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November 10, 2010 Leave a comment
The ninth TruPolitics Podcast. Episode 9 discusses The historic 2010 election; President Obama’s response; and The future of the Republican Party. The best way to listen to the podcast is directly through iTunes. Search “TruPolitics” in iTunes and hit “Subscribe.”
**Listen directly through iTunes for the best sound quality**
October 20, 2010 Leave a comment
November 2nd is fast approaching. The nearly two years of the Obama Presidency have been marked by a fierce, nearly unprecedented separation of the Left and the Right, as the President’s “Change” turned from a visionary campaign to legislative reality. As so often happens, the details of Mr. Obama’s vision were obfuscated by the frenetic, sound-bite nature of the campaign, and most Americans (Mr. Obama’s approval reached nearly 65% in January, 2009) rallied behind him. But as reality set in, the separation of the American political landscape began.
Mike Fitzpatrick
The President’s change was quickly cemented: Bailouts of large corporations and select homeowners; the largest spending bill in U.S. history (the $800 billion “stimulus”); $1 trillion landmark healthcare reform; and a desire for more progressive taxation. In under two years, the Obama Administration grew the national debt by over 30%, widened the deficit by nearly 300%, and passed the two largest fiscal budgets in U.S. history (2010 – $3.5 trillion; 2011 – $3.8 trillion). America had charted a clear course to the Left.
As the President pushed forward his national agenda, he became the forbearer of the new progressive, liberal movement. His party rallied behind each of his major initiatives, and liberal pundits praised his legislative maneuvering. Change was now clear: Redistribution of wealth over the right to keep what you earn; central economic planning over free market capitalism; entitlement programs over personal industry; communal bailouts over individual responsibility; leveraged debt over fiscal restraint; collectivism over liberty. The era of Big Government had begun anew.
But the nation recoiled at this drastic move away from its foundation. A country founded on small, Constitutionally-constrained government, forged with a national character of personal industry, hard work, and individual responsibility, America had long been the City on a Hill bearing liberty and freedom. The American Dream was the pursuit, not the government provision of happiness. It was in our blood. The country would not stand idly by and watch its Republic move toward old-world European socialism.
The tidal wave began in 2009, with landmark GOP victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races (states which Obama carried 53% – 46% and 57% – 42%, respectively), and culminated with Scott Brown’s improbable victory in Massachusetts. It continued in early 2010, as the Tea Party became a powerful force, winning GOP primaries and organizing around conservative candidates. Polls show it will continue through the mid-terms. As voters head to the polls, they will not simply be voting for individual candidates, they will be voting for a movement—November 2nd is a referendum on the course of the nation.
Rob Ciervo
Never before has this been so true as in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania’s 8th District, Republican Mike Fitzpatrick faces incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy. Comprised of approximately 209,000 Democrats, 189,000 Republicans and 66,000 independents, it is a bellwether for the nation. Patrick Murphy represents the core of the progressive movement: He was one of the first federal officials to endorse Barack Obama, and voted with Nancy Pelosi 97% of the time, including on the stimulus, bailouts, government-run healthcare, cap-and-trade, and union “card check.” By contrast, Mike Fitzpatrick has publicly opposed all of these initiatives, and has a proven conservative record as a County Commissioner and Congressman.
Similarly, the state house race for Pennsylvania’s 31st District pits Democrat incumbent Steve Santarsiero against Republican challenger Rob Ciervo. Santarsiero falls squarely in line with the liberal left, voting for state budgets that would have widened spending by $2 billion, working to increase state debt by $600 million to fund pork-barrel projects like the Arlen Specter Library and the John Murtha Policy Center, and raising taxes 47% as a township Supervisor. For his efforts, Santarsiero recently received an F- from The Liberty Index, an independent organization that grades how well or poorly House members have advanced or restrained individual liberty. Rob Ciervo has cut both spending and taxes as a township supervisor, and has a plan to eliminate state debt and drastically shrink the size of Pennsylvania government.
President Obama is not up for re-election until 2012, but his political philosophy, both at the state and national level, will be decided upon November 2nd. In Bucks County, it is time for Change.
-Matt Benchener is Vice-Chairman of the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors and Founder of TruPolitics.net
October 18, 2010 Leave a comment
The eighth TruPolitics Podcast. Episode 8 discusses the Bush era tax cuts; healthcare waivers for 30 companies; and the 2010 campaign. The best way to listen to the podcast is directly through iTunes. Search “TruPolitics” in iTunes and hit “Subscribe.”
TruPolitics Podcast Episode 8: Bush Tax Cuts; Healthcare Waivers; 2010 Campaign
**Listen directly through iTunes for the best sound quality**
October 3, 2010 Leave a comment
The seventh TruPolitics Podcast. Episode 7 discusses the Republican Pledge to America; Christine O’Donnell’s Primary Victory; and the 2010 Election. The best way to listen to the podcast is directly through iTunes. Search “TruPolitics” in iTunes and hit “Subscribe.”
TruPolitics Podcast Episode 7: Republican Pledge; Christine O’Donnell; 2010 Election
**Listen directly through iTunes for the best sound quality**
September 27, 2010 1 Comment
This post was written by Edward Mahee. Writing under a pen name, Mr. Mahee is a legal analyst and political commentator. This is his 12th posting for the site.
It is second nature for most people to be somewhat defensive when in a vulnerable state. For instance, I’ve witnessed people who, staggeringly drunk after a late night out, slur with confidence, “I’m not drunk!” while failing to put one foot successfully in front of the other. Other times, I’ve witnessed people who, in the midst of a full-blown conniption, assert, “I’m not angry!” To any third-party observer, the statements from the drunk or angry person are facially ridiculous. These assertions can be funny, annoying, or dangerous; and sometimes all three.
President Obama had one such moment last Monday during a town hall sponsored by CNBC: “In every speech, every interview that I have made, I’ve constantly said what sets America apart, what has made us successful over the long-term, is we’ve got the most dynamic free-market economy in the world. And that has to be preserved. We benefit from entrepreneurs and innovators who are going out 
there and creating jobs, creating business. Government can’t create the majority of jobs. And, in fact, we want to get out of the way of folks who’ve got a good idea and want to run with it and are going to be putting people to work.” In other words, President Obama was claiming, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he believes the free market is the most efficient vehicle for job creation and economic growth. This assertion is somewhat funny, mildly annoying, and very dangerous.
Despite all of President Obama’s rhetoric, his policies have led to the strangling of the American economy. But don’t take my word for it. During the town hall meeting, one of the audience members stated the following as part of a question addressed to the president: “I am a chief financial officer for a veteran service organization here in Washington. I’m also a mother. I’m a wife. I’m an American veteran and I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. And I thought I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives but quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again. Quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?”
This questioner was a representation of the kind of person who bought into what Barack Obama was selling in 2008. She was a middle class mother, evidently hard working and well educated, who, in any other time would expect to be prospering economically. Yet, here she was, seriously discussing going back to “hot dogs and beans.” This was not Hope and Change. Unfortunately, all the president has to show for his policies are empty rhetoric, high unemployment and a sclerotic economy. And now, the woman represents the disillusioned Obama supporter.
The Tea Party has become such a potent force precisely because of this type of disillusionment, where the American dream has faded into despair. Mr. Obama may argue that his opponents simply want to turn back the clock and give power to the people who (using the Mr. Obama’s metaphor) drove us into the ditch. But the American people haven’t bought it. They know that Mr. Obama’s deficits are orders of magnitude greater than the prior administration’s, that Mr. Obama supported the bailouts, federalizing the auto manufacturing and health care industries, and expansion of the wasteland welfare state. Most troubling, the people know Mr. Obama supports raising taxes on income and capital beginning January 1, 2011.
Like the drunk who claims not to be drunk, Mr. Obama asserts that despite everything he’s done (and not done) over the last 20 months, he is a believer in the free market. And the sober, irritated, and tired friends, beginning November 2, will take away Mr. Obama’s keys, get him home and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself or anybody else.
-Edward Mahee for TruPolitics.net
September 15, 2010 Leave a comment
This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 9/19/10. You can read the newspaper version online here or catch the print column every other week.
During his recent speech in Ohio, President Obama made it clear his administration will soon raise taxes on those in the top marginal income tax bracket. While not surprising given the administration’s penchant for redistribution, the manner in which President Obama made his declaration brings cause for concern: “This isn’t to punish folks who are better off – it’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.” Not only will such tax-the-rich policy hamper U.S. economic growth, principally among small businesses, but the statement itself is a clear indictment of the president’s broader philosophical 
belief: Earned income is the Government’s, not the Peoples’.
Practically, the looming tax increase will hamper the already-struggling recovery. The wealthiest earners spend the most, especially on the margins. Their spending helps fuel demand, drive profits, and thus create jobs. This group also invests more, providing capital to companies seeking cash and driving long-term growth. But the debate over trickle-down economics has been well documented.
Perhaps more significant is the acute degree to which the tax hikes will damage small businesses. Small businesses comprise over 99% of all U.S. businesses, employing 70 million Americans, or half of the total private work force. According to recent IRS data, an astonishing 48% of the net income of these businesses—sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations—went to those earning above $200,000. In other words, the tax hike will directly hit companies that drive a considerable portion of economic growth and job creation.
Significantly, a pair of studies published by economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research show exceptionally high responsiveness of sole proprietors’ business activity to tax rates. When applied to President Obama’s proposed hike, the study shows a projected 7% drop in total gross taxable revenue. Adding to this data is a study from R. Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University showing that as the progressivity of the tax code increases, entrepreneurs are further discouraged from starting new businesses. Finally, when the National Federation of Independent Business recently asked small business owners to list the most important problem they faced, a full 20% cited taxes, making it the second most named concern behind only weak sales. Perhaps this is why just 21% of economists recently surveyed by the Wall Street Journal favored the president’s decision to raise taxes on the wealthiest earners.
Beyond economic implications, it is odd that the administration expresses concern for a potential $700 billion revenue loss from extending tax cuts for top earners, but is seemingly unconcerned about the revenue loss of $2 trillion from extending tax cuts for the rest of the population. Moreover, such concern was conspicuously absent when passing the two largest fiscal budgets in U.S. history, the Cash for Clunkers program, mortgage and corporate bailouts, the wasted $800 billion stimulus, the $1 trillion healthcare bill, and massive increases in social welfare programs. With the deficit having grown 300% under its watch, the administration ought to have a difficult time claiming fiscal restraint as its driving motivation.
So, in absence of fiscal responsibility and with the economic data so exceptionally clear—falling small business revenue; increased job loss; discouraged entrepreneurs; less consumer spending—why would the administration champion such a policy? Because it believes income belongs to the government, not the people. To them, letting the tax cuts expire would be like turning a
way a lottery ticket.
The progressive movement, unveiled over the past 18 months, believes firmly that the potential success of the collective trumps the rights of the individual. A guided economy, redistributive tax policy, and a slew of federally dictated entitlement programs are the means by which progressives seek to accomplish an elusive social utopia. As Frank J. Goodnow, one of the founders of modern progressivism once noted, “Social expediency, rather than natural right, is thus to determine the sphere of individual freedom of action.” When the collective comes before the individual, when liberty is trumped by statism, government claims the product of your labor. If, in its great beneficence Government offers you the gift of 60% of your earned income, you ought to be thankful. Or so the story goes.
The Founding Fathers saw things quite differently. They established a Constitutionally-constrained government, centered on the idea that government should exist only where necessary. Property, earned income, and the product of private labor were the peoples’ right to keep. The people, after all, had worked for it. Government confiscation of earned wealth, they felt, should only take place with the utmost discretion and for limited, enumerated purposes.
With such clear economic implications and a marked departure from America’s original values, the Founders might have issued a clear retort to the president’s statement: “No, Mr. President, the People can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.”
-Matt Benchener is Supervisor of Newtown Township and Found of TruPolitics.net
September 13, 2010 Leave a comment
The sixth TruPolitics podcast. Episode 6 explores President Obama’s Recent Economic Proposals; Causes of the Financial Crisis; and Health Care’s Rising Costs. Listen to the podcast directly through iTunes for the best sound and playback quality. Search “TruPolitics” in iTunes and hit “Subscribe.” Or, you can listen by hitting “save” on the link below.
TruPolitics Episode 6: Obama’s Econ. Proposals; Causes of the Financial Crisis; Healthcare Costs
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September 2, 2010 Leave a comment
The fifth TruPolitics podcast. Episode 5 discusses the U.S. vs. Germany on the economy and GDP growth; John Maynard Keynes vs. F.A. Hayek on economic theory; and The Pension Crisis. The best way to listen to the podcast is directly through iTunes. Search “TruPolitics” and hit “Subscribe.” Or, you can listen by hitting “save” on the link below.
TruPolitics Episode 5: U.S. vs. Germany; Keynes vs. Hayek; The Pension Crisis
August 12, 2010 12 Comments
The fourth TruPolitics podcast episode. Episode 4 examines: Conservatism vs. Liberalism on care for the poor and social responsibility; The danger of race, class, and partisan politics; and the 9/11 Mosque Debate.
The best way to listen to the podcast is directly through iTunes. Search “TruPolitics” and hit “Subscribe.” Or, you can download by clicking the link below and hitting “save”:
TruPolitics Episode 4: Social Responsibility; Race, class and partisan politics; 9/11 Mosque
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August 10, 2010 1 Comment
This post was written by Edward Mahee. Writing under a pen name, Mr. Mahee is a legal analyst and political commentator. This is his eleventh posting for the site.
Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution reads, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution lays out the process by which such legislative power is properly exercised by Congress. Over time, however, Congress has abrogated this authority to make laws and given it to a number of federal agencies. Initially created to administer federal programs or provide oversight, these agencies have quickly evolved into powerful law and policy makers. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service, and the Treasury Department are just a few examples of the vast bureaucracy that now runs the federal government, and their rule making has become as important as the laws crafted by elected representatives.
As a result of this framework, Americans have been bombarded with a barrage of agency laws and regulations, each a creeping infringement not just of individual liberty, but of democracy itself. Frequently, we hear of an agency, sometimes famous, sometimes faceless, making rules which affect everything from the food we eat and the cars we drive, to how our children are educated. And yet, no citizen has ever cast a vote for a bureaucrat.
How is it, in a country that is supposed to be free and self-governing, that the representative legislature has abandoned its responsibility to govern? More poignantly, how have bureaucrats, who are isolated from elections and unaccountable to voters, been given the power to regulate nearly every aspect of our lives? The Environmental Protection Agency plans to regulate Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant (meaning that every time you exhale you’re polluting) and the Federal Communication Commission plans to regulate the Internet in the name of “fairness” (as determined by a bureaucrat or judge). How were the underpinnings of democracy—representation and accountability—swept away so easily?
Simply put, because many have embraced the faulty progressive message that experts and administrators are better equipped to run society than are a free people. That thinking has brought untold destruction over the years, both to efficiency and liberty, a terrible catalogue of the price paid when freedom is sacrificed at the altar of statist hubris. America was founded as a Republic, a representative democracy established to reflect, and defend the will of its people. Agency rule pulls far from the founding by allowing the elite few to govern the whole.
The solution to this problem seems distant—federal bureaucracies are so entrenched that curtailing their power appears impossible. But there is a way Congress can work to reestablish its rightful place as the only law-making body in the federal system. It would not require the abolition of any agency, or any immediate dismantlement of the system. Rather, Congress could simply pass a law—call it the Congressional Oversight Act—which would state that no rule, regulation, or order of an administrative agency shall have the force of law unless it has been approved by an act of Congress. Moreover, the Congressional Oversight Act would prohibit Congress from approving agency rules in bulk, or omnibus resolutions. Thus, the Congressional Oversight Act would compel Congress to consider each rule, regulation, or order on its own merits.
The obvious retort is that it would be impossible for Congress to consider each agency rule or regulation; it would take too much time. But that is precisely the point. Congress would only consider substantive regulations, and those that were not substantive would not become law. This would serve three functions: First, it would enable Congress to reassert its Constitutional role as the sole lawmaker, and compel its members to be true legislators (as opposed to mere delegators of authority); Second, administrative agencies would have to be selective in their rulemaking, proposing only substantive regulations that would stand up to public scrutiny and accountability; and Third, the Congressional Oversight Act would allow for a clear accounting of each agency. That is, if agencies themselves are not proven totally ineffective, wasteful, and bureaucratic.
Overall, this plan would reduce the power of unaccountable bureaucrats over the lives of the citizenry. And as their power diminishes, our freedom will increase. And, in the “land of the free” that is ultimately the point.
-Edward Mahee for TruPolitics.net
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