Selling Lies – The Formula the Left Uses To Take Away Your Rights

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Trent Derr

As part of their dogma, the Left believes society only operates “fairly” when more power is concentrated in the Federal Government and fewer rights are exercised independently by individuals. In their view, one of the major purposes of the Government is to equalize outcomes across society (try to find that in the Constitution). Note that it’s the equality of outcomes, not equality of opportunities, that is their definition of fairness. To achieve that goal, Liberals need an excuse to take rights and responsibilities from individuals and shift that power to the Government. Then that Governmental power can be used to institutionalize fairness by passing laws and regulations that provide for the equality of outcomes across society. However in spite of these plans, the Left has a major cultural roadblock in their way. One of our traditional American values is to treasure and defend our individual rights. When Americans are thinking rationally, we rarely, if ever, voluntarily give up any of our rights.

When the Liberals want to influence American opinion on an issue, they need to overcome that obstacle. To do so, they use a consistent formula to warp the public perception in their favor. Their approach does not involve an in-depth analysis of the facts with the subsequent generation of possible alternatives to be evaluated. Frankly facts get in their way. Their strategy is simply based on manipulating the public’s emotions. Liberals want to generate guilty feelings or stir up hate or trigger rage. Their tactic is to generate strong emotions in the public and with those emotions shut down rational thought. Create a crisis. Create an injustice. Pretend there is no time to think about, discuss, or even read the bill. We have to act now! Sound familiar?

The Left knows that if they can get people to act on emotion, they can convince the public to accept changes that they would never rationally support. This approach is how the Left incrementally pushes forward their “causes” which slowly erode individual rights and responsibilities. As individual rights are eroded, the Left shifts that authority and power to Government bureaucrats and agencies. Obamacare is a real life example of how the Left forced Government run healthcare down our throats in spite of the fact that a majority of the voters wanted nothing to do with it.

The Liberal’s formula for manipulating public opinion comes straight from Sal Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals. The three-step process is:

1) Create a Victim (even if one doesn’t exist)
2) Identify the Villain (even if they aren’t responsible)
3) Position Government as the Solution (to increase centralized power)

The first step is to create a Victim. It is easy for the Left to create victims. A victim is anyone who doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own actions or inactions. Individuals who aren’t willing to be proactive to improve their position in life are quite willing to accept the message that it’s someone else’s fault that they don’t have as much money, as nice of a house, an education, an insurance plan or the job that another person has. Envy is the emotion the Left uses to manipulate individuals into believing that they are victims. After all, if Tom has something you don’t, that isn’t “fair”. Then the individual jumps to the conclusion, “if it isn’t fair, I am being taken advantage of and someone needs to correct the injustice.” For the Left, the victim is a necessary pawn in their chess game. The victim the Left created for Obamacare was anyone who didn’t have medical insurance. The Liberals conveniently ignored the fact that included in their “class of victims” were people who:

– could afford health insurance or directly pay for healthcare but chose not to purchase it
– were in the U.S. illegally and thus shouldn’t even be in the country causing additional stress on our healthcare system
– could receive care, under existing laws, from hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities across the U.S. without insurance if they had critical or life threatening condition

The next step is to identify the Villain. Again, it is easy for the Left to identify a villain in any situation. For their purposes, a villain is anyone who has something that another person does not. Their villain doesn’t need to be responsible for the victim’s plight. Their villain simply needs to have something that the victim does not have. In Obamacare, the villains were pharmaceutical companies and rich people. “Rich” people are the default villains for the Left so class envy is one of their favorite strategies. However the Left’s definition of “rich” depends upon who they are talking to at the moment. Rich is anyone who makes more than their current audience. That’s why in Obamacare the evil rich people were sometimes individuals who made over $1 million but at other times were people making $200,000 or $250,000. In the end, Obamacare involves taking fees and taxes from most working Americans. So it appears for their purposes, they thought we all were rich.

The Left’s final step is to position the Government as the ultimate solution for the problem. Since they have pitted one group in society (the victims) against another group in society (the villains), the Liberals feel like they now have generated sufficient emotion (guilt, hate or rage) to make their move. Pitting one group against the other is part of the distraction they create so that in the chaos we won’t pay attention to what they are doing in the background. As the solution to the conflict, they position the Government as the only party with the power to defend the victim from the villain. After all, the Government can correct the injustice and make things more “fair”.

Enforcing fairness fits the Left’s ultimate goal of adding more and more power to the Government and taking more and more rights and responsibilities from individuals. It is often said that “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” For Liberals, “if all you want is a Government program, anybody can be made into either a victim or villain.” The Left knows that once power is granted to a Government program, that program rarely goes away. Thus slowly and incrementally they shift rights from we the people to the Government bureaucracy. The growth in the Government bureaucracy causes the need for more and more of our tax dollars to feed the beast. This need to extract more and more tax dollars from the public is the ultimate manifestation of the other major objective of the Left: the redistribution of wealth.

So the next time the Government is attempting to take more and more of your paycheck, realize you’ve already lost something more precious than money. The money they take from you today is to pay for the Government control over your rights that they took away from you yesterday. Now who’s the victim?

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Ayn Rand, Commentary, Conservative, Constitution, Democrats, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Healthcare, Immigration, Independent, Libertarian, Limited Government, News, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, Progressives, Regulations, Republican, Taxes, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

3 Economic Policies Reagan Had Right (And Obama Never Learned)

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Trent Derr

President Reagan is probably best known for three major accomplishments: rekindling the American spirit of entrepreneurship, defeating the Soviets in the Cold War leading to the eventual collapse of the USSR, and creating the most robust peacetime economic expansion in American history. In this posting, we’ll focus on topics more applicable to Reagan’s economic accomplishments. Reagan’s economic philosophy has been referred to by many names including Reaganomics and Supply Side Economics.

Arguably Reagan was dealing with a much more complex economic environment in 1980 than we have today. Reagan was faced with high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates, a slow-growing economy and a high government deficit as a percentage of GDP. Today we primarily have high unemployment, a slow-growing economy and a high government deficit. However over the last two years the policies implemented by the Obama administration have not significantly reduced unemployment, have dramatically increased the government debt and have started to increase both inflation and interest rates. Note that inflation and interest rates were not a problem when Obama entered office.

During Reagan’s 8 years in office, the United States had the largest peacetime economic expansion in history along with creating approximately 35 million new jobs. President Reagan helped the U.S. achieve this economic boom through implementing sweeping economic reforms that contrary to the Keynesian economic policies of the liberals in Congress at the time (and Obama today). Reagan stated, “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” His solution to our economic malaise would be to correct those three governmental behaviors. Reagan’s approach would include implementing across-the-board tax cuts, simplified government regulations, and sound monetary policies.

Reagan’s trademark tax policy was based upon the Laffer Curve. This concept made popular by Professor Laffer explained why high tax policies never maximize revenue to the federal government. Liberal tax policies assume in order to raise revenue all the government needs to do is to increase tax rates. Of course they assume that individuals wouldn’t adjust their behavior in response to the tax increase. This failed assumption ultimately causes their tax increase to fail to create more revenue for the government and acts as an anchor around the waist of the economy. The concept of the Laffer Curve acknowledges that individuals will alter their behavior in response to tax policy. Laffer identifies an ideal marginal tax rate that maximizes revenue and economic growth. As the rate goes higher, the economy doesn’t grow as fast and individuals choose not to work harder because too much of their additional income is taken in taxes. As the tax rate goes materially lower, the marginal revenue to the government is decreased because the additional stimulus to the economy of the tax cut is less than the percentage decrease in taxes.

Reagan found that equilibrium of the Laffer Curve existed at about the 28% marginal tax rate. Thus as part of the turnaround, President Reagan would reduce the maximum marginal tax rate for individuals and corporations to 28%. Reagan would also simplify the tax code again by eliminating many of the tax loopholes and exemptions. At the same time, he would help the lower-income families by increasing the personal exemption, the standard deduction, and the earned income tax credit (EITC). Although the liberals always whine every time taxes our cut, these approaches when previously implemented by Reagan doubled federal tax revenues from $517 billion in 1980 to more than $1 trillion in 1990.

In the area of deregulation, Reagan would primarily unwind many of the regulations created by Congress since he left office. Reagan believed in keeping federal regulations simple and enforceable. Reagan also believed in shifting most regulations to the States. This new Federalism would have the Federal government impact policies through block grants of funds to the states which allowed each state to decide how to implement their own programs. This approach would be a more effective way to address healthcare (including Medicare and Medicaid), illegal immigration, and environmental health and safety issues. During Reagan’s two terms his administration cut the Federal Register of regulations to almost half the size it was when he was inaugurated. Since the Federal Register has swollen beyond the size that it was when Reagan entered office in 1980, clearly his objective would be to reduce the complexity in those regulations by at least half. With simplified regulations, the government could more effectively actually enforce these policies and avoid disasters like the Dodd/Frank Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown in 2008.

In the area of monetary policy, Reagan would also make major changes which would require replacing the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Reagan would support the reduction of the current authority of the Federal Reserve including implementing an annual audit of the FED. We would see a return to the taxpayers of the unused TARP funds and a stop of the Quantitative Easing programs by the FED. In addition, Reagan would encourage the FED to slow the growth of the money supply to head off the tsunami of inflation that is building under Obama’s policies. Of course some of these monetary moves will cause a short-term economic adjustment and downturn while the economy settles to a normal pricing equilibrium free of the manipulation by the federal government. However the increase in the stability of the U.S. Dollar and heading off of major inflation problems will lead to a huge influx of investment and capital into the United States which will more than offset the short-term economic adjustment.

Although Reagan had his detractors at the time and we would have them again today, President Reagan’s policies created growth that lasted for 92 months without a recession. During this period of unprecedented growth, Reagan dramatically decreased unemployment, reduced interest rates and reduced inflation. The foundation of all of Reagan’s economic policies was his belief in the power of the individual. It is the individual, not the government, who creates all jobs, all growth, and all value in our economy. As Reagan said, “There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” Wouldn’t it be great to again have a President who has more faith in us than he has in the government bureaucracy?

Posted in 2012 Elections, American Exceptionalism, Business, Commentary, Conservative, Economics, Economy, Federal Reserve, Free Markets, Independent, Inflation, Libertarian, Limited Government, milton friedman, News, Obama, Politics, Reagan, Regulations, Republican, Taxes, Tea Party, Unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Barry Deceives Liberty – How Would You Respond to a Progressive?

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Trent Derr

My wife was seated in the airport waiting to catch her flight back home. So far so good. She was already past security waiting in the gate area. As usual, she was reading a book trying to pass the minutes until it was time to board. My wife can be as entertained by people watching as anyone. However if she has a good book, she would rather tune out the world and slip into a well written story, but not today. On this day, she along with everyone else in the gate area were going to have their concentration shattered by a guy on his cell phone. For sake of discussion, let’s call him Barry. Barry had a pretty deep voice, and he was talking loud.

It didn’t matter if you had on headphones, wore hearing aids or were half-deaf, you could hear Barry. His baritone voice blasted through the atmosphere at the gate such that everyone could hear every word he was saying. It became very clear, very quickly he was trying his best to get out of the dog house. It was obvious from his side of the conversation that Barry was in deep TROUBLE. He was in trouble with his girlfriend Liberty, and she was really ticked off. You couldn’t hear her side of the conversation, but it definitely was NOT PG-13. Barry was doing his best to convince his girlfriend over the phone that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. She wasn’t buying it.

That’s part of the reason why he was talking so loud. This wasn’t Barry’s first rodeo. He had been in this position before with Liberty and with a bunch of girlfriends before her. Barry was getting loud because he was shocked that she wasn’t buying his usual approach. In this case, Liberty was confident that Barry was sleeping with somebody. Normally Barry was a smooth operator and generally felt pretty confident that he was smart enough to convince her he did nothing wrong. He started with the obligatory, “Baby”. Calling her baby was a good term of endearment and also minimized the chance that he would accidentally call her another name. Then followed by an emphatic, “You know me!”. Then Liberty would blast him making it clear that she was pretty sure she did know him. Followed by another “but you know me!” This time a little louder with a closing chuckle from Barry. Enough people in the gate area were following this real life soap opera that most of the other conversations had stopped. Many of the men were smiling because they knew they were watching a guy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Most of the women were scowling because they clearly empathized with Liberty. This guy was a jerk. Several men across the hall removed their headphones so they wouldn’t miss any of the drama.

Oops, the laughing didn’t help Barry this time. Usually a little levity helped show her how ridiculous she was being. After all if he wasn’t taking her charges seriously, how could she. (I have to wonder if this approach ever worked for Mr. Smooth) OK, it’s time for a new tactic. This time Barry responds more softly with more of a pleading tone. “I wouldn’t do that. You know me.” Liberty blasts back letting him have it again. This isn’t working and now Barry is getting even louder out of his frustration. She’s different this time. She’s not just mad. She has righteous indignation. To add insult to injury, Liberty is even more upset this time because Barry thinks she’s stupid enough to be sweet talked once again.

Now Barry has to fall back on his last line of defense: convince her he hasn’t done anything. After all Barry is a trustworthy guy, right? Ok, let’s skip that tactic. But if she would just remember what a great guy he is, she’ll believe that he has her best interests at heart. So Barry alternates between “You know me” and “but you know me” responses. Each time she lets him have it again with a verbal barrage. Sometimes Barry cuts her off mid-sentence and sometimes not. This goes on for another 10 minutes. By now, Barry is reeling and getting worn out. Liberty has had him up against the ropes the whole time and none of his normal defenses are working. Barry decides that she is acting this way because she must actually have something on him. Finally he decides to find out what set her off. After all she may have some facts wrong. Then he can use those inconsistencies to rationalize an explanation that hopefully she will be stupid enough to accept. So he asks sheepishly, “Exactly what do you think I’ve done? “. He listens intently for a couple of moments. Then he smiles and has his best response of the night,

    “But that’s different. I have to sleep with her. She’s my wife!”

For some reason Barry thought this was his get out of jail free card. Liberty disagreed. The call ended abruptly as Liberty screamed while she slammed down the phone.

I guess what was most shocking to those listening was that Barry didn’t think he did anything wrong. He shrugged his shoulders and took a seat to wait for the plane. Barry wasn’t even embarrassed. The real life screen play above reminds me of our relationship with our “Progressive” government officials. The Progressives claim that they are enacting regulations and controlling our behavior to make things better for us. However every time we dig into the details, we find out they are really acting in their own best interest, not ours. All in all, Progressives are pretty simple to understand. They think they are smarter than the rest of us peasants, and their “superior intelligence” gives them the justification they need to play God. (which explains why most progressives don’t believe in God but that’s for another post) Progressives feel uniquely qualified to pick societies’ winners and losers. They feel justified in leveraging the power they derive from that authority. In their Progressive world, the ruling class represented by the intelligentsia is the only real winners.

I was recently asked by a Progressive why people became so mad at the town hall meetings in the fall of 2010. First of all, we weren’t mad. What the politicians heard was our righteous indignation. We were insulted because our elected officials were cramming life shattering legislation, like Obamacare, down our throats. Then to add insult to injury, the politicians were trying to sweet talk us into believing they were looking out for us. Like Liberty, we’re not that stupid. If the government-run healthcare plan was so great, the Congress and their staff would have required that they were enrolled in Obamacare. Instead, they slipped language into the bill giving them an exception to keep their own Cadillac healthcare plan. Clearly they thought that Obamacare was good enough for the peasants but the ruling class deserved something better.

Frankly, we have grown tired of the Progressives trying to run our lives. We are tired of being treated like Barry’s girlfriend. We’re really tired of being treated like Barry’s wife. That noise the Progressives heard from the Town Hall Meetings… That was just us slamming down the phone.

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Commentary, Conservative, Democrats, Free Markets, Humor, Libertarian, Limited Government, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, Progressives, Regulations, Republican, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

WWRD? Part 3 – What Would Reagan Do about the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Trent Derr

President Reagan was a strong advocate of Peace through Strength. Essentially he believed that foreign powers were less likely to engage with the United States militarily if they were certain that they would receive immediate, disproportionate punishment from our armed forces. It’s the same philosophy that most of us were smart enough to learn in grade school: Bullies don’t pick on the strong kids. They pick on the weak kids. If a bully picks on you, punch them really hard in the nose. Not only will they go away, they will probably not pick on you again. They will slink off and look for a weaker target.

Along with Peace through Strength, Reagan had several other beliefs that guided his thinking regarding protecting America from foreign enemies. First: there is good and evil. Second, in facing evil, it is justified to use military force. Third, if we are going to use force, use overwhelming force. Fourth, nation building works if you have a nation to begin with. Fifth, technology and innovative tactics both help overcome manpower or military imbalances. Finally, always leave your enemies guessing how extreme your military response might be.

There is good and evil. There is right and wrong. Reagan clearly would have seen both Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as evil and threats to the citizens of the United States. So much has been made regarding the presence or absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Clearly Iraq had them at one time because they used them on their own citizens (the Kurds). However WMD’s would not have been Reagan’s justification for acting against Iraq. The main justification after 9-11 would have been that both Iraq and al-Qaeda were behind state sponsored terrorism. They financed, equipped and trained terrorists to attack the US. In addition, he would have viewed them as fundamentally, morally evil due to Sadam’s abuse of his own citizens and the Taliban’s abuse of their fellow citizens. Considering Reagan was a big supporter of the Mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Reagan would have seen the rise of the Taliban as a failure of the US to execute a consistent, long-term foreign policy with Afghanistan.

In facing evil, it is justified to use military force. Here’s what President Reagan said in response to the TWA Flight 847 hijacking by terrorists: “Americans […] are not going to tolerate intimidation, terror and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we are especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich […] There can be no place on earth where it is safe for these monsters to rest, or train or practice […] We must act together – or unilaterally, if necessary – to ensue that these terrorists have no sanctuary, anywhere.”

In addition Reagan said the following regarding our bombing of Libya in response to the 1986 Berlin disco bombing: “Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again. It gives me no pleasure to say that, and I wish it were otherwise… When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world on the direct orders of a hostile regime, we will respond so long as I’m in this Oval Office…Despite our repeated warnings, Qadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong.” So President Reagan, much like President George W. Bush, would have used the military against both Iraq and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. And as he stated above, he would have acted unilaterally if necessary.

If we are going to use force, use overwhelming force. An overwhelming military response maximizes the likelihood of victory and minimizes the loss of life. Reagan’s view was very similar to the “Powell Doctrine” under President George HW Bush. Reagan’s other view was that the use of overwhelming force served as an example and deterrent to those who might want to attack the US in the future. Reagan said, “History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” Thus I believe Reagan would have responded to both Iraq and al-Qaeda with even more personnel, hardware, and technology than President Bush did.

After we militarily defeated Saddam in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Reagan would have made a move to transition the countries to their own control. However he would have taken a different approach with each country. Reagan would have guided the political and military training of those Iraqi’s who helped us defeat Saddam so that they could defend and rule their own country. This would have happened in a quicker timeframe than under President Bush because the military conflict would have ended sooner under Reagan. There wouldn’t have been the military need for the “Surge”. The whole operation would have been a Surge, an extreme overwhelming, unrelenting military presence. After Saddam and his forces were crushed, Reagan would propose keeping several US military bases in Iraq for an extended period of time (e.g. Germany after World War II and South Korea after the Korean War).

However Reagan would have dealt with Afghanistan differently. Afghanistan has not had a stable government in recent history. One could argue they never have had a stable government from the perspective of how we think about a government protecting the rights of its citizens. So after defeating the Taliban, Reagan would have used the combination of technology and innovative tactics to keep al-Qaeda in check in Afghanistan. Reagan believed technology could offset many military challenges. He saw technology as a game changer on the political battlefield of the Cold War. Instead of depending upon Nuclear weapon superiority (the Soviets had more warheads), Reagan saw a shield or a weapon to destroy the Soviets warheads after they were launched as the checkmate to win the nuclear escalation battle. Thus the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) was born. The dependency on Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was broken. With SDI, a nuclear war wouldn’t be avoided because the parties knew they both would be destroyed. It would be avoided because the Soviets would understand if they launched first, we could intercept a majority of their inbound missiles and thus maintain our capability for retaliation. Without a technology equivalent to SDI, the USSR would be annihilated by our response. Reagan stated about SDI, “the defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression — to preserve freedom and peace.” Thus SDI represented both a new technology and a new tactic.

Reagan would take his belief in technology and innovative tactics and apply them to Afghanistan after the Taliban was defeated. We would become the terrorist on the terrorists in Afghanistan. Instead of having US bases in Afghanistan, we would use commandos and Special Forces to stage impromptu attacks on remaining Taliban pockets of resistance as we were able to identify them by satellites or in country intelligence. We would have even more extensive use of stealth bombers, drones and missiles that would attack the Taliban hiding places without warning. The Taliban would never know whether they were going to be hit by commandos, bombers, drones or missiles. They would be stuck in their caves and have difficulty executing any significant military action. At the same time, we would not be exposing a large number of US forces to attack from within Afghanistan. Tied to our solution above for Iraq, our military bases in Iraq would serve as a source for many of our attacks on the Taliban. Of course with drones, missiles, and bombers, a lot of the support staff could be in remote bases, aircraft carriers and back in the mainland US. Our goal would simply be to constantly harass the Taliban so that they couldn’t be effective in taking over Afghanistan again. This could go on for a decade or more with a limited loss of US life while keeping al-Qaeda from gaining a foothold in Afghanistan.

This combination of commando tactics and technology represents one of the ways Reagan would have executed his belief in leaving your enemies guessing. Reagan was often accused of being a Cowboy, quick on the trigger. It was exactly that persona that he used to his advantage. During the 1979 Iran Hostage crisis, Iran viewed President Carter as weak and thus they saw the hostages as pawns to be used to humiliate and extract money from the US. That’s why they kept the hostages for 444 days. Why didn’t they keep them for 445 days? Because Reagan was inaugurated on the 445th day. And on that day, Iran released the hostages. The reason was that they firmly believed Reagan was not weak, and he absolutely would take strong military action against them. Iran had no idea what Reagan would do, but they knew the outcome would have been really bad for them. The terrorists today would also always be in doubt regarding what that American Cowboy was getting ready to do to them.

Like all Presidents, Reagan felt one of the most difficult things he ever did was put our men and women of the military in harm’s way. He felt that not only due to the potential loss of life but also because he felt the people in our military represented the best of the American character. As an example of Reagan’s faith and love for our military Reagan stated, “Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don’t have that problem.” The men and women of our military had a high regard and mutual respect for President Reagan. Rest assured they would have used all their abilities to execute on the President’s vision to keep America safe from the threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Posted in Afghanistan, American Exceptionalism, Commentary, Conservative, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Independent, Iraq, Libertarian, Limited Government, National Defense, News, Politics, Reagan, Republican, Taxes, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cooter’s Fired Up and Other Reasons Why Democrats are in Trouble in 2012

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Trent Derr

The other day on a Southwest Airlines flight back to Houston, I saw him, Cooter. He was one big dude, and he was making his way down the aisle of the plane carrying his duffel bag and his hardhat. As usual, his hardhat was decorated with stickers from most of the plants where he had worked. Since Cooter does contract work, he had a lot of stickers! The row I was in was full. It just so happened that Cooter’s traveling companion, Bubba, was seated in the window seat of my row. So Cooter put his carry-on in the overhead and sat in the row behind me.

Ok, I didn’t really know if his name was actually Cooter, but I know a lot of Cooters. Cooter is a slang name for a group of working people across the United States. Cooter builds cars in Tennessee, raises cattle in Kansas and installs cat crackers in refineries in Texas. Cooter is good at what he does. He takes pride in his work, his family and his yard. You wouldn’t want to make Cooter mad if you were another man. However, he loves babies and little kids.

Cooter voted for Carter, Reagan, Clinton and George W Bush (the first time). He didn’t vote at all in the 2008 election because he was disgusted with the candidates. Cooter often chooses not to vote unless something has him fired up. He can get fired up about anything that he thinks impacts his family. On any given day, he can also get fired up about baseball. He was a pretty good baseball player in high school. Cooter coaches your kid’s baseball team, and you’re glad he does. And since you’ve already begun wondering, I’ll end the suspense. Yes, Cooter is Bubba’s cousin.

Cooter often has a signature phrase that he uses a lot. In this case his was: “Ya know what I’m sayin”. I had my eyes closed trying to catch a power nap as the plane lifted off. In trying my best to relax, I wasn’t paying that much attention to the noise around me. But the third time Cooter stated “Ya know what I’m sayin”, I decided I needed to try to figure out what he was talking about. Keep in mind, there were about four rows of people listening and Cooter was doing the talking. Cooter was holding court because he knew he had a captive audience, at least for an hour and a half. Here’s where the conversation picked up when I started paying attention.

“…We work in refineries and power plants and travel all over the United States. I can hardly keep track of where I’m coming from or going to. Sometimes I have to look at my itinerary to remind me where I am.

We work hard and get filthy dirty but it’s a good living. If you are skilled labor and you can’t get a job, you’re not trying very hard. But then again, why should you try very hard when you can sit on your butt and get a check. And that’s the main problem. People in the government want folks just sitting at home collecting a check. Ya know what I’m sayin.

That’s part of what’s destroyed American manufacturing. The government has destroyed the will to work. I heard the other day that the United States is still the number one manufacturer in the world. I don’t believe it. Once you give away all the heavy manufacturing to China, it’s all over. And we ARE giving it all away!

Everywhere I go, they’ve established sanctuary cities. Look at Houston and Nashville. It’s ridiculous. The cops can’t even find out if someone is illegally in the country after they have committed a crime. Not only that, but the government keeps giving more and more to the illegal aliens. You see them standing in a crowd on a corner waiting to be picked up. They are all clicking away on their PDA’s text messaging. And we’re the ones paying for the PDA and the phone service. We’re even paying for their food and housing. Ya know what I’m sayin.

It’s pitiful. The Government is even making the illegal aliens lazy. No wonder more of them are committing crimes. We’re making it attractive to come to the U.S. so they don’t have to work. They used to come here for a job. Now they are coming for the giveaways.

Not that it pays like it should to work. Every time I watch TV I hear another moron talking about how they need to spend my money on yet another government program. Of course, they never say that they are spending your money. But every time I get my check, I can tell they are. Ya know what I’m sayin.

Wow! He hit that one hard (referring to the pilot as the plane somewhat abruptly smacks the runway). Well it looks like Texas outside. Is that rain? Naw that ain’t rain. Houston’s so hot it’s just sweatin.”

I have to admit that Cooter kept my attention for the better part of an hour and a half because he was so animated. The man clearly had some things on his mind. In fact, Cooter was so fired up during our conversation that he worked up a sweat on that flight. From the size of his sweat stain, things don’t bode well for the Democrats in 2012.

Posted in 2012 Elections, American Exceptionalism, Business, Commentary, Conservative, Economics, Economy, Elections, Free Markets, Humor, Immigration, Independent, Libertarian, Limited Government, News, Obama, Politics, Regulations, Republican, Taxes, Tea Party, Unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

WWRD? Part 2 – What would Reagan do about immigration?

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Trent Derr

As a continuing part of our series What Would Reagan Do, we’re going to discuss what Reagan would do to address our current immigration problems. Clearly Reagan would have been shocked by our current situation related to rampant illegal immigration, the violence across our southern border in Mexico, and the crime being brought into American cities by illegal aliens.

Addressing Reagan’s views regarding immigration is complex because he had two seemingly conflicting views. For one, Reagan believed in the integrity of the borders of the United States. This view would have been only reinforced by our current international terrorism risks in a post 9-11 world. In fact one of Reagan’s most well-known quotes is: “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”

On the other side of the coin, Reagan believed the United States was the last great hope for the world. Reagan lived the American Dream and saw that dream as a gift from God for all free people. He fully understood the desire of the masses to come to America and to assimilate into the melting pot as Americans. However Reagan didn’t have a favorable view of those who would sneak into America just to take from American society and return those gains to their home country. Immigrants becoming part of American culture was important to Ronald Reagan. He was certainly aligned with the Teddy Roosevelt quote: “No Room in This Country for Hyphenated Americans”. For those who did not intend to become citizens and integrate into American society, Reagan believed they should be permitted to be in the U.S. when it was to our advantage. Reagan stated, “No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.” If we needed foreign workers for the U.S. economy to grow, Reagan believed we should enable the controlled flow of migrant workers, even if they didn’t intend upon becoming citizens. However, this migrant worker status wouldn’t enable workers to stay in the U.S. on a more or less permanent basis.

This multiplicity of views is symbolized by one of Reagan’s actions that was the least popular with his traditional base. In 1986, Reagan invited millions of illegal aliens to become citizens through his signature legislation that granted amnesty to millions of undocumented workers. Note this legislation wasn’t an open borders law but it was actually quite the opposite. The second half of the legislation was designed to halt the flow of new illegal aliens into the States. The legislation made it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers, and it also doubled the number of border control guards. In retrospect, the amnesty portion of the law was vigorously executed and the enforcement portion of the law wasn’t. Everything considered, the legislation failed to produce the desired effect and ultimately attracted an increased flow of illegal aliens into the country.

So What Would Reagan Do?

With immigration, Reagan would take actions consistent with his beliefs above while adapting his execution to mirror his willingness to learn from history. As a necessary first step, Reagan would tighten our borders. One thing he learned from the legislation in 1986, government will always execute the easy portion of laws and avoid the heavy lifting. Thus Reagan would see the need to secure the flow of illegal aliens in and out of the country as a prerequisite step in addressing the aliens already in the country. How would he do it? It would likely combine increased border guards, high technology including drones, and a border fence. Ok, it would be a wall. I have to admit, it would seem contradictory for the man who told Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” to build an American border wall. However Reagan would see the wall as a way to secure the country by keeping illegals out rather than the East German wall which was designed to force their residents to stay. In addition, Reagan would see it as a wall with open doors. Note a quote from Reagan as part of his 1989 farewell address shows the President’s envisioning the need to control the borders of our shining city on the hill: “and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” Thus there would be a legal flow of people into the U.S., but illegal attempts to enter the country would be dealt with harshly.

After seeing that our border control efforts were actually working, Reagan would address the presence of undocumented workers in the U.S. Contrary to a lot of Republican leaders today, I feel Reagan would again grant amnesty to those in the country today who wanted to become citizens if they complied with the conditions listed below. Reagan would find this position unpopular with many in Congress and a lot of the voters. After all, the legislation in 1986 didn’t work! However based upon learning from the effects of 1986 legislation, Reagan would include a strict path to citizenship that would specify complying with a new streamlined immigration process, learning the basics of our Constitution, establishing a formal residence, learning English, and maintaining employment with a sponsoring company. Reagan would see these steps as necessary to become part of the American melting pot and to participate in the American Dream.

In addition, Reagan would also propose a new guest worker program to enable workers to migrate to the U.S. upon our invitation for a specified period of time. It would be an updated 21st century version of the Bracero Program that existed between the U.S. and Mexico between 1942 and 1964. Bracero is the Spanish term for manual laborer. Under that program, there were approximately 4.5 million border crossings related to workers traveling back and forth from Mexico to assist various employers with work that was not being done by U.S. citizens. In spite of its success, this program ended in 1964 due to pressure from the American labor unions. Subsequently after 1964, the U.S. saw an immediate drop in legal guest worker immigration and a spike in illegal undocumented worker migration. Reagan would see a new guest worker program as a way to bring the migrant worker economy into the light of day and to make it tougher for “coyotes” and drug smugglers to make profits through human trafficking.

I know some of you are saying, hold on; can we really afford a major influx of new citizens and guest workers? With the softening of the economy, the numbers of illegals in the U.S. is actually lower than it has been in the last two decades. In addition, by securing the borders as a precondition to addressing existing undocumented population, we would be in a better position to take steps incrementally while continually improving our national security. Again, I’m not stating that all of Reagan’s positions would be popular but rather these steps would be part of the programmatic approach he would take to improve our current immigration problems.

Well, the Gipper’s changes aren’t quite complete. Not only would we need to get ready for yet another influx of new citizens, but prepare to buy a new flag. Reagan was a strong believer in offering statehood to Puerto Rico…

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Commentary, Conservative, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Immigration, Libertarian, Limited Government, News, Politics, Reagan, Regulations, Republican, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

WWRD? (What Would Reagan Do) – Part 1

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Trent Derr

Are you better off than you were two years ago? For most people, the answer is no. Compared to two years ago, more people are unemployed, the credit markets are still a mess, businesses are still being stymied by further federal regulation, and the global community has no idea what we stand for with our foreign policy.

What if we could roll the clock back? Roll it back a little more than two years to September 2008. At that time, the United States was at one of our more critical inflection points. We had military actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our southern border states were seeing a serious uptick in crime being committed by illegal aliens, the economy was starting to stagnate, and we had a looming credit crisis. Over a series of postings, we’ll address how Reagan would have addressed each of these issues. What Would Reagan Do?

The Credit Crisis

Reagan was a true believer in the free market. He believed in capitalism, American businesses, and most importantly the American people. Reagan knew that one of the key mechanisms of the free market is to correct imbalances that occur in the exchange of goods and currency. If you ever had any doubt about Reagan’s belief in free markets, look at how he handled the stock crash on “Black Monday”, stock market collapse of October 19, 1987. On that day, the stock market dropped by over 22%. Keep in mind that is nearly double the percentage drop that occurred in October 29, 1929 that is widely believed by Liberals as the trigger of the Great Depression. Over the next several days following that Black Monday in 1987, the stock market further deteriorated to bottom at a 28% loss compared to the highs two months prior. The naysayers began to predict the beginning of the next Great Depression. The press, the Congress, and the talking head pundits all were calling upon the Federal Government to take action to “save the economy”.

What did Reagan do? NOTHING. Although Reagan did not know at the time what caused the crash, he knew the market would correct itself. Later we learned the crash was caused by the combination of programmed trading and the fact that the vast majority of the market understood that the prices of all stocks, whether they were good or bad, were being artificially driven higher by frenzied buying. The stock market was extremely overvalued. Investors were like a mouse caught at the top of a precarious pyramid of crystal goblets, and they wanted down. They also knew that the trip wasn’t going to end well. When the market started to correct, the falling prices and trading volumes triggered programmed trading to sell even more stock which triggered more programmed trading and so on. The collapse was as dramatic as it was unnerving. Without knowing the exact cause, Reagan knew the crash was caused by a market imbalance. An imbalance that men created, and the free market was correcting.

As a result of Reagan’s inaction, did the next recession or depression ensue? Nope. The widely predicted cataclysmic economic collapse never occurred. We did not see large numbers of businesses fail, nor a signification increase in unemployment, nor a permanent flight of investors to bury their money in mason jars in their back yard. In fact, investors returned to the market in an orderly fashion over the next couple of years. Why did this free market process work without the government intervening and bailing out companies? Without government manipulation or interference, individuals were able to identify opportunities in the market and buy good assets at reasonable prices, buy marginal assets at low prices and let bad companies fail! The market was able to work the way it should.

So what would Reagan have done with the credit crisis of September 2008? Again, NOTHING. He would not have provided a TARP bailout for the investment banks and mortgage loan companies. There would not have been strong-arming of companies (like Bank of America or Wells Fargo) to force them into purchasing other failing companies or into taking government bailout money that they didn’t need. The banking and finance institutions would have triaged their way through the credit crisis with the healthy companies emerging stronger, the marginal organizations losing their unprofitable fat, and the poorly run entities going away or being acquired by others at a “market driven” price. Yes there would have been some pain. Excess eventually leads to pain.

Even with the continued squawking by pundits, Reagan would not have provided bailouts for GM and Chrysler which also would have meant no bailout for the auto unions. Thus the government would not have had new-found leverage to enact regulations and to empower an Auto Czar to force the auto companies to build additional so-called green cars, like the Volt, that the American people weren’t asking Detroit to produce. What did green cars have to do with the credit crisis anyway? Oh I forgot. Our current regime believes you should never let a good crisis go to waste.

Through filing bankruptcy, Chrysler would have renegotiated their agreements with the unions and other suppliers. Chrysler would have emerged stronger and competitive. Of course, GM would have also filed for bankruptcy. GM would have closed down several divisions (which they did anyway), sold off some divisions to raise cash (possibly Cadillac) and emerged out of bankruptcy a much, much smaller company. The lesson for GM, Chrysler and the unions would have been that the auto industry must produce the cars the public actually wants to buy and must regularly trim their cost structure to remain competitive in the global economy.

As a result the American economy would have emerged much stronger than Europe and the Far East because our process would have punished the poor performers and proportionately rewarded the good performers. Resources and liquidity would have been naturally channeled to the strong performers with the best prospects for providing a return on investment to equity holders. Systematically credit liquidity would have improved over time because investors, without the fog and circus mirrors of government manipulation, would be able to more easily identify where there were new-found opportunities in the market. Opportunities for equity market to pick the winners and losers, rather than the government.

So what else would Reagan do? We’ll cover those topics in subsequent posts but I can assure you of one thing that Reagan wouldn’t do. The Gipper wouldn’t drive a Volt…

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Business, Commentary, Conservative, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Greenhouse Gas, Independent, Libertarian, Limited Government, Politics, Reagan, Regulations, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Your Lipstick Stains on the Front Lobe of my Left Side Brains.

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Trent Derr

Hey Soul Sister

“What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick!” And with that shot over the bow at the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin announced her arrival on to the national political stage. From her position as a relatively unknown Governor of Alaska, Palin launched one of the most exciting Vice Presidential candidacies in U.S. history.

From the completion of that speech, even before McCain lost to Obama, there was the question about her aspirations regarding the Presidency. Will Sarah Run? And that question is still outstanding today. Although she hasn’t announced, she’s made several moves to improve her position if she does decide to run. She’s now a frequent commentator on Fox News, has written several books, has had a brief series on cable television on TLC, formed her own Political Action Committee, and most importantly threw her support behind many individuals in their respective state level candidacies. Yes, Sarah is collecting “chips”. Those chips she will cash in at a later time if she decides to run.

Can She Win?

Although there are a lot of tactics to a Presidential Election, the general election strategy is focused on two main points: 1) Can your candidate motivate your base of voters to turn out more than you motivate your opponent’s base to turn out? 2) Then can you swing the necessary 1 to 3% of the voters in the swing states you need to win the Electoral College? To tackle point one, Sarah can turn out the base. Palin almost single-handedly pulled McCain’s Presidential Campaign out of the ditch. She motivated economic conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, some independents and most importantly soccer/hockey moms (more on this later). What makes her so appealing? Personally, she reminds me of most of the women in my family: my wife, sister, mother, daughter-in-law, and sister-in-law. Like the women in my family, Sarah is confident, is outspoken, can raise a family, holds a full-time job, is willing to take on the “bad” guys, and can shoot a gun. Sarah’s record as Governor provides her credentials as an economic conservative in opposing wasteful spending and as a populist in her willingness to defend her constituents against those who would take advantage of them (in her case the big oil companies and local good ol’ boy Republican politicians). She’s pretty well-known in Alaska for stating her mind without sugar-coating it and for asking people to call her Sarah rather than Governor. Many people see Palin as one of them. In the end, the core conservative base turned out for the McCain/Palin ticket at campaign rallies, to volunteer, to contribute cash, and to vote. So put a big black check in that box. She can turn out the base.

On the other side, wow, she motivates the liberal base! Why is that? The Left believes they own the women’s vote. Sarah’s pull with soccer/hockey moms and working mothers is a threat. Thus they attack like crazed loons. Since the mainstream press has a strong liberal bias, they pounce on Palin with both feet. In the attacks, liberal women are the most vicious. Sarah makes them feel inferior because she seems like Superwoman. Sarah nullifies all the arguments that the liberal woman make about how unfair society is to them. Palin was Governor, raises a family, loves her husband, ran a business, exercises regularly, hunts big game, believes in God, is anti-abortion, and in general has a positive disposition about life. Oh and I forgot to mention, Sarah is pretty. Liberal women really hate that: She has accomplished all those things, and she’s pretty. Thus, Sarah causes liberal women to down their Zoloft with two glasses of Merlot before they can drag their bitter bodies to bed. A woman like Sarah winning the Presidency would just shatter the myth that the liberal left and their proxies like the National Organization for Women really look out for women’s best interest. The Left is really about defending the liberal establishment. They simply use women as a stepping stool to maintain their power. Sarah threatens that power. At this time, the rallying cry Palin provides the Left seriously offsets the strong turnout from her base. Net impact: neutral.

Purple States

As mentioned above, she brought more energy to a Presidential campaign than anyone since Ronald Reagan, and she did it while she was number two on the ticket. But can she motivate that 1 to 3% of the electorate that decides the races in the battleground states that really decide the Presidency? Ohio, Florida and Nevada are especially pivotal to the ultimate outcome. They each have voted two times for the Republicans and two times for the Democrats over the last four Presidential campaigns. In the fall 2010 elections, Florida and Ohio took decidedly conservative turns. As we’ve seen, a lot can change in two years but Florida and Ohio look more likely to be Republican Presidential states in 2012. On the other hand, Nevada is tilting Democrat. The strength of the unions in the gaming and hotel industries, especially SEIU, brings a lot of political muscle to the Democrats in Nevada. At this point, put Nevada in the Democrats column. However if the Republican candidate in 2012 wins Ohio and Florida, they will likely win the Presidency. Can Sarah win Ohio and Florida? The answer to that question depends upon how Palin weathers the personal attacks on her by the Democratic machine and their allies in the Press.

Should She Run and Weather the Storm?

That’s really a personal question for her. For her quality of life over the next two years, it will be a whole lot better for her and her family if she doesn’t run. However if she ever wants to be President, she has to run in 2012. Much like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is disliked by the press and is underestimated. The press of the day felt Reagan was too extreme and “just an actor”. Ultimately Reagan could not have won in 1980 if he didn’t run for President in 1968 and 1976. Most of the attacks against Reagan, like Palin, were personal and based on opinions rather than factual and based on his record. By running for President early like Reagan, she would force the press and the pundits to throw all their trash out to defeat her. In subsequent campaigns, the press and pundits can really only replay the same trash which ultimately loses its sting because the public grows tired of hearing the same old personal attacks over and over. In the end, this strategy can work for Palin. She needs to continue to take her punches and get everything out there. If she can weather all the personal attacks on her and her family in a Presidential campaign, she’ll actually be a stronger candidate in the end.

Will She Run?

I really have no idea. At this point, there aren’t any clear indicators about who can win the Republican nomination in 2012. However I still feel the likely nominee won’t be one of the finalists from 2008. So Sarah has as good of a shot as anyone. Only time will tell if the key 1 to 3% of the electorate will decide that Sarah is their Soul Sister, one of their kind.

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Commentary, Conservative, Elections, Libertarian, Limited Government, National Debt, Obama, Politics, Religion, Republican, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Our Sputter and Nicked Up Moment

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Trent Derr

I swore I heard that right.  Did the President say this is our “Sputter and Nicked Up” moment?  Was this the first time that he decided to finally come clean with the American people?   I thought to myself, well at least he was being honest in his State of the Union speech.  He’s finally breaking it to everyone that after his first two years in office he’s set the economy up for another dip… and a bad one.  Yes I know that the stock market has been going up for the last couple months and other economic indicators have had minor upticks.  This temporary uptick has been due to the FED pumping liquidity into the financial markets at a level nearly matching 90% of our current GDP.

But Obama has decided to come clean.  He’s telling us when the FED’s stimulus runs out again, the economy is going to sputter, fall back into recession, and we’re all going to get nicked up.  The latest stimulus by the FED is known as QE2 (Quantitative Easing 2).  Why is it called QE2?  Because QE1 didn’t work.   Yes Obama was able to leverage QE1 to trigger a rebound in the stock market but that happens when the FED pours cash into the financial market.    The impact of Quantitative Easing 1 stopped working in late April 2010, and the stock market swooned.  The business community knew that the FED just ran out of “happy pills”, and the economy was about to feel the pain again.  We were going to drift back into another recession.   As a result, the stock market retreated, and the economic indicators started to decline.   However, the President couldn’t let that happen right in the middle of the Fall 2010 elections.  So Obama and Fed Chair Bernanke came riding to the rescue.  Let’s do QE2.  Yea, that’s the ticket.

All legitimate economists and business people know quantitative easing doesn’t work.  It’s just like heroin.   It’s a temporary escape from the reality of life.   A junkie feels bad so he takes heroin to feel better for a while.  When he comes down off his high, he feels worse than he did before.  Then the junkie needs another hit and the cycle continues. Meanwhile his body and soul are deteriorating, and his problems aren’t getting any better.   Welcome to the Obama economy.  Obama’s stimulus and quantitative easing programs are his heroin to cover up the real issues.  These programs are designed to make us feel better but they do nothing to address our core economic problems.  In the meantime, our body (the economy) and soul (our initiative) rot.

As my mind stopped racing and “tuned” back into the State of the Union, I caught a different word… Sputnik.   Wait a minute.  Obama isn’t coming clean.   He’s talking about the Russian launch of Sputnik as a comparison to our current situation.   Obama is using Sputnik as a ruse to cover another change of terminology.  Since the voters said in November that they didn’t want any more reckless “stimulus” spending, Obama now needs a new word… “investment”.   Yeah, that’s it, investment.  We need more “investment” to turn the country around.  However fortunately the voters have already solved that equation: “investment” = “stimulus” = “more debt” = “bad economy”.

Oh well.  I really thought Obama was using the State of the Union to come clean.  However an honest speech would have been too short for all the pageantry around the State of the Union.   After all, he really could have just said two words… You’re screwed.

Posted in 2012 Elections, American Exceptionalism, Business, Commentary, Conservative, Democrats, Economics, Economy, Elections, Federal Reserve, Free Markets, Independent, Libertarian, Limited Government, National Debt, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party, Unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hu JaDaddy?

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Trent Derr

As I mentioned to some friends, due to the amount of money the President is borrowing from the Chinese, Obama is no longer able to refer to the Chinese leader as Hu Jintao. Now Obama is required to call him Hu JaDaddy.  To paraphrase Jay Leno, the bad news is the Chinese Leader came to the White House this week.  The good news is he said we could keep it.

However I’m not picking on the Chinese.  I’m opposed to the United States owing that amount of money to anyone.  Let alone a country that crushes dissent in their citizens, imprisons their Noble Prize winners, thinks that America is a temporary aberration in history, and has nuclear weapons pointed at us.    In any debtor relationship, you lose authority and the ability to negotiate from a level playing field.  Anyone who doesn’t think it matters where you borrow money is a fool.   Just ask a person who has ended up in “cement shoes” in the waters off of New Jersey whether it matters. But I digress…

Personally, I’m not as concerned about what our debt to China says about them as what is says about us.  The reckless increased spending by the Obama Administration is not primarily being driven by building infrastructure, fighting a war, or funding social security.  The federal government under Obama has created a greater debt than created by all our prior administrations, in all our prior wars, with all our prior social spending, and by building all our national highway system and space programs.   So, where has all this “stimulus” money been going?   Primarily to redistribute wealth and to perform “social engineering”.    Progressives believe that only they are “wise” enough to determine how much money each American should have and that the distribution of wealth should not be left to such unfair mechanisms such as hard work and the free market.  Thus their objective is to funnel money to their supporters and constituents (those dependent on government hand outs, fellow progressives, unions) in order to buy those groups continued support and votes.   In the end, it’s all about power.   This explains why stimulus projects like spending $19.5 million on a new parking garage for a hospital in New York not only didn’t increase jobs, it involved a net decrease in jobs at the facility.  In the end, the reason why stimulus spending didn’t increase employment was because it wasn’t about creating new jobs.  It’s about politicians with the power to tax and spend using our money to buy the votes that keep them in power.

To quote Sir Alex Fraser Tytler, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”  And that’s where we are.  Politicians continue to feed that behavior like a drug dealer manipulates his addicts.  The politicians need enough people dependent upon the government that the politicians can secure their continued power to perpetuate this cycle of dependency.

And who loses?  Everyone who is self-sufficient along with our children and grandchildren.  The Obama Administration represents the first time that the U.S. government has created a debt that is cross-generational.  It is so large we can not pay it off in our lifetime.  However our creditors, the Chinese and others, will require us to begin to pay down this debt.   Through taxes, fees, regulations, and inflation, the liberal politicians will use the debt as a further excuse to redistribute wealth to match their vision of “fairness”.  This is the inheritance we are giving to our children unless we get involved in the political process.

We don’t get the politicians we need.  We get the politicians we deserve.

Posted in American Exceptionalism, Business, Commentary, Conservative, Economics, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Humor, Independent, Inflation, Libertarian, Limited Government, National Debt, News, Obama, Politics, Regulations, Republican, Taxes, Tea Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment