Hundreds (if not thousands) of Tea Partys were held this week around the country to demonstrate popular objection to Obama’s massive spending and the anticipated equally massive tax increases to pay for it. In advance of this grassroots activity, the mainstream press announced that it would not report on the protests because it was a “non-event.” Conservative pundits were hardly surprised given the mainstream press’ reluctance to report on anything that runs counter to their cheerleading for Obama.

Once again, though, Obama and the press are out of step with the American people, while conservative sentiments continue to align with the citizenry. Recently, a
Rasmussen survey found that 75% of America (a super majority) is distrustful of government, while only 7% support the “political class.” Specifically, the study found that most of the country:

• Trusts the judgment of the American people more than they do the judgment of America’s political leaders.
• Believes that the federal government has itself become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interest(s).
• Believes government and big business work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.

Underscoring these sentiments is another Rasmussen survey that found only 14% of Americans believe that the federal government will do a better job running the big three automakers than private industry. A full 67% believe the automakers will be worse off with the federal government in charge.

It should be noted that in each of these studies, a majority of Republicans AND a majority of Democrats side with the majority of Americans – these sentiments cut across party lines. This supports my assertion that most Americans do not understand conservatism and that most Americans hold views consistent with conservative principles.

In apparent contrast to this opinion, yet another Rasmussen survey found that barely half of all Americans believe that capitalism is better than socialism.

Looking deeper at capitalism/socialism preferences, the study found that people with investments, Republicans, and Americans with more life experience (older than 30 years) are decidedly in favor of capitalism. Even a small majority of democrats and people without investments prefer capitalism. The one demographic group that overwhelmingly prefers socialism is adults under 30 years.

Given that only 53% of Americans recognize the benefits of capitalism, how is it that 75% are distrustful of the government’s management of the economy? One possible explanation is that many/most people do not understand what the two terms mean or how they differ. The survey simply asked which system people preferred, capitalism or socialism; it did not attempt to define the two terms. Perhaps simple ignorance explains the apparent disparity between this survey and the others cited.

On this disparity, Rasmussen opines: “The fact that a ‘free-market economy’ attracts substantially more support than ‘capitalism’ may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.” They support this position with added evidence that only 15% of Americans prefer a government-managed economy (a popular definition of socialism).

Which brings me back to my assertion that most Americans don’t understand conservatism and that most Americans hold views consistent with conservative principles. This is a lesson we conservatives can take to heart. When speaking with non-conservatives it is best to assume a certain level of political naiveté and find common ground, which usually exists since most people hold conservative values in their heart of hearts, and then build agreement on the underlying conservative principle(s).

Then, most important of all, resist the urge to accuse them of being a closet conservative!

In December our family welcomed an unplanned addition – two baby red eared sliders (aquatic turtles). Nature has programmed these timid creatures to paddle furiously in any direction at the first hint of danger or surprise. It doesn’t seem to matter which direction they are headed, even if it means trying to swim through an obstacle at full speed. The objective is simply to paddle as fast as possible. Reflecting on this, it occurred to me that Congress is filled with a bunch of red eared sliders, who paddle as fast as they can without regard to where they are going. They have evidenced this numerous times in the last year, but none more thoroughly as in the case of AIG.

Consider…

September 2008. American International Group (AIG), a huge insurer, was on the verge of bankruptcy and had been shopping for government assistance. The federal government had just allowed financial powerhouse Lehman Brothers to collapse in bankruptcy. Claiming AIG was “too big to fail,” the feds drove a hard bargain, lending AIG $85 billion in exchange for an 80% equity stake in the company.

October 2008. AIG fails to respond to the federal rescue as had been hoped and the government decided to dispense another $48 billion. In a telling statement, a government representative indicated that the feds felt this additional infusion was relatively low risk. Then again it is always easy to see any bet as low risk when you are not betting with your own money.

November 2008. The federal government’s second attempt to rescue ailing AIG also failed to stabilize the company. Convinced they were “too smart to fail,” members of Congress and the
Executive Branch increased the rescue package to $150 billion and eased the terms of the bailout.

March 2009. Realizing that the feds still had not committed enough money to their rescue, AIG successfully petitioned the current administration to raise the country’s stake to $173 billion.

As the government reset their investment in AIG four times over four months, a series of mini-scandals hit the press as AIG executives enjoyed a 5-star get away on the taxpayer dime and sent their bailout money to foreign banks and other companies. By the fourth time around, staffers for the House of Representatives figured they ought to do a little more to protect the federal investment. One of those protections included a limitation on executive and key employee bonuses.

Funny thing happened on the way to the forum, though. It seems key government officials thought it wasn’t such a good idea after all and had the language removed from the fourth bailout bill. Never finding it too important to read, understand, or debate trivial things like bills that expend billions of dollars, the House passed the fourth bill without exercising any due diligence.

And surprise, surprise, AIG paid out $165 million in executive and key employee bonuses. No big deal, at least until the press starting raising a stink and we the people got in a huff about a failing company paying out mega-bonuses that were funded with tax-payer dollars.

Feigning disgust and abhorrence, the House raised up in righteous indignation, slapping AIG bonus recipients with a punitive and retroactive 90% tax on those bonuses. Fake indignation, however, was not enough to wash these stains off of Congressional hands. To fully cleanse themselves, Congress and administration officials had to ensure that allowing the bonuses in the first place was someone else’s fault.

First it was the Senate’s fault; they must have taken out the ban on bonuses. Then more particularly, it was Senator Dodd’s (chairman of the Senate banking committee) doing. At first, Dodd denied any involvement, but then admitted some culpability by claiming that the White House had demanded the bonus ban be removed and he was compelled to join them. Then, apparently, it was Geithner who had pressured the White House to make the change. For observers, this became a blame game fiasco with initial denials, partial confessions, and circular finger pointing.

Even in its indignation, the House of Representatives never fails to disappoint its detractors. With a growing reputation for not caring overmuch about the truth, accurate analysis, deliberation, or unintended consequences, the House’s punitive 90% tax on AIG bonus recipients appears to fail even the most basic of standards: constitutionality.

The bill passed by the House of Representatives would likely face constitutional challenges in four areas: 1) a bill of attainder (legislation directed at punishing particular individuals) is forbidden by the constitution; 2) ex-post facto laws (laws which make an activity illegal after-the-fact) are not allowed; 3) substantive due process (protection against the state preventing the fulfillment of lawful contracts) is protected by the courts; and 4) the takings clause argues against the taking of private property without appropriate compensation.

So let’s recap the government’s failings:

• In a mad rush, Congress and the President threw together a rescue package to save a company they deemed was too big to fail. Too big to fail, but not so big they had to do it right.
• The lack of analysis and deliberation forced the government to throw more money at the AIG problem three more times, each with minimal or no deliberation.
• Given an evolving track record of AIG misusing rescue funds, House staffers crafted language to prevent the misuse.  Senatorial and administration colleagues gutted the language.
• The House did not read the final language of the bill, but rushed the legislation through, not realizing that their objectives had not been met.
• When the press and the public cried foul about the AIG bonuses, the House looked incompetent or corrupt, and went into damage control mode. They pretended indignation, beat their chest, and got tough, hoping that they would be absolved of all charges before the next election.
• The House passed a law to punish AIG for giving bonuses they were contractually obligated to award – a law that many consider completely unconstitutional.

After all the bravado and decisive action from the House, the Senate and the White House quickly distanced themselves from the punitive bill. By the time the Sunday talk shows exposed the House’s lunacy, the House itself quickly backed down from their position and let the bill die a very quiet death.

At times like these, we should pause to reflect (in gratitude) on the wisdom of the founding fathers. They foresaw that the House of Representatives would be populist in nature, blowing in the wind of public opinion (paddling as fast as they can whenever they are startled) and established the Senate to be a more deliberative body that would resist reactionary populism in favor of reason and deliberation. Doesn’t always work but it certainly did this time.

Since nature did not equip the red eared sliders with reason, just a flight instinct, and since Congress seems to be similarly equipped, it is left to us to shape their environment so they react to us (the people) in a way that benefits the nation. Since they won’t/can’t do the right thing, we must. And we do this by getting involved in the public debate. When we do, our congressional red eared sliders will begin paddling when we want them to and will paddle in the direction that we want. We need to guide them with our collective voices.

Epilogue:
With all of the hullabaloo the AIG bonuses, I’ll bet you haven’t heard a single word that failed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (also newly nationalized entities) have been approved to dispense more than $200 million in bonuses. Not a peep from Congress or the press. Makes one wonder about the depths of hypocrisy?

China is the single biggest debt-holder of the United States Government. Over the last several weeks, China (not to mention several prominent members of the largely socialist European Union) has expressed growing concern over Obama’s handling of the current economic crisis and his administration’s push for increased economic globalization. Their concern, not surprisingly, is not altruistic but is at root a concern for its own economic welfare. Since China has vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and is hugely dependent on product sales to the U.S. economy, they are rightly concerned when something threatens the economic viability of our country. In other words, if our economy is sufficiently damaged, the U.S. will default on its debt and reduce trade, which will damage the already precarious Chinese economy.
 
Speaking from this position of concern, and likely trying to strengthen its role in global economic matters, China recently proposed the creation of a new global currency to replace the U.S. dollar. Russia is of like mind and has not only called for an international currency to replace the dollar, but is taking the next step of convening an international conference to discuss the creation of that currency.
 
For the last several decades, the dollar has been the most widely used currency in the world, largely because the U.S. has the biggest and strongest economy in the world, and the U.S. political system is one of the most stable around the globe. However, as the Obama administration has taken bold steps to dramatically change the U.S. economy, many abroad have seen such action as reckless and threatening to the overall global marketplace. Premier Wen Jiabao of China recently appealed to Washington to avoid taking any action that would weaken the dollar or threaten the ability of the U.S. to repay its debt.
 
This concern is not being expressed only by communist China. Many governments around the world hold a large portion of their financial reserves in U.S. dollars and rely on them as stabilizing factors in their fiscal planning. Additionally, nearly all countries are reliant on the dollar for numerous commodities and international business transactions. These countries are also at risk should the dollar or the U.S. economy falter or fail. Knowing their welfare is dependent in large part upon our welfare, leaders of many nations have warned the U.S. about its plan for the federal government to spend its way out of the recession. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all joined the chorus in expressing their doubts and concerns about Obama’s spending plans.
 
Normally, I’m not one to give much ear to socialists and communists who try to tell the U.S. how to run its business. But when voices of socialists and communists around the world speak in harmony with each other, together with American conservatism, such harmonics do catch my attention. This is especially true when the choir members have already traversed the road Obama is now embarking on. These nations boldly marched the socialist road to the brink of economic collapse and are deliberately backing away from socialism. (Russia excepted here. The Soviet Union drove off that economic cliff and ceased to exist as an empire.) These nations know the terrain and the landmarks and they are saying, “Stop!  There is a cliff ahead!”
 
As Obama moves the U.S. economy squarely into the realm of socialism (in some ways further left than where most of socialist Europe and communist China are today) we need to ask ourselves:

• Has a socialist economy ever succeeded in consistently raising the standard of living for its people?
• Does socialism inspire innovation and foster efficiencies?
• Does socialism preserve individual liberties?
• Has government ownership of business improved profits, products, choice, availability, or fostered healthy competition?

To date, the world has yet to witness affirmative answers to any of these questions.
 
As for replacing the U.S. dollar with another currency as the currency of trade and national reserves I am rather agnostic. There are pros and cons either way. Personally, I’m inclined to focus on the health of the dollar rather than the national ego of printing the international currency of choice. Of much more importance, however, is that nations around the globe are expressing strong concern about the U.S. government’s handling of the economic crisis and the likely outcome. Add to those voices the 60% of Americans who doubt the efficacy of Obama’s plans and a rational person must ask why Obama et al are running at full steam without pausing to listen to reasoned and experienced voices of caution?
 
Well, maybe it is the audacity of arrogance or the audacity of ignorance. Most likely, though, it is the audacity or power-mongering and the audacity of Marxist ideology.
 
Let us each bolster our hope for America’s welfare with the resolve to play a role in changing the direction our nation is currently headed.

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As a point of clarification, we can always have a different global currency (the Euro, the Sterling Pound, etc.) and retain our dollar for mainly domestic use. This is what the rest of the world does today. It is a quite different matter to surrender autonomy by adopting a new national currency as Europe did via the Euro. This is not what is discussed above.

Addressing the Economic Emergency
“Our country is plunging headlong into a horrendous recession and we risk an economic meltdown comparable to the Great Depression. The need for the government rescue is so incredibly urgent that Congress must pass the Economic Destruction Plan immediately. The slightest delay truly imperils our country.” Thus the presidential rhetoric and scaremongering is launched.

An all too complicit Congress joined the chorus and rammed through the biggest spending package ever, bigger than has been imagined by even the biggest tax & spend liberal. Without debate, without public input they forced this legislation into the shortest possible time frame. The need to enact the legislation was so incredibly critical that Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, was “forced” to renege on her promise to allow the public 48 hours to review and consider the package before she proceeded to a vote. At least now we can all give a giant and collective sigh of relief as the stuttering messiah signs the legislation and rescues our nation from certain destruction.

Oh, but wait! The president has something more important to do. Instead of saving our country in our moment of desperate need, Obama felt it was more important to take a 3-day vacation and will delay signing the bill until Tuesday. He will return to Washington from Chicago tomorrow and turn around and fly back to Denver so he can sign the Economic Destruction Plan there. The symbolism is there, I’m sure, but it’s meaning eludes me. (Maybe he is earning frequent flyer miles!)

So the Democratic leadership did the president’s bidding, but at what cost? Well they don’t know exactly. In fact, no one really knows (including you and me). Why? Because no one has read it. Let’s take a quick poll.

Poll Question: Have you read the 1100 pages of the economic stimulus bill?
0%     House of Representatives  (not one member of the House has read it)
0%     Senate (not one of the 100 senators have read it)
0%     White House (no one at the White House has read it)
0%     Journalists (not one of the thousands of journalists in the country has read it)
0%     Electorate (not one of the millions of Americans has read it)

So, who has read the bill? Well, perhaps a handful of congressional staffers have read the whole bill.

Writing the Legislation
But you thought that congress wrote the legislation. Nope! Wrong! Not even close! This, like a lot of legislation, was written by non-elected folks. Conspiring to draft this legislation were unelected staffers working for liberal/socialist members of congress, fringe leftwing special interest groups, and paid mercenaries (lobbyists) who were ensuring only that the interests of their employers were addressed. This is the team that is rescuing our country!

So How Bad is the Recession?
As I have mentioned before, not all that bad. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent comparison of this recession and bad recessions of the past. (Hint: no where close to the Great Depression).

Responding to Presidential strong-arm tactics, the Senate Democrats passed the Economic Destruction Plan with the help of three defecting Republicans. Seeking to pressure the Senate, Obama attempted to make his case with the American people on the eve of the Senate vote. Breaking with long-standing protocol, the President read his statements from a teleprompter. When he took questions, his responses often took 13+ minutes each as he rambled on, obfuscating and dodging the core queries. These efforts, however, may be failing as people and elected officials begin to balk at the details of the plan.

In so doing, Obama remained consistent with his rhetoric: “We must pass the stimulus bill immediately to avert an otherwise unpreventable catastrophe. This is so urgent, we can’t take time to understand the bill, to debate the bill, or even question the bill. Trust me we must do this and do it now. So, pass that bill and get it to my desk immediately.”

The Senate has complied and is now conferencing with the House to draft a version that both can agree on. While it may be too late to protect the country from the damage of this economic destruction bill, the passage has been delayed long enough that some critical analysis is beginning to surface, even in the dominant media.

How Bad is this Recession?
Of all sources, the New York Times ran an article on Sunday stating this recession is not that bad. The article quotes Robert Gordon - a Northwestern University professor and one of the seven economists who make up an economic committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines if and when we are in an actual recession. It is to these elite seven that the country turns for assessments of the national economic climate. Here are Gordon’s key points.

• We are in a recession
• The recession likely started in August or September 2008
• It is hard to determine how long or how deep this recession will extend
• This recession will likely be worse than the recessions of 2001 & 1990-91
• This recession may not be as bad as the recession of the early 1980’s

Hmm… So it’s not sounding like the worst recession since the Great Depression. If we survived the recession of the early 1980’s without an unfathomable mountain of government spending, how necessary is such spending now?

But Obama Said…
During Monday’s national address, Obama said that he had spoken with many economists — both liberal and conservative, both Republican and Democrat — and that there was “no disagreement.” “Economists from across the political spectrum agree” on the need for massive government spending to stimulate the economy now to save the country from certain economic peril. (Just one of Obama’s many whoppers that night.) 

Maybe the President is simply too busy to read the newspaper or maybe he simply didn’t speak with enough economists. What is clear is that he failed to recognize that the Cato Institute placed an ad in major newspapers across the United States, which was signed by hundreds of economists, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars. Here is what the nation’s leading economists are saying with a unified voice:

• We do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.
• Government spending did not save us from the Great Depression.
• Government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990’s.
• It is blind hope and not experience that leads one to believe government spending will help this time.
• To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

To better understand what these economists think, please see a very readable interview with Mike Munger, a Duke University economist as published by the Pope Center.

Why the Hurry? Can’t We Just Talk About It?
Perhaps the biggest, and increasingly obvious, reason is that the economic destruction bill is as much (or more) about imposing a socialist system on America as it is about government spending. Buried in this unfathomable mountain of spending are some of the greatest leaps towards socialism in the history of our republic. If the socialists in Congress and the White House can sneak this bill through under the guise of an economic emergency, thereby preventing serious consideration and debate, they will have pulled off an amazing political coup.

Lest you think these are the rantings of a right-wing nut, take a moment to read these comments from New York City’s former mayor Ed Koch, himself a lifelong liberal Democrat.

“While I support the ultimate [socialist] goals of the new Democratic congressional majority for significant changes in our society, I do not want those changes imposed through stealth. I want them debated and voted on by a Congress able to sort out the good from the bad in shaping legislation. That is not what is happening now. According to Pear’s New York Times article,
‘Democrats said the current economic crisis did not allow time for public hearings on the legislation.’ For me, this is a form of tyranny and is not acceptable. The ends here do not justify the means. There is no need or excuse for stealth.”

What Kind of Stealth Provisions
Unfortunately, the list is really, really long. Here is a very small sampling, but by researching online, even for just a few minutes, you will find these and countless other stealth provisions.

• Anti-religious measures, preventing stimulus funds to be used if a school allows religious activities in a building.
• Massive increases in government health coverage.
• Government power to monitor how a doctor is treating his patients and the ability to dictate which treatments may be used.
• Rationing of health care to those the government deems most deserving.
• Massive support and funding of unions and socio-economically preferred citizens.
• Doubling of the budget for the Department of Education, greatly expanding their power over states and communities.
• Sponsorship of radical environmental efforts.
• Nationalization of businesses and industries (also part of the broader “rescue” efforts).
• Support of radical “community activist” groups.

Do the Liberals Realize What they are Doing?
Probably not all of them. Our citizenry is horrendously ignorant of economic principles. The same is probably doubly true of our sitting Congress. Your average, run-of-the-mill liberal/progressive is probably blissfully ignorant of what is happening and the likely consequences. These are still basking in the elevation of their anointed one. But, some are clearly catching on. Even so, the socialists in the government are clearly aware and are aggressively pressing forward.

The State of New Hampshire (no conservative bastion there) has been woken from its slumber and just passed a defiant joint resolution warning the federal government, in no uncertain terms, to back off and stay within the bounds the Constitution has firmly planted around it. They see this federal power grab for what it is and are taking aggressive action. The legislature has directed a copy of this resolution be sent to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature. This is a call to action and a hissing threat of “do not tread on me” that we should all embrace and champion.