Smart Conservatism: The Economy (Part I)

I have spent enough time blasting talk radio and Fox News, so I want to switch gears and focus on what might a credible conservative movement look like in terms of policy. These first couple of posts will deal with the economy.

The unemployment rate just recently fell to 8.6%, but this largely reflects people dropping out of the labor market. Approximately 350,000 fewer Americans sent resumes out than in months before. There are millions of Americans who are out of work and their government has largely failed them. The Republican Party ought to provide a realistic alternative to the Obama administration's mostly unsuccessful policies.

First, we need to understand what is preventing a full economic recovery. The short answer is an unprecedented collapse in demand. Conservatives are right to worry about the effects that regulations can have on job creation, but we need to have a more precise understanding of what is ailing the economy. I can think of 7 reasons why regulations are not the chief problem.

1. The average hour work week has remained the same. If employers were concerned about meeting demand but were prevented from hiring new employees because of regulations, then we would see them ramping up the hours of the workers that they already have. This has not happened. There are currently 5.6 million workers who have part-time work but are looking for a full time job.

2. Comparing the current recovery to past recoveries shows that business investment as a percentage of the GDP has increased more now than in the past two recoveries. If businesses were not hiring due to overbearing regulations, we would see that reflected in their investment.

3. Small business surveys conducted by the National Federation of Indepedent Businesses reveal that 29.6% of business owners cite poor sales as their chief problem as opposed to 13.9% who cite regulations. If that survey is not enough, you can check out other surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Small Business Majority, the Wall Street Journal, and McClatchy newspapers that all show the same thing (links here).

4. American exports are at a record high. This suggests that American businesses can sell their products when they have an available pool of customers. The problem with exports is that it is not enough to bolster the recovery. The Euro Zone receives 16% of American exports and one could logically conclude that this number is going to decrease in the coming years. 

5. In industries where regulations have increased, the unemployment rate in those sectors has been below the national average.

6. Surveys of business and academic economists reveal that the vast majority believe that the current regulatory environment is good for American business. A majority of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal in July also said that lack of demand, not uncertainty, was the chief cause of a weak recovery.

7. Obama has instigated fewer new regulations in the first 33 months of his administration than President Bush did in his first 33 months, although Obama's regulations have been more costly. One could argue that given the economic circumstances, President Obama should have enacted fewer regulations, but it simply is not true to suggest that his administration is killing the economy because of excessive regulations.

Again, our problem is a collapse in demand, not too many regulations. The goal of the conservative movement should be to address this problem without creating vast lands of new government and without driving our national debt to out of control reaches.

How to do that?

More to come...

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

New Hampshire: Foster's Daily Democrat/Sunday Citizen endorses Mitt Romney

H/T Doug

While making our endorsement in the New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary, Foster's Sunday Citizen is not going to spend endless words addressing much of the myth and mythology which has been used to attack Mitt Romney, who we believe should be the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

Our recommendation comes from taking much of what has been said and written in news coverage and slanted blogs with a grain of salt. Instead, we have chosen to read what former Gov. Romney has written. We have sat across the table from him, looked him in the eye and asked some pointed questions. As a result, we like what we see in, and hear from, candidate Romney — thus our endorsement.

Our trust and belief in the governor comes from years of knowing him. Since his last run for the Oval Office, Gov. Romney has grown and matured, as have his positions on the issues and his optimistic view of our country's future prospects.

Read the rest of the endorsement HERE.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Mike Huckabee's Presidential Forum (FULL VIDEO 12-03-11)

Mike Huckabee's Presidential Forum (FULL VIDEO 12-03-11)

Full Video:



Broken down into segments:

IOWA: Sioux City Journal endorses Mitt Romney for President

The Sioux City Journal today endorsed Mitt Romney for president, saying he’s “best prepared through experience, skills and qualities to lead the country in these troubling times.”

The Journal also says: “If it’s a ‘family values’ candidate you want, Romney is a good and decent man of integrity who lives the values he espouses.”

[...]

By virtue of his bid for president in both 2008 and 2012, no candidate in this year’s Republican field has been vetted like Romney. If no skeleton has been discovered in his closet to this point, it’s likely there isn’t one.

Read the endorsement HERE.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Cartoon of the Day

complements of Time Entertainment

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

LIVE FEED TONIGHT: Mike Huckabee's Presidential Forum (December 3, 8PM EST)

UPDATE!!

If you missed the Forum, you can view the videos HERE. ENJOY!

*****************************

Fox News is hosting a candidates’ forum in its New York studios with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas on Dec. 3, at 8:00 PM EST. Panelists will pose questions individually to each candidate who agrees to appear.

Mitt Romney, Representative Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Gov. Rick Perry, and Representative Ron Paul — have agreed to attend.

Along with Mike Huckabee, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will interview the candidates:

The Future of the Conservative Movement Depends On Romney's Nomination

Mitt Romney represents the possibility of a renewed Republican Party while Newt Gingrich represents its end game.

Let me explain that.

As I talked about in my last post, politics is about coalition building. The Republican Party's current coalition will not last. America is becoming less white and more educated, while the GOP is becoming more white and less educated. If the modus operandi of the Republican Party remains the same, there will come a time in the near future when the GOP will take the swing out of the swing states. National Republicans who want to win rich delegate primaries like Texas will have to speak the kind of rhetoric that will insure that they won't win the same states in the general election. That rhetoric will only get more fiery as the Republican Party's base feels more besieged by the world that is changing around them. A talk radio fueled cultural movement is just not sustainable in America's every changing political environment.

But it is not just about politics.

Quite frankly, the Tea Party is just dead wrong on the major issues of the day. Let me give you a few examples.

1. We will probably need to raise some taxes (although very cautiously). Trying to balance a budget by cutting government spending in half during the worst economic crisis since the 1930s is both stupid and unrealistic.

2. Government spending, although a long term problem that needs serious attention, did not cause the financial crisis (it was a global collapse in demand). Major investments in infrastructure, education, and research would do more to put Americans back to work than fiscal austerity. Republicans need to worry about jobs now and the deficit later. Only with a fully functioning economy can we begin to deal with our gigantic deficit. The test of a true conservative is if they can cut government spending during times of robust economic growth. That kind of discipline shows real fiscal restraint, something that Mitt Romney exhibited in Massachusetts, but the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations did not.  

2. The welfare state is not going away. Republicans ought to concentrate their energies on both reforming it and managing it. Entitlement spending needs to be reduced but not completely cut (I support Ryan's plan with major caveats; I prefer Romney's plan). Rising health care costs are the biggest cause of our growing deficit and Republicans ought to participate in the health care debate, not use it as a political weapon.

3. Immigration cannot be solved by spending billions of dollars on a gigantic fence. Ask any border governor. Immigration reform will need to include some form of "amnesty."

4. The United States should not bomb Iran. The repercussions of such a policy would be devastating (I will have a post on this later). America needs a more robust Department of State. The Department of Defense will need to be reduced, although quite modestly.

5. If the Tea Party really cared about emulating the Founding Fathers then it would prize that virtue that was most prevalent in those days: compromise. Yet, today's conservative movement has convinced itself that Barack Obama is a radical socialist who is hellbent on destroying America as we know it and would succeed if he were but able to utter a sentence without the aid of his teleprompter. The sad reality is that even if/when their preferred candidate Newt Gingrich gets slaughtered in a general election, they still won't see the same thing that the rest of America sees. Instead, they will continue to buy the lies of talk radio and believe that the only course forward is to fight harder to take back the very country that was so egregiously stolen from them.

Thankfully, there may be one last rescue attempt out of the abyss. Mitt Romney. 

It is true that Mitt Romney has learned to adopt the language of the Tea Party, but Newt Gingrich is the Tea Party. That is why talk radio has never accepted Romney. They know that he has tried to win the Republican nomination without them and that he could very well win a general election despite them. And if he does, he is likely to shift the conservative coalition in a way that will leave some of the more strident talkers out in the cold. Romney represents an opportunity for the conservative movement to realign. That is why Erick Erickson believes that Romney would kill conservatism. He's right. Romney would kill Erickson's brand of conservatism, while charting a new path for responsible conservatives. In contrast, Gingrich would keep the band together for a few more happy years, until their angry and irrational rhetoric was drowned out by the cruel reality of irrelevance.

To borrow a phrase from Gingrich and apply it to the conservative movement: we are fundamentally at a crossroads. While I generally refrain from fear-creating allegorical junctures, I believe that the survival of a credible conservative movement is at stake in this election. America desperately needs an alternative to the unsuccessful Obama administration. It will not get that from a career lobbyist that was a reject from the 90s.

Mark my words. I will remain a conservative regardless of whether Romney wins or not. Whether I do so as a Republican does in some way hinge on his nomination.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

LIVE FEED: Herman Cain Announcement

UPDATE!!

If you missed our LIVE feed of Herman Cain's announcement to suspend his campaign, you can view the VIDEO BELOW. Just press the button under the photo. ENJOY!

PRESS BUTTON below:

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Newt really is the anti-Romney

Comparing and contrasting Newt and Mitt is a real eye-opener. The two men have taken very different paths in their personal and professional lives, and have wildly different personalities. Newt is a dreamer, Mitt a doer. Newt is reckless, Mitt is careful. Newt is famously undisciplined, Mitt is the epitome of self-discipline. Romney is a leader, Newt simply is not–according to those who worked most closely with him. Both men are intelligent, yet have chosen different ways to use their intelligence.

In education, Romney pursued business and law, while Newt chose modern European History. Romney earned his education quickly and entered the private sector, while Newt preferred academia.

Romney went on to a successful career in business, becoming wealthy helping businesses and creating jobs, while Newt made a career in government, becoming wealthy by exploiting his position of power and selling influence. Romney's skills were in high demand in the private sector, while Newt was removed from leadership in the House due to the chaos he created.

In matters of faith, Romney is a life-long member of his church and has a record of many years of service to it. Newt went from Lutheran to Baptist, to Catholic, with some speculation of political motive in making the conversions. I am not aware of service Newt may have given to his church.

In their personal lives, they could not be more different. Mitt married his high school sweetheart after 4 years of courtship, and remains happily married. Newt also married his high school sweetheart - his geometry teacher whom he began dating at age 16. He has admitted that there is some truth in the notion that he hates women. He has a turbulent marital history due to selfishness and uncontrolled sexual appetites. While Romney helped Ann through both MS and cancer, Newt divorced Jackie, who had cancer–saying she was ‘not pretty enough or young enough to be a president’s wife–and besides she has cancer’. Newt divorced Marrianne, who was also diagnosed with MS. At the time, he asked Marrianne if she would please tolerate the six year affair with Callista, and remain married to him. She refused. He married Callista in 2000.

In matters of character, the contrast is keen. Romney has no hint of scandal–personal or professional. Newt has rumors of sexual scandals–including the infamous oral sex in a car with his neighbor's wife, while his little daughter was near. Newt also has a history of ethics violations, shady book deals, sham fundraising practices, and inconsistencies about whether he was hired as an ‘historian’ or as a lobbyist.

In the presidential campaign, they have also chosen very different paths. Romney is serious, organized, hardworking and prepared, while Newt has been flying by the seat of his pants. He now finds himself in the running, but unprepared, due to a severe lack of preparation and organization. While Romney has been mostly humble about his long term frontrunner status, Newt proclaimed himself the nominee after less than two weeks at the top of the polls.

There are many other differences--too many to list here. But we easily know enough to determine who is more worthy of support. We should not divorce the way a man lives in his personal life, from his actions in public life. Character is revealed in both professional and personal decisions. Romney has a solid record of being true to his word, family, and stewardships. Newt does not. While both men have significant accomplishments, only one has the background, character, leadership and temperament we need. That person is Mitt Romney.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Fundamentally Speaking

I came across this amusing article today on Newt Gingrich's favorite word: Fundamentally.

By now, we've all become familiar with Newt Gingrich's habit of using a few choice adverbs to make the things he says sound just a bit more intelligent to his listeners. Profoundly. Deeply. Frankly. But none of them are as vital to the Gingrich lexicon as fundamentally (along with its cousin, the adjective fundamental). While this appears to be Gingrich's favorite word in the English language, you could also argue that he uses the word so often, and so reflexively, that it's become virtually meaningless to him. In a single 2008 address to the American Enterprise Institute, he used the words fundamentally or fundamental a total of eighteen times.

Newt Gingrich, you might say, is the world's most hard-core fundamentalist.

He then proceeds to share a list of 418 unique usages Gingrich has employed. Here are a few of the favorites:

"fundamental assault on the core values of the American Constitution and a fundamental assault on the core values of the Founding Fathers"

"fundamentally changed the mood of the Republican party and he fundamentally changed the story of 2008."

"fundamentally destroying jobs and fundamentally weakening our economic future"

"fundamentally different model, a fundamentally different culture and a fundamentally different approach"

"fundamentally dishonest and fundamentally dangerous"

"fundamentally misleading about the nature of reality and fundamentally misleading about the world"

"fundamentally off-base in very profound ways"

"fundamentally out of touch with the reality of the real world"

"fundamental, profound change”


"fundamentally profoundly ignorantly anti-American the current judicial model is"

"fundamentally, profoundly change Washington"

"fundamentally, profoundly wrong"

"fundamentally reform and overhaul the federal government — fundamentally — "

"fundamentally reform the government, they had to fundamentally change the rules so that people had more gasoline at a lower price"

"fundamental violation of the Constitution and a fundamental violation of the executive branch's power"

"fundamentally wrong and fundamentally against the American tradition"

"fundamentally wrong with how Washington works, and there's something fundamentally wrong with how the Congress is currently working"

Believe me, this list just scratched the surface. Read the whole thing, if you dare.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Gingrich Fills Out National Right To Life Committee Candidate Questionnaire

Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich submitted the following candidate questionnaire to the National Right to Life Committee on Monday, November 28.
Gingrich Fills Out National Right to Life Committee Candidate Questionnaire

Newt Gingrich Backed and touted Freddie Mac in 2007

H/T Paige

I received a tip a couple of nights ago about Gingrich and a 2007 interview posted on Freddie Mac's website in which he touted the vitues of Freddie Mac. The Wall Street Journal has picked it up however the website Verum Serum  was on top of this before the WSJ was.

The Wall street Journal reports:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich touted the virtues of Freddie Mac's business model in an interview published by the company in April 2007, remarks that contrast with the candidate's recent statements that he had warned the company of impending financial disaster.

The interview was featured on Freddie Mac's website for several months in 2007 when he was a paid consultant to the company and Freddie Mac was struggling to address mounting financial problems as the housing boom was turning to bust.

From Verum Serum:

I did a little digging on the Internet Archive and it sure looks to me like Gingrich delivered on at least part of what was suggested above. From a section of Freddie Mac’s web site in April 2007 labeled “Policy Talk“:

    Q: A key element of the entrepreneurial model is using the private sector where possible to save taxpayer dollars and improve efficiency. And you believe the GSE model provides one way to use the private sector.

    Gingrich: Some activities of government – trash collection is a good example – can be efficiently contracted out to the private sector. Other functions – the military, police and fire protection – obviously must remain within government. And then there are areas in which a public purpose would be best achieved by using market-based models. I think GSEs provide one of those models. I like the GSE model because it provides a more efficient, market-based alternative to taxpayer-funded government programs. It marries private enterprise to a public purpose. We obviously don’t want to use GSEs for everything, but there are times when private enterprise alone is not sufficient to achieve a public purpose. I think private enterprise alone is not going to be able to help the Gulf region recover from the hurricanes, and government will not get the job done in a very effective or efficient manner. We should be looking seriously at creating a GSE to help redevelop this region. We should be looking at whether and how the GSE model could help us address the problem of financing health care. I think a GSE for space exploration ought to be seriously considered – I’m convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today.

    Certainly there is a lot of debate today about the housing GSEs, but I think it is telling that there is strong bipartisan support for maintaining the GSE model in housing. There is not much support for the idea of removing the GSE charters from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And I think it’s clear why. The housing GSEs have made an important contribution to homeownership and the housing finance system. We have a much more liquid and stable housing finance system than we would have without the GSEs. And making homeownership more accessible and affordable is a policy goal I believe conservatives should embrace. Millions of people have entered the middle class through building wealth in their homes, and there is a lot of evidence that homeownership contributes to stable families and communities. These are results I think conservatives should embrace and want to extend as widely as possible. So while we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself.

Note: GSE is an acronym for “Government Sponsored Enterprise”, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being the most prominent examples (though they are now under full government conservatorship).

Oh, there's lots more at Verum Serum and you'll find it HERE.

How's all that from their PAID 'Historian'? If you believe Gingrich wasn't lobbying for them, then I have a Bridge for sale that should interest you!

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Are Rick Perry's Texas wobbly donors moving to Mitt Romney?

Dallas real-estate magnate Harlan Crow has given $130,000 in the past decade to help Texas Gov. Rick Perry win his elections. But Mr. Crow opened the doors to his Dallas mansion for one of three large fund-raisers in Texas Thursday for Mr. Perry's archrival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"In August, there was a good deal of interest in Gov. Perry, and less enthusiasm for the other candidates," Mr. Crow said. "But that has shifted. Many folks who supported him are now reconsidering."

Read the rest HERE.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

Quote Of The Day - Doug NYC GOP: "Nobody wants Sarah Palin's Endorsement"

Really?

Last night, while speaking with Sean Hannity, Palin praised Rick Santorum for his "ideological consistency." That's a far cry from an endorsement, but don't tell that to Rick...

Immediately following the interview, the Santorum campaign fired off the following email:

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said that last night on Fox News about me, and I wanted to make sure you heard about it as well.
I am grateful for those kind words from a strong conservative like Governor Palin. And it’s becoming more clear that other conservatives are starting to rally around our message of passionate conservatism.

Later today, influential Iowa evangelical leader Pastor Cary Gordon will announce his support for me via text message to 788,000 registered voters in Iowa. Pastor Gordon, a strong supporter of traditional marriage, is pastor of Sioux City, Iowa's Cornerstone Church and president of PeaceMakers Institute. This influential endorsement comes on the heels of the endorsement by leading New Hampshire conservative, Karen Testerman.

With just one month to go until the Iowa caucuses, conservatives are coming to the same conclusion: We need to find a conservative alternative to the current frontrunners, and I have the record and passion to be that alternative.

In addition, Santorum's campaign is promoting Palin's words of praise in two spots on the front page of his website.

Here's a short clip of what has Santorum so excited:



It's also been reported that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are both working hard behind the scenes to secure Palin's endorsement. Unfortunately, Mitt may now be out of the running after snagging the coveted Lisa Murkowski endorsement today.

In my opinion, the only endorsements that will have a significant impact will be from Palin, Nikki Haley, and Marco Rubio. Note: Mike Huckabee and Jim DeMint are on record as saying they will not endorse during the primaries.

Newt Gingrich & Jon Huntsman discover the Cure for Insomnia