When our nations’ founders drafted the Bill of Rights, comprising the first ten amendments to the Constitution, they spelled out rights that are to be extended to all citizens. Not just those who are privileged, or those who have money, or even those who don’t have money. Not just those who belong to select organizations or groups, but to all citizens. Consequently, when they penned “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” those were rights to be universally enjoyed and protected.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 02/14/10

It is with some misgivings that I approach the third Monday of February each year. The day used to have great significance. But through the years, the day we celebrate as President’s Day has become less and less significant to our national psyche and more and more successful as a day of retail bargains. I don’t lament the latter, but the loss of the significance of the day as a celebration of George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays is troublesome.

During the last full year of George Washington’s presidency, congress decided to honor him with a national day of recognition. Throughout the 19th century and for most of the 20th, the nation honored our first president, acknowledging his integral role in the founding of the United States of America. His significance in leadership leading to the Declaration of Independence; his success on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War; his deep sense of morality which led him to decline a kingship in the colonies; his leadership through the first eight years of the republic, have become lost on several generations, even to the point of rewriting history textbooks mitigating his role in the founding of the nation. His life contributions were recognized as a national holiday until 1968.

Another amazing president who devoted his life to the preservation of the republic, was born in February. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, appeared on calendars from the year of his death in 1865 until the 1960s when acknowledgment of his birth was merged with that of Washington’s. His dedication to the preservation of the republic as a union of states, and his role in abolishing the tarnishing and immoral practice of slavery are experiencing the same historical revisionism Washington’s legacy is. Merging the two birthdays into one national holiday has eviscerated the significance of the day, and has added to the diminution of reverence, honor, and respect owed both of them.

To further dilute the significance of the day, the placement of the apostrophe has become almost indistinguishable, though the meaning is clear. The placement of the apostrophe like this, President’s Day, implies that it’s a day that belongs to one president, which would presumably be Washington, since he predated Lincoln. The placement of the apostrophe like this, Presidents’ Day, implies that it’s a day that belongs to many presidents. Even Richard Nixon, in his first President’s Day proclamation following passage of the “Long Weekend Act,” declared that the day should be used to celebrate all past presidents, not just Washington and Lincoln. That’s a little disconcerting.

Sadly, we have only two national holidays celebrating births, and only one of those is American born. One celebrates the birth of Christ, while the other celebrates the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. Acknowledgment of Kings’ significant role in continuing the movement started by Lincoln is appropriate, but should not, in my humble opinion, take precedence over the contributions of Washington and Lincoln.

This plays well into the hands of those who engage in the revision of history, who rather than articulating the stupendous accomplishments of those who have preceded us, within their historical context, rather look at historical figures through the “enlightened” and politically correct prism of the contemporary perspective. Since the 1960s. textbook publishers have scrambled to rewrite American history in such a way as to make more space for specific demographics which don’t include deceased white men, like Washington, Lincoln, and Christopher Columbus. These have become the personas non grata of politically correct historians. The trend has also not been kind fo the role Christianity and Christian values have contributed to making America the nation it is today. Author Frances FitzGerald has referred to this historical revisionism as “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”

A dear friend of mine who teaches high school history told me, “I remember a textbook we had which (I'm not kidding) gave a whole page to some 16 year old girl in the Revolution (I have forgotten her deeds) and only one paragraph on Washington (including as general!).”

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 02/07/10

I’m genuinely concerned for the health of our president. At least his mental health. With increasing frequency, he evinces signs of delusion. Or maybe he thinks we’re too ignorant to recognize it. Either way, there’s ample evidence of a mental separation from reality that should be of great concern to all of us.

For example, in his State of the Union address last week, he said “Our government is deeply in debt after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy.” This statement immediately brings to mind the editorial cartoon the Journal ran a couple weeks ago where the president was attempting to fly a paper airplane that said “Blame Bush” on the side of it, and a citizen was telling him, “It doesn’t fly anymore.” It really doesn’t, especially as it deals with government spending.

In 2006, the last year the Republicans controlled congress, the federal deficit, which is tax receipts for the year minus spending, was $248 billion. But on the heels of the presidents’ comments last week, he attempts to float a lead balloon of a budget that boasts $3.8 trillion in federal government spending, more than a 50% increase over 2006 figures, and a whopping $1.6 trillion deficit. That’s fully 7 times larger than the deficit was in 2006. If the last decade represented “profligate” spending, what does that make his proposed spending? Profligate times 7? At this rate of spending growth and irresponsible fiscal policy, the U.S. will join Greece, Spain, and Portugal in having its debt instruments, bonds, notes and bills, downgraded and highly suspect to astute investors.

The news about Greece’s likely default on its debt sank markets around the globe this week. Part of the problem is that their deficit is estimated at 12.7% of GDP (gross domestic production), with debt above 110% of GDP. To put that in perspective, the U.S. right now has a deficit which is 10.6% of GDP and total national debt, with this week’s increase of $2 trillion by congress, now standing at 100% of GDP. For those who wish that the U.S. was more like Europe, at least from a financial perspective, you’ve gotten your wish. We’re about to join the ranks of nearly bankrupt countries from Europe!

Most of our federal government debt is financed by selling treasuring bonds, notes, and bills. The Chinese government currently owns about 23% of all the outstanding U.S. debt. With all this spending proposed by Obama, the assumption is made that China, and investors around the world, will be willing to buy our paper (debt). But a Chinese official said a few weeks ago, before Obama rolled out his new spend-thrift budget, that there is not enough money in the world to buy all the U.S. treasuries needed to fund Obama’s spending.

Obama also said last week, “We can't simply move beyond this crisis; we have to address the irresponsibility that led to it, and that includes the failure to rein in spending....” While castigating a previous administration with a fraction of the deficit that he’s proposing, and a budget a third smaller than what he’s proposing, he has the audacity to claim that he’s “reining in spending?” He’s not reining in anything, but kicking and spurring the federal spending stallion into a full gallop, and he’s heading for a cliff.

The president also said, “It would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children's future to pay our way today....” Yet that’s exactly what he’s proposing. His new budget calls for an astonishing $1.7 trillion in new taxes, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We will not be paying for his full $3.7 trillion budget even with all those increased taxes…our children will be. Didn’t Bernie Madoff just go to prison for doing the same thing? What the president is proposing is multigenerational larceny and a federal government Ponzi scheme.

He also made a big deal in his State of the Union address that he would freeze discretionary spending, which is about 7% of the federal budget, for three years…starting next year! That’s after he already boosted discretionary spending by 20% his first year in office. So his proclaimed “spending freeze” is no more than a façade, where the 20% increases from this year are locked into place, starting next year. Discretionary spending typically increases about 3% per year, so he’s proposed “reducing spending” growth by only locking in discretionary spending by twice that amount!

When there is such a detachment from what one says versus what one does, it moves beyond cognitive dissonance, and into the realm of detachment from reality, which is associated with a number of mental disorders. We truly hope he isn’t smitten with any of these, but the evidence is increasing daily.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/31/10

Barack Obama is a masterful speaker when he has his teleprompter turned on. I guess that’s why I have such a hard time listening to his speeches. In the Platonic dichotomy of form versus substance, I’ll take substance any day. That’s why I like to read his speeches rather than listen to them. Then again, maybe I’m just afraid I’ll end up like so many who were simply mesmerized by his talks without giving due consideration to their substance.

His State of the Union address Wednesday provided a classic juxtaposition of form versus substance: a masterful delivery of a speech that nonetheless was substantively replete with inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and errors. I’m always critical of political extravaganzas but Obama just presents so much low hanging fruit on his elocution tree that to not pluck it would be tantamount to acquiescence.

Having lived through the administrations of 11 presidents, I have never seen one who is so adept at saying one thing while doing the complete opposite. Praising small business and private enterprise while doing everything to destroy them; denouncing health-insurance companies while promoting legislation to force all citizens to own health insurance; talk of “fiscal responsibility” while engaging in an orgy of governmental spending; talk of tax cuts while advancing tax increases at every turn; talk of job creation while implementing policies that further hamper job creation; etc., etc. ad nauseam.

While there were many such inconsistencies to select from, here are just a few from Wednesday’s presentation. Obama said, “We face a deficit of trust -– deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.” Is that why he has over 30 former lobbyists working for him? Somehow I don’t see that as conducive to bridging the “deficit of trust.” Those 18 “Czars” in the administration probably don’t help your claim either, Mr. President.

He claimed that he’s cut taxes for “95% of working families.” I guess they didn’t teach math at Harvard, Occidental, or Columbia. More than 40% of Americans pay no taxes, which figure is about to drop because he and congress will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. What he has done is increased subsidies, including the home buying credit. Those are by definition not tax cuts, and they most certainly didn’t benefit 95% of working families.

Perhaps the most audacious fabrication was, “Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed.” And what steps were those? He was referring to the stimulus bill which was about 95% political payback and 5% job creation and economic stimulus.

Cato Policy Analyst Tad Dehaven has written, “Actually, the U.S. economy has lost 2.7 million jobs since the stimulus passed and 3.4 million total since Obama was elected. How he attributes any jobs gains to the stimulus is the fuzziest of fuzzy math.” Three of his top economic advisors over the past week have each given different figures and even his recovery.gov website only lists 640,000, and most of those have been proven fictitious. The only thing more ludicrous is that they can claim millions of jobs saved. There is no viable economic means of calculating “jobs saved.” I think all their jobs figures are either drawn from a hat or extricated from a dark orifice between their gluteus maximi.

Equally perplexing is the President’s castigation of Republicans for not being accommodating to his agenda. They’re too “partisan.” Excuse me, Mr. President, and you’re not? Robust political discussion and the balance of power are the essence and strength of American Democracy. It is what protects us all from audacious and presumptive politicians.

Until last week’s special election in Massachusetts your party could pass anything. You had the numbers. If you didn’t get everything you wanted, the blame lies squarely on your own party. And why is it that in order to be “bi-partisan” those who oppose you have to sacrifice their principles? If it’s truly bi-partisan doesn’t that mean both sides give a little for compromise? The independents, Republicans and not a few conservative Democrats in Massachusetts have reminded us of the limits of partisan power, and the power of political discourse in a democracy.

For those who prefer form to substance, Wednesday night was a celebratory event. But for those of us who love what America became because of the principles upon which she was founded and prefer substance over form, it was little more than another narcissistic and superficial lesson in the “audacity of hope.”