote for the spending cuts Americans are asking for. We will push to bring up and vote for House passed spending rescission bills.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252494/were-listening-people-day-ii-mitch-mcconnells-confidence-principled-opposition-kathryn
Excerpts from Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Heritage Foundation later this morning (as released by his office):
Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.
On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can’t expect the president to sign it. So we’ll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions.”
*******
The White House has a choice: they can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected… When the administration agrees with the American people, we will agree with the administration. When it disagrees with the American people, we won’t. This has been our posture from the beginning of this administration. And we intend to stick with it. If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.
Republicans have a plan for following through on the wishes of the American people. It starts with gratitude and a certain humility for the task we’ve been handed. It means sticking ever more closely to the conservative principles that got us here. It means learning the lessons of history. And, above all, it means listening to the people who sent us here.
*******
While the media was still groping to define the 2008 election, Republicans were taking stock. We knew the principles that had made our party great were the same principles that had made America great, and that if we were going to solve the problems of the day, we would have to embrace and explain those principles, not discard or conceal them. So we renewed our commitment to our core principles — win, lose, or draw.
And that’s why this, in my view, was the single most important thing Republicans in Congress did to prepare the ground for Tuesday’s election. By sticking together in principled opposition to policies we viewed as harmful, we made it perfectly clear to the American people where we stood. And we gave voters a real choice on Election Day.
*******
For the past two years, Democrat lawmakers chose to ignore the American people, so on Tuesday the American people chose new lawmakers. They held their elected representatives to account. And they demonstrated to all of us that Constitutional conservatism is alive and well. This isn’t a reason for Republicans to gloat; rather, it’s a time for both parties to realize who’s really in charge — the people
*******
Oversight will play a crucial role in Republican efforts going forward… Through oversight we’ll also keep a spotlight on the various agencies the administration will now use to advance through regulation what it can’t through legislation.
We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending. We will fight to make sure that any spending bill that reaches the Senate floor is amendable, so members can vote for the spending cuts Americans are asking for. We will push to bring up and vote for House passed spending rescission bills.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252494/were-listening-people-day-ii-mitch-mcconnells-confidence-principled-opposition-kathryn
The true story behind the unemployment numbers
November 9, 2010 via Laura Ingraham
The true story behind the unemployment numbers
The Heritage Foundation reports:
Upside surprise: Employers add 151,000 jobs in October , the USA Today reported about the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. And it is true: the establishment survey of U.S. businesses did report that 151,000 jobs were created last month. But as The Heritage Foundation's James Sherk and Rea Hederman note there was also some troubling news in Friday's report:
Taken in isolation, the October household survey paints a worrying picture of the U.S. labor market. It reports that employment fell by a net 330,000 jobs and that the number of unemployed workers grew by 76,000 in October. The median length of time workers stay unemployed rose from 20.4 weeks to 21.2 weeks.
The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.6 percent only because a net 462,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force and thus do not count as unemployed. The labor force participation rate fell by 0.2 points to 64.5 percent. That is the lowest rate since November 1984, a time in which fewer women participated in the labor force. Over one in four adult men (26.2 percent) are neither working nor looking for work-the highest rate of labor force non-participation recorded in the entire postwar era.
http://www.lauraingraham.com/blog?categoryID=1#a=1&year=2010&month=10&action=blogArchive&destinationpage=%2Fpg%2Fjsp%2Fcommunity%2Fblog%2Fbloginclude.jsp&categoryID=1
The true story behind the unemployment numbers
The Heritage Foundation reports:
Upside surprise: Employers add 151,000 jobs in October , the USA Today reported about the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. And it is true: the establishment survey of U.S. businesses did report that 151,000 jobs were created last month. But as The Heritage Foundation's James Sherk and Rea Hederman note there was also some troubling news in Friday's report:
Taken in isolation, the October household survey paints a worrying picture of the U.S. labor market. It reports that employment fell by a net 330,000 jobs and that the number of unemployed workers grew by 76,000 in October. The median length of time workers stay unemployed rose from 20.4 weeks to 21.2 weeks.
The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.6 percent only because a net 462,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force and thus do not count as unemployed. The labor force participation rate fell by 0.2 points to 64.5 percent. That is the lowest rate since November 1984, a time in which fewer women participated in the labor force. Over one in four adult men (26.2 percent) are neither working nor looking for work-the highest rate of labor force non-participation recorded in the entire postwar era.
http://www.lauraingraham.com/blog?categoryID=1#a=1&year=2010&month=10&action=blogArchive&destinationpage=%2Fpg%2Fjsp%2Fcommunity%2Fblog%2Fbloginclude.jsp&categoryID=1
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The New Victory Caucus in Congress
The New Victory Caucus in Congress - By Pete Hegseth - The Corner - National Review Online
By Pete Hegseth
Posted on November 04, 2010 7:15 AM On Tuesday, six Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were elected to Congress (and possibly seven, if Jesse Kelly pulls out his race in Arizona’s 8th district). All six (seven) of them support victory on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hawkish national-security posture overall. The impressive list of warriors can be found at the bottom of this post, and also at Vets for Freedom’s website.
These warriors — and the two pro-victory Iraq veterans already in Congress (Duncan Hunter and Mike Coffman) — constitute a formidable new Victory caucus in the House. All eight (or nine) Iraq and Afghanistan veterans — an infantry-squad-sized element of Republicans — speak with special authority on very important issues facing the next Congress, especially winning the war in Afghanistan, winning the peace in Iraq, preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, and ensuring that the Pentagon has adequate resources to project American power and preserve American interests around the world.
But that’s not the only good news. Tuesday also brought losses for every single anti-war Iraq and Afghanistan veteran running for Congress — including the only two anti-war Iraq war incumbents in Congress (Patrick “the surge can’t work” Murphy in PA-8 and John Boccieri in OH-16). The group most undermined by this trouncing is VoteVets, the blatantly partisan anti-war “veterans” group that came up empty on Election Night (and has already removed all the candidates from its website).
All of this taken together means that every single Iraq and Afghanistan veteran in Congress today is pro-victory. The true voice of our warrior generation will soon be heard on Capitol Hill, and the anti-war movement no longer has a veteran to prop up in defense of its reckless policies. This is all great news for America, and motivation for her warriors. The list of new Iraq/Afghanistan vets in Congress is:
– Lt. Col. Allen West (FL-22) – Iraq, Afghanistan, & Gulf wars
– Lt. Col. Steve Stivers (OH-15) — Iraq war
– Capt. Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) — Iraq & Afghanistan wars
– Col. Joe Heck (NV-3) — Iraq war
– Maj. Tim Griffin (AR-2) — Iraq war
– Col. Chris Gibson (NY-20) — Iraq war (4 tours)
– Pete Hegseth is executive director of Vets for Freedom.
By Pete Hegseth
Posted on November 04, 2010 7:15 AM On Tuesday, six Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were elected to Congress (and possibly seven, if Jesse Kelly pulls out his race in Arizona’s 8th district). All six (seven) of them support victory on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hawkish national-security posture overall. The impressive list of warriors can be found at the bottom of this post, and also at Vets for Freedom’s website.
These warriors — and the two pro-victory Iraq veterans already in Congress (Duncan Hunter and Mike Coffman) — constitute a formidable new Victory caucus in the House. All eight (or nine) Iraq and Afghanistan veterans — an infantry-squad-sized element of Republicans — speak with special authority on very important issues facing the next Congress, especially winning the war in Afghanistan, winning the peace in Iraq, preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, and ensuring that the Pentagon has adequate resources to project American power and preserve American interests around the world.
But that’s not the only good news. Tuesday also brought losses for every single anti-war Iraq and Afghanistan veteran running for Congress — including the only two anti-war Iraq war incumbents in Congress (Patrick “the surge can’t work” Murphy in PA-8 and John Boccieri in OH-16). The group most undermined by this trouncing is VoteVets, the blatantly partisan anti-war “veterans” group that came up empty on Election Night (and has already removed all the candidates from its website).
All of this taken together means that every single Iraq and Afghanistan veteran in Congress today is pro-victory. The true voice of our warrior generation will soon be heard on Capitol Hill, and the anti-war movement no longer has a veteran to prop up in defense of its reckless policies. This is all great news for America, and motivation for her warriors. The list of new Iraq/Afghanistan vets in Congress is:
– Lt. Col. Allen West (FL-22) – Iraq, Afghanistan, & Gulf wars
– Lt. Col. Steve Stivers (OH-15) — Iraq war
– Capt. Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) — Iraq & Afghanistan wars
– Col. Joe Heck (NV-3) — Iraq war
– Maj. Tim Griffin (AR-2) — Iraq war
– Col. Chris Gibson (NY-20) — Iraq war (4 tours)
– Pete Hegseth is executive director of Vets for Freedom.
Obama Doesn’t Get It--Never will
Obama Doesn’t Get It - By Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner - National Review Online
President Obama came close, but he still just cannot admit that his radical policies and their effects on the economy are the cause of his devastating political rebuke. For most of his press conference, an oddly depressed Obama voted present, as he all but said that the problems are mostly ours, not his — or at least not his agenda but perhaps an occasional inadequate communication.
In clingers fashion, he once more is talking down to us, explaining that we confused his necessary solutions with a bogeyman increase in big government, and so typically, in fright and ignorance, lashed out at his party. He is claiming the outrage grew from the same frustration that elected him, rather than arising precisely because of him and his agenda. In short, we are angry because his EU-socialist agenda is progressing too slowly and hasn’t delivered as promised — as it will in time. Perhaps then we will thank him for his proper big-government, big-spending solution.
He seems bewildered (for the first time?) that his popularity as a campaign rhetorician did not last when he became responsible for actual governance. For most of the press conference, a humbled but deer-in-the-headlights Obama half-heartedly argued that the populist outrage against his own massive debt, huge wasteful government, and elitism was really outrage against the economy he inherited, an outrage that he shares. We don’t know it, the president hints, but we are still angry at the Bush years, and yesterday mistakenly took our wrath out on Obama’s methodical, albeit too slow, efforts at recovery. In short, there was little admission whatsoever that Obama’s message and the way he pushed it turned off millions — there was no repentant Clinton, circa autumn 1994, here; instead, a shocked Obama who seems hurt that we do not appreciate him.
I don’t think the American people — who just last week heard their president boast that Republicans had to sit in the back seat, and that Latinos should punish their Republican “enemies,” and who have now given him the greatest midterm putdown in over a half-century — suddenly will pay much attention to his calls for an end to the old divisiveness.
Otherwise, I have two reactions to the election — one about the national scene, the other about my home state, California.
Had not some zealots talked of possible 90-to-100-seat gains, the Democrats would be in greater shock today at the near-historic 60+ House pick-up, along with a stunning near sweep of state legislatures and governorships, as well as gains in the Senate — and all a mere 21 months after the beginning of hope and change. The idea that we are going to copy EU socialism is dead. So is Keynesian massive borrowing. So is the promised second wave of Obamism, such as cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Obama’s supporters can brag that erstwhile absolutely safe senior Democratic senators like Boxer and Reid managed to get reelected, but they must understand that Obama’s vision and his method of enacting it simply turned off the vast majority of the country.
Some things also have to change on the conservative side. Congress must not remain hostage to farm-state representatives and senators, for whom the huge agricultural subsidy programs are sacrosanct; a decade ago, we went from “eliminating” those programs via the “Freedom to Farm” Act to calling farm pork a post-9/11 matter of national security. On the budget front, I doubt we will hear much talk, at least in the short term, of massive tax cuts that eventually will result in greater supply-side growth and thus greater revenue. Instead, I assume that any Republican tax-cut attempt will have to be matched in the here and now by a commensurate cut in spending, dollar for dollar — or rather, given the deficits, one dollar in tax cuts, two dollars in spending cuts. I also don’t think we will see representatives bragging of the new pork-barrel community centers they brought home, with their own names plastered on them — at least for a while.
In California, there is some irony: The philosophy that led the state to the highest tax rates in the country, along with the near-worst schools, largest deficits, and most crumbling infrastructure, was reaffirmed. Now California’s state government will have to deal with the reality that if the highest-tax state in the union raises taxes still higher, it will lose even more high earners than the current 3,000 who leave each week. A Republican Congress is not likely to bail out a bankrupt California. More likely, we will see even more of the present ad hoc government-by-euphemism. More “furloughs” instead of pay cuts for unionized public employees, “temporary” larger class sizes in the schools, more “user fees” imposed by executive order in lieu of getting new taxes passed.
The state will continue to descend into a pyramidal society. On top there is the wealthy, leftist coastal elite from Napa to Hollywood, which is seemingly immune from the effects of high taxes and regulation (and wants more green laws, gay marriage, abortion, and therapeutic bromides). The top of the pyramid is in league with a growing underclass in part dependent upon a huge entitlement industry; this coalition thus favors more taxes, entitlements, unionized public employees, open borders, etc. Meanwhile, a squeezed middle-class private sector is slowly being strangled, shutting down, and leaving.
What are we left with? Public money in California running out is, in fact, a solution of sorts.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252447/obama-doesn-t-get-it-victor-davis-hanson
President Obama came close, but he still just cannot admit that his radical policies and their effects on the economy are the cause of his devastating political rebuke. For most of his press conference, an oddly depressed Obama voted present, as he all but said that the problems are mostly ours, not his — or at least not his agenda but perhaps an occasional inadequate communication.
In clingers fashion, he once more is talking down to us, explaining that we confused his necessary solutions with a bogeyman increase in big government, and so typically, in fright and ignorance, lashed out at his party. He is claiming the outrage grew from the same frustration that elected him, rather than arising precisely because of him and his agenda. In short, we are angry because his EU-socialist agenda is progressing too slowly and hasn’t delivered as promised — as it will in time. Perhaps then we will thank him for his proper big-government, big-spending solution.
He seems bewildered (for the first time?) that his popularity as a campaign rhetorician did not last when he became responsible for actual governance. For most of the press conference, a humbled but deer-in-the-headlights Obama half-heartedly argued that the populist outrage against his own massive debt, huge wasteful government, and elitism was really outrage against the economy he inherited, an outrage that he shares. We don’t know it, the president hints, but we are still angry at the Bush years, and yesterday mistakenly took our wrath out on Obama’s methodical, albeit too slow, efforts at recovery. In short, there was little admission whatsoever that Obama’s message and the way he pushed it turned off millions — there was no repentant Clinton, circa autumn 1994, here; instead, a shocked Obama who seems hurt that we do not appreciate him.
I don’t think the American people — who just last week heard their president boast that Republicans had to sit in the back seat, and that Latinos should punish their Republican “enemies,” and who have now given him the greatest midterm putdown in over a half-century — suddenly will pay much attention to his calls for an end to the old divisiveness.
Otherwise, I have two reactions to the election — one about the national scene, the other about my home state, California.
Had not some zealots talked of possible 90-to-100-seat gains, the Democrats would be in greater shock today at the near-historic 60+ House pick-up, along with a stunning near sweep of state legislatures and governorships, as well as gains in the Senate — and all a mere 21 months after the beginning of hope and change. The idea that we are going to copy EU socialism is dead. So is Keynesian massive borrowing. So is the promised second wave of Obamism, such as cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Obama’s supporters can brag that erstwhile absolutely safe senior Democratic senators like Boxer and Reid managed to get reelected, but they must understand that Obama’s vision and his method of enacting it simply turned off the vast majority of the country.
Some things also have to change on the conservative side. Congress must not remain hostage to farm-state representatives and senators, for whom the huge agricultural subsidy programs are sacrosanct; a decade ago, we went from “eliminating” those programs via the “Freedom to Farm” Act to calling farm pork a post-9/11 matter of national security. On the budget front, I doubt we will hear much talk, at least in the short term, of massive tax cuts that eventually will result in greater supply-side growth and thus greater revenue. Instead, I assume that any Republican tax-cut attempt will have to be matched in the here and now by a commensurate cut in spending, dollar for dollar — or rather, given the deficits, one dollar in tax cuts, two dollars in spending cuts. I also don’t think we will see representatives bragging of the new pork-barrel community centers they brought home, with their own names plastered on them — at least for a while.
In California, there is some irony: The philosophy that led the state to the highest tax rates in the country, along with the near-worst schools, largest deficits, and most crumbling infrastructure, was reaffirmed. Now California’s state government will have to deal with the reality that if the highest-tax state in the union raises taxes still higher, it will lose even more high earners than the current 3,000 who leave each week. A Republican Congress is not likely to bail out a bankrupt California. More likely, we will see even more of the present ad hoc government-by-euphemism. More “furloughs” instead of pay cuts for unionized public employees, “temporary” larger class sizes in the schools, more “user fees” imposed by executive order in lieu of getting new taxes passed.
The state will continue to descend into a pyramidal society. On top there is the wealthy, leftist coastal elite from Napa to Hollywood, which is seemingly immune from the effects of high taxes and regulation (and wants more green laws, gay marriage, abortion, and therapeutic bromides). The top of the pyramid is in league with a growing underclass in part dependent upon a huge entitlement industry; this coalition thus favors more taxes, entitlements, unionized public employees, open borders, etc. Meanwhile, a squeezed middle-class private sector is slowly being strangled, shutting down, and leaving.
What are we left with? Public money in California running out is, in fact, a solution of sorts.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252447/obama-doesn-t-get-it-victor-davis-hanson
Monday, November 8, 2010
Marco Rubio with words Obama is incapable of uttering
Rubio Tuesday by Scott Johnson/Powerline
The new issue of the Weekly Standard puts Marco Rubio on the cover and features Andrew Ferguson on Rubio's election night speech as well as Stephen Hayes on Rubio's campaign.
By contrast with President Obama, Rubio has made a theme of American exceptionalism. Both Ferguson and Hayes quote Rubio on this topic. Today he touches on the theme at the outset of the weekly Republican address:
America is the single greatest nation on earth, a place without equal in the history of all mankind. A place built on free enterprise, where the employee can become the employer. Where small businesses are started every day in a spare bedroom and where someone like me, the son of a bartender and a maid, can become a United States Senator.
I know about the unique exceptionalism of our country. Not because I read about it in a book, I've seen it through my own eyes. You see, I was raised in a community of exiles, by people who lost their country, people who once had dreams like we do today, but had to come to a foreign shore to find them.
For some their dreams were answered here in America, but many others found a new dream. To leave their children with the kinds of opportunities they themselves never had. And that is what we must do as a nation. To fulfill our sacred obligation to leave the next generation of Americans a better America than the one we inherited. And that is what this election was about.
This doesn't quite get to the heart of the matter. America is exceptional because it is the only country in history founded on a proposition. America is founded on the assertion of the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This can't be said often enough; everything important flows from it. Here is the video of Rubio's talk today.
The new issue of the Weekly Standard puts Marco Rubio on the cover and features Andrew Ferguson on Rubio's election night speech as well as Stephen Hayes on Rubio's campaign.
By contrast with President Obama, Rubio has made a theme of American exceptionalism. Both Ferguson and Hayes quote Rubio on this topic. Today he touches on the theme at the outset of the weekly Republican address:
America is the single greatest nation on earth, a place without equal in the history of all mankind. A place built on free enterprise, where the employee can become the employer. Where small businesses are started every day in a spare bedroom and where someone like me, the son of a bartender and a maid, can become a United States Senator.
I know about the unique exceptionalism of our country. Not because I read about it in a book, I've seen it through my own eyes. You see, I was raised in a community of exiles, by people who lost their country, people who once had dreams like we do today, but had to come to a foreign shore to find them.
For some their dreams were answered here in America, but many others found a new dream. To leave their children with the kinds of opportunities they themselves never had. And that is what we must do as a nation. To fulfill our sacred obligation to leave the next generation of Americans a better America than the one we inherited. And that is what this election was about.
This doesn't quite get to the heart of the matter. America is exceptional because it is the only country in history founded on a proposition. America is founded on the assertion of the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This can't be said often enough; everything important flows from it. Here is the video of Rubio's talk today.
Job Creation, or Not So Much?
Job Creation, or Not So Much? - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online
By Veronique de Rugy
I did a piece for The American magazine about President Obama’s claim to have created massive amounts of jobs in 2010. This chart speaks for itself.
That’s the monthly change in total employment over the last ten years. The past year doesn’t look like something I would advertise if I were the president. After a few months of job growth between January 2010 and May 2010 (total growth: 1 million jobs), the last four months have been bad for total employment. In June, employment decreased by 175,000 jobs, in July by 66,000 jobs, in August by 57,000, and in September by 95,000 jobs. That is a total loss of almost 400,000 jobs.
Interestingly, these jobs losses were concentrated in the public sector. This probably explains why these days Democrats only highlight the private sector when they talk about job creation. I have already mentioned this very misleading video by Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. (NB: President Bush’s job legacy includes a big burst in government employee hiring — more than 1.7 million government employees were added to the government payroll during Bush’s two terms.)
The whole piece is here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251910/job-creation-or-not-so-much-veronique-de-rugy
By Veronique de Rugy
I did a piece for The American magazine about President Obama’s claim to have created massive amounts of jobs in 2010. This chart speaks for itself.
That’s the monthly change in total employment over the last ten years. The past year doesn’t look like something I would advertise if I were the president. After a few months of job growth between January 2010 and May 2010 (total growth: 1 million jobs), the last four months have been bad for total employment. In June, employment decreased by 175,000 jobs, in July by 66,000 jobs, in August by 57,000, and in September by 95,000 jobs. That is a total loss of almost 400,000 jobs.
Interestingly, these jobs losses were concentrated in the public sector. This probably explains why these days Democrats only highlight the private sector when they talk about job creation. I have already mentioned this very misleading video by Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. (NB: President Bush’s job legacy includes a big burst in government employee hiring — more than 1.7 million government employees were added to the government payroll during Bush’s two terms.)
The whole piece is here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251910/job-creation-or-not-so-much-veronique-de-rugy
Sunday, November 7, 2010
It’s Still Not about Racism--but the race-baiting elites still insist
It’s Still Not about Racism - By Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner - National Review Online
By Victor Davis Hanson
Eugene Robinson’s Election Day column makes the serious charge that the revolt against the Obama agenda is driven by race, meaning prejudice against a black president. There are a number of reasons why that argument is unhinged, desperate, and beneath an informed observer:
1) Voter anger is directed against the Obama agenda and those who promote it. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are as unpopular as Barack Obama — maybe more unpopular. Dozens of white male incumbents are going to lose today, and it’s not because they supported a black man; it’s because they oversaw the government takeover of health care, borrowed $3 trillion in 21 months, perpetuated a “culture of corruption,” and saw unemployment rise to 10 percent.
2) The Tea Party zealots backed all sorts of candidates: women like Sharron Angle, Hispanics like Marco Rubio, blacks like Allen West, and Asians like Van Tran. Race and gender were incidental, not essential, to their support. Can Robinson say the same?
3) Barack Obama has encountered no more venom — in fact, much less — than did George Bush and Bill Clinton. As of yet, thank God, we have not seen an Alfred Knopf novel like Checkpoint aimed at Obama, or anything like the 2006 prize-winning film Death of a President, which imagined the shooting of George Bush. I don’t recall Robinson suggesting that such sick, unhinged hatred of Bush was either untoward or motivated by nefarious forces.
4) By 2001, the two highest foreign-policy officials of the U.S. government — secretary of state and national security advisor — were both African-Americans. There was some racism directed at them, but it came mostly from the anti-war Left (cf. the despicable comments of a Harry Belafonte) — and especially from abroad, as in the case of the sick anti-Rice cartoons that appeared in the Palestinian papers. Again, I don’t recall outrage from Robinson over that overt racism.
5) To the degree racial divisiveness is more apparent after 2008, it is largely due to the Obama administration. The president himself called for Latinos to see Republicans as “enemies.” He encouraged racial groups to vote on the basis that the Republicans did not wish them to. He used racially loaded imagery to suggest that Republicans should sit in the back of the car. He suggested that the Cambridge police, on no evidence, had engaged in stereotyping and had acted stupidly. His attorney general called Americans “cowards” for not wishing to talk about race on his terms. There is no need to repeat the racist rants of Van Jones. His Supreme Court nominee gave reasons why a “wise Latina” intrinsically would make a better judge than a white counterpart. And all this came after the 2008 mess with the overt racist Rev. Wright, the “typical white person” slur, and the condescending put-down of the white “clingers” of Pennsylvania. To the degree that racial polarization has surfaced, it has been due entirely to Barack Obama’s modus operandi, saying different things to different audiences, predicated on their race.
6) One thing has changed, however. The near obsessive use of the slur “racist” in lieu of an argument has now so inflated the currency of that charge that it has been rendered meaningless — and, in fact, tells us far more about the character of the accuser than of the intended target.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251914/its-still-not-about-racism-victor-davis-hanson
By Victor Davis Hanson
Eugene Robinson’s Election Day column makes the serious charge that the revolt against the Obama agenda is driven by race, meaning prejudice against a black president. There are a number of reasons why that argument is unhinged, desperate, and beneath an informed observer:
1) Voter anger is directed against the Obama agenda and those who promote it. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are as unpopular as Barack Obama — maybe more unpopular. Dozens of white male incumbents are going to lose today, and it’s not because they supported a black man; it’s because they oversaw the government takeover of health care, borrowed $3 trillion in 21 months, perpetuated a “culture of corruption,” and saw unemployment rise to 10 percent.
2) The Tea Party zealots backed all sorts of candidates: women like Sharron Angle, Hispanics like Marco Rubio, blacks like Allen West, and Asians like Van Tran. Race and gender were incidental, not essential, to their support. Can Robinson say the same?
3) Barack Obama has encountered no more venom — in fact, much less — than did George Bush and Bill Clinton. As of yet, thank God, we have not seen an Alfred Knopf novel like Checkpoint aimed at Obama, or anything like the 2006 prize-winning film Death of a President, which imagined the shooting of George Bush. I don’t recall Robinson suggesting that such sick, unhinged hatred of Bush was either untoward or motivated by nefarious forces.
4) By 2001, the two highest foreign-policy officials of the U.S. government — secretary of state and national security advisor — were both African-Americans. There was some racism directed at them, but it came mostly from the anti-war Left (cf. the despicable comments of a Harry Belafonte) — and especially from abroad, as in the case of the sick anti-Rice cartoons that appeared in the Palestinian papers. Again, I don’t recall outrage from Robinson over that overt racism.
5) To the degree racial divisiveness is more apparent after 2008, it is largely due to the Obama administration. The president himself called for Latinos to see Republicans as “enemies.” He encouraged racial groups to vote on the basis that the Republicans did not wish them to. He used racially loaded imagery to suggest that Republicans should sit in the back of the car. He suggested that the Cambridge police, on no evidence, had engaged in stereotyping and had acted stupidly. His attorney general called Americans “cowards” for not wishing to talk about race on his terms. There is no need to repeat the racist rants of Van Jones. His Supreme Court nominee gave reasons why a “wise Latina” intrinsically would make a better judge than a white counterpart. And all this came after the 2008 mess with the overt racist Rev. Wright, the “typical white person” slur, and the condescending put-down of the white “clingers” of Pennsylvania. To the degree that racial polarization has surfaced, it has been due entirely to Barack Obama’s modus operandi, saying different things to different audiences, predicated on their race.
6) One thing has changed, however. The near obsessive use of the slur “racist” in lieu of an argument has now so inflated the currency of that charge that it has been rendered meaningless — and, in fact, tells us far more about the character of the accuser than of the intended target.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251914/its-still-not-about-racism-victor-davis-hanson
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Election Aftermath: Getting It Wrong on Republicans and the Deficit
Election Aftermath: Getting It Wrong on Republicans and the Deficit - By Kevin D. Williamson - Exchequer - National Review Online
The reliably clueless Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution checks in with some feckless deficit punditry, writing:
So, if the GOP wins the House, as expected, what will happen to the deficit? Here’s my prediction: Two years from now, the deficit will be no smaller. It may even be larger. Why? Because Republicans won’t do much to rein in spending. And if they cut taxes, there won’t be enough revenue to fund the budget. It’s simple elementary school math.
Egad, where to start. How about here: “And if they cut taxes, there won’t be enough revenue to fund the budget.” There’s already too little revenue to fund the budget — that’s why we have a deficit, no? Consult a dictionary, for the love of God: Too little revenue to fund spending is pretty much the definition of deficit. You write for a living, right, Tucker?
Abuses of English aside, there’s plenty of substance trouble here, too: “Republicans won’t do much to rein in spending.” The real question, I think, is whether Republicans send President Obama legislation that reins in spending — legislation he almost certainly will veto, unless Senate Democrats can maneuver to keep it from reaching his desk in the first place. That’s what 2012 is going to be about. A GOP House majority will have a lot of power, but not power to unilaterally reduce the deficit.
Then comes the string of banal talking points:
Republicans, aided by the rightwing communications machine, have persuaded voters of a couple of things that happen to be wrong. One is that President Obama has substantially increased spending on wasteful government programs. In fact, one-third of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. And the bank bail-out, which started under George W. Bush, has mostly been paid back — earning taxpayers a profit. The health insurance law will reduce the deficit over ten years, not add to it, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Tedious, but let us address them. 1. Right-wing communication machine? So long as NPR exists and receives taxpayer funding, no Democrat ought to be able to utter that stupid cliché without blushing. 2. Substantially increased spending on wasteful government programs: check.
3. “In fact, one-third of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts.” Badly designed, ineffectual tax cuts. But you can’t excuse the stimulus shenanigans and their deficit effects by protesting that they were tax cuts and then write: “a huge tax cut for rich Americans will certainly make the deficit larger. That’s a fact.” Tax cuts add to the deficit no matter who receives them. And that’s a fact. 4. “And the bank bail-out, which started under George W. Bush, has mostly been paid back — earning taxpayers a profit.” Except for the parts most hotly lobbied for by Barack Obama and his colleagues: the mortgage-relief program, which is an enormous money-loser, the auto bailout, which is a money-loser, and the Fannie-Freddie shenanigans, the price tag of which recently has doubled. The Bush administration’s piece of the TARP seems to have worked reasonably well. The Obama administration’s bottomless line of credit at Treasury for Fannie and Freddie, less so. 5. “The health insurance law will reduce the deficit over ten years, not add to it, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.” True, assuming that the steep taxes on high-dollar union health-care plans actually kick in (they won’t) and that doctors’ Medicare payments are reduced by a fifth or more (they won’t). Hint: When government promises to save you a few billion dollars by spending a trillion dollars, you aren’t going to save anything.
The deficit-reduction benefits of Obamacare may be the least honest talking point in American politics at the moment. Who thinks that we really are going to cut doctors’ payments by 21 percent or more? Who really thinks that the Obama administration is going to savage the health-care plans of its most important constituency after Goldman Sachs?
Question: Is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution bankrupt yet? Because they could copy and paste these illiterate partisan talking points off of DailyKos or Keith Olbermann’s web site for free every day. Save a few bucks.
– Kevin D. Williamson is deputy managing editor of National Review and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, to be published in January.
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/251923/election-aftermath-getting-it-wrong-republicans-and-deficit
The reliably clueless Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution checks in with some feckless deficit punditry, writing:
So, if the GOP wins the House, as expected, what will happen to the deficit? Here’s my prediction: Two years from now, the deficit will be no smaller. It may even be larger. Why? Because Republicans won’t do much to rein in spending. And if they cut taxes, there won’t be enough revenue to fund the budget. It’s simple elementary school math.
Egad, where to start. How about here: “And if they cut taxes, there won’t be enough revenue to fund the budget.” There’s already too little revenue to fund the budget — that’s why we have a deficit, no? Consult a dictionary, for the love of God: Too little revenue to fund spending is pretty much the definition of deficit. You write for a living, right, Tucker?
Abuses of English aside, there’s plenty of substance trouble here, too: “Republicans won’t do much to rein in spending.” The real question, I think, is whether Republicans send President Obama legislation that reins in spending — legislation he almost certainly will veto, unless Senate Democrats can maneuver to keep it from reaching his desk in the first place. That’s what 2012 is going to be about. A GOP House majority will have a lot of power, but not power to unilaterally reduce the deficit.
Then comes the string of banal talking points:
Republicans, aided by the rightwing communications machine, have persuaded voters of a couple of things that happen to be wrong. One is that President Obama has substantially increased spending on wasteful government programs. In fact, one-third of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. And the bank bail-out, which started under George W. Bush, has mostly been paid back — earning taxpayers a profit. The health insurance law will reduce the deficit over ten years, not add to it, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Tedious, but let us address them. 1. Right-wing communication machine? So long as NPR exists and receives taxpayer funding, no Democrat ought to be able to utter that stupid cliché without blushing. 2. Substantially increased spending on wasteful government programs: check.
3. “In fact, one-third of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts.” Badly designed, ineffectual tax cuts. But you can’t excuse the stimulus shenanigans and their deficit effects by protesting that they were tax cuts and then write: “a huge tax cut for rich Americans will certainly make the deficit larger. That’s a fact.” Tax cuts add to the deficit no matter who receives them. And that’s a fact. 4. “And the bank bail-out, which started under George W. Bush, has mostly been paid back — earning taxpayers a profit.” Except for the parts most hotly lobbied for by Barack Obama and his colleagues: the mortgage-relief program, which is an enormous money-loser, the auto bailout, which is a money-loser, and the Fannie-Freddie shenanigans, the price tag of which recently has doubled. The Bush administration’s piece of the TARP seems to have worked reasonably well. The Obama administration’s bottomless line of credit at Treasury for Fannie and Freddie, less so. 5. “The health insurance law will reduce the deficit over ten years, not add to it, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.” True, assuming that the steep taxes on high-dollar union health-care plans actually kick in (they won’t) and that doctors’ Medicare payments are reduced by a fifth or more (they won’t). Hint: When government promises to save you a few billion dollars by spending a trillion dollars, you aren’t going to save anything.
The deficit-reduction benefits of Obamacare may be the least honest talking point in American politics at the moment. Who thinks that we really are going to cut doctors’ payments by 21 percent or more? Who really thinks that the Obama administration is going to savage the health-care plans of its most important constituency after Goldman Sachs?
Question: Is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution bankrupt yet? Because they could copy and paste these illiterate partisan talking points off of DailyKos or Keith Olbermann’s web site for free every day. Save a few bucks.
– Kevin D. Williamson is deputy managing editor of National Review and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, to be published in January.
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/251923/election-aftermath-getting-it-wrong-republicans-and-deficit
Hugh Hewitt: Pelosi and Obama's agenda down in flames
Hugh Hewitt: Pelosi and Obama's agenda down in flames Washington Examiner By: Hugh Hewitt
It takes a powerful collective repugnance to propel a national political rebuke.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Obama have accomplished an extraordinary thing. Tomorrow they will enter the history books as the most spectacularly failed partnership in modern American political history.
Never in the last 100 years have two American politicians squandered so much political capital and achieved so complete a rejection as this duo. (I omit intentionally the hapless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is very much the Lepidus in this triumvirate.)
The Obama-Pelosi record contains hugely significant actions, but negative ones. They are to the Democrats of this century what Hoover was to the Republicans of the last: a complete platform for the other party in proper names.
How far in the future will it be when a Republican convention does not prominently feature warnings to the public of a return of the era of Obama-Pelosi?
The myth about "off-year" elections is already being spun out by the left as a threadbare cover for their leaders' collective collapse. These observations overlook 1934, 1954, 1962 and 2002 as examples of elections following a new president's entry into office when he managed not to get clobbered at the polls.
FDR saw the Democrats add nine seats in the House of Representatives in 1934. Dwight Eisenhower's GOP lost 18 House seats and JFK's Democrats lost four in '54 and '62 respectively. George W Bush's Republicans actually added eight House members in 2002.
Two other parallels are exact: Presidents Reagan in '82 and Clinton in '94 were also both new presidents taking office after an administration of the opposite party and who had governed for 22 months when the public got to deliver a verdict. Reagan watched the GOP lose 27 seats to the Democrats, and Clinton witnessed the rise of Newt Gingrich as the GOP added 54 seats.
Until Nov. 2, 2010, Clinton was the gold standard for botched opening presidential acts. How the Man from Hope must be laughing at the Man of Hope and Change. Obama won't erase Clinton's stain of impeachment, but he will replace 42 with 44 in the annals of political failure in America.
Pelosi is in a class by herself. Her particular style of leadership -- arrogant, humorless, imperious and dense -- will guide by negative example many generations of future legislative leaders.
"Don't go Pelosi on us," consultants and colleagues will chide their leaders. And what a caution that will be: Do you want history to know you as a wholly, completely, irrefutably rejected failure?
But for the condescension these two have displayed toward their fellow citizens and citizen-legislators, their fall might even elicit some sympathy. But "I won, you lost" and "we'll have to pass the bill to find out what is in it" are not predicates on which much empathy can be built.
Obama and Pelosi were handed unique majorities and a chance to establish a very long-lasting domination of American politics had they only governed from the center-left and not chosen the agenda of the hard left. (The noise from the bloggers and Jon Stewart may be a balm to lefties that Pelosi and Obama failed for want of going far enough left, but Republicans can only pray that Democrats run on "the stimulus was too small and Obamacare insufficiently radical" in 2012 and beyond.)
The epic loss on Tuesday will launch a thousand op-eds and who knows how many dissertations. But the explanation is very simple.
Never have two modern American leaders been so utterly bereft of graciousness. Americans do not particularly value humility in their politicians, but arrogance and disdain are poison to the public.
The president gets a second chance. Pelosi does not. And that is at least some consolation for Democrats on Tuesday.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Pelosi-and-Obama_s-agenda-down-in-flames-1398024-106409463.html#ixzz14Ws5g3al
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Pelosi-and-Obama_s-agenda-down-in-flames-1398024-106409463.html
It takes a powerful collective repugnance to propel a national political rebuke.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Obama have accomplished an extraordinary thing. Tomorrow they will enter the history books as the most spectacularly failed partnership in modern American political history.
Never in the last 100 years have two American politicians squandered so much political capital and achieved so complete a rejection as this duo. (I omit intentionally the hapless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is very much the Lepidus in this triumvirate.)
The Obama-Pelosi record contains hugely significant actions, but negative ones. They are to the Democrats of this century what Hoover was to the Republicans of the last: a complete platform for the other party in proper names.
How far in the future will it be when a Republican convention does not prominently feature warnings to the public of a return of the era of Obama-Pelosi?
The myth about "off-year" elections is already being spun out by the left as a threadbare cover for their leaders' collective collapse. These observations overlook 1934, 1954, 1962 and 2002 as examples of elections following a new president's entry into office when he managed not to get clobbered at the polls.
FDR saw the Democrats add nine seats in the House of Representatives in 1934. Dwight Eisenhower's GOP lost 18 House seats and JFK's Democrats lost four in '54 and '62 respectively. George W Bush's Republicans actually added eight House members in 2002.
Two other parallels are exact: Presidents Reagan in '82 and Clinton in '94 were also both new presidents taking office after an administration of the opposite party and who had governed for 22 months when the public got to deliver a verdict. Reagan watched the GOP lose 27 seats to the Democrats, and Clinton witnessed the rise of Newt Gingrich as the GOP added 54 seats.
Until Nov. 2, 2010, Clinton was the gold standard for botched opening presidential acts. How the Man from Hope must be laughing at the Man of Hope and Change. Obama won't erase Clinton's stain of impeachment, but he will replace 42 with 44 in the annals of political failure in America.
Pelosi is in a class by herself. Her particular style of leadership -- arrogant, humorless, imperious and dense -- will guide by negative example many generations of future legislative leaders.
"Don't go Pelosi on us," consultants and colleagues will chide their leaders. And what a caution that will be: Do you want history to know you as a wholly, completely, irrefutably rejected failure?
But for the condescension these two have displayed toward their fellow citizens and citizen-legislators, their fall might even elicit some sympathy. But "I won, you lost" and "we'll have to pass the bill to find out what is in it" are not predicates on which much empathy can be built.
Obama and Pelosi were handed unique majorities and a chance to establish a very long-lasting domination of American politics had they only governed from the center-left and not chosen the agenda of the hard left. (The noise from the bloggers and Jon Stewart may be a balm to lefties that Pelosi and Obama failed for want of going far enough left, but Republicans can only pray that Democrats run on "the stimulus was too small and Obamacare insufficiently radical" in 2012 and beyond.)
The epic loss on Tuesday will launch a thousand op-eds and who knows how many dissertations. But the explanation is very simple.
Never have two modern American leaders been so utterly bereft of graciousness. Americans do not particularly value humility in their politicians, but arrogance and disdain are poison to the public.
The president gets a second chance. Pelosi does not. And that is at least some consolation for Democrats on Tuesday.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Pelosi-and-Obama_s-agenda-down-in-flames-1398024-106409463.html#ixzz14Ws5g3al
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Pelosi-and-Obama_s-agenda-down-in-flames-1398024-106409463.html
Friday, November 5, 2010
Of ‘Enemies’ and Patriots (to O, enemies never means jihadis)
Of ‘Enemies’ and Patriots - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
I think this is a smart and appropriate way for John Boehner to close the midterm campaign season (via Mike Allen, prepared remarks from a Cincinnati rally with Portman and Kasich tonight):
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as “our enemies.” Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word “enemy,” they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country. Today, sadly, we have president who uses the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans — fellow citizens. He uses it for people who disagree with his agenda of bigger government — people speaking out for a smaller, more accountable government that respects freedom and allows small businesses to create jobs. Mr. President, there’s a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution, and the values of limited government that made our country great. We don’t call them “enemies.” We call them “patriots.”
As you’ll recall, the president of the United States disgracefully told Univision last week:
If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us” — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251675/enemies-and-patriots-kathryn-jean-lopez?sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4cd40fa8959efb89,0
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
I think this is a smart and appropriate way for John Boehner to close the midterm campaign season (via Mike Allen, prepared remarks from a Cincinnati rally with Portman and Kasich tonight):
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as “our enemies.” Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word “enemy,” they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country. Today, sadly, we have president who uses the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans — fellow citizens. He uses it for people who disagree with his agenda of bigger government — people speaking out for a smaller, more accountable government that respects freedom and allows small businesses to create jobs. Mr. President, there’s a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution, and the values of limited government that made our country great. We don’t call them “enemies.” We call them “patriots.”
As you’ll recall, the president of the United States disgracefully told Univision last week:
If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us” — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/251675/enemies-and-patriots-kathryn-jean-lopez?sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4cd40fa8959efb89,0
Loretta the Terrible, or How to talk a racist game and win
Loretta the Terrible - By Jay Nordlinger - The Corner - National Review Online
This morning, I posted some quick thoughts — blurts — on the election. They are here, in an Impromptus column headed “Thrills, spills, &c.” I left out some things, of course, and forgot some things. Can I give you a quickie now? An extra?
I am very, very sorry that Loretta Sanchez, that California Democrat, was returned to the House. As far as I’m concerned, she is one of the poisons in American politics. She was running against a Republican named Van Tran. And she said something highly revealing, and highly disgusting, to a reporter, in Spanish. According to this report, her statement went like this:
“The Vietnamese and the Republicans are — with an intensity — trying to take away this seat, this seat (from which) we have done so much for our community, take away this seat from us and give it to this Van Tran, who’s very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic.”
Yeah, those damn Vietnamese. Their country is taken over by Communist monsters, many are murdered, others are put into reeducation camps, others take to the South China Sea on rafts, in tires, on bits of cardboard, on anything that might float, to brave piracy, dehydration, drowning . . . and then they arrive in America, if they’re lucky, to screw the Hispanics. Anti-immigrant bastards, those Vietnamese are.
By the way, Van Tran escaped with his family a week before Saigon fell.
I believe that, if a Republican had engaged in the sheer racial-ethnic nastiness and stupidity of Loretta Sanchez, he would not have been able to survive in public life. But it’s much different, if you’re a liberal Democrat.
Joe Biden said that Barack Obama was “the first mainstream African-American” candidate, going on to describe him as “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” (Al Sharpton protested, “I take a bath every day.”) Today, Biden is vice president. Harry Reid called Obama a “light-skinned” black “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” He, of course, is the Senate majority leader. Dan Rather said that Obama “couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”
I don’t believe that a Republican could have survived those remarks. But, again, it’s much different if you’re a liberal Democrat. You know, we can live with the double standard. I only wish the Left would admit it. If only they could say, “Yeah, it’s a double standard, too bad for you. Ha, ha, suckers. Deal with it.” But I have never heard any such acknowledgement from them.
Anyway, Loretta Sanchez is back in Congress. And Van Tran will just have to console himself with his obvious and flagrant hatred of immigrants.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252423/loretta-terrible-jay-nordlinger
This morning, I posted some quick thoughts — blurts — on the election. They are here, in an Impromptus column headed “Thrills, spills, &c.” I left out some things, of course, and forgot some things. Can I give you a quickie now? An extra?
I am very, very sorry that Loretta Sanchez, that California Democrat, was returned to the House. As far as I’m concerned, she is one of the poisons in American politics. She was running against a Republican named Van Tran. And she said something highly revealing, and highly disgusting, to a reporter, in Spanish. According to this report, her statement went like this:
“The Vietnamese and the Republicans are — with an intensity — trying to take away this seat, this seat (from which) we have done so much for our community, take away this seat from us and give it to this Van Tran, who’s very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic.”
Yeah, those damn Vietnamese. Their country is taken over by Communist monsters, many are murdered, others are put into reeducation camps, others take to the South China Sea on rafts, in tires, on bits of cardboard, on anything that might float, to brave piracy, dehydration, drowning . . . and then they arrive in America, if they’re lucky, to screw the Hispanics. Anti-immigrant bastards, those Vietnamese are.
By the way, Van Tran escaped with his family a week before Saigon fell.
I believe that, if a Republican had engaged in the sheer racial-ethnic nastiness and stupidity of Loretta Sanchez, he would not have been able to survive in public life. But it’s much different, if you’re a liberal Democrat.
Joe Biden said that Barack Obama was “the first mainstream African-American” candidate, going on to describe him as “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” (Al Sharpton protested, “I take a bath every day.”) Today, Biden is vice president. Harry Reid called Obama a “light-skinned” black “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” He, of course, is the Senate majority leader. Dan Rather said that Obama “couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”
I don’t believe that a Republican could have survived those remarks. But, again, it’s much different if you’re a liberal Democrat. You know, we can live with the double standard. I only wish the Left would admit it. If only they could say, “Yeah, it’s a double standard, too bad for you. Ha, ha, suckers. Deal with it.” But I have never heard any such acknowledgement from them.
Anyway, Loretta Sanchez is back in Congress. And Van Tran will just have to console himself with his obvious and flagrant hatred of immigrants.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252423/loretta-terrible-jay-nordlinger
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The voters have "recoiled against liberalism"
A recoil against liberalism By George F. Will
Unwilling to delay until tomorrow mistakes that could be made immediately, Democrats used 2010 to begin losing 2012. Trying to preemptively drain the election of its dangerous (to Democrats) meaning, all autumn Democrats described the electorate as suffering a brain cramp, an apoplexy of fear, rage, paranoia, cupidity - something. Any explanation would suffice as long as it cast what voters were about to say as perhaps contemptible and certainly too trivial to be taken seriously by the serious.
It is amazing the ingenuity Democrats invest in concocting explanations of voter behavior that erase what voters always care about, and this year more than ever - ideas. This election was a nationwide recoil against Barack Obama's idea of unlimited government.
The more he denounced Republicans as the party of "no," the better Republicans did. His denunciations enabled people to support Republicans without embracing them as anything other than impediments to him.
He had defined himself as a world-class whiner even before Rahm Emanuel, a world-class flatterer, declared that Obama had dealt masterfully with "the toughest times any president has ever faced" - quite a claim, considering that before the first president from Illinois was even inaugurated, seven of the then-34 states had seceded. Today's president from Illinois, a chronic campaigner and incontinent complainer who is uninhibited by considerations of presidential dignity, has blamed his difficulties on:
George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the Supreme Court, a Cincinnati congressman (John Boehner), Karl Rove, Americans for Prosperity and other "groups with harmless-sounding names" (Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" redux), "shadowy third-party groups" (they are as shadowy as steam calliopes), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and, finally, the American people. They have deeply disappointed him by being impervious to "facts and science and argument."
Actually, as the distilled essence of progressivism, he should feel ratified by Tuesday's repudiation. The point of progressivism is that the people must progress up from their backwardness. They cannot do so unless they are pulled toward the light by a government composed of the enlightened - experts coolly devoted to facts and science.
The progressive agenda is actually legitimated by the incomprehension and anger it elicits: If the people do not resent and resist what is being done on their behalf, what is being done is not properly ambitious. If it is comprehensible to its intended beneficiaries, it is the work of insufficiently advanced thinkers.
Of course the masses do not understand that the only flaw of the stimulus was its frugality, and that Obamacare's myriad coercions are akin to benevolent parental discipline. If the masses understood what progressives understand, would progressives represent a real vanguard of progress?
Of course the progressive agenda must make infinitely elastic the restraints imposed by the Founders' Constitution and its principles of limited government. Moving up from them - from the Founders and their anachronistic principles - is the definition of progress.
Recently, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter decided, as the president has decided, that what liberals need is not better ideas but better marketing of the ones they have: "It's a sign of how poorly liberals market themselves and their ideas that the word 'liberal' is still in disrepute despite the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow."
"Despite"? In 2008, Democrats ran as Not George Bush. In 2010, they ran as Democrats. Hence, inescapably, as liberals, or at least as obedient to liberal leaders. Hence Democrats' difficulties.
Responding to Alter, George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux agreed that interest-group liberalism has indeed been leavened by idea-driven liberalism. Which is the problem.
"These ideas," Boudreaux says, "are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else's contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments." Liberalism's ideas are "about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas . . . with a relatively paltry set of 'Big Ideas' that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced by government, not by the natural give, take and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people."
This was the serious concern that percolated beneath the normal froth and nonsense of the elections: Is political power - are government commands and controls - superseding and suffocating the creativity of a market society's spontaneous order? On Tuesday, a rational and alarmed American majority said "yes."
georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110303844.html
Unwilling to delay until tomorrow mistakes that could be made immediately, Democrats used 2010 to begin losing 2012. Trying to preemptively drain the election of its dangerous (to Democrats) meaning, all autumn Democrats described the electorate as suffering a brain cramp, an apoplexy of fear, rage, paranoia, cupidity - something. Any explanation would suffice as long as it cast what voters were about to say as perhaps contemptible and certainly too trivial to be taken seriously by the serious.
It is amazing the ingenuity Democrats invest in concocting explanations of voter behavior that erase what voters always care about, and this year more than ever - ideas. This election was a nationwide recoil against Barack Obama's idea of unlimited government.
The more he denounced Republicans as the party of "no," the better Republicans did. His denunciations enabled people to support Republicans without embracing them as anything other than impediments to him.
He had defined himself as a world-class whiner even before Rahm Emanuel, a world-class flatterer, declared that Obama had dealt masterfully with "the toughest times any president has ever faced" - quite a claim, considering that before the first president from Illinois was even inaugurated, seven of the then-34 states had seceded. Today's president from Illinois, a chronic campaigner and incontinent complainer who is uninhibited by considerations of presidential dignity, has blamed his difficulties on:
George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the Supreme Court, a Cincinnati congressman (John Boehner), Karl Rove, Americans for Prosperity and other "groups with harmless-sounding names" (Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" redux), "shadowy third-party groups" (they are as shadowy as steam calliopes), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and, finally, the American people. They have deeply disappointed him by being impervious to "facts and science and argument."
Actually, as the distilled essence of progressivism, he should feel ratified by Tuesday's repudiation. The point of progressivism is that the people must progress up from their backwardness. They cannot do so unless they are pulled toward the light by a government composed of the enlightened - experts coolly devoted to facts and science.
The progressive agenda is actually legitimated by the incomprehension and anger it elicits: If the people do not resent and resist what is being done on their behalf, what is being done is not properly ambitious. If it is comprehensible to its intended beneficiaries, it is the work of insufficiently advanced thinkers.
Of course the masses do not understand that the only flaw of the stimulus was its frugality, and that Obamacare's myriad coercions are akin to benevolent parental discipline. If the masses understood what progressives understand, would progressives represent a real vanguard of progress?
Of course the progressive agenda must make infinitely elastic the restraints imposed by the Founders' Constitution and its principles of limited government. Moving up from them - from the Founders and their anachronistic principles - is the definition of progress.
Recently, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter decided, as the president has decided, that what liberals need is not better ideas but better marketing of the ones they have: "It's a sign of how poorly liberals market themselves and their ideas that the word 'liberal' is still in disrepute despite the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow."
"Despite"? In 2008, Democrats ran as Not George Bush. In 2010, they ran as Democrats. Hence, inescapably, as liberals, or at least as obedient to liberal leaders. Hence Democrats' difficulties.
Responding to Alter, George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux agreed that interest-group liberalism has indeed been leavened by idea-driven liberalism. Which is the problem.
"These ideas," Boudreaux says, "are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else's contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments." Liberalism's ideas are "about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas . . . with a relatively paltry set of 'Big Ideas' that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced by government, not by the natural give, take and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people."
This was the serious concern that percolated beneath the normal froth and nonsense of the elections: Is political power - are government commands and controls - superseding and suffocating the creativity of a market society's spontaneous order? On Tuesday, a rational and alarmed American majority said "yes."
georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110303844.html
Voters Checked America Into Spending Rehab
Voters Checked America Into Spending Rehab By Victor Davis Hanson
On Tuesday voters rejected President Obama's attempt to remake America in the image of an imploding Europe - not just by overwhelmingly electing Republican candidates in the House, but by preferring dozens of maverick conservatives who ran against establishment Washington.
Why the near-historic rebuke? Out-of-control spending, unchecked borrowing, vast new entitlements and unsustainable debt - all at a time of economic stagnation.
So what is next? Like the recovering addict who checks himself into rehab, a debt-addicted America just snapped out of its borrowing binge, is waking up with the shakes, and hopes there is still a chance at recovery.
It won't be easy. Obama and his Democratic Congress ran up nearly $3 trillion in new debt in just 21 months - after running a disingenuous 2008 campaign that falsely promised to rein in the fiscal irresponsibility that had been rampant during the spendthrift Bush administration.
So the voters intervened and sent America in for rehab treatment. In our three-step road to recovery, we, the sick patient, must first end the denial, then accept the tough medicine, and finally change the entrenched habits that caused the addiction.
First, voters did not reject Obama's agenda because he was too centrist, borrowed and spent too little money, or did not more vigorously pursue unpopular agenda items like cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Nor was the Democratic meltdown because of Obama's inability to articulate his agenda. The vision itself - not the talking points - was the problem.
Obama failed miserably to keep the nation's trust. After just 21 months, the country concluded that he was an extremist, and that his attempts to manage the economy through massive borrowing, rapid growth in government size and spending, assumption of private enterprise, and serial harangues against business and the rich had turned a recession into a crisis of confidence and a near-depression. For some strange reason, Obama thought the cure for Republican big-spending was European-style socialism, when in fact, voters wanted an end to Bush-era borrowing and waste - not far more of it.
Second, not being Obama will no longer be enough for the ascendant Republicans, many of them political novices or Tea Party mavericks skeptical of both parties. These outsiders told outraged voters that America will have to step up and start controlling spending in a manner Republicans never did as a majority in Congress from 2001 to 2006. Perhaps a good symbolic start would be to cut back on popular pet programs - agricultural subsidies, for example - whose end the republic will survive. This would be iconic proof of congressional willingness to alienate powerful special interests. Social Security, Medicare and some Defense programs all have to be on the table.
If conservatives plan to cut taxes, they will no longer be able to convince the public that the resulting supply-side growth in the economy will eventually bring in more money and balance the budget. Instead, right from the start, the new House majority will have to demand that we pay as we go - every dollar lost in revenue will require a commensurate dollar cut in federal spending.
Republicans should be willing to be demagogued by a weakened Obama as heartless and cruel budget cutters - even if the president may well be the ultimate beneficiary by running on the new theme of fiscal responsibility and a recovering economy in 2012.
Third, voters want their Congress and president to end the pathological value system that got us into this mess. Instead of the president barnstorming the country handing out borrowed cash to favored constituencies and playing one identity group against another, he had better stay in Washington, keep off Comedy Central and "The View," and only come out to brag when he has cut unsustainable spending for all of us.
It should also be an embarrassment, not an honor, for congressional members of either party to put their names on the latest pork-barrel projects. And instead of weekly newsletters from Washington that boast of bringing home the bacon, voters prefer hard proof that their government only spent what it took in. Any politician can promise a new project, an expanded entitlement or a special-interest tax break with someone else's money, but only a statesman can explain exactly how it is all to be paid for.
So for now, voters have said that they are sick of profligate Democrats. But if Republicans do not get that message regarding fiscal restraint, in two years it will be their turn - again.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
Copyright 2010, Tribune Media Services Inc
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/04/checking_america_into_rehab.html
On Tuesday voters rejected President Obama's attempt to remake America in the image of an imploding Europe - not just by overwhelmingly electing Republican candidates in the House, but by preferring dozens of maverick conservatives who ran against establishment Washington.
Why the near-historic rebuke? Out-of-control spending, unchecked borrowing, vast new entitlements and unsustainable debt - all at a time of economic stagnation.
So what is next? Like the recovering addict who checks himself into rehab, a debt-addicted America just snapped out of its borrowing binge, is waking up with the shakes, and hopes there is still a chance at recovery.
It won't be easy. Obama and his Democratic Congress ran up nearly $3 trillion in new debt in just 21 months - after running a disingenuous 2008 campaign that falsely promised to rein in the fiscal irresponsibility that had been rampant during the spendthrift Bush administration.
So the voters intervened and sent America in for rehab treatment. In our three-step road to recovery, we, the sick patient, must first end the denial, then accept the tough medicine, and finally change the entrenched habits that caused the addiction.
First, voters did not reject Obama's agenda because he was too centrist, borrowed and spent too little money, or did not more vigorously pursue unpopular agenda items like cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Nor was the Democratic meltdown because of Obama's inability to articulate his agenda. The vision itself - not the talking points - was the problem.
Obama failed miserably to keep the nation's trust. After just 21 months, the country concluded that he was an extremist, and that his attempts to manage the economy through massive borrowing, rapid growth in government size and spending, assumption of private enterprise, and serial harangues against business and the rich had turned a recession into a crisis of confidence and a near-depression. For some strange reason, Obama thought the cure for Republican big-spending was European-style socialism, when in fact, voters wanted an end to Bush-era borrowing and waste - not far more of it.
Second, not being Obama will no longer be enough for the ascendant Republicans, many of them political novices or Tea Party mavericks skeptical of both parties. These outsiders told outraged voters that America will have to step up and start controlling spending in a manner Republicans never did as a majority in Congress from 2001 to 2006. Perhaps a good symbolic start would be to cut back on popular pet programs - agricultural subsidies, for example - whose end the republic will survive. This would be iconic proof of congressional willingness to alienate powerful special interests. Social Security, Medicare and some Defense programs all have to be on the table.
If conservatives plan to cut taxes, they will no longer be able to convince the public that the resulting supply-side growth in the economy will eventually bring in more money and balance the budget. Instead, right from the start, the new House majority will have to demand that we pay as we go - every dollar lost in revenue will require a commensurate dollar cut in federal spending.
Republicans should be willing to be demagogued by a weakened Obama as heartless and cruel budget cutters - even if the president may well be the ultimate beneficiary by running on the new theme of fiscal responsibility and a recovering economy in 2012.
Third, voters want their Congress and president to end the pathological value system that got us into this mess. Instead of the president barnstorming the country handing out borrowed cash to favored constituencies and playing one identity group against another, he had better stay in Washington, keep off Comedy Central and "The View," and only come out to brag when he has cut unsustainable spending for all of us.
It should also be an embarrassment, not an honor, for congressional members of either party to put their names on the latest pork-barrel projects. And instead of weekly newsletters from Washington that boast of bringing home the bacon, voters prefer hard proof that their government only spent what it took in. Any politician can promise a new project, an expanded entitlement or a special-interest tax break with someone else's money, but only a statesman can explain exactly how it is all to be paid for.
So for now, voters have said that they are sick of profligate Democrats. But if Republicans do not get that message regarding fiscal restraint, in two years it will be their turn - again.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
Copyright 2010, Tribune Media Services Inc
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/04/checking_america_into_rehab.html
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Narrative of Roosevelt like that of Obama--failure
Guess Who? By Thomas Sowell
Guess who said the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." Was it Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Karl Rove?
Not even close. It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers. He added, "after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
This is just one of the remarkable and eye-opening facts in a must-read book titled "New Deal or Raw Deal?" by Professor Burton W. Folsom, Jr., of Hillsdale College.
Ordinarily, what happened in the 1930s might be something to be left for historians to be concerned about. But the very same kinds of policies that were tried-- and failed-- during the 1930s are being carried out in Washington today, with the advocates of such policies often invoking FDR's New Deal as a model.
Franklin D. Roosevelt blamed the country's woes on the problems he inherited from his predecessor, much as Barack Obama does today. But unemployment was 20 percent in the spring of 1939, six long years after Herbert Hoover had left the White House.
Whole generations have been "educated" to believe that the Roosevelt administration is what got this country out of the Great Depression. History text books by famous scholars like Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., of Harvard and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia have enshrined FDR as a historic savior of this country, and lesser lights in the media and elsewhere have perpetuated the legend.
Although Professor Schlesinger admitted that he had little interest in economics, that did not stop him from making sweeping statements about what a great economic achievement the New Deal was.
Professors Commager and Morris of Columbia likewise declared: "The character of the Republican ascendancy of the twenties had been pervasively negative; the character of the New Deal was overwhelmingly positive." Anyone unfamiliar with the history of that era might never suspect from such statements that the 1920s were a decade of unprecedented prosperity and the 1930s were a decade of the deepest and longest-lasting depression in American history. But facts have taken a back seat to rhetoric.
In more recent years, there have been both academic studies and popular books debunking some of the myths about the New Deal. Nevertheless, Professor Folsom's book "New Deal or Raw Deal?" breaks new ground. Although written by an academic scholar and based on years of documented research, it is as readable as a newspaper-- and a lot more informative than most.
There are few historic events whose legends are more grossly different from the reality than the New Deal administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. And there are few men whose image has been more radically different from the man himself.
Some of the most devastating things that were said about FDR were not said by his political enemies but by people who worked closely with him for years-- Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau being just one. Morgenthau saw not only the utter failure of Roosevelt's policies, but also the failure of Roosevelt himself, who didn't even know enough economics to realize how little he knew.
Far from pulling the country out of the Great Depression by following Keynesian policies, FDR created policies that prolonged the depression until it was more than twice as long as any other depression in American history. Moreover, Roosevelt's ad hoc improvisations followed nothing as coherent as Keynesian economics. To the extent that FDR followed the ideas of any economist, it was an obscure economist at the University of Wisconsin, who was disdained by other economists and who was regarded with contempt by John Maynard Keynes.
President Roosevelt's strong suit was politics, not economics. He played the political game both cleverly and ruthlessly, including using both the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service to harass and intimidate his critics and opponents.
It is not a pretty story. But we need to understand it if we want to avoid the ugly consequences of very similar policies today.
Copyright 2010, Creators Syndicate Inc.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/02/guess_who_107804.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/02/guess_who_107804.html
Guess who said the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." Was it Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Karl Rove?
Not even close. It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers. He added, "after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
This is just one of the remarkable and eye-opening facts in a must-read book titled "New Deal or Raw Deal?" by Professor Burton W. Folsom, Jr., of Hillsdale College.
Ordinarily, what happened in the 1930s might be something to be left for historians to be concerned about. But the very same kinds of policies that were tried-- and failed-- during the 1930s are being carried out in Washington today, with the advocates of such policies often invoking FDR's New Deal as a model.
Franklin D. Roosevelt blamed the country's woes on the problems he inherited from his predecessor, much as Barack Obama does today. But unemployment was 20 percent in the spring of 1939, six long years after Herbert Hoover had left the White House.
Whole generations have been "educated" to believe that the Roosevelt administration is what got this country out of the Great Depression. History text books by famous scholars like Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., of Harvard and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia have enshrined FDR as a historic savior of this country, and lesser lights in the media and elsewhere have perpetuated the legend.
Although Professor Schlesinger admitted that he had little interest in economics, that did not stop him from making sweeping statements about what a great economic achievement the New Deal was.
Professors Commager and Morris of Columbia likewise declared: "The character of the Republican ascendancy of the twenties had been pervasively negative; the character of the New Deal was overwhelmingly positive." Anyone unfamiliar with the history of that era might never suspect from such statements that the 1920s were a decade of unprecedented prosperity and the 1930s were a decade of the deepest and longest-lasting depression in American history. But facts have taken a back seat to rhetoric.
In more recent years, there have been both academic studies and popular books debunking some of the myths about the New Deal. Nevertheless, Professor Folsom's book "New Deal or Raw Deal?" breaks new ground. Although written by an academic scholar and based on years of documented research, it is as readable as a newspaper-- and a lot more informative than most.
There are few historic events whose legends are more grossly different from the reality than the New Deal administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. And there are few men whose image has been more radically different from the man himself.
Some of the most devastating things that were said about FDR were not said by his political enemies but by people who worked closely with him for years-- Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau being just one. Morgenthau saw not only the utter failure of Roosevelt's policies, but also the failure of Roosevelt himself, who didn't even know enough economics to realize how little he knew.
Far from pulling the country out of the Great Depression by following Keynesian policies, FDR created policies that prolonged the depression until it was more than twice as long as any other depression in American history. Moreover, Roosevelt's ad hoc improvisations followed nothing as coherent as Keynesian economics. To the extent that FDR followed the ideas of any economist, it was an obscure economist at the University of Wisconsin, who was disdained by other economists and who was regarded with contempt by John Maynard Keynes.
President Roosevelt's strong suit was politics, not economics. He played the political game both cleverly and ruthlessly, including using both the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service to harass and intimidate his critics and opponents.
It is not a pretty story. But we need to understand it if we want to avoid the ugly consequences of very similar policies today.
Copyright 2010, Creators Syndicate Inc.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/02/guess_who_107804.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/02/guess_who_107804.html
Democratic, free capitalism best
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/108754/
JOEL KOTKIN: Prosperity Index Shows That Democracy Still Works Best.
With the Cold War well behind us, the real choice between systems lies in a growing variation in the form of capitalisms. Choices now range from the Chinese Leninist model – essential centrally planned exploitation of the greed gene – to various kleptocracies, divergent Anglo-American systems and varied forms of European capitalism.
None of these systems are likely to excite the most rabid Hayekian, especially now that the once free market haven Hong Kong is being integrated into the Chinese command and control system. But still, according a new study by my colleagues at the Legatum Institute, when it comes to delivering the best economic environment for people and families various forms of liberal capitalism still perform best.
The Legatum Prosperity Index found that all the more prosperous places – not only by income, but by quality of life, environment, education and health care – almost exclusively are democratic states. “Prosperity,” the report concludes, “is found in entrepreneurial democracies that have strong social fabrics.”
Read the whole thing.
Posted at 8:36 am by Glenn Reynolds
http://blogs.forbes.com/joelkotkin/2010/10/26/prosperity-index-shows-that-democracy-still-works-best/?boxes=opinionschannellighttop
JOEL KOTKIN: Prosperity Index Shows That Democracy Still Works Best.
With the Cold War well behind us, the real choice between systems lies in a growing variation in the form of capitalisms. Choices now range from the Chinese Leninist model – essential centrally planned exploitation of the greed gene – to various kleptocracies, divergent Anglo-American systems and varied forms of European capitalism.
None of these systems are likely to excite the most rabid Hayekian, especially now that the once free market haven Hong Kong is being integrated into the Chinese command and control system. But still, according a new study by my colleagues at the Legatum Institute, when it comes to delivering the best economic environment for people and families various forms of liberal capitalism still perform best.
The Legatum Prosperity Index found that all the more prosperous places – not only by income, but by quality of life, environment, education and health care – almost exclusively are democratic states. “Prosperity,” the report concludes, “is found in entrepreneurial democracies that have strong social fabrics.”
Read the whole thing.
Posted at 8:36 am by Glenn Reynolds
http://blogs.forbes.com/joelkotkin/2010/10/26/prosperity-index-shows-that-democracy-still-works-best/?boxes=opinionschannellighttop
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