The State of Our Union: Progress Vs. Change

January 28, 2010 Leave a comment

This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 1/31/10, and the Bucks County Courier Times on 2/14/10. You can read the online version here from The Bulletin, or catch the print column each week.

Just over a year ago, America witnessed the historic inauguration of its new leader. While only 53% of the country cast its vote for him, the vast majority saw promise in his fresh vision—his early approval ratings (70% positive – Gallup) made him nearly transcendent. It was clear most were willing to give his “Change” a chance.

A year later, the tide has turned.  President Obama’s approval rating stands at a paltry 47% (Gallup), and the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of his performance now outnumber those who strongly approve by a 15 point margin (Rasmussen). The country repudiated the Democratic agenda by overturning Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts in landmark elections since his inauguration, and support for his signature healthcare legislation is on life support.

In a telling moment, President Obama highlighted this dramatic shift in his recent State of the Union address: “I campaigned on the promise of change—change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change—or at least, that I can deliver it.” He’s right.

America was ready to embrace change, and the President’s historically high approval rating was a signal of a frustrated citizenry. The country was ready to follow a bipartisan leader; it wanted healing from years of tired political battles. It wanted to put an end to part-time conservatism, where government cut taxes but spent wildly and grew institutional bureaucracy. It saw the coming wave of Recession, and asked for a government that fostered economic health. It wanted fiscal responsibility, to reverse the fastest eight-year deficit growth in U.S. history. It wanted a government that focused less on divisive social issues and more on practical reform. It was ready to follow, ready to change, ready to champion responsible, prudent governance—it desperately wanted an inspirational, unifying leader to guide the nation forward.

But change for change’s sake is not Progress. Progress, woven into the fabric of American prosperity, must be built on the right foundation. In America, that foundation was forged of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty. At a time when the country was starving for a new leader to embrace these principles, to unify rather than divide, and to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, aggressive liberal policies advanced through hardball partisan tactics represented Change, but not Progress.

It appears President Obama and the Democratic leadership may be waking up to the consequences of the past year. Rhetoric following Scott Brown’s election, and highlighted in the President’s State of the Union address, suggest the party will pivot to focus on job creation and the economy. It will likely temper its agenda until the election cycle has passed, proposing moderate spending freezes and scaled back reforms. But until it offers the American people the right kind of change—progress—it will have lost them.

As we begin 2010 and examine the state of our Union, we must focus on a simple plan for success. First, government should not spend more than it has—leveraged debt creates long-term financial insecurity and mortgages our future. It’s time we get spending under control. To that end, Congress should implement a pay-as-you go system, where all spending increases must be met by commensurate cuts. The administration should return the hundreds of billions of unused stimulus dollars, cut government bureaucracy by at least 10%, and set a goal to reduce discretionary spending until the budget is balanced.

As government controls its costs, it can work to return money to taxpayers. The capital gains tax should be lowered to under 10% to help spur investment, income tax rates should be lowered and flattened across the board to encourage spending, and the double-taxation of corporations should be eliminated to make our businesses more competitive. Less government and unleashed capitalism will create jobs and grow the economy.

Practical reforms to healthcare should be enacted to help lower costs and thus increase access. Tort reform should be a must—caps on malpractice rewards would reduce unnecessary defensive medicine and shrink the cost for malpractice insurance, which in turn would have the dual effect of increasing the quality of doctors and reducing overall costs. The insurance industry should reflect a free market with transparent prices, portability, and open competition.

Given the complexity of our times, there is much more work to be done, this is just a starting point. But whatever the work, whatever the change, it must be Progress. Progress built on a foundation of fundamental Constitutional values, standing on the shoulders of what has always made us great. Because no matter the President or majority party, the state of our Union has always been the belief that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness did not happen by accident—they were a product of Progress, not wholesale Change.

-Matt Benchener is Founder of TruPolitics.net and Supervisor of Newtown Township.

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Scott Brown and The American Experiment

January 21, 2010 1 Comment

“It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”

 —Thomas Jefferson, 1789.

“The Republican from Massachusetts has the Senate floor.” That’s a line we never thought we’d hear. On Tuesday, Scott Brown, a little known state senator, defeated Democrat Martha Coakley by over 100,000 votes in a special election for the seat held by the late Ted Kennedy for 47 years. This wasn’t just any election; it was a statement victory that reaffirmed the fundamental American experiment.

The significance Mr. Brown’s victory is marked by the fact that he simply was not supposed to win. In fact, he was supposed to get crushed (down 30% in the polls in early December). Massachusetts is one of America’s most liberal states—Democrats out-register Republicans nearly 3-1 (only 15% of voters are registered with the GOP). The last time a Republican held a Senate seat in Massachusetts was in the 1970s, and President Obama won the deep blue state by 26 points just 14 months ago.

So how did Scott Brown win?

He brought the race beyond the boarders of the Bay State. The context of the times made the election truly historic—a victory for Mr. Brown meant Republicans could break the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority. Americans were now able to choose the course they wanted for their nation. The answer was clear, and given President Obama’s recent victory, ironic: Change.

In its one year in power, the Democrat super-majority partnered with the Obama Administration to pass the largest spending bill in history ($787 billion stimulus), intervene deeply in private industry (corporate pay restrictions, AIG/GM/Chrysler takeover, TARP), widen massive entitlement programs, and propose controversial healthcare and cap-and-trade legislation. Partisan, hardball politics became the norm; the party finally had its chance to exercise and implement starkly liberal policy. Americans lost jobs at nearly record rates, and the national deficit ballooned.

Scott Brown decided to make the race a referendum on those liberal policies. He highlighted his opposition to the healthcare reform bill, runaway spending, and mounting deficits. He asked voters to choose between big government liberalism and Constitutional conservatism. He spoke openly about free market capitalism, job creation, and fiscal restraint. He even called upon Massachusetts’s most famous son, John F. Kennedy, highlighting the former president’s successful supply-side cuts. He drew a line in the sand between himself and President Obama’s aggressive agenda. He won.

Political spinsters from the left are desperately trying to downplay the results, saying Ms. Coakley ran a poor campaign and that Democrats took the race for granted. Such sentiments are at best disingenuous, predictable tactics used to blame the losing candidate—now the sacrificial lamb—in order to distance the party and its underlying ideology from the loss. Ms. Coakley was a strong enough candidate to win a sharply contested primary, dominating a field of four experienced and influential Democrats. She was a strong enough candidate to be the popularly elected Attorney General for the state. Most importantly, she was a Democrat running for office in Massachusetts. She lost.

Our nation’s leaders would be wise to take notice: Mr. Brown’s win was a powerful statement about what Americans want from their country. When considered with the landmark GOP victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races last November (states which Obama carried 53% – 46% and 57% – 42%, respectively), Mr. Brown’s victory is evidence of a roaring tide of discontent with liberal policy.

At its core, America is fundamentally center-right, built upon foundational conservative values of limited government, fiscal restraint, and personal responsibility. The nation has been differentiated since its creation by firm commitments to liberty and personal freedom. In America, individuals have the essential right to determine their own outcomes, to, as Abraham Lincoln once said, “Eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which [their] own hand earns.” We are a free nation, and freedom demands exceptionally limited government.

The American experiment—government by the people and for the people—was bred of discontent with the heavy-handed rule of the British monarchy. The experiment marched on in the face of socialism and communism, as central governments around the world attempted to control society in order to dictate outcomes. In 2009, we learned that some would like to “Change” the character of our nation to reflect that brand of government. In 2010, the Massachusetts election was a referendum on who we are as a country. America’s voice was heard loud and clear.

-Matt Benchener is Supervisor of Newtown Township and Founder of TruPolitics.net

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As Goes Massachusetts?

January 19, 2010 1 Comment

This post is written by guest author Edward Mahee. Mr. Mahee has an extensive legal background, and is an emerging conservative thinker. This is his eighth posting for the site.

As goes Massachusetts, so goes the country?  In usual times, such a statement would be greeted as a joke.  After all, Massachusetts is seen not as a political bellwether, but as a reliable strong hold of big-government liberalism.  But these are not usual times, and this is not a usual election.  Regardless of the result in Tuesday’s special election to replace the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy, the fact that the race is worth paying attention to is suggestive of a truth that many don’t want to come to grips with: The American people, including many Democrats, are not willing to endure liberalism’s heavy hand too long.

Polls overwhelmingly demonstrate that voters have bristled at the prospect of President Obama’s health care initiative becoming law.  The hostility can be explained by ever growing frustration at policies employed by the Democratic leadership in Washington, a group which has piled up debt at record rates without addressing the core national concern of job creation. Despite growing unrest over the economy, the deficit, and unemployment, Democrats have forwarded monumentally expensive entitlements bred of their ideological desire to control.  Unfortunately for them, they have to stand for election and explain themselves. 

Voters have been unimpressed.  When forced to defend liberal big government, Democrats have been flatly unsuccessful.  In elections and public opinion polls, voters are expressing their extreme displeasure.  Even in deep blue Massachusetts, the home of the liberal lion Ted Kennedy, voters appear to have had enough of big government liberalism in Washington.

At the beginning of last year, we were promised a new politics and a new path to prosperity.  Americans waited with anticipation as our new leaders set to work to figure out how to put America back on the path to prosperity.  Americans gave the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Obama and his allies when they promised a new kind of post-partisan politics, a politics that would remove us from the era of his maligned predecessor.  One year in, however, the people have lost patience with Mr. Obama.  And the reason is simple: His policies have been expensive and have produced no results. 

Now, having to fight an unexpectedly difficult race in Massachusetts, Democrats have been warning voters that their Republican opponents will simply take us back to the policies of George W. Bush.  If Republicans revert back to the former President’s policies, Democrats will be correct.

For Republicans to take full advantage of the electoral winds at their back, they need to push a strong conservative agenda promoting policies designed to unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit.  This will address the most acute concern of voters—jobs.  Republicans need to articulate the message that free markets and free enterprise drive prosperity and wealth creation.  By reducing the size of government and reducing the tax burden on individuals and employers, Americans will take the economic risks necessary to make innovation and job creation worth while. They need to explain that the price of big government is the removal of rewards of economic success; big government doesn’t make economic success worth the effort. Voters have demonstrated they care about the economy, not entitlements.

Democrats will counter that such policies failed during the Bush years.  They neglect to mention that George W. Bush was not truly conservative.  He did cut taxes, but he spent too much and was too enamored with big government.  Republicans need to articulate an authentic conservative message that says freedom in the hands of free people is the surest way to preserve and enhance American prosperity. 

Voters are willing to support such a platform; they have shown as much in Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts.  Conservatism isn’t perfect, but a limited federal government which leaves the people free to work, worship, and associate as they see fit is much preferable to the alternative of being wards of the almighty state.

-Edward Mahee for TruPolitics.net

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Flight Delays and Healthcare

January 13, 2010 Leave a comment

This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 1/23/10. You can read the online version here, or check out the print column each week.

Nothing quite says “Christmas” like holiday travel. And nothing says “holiday travel” like a three hour delay at the Philadelphia airport. This year’s experience was uniquely telling.

My wife and I left our house hours ahead of our flight time, encountered almost no traffic, breezed through security, and made it to our gate an hour before boarding. It was far too easy. Then my wife, herself a frequent traveler,  made a grave mistake. Upon boarding the plane she said to me, “This is the easiest trip I’ve ever taken; everything’s gone so smoothly. Knock on wood.” Only there was no wood to knock on.

Sure enough, an hour later we were sitting in a 90 degree plane cabin in the middle of winter (are there really no vents on airplanes?) waiting for a small mechanical “fix.” The captain announced it would take less than 5 minutes to fix the problem—apparently the crew loading the baggage had left a cargo door open.

Of course, the five minutes became nearly two hours. We watched as countless workers drove by the plane to deliver baggage elsewhere, maintenance other planes, and direct incoming traffic. We even had visits from mechanics that weren’t “qualified” to close the door. A businessman sitting nearby dryly remarked that it wasn’t in their “union job description” to close doors. He continued saying, “In no other industry do we expect such consistently poor service, bureaucracy, and inefficiency.” “No, there’s one more,” I responded. “Government.”

The unfortunate truth of my Christmas travel story is that I have dozens more like it, as do most travelers. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that close to 25% of flights arrive late—where else is a 25% error rate acceptable? This, of course, does not account for mishandled baggage, poor service, and various TSA hassles.

The incompetence in the airline industry is nearly exceptional. Nearly.

Enter the federal government, society’s shining example of inefficiency and bureaucracy.  Operating outside the normal constraints and principles of private industry, the federal government has run at a loss to the tune of $12 trillion. In other words, the U.S. government has spent so feverishly and with such little regard to its expenses that it now owes over $40,000 per U.S. citizen to its creditors. General Motors would be proud.

Beneath that debt are countless examples of waste. Economist Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation uncovered $72 billion in lost taxpayer dollars due to government payment errors in 2008. Government auditors recently completed a five year study examining all federal programs and found that 22% (with a cost of $123 billion annually) provided little or no assistance to the populations they are supposed to serve. In November, the Associated Press reported that government agencies wasted more than $98 billion on improper tax credit and benefit distributions.  This all led Senator Tom Carper, chair of the Senate panel on federal financial management, to state, “It goes without saying that these results would be completely unacceptable in the private sector, as they should be in government, especially at a time of record deficits.” Senator Carper was just skimming the surface.

Just as “flight delay,” “lost baggage,” and “impossible-to-open bag of peanuts,” have become synonymous with “air travel,” “bureaucracy,” “red tape,” and “waste” have become synonymous with “government.” So why do we put up with such poor quality and inefficiency from both groups? Because we have to.

In many ways, the airline industry is a quasi-monopoly. Consumers traveling, for instance, from New York to California, fly close to 100% of the time, even though they expect significant delays and hassle; there is simply no other reasonable travel option.

Government, likewise, suffers the same monopolistic disease—the government has a monopoly on government. You cannot “buy” another federal government, and emigration is constrained by international law, community ties, and nationalistic impulse. Government operates in anything but a free market.

The result in both cases is the stark absence of the basic competitive forces that drive improvement and innovation. Economists Nick Abraham, Joshua Hall, and Ben VanMetre recently wrote the following about the U.S. Postal Service, the government’s “business” that lost $6 billion in 2009: “It is a quasi-monopoly, which does not allow for competitive forces to eliminate inefficiencies and determine better ways of operating. The postal service is a textbook example of a monopoly that, because of a lack of competitive pressures, faces little incentive to minimize costs and thus continues to operate at inefficient levels.” The same can be said of all government.

Aside from monopolistic factors, a portion of government’s poor quality is flatly unavoidable. A democracy will always be subject to political pressure—while businesspeople make decisions for economic purposes, politicians make decisions for political purposes. Agency appointments (made as political favors without regard to merit), special interest programs (made as political kickbacks—see the multi-billion dollar Stimulus), and expansive bureaucracy (a factor of both), are evils of democracy that will not fade. An organization without competitive pressure, subject to unprecedented institutionalized red tape, and driven by political consequence will rarely deliver an efficient, high-quality product.

That is why the best government is small government. Our founding fathers saw wisdom in limited government, power in unfettered capitalism, and liberty in personal responsibility. With its inherent inefficiencies and short-comings, we ought to keep as much of society out of government control as we can.

And yet, Democrats are now working to reconcile legislation that will place 15% of our economy under government control. The same federal government that bankrupted Social Security and ran up record deficits will now expand its bureaucracy by an estimated 150,000 employees to run health care. We had better hope their error rate is less than 25%.

-Matt Benchener is Supervisor of Newtown Township and Founder of TruPolitics.net

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