The Conservative Dilemma – Higher Education

On Election Day 2008 Americans came out of the voting booths and described themselves to pollsters as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2 to 1, but had just proceeded to vote for Barack Obama. In that election most of the independents or moderates voted that way, but a second and more important factor was that 18-29 year –olds supported Obama by a margin of more than that, 66-32 percent, and they comprised almost 25 million votes. They showed up again in 2012 in even greater numbers. Therein, lies the dilemma for conservatives; America’s educational system is manufacturing millions of future Obama’s and those who support his view of the world.

The political left has promoted big government for many years. Since the election of Obama, socialists and communists have infiltrated our government with ideas, and sometimes legislation, far more radical than big government. They are the product of our higher education system. A 2007 study by George Mason University found that liberal faculty members at our universities outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 11 to 1 among social scientists and 13 to 1 among humanities professors. This can’t be a coincidence because poll after poll for the last two decades say that Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by 35-45% versus 20-35%.

Much of this trend is in schools rated among the top in the nation. For example, an analysis of Cornell University professors found 166 liberals compared to 6 conservatives, and UCLA claimed 141 liberals to only 9 conservatives. I venture a guess you will find the same at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Universities of California, Chicago, New York, etc. It’s like only liberals go into the profession or maybe that’s all they look for. At these schools impressionable students hear liberal words like tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism, collectivism, globalization, and relate them to the secular sacred cows like gender, race, and sexual orientation. Not in the context of the diversity of ideas, but the context of indoctrination. America is the problem, America is racist, America is ruining the environment, America is homophobic, America is greedy, are the continual themes.

Barack Obama is hardly one-of-a-kind, he is a product of this system, and you as a parent continue to send your children to these schools and contribute to their endowment funds. Recently my alma mater, Rutgers University, was courting me for more than a year for a large donation to Alumni Fund. After researching their faculty, student organizations, and speakers who are invited to give seminars, I could not relate to their current student body or the political bent of the school and told them so. They still persist.

For the last 15 years I have supported the Young America Foundation www.yaf.com . They work at the high school and college level to establish local chapters that support and invite conservative speakers to universities all over the nation in order to send a more balanced message to our young people. They also sponsor conferences and regional meetings where young people can hear the conservative message from contemporary political leaders. In addition, I have provided below a list of outstanding universities researched by the Young America Foundation, where your child can get a more balanced education of the political options.

Young people have become an influential voting bloc. It’s time for parents to look at this issue, for the only way that our system of government can be destroyed is from within. Our leftist educators appear to be doing a good job of just that.

List of Leading Conversative Colleges and Universities
Christendom  College
Front Royal, Virgnia
(800) 877-5456
www.christendom.edu

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri
(800) 222-0525
www.cofo.edu

Colorado Christian University
Lakewood, Colorado
800-44-FAITH
www.ccu.edu

Franciscan University
Steubenville, Ohio
(800) 783-6220
www.franciscan.edu

Grove City College
Grove City, Pennsylvania
(724) 458-2100
www.gcc.edu

Harding University
Searcy, Arkansas
(501) 279-4000
www.harding.edu

Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, Michigan
(517) 607-2327
www.hillsdale.edu

The King's College
New York, New York
(212) 659-7200
www.tkc.edu

Liberty University
Lynchburg, Virginia
(434) 582-2000
www.liberty.edu

Patrick Henry College
Purcellville, Virginia
(888)338-1776
www.phc.edu

Regent University
Virginia Beach, Virginia
(888) 718-1222
www.regent.edu

Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, Pennsylvania
(724) 537-4540
www.stvincent.edu

Thomas Aquinas College
Santa Paula, California
(800)634-9797
www.thomasaquinas.edu

Thomas More College
Merrimack, New Hampshire
(603) 880-8308
www.thomasmorecollege.edu

Wisconsin Lutheren College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(414) 443-8811
www.wlc.edu




                                  

Rules For Politicians in Current Times

My wife always said I would be a good politician but when I looked at the current rules, I concluded I would not make the grade:

Symbolism always trumps substance.

If you give the appearance of success enough times it becomes the truth.

If you don’t respond to your opponent’s lack of civility you give the appearance of weakness.

Young voters eventually grow up and realize that politics does affect their lives.

Politicians are similar to entertainers; they are not always what they appear to be.

If you know how to yell, move your hands, and talk ex-temporaneously, you can be a good politician. You don’t have to be smart or know what you’re talking about, but it helps.

If you are a successful politician and do not leave office as a rich man, you are not very smart.

If you can socialize with someone who degrades you in public, you have the potential to be a good politician.

Being a hypocrite is essential to being a successful politician.

If you are successful, lead a good life, and play by the rules, don’t run for public office.

If you tell the truth and never pander to special interests, you will never get re-elected.


Now you know why you don’t find many quality people in this occupation?

The New American Electorate

This is the post I did not want to write. In fact, I wrote another one 5 days ago for publication today because I thought Mitt Romney would now be President of the United States. Am I despondent? No. Do I still have faith in the United States and its destiny? Yes. Have I changed or altered my conservative political bent? No. Am I still fearful of the direction of this country? Yes. Will I continue to call Barack Obama out on his mistakes and performance? You bet!

The pundits will dissect and analyze the results of this election for the next few months but one thing is sure; this is a changed electorate. Voters are impressionable and impulsive, and facts or astute analysis to solve problems is not the path to victory. It’s the way you package the message and create perceptions that count. One of my friends who reads this blog told me that, but I did not heed his warning because I am a logical businessman with scientific training. Facts may win in the long term, but perception and emotion prevails in the short term when our electorate is made up primarily of women, Hispanics, and people under 30.

Of course, the danger is that impressionable or emotional people are more prone to make mistakes or take precipitous actions, and that makes this world a more dangerous place. It also means that the less educated and less informed have a greater influence on outcomes. This means our direction as a country becomes more like the rest of the pack and our exceptionalism dissolves.

With this kind of electorate, a campaign run by President Obama works well regardless of whether most people think we are headed in the wrong direction, or the economy has not really improved, or poverty is on the rise. He did it with a negative campaign that demonized his opponent, and told mistruths and lies about him enough times that the perception was created. Also, it was startlingly that 15% of the electorate said that Hurricane Sandy impacted their vote! That’s what happens with an impulsive electorate when visual impressions are so important. What you see is more important that what you say!

I will continue to support the conservative message because I believe it is the right one. However, based on the election I am disconnected with the American public, but not by much, according to the popular vote count. Unfortunately, only 10 states dictated events in the electoral vote. So nothing much has changed, and we are headed to 4 more years of big government. I only hope that Mr. Obama take heed of the tax reform ideas of Mr. Romney to get us out of this economic mess, because he appears clueless at this point. See, I still have my spunk!

The Case for Mitt Romney

I think you can see now after the debates are over and in the ensuing rhetoric that follows, that this really is a President with a rather small and narrow vision. His so-called plan for the future is nothing more than tax the rich, everyone gets their fair share, and level the playing field. His continued petty attacks and wise cracks on Romney, Romnesia, women in binders, Big Bird, and BSer, do nothing to raise the level of the dialogue. Instead, he looks like a desperate politician who never believed he would be rejected by the voters, because his constituency and the media love him.

What he doesn’t tell you is that his actual plan calls for more than $3 trillion in new taxes and fees. Obamacare alone contains $1.7 trillion in taxes and penalties according to the Congressional Budget Office. Here are some other taxes he has in store:

1. Raise the tax rate for all filers earning $200k or more to 39.6% from 35% and add a new Medicare tax, so the top rate goes to 44%, the highest it’s been in 25 years.

2. Boost the long term capital gains rate from 15% to 24% and triple the tax on dividends from 15% to 44.8%. This is devastating for investors and seniors.

3. Tax overseas profits of American companies by an undisclosed amount, even though our global competitors apply no such tax on their domestic companies. Currently, American companies have the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

4. Obama also plans to tax different industries at different rates, some higher, some lower, imposing the kind of crony taxation to go alongside his Solyandra-styled crony capital spending.

This tax plan is a recipe for another recession and spells disaster for the middle class, seniors, our military, and the job market. Obama’s “my way or the highway” approach will result in continued stagnation in Washington as Republicans in the House try to stop this misguided tax plan.

While Obama jokes and plays it cool on Letterman, Leno, Stewart, and black radio stations, Romney articulates a seriously thought-out plan and faces the big issues of our future. While Obama remains silent and fails to face up to the events in Benghazi, which resulted in the murder of our Ambassador to Libya and three others. He is more than willing to apologize for a video that had only 300 views on YouTube for the events in Egypt and Libya, as his Administration concocted a cover-up just to make him look good and avoid any political damage from the attack.

The case for Mitt Romney is clear, it is simply leadership and a track record, traits that this President has clearly shown he lacks. I only hope that voters will get it and we can avoid doing irreversible damage that will plague our nation for decades to come.

Does Lying Pay?

Judging from the recent presidential election polls, if you’re a politician, it certainly does. Starting with the Democratic convention and all the TV ads, the Obama campaign has saturated the screen and media, not about Obama’s accomplishments (there aren’t many), but about portraying Mitt Romney as a rich man totally disconnected from the “working class”, and characterizing him as a felon, wife killer, tax evader, and part of the privileged class; all part of a larger strategy to divide this country on a class basis.


Romney has been vetted much more than Mr. Obama as a public figure, and has an impeccable track record of accomplishments both in business, politics, and charitable work. Yet this does not get much traction with Obama’s constituency, people who vote on race, love of handouts, are chronically unemployed, impressionable young people, unionized teachers and government employees, and uninformed voters who get news via the pop media. The educated element of his constituency are college professors raised by the flower children of the 60’s who hate America and capitalism, but love socialism and believe that government should control most aspects of our life.

In fact, the so-called War on Women was invented during a Republican primary debate when George Stephanopoulos asked Romney if he was against contraception. Of course, Romney had no idea what he was talking about since this was not a national political issue and Republicans never said they were. Everyone knows that contraception is readily available to all people and free for the needy through Planned Parenthood and, in fact, they even hand out condoms in high schools. What Republicans object to is taxpayer subsidy of abortion and forcing contraception on religious organizations against their conscience via Obamacare. This is a violation of the 1st Amendment granting all Americans freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. There is no War on Women; it is an utter hoax. Women in America in the last decade, mostly under Bush, have enjoyed the greatest boom in their economic independence, professional employment, and higher paying jobs than ever before in the history of the planet.

Here are some other lies in Obama’s ads:

1. Romney wants to raise taxes on the middle class – Romney wants to cut taxes for everyone to stimulate investment and generate jobs.

2. Romney will cut taxes for the rich – yes, but offset these by the elimination of loopholes, credits, and deductions that cause abuse of the system.

3. Obamacare will cut the cost of Medicare – A lie; it will raise the cost of healthcare in general ($2 trillion in 10 yrs.) and will cut Medicare services by some $570 billion starting now.

4. Obama’s foreign policy has made us safe, Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive, – Lie, Bin Laden is dead all right, but that is not a foreign policy. Also, ask the parents of the late Ambassador to Libya if we are safer, and those millions burning our flag in 20 countries. Also, GM may be alive but has a $50 billion debt with no way to pay it off in the future. As a company, it is on life support, or Obama support.

The story goes on and on and this election will be a good measure of whether lying is an excellent election strategy.

A Pathetic President – Unbridled

I know that many of you who read these posts are Romney supporters and you are depressed about what you see in the main street media about their perception of the campaign thus far. The truth is that no matter how pathetic Obama is as a President and the errors of his campaign, you won’t hear about it. The only balanced source of the other side of the story is the Internet and Fox News.

I just finished reading several books related to this Presidency. One is still a NY Times best seller called, “The Amateur” by Ed Klein. From interviews with scores of people close to Obama and currently working at the White House, it is clear how shallow he is and his lack of leadership skills. He is an amateur, but the press will never let you know. A recent interview with the Mexican Network, Telemundo, where he got hard ball questions and buckled under this pressure and resorted to blatant lies to get through, was illustrative of his ineptness. The White House press corps has never hit him with questions like that in the last 4 years.

Wait until the debates in October and I’m sure we will get the same thing. The moderators are from NBC, CBS, PBS, and CNN; listen to the questions Obama gets relative to Romney. When a President lies to your face in a press conference or an interview, how many reporters have the guts to confront him? The problem is the uninformed voters (and there are many), actually believe him.

Another example of this irresponsible press coverage is the current Mid-East crisis, which is a total refute of the Administration’s failed foreign policy in this part of the world. A murdered Ambassador in Libya, flag burnings and violent anti-American demonstrations in 20 countries in Europe, Asia, and the mid-East, and all you hear about it in the press is Romney’s “ill advised” remarks about the Libyan situation and the 47% of Americans who pay no taxes. The crisis showed that this State Department and the Administration did not react to warnings from the Libyan government and failed to provide the necessary security during the 9/11 anniversary to protect 4 courageous American heroes and tried to cover it up. This is a President who is absent from security meetings and gets information from written reports slid under the door of his living quarters and no questions ever come back. If this doesn’t convince you how important it is to “get him out”, quoting Clint Eastwood, nothing will.

The two other books I recommend are, “The Communist” by Paul Kengor, which is the story of Frank Marshall Davis, who mentored a young Obama on Stalinism, Leninism, and the US Communist party principles, before he entered college. This was a grounding that Obama expanded via his associations with socialists, communists, progressives, and Islamic terrorists throughout his college career as he stated in his own autobiography. The other book, “Fool Me Twice” by Aaron Klein and Brenda Elliott, is a scenario of what to expect in the next four years if Obama is re-elected. This is based on programs already in progress that continue to expand government and threaten to change America to an entitlement state for decades to come. Heaven help us!

We must get Republicans out of the doldrums and into the voting booth in November.

Do You Recognize This America?

We have finally come to the debate that this election is all about. The so-called haves and the have-nots. This is the seminal question that needs to be addressed and Romney brought it to the surface when a left-wing publication, Mother’s News, released a tape of Romney talking to donors at a fund-raising event in May about the political realities of his election. It's the fact that Obama immediately has a major constituency of people in this country who don’t pay taxes and would not be sympathetic to Romney’s view of an individual’s freedom from dependency, the creation of wealth rather than the redistribution of it, and lower taxes to spur investment and hiring in the private sector. This doesn’t go over very well with people who live on the government dole.

The Republicans quickly countered with a tape of Obama from 1998, where he states his belief in redistribution and taking the nation on the path that has ruined much of Europe’s economy and that of communist countries like the old USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela. The Obama theory is to take the wealth of the productive people who pay most of the taxes and give it to the least productive. In essence, he buys their votes with our money, in order to perpetuate his power. The system has failed wherever it has been implemented and stagnates economic growth.

This type of system is the antithesis of the American dream and the nation we have been for 230 years. It divides us along class, income, race, and gender lines and creates an oversimplified segmentation of our population based strictly on wealth rather than contribution and the pursuit of happiness.

Also, it’s a system that develops a privileged statist class where public sector income surpasses that in the private sector and people are awarded unrealistic pensions, health plans, perks, and lifetime jobs, in the rather wasteful and inefficient systems that permeate the non-profit public sector. This elitist class chooses the winners and losers and builds a morass of ineffective bureaucratic commissions and committees that enhance their own interests. This is a class that is being resurrected again in Russia under Putin and causing demonstrations in the streets.

We see this also in the mid-East, particularly in Egypt and Iran, where religious fanaticism and a crumbling economy, with a 70% unemployment rate for the youth under 30, results in having nothing to do but demonstrate in the streets and burn our flag, rather than have a job to go to.

Is this what’s in our future? We are starting to see the symptoms here; teachers in Chicago, occupiers on Wall Street, racial and class warfare. Is this the hope and change you expected? Are we more divided today than 4 years ago? What kind of society have we become? Do we evaluate our Presidents on performance or their “likeability” factor?
Mr. Romney should not shy away from his remarks; he should face this head on and tell us the truth not what politicians like Mr. Obama think we want to hear.

Conventional Chaos

In the final night of this Democratic convention, I hope we can make some sense of the chaos in its rhetoric and its total disconnect with the American people. This is a scary bunch, not only most of the speakers, but also the attendees. If the Democrats pull off this election, which I doubt, it will be the biggest con ever pulled over the American public.

Many Democrats I have talked with don’t recognize this party. It has been virtually high-jacked by its far left wing. It is a party of lies, deceit, and personal destruction. It is the most anti-business party we have ever had in our history, promoting the government as the all knowing ruler of our destiny and taking us on a path towards a Socialist philosophy that has taken down most of Western Europe, and caused the economic stagnation of the USSR and most of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

The patronizing and Alinsky-like rhetoric, and the lies and deception about the views of their opponents, is in sharp contrast with the convention in Tampa. The slobbering worship of a President, who has wasted four years extending our economic agony, was embarrassing.

If you heard the remarks of Sandra Fluke and Elizabeth Warren, you ask yourself what are they talking about? Women should be offended by what they said. Making it appear as if they were trapped and abused by a male-driven society that is in a war on women’s rights, during a decade that has seen the greatest rise in women’s opportunity in the workplace, corporate jobs, and income advancement; achieving a status never before seen on this planet. If anything, this party has a war on white males, because they can’t find a way to get their vote.

To make matters worse, they parade out a former President to make the nomination and he proceeds to smear his insatiable ego all over the TV screen with his folksy analysis of how things were so great during his administration, forgetting to tell you that the other party saved his ass, when the Republican landslide Congressional election forced him to govern to the center, something Barack Obama will never do. Give him more time; this job was harder than we thought, says Clinton. Clinton dislikes Obama so much and the purpose of his speech was only for holding open the Presidential option for his wife. This speaks volumes about his sincerity and integrity.

I’m listening now to Joe Biden, a guy who they wanted to throw off the ticket because of his misguided views of the world and embarrassing gaffes. Here he is praising this great President and rallying this collection of Kool-Aid drinkers, who seem to love the security of life on the government dole.

Obama is next, I can hardly wait. Listening to this parade of angry and yelling politicians at this convention is very scary. This crew is desperate to remain in power.

The Desperate Convention

The theme of the Obama campaign is the word “Forward”, but we see a video of the late Ted Kennedy debating Romney for Governor of MA, a video of Jimmy Carter tomorrow, and a key address from former President Bill Clinton. Sounds like the democrats are going backward. As the convention opens they are having a hard time answering the question, “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?”

I am currently listening to Kathleen Sebelius talking about the “affordable health care act or Obamacare”. Her spin on this seems to please the attendees, but 60% of the people in the country don’t buy her spin. The key word is “affordable” and the mere fact that non-partisan accounting groups say this will cost us $2 trillion more than the current system, doesn’t sound affordable to me.

Now Rahm Emanuel is talking about his time working for Obama, he doesn’t read the teleprompter very well. Talks about how Obama reads 10 letters every night from citizens and says, “Rahm these are the people we are fighting for”. Only 10? Looks like he’s losing the fight. Pretty corny speech. Most people appear to be falling asleep. Rahm why don’t you go home and do something about the 20 murders that occur every weekend in South Chicago?

Now Deval Patrick, Governor of MA, is giving a rather rousing speech, criticizing the Republican governors who talked at the Republican Convention. I guess he’s jealous when you look at the financial condition of his state and other democratically led states like California, Illinois, Connecticut, and New York. Good talk for the base, “when we want the American dream alive we want Obama in charge”. Hard sell.

Listening now to Julian Castro, Mayor of San Antonio, and the keynote speaker. Democrats claim he is the next Obama. I was not impressed, not many applause lines, no comparison to Obama in his hey days. This guy is no Rubio; he has simple concepts and predictable rhetoric. Quote:” We are all connected by government and Barack Obama our connection.” Wow! Government is the central theme at this convention.

Here comes Michelle, first with a video talking about her rather humble start in South Chicago. Her Mom, brother, Valerie Jarret (her mentor), Biden’s wife. Not bad for someone who was never proud of her country until her husband was elected President. Shots from the Letterman and Ellen shows. The video runs a little too long.

Then she picks up on the class warfare bit trying to show the contrast between her and her husband’s humble start and Romney’s. Praises Barack’s values and his great upbringing, I guess she didn’t read his book. Mother dumped him with her parents for years, his smoking weed, snorting coke, and skipping classes. She also forgot when she threatened to divorce him in Chicago because he couldn’t earn a respectable living. Barack does all these great things for America, not because he is an ideologue, but because he is a saint. I was in tears; we’ve got so much left to do. What an actress! I was embarrassed for the first lady; she was actually begging us to bring him back. She used every platitude you can think of about his “greatness”. What a bunch of corn, I was calling for the hook.

Dems Must Think We’re Stupid

I am writing this the day after Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention. I have been able to watch most of the convention coverage.

I am amazed how so many people who watched these proceedings could not be impressed by the quality, stature, accomplishments, and results achieved by the speakers. Ryan’s speech, which was a masterpiece, is already being trashed by the mainstream media and leftist blogs, calling him a “woman hater” and “extremist”. Anyone who heard the speech could never reach that conclusion. We Americans are not that stupid. Apparently, our President’s supporters think we are.

Also, when the Republican called off the first day for safety reasons and everyone was concerned about how they could start the convention with Isaac headed towards New Orleans, Obama held a 10-minute press conference to give “instructions” to the people of that great city and then hustled out the door for a campaign trip to some community college and fund raiser.

Unfortunately, Isaac hit eastern New Orleans and many people in that area had a situation worse than Katrina. Huddled in the attics with their families or on their roofs waiting for help, losing everything. Where is Obama? I heard he spent one hour today on some leftist website, probably talking about is favorite ice cream. Where are his FEMA people? I thought by now they would be on the scene handing out goodies and supplies for a photo op. I guess the Obama campaign must have written off Louisiana.

My guess is that they are all working on preparations for their extravaganza. I can’t wait, but I don’t think we’ll get the Greek columns this time. They certainly won’t talk about the big issues. Nothing there. Let’s talk about the social issues, free contraception for all, war against women, gay marriage, rich vs. poor, black vs. white, amnesty for illegals. These topics are great for Twitter, since you’re limited to 40 characters and they can really be covered by sound bytes. All designed to reach their specific voting blocs.

Oh yes, let’s hear from Sandra Fluke, who wants us to pay for her rather aggressive sex life, since $6/month for a normal 30 day pill supply was not enough during her time at Georgetown and those nasty Catholics, well you know, they won’t even cover it on the student medical insurance! Sandra, we have more important issues, ask those 23 million people out of work. Sandra, if you can’t afford the six bucks, how about gluing your knees together until you get a real job. Fluke will be a featured speaker and I can hardly wait. Sorry, to be so blunt, but as a Catholic, I don’t want my taxes going to kill babies. Buy your pills with your own money, that’s what choice means.

All I know is that I have seen plenty of intelligent and successful men and women speak at this convention, black, white, Hispanic, and most came from middle class backgrounds and have succeeded the hard way, they earned it. They certainly don’t represent the image the Dems would want you to have of the Party. In fact, I doubt if the Dems can match this display of talent.

Hillary's Errant Attempt at Diplomacy

I know most of you ladies who admire Hillary Clinton will not want to read this, so I advise you to stop right here. First let me say, that in my opinion Mrs. Clinton has been the worst Secretary of State we have had since Warren Christopher of the Carter administration. I realized that Mrs. Clinton is most admired by women all over the world and is a role model for many, particularly in her support of women’s rights, but after logging almost 1 million miles, her accomplishments in this role have been miniscule and she has betrayed us by allowing our foreign policy to be dictated by our bungling Vice President and Obama’s cronies in the National Security Council.

This is the first time since the end of WWII that the United States has abdicated its leadership role in the international arena. We now defer to NATO and the United Nations for critical actions and decisions in all the hot-bed areas and have allowed France, China, Russia, Iran, and even Venezuela to be pro-active forces in foreign affairs; all this in the name of the Obama Doctrine of leading from behind. As a result, our status and power in the eyes of our allies have been diminished and our enemies are empowered.

Mrs. Clinton continues on her worthless travels around the world, going through the motions of pomp and ceremony with no discernible agenda or substantive results. The quotes released by her staff are full of trivial platitudes and generalizations that give fear to our allies and distain from our enemies. She appears to be the life of the party wherever she goes, and I’m sure the recent photos of her dancing with the South African Foreign Minister in Pretoria, went down very well with the Syrian rebels fighting for their lives against the Assad regime in Aleppo, while we watch helplessly on the side lines.

Her passivity on Iraq and Afghanistan, and her empty and trite words throughout the Arab Spring and the Iranian revolution attempt, are unprecedented. She was never suited for this role and was given it to keep her “out of the way” of Obama’s domestic transformation, while giving her a high profile and prestigious position. She has presided over this retrenchment of our foreign policy without the notice of the American people, while we are distracted by our domestic economic woes and didn’t even seem to care. She says that she will be leaving this post after the election, and given Obama’s indifference to foreign affairs, I expect that Joe Biden would have an even greater impact on foreign policy in a second Obama administration. Another reason to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Yes Hillary, I guess it takes a village, and now the U.S. is just another hut in the village!

Romney Shows Real Leadership with Ryan Selection

Needless to say, the selection of Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin may have been a surprise to some but I am a big fan of Ryan and have written several articles about him over the years. As many of the pundits have said, Romney’s selection will force the Obama campaign to face up to the issues, because the people will soon see that Romney and Ryan are the only adults in the room. Personal attacks on Romney, painting him as a felon and linking him to the death of a woman he had nothing to do with, degrading his success, misrepresenting his views, and truly lying about his accomplishments, are the acts of a desperate campaign of a failed administration, burning through their financial resources.

Immediately the attack dogs are pouncing on Ryan’s budget plan which finally seriously addresses our national debt and deficit issues, and attempts to reform our entitlements which are on the path of near term bankruptcy. Ryan’s presence on the ticket will provide a clear cut choice between the polarized ideologies that have stagnated our political system for the past 6 years since Reed, Pelosi, and Obama got control of our government, or at least since the 2010 election.

It’s a choice of continuing to kick the can down the road, more of the same, no creative ideas or concern for our out-of-control debt, and continue on the spending spree and social programs that enhance dependency; or a choice for fiscal responsibility, balance budgets, restrained spending, lower taxes for everyone, which will enhance economic growth and motivate investments, and thus grow jobs.

Already you hear the left saying, Medicare will be decimated, along with Social Security, kids will starve, people will be turned away from hospitals, we will have dirty water, air, and food. The truth of course, is nothing of the sort. The GOP economic plan says anything about junking Medicare or doing away with proven social programs; the real scare is 4 more years of the path we are currently on.

I hope you heard Paul Ryan’s remarks yesterday. He is a super smart person with a Kennedyesque charisma, brilliant credentials in the financial area, with lots of experience in Congress and he surpassed many of his peers in the House due to his capabilities and his ability to articulate complicated issues in a way the voter can understand. He is not afraid of the truth, a terrific problem solver, and has great leadership qualities. He will empower the GOP conservative base and invigorate the Tea Party, and pretty soon the country will get to know him and his popularity will surge.

Mitt, has made a great selection, and when elected he will bring real professionals to Washington in contrast to this crew of amateur academics and elitist lefties, who avoid the truth and run away from the real issues.

Never Ask Liberals for Specifics

In my last post I talked about Obama’s role in establishing what is fair for the populace. Of course, the probem is that when a President has been mentored by Marxists and surrounded by academics and Socialists all his adult life, we end up with an extreme and rather radical view of fairness.

I know it is difficult not to be frustrated with this situation when debating with liberals. In the last article, I discussed specific facts and numbers about how much the so-called “rich” pay in our progressive tax system, and many of us would view it as unfair. However, when you ask a liberal how much is fair, they never give you a number or an answer. They always resort to the liberal talking points and get off the subject. That is because they really don’t care. It’s the attitude that rich people should pay more because they are rich. When you ask what is rich, they will never tell you. If you pay 95% of your income in taxes, they still would want more.

That’s why raising taxes is never a problem for government, they never really have a definition of what’s enough. Why should we expect anything different? Obama has run this country for the last four (4) years with no budget and he is not concerned, nor is his party in the Senate. Sure, Obama has submitted a budget as required by law, but it was so outlandish and out of touch with reality, that it receive zero votes in the House of Representatives, some 440-0. That means Obama knew it would not pass. He just didn’t care.

The U.S. government is the largest employer on the planet. If enough money doesn’t come in, we just borrow some more. So if tax revenues don’t cover our expenses, we print some more money and because the U.S. dollar is the world’s currency base, we are the only country that can control the money supply. Right now we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend! No business, no household, can operate for long without knowing its cash flow. Why do you think California is bankrupt, and several cities in that state have declared bankruptcy already? It is because they have reached the tipping point, saddled with billions in bills and unfunded pension and health plan liabilities caused by politicians and union bosses that only think about the moment they are in power and not the future.

So the moral of the story is that when you argue with a liberal, don’t give them the facts or the truth. They only want to talk about the vision, just like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Chavez, and Castro. And what sounds good to the masses is that “the rich should pay more” or “you didn’t build your company, the people who built the roads and bridges did”. Yes Barack, thanks go to my Mother and Father, because if I wasn’t born, I could not have built my company.

Now do understand why you can’t argue with a liberal. Just wait until the debates begin and don’t get frustrated, most of us already know their script.

The Dictator of Fairness

What is fair is a very subjective thing. It means different things to different people and it’s relative to all sorts of circumstances or situations. Unless you have a king or a dictator, what’s fair is rarely decided by a single individual. That’s why we have laws. Still some people think certain laws are unfair, and that’s why we have lawyers, arbitrators, judges, and juries. They help us interpret the law and decide what is fair. Those of us, who have been around for some time, have come to realize that this world is not always fair. We have wars, sickness, criminals, famine, poverty, terrorists, corruption, and con men operating everywhere in the world, all the time.

This leads us to the question of whether any head of state, including President Obama, has the right or authority in a democracy to decide what is fair for all the people. Politicians seem to believe that they have the job to decide what is fair for their constituents. For example, the other day both the Mayors of Chicago and Boston (who happened to be on the left side of our political spectrum) have decided because of their “authority”, that they will prevent Chick-Fil-A to open anymore stores in their cities because the founder/owner of the company supports the conventional definition of marriage. Is that fair? Why don’t they just not patronize Chick-Fil-A restaurants? That would be fairer! I don’t like Alec Baldwin’s politics, but I still go to his movies because he is a good actor and comedian, however, I have a choice not to and that would be fair. Wouldn’t it?

Our progressive tax system is another way to look at fairness. I think most of us accept the fact that those who can afford to pay more due to their income should, and thus we accept a progressive system. However, at what point does the system become unfair? A new Congressional budget office report shows that the share paid by the top 20% of income earners (those making more than $74k/yr.) pay nearly 70% of all federal taxes collected. The remaining 30% is borne by 80% of the taxpayers. In addition, the progressive trend in this group continues in the unfair direction. This same group paid 55% of all taxes in 1979; by 2009 their share was 68%. Over this same period the top 1% of wage earners paid 14% of all taxes in 1979 and now pays 22%.

By contrast, the bottom 20% paid a paltry 2% of total taxes in 1979 and now pays a minuscule 0.3%. After looking at this data, I have come to the conclusion that President Obama is right, the system isn’t fair, but not because the top 1% pay too little. It’s because they pay too much!

It’s clear from this that fairness is in the eyes of the beholder, and Mr. Obama is not the arbitrator of fairness. In fact, he is one opinion out of 300 million of us. When he told Joe the Plumber in 2008 that, “it’s only fair to spread the wealth around, right?” Who knew that a community organizer from South Chicago would be the sole judge of fairness for the United States?

Reflections on the Massacre in Aurora

My wife, Mary, and I like to go to the movies. We prefer movies that suit our demographic but also go to “pop” movies that reflect the current culture, so we can keep up with what is “in” with the younger generation. Therefore, we purchased tickets in advance to the new The Dark Knight Rises film of the Batman trilogy. After the horrendous tragedy in Aurora, Mary wanted to refund the tickets and was uneasy about going after seeing the TV coverage of the events. I convinced her that these events should not deter us from carrying on our normal life activities.

So we went to this now infamous movie and it turned out to be pretty awful, replete with an incoherent story line, an idiotic message, and the proverbial computer simulated destruction and violence scenes that seem to attract our youth in the adolescent and early college age groups. I agonized that people had to die just over a midnight showing of this trash.

This is a generation raised on video games as the prime source of entertainment and diversion, where the number of people you kill or vehicles you blow up in the shortest amount of time, is a measure of your skill and hand-eye coordination. In my generation, your ability to hit a baseball coming at you at high rate of speed, or to leap in the air and release a basketball and swish the basket, were measures of that same talent. In the process, you could burn some calories, build your developing body, and release the frustrations and pressures of growing up.

It appears to me that the deranged perpetrator of this horrific act is a product of this video game virtual world that eventually becomes reality, even for an apparently scholastically smart young man that is so mentally sick he cannot separate a Batman character from the real world.

It is also disturbing to observe how Hollywood, in the name of money, can put together a film that equates a video game to the real world, and gives actors ridiculous lines, and creates scripts that no normal person would believe has any semblance of reality, and results in many young people flocking to it like they are about to observe some artistically satisfying experience.

You say, “George, don’t get so high and mighty, it’s only entertainment and people don’t really act that way. This is an aberration!” Well, I have seen too many of these events in recent years that are not spontaneous acts of crazy people, but rather diabolical and planned acts of misguided and mentally trouble people who have easy access to weapons and devices of mass killing and destruction. Yes, we will always have evil people who commit horrible acts, but this kind of trend is a direct result of the permissiveness and lower standards in the “entertainment” that we expose to our less mature generations.

The Internet is a marvelous tool for information, communication, and learning, but it is unrestricted and therefore also a source of perversion and pornography, where curious minds can type in a browser and get access to things they cannot process and that provide them with an unseemly view of life and predators. This is a dangerous world in many ways, and technology is wonderful when channeled in the right direction.

As I am writing this, I am watching a prayer ritual in the city of Aurora, CO. My heart goes out to the victims and their families and the many heroes that arose from the depths of this dastardly act. I feel great admiration for the courage and decency of people who will risk their lives to help others in distress. It was illustrated on 9/11 in NYC and in other recent events like this, and gives me great faith in the goodness of our people.

This is the Turning Point

This is the day that made the election of Mitt Romney a certainty! Today was the turning point in this campaign that will ignite and empower the conservative wing of the Republican Party behind Romney, which was previously a concern given his reputation as a moderate. His promise to repeal this travesty as his first act as President will propel him to a convincing win.

We already know that we have the greatest health care system in the world based on quality and access. We know that even those who are uninsured, for whatever reasons, get quality care at the expense of those who can afford insurance. We have now handed this system over to the government and they have concocted a 2,700 page description of how they will run it, and the document is totally incomprehensible even to those professionals who currently are part of it.

We have seen premiums go up anywhere from 10% - 30% in the past year as we prepare for enforcement, compared with a much smaller rise in health care costs in the previous 4 years. Also, we have seen the various “glitches” that have occurred as we try to understand it, such as the violation of our First Amendment rights related to freedom of religion. Once again we have been deceived by this President, who sold this as a mandate when in fact it was a tax increase on all Americans and he did not have the guts to admit it. He left it to the Supreme Court to say it was a tax in order to be constitutional.

What this means to us, the consumer, concerning the impact on quality and accessibility, is virtually unknown. But what we do know is that if you are on Medicare there is now $500B in benefits that you will lose, much of which will go to Medicaid under State control which will be funded by the government for the first year. States than have the option to opt-out if they are concerned about their ability to sustain that program long term. If they do, the cost will go back to federal taxpayers. Also, those who have their health insurance through their employer may lose it and be force to buy it independently at a higher premium if they want the same coverage, should their employer elect to opt-out and pay a fine if it makes economic sense.

This may be a temporary victory for Obama, but it was earned on a technicality, since the President has repeatedly denied it is a tax. He has now violated another promise to the American public and it will unseat him in the final analysis. The unbiased Government Accounting Office has said that the Affordable Healthcare Act is unaffordable, because it will cost at least $2 trillion more than originally estimated and further exacerbate our debt problem. We are now on the path of socialist Europe in healthcare. Let’s make sure we repeal it before it is implemented in 2014 and becomes an entitlement that we can’t get rid of.

I hope it makes you work harder towards unseating this Administration and electing a President and Congress that will undo this fiasco.

Vulture or Crony - Pick Your Poison

This President seems to have a knack for being on the wrong side of the argument on most issues and the fact that his campaign is continually on the defense bears this out. His recent attack on Governor Romney’s so called “vulture-style” of capitalism as opposed to his “crony-style”, as he moonlights as CEO-in-Chief, is a futile attempt to justify the fact that an economy driven by political favoritism is preferable to one run by the pursuit of profit.

Of course, the scientists who work for the Energy Dept (their leader is a Nobel Prize winner) were a bit turned off by this profit thing, and decided to hand Solyndra a $535M loan guarantee even as government accountants said this was a loser. So the White House said let’s have the IRS triple the tax credit for Solyndra customers which would offset the fact that they were not competitive, not recognizing the fact that when you are in a global market this doesn’t work! So 1,100 people get laid off, no severance, no vacation back pay, but there still was room for $370,000 in bonuses for 20 “selected” employees.

In another flagrant case of crony capitalism, let’s look at Obama’s Detroit venture. The campaign is crowing about the success of saving GM and Chrysler. Yes, they are both still operating but they arguably would be at the same place if they went through an orderly bankruptcy like the steel and airline industries did which made them more competitive. Instead, with Obama’s capitalism we hand a total of $83B to both firms and give the UAW union controlling ownership as a prize for causing the bankruptcies in the first place. In turn, the UAW bars 2,500 non-union laid-off workers from transferring to other plants. Wow, this is beginning to look somewhat vulture-like! Also, let’s forget about contract law and screw the unsecured bondholders in favor of the union. All those bonds go belly-up and all those people who invested in GM and Chrysler for their retirement, well, they just have to work a little longer. That is, if they can keep their job.

Also, lets subsidize GM’s electric car and give everyone who buys one a $10,000 tax credit. No wonder GM is doing well, they have a gigantic loan for which they don’t have to make a payment for another two years, and all their money-losing activities are subsidized by you and me. Even Barney Frank can run that company and make it look good, at least, for a while.

OK, now you decide. Do you want Obama crony capitalism, which is driven by political favors, subsidies, mandates, and tax credits or Romney vulture capitalism driven by profit? At least when vulture capitalism fails its private money that suffers, not you or me. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take vulture every time.

When the President Talks - Don't Laugh

I can’t really resist this! The more President Obama talks during this campaign, the more we realize how unequipped he is to be President. At a recent press conference after the NATO meeting in Chicago, he managed to turn it into a campaign opportunity to get at Governor Romney.

He was trying to justify his attack on Bain Capital and rationalized why he thought that Romney’s business experience did not make him more qualified to solve our economic woes. He said that the goal of “profit maximization” by private equity was not the appropriate goal for all the people; that as a President he has to consider the needs of all our citizens not only shareholders. I wish he would tell me when maximizing profits does not benefit all the people and the consumer in the long run. This just illustrates that Mr. Obama knows nothing about economics and that another 4 years of his logic can be ruinous to our economy.

Companies that maximize profits are making products or providing services that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for, therefore, they generate higher margins over their costs. When their competitors can provide the equivalent products or services, demand goes up and prices come down and so do profits. The next step in the cycle then provides the incentive to lower production costs or improve efficiency to maximize profit. Both these actions and events benefit the consumer because they either generate demand, lower prices, or improve productivity. This translates into benefit for the consumer, which is great for the economy.

Consumer welfare is the prime reason for an economy. Skill at profit maximization translates directly into skill at governing an economy. The fact that Obama doesn’t recognize this is astonishing. His failure to understand this simple and basic tenet of economics makes him totally unfit to navigate us out of this morass.

The more profits that companies generate, the more they invest, the more they grow and innovate, the more jobs they generate, the higher salaries they pay, the more their stock appreciates, the more pension funds grow. Tell me again Mr. Obama, when are profits bad for all Americans, what segment of the population suffers when profits are good?

Now that Obama has taken this class warfare, anti-business approach, he is putting himself in a corner that will make him a one-term President. Take heart, Republicans.

A "Bush League President"?

Conservatives take heart! After viewing the mainstream Sunday morning talk shows it’s no wonder why conservatives get so pessimistic about the possible outcome of the 2010 election. However, after watching this weekend’s round of shows it became obvious that the Obama campaign is desperate and even the liberal-bias networks are beginning to feel the pressure. Meet the Press devoted most of their show to the 1st Anniversary of the Osama Bin Laden capture. Now we hear that everyone was opposed to it (Biden, Gates, Clinton, etc.) and our president made the courageous decision to go with the Navy Seals instead of a missile attack on the house, or doing nothing. You have got to be kidding! First of all, most of the people writing stories about that decision have no direct information from any of the participants, and Time magazine’s version of the account is not exactly what I would call objective given their track record.

We know that doing nothing was not an option; since our intelligence was 90% sure he was there. This would eventually leak out and would be suicide for Obama. Second, a missile attack on a town that housed the Pakistan military elite, and might cause peripheral damage, kill civilians, and be considered an attack on Pakistan, is not a particularly the low risk option. It would appear that what was done was a decision that you, me, or our military would have preferred. But now the Obama campaign says that Romney would not have done it! Just another indication of the desperation. Poor vs. rich, black vs. white, employer vs. employee, union vs. business, war against women, anything but focusing on the economy and Obama’s track record of spending us into the brink of insolvency.

Peggy Noonan had an excellent article this weekend in the Wall Street Journal entitled “A Bush League President”, in which she describes this president’s rather boring rhetoric, pandering to his special interests and emphasis on the small things with no vision for the future. She said “he lacks joy; he’s cool but lacks vigor. A lot of what he says could have been said by a president 12-20 years ago”. Noonan believes that Republicans should cheer up. She believes that this administration has no answers and when you add the GSA scandal, Solyandra, and a host of mistakes in the Justice and Energy Departments, day-to-day governance is essentially non-existent. It’s getting re-elected that only matters.

At this time in the election process Ronald Reagan was trailing the incumbent Jimmy Carter by 14 points and he won in a landslide. Romney and Obama are essentially even, and regardless of the power of an incumbent president and all that free exposure, it appears that the Republicans have the momentum, and Obama is desperately seeking a campaign theme, because he can’t run on his record. Take heart, a lot of surprises are ahead.

Obama's Fruitless War on Oil

Our President’s war on the oil industry may play well with his primary constituency but for the informed voter it is an exercise in futility. First of all, the $4 billion in tax breaks, or subsidies, or giveaways, or whatever he calls it, is peanuts compared to the $86M that the government rakes in from the oil and gas industry everyday! Yes, I said every day. He is using this as purely a political campaign ploy to make it appear he is really concerned about gas prices, when the truth is he is not. He believes that higher carbon-based fuel prices are good for his green energy agenda.
The fact is, your children, their children, and your children’s children, will primarily be using oil and gas for decades to come, long after Mr. Obama is history. His excursion into wind, solar, electric cars, etc. is pre-mature and wasting our money. These methods will best be developed by the private sector which can do the research necessary to eventually make them commercially viable. His political cronies are taking money from his national alternative fuel giveaway program with loan guarantees, tax breaks, and subsidies for investments that eventually fail for lack of a market, while they personally skim off the top and the government ends up paying the bill.
The reality is that fossil fuels are a gift from God! Not only are they a relatively cheap and excellent source of energy but also a source of chemical building blocks for most of the products that add value, benefit, and pleasure to our lives. Medicines, plastics, solvents, chemicals, building products, you name it, most anything we touch. The amazing thing is that we have loads of it, and are sitting on oil and gas reserves that will last us hundreds of years, if we have the will or desire to recover them.
Another ridiculous thing about this political ploy is that the $4B in “subsidies” is minor compared with the $35.7B in corporate taxes that the industry paid into the government in 2009 and every year, according to the Federal Energy Information Administration. In fact, the average effective tax rate for oil and gas companies was 41.1% in 2010. Most other manufacturers pay an effective rate of 26.5%. ExxonMobil reported that its profit in the 1st Qtr of 2011 for its retail gasoline operations was 7 cents per gallon. Gasoline taxes range between 26.4 cents per gallon in Alaska to 66.1 cent per gallon in California, and averages 48.1 cents/gal, which says that governments (federal and state) make at least 7 times the profit per gallon than the oil companies!
The oil companies really don’t care about the $4B in tax benefits; however, the fact that it is prejudicial to the industry is the issue. All other companies enjoy the same deductions so why should an industry that supports more than 9 million jobs in the U.S. be singled out because the President says “the oil industry is profitable enough without these tax breaks and that the money should be spent on alternative energy sources”. Since when does he get to decide whether Exxon, Apple, or any company is “making enough”?
Many taxpayers in this country have 401k’s that are invested in ExxonMobil and they like when its stock appreciates and it pays dividends to its stockholders. No single person, particularly one who never had a real job should decide the profitability limits of giant corporations, unless they live in China, Cuba, Russia, or Venezuela.

The Trayvon Martin Case is Perplexing

As a white person I can certainly understand the frustration and rage, particularly of the black community, concerning the way this was handled by the Stanford, Florida law enforcement officials. The attempt to give this national attention is certainly appropriate if this is the only way to insure that justice will be served. Obviously, whites are equally appalled and we can all relate to this kind of alleged injustice, however, blacks have historically been sensitized to these inequities.

Therefore, I’ve become increasingly annoyed why the media appears to report this as a racial incident, particularly when we don’t know all the facts yet. Again, our President jumps in as he did in the Louis Gates affair a couple of years ago and the press keeps referring to the alleged perpetrator, George Zimmerman, as a “white” Hispanic, thus aggravating the racial aspect.

Although Zimmerman seemed to be a neighborhood vigilante looking for trouble, until there is a proper investigation, the 911 tapes seemed to indicate there is room for speculation about what really happened to cause him to take such violent action. Also, we don’t know about the criminal history in the neighborhood that would require such surveillance Zimmerman was engaged in.

I am particularly chagrined that our President weighs into this again in a racial way. He says, “If he had a son, he would look like Trayvon”; does that mean he would view this any differently if it were a white youth who was murdered the same way? This President seems to have a penchant for dividing us along racial lines. He always panders to the black voting bloc, which is much smaller than the media would lead you to believe. They always seem to be talking about racial polarization regardless of the great strides we have made on this front.

I don’t know about you, but if I were black, there is no other white majority country I would rather live in than the United States, simply because I would have the greatest opportunity for an education and success with less prejudice and bigotry than any other place in the world. However, we have a leader who keeps emphasizing liberal guilt, rather than how far we’ve come. That’s why Obama’s approach to this case is so perplexing.

I see just as many black racists as I do white. As a matter of fact, how many times do you hear a black person say they are voting for Obama because he is “one of us”, his performance is not even considered.

Racism is an issue all over the world, but most countries are not as open or proactive about it nor have addressed it as well as the U.S.A. This case is a tragedy regardless of the color of the victim. Given the circumstances we have no reason to believe at this point that the alleged injustice was influenced by race. However, Al Sharpton is going to make it seem so and we now have thousands of blacks demonstrating in Chicago about a Florida shooting. Our President doesn’t help by adding to the confusion.

The Phony Contraception Debate

Most of you are not fooled by this contraception issue that has been concocted by the administration in order to slip through some elements of Obamacare they knew would be controversial. In fact, the issue was brought up by George Stephanopoulos in one of the Republican debates to the shock of the candidates, since it had heretofore not been a national issue. George is a Democratic insider, as you know, parading as an objective journalist on GMA and his own Sunday morning show. He and James Carvelle ran the infamous “Clinton War Room” during the election against George H.W.Bush and both have been making a living since then spuing party discussion points on Sunday talk shows.

This debate is really about the 1st Amendment and if the government has the right to force its will on any religious group, even if it violates its conscience. The Democrats (or Nancy Pelosi) decided that hearings on this issue needs to have women involved, since this was a woman’s health issue. So she decided to hold hearings of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. She called Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown, to testify as a victim in this debate. Miss Fluke wants free birth control pills and she wants the federal government to make her Catholic school give them to her.

Georgetown is not an Ave Maria or Notre Dame type Catholic university. You don’t see any religious imagery anywhere and a former student said that the law school chapel is an “unadorned, multipurpose room in the basement used for Gilbert and Sullivan rehearsals and club meetings and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance was particularly vigorous”. Ms. Fluke told the Washington Post that she knew that the school did not cover contraceptive drugs in its student’s health plan. However, during her time there she was President of “Students for Reproductive Justice”, an effort to get the school to give up one of the last vestiges of its Catholic conscience. She is not the victim being portrayed by the Democrats or the media. She has an agenda.

Her testimony is that, “all around her at Georgetown she could see the faces of students suffering because of the University’s refusal to abandon its Catholic principles”, she claimed that without insurance coverage it can cost a woman over $3,000 for contraceptive drugs during the 3 years in law school. The local Target pharmacy and Wal-Mart charge $9.00/month for one month’s worth of generic birth control pills, without insurance! Therefore, those suffering female law students seem to be using almost 10 times the monthly average rate of pills. Either they are running a brothel on campus or selling the pills to pimps in the neighborhood. I guess if you are that entrepreneurial, you deserve a call from the President telling you how sorry he was that they called you such bad names for standing up for your “right” to free contraception. That nasty Rush Limbaugh! In fact, Rush lost a sponsor for calling Ms. Fluke a “slut” (which he eventually apologized for). I guess we have a double standard with Obama, since he never called Sarah Palin after Bill Maher called her a whore, c--t, and various other unspeakable names. He never lost a sponsor or apologized.

Thank you Miss Pelosi for getting us sidetracked from the real issue, like what your party did to our economy since you took over Congress in 2006.

The Health Spending Myth

The runaway healthcare spending myth is a great example of how the free market works when the consumer responds to the economic factors that are presented to him. Healthcare spending was spiraling at significant rates in the late 90’s and reached a peak in 2002. Most people believed that it was the only industry that violated the supply/demand theory and rationalized that since most consumers had health insurance provided by their employer, who paid the lion’s share of the premium, rising prices had no effect on demand. Also, there was no real competition in the classical sense since results were measured in near term rather than long term outcomes.

Finally, the free market kicked-in when employers realized the growing impact of this cost on their bottom line. They started to increase the employee’s portion of the premium, they offered consumer-oriented health plan options to employees,and the concept of health savings plans started to become more popular with younger and healthier people who opted for high deductable plans with lower premiums. Prevention became the health motto as holistic and integrative medicine became more popular. The golden age of wonder drugs in the 80’s and 90’s was giving way to generic alternatives as patents expired and these medications became more affordable and available over-the-counter.

We were seeing the transfer of economic responsibility for healthcare evolve from corporate and government bureaucrats to the consumer – and sure enough healthcare is starting to resemble the free market where the consumer dictates price, competition, and value. As the illustration shows healthcare spending is now growing at a rate that resembles the inflation rate. This refutes the claim we hear from this Administration that we now need Obamacare or national healthcare “to stop this out-of-control healthcare system”. In fact, that data show that costs will actually climb as a result of Obamacare, care will be worse (particularly for the elderly), and the consumer will lose control of his healthcare destiny.

The fact of the matter is the price of food, gasoline, and the basic staples is what’s skyrocketing with this inept blend of academics and inexperienced bureaucrats who never read a profit-and-loss statement or even worked for a living, are now calling the shots. Instead, this President spends $1.0 trillion on his convoluted healthcare plan, and steals $500 billion from Medicare to pay for it which puts us in the hands of commissions and panels to decide the care we get.

I’m not implying that our healthcare system is fixed, we certainly need reform, but the fact is that this decade-long trend line shows us the way toward good policy decisions in the future. If we can uncouple health insurance from employment, allow the consumer to purchase his own mix of coverage in a competitive market across state lines, we will accelerate this evolution in healthcare costs and make it a system that provides affordable care for all segments of our society.

The Manufacturing Decline Myth

Several things continue to happen that cause me to believe that this administration has no idea how business works. By this I mean that they believe government manipulation of business is necessary and that the free market is not reliable. One major mistake is forcing the so-called “green energy” initiative on us before it is ready or economically viable. The initiative is driven by the fraudulent concept of global warming, which presumably is caused from the use of fossil or carbon-based fuels. Rather than permit the free market to work, this President forces the adoption of alternative energy, by supporting subsidies, tax breaks, government loans, which really inhibits the development of this technology and raises the cost of energy across the board.

In a free market new technology replaces old when it becomes cost competitive which will drive demand once the public realizes it is more efficient or makes their life better. When you artificially make new technology appear to be commercial you actually slow its development. This is the case in the auto industry as the government has forced the development of the electric car at a price that is not competitive with conventional technology and still has many unresolved safety and technology issues.

The impression that America doesn’t make things anymore is a myth. The U.S. economy has grown by almost seven fold since 1947 and the manufacturing sector has grown at the same rate, however, the service sector has spurted over this period and manufacturing is a smaller portion of the overall GDP. America’s global manufacturing share has remained at 22% since 1970, more than any other nation, even with the rapid development of Japan, Korea, and China over the period.

What makes us a competitive global manufacturer is our productivity which unfortunately is offset by the corporate tax burden on our manufacturing community which is the highest in the world. The real manufacturing crisis is in jobs, our output per manufacturing worker was $35k in 1947, and today it is an astonishing $150k. Manufacturing productivity has increased 103% since the late 1980’s and is double that of all other sectors in the larger business economy. This is realized in the economy by lower prices for manufactured items which makes this sector appear to be shrinking.

Do you think this may also have anything to do with the decline of unions in the manufacturing sector over this period? You bet it does! As well as the quality push, computer technology, and plant modernization, while the government continues to add on more regulations, increased taxes, more loopholes. This is why I have a problem with Mr. Santorum who like Mr. Obama this week, says we can help manufacturing with more government “incentives” and tax breaks. We can do without that kind of help; we need the free market to work. Mr. Romney knows that and needs to inject that into the debate.