Economic growth doesn't begin with the middle class

Obama is fond of saying that national economic wellness is the result of a thriving middle class. He points to consumer consumption as the driver.

A healthy middle class is a symptom of a healthy economy, not its driver. Its driver is a healthy environment for private business: small or large, mature or start-up. Young entrepreneurs wish to introduce new products or services, and work long into the night to achieve their goals. They likely are ruthless as they pursue their dreams.

Corporate managers of established companies' desire is to create or maintain a company that satisfies customers and stockholders. It prices its products or services at what the market will bear, and makes a profit. In so doing, they create jobs, and in the last 150 years, those jobs have created a middle class.

But we are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The wellspring of our great good fortune, lately so anemic, is the success of private enterprise.

We regulate, we create obstacles, we tax, we vilify, we demonize business heroes. And, unwittingly, we seal our own fate, without understanding why.

I read in a recent unemployment report that 500,000 private sector jobs were lost recently, whereas public sector employment grew by the same amount - 500,000 new workers. Government hiring has mushroomed during the last few few years.

But Obama insists that the private sector is fine. It's not. It's troubled, and we won't find a way out of this miasma until we recognize that private enterprise is the driver of prosperity for all who choose to earn a living.

Corporations are people, too.

My son Matthew sent me an email this morning that featured a brief comment from a former coworker at a mortgage banking company, who was pleased to see that Mitt Romney acquitted himself so well in the debate last night.

It reminded me of a brief conversation I had with my wife this morning about how, after working for a business for a while, you begin to absorb its values, including the way a business often views the world.

It was good to see a bona fide businessman onstage last night. And Mitt Romney reminded me that the too-often-conventional meme that businesses include people who are ravenous, ambitious, earth-destroying vultures is dangerously, hurtfully simplistic, and often untrue.

Because I was and am part of one of those businesses, and am proud to be so. It really was cool to see Romney up there last night. At times, he reminded me of highly-effective CEO's in business, men and women who lead large organizations of diverse people, who make a payroll each week, who create, develop and merchandise products which change our world for the better We are fortunate that such an effective and oft- proven leader may just be our next president.

Oh what a night

A few minutes after the Presidential debate began last night, I thought, "Romney landed a punch." And things, generally, continued to go his way over the course of 90 minutes. A little bored, I began to look at the tweets of Fox's Greg Gutfeld, and they got me laughing pretty hard. I began reading them to my wife.

This race isn't over. Far from it. But I've witnessed a few conservative victories over the last couple years, from the 2010 shellacking, to Scott Brown and Scott Walker, and last night's debate. There is reason to hope.

The best moment last night? When Romney referred to the words in the Declaration of Independence behind him. It was stirring to hear him refer to our God-given rights to life and liberty, particularly to religious freedom rights so recently trampled by O and Sebelius.

Why the outcome? Jim Lehrer did it. Obama wasn't prepared. Romney lied. O had an off night. Progressives missed the point, which is that their guy is tired, bereft of ideas and energy. O's sorry record, his lack of leadership, and the paucity of good ideas among progressive folk, absent the the ever-present media filter, told the tale of the tape.

In 2008, O was evanescent - no record other than a resume that was super-thin for him who would become the leader of the free world. The electorate was tired of war, tired of Bush, tired of economic crises, and many rolled the dice on one who promised "hope and change."

Last night, Charles Krauthammer said that Romney won the debate by two touchdowns. I thought it was apt. It ain't over, but the playoffs have at last begun.

National media not doing its job

I am each day disappointed, flummoxed and frustrated by the Obama administration, and the way that most of the national media portrays it is, well, disappointing. So the ongoing nonsense in Washington is of a piece with how and what is being reported. I'd like to think that the nonsense couldn't otherwise exist, absent the compliant media professionals who owe us better.

But maybe I'm biased. I don't pay attention to the mainstream media much anymore, and maybe the content that I do see, read or hear is itself biased.

But the news coverage of the assassinations in Libya, followed by official fudging and - dare I say? - cover-up by government officials has been extraordinary and disheartening to witness, as a journalist and as an American.

Our ambassador to Libya, by all accounts a fine man who worked very hard for the Libyan people, and three of our citizens were killed, in a conscious act of terror.

And why? Could this have been provoked by an Obama foreign policy that acts as if his personal charm, driven by his implacable narcissism, might have failed miserably?

No, the video did it.

I don't know which was worse: the analysis of what happened, which parroted the silly pronouncements by the White House, or the non-reporting that followed. And that I lay at the door of the national media.

A little Mark Steyn to get your motor runnin'

A couple paragraphs from "The President of the Future" (bolded italics mine):

"Two weeks ago in this space, I wrote that, in striking contrast to the official line, the Benghazi slaughter was not a spontaneous movie review that got a little out of hand but a catastrophic security breach and humiliating fiasco for the United States. Even more extraordinary, on September 14, fewer than two-dozen inbred, illiterate goatherds pulled off the biggest single destruction of U.S. airpower since the Tet Offensive in 1968, breaking into Camp Bastion (an unfortunate choice of name) in Afghanistan, killing Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Raible, and blowing up a squadron’s worth of Harriers. And, even though it was the third international humiliation for the United States in as many days, it didn’t even make the papers. Because the court eunuchs at the media are too busy drooling over Obama’s appearance as what he calls “eye candy” on the couch between Barbara and Whoopi."

"Eye candy is in the eye of the beholder. And to the baying mob from Tunis to Jakarta those dead Americans and al-Qaeda flags over U.S. embassies and an entire USMC air squadron reduced to charred ruins are a veritable Willie Wonka production line of eye candy. To the president, they’re just “bumps in the road” to the sunlit uplands of “the future.” Forward! Obama has lived on “the promise of the future” all his life — Most Promising Columbia Grad of 1983, Most Promising Community Organizer of 1988, Most Promising Fake Memoirist of 1995, Most Promising Presidential Candidate of 2008 . . . The rest of us, alas, have to live in the present that he has made, which is noticeably short of promise. The Chinese Politburo get it, Czar Putin in the Kremlin gets it, and even the nutters doing the “Death to the Great Satan!” dance on the streets of Cairo and Lahore get it. On November 6, we will find out whether the American people do."

Sometimes internal domestic politics seems like a game, amusing but the consequences aren't immediately clear. Beyond the United States' borders, however, our world is a dangerous place. O has handled the aftermath, and is accountable for its death and destruction, in a hamhanded, disappointing, stunningly inept manner. We deserve better, especially those who perished.

Dissecting a decision

I made up much of my mind about this November's election a while back, but I realized after thinking a bit about why I made the choice, that the stage was set for me over 30 years ago. After voting for Jimmy Carter in 1976, I realized two or three years later that I'd made an awful mistake. Good man, terrible leader.

I've voted for the Republican presidential candidate ever since, beginning with Reagan. At times over the years, I wasn't always enthusiastic with my choice, but I saw it as the best option available at the time. I figure that, if the last time the New York Times newspaper would endorse a Republican candidate for president was over 50 years ago, then I'm a piker by comparison.

This year, I searched for the basis of my conclusions after examining my long-term choices, and applied it to the candidates. So much political argument stems from basic premises, and I think it's important to examine them, instead of caterwauling about something in today's news.

I concluded my political choices were typically based on three things, in priority order, but all three criteria play in important role in my political decision-making:

1. Political philosophy: I've had an affinity for fiscal and political conservatism since high school, when a co-worker at the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper suggested I read "The Fountainhead," Ayn Rand's novel about individualism. Since then, I've leaned in that direction more and more as time passes, and I've read a bit more since then as well. With respect to ideas and hopefully to behavior, I'm a sucker for small government and self-reliance.
2. Morality and trustworthiness: Is the candidate a good person? Is he or she courageous? Can I trust what he or she says regarding their values and how they will govern? Do they behave reasonably well in their personal lives? Are they kind? Can they sometimes make a decision, after having accounted for their values, that contradicts those values because it's the right thing to do, albeit politically unpopular or politically unwise?
3. Leadership: Is the candidate a good leader? Does he or she have the courage and the strong personal convictions to stand up to tyranny and the daily pressure of politics?

It's fun to articulate why you think in a certain way. First comes the thinking, the inquiry, followed by testing your premises, followed by articulation. Quite a process.

Our president is a poser

O made a remark the other day about not being born with a "silver spoon" in his mouth, for a twofold benefit: 1) establish a connection with others in his audience who weren't born into wealth, who had worked for a living, and 2) to distance himself and his audience from Mitt Romney, who many believe was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The family into which Romney was born was indubitably wealthy. His dad was George Romney, highly successful auto industry businessman and Michigan's governor. But I read recently in an Ann Coulter column that Mitt gave away the wealth he had inherited, and the fabulous wealth he has today - he earned it. He worked for it.

Coulter points to O's young adult years as a counterpoint to Romney. She points out that O moved from Occidental College to Harvard University, when O has said that much of his time at Occidental was spent smoking marijuana, and points to affirmative action as being the silver spoon that aided O's career.

Sounds credible. But it's just one more attempt by O and his campaign strategists to buffalo everyone who's prepared to be buffaloed, particularly those who don't pay sufficient attention to public issues, and will blithely return to the fold in November, still hopeful for hope and change.

The other day, I heard for the first time O referred to as an empty suit, a politician with undeniable charisma, grace and speaking skills, with a fairness and equality agenda that is the hallmark of the community organizer, achieved byusing other people's money.

O is an empty suit into which David Axelrod, admittedly a very smart man, poured an image. And, without much additional information about candidate Obama to support an informed decision, and a compliant media to further reinforce the fanciful tale, Axelrod exploited our preoccupation with rock stars to elect one as our president.

Listen, I remember the disillusion with eight years of Republican rule, and the economic mess that we were in before O stepped into the White House. Hope and change is a powerful mantra when things were as bad as they still are.

My point: O is not the answer. He has become instead a very large part of the problem, and it will get much, much worse if he wins re-election. So go with the guy who gave away his inherited wealth, who not only managed but grew successful businesses.

O reminds me more each day of the last year or two of Jimmy Carter's presidency. Nothing seemed to go right. Carter was a big champion for human rights in countries that don't recognize such things, but it didn't net us much. Other countries need to respect us, and many of them need to fear us.

With O, you get the $820,000 GSA party in Las Vegas, replete with stunning video. With O, you get the spectacle of Secret Service agents whoring around Cartagena. Who's in charge?   Not O, that's for sure.

Let's give the job to someone who appears to be a good person, who loves this country and the ideals on which it was founded, with a proven track record of being able to manage large operations, like our fine nation.

The view from Belleville Lake - the rich are different

Much ado lately about wealthy folk in our land, and whether they deserve all that money. And part of the answer to that, goes to 1) how they earned it, and 2) whether others have a claim on it, because - why? - I guess because they don't have as much money. And the word used to justify it is fairness, or fair share - that floats off O's lips like honey during his speeches recently.

O has lately been making much of the Buffett rule, the notion that a secretary of a wealthy man like Warren Buffett should not pay more in taxes. In fact, she probably does not, although neither Buffett nor his secretary have released their tax returns, to my knowledge. That wouldn't fit the narrative. 


Now, Buffett's effective tax rate may be less than hers, because of laws we consciously have put in place to encourage investment. Capital gains taxes, which comprise a considerable share of Warren Buffett's annual income, are taxes on increases in the value of investments. It is in fact money that as ordinary income has already been taxed, so in paying capital gains taxes Buffett is paying taxes on the income twice, albeit at a lower rate the second time. 


We put these laws in place for reasons, and then politicians like O use use them as targets when it is politically advantageous. It is the worst sort of pandering, because it assumes that you, John or Judy Q. Public, is ill-informed and gullible. That you don't pay attention. That even if you did, you wouldn't understand complicated issues like taxes or subsidies for oil exploration.

Understand this: the top 10 percent of earners pay 70 percent of the taxes in this country. O is not looking for fair; O is instead looking for equality of outcome, though he dare not say it, particularly in an election year - particularly when less than half the populace thinks he's doing a good job.

Equality of outcome allows government to re-position the contestants after the race has begun. Your imagination, drive and hard work go for nought, in the name of - again, that word - fairness.

So much of the appeal of this proposal, and doubtless more to follow, depends on how you view the rich. If you view them as having arrived at their station in life through dumb luck, then maybe you wouldn't be opposed to taking more of their money. "It is easier for a wealthy man to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is to enter the Kingdom of Heaven," is how your reasoning might go. Or the Marxist saw: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

I view it differently, and some of it derives from pontoon boat rides on Belleville Lake. I've been lucky enough over the years to have had several friends who live on the lake, and once in a while during the summer we get together for a leisurely, sun- and water-filled ride around the lake, accompanied by delicious snacks and cold drinks.

As we ride, we look at the lakefront homes on the shore, many of them 20 or 30 feet above us.

The houses are large and handsome, and I've wished more than once that I had a home on the lake. In fact, one of my favorite "the one that got away stories" is the lakefront home on East Huron River Drive that I let get away.

During our sojourn, we sometimes talk about the families who live in the homes. Invariably what they do for a living comes up in the conversation, and I've never once heard, "Oh, he's fabulously wealthy, and it's all inherited. He himself is an indolent, self-serving drunken scalawag with no redeeming values."

No, what I hear is that "He's a dentist." "She owns a store in town." "He's a successful real estate agent." "He's general manager of a company. "She's a chief engineer at Ford." And so on. The talk is about people who are hard-working, who get up every day at the crack of dawn, or work well into the evening, on holidays - whatever it takes to be successful. You can rest assured they've earned their money. And good for them.


And the people with whom I ride in the boat? Same good story.

But O would confiscate a "fair" share of their earnings, and hand it to someone. People who are smart enough to have earned this money are also smart enough to shield it from the government, using the government's own rules, or to simply wind down their daily production in some manner, creating less wealth for all of us.

That, my friends, is what happens with confiscatory tax rates on the wealthy. The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world - 35 percent - but it's not enough. It has the third-highest capital gains tax rate in the world - before the implementation of the Buffett rule - and still it's not enough.

When is it enough? It is enough when you rise up and vote in November, deny O's underlying philosophy that the vision of our beautiful country has never worked, really, and that we must transform it into his vision. Yeah, I say - when pigs fly.

I stand with the unborn

Let’s talk about abortion. I know it’s a difficult subject, for a myriad of reasons. But the stakes are so high, it seems to me, that not talking about it would be irresponsible and, worse yet, a conscious act of high moral turpitude. If we are to get props from the world and from ourselves for being responsible adults, we are called upon to work out these issues in a responsible manner.

I’ll cut to the chase: I’ve decided to actively support an end to the practice of abortion in this country. And here are my thoughts on the issue, and the reasons, the basic premises for my conclusions:

It’s quite a serious issue, not only because of the consequences on the unborn child and its parents, particularly the mother, but it partly defines who we are as a civilization. Does the 1973 decision in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, and the 50 millions of abortions that have ensued, mark us as civilized?

Now, with respect to what my wife and I concluded in our younger days, we’ve always been clear with each other: we have the baby. We could no sooner prematurely end the life of an unborn child than we could abuse a household pet. 

But I’ve struggled with the politics of the issue for years. In my 20’s and 30’s, I was OK with a woman’s right to choose – her body and all that, and the specter of being further victimized by rape or incest, or something she didn’t consciously impose on herself.

Now, I knew that most abortions were not to fix those problems. And the range of reasons for having to consider an abortion is varied. The common denominator, I guess, is that the couple (or at least the mother newly with child) feels trapped, and that the resulting quality of their lives, the trajectory of their very futures has been jeopardized.

So a decision is called for. There is no abdicating choice in this. You are cornered.

I have thought about this issue for 40 years. And yet the single thing to prompt me to conclude my thoughts, to write and to act on it was the public flap early in February, when the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer at first made, and then reversed a decision to stop donating about a half-million dollars each year to Planned Parenthood, who regularly provides advice of the highest import to women, many of them good and decent and generally responsible people, who must feel horribly cornered by an unplanned pregnancy. That advice very often results in the death of an unborn child, and there’s a fee involved. There’s profit involved.

It was emotionally difficult and sobering to see much of the media and Facebook friends exult in a decision that would result in more deaths of unborn children. Where’s the glory in that? Some victory. Adults 1, unborn 0.

I thought, do you understand what you’re celebrating? 

Here are my first principles, my premises, as it were. Ayn Rand often warned thoughtful people to check their premises, and it’s great advice:

·         Life begins at conception

·         To abort an unborn infant is to kill an innocent soul. A choice should not be available to do such a thing.

·         It is morally wrong, and the best of our morality, of our goodness, of our ideals, should find its way into law.

·         Adults, and here I’m also referring to those who haven’t yet reached moral maturity but still want the benefits,  the sizzle and the steak, as it were - must be responsible and face consequences.

·         If you don’t want the child, give it up for adoption. Let that child live; make another set of parents happy with the unfolding miracle you have conceived.

I know there are probably countless negative, highly personal consequences to legislating an end to legal abortion, or at least to imposing very narrow limits. But I can no longer kid myself about this: I stand first with the unborn. The personal consequences, the social consequences are secondary. The life of the unborn is the first principle, and with it follows the second: adults must be responsible, and face the consequences if they’re not.

Soon, possibly sometime during this Easter season, I will become personally involved in the struggle to end the option of abortion.

Jerry LaVaute is a special writer for Heritage Media. Follow his blogs “Pa’s Blog” and "The eye of the storm" at  http://jlavaute.blogspot.com. He can be reached at glavaute@gmail.com or call 734-740-0062. 

Morning hits April 12, 2012

From Rush Limbaugh, re the Buffett Rule:


"The Buffett Rule, they've run the numbers, they've crunched the numbers. The Buffett Rule is going to generate $5 billion. And when that figure got out earlier this week, Obama and the Democrats switched their tune. They said, "Well, the point of Buffett Rule is not to raise revenue and reduce the deficit. The point of the Buffett Rule is 'fairness' and make sure rich people pay their fair share." Don't forget the AMT is the first Buffett Rule, the first millionaires tax. This is purely a campaign device of class envy, or class warfare. But it's not gonna affect Buffett or Gates or anybody else who does not have earned income as opposed to investment income.


And Buffett, by the way, owes close to a billion dollars in back taxes anyway, and he's fighting it. He's fighting it! So this is a tax increase named after a guy fighting the IRS over his tax bill."


From the National Review, re the Buffett Rule:


If the Democrats wish to revoke the tax benefits given to long-term investments — say, on Americans’ retirement accounts — then let them do so openly, in the light of day, rather than furtively, based on a platform of what we might charitably call myths, if not outright lies. That reducing Americans’ ability to invest and save for their own futures would leave them more dependent upon Social Security, Medicare, and the like surely is not lost on Democrats, who profit from the increasing servility of the electorate. Americans should not be distracted by the Democrats’ class-warfare sleight-of-hand from the fact that the Democrats here are contemplating a purely punitive measure that will add yet another level of complexity to the tax code and create a new arterial blockage constricting the flow of the lifeblood of our economy.


From The Wall Street Journal, in an interesting piece about the conservative message and how it embodies compassion:

"To me, the principle of subsidiarity . . . meaning government closest to the people governs best . . . where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.

"Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto a life of independence."

Related Video

Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Henninger on the Obama campaign's war of rhetorical destruction.

Subsidiarity—an awful but important word—attempts to discover where the limits lie in the demands a state can make on its people. Identifying that limit was at the center of the Supreme Court's mandate arguments.

Quick hits April 11, 2012

From Thomas Sowell, in the National Review Online:


"In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices — leading to worsening behavior by the recipients."


A little harsh, until you recall the recent riots in several cities in Europe when government largesse was pared back, because it was no longer affordable.


From the Wall Street Journal:

"The Buffett rule is really nothing more than a sneaky way for Mr. Obama to justify doubling the capital gains and dividend tax rate to 30% from 15% today. That's the real spread-the-wealth target. The problem is that this is a tax on capital that is needed for firms to grow and hire more workers. Mr. Obama says he wants an investment-led recovery, not one led by consumption, but how will investment be spurred by doubling the tax on it?

The only investment and hiring the Buffett rule is likely to spur will be outside the United States—in China, Germany, India, and other competitors with much more investment-friendly tax regimes. The Buffett rule would give the U.S. the fourth highest capital gains rate among OECD nations, according to a new study by Ernst & Young, to go along with what is now the highest corporate tax rate (a little under 40% for the combined federal and average state rate). That's what happens when politicians pursue fairness over growth."

The follow-on clause to the fairness, redistribute-the-wealth argument that's implied but never actually said is: And when we take it from the rich, "We will give it to others. Why? Because we think so, that's why."

And from NJ Governor Chris Christie, from NJ.com:

"Christie spent most of his 30-minute speech on New Jersey budget issues, but brought up national policy toward the end. He said it is the least optimistic period he’s ever seen for the nation.

"It’s because government’s now telling them, stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you. We’re turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally," Christie told Bush, Henry Kissinger and an assortment of Republican governors in a theater at the New York Historical Society.

"When the American people no longer believe that this is a place where only their willingness to work hard and to act with honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life, then we’ll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check," Christie said."

Situational Ethics

Author's note: the following is excerpted from a column that I wrote in 2006, when I worked for Ford Motor Company. In it, I talk about ethical issues, and how our view is at times affected by our personal circumstances:

When I lived in the City of Belleville, in the house on the northeast corner of West Columbia and Edison, across from St. Anthony Church, my neighbor was a forthright, self-reliant individualist who drove a compact Nissan pickup truck.

 In those days, probably 20 years ago at this point, to drive a Japanese import in the Midwest was unusual, and to brag about it was unheard of.

 “Real Americans Buy What They Want” was what the bumper sticker, placed on the rear window of the pickup, read.  He was unhappy with the quality of domestic vehicles, and wasn’t afraid to say it.

 As an employee of a company which designs and manufactures domestic vehicles, I wrestled with his attitude. He was knowledgeable about cars, that’s for sure, and he had every right to his opinion, and to the freedom he claimed to buy an alternative.

 I supported that back then, and was proud to live in a country that permitted him to say and to do that. I believed in the First Amendment.

 But I must admit that I secretly rejoiced when the pickup began to rust. It had a seam in the middle of the quarter panel sheet metal, and the unsightly spots and blemishes of rust that appeared and festered gave me furtive delight – God knew, and God was on my side.

 Lately, however, I’m beginning to wonder if my attitude is changing, or has changed altogether, toward Americans who buy and drive vehicles designed and made by manufacturers whose primary operations and headquarters are offshore. I’ve become, it seems, less tolerant, and that bothers me.

 In a larger context, what really bothers me is whether I’m guilty of situational ethics, where my views toward right and wrong are based on my particular status in life. Or can I still claim the moral high ground on ethical issues?

 As a Philosophy major in college, the issue is important to me. Am I philosophically consistent?

 When I was in college, mind growing like a mushroom, I read a book titled “The Evolution of Liberalism,” by Harry Girvetz. I’ve long been a sucker for Political Philosophy, and was captivated by his defense of modern liberalism, where the state takes an active role in righting social wrongs.

 I shared his ideas with my mother, who pronounced it “rubbish.” Interestingly, it was the same word GM used to describe New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s controversial statement that, the sooner that Toyota takes over GM, the better off we’ll all be.

  At that point in my mother’s life, in her 40’s, she embraced the spirit of rugged individualism that is the hallmark of modern conservatism, and dismissed Girvetz’s, and my, ideas.

 Interestingly, however, as decades passed, each of us wound up embracing the polar opposite of the political philosophies we supported when I was in college.

 She became a Democrat, and hated George W. Bush to the point where, when he appeared on television, she would avert her eyes – she wouldn’t look at the man. And I voted for him – twice.

 She thought O.J. Simpson was innocent. When he was acquitted of the criminal charges against him, I had to write a note to her acknowledging I was wrong. Before she died almost four years ago, she made a point of returning it to me, so I would forever be reminded that she was right. I still have the note.

 I wondered at this transformation in her, and concluded it was because she had moved past the stage of life where you just want the government to get out of your way, manifested most clearly in an antipathy toward taxes.

 Now, she was dependent on government largesse, receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits. She relied on tax receipts from all of us to make her life more comfortable. She felt she was safer with Al Gore or John Kerry as President.

 Will my attitudes evolve in the same way? Will I slowly become, God forbid, a Democrat, who believes in a powerful state to take care of its citizens, as if we were children?

 Only time will tell. I hope I can remain on the moral high ground of ethical consistency that continues to value personal freedom at the expense of dependence on a powerful state.

 But these attitude changes have a life of their own, it seems, and when you have a personal stake in the potential outcome, the instinct for self-preservation sometimes trumps the forum of lofty ideas.

An open letter to Mitt Romney

OK, you've captured the nomination as the Republican candidate for president, for all practical purposes. For surprisingly many people including Republicans, you didn't appear to be the first choice. Either those who sat out the race, like Christie, Daniels, Huckabee, Rubio; or those who ran and fell by the way , like Pawlenty, Perry, Bachmann, didn't survive. And now it's you.

Time to get to work, Mitt. You cannot blow this. This is too important an election. As O says, there will be a clear choice: more government, more free stuff, stagnant growth, wealth transfers, whistling past the graveyard on serious financial issues, or: a slowing of government growth, a gradual return of decision-making that affects our daily lives to elected officials, and not to unaccountable bureaucrats who promulgate the real rules of Obamacare, and economic growth spawned by freeing entrepreneurs to create, motivated at least partly by their unquenchable desire to make lots of money. 


Bring an end to class warfare, to the divisiveness that O now sows on a daily basis. He has become a divider, not a uniter, and he will tear this country apart to get re-elected. There's nothing wrong with wealth. 


Return responsibility for social welfare issues to the states. Local solutions for local problems. Someone has to be sensitive to the ebb and flow of revenue and cost, of limits. Impose serious penalties for failing to act responsibly as elected legislators, like not passing a budget in over 1,000 days. Promote responsible competition in education. Limit collective bargaining by public employee unions. 


Unlike private enterprises that are unionized, like the one I admittedly and gratefully benefited from for three decades, and continue to benefit from, there is no competition in government to act as a check to the raison d'etre of a union: to improve benefits for its members. Absent the auto bailouts, an issue with which I still struggle, the price for not being competitive on cost and quality is decline and perhaps extinction. Everybody associated with the private enterprise gets the message: clean up your act, rewrite those labor contracts, control your costs.


But that dynamic is missing in public enterprises like schools and governments. A relationship operates between public employees, unions and politicians wherein everyone wins except taxpayers. We have begun to see the limits of this habit, and, sadly, the taxpayers' willingness to pay more seems to have reached a limit. 


Mitt, get to work on how you wrest the political initiative from the commander-in-chief. He is a smart man, surrounded by smart people. But he and they are wrong, and especially wrong for our country. Spend two hours each day with your staff preparing for the day's salvo, and use generous dollops of pointed humor. Go on the attack early and often. Newt Gingrich might not be electable, but his eloquence and his commitment help to provide broad direction on the correct strategy to defeat Obama in November.

O cannot run on his record. Don't fall for the distractions that will be thrown into your path each day by O's team. Understand just how clever, unprincipled and ambitious campaign adviser David Axelrod is.

Pound O on national security, his shameful record on lack of U.S. support for Israel, his obeisance to dictators, his appointments during congressional recesses in clear violation of the law. Obama's real agenda for a second term can only be imagined, but given another four-year opportunity for him to make sweeping and possibly irreversible changes that will create an America of which his wife Michelle can at last be proud, it will bankrupt us, will divide us as a nation, and will threaten our very security as a freedom-loving beacon to the rest of the world.

America is exceptional, and it should continue that way, not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the world. Yes, we've got problems; we'll work them out, in a context of discussion, disagreement and occasionally bitter rancor, but we will work them out as Americans, not as supplicants of an increasingly imperial federal government.

Time to get to work, Mitt. Godspeed.

The launch of a new blog

I've long been interested in philosophy, particularly political philosophy, since late in high school. I was introduced to Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" by a colleague at the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper, and it changed my way of thinking about many things.

Halfway through college in the 1970's, I became interested in current national events. This was the time of Watergate, and my heroes were U.S. Senators Sam Ervin and Howard Baker. Once each week, I would walk to the store in Auburn, NY at my girlfriend's (now wife) apartment, get the brand-new copy of Newsweek magazine that had just arrived, and would return and consume it, quickly and excitedly.

I've decided to focus my current blog, "Pa's Blog," on just about everything except politics, but particularly family, and to publish ruminations about current events and history in this new blog, "The eye of the storm."

You get more flies with honey than with vinegar, it's said, so I will mightily endeavor to avoid hyperbole, blind single-mindedness and bitterness. We need solutions, not rancor. But the slippery slope which we're currently stumbling down is genuinely frightening to me, and my emotion, anger, joy, sadness, the occasional victory - will be very evident at times.

But I'd much rather engage your thinking, and your views, so we can get to the bottom of this, together. The road, however, may be a bit rocky at times. Welcome aboard.