Freedom Line Blog

Jimmy Carter lives, but he has big jug ears and he can’t talk without a teleprompter. This is about the fourth time in recent weeks that Barry O has sounded like Carter complaining about national malaise (yes, I know Carter himself never used the word, but Carter did describe it). (For instance, see item number two, about Americans getting “soft,” in Ashton’s story.)  The One says we have lost our ambition and our imagination. Well, no… but his heavy layer of government and his insistence that government do all our thinking and choosing for us has certainly made it hard for us to exercise the ambition and imagination that remain central facets of the American character. We have not lost them; they’ve just been somewhat smothered under Obama’s boots. If he wants us to get our ambition back, he might want to consider taking a permanent vacation, and taking all his rule-by-(illegal)-fiat administrative commissars with him.

I’ll admit it: Early this year, if Mike Pence had decided to run for president, I would have been “all in” for him. Here, Bill Kristol suggests that Pence is one who still should consider changing his “no go” decision. (Oh, what a nice thought!) The larger point that Kristol makes, a point that is right on target, is that there is absolutely no reason why the current shape of the race must remain in place. The vast majority of GOP voters are not yet even remotely committed to any particular candidate. In that light, my column today at The American Spectator names yet another person who party big-wigs ought to try to recruit: Bobby Jindal, who just won re-election as Louisiana governor in a landslide. As you’ll see in my column, Jim Geraghty also has a big Jindal feature in the latest issue of National Review.

To be clear, I’m not saying Jindal would get my vote even if he ran. I might still vote for Rick Santorum. I still see the appeal of Herman Cain.  Whatever. But that’s the point: I’m like more than 80 percent of Republican voters: I’m still able to be swayed.  So, dear reader, are you, almost assuredly. At Real Clear Politics, Scott Conroy says we shouldn’t be fooled, for instance, by Santorum’s low polling numbers, because his organization in Iowa is remarkably strong. I agree.

Right now it appears, for instance, that if either Herman Cain’s outlandish lack of a clue on foreign and defense policy or his weak campaign organization catches up with him and he starts to sink, the next conservative poised to make a challenge is Newt Gingrich, who was given up for dead almost as soon as he entered the race with a thud in the spring. Who woulda thunk that Gingrich could rehabilitate himself? (Who woulda thunk Republican voters would look past Gingrich’s sordid past, his implosion as Speaker based on his arrogance and mercurial nature, his habit of saying nasty things about conservatives, his huge negatives among independent voters, his pathetic pandering on ethanol and on global warming nonsense in general, his habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, or any of his other manifold weaknesses?) But if Gingrich can rise from the political dead all the way to third in the polls, why can’t Santorum catch the next wave? Or why can’t a Jindal jump in with just the right finesse and surge like Cain did, and like Perry and Bachmann did before Cain?

This race remains wide open, folks. Keeping it wide open is a good thing, not a bad one, because it allows more relevant information to surface and tests the candidates more strenuously, making the eventual nominee far more hardened and ready for whatever Barack Obama’s minions can throw at him.

Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking member on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, has been doing yeoman’s work on multiple levels in highlighting waste and proposing both procedural and substantive solutions. His efforts merit, and will in the next few weeks receive, a full column to recount them. By pure happenstance, I shared a plane with the senator and then a lunch at the Atlanta airport with him yesterday. One of the many budget-related topics we touched on was welfare — or, more precisely, food stamps and other welfare-benefits that were not fixed by the tremendous 1996 welfare reform that turned Aid to Families with Dependent Children (a mess) into Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (a huge success). One thing he said was more big-picture and attitudinal than it was program-specific and numbers heavy (although there was plenty of other discussion that did fit those latter categories). I repeat it here both as a teaser for a near-future column, and because, as usual, the good senator is right on target. To quote Sessions:

We need to go back to re-engage the national discussion on how receipt of welfare benefits not only is damaging to the Treasury but also hurts the recipient. We need to go back and re-establish the moral principle that federal assistance should be seen as a temporary aid where possible and the goal should be to help people become independent and self-sustaining.

Jack Kemp used to talk like that. Rick Santorum talks like that. Sometimes Paul Ryan at least comes close to talking like that. There is a nexus between morality and economic policy; it’s not all dollar signs and accounting, but instead about human potential and human lives. Kemp and others used to talk about getting rid of the “welfare trap,” and that’s exactly what Sessions is talking about. The right sort of compassion is one that helps somebody lift himself up, not one that gives him incentive to remain personally helpless.

In what should be seen as a tremendously significant development on the Voter ID front, former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, a (black) Democrat from Alabama and long one of the “good guys” on the left-of-center side of things (smart, honest, thoughtful, etc.), wrote this week in the Montgomery Advertiser that he now supports a requirement (as passed in Alabama) for a voter ID law in order to fight voter fraud.

The money paragraph:

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights — that’s suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don’t; I’ve heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I’ve been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

This is a big development. It completely contradicts the Obama/Wasserman-Schultz/Bill Clinton narrative that voter ID laws are somehow an evil plot to suppress votes. Instead, ensuring honest elections, as Davis writes, are the best way to fight AGAINST vote suppression.

There will be much more to say on this subject, including Artur Davis’ brave stance, in the coming weeks. But I didn’t want to let this week go by without highlighting it — especially since Davis will be my guest on my weekly radio show this coming Thursday night on 106.5 FM, WAVH, in Mobile, at 8 pm Central time. When the time comes, you can listen online here.

Davis, is should be said, has good reason for his views. He has seen, and rightly objects to, massive vote fraud in Perry and Hale Counties in Alabama, some of which is recounted in the great new book by J. Christian Adams, Injustice, blasting Eric Holder’s lawless Justice Department.

Anyway, please do listen in next Thursday night. And stay tuned to this space as well, because this is a subject that needs more attention.

I wrote about Gadhafi’s end here. It didn’t need to be this way. So many lives could have been saved if Gadhafi… well, if he weren’t Gadhafi, the murderous thug.

Back before G.W. Bush nominated the excellent John Roberts for the Supreme Court, many conservatives had another name at or near the top of their wish-list: Alice Batchelder, judge (now chief judge) on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. (She was, as I recall, my second choice, with Sam Alito as my top choice. Of course, I have been very happy with John Roberts as well.) Last night at the Heritage Foundation, those assembled could see exactly why she was rated so highly.

The event was Heritage’s annual Joseph Story lecture, named after the brilliant and principled Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison. Batchelder effectively created a “debate” of ideas (albeit expressed more than three decades apart) between the Anti-Federalist of the ratifying period named “Brutus” (likely Robert Yates) and Story, as to whether or not the Constitution left too much leeway to judges to assume too much unchecked power. Story, whose own jurisprudence was of what we conservatives now would call “originalist” or “textualist” and who himself never would have overstepped proper bounds, argued that the judiciary overall would not exceed its bounds either. In doing so, he may have been projecting his own virtues onto future justices; what Batchelder argued was that Story was less able a prognosticator than he was a judge. Clearly, she said, Brutus’ warnings proved right — not, mind you, that the Constitution read correctly allows for power-wandering judges, but that its protections against that evil are not strong enough to block judges from straying.

It all made for an interesting situation where the Story lecturer was arguing against Story’s position on a particular issue (although certainly not against his jurisprudence). It was fascinating stuff.

Without ever coming close to overstepping a current judge’s rightful bounds of opining on pending or possibly pending cases, Batchelder provided examples aplenty of how judges have indeed strayed far afield from the Constitution as those like Story understood it. Perhaps most ironic was that the very arguments used by the high court in the Casey abortion decision to justify an expansive conception of jurisprudential authority, namely that it is not the job of the government to “mandate” a “moral code,” runs afoul of the reasons originally given for expanding the Constitution’s “Commerce Clause,” which was that Congress had every rightful authority to prohibit commerce undertaken for “immoral purposes.”

Anyway, I’m getting into the weeds here, which may not be the right forum for doing so. Much more deserves to be written about Judge Batchelder’s wonderful speech later, and we should eagerly await Heritage’s publication of it in text form. I’ll be sure to let readers know when it is available.

Follow the links. Rick Santorum is right.

This is, I guess, my week to focus on Herman Cain. Jennifer Rubin does a good job providing the right focuses (foci?) this morning. As I wrote last week, Cain merits some serious vetting. I really really like the guy; I’ve liked most of what I’ve seen from him for 17 years now. I think his basic economic proclivities and understandings are right on target (even if I have doubts about the long-term impact of 9-9-9). But he’s running for president. It’s a huge job. Is he ready for it? I certainly think he has some of the experience needed, and all the intelligence needed, and the character needed, and most of the right principles needed. But is “some” of the experience enough? And is he temperamentally suited to political give and take while still maintaining his principles? Some people do the principles without the politics; some do the politics without the principles; but a great president must be able to do both.

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I think he may have the stuff of greatness in him. But the vetting must be thorough.

In my column this week, I noted that the very man who provided the official “scoring” for Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, the estimable Gary Robbins, had recently co-written a Wall Street Journal column in which he blasted the idea of a Value Added Tax (VAT) because of its proclivity for serving as in invitation to bigger government. And, since two-thirds of Cain’s plan (in combination) seemed to me to be a functional equivalent of a VAT, I thought Robbins’ critique would largely apply to Cain’s plan.

Well, I briefly interviewed Mr. Robbins today. (Politico did the same yesterday, but my questions were more precise.) His comments seemed, to me at least, to be absolutely right on target, both as to the strengths and weaknesses of Cain’s plan. Indeed, I don’t think I can disagree with a word Mr. Robbins said.

For instance: “If you cut out all the special treatments [in the tax code], you can cut the rate an awful lot. That’s a valuable message.” Cain, he said, merits praise for putting that message front and center in the campaign: “Give Mr. Cain the credit for injecting into the campaign a better way to go.  You tax money once and only once.” That’s a great prescription, he said, for growth.

So what about the idea that the nine percent business transaction tax combined with a nine percent sales tax act (in concert) very much like a VAT?  Robbins agreed. And he said he is indeed against a VAT, not so much in theory but in practice because of how it has allowed European governments to grow too large and unwieldy. But, he said, that’s in part because a VAT in effect “hides” so much of the taxes because they are built into each transaction, whereas a sales tax is highly visible.  Moreover, he said, the very public aspect of tying each of the “nines” together in Cain’s plan would mean that the nines are so embedded in the public mind that any attempt to fiddle with the formula would cause a public backlash. And, he said, “If you can keep [all three ‘nines’] tied together, it becomes really difficult to raise them” — because if you raise one, you’ll need to raise all three, and the public would rebel.

Robbins clarified that he did not design Cain’s plan; he was simply asked to “score” it to see what its revenue effects would be — and he did, indeed, find that it would be revenue neutral.

Now this is a key point: DESPITE what Herman Cain himself said in the debate the other day (raising questions as to whether Cain fully grasps the numbers behind his own plan), Robbins did NOT rely on “dynamic” scoring to conclude that it would be revenue neutral. While we supply-siders believe in dynamic scoring, the media doesn’t, and if Cain’s plan would not raise enough money without taking dynamic effects into account, the media and the Obamites would excoriate it for further starving a government already deeply in debt.

Instead, Robbins scored it using “absolutely static” analysis, meaning his scoring should be unassailable from even halfway-fair-minded critics. Indeed, he told me that scored dynamically, Cain’s plan would bring in probably 15 percent more revenue than the current tax system does.

Conservatives who understand these things should welcome, not balk at, added revenues, if those revenues are generated by economic growth rather than by raising rates — rather than, in other words, higher burdens on individuals or on investments.  Even Jack Kemp agreed that the government needs more revenues in order to solve its deficit/debt problems. It just shouldn’t get those higher revenues by burdening economic growth and job creation.

All of which leads to Robbins’ conclusion: “I don’t think in this form Cain’s plan is bad; I myself would do it differently.”

What do I think? In theory, I would take Cain’s plan in a heartbeat over the current system. In practice, I think it would be a tremendous short-term improvement, with serious long-term risks. During the debate on Tuesday, one of Cain’s weakest answers was about how he would ensure that 9-9-9 didn’t lead to higher rates later on:

“The first deterrent is that I’m going to ask the United States Congress to include a two-thirds majority vote before they can raise the 9-9-9 tax. The second deterrent is the fact that because it is visible, simple, and transparent, the American people are going to be the ones to hold Congress’ feet to the fire. The third deterrent is that I will be president and I won’t sign anything that raises the 9-9-9.”

While the second argument, which mirrors that of Robbins’, makes sense, the other two don’t even come close to withstanding scrutiny. Does Cain not know the Constitution? There is no way, short of a constitutional amendment, to require a two-thirds vote to raise a tax. Our system, quite rightly, won’t allow it. One Congress cannot bind another to procedures that contradict the Constitution, and a two-thirds requirement to pass a bill (other than to override a veto) is not constitutional.

Second, the problem isn’t that anybody fears Cain would allow 9-9-9 to be raised; the problem is that people fear what would happen in the future. Unless Cain will be president in perpetuity, world without end, amen, then his pledge not to sign such a tax hike is utterly meaningless.

CONCLUSION: Cain is an appealing man with an appealing plan. But it’s a plan fraught with practical drawbacks, or at least potential ones. It’s a bit of a high-wire act, one which might not withstand buffeting from the political winds.

I join Ashton in saying that Eric Holder must go. I just think that he needs to take the whole Obama team down with him, for massive corruption. Holder and his ilk are race hustlers.  They violate the law with impunity, on more fronts than one might have possibly imagined.

The GOP presidential candidate who first makes an effective issue of all this will gain some real momentum in the race.  The rotten underbelly of the Obama/Holder Justice Department is just now being uncovered. There is a lot more rot still to come to light.

The GOP presidential nomination campaign is a highly volatile thing, with one exception: No matter what happens, Mitt Romney coasts along in the high teens or low 20s, unmoved in the polls by all the other sturm und drang.Right now it is Herman Cain who, like a super ball, is bouncing extremely high — just as Rick Perry did before him, just as Michelle Bachmann did before that, and just as Cain himself did (to a slightly lesser extent) in the Spring. Of the others in the field, Ron Paul will keep his 10-12 percent of support no matter what, but will never exceed that, and thus has no prayer. Also prayerless are Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, almost certainly Bachmann (who has fallen almost off the map), and others like Buddy Roemer and Fred Karger.

Does that mean it is now a three-way race between Cain, Perry, and Romney? No.

Romney and Perry both have the money and clout to stay in all the way. Cain has mojo going for him, along with a winning personality, but his campaign organization is an absolute mess and he also is finally about to get vetted, for real, for the first time. He may or may not have staying power.

Meanwhile, three others still have a shot. Person one is MYSTERY MAN, meaning a still-possible, as-yet-unknown, entrant into the field. If Cain falls as fast as Bachmann did (not likely, but possible) and if Perry still hobbles along without regaining his polling momentum, there is still room for somebody with a certain profile to enter the race and catch fire. It would need to be somebody already well known or somebody unique. The three who come to mind are, 1) despite his protestations, Jeb Bush; 2) Rudy Giuliani; and 3) Bobby Jindal, once he wins re-election as Louisiana governor on Oct. 22 with about 83 percent of the vote. The latter would need to find a way to gingerly extricate himself from his endorsement of Perry, but he’s clever enough to do it if he wants.

Person two, surprisingly, is Newt Gingrich, who has been slowly and steadily gaining polling strength, returning from the absolute dregs into which he had cast himself with his ill-considered slam of Paul Ryan’s budget followed by sheer mendacity, and then cussedness, about what he had said. Would Republicans really be foolish enough to rally around a man he repeatedly through the years has bashed conservatives in harsh terms, who few people with whom he served in Congress trust entirely, who can be abrasive as heck, who has led the GOP into deep unpopularity in the past, and who has a sordid personal history? Well, some people long have called Republicans “the stupid party.” Gingrich has reinvented himself as everybody’s favorite uncle in the field, and attention spans are so short that a few good debate performances (see: Herman Cain) can make people go gaga no matter what a candidate’s history is.

Longshot-but-still-possible person three is Rick Santorum. Why? Hasn’t he consistently ranked well down in the polling single digits? Yes. But he also is the only one who has performed well in almost every debate. He also is the only one who has outperformed expectations in both major straw polls so far, beating Cain, Perry, Romney and Gingrich in Iowa (finishing fourth overall) and beating Paul, Gingrich and Bachmann in Florida (again finishing fourth overall, with a decent 11 percent of the vote).  And he has a history, on election day, of outperforming expectations. He won in major upsets his races in 1990, 1994, and 2000, and beat another incumbent when redistricted into a district with a Democratic congressman in 1992.

So, the question is, who, if anybody else, can catch fire? Whether Cain stays high, or whether Gingrich, Santorum or Jindal emerges, the main challenger(s) will need to contend with the steady Romney regardless. Stay tuned for more twists and turns.

Yet another scandal at the Obama/Holder Department of (in)Justice.  I heard about this more more than a year ago, but regret that I never followed up personally, having not been able to figure out how to find the relevant documents without outrageous rigmarole. All credit to Chuck Neubauer of the Washington Times for getting the story, and to Sen. Chuck Grassley for pursuing the truth:

[N]ow it’s a Justice Department official using taxpayer funds to “facilitate a physical relationship with a woman in Florida.”… Sen. Chuck Grassley, in a Sept. 28 letter, asked Mr. Holder to explain why the supervisor, Darryl Foster, apparently did not have to reimburse the government for money he spent on trips to meet with the Miami woman, including hotels and rental cars…. Sources said Mr. Foster made more than 10 taxpayer-paid trips to Miami in 2008 alone. His female friend was identified only as the president of an organization. Mr. Grassley called the relationship a possible conflict of interest because Mr. Foster was able to approve government contracts for the woman’s organization.

Here’s a new piece of information; I hesitate to report it because it is not quite adequately sourced by ordinary journalistic standards (even though, from my understanding of how DoJ works, the info seems almost certain to be true)…. so I’ll phrase it as a question: Is it true that the supervisor who approved Foster’s trips or refused to discipline him for them, or both, was Steve Rosenbaum, who is the same, court-disciplined, ideological crusader who, along with the now-departed Loretta King, was most directly responsible for forcing the dismissal of the famous voter-intimidation case against New Black Panthers?

And a second question, and two more after that: After Foster was caught with his hand in the muffins, so to speak was Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez –that notorious dissembler — responsible for deciding on Foster’s job status going forward? If so, why was Foster still allowed to continue as an official at DoJ? And what, if anything, was Loretta King’s role in advising on the decision or non-decision to do anything about Foster? (Remember that King served in an acting capacity in Perez’ job before Perez was confirmed by the Senate.)

Arnold Trebach spent four years working for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights back when that body was at the vanguard of securing rights for American blacks. Like Ted Kennedy awardee Bartle Bull before him, Trebach is now on the record, at Pajamas Media, saying that the Obama/Holder Justice Department has thoroughly corrupted the law by jettisoning race-neutral enforcement in favor of a racial spoils system — and worse. Indeed, he calls the gang at Holder’s Civil Rights Division “racial racketeers.” This isn’t just a matter of turning the law on its head, although that is bad enough. It also has real-world consequences:

Like many other officials, I confronted white racists who were terrorizing innocent black citizens. We have not yet succeeded in completely halting such awful practices, but the election of an African American to the White House by a majority white electorate, including me, is proof of just how far we have come in the proper direction.

What outrages me is that despite our country’s wonderful successes, too many seek to gain and hold power by cynically perpetuating and exploiting racial grievances. These racial racketeers seek to convince minority members that nothing will help them improve their lives unless they buy into the myth of racial helplessness and continuing victimhood.

As I noted here yesterday, whistleblower J. Christian Adams is out with an extremely powerful new book detailing all of the Obama/Holder abuses. Adams will be the guest on my weekly radio show, “Hillyer Time,” on Thursday night from 8-9 Central time, with strong radio signal on 106.5 FM from Gulfport to Pensacola along the Gulf Coast, and also a terrific online signal at the station’s web site. Do listen in. And do read Adams’ book. It will make you seethe with righteous anger against the lawless goons running our Justice Department.

Tracy Schmaler, top spokesman at the Eric Holder (in)Justice Department, has a hair-trigger temper that doesn’t even seem to need a good reason to go off. At The American Spectator today, I described my first encounter with her.  It didn’t even end with her yelling at me on the phone; it almost started that way.

Now comes Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News to tell a similar story:

In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman–who would not put anything in writing, I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said, she wouldn’t put anything in writing-…. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming.

I’m not sure what the difference is between yelling and screaming, but either one is highly unprofessional, especially coming from a press secretary.

I’ve heard a number of similar stories about Ms. Schmaler. She gets furious awfully fast. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have the truth to rely on.

One of the very first people to argue that Obamacare was unconstitutional was the Heritage Foundation’s excellent Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Todd Gaziano. In light of this weeks decisions by all sides of the 11th Circuit anti-Obamacare decision to appeal all or parts of the decision to the Supreme Court — a dramatic development that makes it likely the high court will rule on the law before next year’s election — I have offered, and Todd has graciously accepted, an invitation to be my guest tonight on my weekly radio show on the Gulf Coast. You can listen in here, with excellent online reception, from 9-10 Eastern time. Please check it out; every Thursday night, Welcome to Hillyer Time.

(cross-posted from The American Spectator)

At the University of Mobile’s twelve23 project, I assess House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s great speech earlier this week on health care. My final note therein deserves more elaboration:

Give the health care vouchers or credits directly to consumers, and let them, not bureaucrats, search for the best deal for their individual needs.

This idea is nothing new. Back in the 1990s, several leading Democratic senators – among them Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and John Breaux of Louisiana – agreed with Republicans on a Medicare Commission appointed by President Bill Clinton on exactly this approach to the problem. Alas, when Clinton (and Congress) became embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment effort, the political well was so poisoned that the commission’s recommendations fell by the wayside.

What bears repeating is that this idea is bipartisan and nothing radical at all. Indeed, although at different spending levels, the concept was embraced (or re-embraced) as recently as last winter by Alice Rivlin, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Bill Clinton and later Clinton’s appointee as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. A number of other top-ranking Democratic economic-policy folks have endorsed the concept in whole or in part.

As I also noted, this is essentially the system used in the Medicare prescription drug program — an unaffordable new entitlement, but happily far less unaffordable than originally expected, precisely because competition has worked to keep down costs for taxpayers and consumers alike while providing services with which the consumers are mostly happy.

If Barack Obama wants to stop pretending to be pushing “ideas both parties agree on,” and actually accept an idea that has been bipartisan for 15 years, he would adopt Ryan’s approach. But that won’t happen. Obama isn’t for anything that takes power away from government.

Please read this important press release:

PRESS RELEASE

It has come to our attention that Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer is seeking an extension of the filing period so that he may file to take the upcoming FDNY Firefighter entry test…but is meeting resistance to his request.

Extension of the filing period for this test has, in the past, been a common practice. In fact, it was just extended this past weekend so recruiters could attend a parade and sign up those who didn’t file an application during the allotted two months. Sgt. Meyer was in New York this week for events connected to his act of unbelievable bravery when he first became aware of the test and expressed an interest. Unfortunately, he expressed that interest a few hours- yes, hours- late.

We are calling on the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the FDNY, Mayor Bloomberg and any and all other interested and proper agencies and officials to do whatever it takes to give the first living Marine since Vietnam to earn the Medal of Honor the opportunity to become one of New York’s Bravest. There is absolutely no excuse not to- none. If the reasons for extending the filing period this past weekend or for past tests have been valid, then there is absolutely no excuse for not granting Sgt. Meyer’s request.

I know there will be a groundswell of support for what we are urging in this Release. All interested members of the media, elected officials, civic and other leaders can contact us and we will coordinate with those closest to Sgt. Meyer. All receiving this message are urged to make phone calls, forward this message and take any other action to make this Marine’s wish come true. A Medal of Honor recipient wants the opportunity to serve the city of New York- let’s make sure he gets that opportunity.

Paul Mannix
President
Merit Matters

A new coalition of major corporate executives has formed to push for a lower corporate income tax rate. Called RATE (Reducing America’s Taxes Equitably), the group has been rather vague about how much to cut the corporate rate, but the fact that an influential group is organizing at all is good news. As I have argued in person for four years and in print for at least 3 1/2 years, I think there is actually a good case to be made for not just reducing, but completely eliminating, the corporate income tax. Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, to his credit, goes almost as far, calling for cutting the rate in half in general, and completely eliminating it for manufacturers.  Megan McArdle at The Atlantic agrees with me that the whole thing should go.

But back to RATE, which isn’t so bold, but still is a valuable step in the right direction…. It really merits a full column, and will receive one here in the coming weeks. But as RATE notes at its web site, there really is no good political reason not to cut corporate rates, because leaders throughout the political spectrum have agreed it should be cut.  The problem, I think, is that they keep holding it in abeyance, wanting to include the corporate rate cut in some “grand bargain” that includes all sorts of other taxing and spending changes.

This is the wrong way to go about it. Grand bargains are almost always the wrong way to go about things. Better to do things cafeteria style selection by selection. If everybody agrees on something, go with it — especially if it is good policy. Good policies shouldn’t wait on extraneous matters.

Anyway, again, there is far more to be said for RATE. But for now, we should welcome this group to the table and thank it for coming. It’s a coalition that could do some real good.

Speaker John Boehner’s jobs plan is well targeted. It was especially encouraging to see him lead with useful attacks on the regulatory state. As a matter of fact, if you look at the summary of his plan, you’ll see that item number one is about requiring congressional approval for “major” new regulations. What he’s referring to is the REINS Act, which we wrote about a couple of times while I was at the Washington Times. This is good stuff, and very important. Please do read those two links in the previous section for an explanation. The first of those came almost a year ago to the day; the numbers need updating, but this paragraph provides a sense of the problem:

Under the Obama administration, bureaucrats have gone wild, with the Code of Federal Regulations reaching a record 163,333 pages last year (and growing). That’s an increase of 22,000 pages since 2000. In 2008, the Small Business Administration estimated that the annual cost to the economy of these regulations was $1.75 trillion, which was even before the regulatory explosion under Mr. Obama.

On deregulation, Boehner is on the right track.

In addition to agreeing with Jennifer Rubin, here, I have the following, ultra-summary, reactions to last night’s debate and the state of the GOP presidential nomination race:

Herman Cain: When he talks foreign policy, he seems completely lost. When he talks economics, he is wonderful. He’s also incredibly likable. If he doesn’t get the nomination, he should be Secretary of the Treasury. His combination of practical business experience and chairmanship of the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve gives him great qualifications for that position.

Michelle Bachmann: You gotta love her passion and principles. Not so much her knowledge. She is actually way out in right field to say that Romneycare is “unconstitutional.” It’s not — not at the state level. The problem isn’t that it violates the Constitution; the problem is that the individual mandate tramples on liberty and completely upends the American understanding of individual choice and personal responsibility — not to mention the practical drawbacks of Romneycare as a whole.

Newt Gingrich: He shines in most of the debates. But his personality, temperament, and philosophical benders are probably not suited to the presidency.

Jon Huntsman: Condescending, unctuous, and with a nasty streak. And unconservative to boot.

Rick Perry: As I wrote last night, the man had a very bad evening.  I saw multiple other analysts say the same. He needs to improve his game, and fast, or else he could enter Fred Thompson-ville. (I like Thompson, by the way; this is in terms of political trajectory, not personal candidate preference.)

Mitt Romney: Plastic.

Ron Paul: When he’s right, he’s really right. But when he’s wrong, he’s in outer space, in fact in another galaxy. He was hurt politically very badly last night by Rick Santorum’s apt criticism of Paul’s goofball statements relating to 9/11.

Rick Santorum: Okay, I’m a big Santorum fan. This is the third straight debate in which I am hardly alone among pundits in saying that he really was impressive. Isn’t it time people stop saying: “He did great; too bad he can’t win,” and instead start saying: “He did great; maybe he might have a chance to win”?