The Big Three
Week 2 of the debate starts with this question: What are the three most important issues a voter should consider this year in choosing a candidate to vote for at the federal level (President, Senate, House of Representatives)? Why are these issues critical?
First and foremost has to be the economy. The Democrats claim this was all Bush’s fault and that the current problems are simply because Bush messed things up more than they had thought. As I detail in my book, and summarize here, this is just false. Other Presidents have inherited recessions from their predecessors, but took actions that helped the economy turn around, including the previous President Bush. President Obama’s actions made things worse. By massively expanding the role of the federal government, he has further stifled what was a struggling economy. The two prime examples of this are ObamaCare, and the Dodd Frank banking bill. But most levels of government have become increasingly burdensome on businesses. Moreover, the massive increase in the deficit, and the resulting debt, in and of itself are dragging down the economy.
The bottom line is that Government is going bankrupt, it cannot even meet it current promises much less the increased promises of the future. The cities in California such as San Bernardino are just the tip of the iceberg. The state of California not only has a huge and growing deficit, it also has over $500 billion in unfunded pension liability. Social Security and Medicare are both in the hole and going bankrupt. The federal deficit is over $1 trillion each year. The Federal government cannot borrow enough to meet its needs and so has been printing so much money that the last time I checked we had tripled the money supply. Unless changed, I believe within the next 3-5 years, maybe 10, these financial bills will come due, and when they do we will look back at 2007-12 as the good old days.
Whether you like Ryan’s plan or you hate Ryan’s plan, at least he has a plan. Obama has none. The closest Obama comes to anything that might resemble a plan is his proposal to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $200K, but that is not a plan. He has had four year now to produce one, and the only thing he has done is throw stones that those who are actually trying to solve the problem. Yet more promises of hope and change in the future will not cut it.
While the domestic problems overshadow foreign policy, things are hardly better there. Some key issues are the arbitrariness of his actions; his intervention in Libya vs. his lack of support for the protests in Iran. His insulting of friends such as Great Britain, Poland, and Israel, while reaching out to enemies. His cluelessness about the so called Arab Spring and support for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. His apparent desire to reduce America’s leadership role in the world, without regard for who will take our place? China? Russia? The UN? I think, like the Presidency of Carter, once the economic problems are well behind us, the Foreign policy problems caused by Obama will still confront us for decades.
The third area is hard to exactly label. Part of it is faithfulness to the office, part is integrity, part is just plain honesty. In any democratic system, a large part of its functioning is the sense among those in power that they are part of something bigger than themselves, that being elected is more than getting the power to do what you want. While the checks and balances in the Constitution go a long way to establish our government in the end they are just words on page. To be effective, those in power must see them as something to be followed, not something to be gotten around.
To be clear this is not a completely an us-vs-them issue and, as in all areas, there are saints and sinners in both parties. But that said, President Obama, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly shown a callous disregard for any of the conventions of democratic government. When Pelosi was Speaker of the house, for the first time in our countries history committees were meaningless as were open debates, and amendments were not allowed. Bills were written under her control, and submitted on a take it or leave it basis. For whatever faults they may have, when the Republicans regained control, they restored the House back its normal functioning, (or dysfunction?) .
The Democrats in the Senate under Reid have been little better. In violation of the law, they have refused to even submit a budget, much less pass one in four years. Bill after bill has been passed by the House and come to the Senate where Reid refuses to even bring them up for a vote.
But the worst and most dangerous offender has been President Obama, who has shown an increasing disregard for the law and the Constitution. When I wrote in my book that Obama intended to ignore Congress and rule by Executive order, I never envisioned he would go this far. While many examples could be sited, I will just state three. The first is his unwarranted claim of executive privilege. (He claims he and his staff were not involved in Fast and Furious. Even if they were, Executive Privilege does not apply in cases of criminal wrong doing). Second the use of “recess appointments” when the Senate is not in recess. Third the creation new laws such as with his granting waivers to children brought to the country illegally and thereby creating a new class of people beholden, not to the law or government, but to him personally.
That individual politicians would abuse their power is not surprising and examples can be found on both sides. What is most disturbing about the current Democrats in office is that they, as a party, defend such actions. When it became clear that Nixon had violated the law, Republicans went to the White House and asked him to resign. Where is the outrage from Democrats? Given their acceptance of the abuse of power, just as long as it is from other Democrats, how can they be trusted with control over the government?
What Really Caused Our Current Economic Problems
For quite some time a major argument of the Democrats has been to blame Bush for our current situation. Now this is being expanded to claim that to elect Romney and Ryan would be a return to same policies that got us into this problem in the first place. While a common line from the left, as I detailed in my book Preserving Democracy, this ignores what actually happened.
In short (and see my book for the details) the financial crisis in 2008 was brought about by 4 factors. 1) The housing bubble which was caused by government housing policy going back to the late 70s and that punished banks that did not loosen their lending practices to make the riskier loans demanded by the government. 2) New financial instruments developed to satisfy the government’s push for looser home loan practices. Leading the way in this area were Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. These instruments were then put into the market with the vague backing of the federal government, and once accepted became the norm and were soon used by others. 3) These first two caused the housing bubble and as the bubble grew it produced the typical loose standards and excesses common to all finical bubbles. All three things came to a head in 2007 as the bubble began to burst.
While you would never know it from the media, it is just a fact that Bush and the Republicans repeatedly tried to fix these growing problems, but they were blocked by Democrats, who instead attacked the the regulators trying to point out the problems and accused Republicans of trying to deny housing to the poor. The last major effort to avoid this crisis was in 2005.
Once the Democrats won control of the Congress in 2006, any hope of averting growing problem was gone. So while the claims that this was all Bush’s fault may play well with President Obama’s supporters, they don’t quite line up with the facts of what actually happened. Still with all that, as the bubble burst the indications were that the recession that followed would be a mild one, and it very well may have been, except for the last item.
4) Late in 2007 the government accounting board mandated a change in the accounting rules imposing mark to market accounting. It was this change in the rules that took what looked to be a mild recession and turned it into a major fiscal crisis. Again for the details see my book, but this is why TARP and the various stimulus bills did not work, for they did not address the actual problem. By the time the problem was realized and the rule repealed in April 2009, the damage had been done.
Thus it is simply false to claim that Romney and Ryan would be a return to the policies that caused our current problems. While Bush is by no means completely blameless, after all his administration came up with the initial response of bailouts and TARP, he at least tried to address the root causes of the housing bubble, which was behind the recession. Still, I do not believe either party was really behind the Mark to Market rule which caused the worse problems. Frankly this may be one of the reasons its role is frequently overlooked, as there is no political advantage in pointing to Mark to Market, since neither side can really blame the other side for this.
Responding to Cornwall: Ryan
In his evaluation of the Romney-Ryan team Bob Cornwall, made a number of points, but I believe that many of them will be better addressed later on, as I am sure the issues will come up again and probably in a more direct fashion. So here let me address a couple of his underlying assumptions. If I believed what he said was true, in particular that Romney and Ryan would “balance the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans” then I would probably agree with him, but I don’t.
Perhaps the biggest disagreement would be the seeming automatic equating of a government program for the poor with helping the poor. Again we agree on the goals, i.e., reaching out to, and helping those in need. Where we disagree is over whether or not existing government programs actually do that, and probably more importantly, whether or not government programs, particularly the type favored by Obama and the Democrats, are even capable of doing that.
To be clear, this is not the same thing as claiming that Government programs never do any good, or that government has no role at all. The real answer is far more complex, with a myriad of qualifiers. But we cannot just look at the promises made by those in government about what a program is intended to do; we must also look at how effective it is, and compare this to the costs, both direct, and indirect. We must look at both the good a program does and the harm that a program does, and whether or not there is a better way. It must also look and both the short and long term effects in a way that considers the entire individual.
We will be getting into a lot of the details in the coming weeks. But the bottom line for me is that a lot of what government does results in far more harm than good.
I believe this comes to the emphasis on both truth and love. Our compassion must be based in what actually works, and not just in our desire to love.
Responding to Cornwall on Faith and Politics
Concerning Bob Cornwall’s reply to the first question I must say that I find a lot of common ground, particularly when it comes to the problem of balancing involvement in politics and avoiding the dangers inherent in “the lure of power politics.” But, not surprisingly, there was some disagreement. One of the most problematic statements was his claim that “I recognize that I cannot coercively impose my beliefs on others. We live in a pluralistic country, not a Christian one.”
What makes this statement so troubling for me is that virtually every act of government is an act of coercion, the imposition of one person’s, or group’s beliefs and values on others who disagree. After all if there was 100% agreement, there would be no need for government. Government passes laws, which if transgressed, can result in the loss of property (fines), freedom (prison) or even death. To pay for this government likewise coerces money in the form of taxes. This makes government, at its core, an enemy to freedom and liberty.
I believe that some of the problems caused by this coercion can be mitigated by the democratic process. But, is it really an exercise of democracy when a majority imposes burdens on a minority, burdens that the majority does not share?
Now, unlike some of my libertarian friends, I do not see this as a reason to dispense with all government, for I believe that at least some government is needed. But where I suspect that I differ with Mr. Cornwall is over its size, location (local, state, federal), and its efficacy. We will probably get into more detail concerning this later on so let me just say that I believe that as a general rule government should be small and decentralized as much as reasonably possible, and that its mandates should allow for choice and freedom when possible. In addition, I would guess that we have significant disagreements when it comes to the definition of some terms and phrases, such as justice for all, safety net, and what is or is not equitable.
Finally I would point out that when it comes to the “the lure of power politics” one sure way to exacerbate the problem is to either increase the power, or to concentrate it. “Big government liberals” do both, increasing the role and influence of government’s power, while centralizing it at the federal level.
In short, drawing from my reply, because of love, I agree with many of the goals, particularly of tending to needs of “the least amongst us.” However, because of my view of truth, I would differ on the ability of a large federal government to actually accomplish this, and frankly believe that such a government is far more likely to only make matters worse.
Paul Ryan
Given the announcement over the weekend in this weeks debate sponsored by my publisher, Energion we were also asked to address the pick of Paul Ryan.
I think this was a great pick. There are generally two factors in picking a VP: Who will help get the candidate elected, and who will help them govern, these are not the same thing. Given that Ryan is one of the most knowledge people when it comes to the budget, and also one of the most reform-minded, I think this pick shows that Romney is focused on governing in general, and actually addressing some of the long term problems that have been growing larger and more threatening with each passing year.
That said, the choice of VP will ultimately pale in comparison to the importance of the candidates themselves. As such Romney’s choice of Ryan is actually more important than any strengths or weaknesses Ryan brings to the campaign. For me the choice is a good indication that Romney really intends to get spending under control, and the his speeches along these lines may be more than just promises made in the heat of a campaign, they may actually be what he intends to do, and if so that will be a very good thing.
