Published - Idaho State Journal, 10/24/10

If you believe the Tea Party movement is comprised of a bunch of crazy, gullible, illiterate lunatics, this column’s for you, as a primer not a comprehensive exegesis. The mainstream media and career politicians are telling you that’s what the movement is comprised of. With the proliferation of “how to” books for “dummies,” the temptation was to name this column accordingly. Instead, let’s just say this is for the politically intellectually-challenged. So for you who take such deep draughts of the colloquial mainstream Kool Aid du jour, this column’s for you.

As one local columnist penned, the Tea Party folk are no better than the gullible fools responding to the cry of the street peddler hawking “gen-yew-wine” deals. By implication, they have no thoughts of their own and simply follow the loudest cry and their gullibility is exceeded only by their ignorance. And more explicitly, they’re “simple folk” who hate “’govermint.’ They don’t like it until they need it.”

Contrary to the condescending and ill-informed assertion of the columnist, Tea Party conservatives aren’t “simple folk,” especially if that’s his euphemism for “stupid.” They are, however, driven by common sense and logic. I believe they know the Constitution and the principles this country was founded on better than the entire administration in Washington, as well as many who deride the movement using such language as the aforementioned columnist.

Consequently, they know the proper bounds and limitations of government, which does not include bankrupting the country, foisting confiscatory taxes on the citizenry, expanding “corporate welfare” to the point where entire industries are taken over or controlled by bureaucrats in Washington who know little of the respective industries. And they expect them to do something about unemployment besides attacking and bashing the private sector that does most of the employing!

Tea Partiers support the constitutional functions of government, and logical and progressive levels of taxation in order to support them. They support logical, protective regulation, but reject centralized planning and government intrusion into every aspect of our lives at the cost of our liberty.

On the national front we are afflicted with a bevy of illiterate and ignorant pundits who likewise know little, and understand even less, where the Tea Partiers are coming from. Not least of these is Chris Matthews, who seems to think that if the 33 trapped miners in Chile were Tea Partiers “They would have been killing each other after about two days.” Matthews continues, displaying even more of his ignorance by claiming the Tea Partier’s “central belief is ‘every man for himself.’ …No more taxes, no more government, no more everything. No more safety net.”

This is so ludicrous it’s tempting to simply let it stand on its own speciousness. But it does command a couple of responses. To the contrary, Chris, Tea Partiers believe in a sense of community borne of compassion traceable to roots of religiosity. They reach out to help another because they have the freedom and heart to do so, not because a bureaucrat or politician commands them to do it.

And far from believing in “no more everything, no more safety net,” the Tea Partiers are fiscal realists and see the decimation caused to Medicare by Obamacare, and realize the security of Social Security is a broken promise to future generations (probably starting with mine) if fiscal discipline and responsible planning are not adopted expeditiously in the halls of Congress.

I honestly think no one can say what the 21^st century Tea Partier believes in better than one of our 18^th century founders, Thomas Jefferson. He succinctly stated, “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”

Right now we have a government that is neither wise nor frugal. In four short years since the majority party took over Congress, federal debt has doubled, and the yearly deficit has more than quadrupled. They pass regulations and laws that create more problems than they solve, while leaving the real underlying problems unaddressed. Exemplary among those are financial reform that doesn’t solve the problems that led to this recession, and “health-care” reform that, contrary to promises, is making everyone’s insurance more expensive and is drastically affecting Medicare.

We need a wise and frugal government. We deserve it, and expect it, and are motivated perhaps more than ever before to do something about it. For the intellectually challenged whose perception of the Tea Party movement is as convoluted as the aforementioned examples, we love America and the principles that made her great. And for us, these mid-term elections can’t come quickly enough!

Published - Idaho State Journal, 10/10/10

“Dream Teams” are usually characterized by their success and performance. The United States Olympic basketball team was heralded as such in 1992, and subsequent teams have been ascribed that moniker as well. Combined they have medaled in all 16 international competitions they’ve competed in, including 13 gold medals. Dream teams are expected to perform.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s election in 2008 his economic “Dream Team,” as heralded by the mainstream media, was announced. It included Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer, the President’s Chief Economic Advisor Larry Summers, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. After less than one half of play through the one term Obama presidency, three-fourths of the economic “dream team” have left.

An objective analysis of the performance of this economic “Dream Team” provides more than ample reason for the departure of these big-name players. Such analysis also affords an opportunity to assess the value of academics attempting to direct the largest economy in the world. After all, each of these dream team members were academicians with no real world experience in running a business.

Orszag left the team in June. As the White House Budget Director, he was instrumental in the expansion of the federal budget from $2.5 trillion to $3.8 trillion in less than two years, a 40% increase. Another of his accomplishments was a quintupling of our deficit from $240 billion per year to $1.3 trillion per year. His contributions to the debt-to-GDP ratio, a significant barometer of the fiscal health of a nation, are also notable. That ratio has spiked to nearly 95%, a nearly 30% increase in just two years.

Christina Romer, the second dream team member to leave, has also created a legacy of accomplishments in her short tenure in government. As one of the administration architects of the “Stimulus” bill, she assured the nation that the $1.2 trillion (including interest on the original $787 billion) boondoggle would prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8%. It stood at 7% at the time. She also claimed the stimulus would create between 3 million and 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. Reflecting the same success and performance of her fellow team members, Romer didn’t perform as expected. The unemployment rate rose steadily to over 10%, and now is slightly lower with no evidence in the foreseeable future for improvement, which means there are still 15 million Americans with no job. Rather than creating 3-4 million new jobs, the economy net job loss in 18 months has been 2.5 million.

She and Vice President Biden were instrumental however in the creation of a new classification of jobs data: “Jobs Saved.” Such inventive jobs inventorying precipitated the Wall Street Journal column, “Three Million Imaginary Jobs,” where they accurately stated, “Using the White House ‘created or saved’ measure means that even if there were only three million Americans left with jobs today, the White House could claim that every one was saved by the stimulus.”

And then Larry Summers announced his departure around half-time of the Obama administration. The president’s Chief Economic Adviser was the “wunderkind” and “economic wise man” (Time Magazine) who oversaw it all, including the cooked-book features of Obamacare and the recently passed financial regulatory reform which is notable because of its stupendous ignorance of market forces and excludes the sources of the recent financial market meltdown, namely government forced sub-prime lending and the government’s mortgage entities.

I guess all three have some attachment to reality since they removed themselves from the game before they got yanked from the floor. But that is the only evidence, as everything they “accomplished” can be seen as nothing short of disastrous for the nation.

If this dream team had been a basketball squad, they would have been booed off the court long before now. Anyone who loves sports knows it takes two halves to make a game, and the second half of the Obama show doesn’t start until January, but the trends don’t portend favorably, and they would require a fundamental transformation of their ideology and game plan to show some improvement in the second half. Sadly, though, one characteristic of ideologues, especially those of the economic variety, is that even facing the hard realities of performance data from their failed policies, they almost never change their ideology or policies.

Not only have the “Dream Team” policies not helped the economy they have made things worse, whether by intention or because of ignorance of market principles. We can only hope that there’s a nation left to save financially by the time the last team member and the team captain leave.

Published - Idaho State Journal, 10/3/2010

Mainstream media and politicians alike take great pleasure in describing the phenomenon known as the Tea Party Movement as extremists and their agenda as cataclysmic. Any candidate or national figure who aligns himself or herself with the movement is ascribed the most impure of motives, and denounced, derided, and ridiculed as “fringe,” “kooks,” and “extremists,” in an effort to discredit them.

One local columnist went so far in her Jeremiad as to proclaim, “This midterm election, where the crop of conservative candidates looks more and more set on a takeover of American government, and promulgating a program of a dissolution of basic human rights, the decline and fall of the Great American Empire is becoming more of a sure thing.”

Anther local columnist today takes aim at the “extremists” by employing one of the most specious and egregious logical errors, the ad hominem fallacy, in an attempt to discredit and cast aspersions on this true grass-roots movement.

In light of such assertions and lunacy, it’s incumbent upon us to be an even more informed and vigilant electorate. And as is usually the case when it comes to mainstream media, we must employ reason and look past the monikers and labels to understand what is being stereotyped as “extremism.”

The “extremists” believe that in a representative republic we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and that our elected officials are required to listen to the will of the people. Those in control now believe in their arrogance that, due to their supremely enlightened status, they know what’s best for the people far better than we do; that they don’t have to listen to us and that they can usurp our rights, cramming down our collective throats any and all legislation they see fit to impose on us.

The “extremists” believe that the Constitution purposefully delineates the limited powers of government in order to maximize individual freedom and liberty. Those currently in power believe the Constitution to be irrelevant and they can do whatever they can get away with in imposing governmental restraints upon their subjects.

“Extremists” believe that the nation was founded on liberty and individual freedom, and that the more government intrusion there is in our daily lives the more those freedoms are limited. The statists in control now harbor a nanny state mentality where government should do more in micromanaging our lives, including kinds of light bulbs to use, what kind of cars to drive, how much energy we should consume, what kinds of foods and beverages we should consume, and how we use our own personal property.

The “extremists” believe that the government should be beholden to the same financial restraints that we as individuals are, and that we shouldn’t spend what we don’t have. They believe that it’s illogical to presume that spending three times more than you receive in income or revenue is sustainable and that unrestrained spending threatens to bankrupt the nation and destroy the republic. Those in control now think they have a blank check to spend however much they want on whatever they want.

 “Extremists” believe in free market economies, not only because they work, but because they afford the most freedom to hard-working Americans. Those in power now, as evidenced by their actions, believe in government control of the economy and in dictating terms and conditions on all aspects of commercial activity.

“Extremists” believe that Americans have inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And unlike the president who twice in as many weeks has quoted the Declaration of Independence excluding any reference to deity, they believe those rights are granted by our Creator, not by government. The statists in control now believe in the rights of government to control, curtail, eliminate, or create new “rights.”

“Extremists” believe that the fruits of labor belong to the laborer, that what we earn is ours. The powers in Washington believe that our income belongs to them, and they alone should determine how much of it they would allow us to retain.

In short, those who are labeled as “extremists” by the power elitists in Washington and the mainstream media are in reality, just ordinary mainstream Americans who, like Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers, believe in this nation and the principles upon which it was founded. The real extremists are those who are seeking to destroy what America has stood for and are attempting to “fundamentally transform” it into something very un-American. The real extremists are the ones in control now!