Freedom Line Blog

Today, on behalf of a grateful nation, CFIF thanks all of our veterans for their service and sacrifice for our freedoms. 

With Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announcing the end of her campaign to be Republican Conference Chairman, the likely top four House GOP leadership spots look like this:

(1)   Speaker – Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

(2)   Majority Leader – Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

(3)   Majority Whip – Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

(4)   Conference Chairman – Rep. Jeb Hersarling (R-TX)

It’s always interesting to see where leadership team members are from because it indicates where the strength of the party lies.  Since leadership positions are sought and won by members with multiple terms in office, it’s intriguing to see four Republicans representing each corner of the country.

Contrast this with the locations represented by the outgoing top four House Democrat leaders:

(1)   Speaker – Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

(2)   Majority Leader – Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

(3)   Majority Whip – Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)

(4)   Caucus Chairman – Rep. John Larson (D-CT)

Aside from Clyburn, all the Democrat leaders come from deep blue coastal states (e.g. California, Maryland, and Connecticut).  Counting Clyburn, the Democrats’ claim to a “southern” voice is tied to a gerrymandered district designed to elect a liberal African-American.  If Hoyer beats Clyburn for the Minority Whip post, even that fig leaf of regional diversity will blow away.

The House Democratic caucus lost 29 of 57 “blue dog” members last Tuesday, making the remaining chamber membership much more liberal.  It also wiped out the Democrats’ claims to represent regions other than the high-tax, morally bankrupt coasts.  That, combined with Nancy Pelosi’s likely retention as caucus leader, will make it substantially more difficult for the party to recruit viable candidates in 2012.

Conservatives shouldn’t count on gifts like this forever, but for now, we’ll gladly take them.

As a former staff member in the Texas House of Representatives, I have an interest in news that the chamber may be headed for conservative leadership.  This morning, Rep. Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) announced his bid to unseat current Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio).  If successful, Paxton would be the third Republican Speaker in under three years, since Straus ascended to power by beating former Speaker (and my old boss) Tom Craddick (R-Midland) in 2009.

What does an intra-party fight in one of the reddest states in America mean for citizens outside the Lone Star State?  Plenty.

Texas is already the exemplar of low-tax, low-regulation state government.  Moreover, because the legislature only meets for 140 days every two years, Texas government has not had a chance to weigh in legislatively on issues like Arizona’s approach to illegal immigration and Virginia’s response to block implementation of ObamaCare.  With the kick-off of the legislative session next January, a more conservative Republican House majority will be able to make some big statements about the power of the 10^th Amendment in our federal system.

That is, if the House is run by a true conservative.  Stay tuned…

The Wall Street Journal is among the news sources carrying coverage of the preliminary recommendations being produced by President Obama’s much-feted debt reduction panel. According to the Journal’s synopsis:

Among the controversial proposals, the plan in its current form would end or cap a wide range of breaks relied on by the middle class, including the deduction for home-mortgage interest. It would tax capital gains and dividends at the higher rates now levied on wage income. To compensate, one version of the plan would dramatically lower and simplify individual rates, to 9%, 15% and 24%.

For businesses, the plan would significantly lower the corporate tax rate—from a current top rate of 35% to as low as 26%—but also eliminate a number of deductions. It would make permanent the research and development tax credit. Overall, the plan would cut the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020.

… On Social Security, the plan would gradually raise the retirement age to 68 around 2050 and 69 by 2075. It would combine a cut in benefits with a rise in taxes on wealthier people’s incomes. It would also seek to rein in federal spending on health care beyond what’s called for in the recently passed health-care overhaul. This would be achieved by introducing further changes, including reform of medical-malpractice law, and by seeking to slow the growth of the Medicare program.

The plan would make significant cuts on spending over which Congress has direct control, beyond entitlements such as Medicare. It identifies $410 billion in discretionary spending cuts by 2015. It proposes cutting the federal work force 10%, at a further savings of $13.2 billion by 2015.

Congressional earmarks—provisions inserted into legislation for lawmakers’ pet projects—would be banned permanently, saving $16 billion.

This a surprisingly market-friendly recommendation, much of which — though politically very tough — is admirable. Hopefully, low-tax advocates will train their fire on the unnecessary increases in capital gains and dividend rates, as well as what looks to be a proposed increase on Social Security and Medicare taxes for the wealthy. While we don’t know what deductions are on the chopping block, if the home mortgage example is representative there’s actually a strong free-market case to be made in favor of the eliminations. By giving economic preference to activities like home purchases, these deductions lead to economic inefficiency (they either direct consumers to make choices that wouldn’t be rational without the deduction or subsidize purchases that would have been made regardless).

Elsewhere in the WSJ piece, the authors refer to the fact that the current recommendations rely about 75 percent on spending cuts and 25 percent on tax increases. Good, but not great. A recognition that taxes always hamper economic activity means that tax increases should never be considered instead of spending cuts unless (A) government is only doing the things that are its rightful responsibility and (b) it is doing all those things at maximum efficiency. At some point, the exigencies of politics may require compromising short of that ideal, but I’d like to see a comprehensive examination of spending in the executive branch before tax hikes are even considered.

Let’s consider the cabinet departments. The Departments of Justice, Defense, Treasury, and State are the originals and unquestionably justified under our scheme of federal government. There are others that have probably grown into necessary organs in years since. We’ll need Health and Human Services as long as we have a federal welfare state, Interior as long as we have public lands and a National Park system, Transportation at least for the interstate highway system and air travel and, though its probably in need of some pruning, Homeland Security. Veterans Affairs seems like it could be folded into either Defense or HHS. As for the Departments of Education, Housing & Urban Development, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor (apart from its statistical work), I’m at a loss for what useful purpose (or more importantly, results) justifies their existence. I’d be more than willing to scrap each of them, keep the few parts we still need, and re-check the ledger before considering higher taxes for even a single American.

The House GOP isn’t wasting any time putting President Barack Obama on notice that they are ready to test his new commitment to bipartisanship on education issues.  Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the incoming-Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, is promising to recreate the D.C. school voucher program Obama and the Democrats killed two years ago.

Vouchers are despised by teachers’ unions because the device introduces competition into the K-12 education market.  If parents don’t like the curriculum, culture or administration at a public school a voucher lets them send their children to a private school that meets their needs.  For all the canards about separation of church and state, the real reason teachers’ unions hate vouchers is because less students means less of a need for public school (i.e. unionized) teachers.

Supporting a bill that recreates the D.C. school voucher program would be good politics and good policy.  Good politics because President Obama could legitimately claim a bipartisan victory with Republicans on an issue that moves the president to the political center.  It would be good policy because it would allow low-income students the probability of the single biggest attraction of a better education: a better life.

All this for only recreating what already existed.  If the president can’t muster the courage to support this kind of feel-good, localized issue he’ll have no one to blame for the gridlock but himself.

H/T: Washington Times

A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that most voters want the new House Republican majority to investigate the spending impact of ObamaCare.  The survey found that 55% of respondents support a close look at the costs and implications of the health care “reform” bill jammed through Congress earlier this year.

With the tentacles of ObamaCare reaching far beyond the purview of “health” don’t be surprised if House committees like Budget, Oversight and Government Reform, and even Commerce (among others) open investigations into the most drastic government power grab since LBJ’s Great Society.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

We have illustrated the dramatic difference between the pro-growth Reagan Recovery and the ongoing Obama Malaise, which a side-by-side comparison of economic data makes clear.  In addition to the lopsided data differential, the uninspiring and self-pitying rhetoric to which Obama treats us provides another sad contrast.  Consider the following exchange from Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview this week:

STEVE KROFT: Do you get discouraged? Are you discouraged now?

OBAMA: I do get discouraged. I mean, there are times where I thought the economy would’ve gotten better by now. One of the things I think you understand as president is, you’re held responsible for everything. But you don’t always have control of everything, especially an economy this big. There are limited tools to encourage the kind of job growth that we need.

Such “woe is me” dejection can be self-fulfilling (see, e.g., Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise Speech”), and would have been unimaginable coming from Reagan, who faced even higher unemployment rates, interest rates and inflation than Obama.  But here’s a tip, Mr. President:  nobody wants or expects you to “have control of everything.”  You do, and that is the problem.  As shown by your more optimistic predecessors, getting yourself out of the way would be the best first step toward “the kind of job growth that we need.”

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

It’s been clear ever since President Obama’s irritable East Room press conference the day after the midterm elections that the White House is in deep denial over its refutation by the American electorate.

What’s shocking, however, is just how much the bunker mentality is getting noticed even in Democratic circles. A new Politico story by Mike Allen & Jim VandeHei entitled “President Obama Isolated Ahead of 2012” brings an administration dead set on standing athwart reality into sharp relief. The piece, well worth reading in its entirety, is filled to the brim with damning testimonials about the Obama White House’s incompetence on basic politics. One of the more glaring quotes:

Alex Pollock’s contribution in The American, a publication for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is much needed medicine for the regulatory fever about to be unleashed when the Dodd-Frank “financial reform” bill is implemented.

The key to understanding boom-and-bust cycles, according to Pollock, is realizing the limits of a mathematical model’s ability to predict the future.  To quote Pollock quoting a colleague, “The model works until it doesn’t.”  That is, until someone falsifies the model by acting in a way contrary to the model’s assumptions.  Then everybody who uses the model is out a lot of money.

So, if profit-hungry businesses can’t figure out a way to avoid losing money, what in the world makes the denizens on Capitol Hill think they can create a federal agency with such powers?

Hubris and stupidity.  Political cultivation of those qualities is a science unto itself.

Weekend Bonus Link: For another theory of the business cycle, click here.

The folks over at Reason.tv have a wicked sense of humor.  Their latest target is newly (and indefinitely) suspended pundit Keith Olbermann from MSNBC.  Apparently, all it took was $7,200 in near meaningless campaign donations to Democratic candidates to finally convince the network that Olbermann was too partisan to be on-air.

Here’s a sample of some his classic work:

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

For a guy who won a 21-month-long campaign, you’d think Senator-Elect Marco Rubio (R-FL) would get the weekend off.

Hardly.

He’s already been asked to deliver the GOP’s response to President Barack Obama’s weekly address.  Welcome to primetime, all the time, Mr. Rubio.

If getting a House chairmanship were as automatic as moving from ranking member of the minority to chairman of the majority, then Representatives Ron Paul (R-TX) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) would be resting easy today.  Rep. Paul is the ranking Republican on the subcommittee with oversight responsibility of the Federal Reserve, a role the Austrian economist would relish.  For his part, Rep. Ryan is the ranking Republican on the powerful Budget Committee, the body empowered to make significant changes in public policy through the budget writing process.

Both men have reason to doubt an unchallenged assent to power because both are on record with radical plans to shrink the size of government.  Paul is sure to refile legislation to audit the Fed, a proposition that may gain popularity with the Fed’s announcement to add nearly $1 trillion to the national debt.  For his part, Ryan’s Roadmap to America’s Future is a comprehensive vehicle for delivering sustainable government programs that leave room for entrepreneurship and growth.

Voters had their say on Tuesday.  Now, it’s time to see how many fiscal conservatives in the newly enlarged GOP caucus are willing to elevate two of the most ardent foes of big government to consequential leadership positions.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  2012 May Be Even Brighter for Conservatives Than 2010
Senik:  Four Surprising Lessons from the Midterm Elections
Ellis:  Election Results for Candidates Profiled by CFIF
Release:  2010 Midterm Elections: Net Neutrality Winners and Losers

Freedom Minute Video:  The Way We Were: A Look Back at Liberal Rule, 2009-2010
Podcast:  International Author Shares Diary from World War II
Jester’s Courtroom:  How Not To Rob a Bank

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

With the midterm elections having come and gone, CFIF’s Renee Giachino takes us on a trip down memory lane to the way things were under liberal rule.  2009-2010:  In their own words.

Today, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate remained at 9.6% for the third consecutive month.  When President Obama signed his nearly $1 trillion “stimulus” in February 2009, the unemployment rate stood at 8.2%.  In the 20 months since that date, the rate has increased to 9.6% despite White House projections that it would top out at 8% fully one year ago.

Once again, a comparison to the Reagan recovery is profoundly instructive.  In the same 20 month span following the effective date of the Reagan tax cuts in January 1983, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 7.3%.  Also instructive is the following headline from today’s Wall Street Journal:  “European Central Bank Parts Ways With U.S. on More Stimulus.” It is a sad state of affairs when even the spendthrift Europeans are providing economic guidance to Obama.

Liberal Keynesians have had almost two years to prove the validity of their economic agenda.  It has failed, their rationalizations have grown stale, and their desperate efforts to resist corrective action will only prolong the nation’s misery.

Interview with Belgian-born author Joseph M. Callewaert, Knight of the French Order of Merit, on his book, Lights out for Freedom:  Four Years under the Nazi Boot, a personal account of growing up among the upheaval of war and the fear, hunger and oppression suffered by so many during the Nazi occupation of Belgium.

Listen to the interview here.

Whether or not you think he’s a viable presidential candidate in 2012, there can be little doubt that — on his best days — former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is one of the most intelligent, articulate defenders of conservative thought around (full disclosure: I used to write radio spots for the Speaker). Last night Newt delivered a tour de force performance on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, analyzing the midterm elections and their effects on President Obama. Some video highlights can be seen below. Newt’s best line of the night, however, didn’t make it into the highlights reel. Scroll down beyond the video for the line that had the Fox camera crews cracking up on air:

VAN SUSTEREN: But I just don’t get it, I mean, because he did run on change. And he delivered change. And now the American people — and they told him almost from day one they didn’t like his change, and he didn’t even notice it, and he’s still (INAUDIBLE) and so now he comes (INAUDIBLE) today — I don’t get it!

GINGRICH: Greta, Greta, Greta, Greta, if somebody offers you a chance to go to Disney World and you get all excited, and they promise to take you to Disney World, and then they didn’t quite tell you that, by the way, the way they’re going to get there is they’re going to crash the plane into the park…(LAUGHTER)

GINGRICH: The fact that they were going to take you to Disney World may not have been quite as attractive as you thought. Nobody in America thought we were going to elect a president who would be this far to the left, pass this much spending, build up this big a deficit, try to impose Washington on every doctor’s office, every hospital, every medical decision in America. And the American people now said, Got it. If that’s the change you meant, we’re going to send you a signal that that’s the wrong change.It’s all right to be for change, but you ought to be for the right change, and he didn’t get. Now, what worries me is with two more years, I wonder what it’s going to take for him to begin to realize it’s not about us, the American people, it’s about him.

If ever anyone deserved the title “the speaker” …