Obama: A captive of his own history

As we approach the 2010 mid-term elections, the GOP is poised to make big gains in the House of Representatives, State Governors offices, and State Legislatures. The GOP will also likely pick up several seats in the U.S. Senate, but not enough to gain a majority.

Few people predicted this outcome when Barack Obama took office less than two years ago.

So what happen? In short, Obama and the Democrats blew it. They took a bad situation, created by George Bush, and made it worse.

It didn't have to be this way. In spite of some of some my more partisan friend's opinions to the contrary, the left does come up with some good ideas on occasion. However, most of those ideas never get implemented because of the left's dependence on government employees unions for their political muscle.

So, what would a strong, center-left agenda actually look like? Here are a few examples how Obama could could have put such an agenda together:

A.) Education, education, education.

Everyone knows that are nation's schools are failing. It's not only our inner-city schools. American schools in general are under-serving our kids as evidenced by our drop out rates as well as math and science test scores, compared to the rest of the developed world. Davis Guggenheim (a liberal) just released a movie "Waiting for Superman" which digs into the issues our public school system faces. Everyone should see this. When you do, it will scare the hell out of you.

We cannot compete in a increasing technological world with drop outs who don't know much about math and science.

Money is not the problem. America spends more money per student than all but two other countries. As a percentage of GDP, America spends more on education than most of the countries who have better results than we do.

Democrats have come up some great ways to reform the system. Charter schools are public schools where the parents and principals, not bureaucrats, are put in charge. The first Charter schools were implemented in Minnesota (a liberal state). Magnet schools are schools for the best and brightest, which focus on a specialized area, like math and science. Governor Jim Hunt (D-NC) put a huge focus on Magnet schools in the 1970s. They were a key to attracting tech companies to the Research Triangle in Raleigh. I'll add in Vocational schools for high school kids who aren't going college. Instead of having them waste their time in film appreciation classes, they could be learning a skilled trade that will help them and society.

These are Democrat ideas that work.

Obama could have used the "stimulus" to champion educational reform. After the 2008 election, he certainty had the political capital to do so. Instead, he just showered "stimulus" money on the teachers' unions to "save" their jobs for one year, without any significant reform at all.

B.) Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.

Our aging infrastructure is crumbling. In many places it hasn't kept up with population growth. A real center-left agenda would have used a big part of the "stimulus" money to build a world-class, 21st infrastructure for the U.S. -- roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, shipping ports, and more. Yes, a few infrastructure projects were funded, but the funding was a tiny, small part of the stimulus. Instead, Obama used most of the "stimulus" money to bail out government employee's unions to "save" their jobs for one year.

C.) Simplify, simplify, simplify

Our tax system is a mess. We have the highest corporate tax rates in the world, yet many corporations escape paying taxes. We have a progressive personal income tax system, yet the wealthiest American generally pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than do the middle to upper-middle class. Complying with our Byzantine tax system costs the American economy several hundred billion dollars a year.

It doesn't have to be like this.

When Jerry Brown ran for President in 1992 he advocated scrapping all federal taxes and replacing them with a 13% flat rate income tax and a 13% VAT. No deductions. No loopholes. Ralph Nader had a similar proposal in 2004.

Every study has shown that a flat rate tax would collect more money from the super rich because the loopholes would be gone. It would also save Americans and our companies hundreds of billions of in tax preparation fees each year. And it would do a lot better job "stimulating" the economy than Obama's "targeted" tax cuts.

Obama could have really provided some vision here and gotten a whole bunch of Republicans to join in. But he didn't. Instead, he relegated himself to spewing class warfare rhetoric while arguing about whether or not the top tax rate should be 36% or 39%. It's just pitiful.

The bottom line

There are many other proposals that a visionary center-left government could have undertaken, that would have gained broad support in the country, and been successful in really moving the country forward.

Unfortunately, Obama is not a visionary. He is a captive of his history -- a past of associating with people like 1960s radical Bill Aires, union thug Andy Stern, and racist Jeremiah right, all of whom who do nothing but brood about their class and race grievances.

This is why Obama has failed. This is why the country is failing. This is why we will see a significant political change next Tuesday.

Anti-incumbent sentiment marches on!!!

An ex-Gateway executive (Rick Synder) came out of nowhere to win the GOP nomination for governor of Michigan. He beat two professional politicians - the Michigan Attorney General and a U.S. Congressman.

He won the nomination with a substantial margin.

At this point, the GOP establishment has to be soiling their pants.

A friend of mine, who knew I grew up in Michigan, asked me if I knew Rick. Here's how I responded:

No, I don't know him. I'm not even sure how Gateway and Michigan and fit together. I think Gateway came out of South Dakota. Now they are in San Diego.

I'm typing this on a 3 month old Gateway laptop, which is amazing given that Dell nearly put Gateway out of business 10 years ago. Now Dell is suffering under enormous quality problems, with brain dead management that purposefully shipped faulty products. Sounds likes the Detroit auto companies in the 70s, doesn't it?

This is what I love about the unfettered free market -- if you get too big for your britches, another company is going to come and kick your rear end. Who benefits? We do! I was hesitant to buy the Gateway but I did because the capabilities it offered were much cheaper than the competition. I love it.

No, Bush's big corporate bailouts are not the free market. This is one of many reasons why I really dislike the GOP -- they've made people believe that their crony capitalism is the free market. It's not. The Democrats do the same thing, and it's just as bad or worse, but they don't pretend that it's the free market.

This primary season is turning out to be a real turning point for our country. So far, we've tossed our 4 incumbent Congressman and 3 U.S. Senators in the primaries! When was the last time that happened? More importantly, outsiders like Rick Synder are capturing their party's nomination all over the country.

I hope that Snyder wins and brings his business sense to government. This is the only way that Michigan will recover and move forward.

I also hope that the outsiders who've managed to win their party's nomination across the country are successful in the fall.

The GOP establishment needs to be put out of business by the competition just like any business who has lost touch with their customers.

BRAVO to Ann Coulter

Bravo to Ann Coulter for calling on neo-commies like Bill Kristol to STFU with regards to Micheal Steele's comments on Afghanistan.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that America had every right to dispatch the al-Queda presence in Afghanistan, but that it was crazy to bog American troops down in a no-win situation in Afghanistan. The unruly Afghans could not be subdued by the Brits or Soviets. More importantly, our real enemy -- al-Queda -- has moved on to Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

Steele is right. It's absolutely foolish to continue to waste American lives and money in Afghanistan.

We can accomplish our continued goals there by bribing a handful of warlords, using a fraction of the money and American lives that we'll spend on Obama's direct military action. We did it with Egypt -- bribing them to make nice with Israel. Over the last 30 years, the amount of money we spent on Egypt to achieve some amount of peace in the middle is tiny compared to what we've spent on Afghanistan in the last few years.

It's about time that real conservatives stand up to the big government neo-commies in the GOP and their demented foreign policy (not to mention their crazy "government greatness" philosophy at home).

BRAVO to Ann Coulter for joining (and given her position, leading) the growing conservative dissent to the neo-commies war mongering foreign policy.

I am more encouraged than ever that we are heading for real, positive change.

Thank you Ann.

The Value of Property Rights in Society

Recently, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul made quite a stir in suggesting that a portion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was misguided.

His comments have caused an enormous flurry of misrepresentations in the mainstream (left-wing) media.

Paul made a couple of interesting points that were completely missed by the unthinking left.

First, that government policy was a driving force behind discrimination. From "separate but equal" to the fact that most of the KKK leadership were elected Democrat party officials, government was a large contributor to segregation and other discriminatory evils.

Second, that markets ultimately will do a much better job at ensuring equality of opportunity, justice, and fairness than the government. For example, why did Apple, Microsoft, HP and IBM start providing spousal benefits to their gay employees? Because government made them do it? NO. Sure, there are laws TODAY in some cities and states today that mandate this, but the whole movement started with high tech business who were competing in the market for scarce resources. Apple for example took a lot of heat in some states (like Texas, where they had sales offices)for leading this, but they stuck to their guns and did it anyway.

What do you think would happen to a business today if it refused to service some demographic segment? Their competition would put them out them out of business very quickly. (Yeah sure, there would be a few backwaters where these types of small businesses might survive, but they are largely irrelevant in the grander scheme of freedom, so who cares?)

Paul's reflections had nothing to do with racism. His comments were all about the value of property rights in creating and sustaining a free, prosperous, and decent society. Of course, the brain dead left just doesn't get it because they have never understood why property rights are indispensable to freedom. This is why the left always fails.

That's the bottom line.

Fed Audit and Greece Bailout

The Senate passed a bill calling for a one time audit of the Federal Reserve to scrutinize the $2 trillion in emergency loans that the Fed provided to some of the nation’s biggest banks.

The bill was a very watered down version of bill that passed in the House, which would have enabled the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to audit every item on the Fed’s balance sheet, including all credit facilities and all securities purchase programs. An amendment to expand the Senate bill to match the House's failed to pass. Still, this is a good first step as it would enable the GAO to audit at least some Fed actions for the first time in history.

The government's bailout of Wall Street points to a huge problems in our financial system and even larger problems with the control that Wall Street has over politicians in both parties.

Conceptually, Wall Street exists to support the needs of other businesses. When businesses need capital to start up or expand, they can get the money in one of three ways: A.) from their own savings, B.) through borrowing (debt), or C.) by selling a portion of the business to others (equity).

What does this have to do with derivatives, credit default swaps, or even the whole concept of "selling the market short"??? The short answer is nothing whatsoever. All of these things are nothing more than gambling. Goldman Sachs and their ilk have turned our financial system into Las Vegas. Like Vegas, the system is rigged so that the House wins 98.5% of the time.

The one difference between Las Vegas and Wall Street is when a casino in Vegas goes belly up, Washington doesn't rush in with our money to bail them out.

Unfortunately, the situation is about to get even worse. The U.S. government is taking part in the $1 TRILLION Greek bailout both through the IMF and also through the Federal Reserve, which is shipping dollars to Europe to help stabilize the Euro. Of course the money won't be used to put the country on the right path. Instead, it will be given to lazy union members who'd rather sit arounding sipping Ouzo, while bad mouthing America, than work.

I've been to Greece a couple of times. It's a beautiful country that has been completely destroyed up by decades of political corruption.

Why is it our responsibility to pay for their mistakes? Oh, because the country might "melt down". GOOD. The country SHOULD melt down because maybe then the politicians will be forced to confront their problems and eliminate the costly welfare state that has been sucking the life blood out of their country.

We have our own problems too. They are on a much grander scale than Greece's.

17% of our workforce is unemployed or under employed. Our official debt has reached $13 trillion, which is a whopping 90% of GDP -- almost as bad as Greece's. Unfunded entitlements in Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and government pension plans top $130 trillion -- more than $438,000 per person. Government spending at all levels is approaching 40% of GDP, which is not far behind "socialist" France at 44%.

With all of these problems confronting us, how dare the politicians hand our money to Greece. How dare they?

Greece and the rest of the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) caused their own problems. It's time for them to deal with it.

We created our own problems too. It's time for us to boot the SOBs out of office who are making things worse.

The Incumbent Purge is Underway!

Over the weekend, three term Republican Senator Bob Bennett failed to win a spot on the GOP primary ballot in Utah. Yesterday, Congressman Alan Mollohan failed to win the Democrat nomination in West Virginia. Over the next few months, at least a dozen additional incumbents could lose their seats in the primaries. Among them are three Senators -- Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, and John McCain.

Specter typifies what's wrong in Congress. The guy has been locked away in the District of Columbia for 45 years. The world was a very different place when Specter got to Congress in 1965. At this point, he's completely clueless about most everything. He also doesn't have any philosophical foundation or moral center. All he cares about is hanging on to power.

McCain is so scared that he recently released a disgusting, disingenuous, and pandering television ad about the border, in which he completely reversed his long held positions on illegal immigration. JD Hayworth is currently behind McCain in the polls, but fortunately the Arizona primary isn't until August. By then, McCain's famous temper will have torpedoed his campaign.

In Kentucky, conservative-libertarian Rand Paul holds a double digit lead over the establishment hand picked candidate Trey Grayson in the GOP Senate primary. Grayson used to be a Democrat, who supported Bill Clinton. That didn't stop former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate leader Mitch McConnell‎, and much of the rest of the GOP establishment from endorsing him. Why? Because they are scared to death that Paul will be an independent voice who will not go along to get along.

The slaughter in the general election in November is likely going to be much larger. House Republican Leader John Boehner claims that as many as 100 House seats are up for grabs. I'm not a big Boehner fan, but I agree with him on this -- there is an anti-incumbent furor that could result in as much as 20% of the House turning over this year. All of the losses won't be on the Democrat side.

If unemployment stays around 10%, there will be another slaughter in 2012. This isn't only bad news for Barack Obama. Establishment types like Mitt Romney will likely be causalities as well.

This is all great news. The voters are finally waking up and throwing the bums out.

Unfortunately, Americans usually don't pay much attention to the goings on in the District of Columbia. They are this year and they did in 1994, but generally they don't.

In the absence of a diligent electorate, we need term limits. Unfortunately, regardless of who controls Congress, elected politicians are not going to pass a law, let alone a Constitutional amendment to limit their power in any way. That's the big problem.

I for one am looking forward to seeing large numbers of incumbents in both parties being booted from office this year and in 2012. Those that remain will be so scared that they will clean up their acts and do what we want -- at least for a short period of time.

Jim Bunning endorses Rand Paul and gives him $2,000

It's nice to have a true conservative, who is also one of the great major league pitchers of all time on your side!

Who are the neo-commies and Dick Cheney backing? A ex-Democrat hack who supported Bill Clinton. This demonstrates how f'd up the GOP really is.