Ceding power to Congress: priceless

When I pick up the morning newspaper these days I am often reminded of that old Chinese proverb "may you live in interesting times".  I'm sure that every generation sees their "time" as interesting, and full of change. And so it should be -- with mankind's inexorable march toward the future, change (both good and bad) comes with each tick of the clock. The world moves forward, even if often the "forward" seems more like "backward". Our forward sure seems a lot like backward. Fortunately, it turns out that all this vacuous talk during the campaign about "hope and change" is now catching up to some realities:

-- A majority of the American people don't want a government controlled health care system -- A majority of the American people don't think more government is a good idea -- A majority of the American people have decided that Barack Obama is "more liberal" than they thought he was (big surprise -- not!) -- The economic "crisis" that Obama tried to capitalize on is not as bad as he would like us to think it is -- The failure of Obama to control the agenda -- by ceding power to Congress -- has unleashed the left-wing of the Democrat Party and has led to partisan, left-wing legislation -- That legislation has tanked any chance at bi-partisanship and has turned off the American people

Indeed, the American people are starting to understand that our would-be emperor is wearing no clothes. If you bothered to watch the President's prime time health care news conference this past week you saw a man grappling for answers, talking to "run out the clock" and making very little sense. Makes you long for the simple colloquiums of George W. Bush! Seriously -- the President is so in love with the sound of his own voice and the elegance of his teleprompter that he thinks what he says doesn't matter.

But it does, of course -- and though the left's basic premise is that people aren't smart enough to take care of themselves, the reality is that the American people aren't stupid. They see Congress as a partisan place with parochial interests and where transparency and honesty are in short supply. They thought that Obama would transcend this -- by pledging a "post-partisan" and "newly transparent" government. What they got was just another left-wing politician who has actually moved to strengthen Congress' role -- not weaken it. While this may be admirable for "strict constructionists" who believe that there should be greater balance between Congress and the Executive branch, the reality is that this Congress is run by highly partisan ideologues who aren't interested in consensus. On such huge issues -- like Cap and Trade and health care reform, partisan policy is never good for the country.

By design, of course, there has always been a tension between the executive branch and the Congress, and it is necessary for both branches to be active in balancing each other. But, perhaps one of the reasons why former legislators have rarely become president (and those who have are largely ineffective in the job) is because this balance is easily distorted. When you learn to think like a Senator, with the primary goal of satisfying interest groups, it is hard to put on the CEO hat and understand that your role as president is a unique one. Yes, it is about bargaining, but it is truly (or should be, anyway) about the interests of the nation as a whole and the office of the President. Thus far, Barack Obama's relationship with Congress resembles more like that of a Majority Leader and less like the Chief Executive of the nation.

I'm thankful, of course, that the President has gotten it wrong -- for it shows clearly to the American people that he is a neophyte, without true conviction. I knew that eventually his words would ring hollow, and it would be his actions that would become the focus. We are now at that point, and his actions are clearly not up to the job.

For more along this line of thought: Charles Krauthammer: Why Obamacare is Sinking

Kimberly Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care WSJ: A Better Health Reform

Taxes undo Mass. Guv & other Dems

(Wellfleet, MA - July 20) This is a small Cape Cod community –about 500 people when I was growing up- now part of Massachusetts’ National Seashore Park. It's also home to a few hardy souls with whom I shared the experience of a one-room school house presided over by a septuagenarian female teacher whose reproving glances struck abject fear in our young hearts. One of the advantages of encountering such old friends is that it is possible to discuss current events without hitting the high wall that these flinty New Englanders usually erect between themselves and nosy “outsiders”. Thus of a recent morning I enjoyed some illuminating conversation concerning Massachusetts politics- usually a good source of light entertainment if not moral uplift.

It’s been a tough week for the state’s Democratic governor, Deval Patrick. On Monday the Democratic State Treasurer Tim Cahill announced he was quitting the party and signaled pretty clearly that he would run against Patrick as an Independent. On Wednesday Charles Baker, a prominent Republican businessman with deep pockets, announced that he too would challenge the incumbent.

Illustrating a key reason for Patrick’s vulnerability was the discovery on Tuesday that the state’s budget gap- already 3.2 billion dollars- had worsened by an additional 200 million dollars owing to dismal June revenues.

The basic cause of Patrick’s plummeting approval ratings and the consequent electoral challenges is no mystery: Taxes. With the concurrence of the Democrat controlled legislature Patrick has recently done the following: a. increased highway tolls by 25 %; b. increased Metropolitan bus and subway fares by 30 %; c. imposed a first ever tax on retail alcohol sales (two dollars on a fifth of Scotch. Ouch!); and d. –causing the most outrage- raised the already high sales tax by 25%.

The use of weasel terms like “fee adjustments”, or “revenue enhancements”, or Patrick’s gem-“state income improvement measures” does not fool but does further infuriate a public that knows a tax increase when it sees one.

Also significant is that all of those taxes are regressive in nature falling most heavily on those lower income groups that have traditionally been the foundation of the Democrats’ electoral base.

All of this however is not just a Massachusetts story, but rather a template for states across the nation where Democrats are running things. The recession has put the Democratic Party under a harsh spotlight that has simultaneously exposed their deeply flawed approach to governance and their fundamental incapacity to preside over difficult economic times like the present.

The recession undermines and ultimately makes counter-productive the Democrats favorite activity: Spending. It also impels them toward the only remedy tolerated by their ruling elites: The political Kool-Aid of Tax Increases.

At the heart of the Democrats’ dilemma are three inherent defects that have long plagued their party: 1.They are constitutionally incapable of grasping the concept that lower tax rates can generate higher tax revenues (See Reagan,R., 1981); 2. They are politically incapable of any budget or policy initiative opposed by their union allies; and 3. Ideology makes them utterly blind to the fact that creating a “business friendly” climate is essential to any sustained economic recovery.

Historically, political change in the U.S. begins at the state level before going national. An excellent example is Proposition 13- California’s 1978 tax revolt that prefigured the triumph of Ronald Reagan.

A major reason for this pattern is that economically speaking reality bites earlier and harder at the state level. Economic make-believe can be sustained longer at the Federal level because it is a remote and artificial environment that prints its own money- a luxury unavailable to states where budgets must be balanced in real time.

Accordingly political retribution is swifter at the state level. Gubernatorial approval ratings nosedive faster than the Presidential variety, but in the end both are reflective of economic malfeasance, and the populist backlash it generates.

In 2006 Deval Patrick was an attractive, articulate outsider who preached a gospel of “Hope and Change”. His good friend Barack Obama even admitted in 2008 to plagiarizing a few of Patrick’s speeches.

No doubt friend Obama has noticed that Patrick’s “Hope and Change” bandwagon has collided head-on with “Reality and Disillusion”.

An increasingly restless nation waits to see what if any lessons our new President will learn. William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadephia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, and Rocky Mountain News.

New polls: "Obamacare" is not inevitable!

We should all hope and pray that Karl Rove is right in his opinion piece today in the Wall Street Journal ("Obama Care in Trouble"). Rove argues that both the polls and the political calendar are working against Obama's attempt to socialize health care in this country: On Monday, the Washington Post/ABC poll reported that 49% of Americans approve of his handling of health care while 44% disapprove. What many people missed is that those who strongly disapprove of the president’s approach on health care now outnumber those who strongly approve by 33% to 25%. That presages further decline. Already, 49% of independents disapprove of the president’s approach, up from 30% in April, a staggering shift in 11 weeks.

As I have written previously ("Are American voters finally catching on"?), this echoes general polling that shows independents and conservative Democrats -- the key swing vote that elected Obama in the first place -- turning away from Obama as well.

According to Rove, Obama's support is crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals.

One batch of such news came from a July 17 study by the Lewin Group that was commissioned by the Heritage Foundation. It projects that if the House bill becomes law, 83.4 million people—nearly half of those with private coverage—will lose private insurance as employers drop their plans. Mr. Obama’s promise that you can keep your plan is being left on the cutting room floor with nary a peep from the president.

Not a surprise, of course, since Obama's true goal is to provide an American version of Britain's National Health Service. Nevermind, of course, that the NHS led to substandard care, rationing and long waits for basic procedures. In the true hubris that only an American president can muster, Obama thinks "we can do it better". That same kind of thinking, by the way, has led us to ignore the disaster that befell the Japanese economy in the 1990s when it undertook government stimulus to right its massive recession -- more than 15 years of stagnation and anemic growth. But nevermind. The left has its ideological orthodoxy and let's not get bogged down in details or facts.

We should be thankful that at least somebody in Washington has the courage to tell the truth, even if he was called on the carpet afterward by the President for deigning to provide an honest evaluation of Obama's plan. Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified last week that

"...the White House’s health-care proposals would not “reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.” This shattered the central claim Mr. Obama has been making: that his health-care plan controls costs. In a July 17 letter, Mr. Elmendorf added that the House’s health-care bill would result in a “net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion” over 10 years. That’s likely a low-ball estimate because it assumes that Congress will increase taxes by $583 billion over the next decade."

Ahh, but of course -- new taxes. In the end, this is the heart of the Obama mission -- to tax the productive into submission so that the poor (Democrat voters, all) will have their free lunch. This is no surprise (or shouldn't be, anyhow), since Obama told "Joe the Plumber" that his ultimate goal is to "spread the wealth around". He wasn't lying about that, my friends.

I do sense that a tide is turning. Yesterday I attended a meeting of the local GOP club here in Colorado. It was a packed house on a Wednesday afternoon, and the energy in the room was palpable. Several of those who were there were Democrats who apparently have seen and heard enough of Obama, and who are now committed to seeing the defeat of his big government plans.

It's encouraging. But we must keep up the pressure. Show up at meetings. Go to protests. Write and/or call your Representatives. The time to fight is now -- before its too late.

California kicks the can (again)

You have to love the politicians in Sacramento -- maybe not as embarrassing as those in Congress but pretty darn close! As I've written previously, the state has been in a fiscal mess of its own making, issuing high-interest IOUs in lieu of cash. Its just the latest annual budget fiasco in a state that spends more than it takes in -- in part because it gets over half its tax base from a tiny percentage of its richest residents whose incomes don't stay steady. Add to that an annual "cost of living increase" baked into the state's huge employee and pension contracts (regardless of annual revenue) and you have the kind of deficit spending that government is so good at. Now news comes tonight that the state has -- at least according to the questionable standards of the  San Jose Mercury News -- made a Budget Breakthrough solves California's long fiscal nightmare. Only it hasn't "solved" anything -- other than the current fiscal problems. What it didn't do is come to any kind of structural or long-term solution:

The deal would include Democratic concessions of more than $14 billion in program cuts — hitting the poor, children, the elderly and disabled while avoiding outright elimination of the state's welfare-to-work CalWORKS program and the Healthy Families health insurance program for children.Though they failed to get permanent reductions in welfare programs, Schwarzenegger and Republican legislators were able to uphold their vow of no new taxes with a series of accounting shifts and an enforced "loan" of nearly $4 billion from local governments.

Those accounting tricks include accelerating income tax withholdings from residents' paychecks by 10 percent,effectively shifting millions of next year's revenues into this year's budget, and delaying state workers' June 30, 2010 paychecks by one day — and thus, into next fiscal year.

From the beginning, Democrats had little hope that they could win approval of tax increases, though they proposed popular measures such as $2 billion in taxes on oil companies, alcohol and tobacco sales and the closing of numerous corporate loopholes.

Although they represent barely more than one-third of either the Senate or the Assembly, Republicans have near-veto power over the proceedings, thanks to the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote for budgets and taxes.

Despite an ardent lobbying effort, cities and counties likely will take a major hit, with the state poised to borrow nearly $4 billion in revenues from property taxes and gas taxes. Critics say that will result in a devastating impact on local services.

Only in California, then, can you fail to make any headway on the longer-term issue of out-of-control spending and a shrinking revenue base while solving the problem with accounting gimmicks -- and call it a "success".  What the state has done is simply to kick the can down the road yet again, so that next year it will have to go through this all over again. Now that's what I call inspired political leadership!

What do you expect from a legislature that is bought and paid for by the unions and special interests, and a governor who talks tough but doesn't really have the stomach (or principle) for the kind of show down that might have really fixed this problem once and for all?  Creative accounting followed by a huge passing of the buck to local governments, which will now have to make the tough choices that Sacramento didn't have the courage to make.

And we now are going to give health care to Washington? Are we completely nuts?

Are voters finally turning against the Obama power grab?

We all know that common sense is in short supply these days. I blame in large part the insidious cancer of political correctness -- a scourge that seems to make it impossible for people to speak (and act) in pursuit of the truth anymore. Its a shame, but the combination of political correctness, the liberal media and the over-active tort bar has made wimps of almost everyone in any position of power -- from local school boards to town councils. And, of course, this goes double for those in Washington DC -- who will always put politics and their insatiable thirst for power above doing the right thing for the American people. Fortunately, it appears that the American people may be catching on. As Michael Barone reports, recent polls seem to show that the public is starting to wake up to the big government power grab going on with Obama and his minions:

Last month's Washington Post-ABC poll reported that Americans favor smaller government with fewer services to larger government with more services by a 54 percent to 41 percent margin -- a slight uptick since 2004. The percentage of independents favoring small government rose to 61 percent from 52 percent in 2008. The June NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported that, even amid recession, 58 percent worry more about keeping the budget deficit down versus 35 percent worried more about boosting the economy. A similar question in the June CBS-New York Times poll showed a 52 percent to 41 percent split.

Other polls show a resistance to specific Democratic proposals. Pollster Whit Ayres reports that 58 percent of voters agree that reforming health care, while important, should be done without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 56 percent of Americans are unwilling to pay more in taxes or utility rates to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

This is consistent with the most recent Rasmussen poll that shows Obama's approval rating now hovering just above 50% -- in fact, below the percentage of vote he got in the 2008 election. Polls now consistently show that Obama and the Democrats are starting to steadily lose support among the all-important Independent swing voters -- the very same voters who were the difference in the 2008 election. As Ben Smith at Politico notes:

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

Predictably, of course, the White House is dismissing any shift in independent support as inconsequential -- the typical hubris of a party that thinks it won a realigning election in 2008.

I have consistently argued that Obama ignores these kinds of polls at his own peril -- for the 2008 election did not reflect a fundamental shift in the American polity from a center-right to center-left orientation.

Increasingly it seems now that people are starting to wake up to the fact that the power grab going on in Washington has come without much thought -- and without any debate. This is an argument that the Republicans seem to be effectively making now, and it is resonating with Independents. Take a look at this very powerful video that Republican Senatorial Committee put out: here

This video -- as well as others up on Youtube and now circulating the net are starting to make A pretty strong case that I think many voters will respond to. The fact is that the Obama Administration has made an unprecedented grab for power in the form of big government programs with almost no debate -- spending trillions of tax payer dollars far into the future, and committing America to a future of higher taxes, onerous environmental regulation with no purpose, and ultimately to sub-standard government-run health care.

Any American without an ideological stick to beat knows there is no common sense in what is going on in Washington. My guess is that this will become crystal clear in 2010, and a huge backlash is coming.