As one who writes about everything political, one of the downsides of living in a state that is utterly unimportant from the Electoral College perspective is the fact that you’re insulated from much of the advertising campaigns that ravaged the battleground states. (From the perspective of a normal person however, that would likely be a blessing…)
I had friends who complained about not being able to get through an evening meal without getting robocalls. Others told of more campaign commercials than actual programming. I on the other hand saw one Barack Obama commercial during a nationally televised football game on Sunday and two Mitt Romney commercials the week before. Other than that, nada, the entire campaign.
That insulation from the billion dollar barrage skewed my perspective, at least as it relates to how the rest of the country was seeing this election. As a result, my prediction that Mitt Romney was going to win by double digits was… slightly off. I suggested that the polls were far from accurate for a variety of reasons from race to enthusiasm to undecided voters. By 8 PM on Tuesday it became clear I was lucky I had not bet my house on my prediction. I was wrong on every single point.
So how did I and so many others get it so wrong?
Maybe it was believing the hype about the effectiveness of the big dollars that drove the advertising I never saw. Romney did spend a lot, but it was money poorly spent. Why? Because he and his supporters outspent the Obama team across the board: In Ohio $97 million went to support Mitt while $90 went to support Barack Obama. In Virginia the numbers were $73 million vs. $65 million while in Florida they were $100 million vs. $78 million. And what did he get for all of that? Nothing. He needed those states and he lost all three.
Maybe it was ground game. This is art of getting your supporters to the polls but it’s often hard to see beforehand. And it’s particularly important in union stronghold states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, states Romney thought he would or at least could win. In all four Romney exceeded McCain’s 2008 totals, while the president underperformed his. It wasn’t enough. In a year where the enthusiasm gap was widely expected to favor the challenger the GOP failed in the closest thing to basic blocking and tackling, getting supporters to the polls.
Then there was Hurricane Sandy. As expected, turnout was down in reliably blue New York and New Jersey. The real impact, unforeseen by me however, was far beyond the storm. It was in the rest of the country where they were reading about it. Sandy did three things. One, she stunted Romney’s ascent and took him off the front page. Two, she kicked Benghazi to the back burner. Three, she gave the media a much desired backdrop upon which to project a very presidential Barack Obama.
These combined to help Mitt Romney lose the presidency. They do not however explain the surprise. That was something all together different: Enthusiasm. I for one expected GOP enthusiasm to be off the charts. It wasn’t. After four years of Barack Obama’s socialist policies one would have expected conservatives, Tea Party types, libertarians and Republicans to head to the polling stations with pitchforks and torches and ready to throw out anyone dressed in blue. Surprisingly, they did not. Indeed, Romney was not even able to get the same number of votes McCain did. Romney received two million fewer votes, despite having the worst economic recovery in a century and four years of progressivism against which to campaign.
At the end of the day, Mitt Romney lost because he did not sufficiently articulate why Americans should go out and vote for him. He is a good and decent man and he attracted 49% of the vote. But elections are about winning. A nation doesn’t need a manager who says “Vote for me because I’ll do a better job than that guy”, it needs a leader who says “Vote for me because I’ll do this and I won’t do that”. Barack Obama left Christopher Stevens as a sitting duck and in the end he and three other Americans died. Americans barely heard a peep about that from Mitt Romney. Barack Obama and Eric Holder have the blood of hundreds of Mexicans and at least one American Border Patrol agent on their hands; again, crickets from Mitt Romney.
Millions of illegal immigrants cross into the country each year and Mitt Romney talked about “self deportation”. Obamacare is destroying jobs while the IRS is arming to enforce its mandates and Mitt Romney equivocated. The tax code costs Americans half a trillion dollars a year and restrains the creation of millions of jobs and Mitt Romney promises to fiddle with some opaque “middle class tax cuts”.
In 1964 Barry Goldwater said “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”. In 2012 that was not a problem. Today’s adage might be “Milquetoast in the defense of liberty is no defense at all”. At a moment in time when Americans needed a man to arouse them and lead them out of the thickening forest of liberalism they instead got a man who wanted to discuss how to prune some low hanging branches. It should have been no surprise they chose to stick with Johnny Appleseed.
Showing posts with label romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romney. Show all posts
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
A successful President Romney won't be your friend, but if we're lucky, he'll be a leader instead
Barring some unforeseen cataclysm, Mitt Romney will be the 45th president of the United States… and the vote will likely not even be close. His acceptance speech at the GOP convention last week did exactly what it had to do, it provided Americans who might have been sitting on the fence with the nudge they needed to climb down and pull the lever for him. If you had to distill his speech down to one line, it might have been “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.” In one fell swoop Romney put the absurdity of Barack Obama into context. It put in stark contrast his soaring, vainglorious rhetoric with the abject failure of virtually every aspect of his presidency. By contrast, Romney demonstrated his clear understanding of what is important to most Americans.
The question now becomes, what form will that “help” take? One assumes Barack Obama meant to help Americans by seeking to institute policies that advance his “share the wealth” agenda. That’s the problem with words like help, support, or phrases like “restore America”, “American values” or even “Hope and Change”. They mean different things to different people. Indeed they are by design sufficiently nebulous that anybody can read into them anything at all.
That is largely how Barack Obama got elected in 2008. Although he had a record that was crystal clear in demonstrating his leftist ideology, for the most part the mainstream media ignored it. As a result, many on the left (and in the middle) buried their heads and took Obama’s promise of “Hope and Change” to mean whatever they wanted it to mean. They interpreted it that Barack Obama was going to implement policies that pursued their particular hopes, whatever they might have been. As anyone who’s ever heard of a psychic reeling in a gullible customer with “There’s something in your past that troubles you…” can tell you, “Hope and Change” was a recipe for disaster and disappointment. And the resulting policies were just that. As a result, thankfully, Barack Obama is going to be a one term president.
Mitt Romney will need to follow a different path, otherwise he will suffer the same fate. His will have to be a presidency of leadership; explicit and painful leadership at that. Given the coming taxageddon, a 60% higher national debt and a floundering economy, Romney will have to deliver a variety of painful medicines to Americans of all stripes. Here are five suggestions that would help Romney combat the current malaise and help resurrect American prosperity.
1. He should freeze federal spending at current levels. Cut programs, personnel and redistribute funds among departments, but don’t increase spending by one single dime.
2. He should implement the Fair Tax. Absent that, he should immediately implement a 10% flat tax that applies to income, dividends and capital gains while eliminating all deductions, period. In addition, he should set a 20% corporate income tax.
3. He should roll over all federal debt into bonds with a minimum maturity of at least 10 years, with as much as possible into 30 year bonds.
4. He should require every federal department, commission and agency to provide a 10 page overview of every regulation on its books that impacts more than a quarter of a million people and or costs the economy by more than $100 million per year. Upon receiving those overviews, he should use a strict constructionist interpretation to determine if each is Constitutional, and rescind those deemed not to be so.
5. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he should appoint Paul Ryan to present options that will harness the power of beneficiary choice and market forces to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In January 2013 Mitt Romney will find himself in a situation similar to that in which Ronald Reagan found himself 32 years before. The biggest difference is that in 1980 federal entitlement programs cost approximately $245 billion a year and represented 8.8% of GDP while in 2011 they cost $2.25 trillion and represented a full 15% of GDP. At the same time, the national debt, which must be serviced with taxpayer dollars, stood at 25% of GDP in 1980 while today it exceeds 100%.
Because of the potential consequences of an American collapse, the economic disaster the United States faces today is more precarious than any American president has ever had to face. Mitt Romney will not have the luxury of taking half measures in order to cure this disease. Success in the next president’s term will require him to clearly communicate to Americans the difficulties that we face and the consequences of not acting; demonstrate the courage to make the painful cuts that will be necessary; and finally, possess the fortitude to endure the withering abuse that will no doubt follow.
After two decades of unfettered spending by politicians of both parties, it’s time for Americans to learn that it’s simply not possible to spend more than you have in perpetuity. It’s time for a president to step up and bear the burden of articulating the challenges ahead and his plan to solve them. At that point citizens can begin to act accordingly. That’s the kind of help Americans really need.
The question now becomes, what form will that “help” take? One assumes Barack Obama meant to help Americans by seeking to institute policies that advance his “share the wealth” agenda. That’s the problem with words like help, support, or phrases like “restore America”, “American values” or even “Hope and Change”. They mean different things to different people. Indeed they are by design sufficiently nebulous that anybody can read into them anything at all.
Mitt Romney will need to follow a different path, otherwise he will suffer the same fate. His will have to be a presidency of leadership; explicit and painful leadership at that. Given the coming taxageddon, a 60% higher national debt and a floundering economy, Romney will have to deliver a variety of painful medicines to Americans of all stripes. Here are five suggestions that would help Romney combat the current malaise and help resurrect American prosperity.
1. He should freeze federal spending at current levels. Cut programs, personnel and redistribute funds among departments, but don’t increase spending by one single dime.
2. He should implement the Fair Tax. Absent that, he should immediately implement a 10% flat tax that applies to income, dividends and capital gains while eliminating all deductions, period. In addition, he should set a 20% corporate income tax.
3. He should roll over all federal debt into bonds with a minimum maturity of at least 10 years, with as much as possible into 30 year bonds.
4. He should require every federal department, commission and agency to provide a 10 page overview of every regulation on its books that impacts more than a quarter of a million people and or costs the economy by more than $100 million per year. Upon receiving those overviews, he should use a strict constructionist interpretation to determine if each is Constitutional, and rescind those deemed not to be so.
5. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he should appoint Paul Ryan to present options that will harness the power of beneficiary choice and market forces to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In January 2013 Mitt Romney will find himself in a situation similar to that in which Ronald Reagan found himself 32 years before. The biggest difference is that in 1980 federal entitlement programs cost approximately $245 billion a year and represented 8.8% of GDP while in 2011 they cost $2.25 trillion and represented a full 15% of GDP. At the same time, the national debt, which must be serviced with taxpayer dollars, stood at 25% of GDP in 1980 while today it exceeds 100%.
After two decades of unfettered spending by politicians of both parties, it’s time for Americans to learn that it’s simply not possible to spend more than you have in perpetuity. It’s time for a president to step up and bear the burden of articulating the challenges ahead and his plan to solve them. At that point citizens can begin to act accordingly. That’s the kind of help Americans really need.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Who would you rather call if your child was in danger - Barack Obama or Mitt Romney?
Dinesh D’Souza recently penned a piece called “How I became George Obama's 'brother”. It talks about George Obama calling him (D’Souza) from Kenya seeking $1,000 for badly needed medical care for his hospitalized son. D’Souza, who had met George years ago when he was doing research for “The Roots of Obama's Rage” was happy to send the money, but wondered “Why are you coming to me?” George, the brother of the multi-millionaire President of the United States replied: “I have no one else to ask.”
Now of course, George not feeling like he could call his brother is different from his actually calling his brother and giving him the opportunity to help. That might be a strong argument on the President’s side if he was somehow unaware of George or if his circumstances were unknown. Neither is the case however. Barack Obama actually met his half brother in 1987 when his sibling was 5 years old and then again in 2006 when Barack Obama was a US Senator from Illinois. In addition to that, George Obama’s life situation in a country where the average person lives on less than $3 a day has been chronicled in the American media since Obama announced his run for the presidency in 2008.
D’Souza grants that George Obama is no angel, calling him a “drinker and a skirt chaser”. Nonetheless, George’s brother is the most powerful man on the planet yet when the health of his son was in the balance George didn’t feel as if he could reach out to him.
One might wonder why George felt the need to reach out to D’Souza rather than his big brother, particularly if he had heard President Obama’s speech earlier this year when he compared his values to those of others, saying “I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a value.”
Well, it turns out that President Obama didn’t mean that he was literally his brother’s keeper, but rather he was using the biblical reference to suggest that the rich “do a little more”, i.e. pay more taxes.
That one speech gets to the core of the vision of America that voters are faced with in November. Barack Obama wants to take care of everyone, but he wants the government to do it with your money. Contrast that approach with Mitt Romney’s.
In 1996 a Bain Capital employee, Robert Gay, came to Romney and told him that Melissa, Gay’s 14 year old daughter, had snuck out of the house to attend a concert in New York and had been missing for three days. Romney immediately closed down the multibillion dollar Boston operation, set up a temporary headquarters in New York City and mobilized dozens of volunteers to search for the girl. He had Bain’s printing company print 300,000 flyers and had clerks at the firm’s drugstore unit stuff them into bags at checkout. The girl was found a week later recovering from a drug overdose, and, according to doctors, would likely not have survived another day.
To get another perspective on this contrast, one need only compare the tax returns of Romney and Obama. To compare apples to apples, one would compare Mitt Romney’s 2010 and 2011 tax returns to Barack Obama’s 2006 & 2007 returns – the two years before the presidential election.
The numbers are stark. In both 2006 and 2007 Barack Obama donated 6% of his income to charity. Mitt Romney during 2010 and 2011 donated 14% and 19% (respectively) of his income to charity. The goal of this piece is not to suggest that 6% is too low or that 15% is ideal. On the contrary. Everyone gives what they believe is appropriate.
The difference, however, is clear. Barack Obama claims that he is his brother’s keeper but believes it’s your job to actually pay for that upkeep, and he uses his position as President of the United States to compel such. Mitt Romney on the other hand suggests that it’s not the government’s job to take care of everyone, but rather individuals, communities, churches etc. and he puts his money behind those words.
Interestingly, this is not necessarily about greed or keeping money in his own pocket. If you combine Obama’s taxes and his charitable giving, he paid 39% in 2006 and 42% in 2007 while Romney paid 32% in 2010 and 42% in 2011. It’s about a fundamental understanding of the role of government. Barack Obama believes in the almighty government and their ability and responsibility to take care of the poor and the unfortunate and practically everything else in society. Mitt Romney on the other hand believes that while government can play a role in society, including providing a safety net for those in need, the primary responsibility for taking care of citizens lays with individuals, their families and their communities.
On November 6th, voters should not only think about how great a job the nanny state government has done with everything from food stamps to Social Security to Solyndra to Fast and Furious, they should also look to the plights of George Obama and Robert Gay. When citizens subcontract the support and well being of their families, communities or country to a nameless, faceless government bureaucracy there is a disconnect between the warm and fuzzy feeling they get for being caring people with good intentions and the actual results in the lives of the people in need. This holds true for feeding the poor, educating the children or creating jobs and prosperity. If there was an emergency with your child, who would you rather call for help? Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? This election may not involve a child in danger, but it certainly involves a nation in distress. The question is, who will the voters call upon?
Now of course, George not feeling like he could call his brother is different from his actually calling his brother and giving him the opportunity to help. That might be a strong argument on the President’s side if he was somehow unaware of George or if his circumstances were unknown. Neither is the case however. Barack Obama actually met his half brother in 1987 when his sibling was 5 years old and then again in 2006 when Barack Obama was a US Senator from Illinois. In addition to that, George Obama’s life situation in a country where the average person lives on less than $3 a day has been chronicled in the American media since Obama announced his run for the presidency in 2008.
D’Souza grants that George Obama is no angel, calling him a “drinker and a skirt chaser”. Nonetheless, George’s brother is the most powerful man on the planet yet when the health of his son was in the balance George didn’t feel as if he could reach out to him.
One might wonder why George felt the need to reach out to D’Souza rather than his big brother, particularly if he had heard President Obama’s speech earlier this year when he compared his values to those of others, saying “I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a value.”
Well, it turns out that President Obama didn’t mean that he was literally his brother’s keeper, but rather he was using the biblical reference to suggest that the rich “do a little more”, i.e. pay more taxes.
In 1996 a Bain Capital employee, Robert Gay, came to Romney and told him that Melissa, Gay’s 14 year old daughter, had snuck out of the house to attend a concert in New York and had been missing for three days. Romney immediately closed down the multibillion dollar Boston operation, set up a temporary headquarters in New York City and mobilized dozens of volunteers to search for the girl. He had Bain’s printing company print 300,000 flyers and had clerks at the firm’s drugstore unit stuff them into bags at checkout. The girl was found a week later recovering from a drug overdose, and, according to doctors, would likely not have survived another day.
To get another perspective on this contrast, one need only compare the tax returns of Romney and Obama. To compare apples to apples, one would compare Mitt Romney’s 2010 and 2011 tax returns to Barack Obama’s 2006 & 2007 returns – the two years before the presidential election.
The difference, however, is clear. Barack Obama claims that he is his brother’s keeper but believes it’s your job to actually pay for that upkeep, and he uses his position as President of the United States to compel such. Mitt Romney on the other hand suggests that it’s not the government’s job to take care of everyone, but rather individuals, communities, churches etc. and he puts his money behind those words.
Interestingly, this is not necessarily about greed or keeping money in his own pocket. If you combine Obama’s taxes and his charitable giving, he paid 39% in 2006 and 42% in 2007 while Romney paid 32% in 2010 and 42% in 2011. It’s about a fundamental understanding of the role of government. Barack Obama believes in the almighty government and their ability and responsibility to take care of the poor and the unfortunate and practically everything else in society. Mitt Romney on the other hand believes that while government can play a role in society, including providing a safety net for those in need, the primary responsibility for taking care of citizens lays with individuals, their families and their communities.
On November 6th, voters should not only think about how great a job the nanny state government has done with everything from food stamps to Social Security to Solyndra to Fast and Furious, they should also look to the plights of George Obama and Robert Gay. When citizens subcontract the support and well being of their families, communities or country to a nameless, faceless government bureaucracy there is a disconnect between the warm and fuzzy feeling they get for being caring people with good intentions and the actual results in the lives of the people in need. This holds true for feeding the poor, educating the children or creating jobs and prosperity. If there was an emergency with your child, who would you rather call for help? Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? This election may not involve a child in danger, but it certainly involves a nation in distress. The question is, who will the voters call upon?
Monday, August 13, 2012
The November Choice: An election of historic proportions.
As I think about the election in November, I can’t help but think about Matt Ridley and his outstanding book “The Rational Optimist – How Prosperity Evolves”. In it he chronicles the evolution of human society and demonstrates a perfect understanding of why nations fail:
One has to wonder where is the tipping point that harkens the descent of a nation into the chaos that inevitably leads to its end… and more importantly, where the United States is on that scale. If you imagine a spectrum with tyranny on the left and anarchy on the right, the Constitution of the United States was crafted so that the government be a fulcrum balancing the state between the two. It worked that way for a while.
For its first 125 years the government of the United States was largely reluctant to take over the lives of its citizens. Over the last century it has become far more enthusiastic in that pursuit, with a particular emphasis in the fifty years. As Ridley points out, this is not particularly unique among nations. The United States is unique however. It is the only nation that was established for the specific purpose of allowing its people to live in freedom. The Declaration of Independence clearly articulates that the rights of men are natural and are not bestowed by any government. The Constitution sought to codify limitations on the government’s ability to infringe on those rights.
As we all know, those Constitutional limits seem to resemble paper tigers more and more each day, from everything from Obamacare to ethanol mandates to eminent domain abuses. The question as it relates to November is, must the United States go the way of the Roman Empire or can it figure out how to save itself from the seemingly inevitable fate of states?
Rarely are voters presented with two so clearly different paths ahead. On the one hand you have Mitt Romney who is an unabashed fan of the markets and market solutions. While Romney may be tin eared in some respects – read RomneyCare – he has become an avowed advocate of government restraint. His selection of Paul Ryan demonstrates his intent to address the growth of government while that’s still possible.
While Romney may not have the libertarian leanings that many of us would like, he stands in stark contrast to the man he faces in November. Romney seeks to move the lever (the board that sits on the fulcrum) rightward to balance the scale of freedom closer towards the center, Barack Obama seeks to slam it to the left where government takes over every aspect of a citizen’s life and freedom and free markets become little more than a distant memory.
Not sure about that? A few points should demonstrate the truth of that statement.
More than one third of the American households receive income based welfare assistance from the United States government – that doesn’t even include Social Security! Barack Obama has actively sought to increase that proportion, including gutting the 1996 welfare reform that reduced welfare rolls by half, and embarking on an advertising campaign to increase food stamp rolls.
At the same time fully half the population pays no income taxes while the President suggests the rich are somehow taking advantage of the system. This despite the fact that the top 1% of income earners pay 37% of all income taxes yet take home only 17% of all income. At what point do the people in that 1% or 5% or 10% decide to take their money and play somewhere else? If just the top 10% of taxpayers emigrated, they would take with them 71% of income tax revenue.
Then there is the notion of success. The President famously told businessmen that “If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." That gets to the core of what Barack Obama counts as success. To hammer the point home, a week later he held up General Motors as a stellar example of success, going so far as to suggest “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.” Of course this success that Obama is so proud of was bought by pouring tens of billions of taxpayer’s dollars into the company.
Then there is the regulation. In his first three years in office Barack Obama issued 106 major regulations that will impact the economy by more than $100 million or more. This compares with 38 (a still too high number) by his predecessor. A President Obama not constrained by another reelection campaign will likely increase that number dramatically.
Whether in the form of the Ming Dynasty, 18th century France or modern Greece, Spain or California, history demonstrates clearly that when government grows to the point that it overwhelms the citizenry’s ability to operate with even the most basic level of freedom, particularly economic freedom, the house collapses. Romney was not my first choice for the next president, but at least he’s mostly committed to the notion of individual liberty and economic freedom. Compare that to the cleptocratic and authoritarian Obama and the choice is simple. One wonders if the Romans had the opportunity in 180 AD would they have been smart enough to put someone other than Commodus on the throne. We are at that same point in 2012. The difference is, we have a choice. The question is, will voters understand what’s at stake when they walk into the booth in November?
“Empires, indeed governments generally, tend to be good things at first and bad things the longer they last. First they improve society’s ability to flourish by providing central services and removing impediments to trade and specialization”.From Ancient Egypt to the Roman Empire to the Ming Dynasty to the Soviet Union, these and countless other entities collapsed under the weight of their own regulation, either from the state or the church.
But then “governments gradually employ more and more ambitious elites who capture a greater and greater share of the society’s income by interfering more and more in people’s lives as they give themselves more and more rules to enforce, until they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
For its first 125 years the government of the United States was largely reluctant to take over the lives of its citizens. Over the last century it has become far more enthusiastic in that pursuit, with a particular emphasis in the fifty years. As Ridley points out, this is not particularly unique among nations. The United States is unique however. It is the only nation that was established for the specific purpose of allowing its people to live in freedom. The Declaration of Independence clearly articulates that the rights of men are natural and are not bestowed by any government. The Constitution sought to codify limitations on the government’s ability to infringe on those rights.
As we all know, those Constitutional limits seem to resemble paper tigers more and more each day, from everything from Obamacare to ethanol mandates to eminent domain abuses. The question as it relates to November is, must the United States go the way of the Roman Empire or can it figure out how to save itself from the seemingly inevitable fate of states?
Rarely are voters presented with two so clearly different paths ahead. On the one hand you have Mitt Romney who is an unabashed fan of the markets and market solutions. While Romney may be tin eared in some respects – read RomneyCare – he has become an avowed advocate of government restraint. His selection of Paul Ryan demonstrates his intent to address the growth of government while that’s still possible.
While Romney may not have the libertarian leanings that many of us would like, he stands in stark contrast to the man he faces in November. Romney seeks to move the lever (the board that sits on the fulcrum) rightward to balance the scale of freedom closer towards the center, Barack Obama seeks to slam it to the left where government takes over every aspect of a citizen’s life and freedom and free markets become little more than a distant memory.
Not sure about that? A few points should demonstrate the truth of that statement.
More than one third of the American households receive income based welfare assistance from the United States government – that doesn’t even include Social Security! Barack Obama has actively sought to increase that proportion, including gutting the 1996 welfare reform that reduced welfare rolls by half, and embarking on an advertising campaign to increase food stamp rolls.
At the same time fully half the population pays no income taxes while the President suggests the rich are somehow taking advantage of the system. This despite the fact that the top 1% of income earners pay 37% of all income taxes yet take home only 17% of all income. At what point do the people in that 1% or 5% or 10% decide to take their money and play somewhere else? If just the top 10% of taxpayers emigrated, they would take with them 71% of income tax revenue.
Then there is the notion of success. The President famously told businessmen that “If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." That gets to the core of what Barack Obama counts as success. To hammer the point home, a week later he held up General Motors as a stellar example of success, going so far as to suggest “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.” Of course this success that Obama is so proud of was bought by pouring tens of billions of taxpayer’s dollars into the company.
Then there is the regulation. In his first three years in office Barack Obama issued 106 major regulations that will impact the economy by more than $100 million or more. This compares with 38 (a still too high number) by his predecessor. A President Obama not constrained by another reelection campaign will likely increase that number dramatically.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Is an election a gift for a job well done or a choice about the country's future?
Throughout any given day I normally catch bits and pieces of three or four different talk radio shows during the day. From Rush to Boortz to Hannity to Michael Medved and an occasional Mark Levin peppered in. All are brilliant with their own styles, but sometimes they overlap. At some point last week most of them invited listeners to call in and explain why they support Barack Obama. Invariably the callers sounded like buffoons, and it had nothing to do with anything the host said. In fact, heard Neal Boortz give a number of callers a full uninterrupted 60 seconds to explain their position. It didn’t help.
Now, there are lots of reasons someone might not sound good on the radio. Sometimes callers get nervous knowing that millions of people are listening to them. Other times they miscalculate how long they have and stumble to get through their points. And the truth is, not everyone has the gift of gab and often simply don’t express themselves well. Despite those caveats, the reality is that most callers who say they support Barack Obama have a very difficult time explaining why. He killed Osama Bin Laden, he saved the auto industry, Obamacare will guarantee healthcare for everyone and he ended the war in Iraq are usually the four main points.
Interestingly, regardless of their veracity, all of those reasons are backward looking. They’re looking to reward the President for things already done. Rarely do you hear Obama supporters say things like “He’s going revive the economy” or “He’s going to jumpstart the American jobs engine” or even “He’s going to lower gas prices or taxes”. And you never ever hear them talk about their candidate reducing government regulations.
Romney supporters on the other hand, can be equally disingenuous: “He’s not Obama.” The difference is, however, typically those supporting Romney are not doing so to punish Obama – although there are certainly those – but rather because they see what Obama and the Democrats have wrought on the country and they want a change of direction.
And that is the key. An election is not about thanking someone for a job well done… or even the Alice in Wonderland perception of a job well done… but rather a Presidential election is about doing what’s best for the country over the next four years. If hiring a President was a reward for a service rendered, John McCain would be president. He served in the Senate for decades, he authored one of the most important (not to be confused with good…) pieces of legislation in decades and he proved his valor and mettle during five years in a North Vietnamese prison. No, Americans elected Barack Obama because he told a story that inspired millions of followers and supporters. If nothing else, Barack Obama was a brilliant campaigner, albeit with a great deal of support from the media.
But there’s a difference between inspiring a political movement and actually doing a good job of governing. On that score, Barack Obama has been a complete and utter disaster. On virtually every facet of the job, he has failed, and done so miserably… with the exception of not screwing up the plan to find and kill Bin Laden. From the millions of lost jobs to an economy that’s stuck in park to billions lost in his green job boondoggles to $5 trillion in new debt, the Obama administration has been an abject failure. And that doesn’t begin to address the tyranny of the growth of government regulation he has fostered.
That discontinuity between candidate and executive is at the heart of the decision Americans are being asked to make in November: Barack Obama is a brilliant candidate, but a disastrous executive while Mitt Romney is barely adequate as a candidate but has a proven record of success as an executive. Do voters want someone who talks a good game but actually manages it poorly or would they rather have a guy who mumbles his words but actually manages the game very well?
The key to the White House comes down to this: Are those voters who were willing to overlook the holes in Barack Obama’s resume in 2008 in order to make a leap of faith in an historic election going to overlook the fact that those very holes are today filled in with failing marks? There’s an old saying “Trick me once shame on you… trick me twice shame on me.” Let’s hope they’ve learned Barack Obama’s tricks over the last four years…
Now, there are lots of reasons someone might not sound good on the radio. Sometimes callers get nervous knowing that millions of people are listening to them. Other times they miscalculate how long they have and stumble to get through their points. And the truth is, not everyone has the gift of gab and often simply don’t express themselves well. Despite those caveats, the reality is that most callers who say they support Barack Obama have a very difficult time explaining why. He killed Osama Bin Laden, he saved the auto industry, Obamacare will guarantee healthcare for everyone and he ended the war in Iraq are usually the four main points.
Romney supporters on the other hand, can be equally disingenuous: “He’s not Obama.” The difference is, however, typically those supporting Romney are not doing so to punish Obama – although there are certainly those – but rather because they see what Obama and the Democrats have wrought on the country and they want a change of direction.
And that is the key. An election is not about thanking someone for a job well done… or even the Alice in Wonderland perception of a job well done… but rather a Presidential election is about doing what’s best for the country over the next four years. If hiring a President was a reward for a service rendered, John McCain would be president. He served in the Senate for decades, he authored one of the most important (not to be confused with good…) pieces of legislation in decades and he proved his valor and mettle during five years in a North Vietnamese prison. No, Americans elected Barack Obama because he told a story that inspired millions of followers and supporters. If nothing else, Barack Obama was a brilliant campaigner, albeit with a great deal of support from the media.
But there’s a difference between inspiring a political movement and actually doing a good job of governing. On that score, Barack Obama has been a complete and utter disaster. On virtually every facet of the job, he has failed, and done so miserably… with the exception of not screwing up the plan to find and kill Bin Laden. From the millions of lost jobs to an economy that’s stuck in park to billions lost in his green job boondoggles to $5 trillion in new debt, the Obama administration has been an abject failure. And that doesn’t begin to address the tyranny of the growth of government regulation he has fostered.
The key to the White House comes down to this: Are those voters who were willing to overlook the holes in Barack Obama’s resume in 2008 in order to make a leap of faith in an historic election going to overlook the fact that those very holes are today filled in with failing marks? There’s an old saying “Trick me once shame on you… trick me twice shame on me.” Let’s hope they’ve learned Barack Obama’s tricks over the last four years…
Monday, June 4, 2012
A very basic primer on deciding between Romney and Obama in November
In business there is something called “sunk costs” which refers to funds that have been spent and are unrecoverable. At any given point sunk costs are irrelevant to the decisions going forward. An example of this would be a company that has spent a billion dollars building a plant and now has to choose whether or not to spend another billion dollars hiring staff and actually operating the plant. At the point of the decision the only thing that should be relevant to the decision makers is what makes best sense for the firm going forward. Does the company make more money by staffing and operating the plant or by selling it? The decision should be based solely on what’s best going forward, with no sentimental attachment to the billion dollars already spent building the plant.
The key element of sunk costs is recognizing that you can’t change or undo anything that has already happened and therefore the focus of your attention should be what you can do today to impact tomorrow.
The last three years should be looked at as sunk costs… or simply unalterable history. The November election cannot turn back the clock. It can only look at a course for the future.
As such, voters should evaluate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as a board of directors would if they were seeking to hire a president or CEO to run their organization.
The first thing you’d do is take a cursory look at their resumes. Obama earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia while Romney earned his from BYU. Both men earned graduate degrees at Harvard. On that score you’d have to say that the men were very similar. As for their success as students it is not currently possible to compare the two. Romney graduated in the top 5% of his class at Harvard while Obama has refused to release any of his school transcripts.
The next thing you might look at their relevant work experience.
Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, taught Constitutional law at Columbia, was elected to the Illinois Senate and then the US Senate. His most important work experience comes from his three years as President of the United States.
Romney worked as a business consultant, founded a private equity firm, managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and served as Governor of Massachusetts for four years.
Finally you might look at their family situations and personal life as you wouldn’t want your new leader embarrassing your organization. Obama is a nondenominational Christian and is by all measures a devoted husband and dedicated father of two little girls. Romney is Mormon, has been married to his wife for 43 years and the couple has raised five boys.
On first blush both men seem to have the basic qualifications necessary to be President. But one needs to look at the experience a bit deeper now.
Barack Obama’s career was fairly unremarkable prior to entering the White House. As such, his best case can be made when looking at his time in office. He was presented with a difficult situation of the American economy in 2009. What has he done? The most obvious thing is that he’s borrowed and spent a great deal of money. Results? Higher unemployment than when he took over. Fewer people are actually working than when he became President. Inflation is 3% higher although the economy is experiencing stagnant, albeit positive, growth; the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. He passed ObamaCare and was subsequently sued by 27 states and the law is in front of the Supreme Court. Osama Bin Laden is dead. American troops are out of Iraq.
Romney’s work experience is far more telling: While at Bain Capital he earned his shareholders billions of dollars via his rescuing and restructuring companies – although not all such attempts were successful. In Olympic host city Salt Lake, he took a Winter Games that what was on course to lose hundreds of millions of dollars (which is the norm for host cities) and turned it into a money maker – to the tune of $100 million – and a successful Olympics to boot. So too as Governor of Massachusetts, where he left the state with a surplus after having entered office with an expected $3 billion shortfall.
Romney’s tenure as Governor was anything but spectacular however. Although he helped the city of Boston climb out of its Big Dig disaster, he left with a 34% approval rating and budget deficits returned once he left office. He also implemented the blueprint for ObamaCare in Massachusetts during his tenure.
As a member of the nation’s board of directors tasked with choosing a new leader you might want a viable third candidate, but you don’t have one. As such, the question is who will do a better job of running the country for the next four years. The answer is actually crystal clear. While Mitt Romney’s tenure as Governor of Massachusetts was less than spectacular, his business career was everything including spectacular. In addition, at the Olympics he had to deal with a plethora of international organizations, federal, state and local governments and everything was under klieg lights unlike any other event around the world. And he performed that job flawlessly.
Barack Obama on the other hand has made an absolute mess of the US economy, he has divided the country and has accumulated more debt in three years than any person in human history. At the same time he has discouraged millions of Americans from looking for work while dramatically increasing the number of people on the government dole. At the same time he has promised to put the United States on the socialist path of Europe, just as that continent is disintegrating.
American success was built on the backs of entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, capitalists and workers seeking their own piece of the American Dream. Unleashing the power of that lineup to help the country emerge from the never-ending economic quagmire we find ourselves in is going to take someone who has a basic understanding of what it takes to incentivize those players to not only want to get back into the game of productivity and profitability, but more importantly, understand what keeps them from doing so… i.e. how organizations function or don’t. The organization in this case is the United States and the thing that keeps it from functioning properly is government regulations and interference.
When the American people walk into the voting booths in November and decide which lever to pull, they should imagine themselves pulling the lever for the candidate who is going to help not just them, but the employer who pays their salary or the customer who buys their products or the employee who works for them. Or if they don’t’ have a job, who can create an economic foundation for enough to be created for them to have a choice as to which one to take. They should then open their eyes and pull the lever for Mitt Romney.
The key element of sunk costs is recognizing that you can’t change or undo anything that has already happened and therefore the focus of your attention should be what you can do today to impact tomorrow.
The last three years should be looked at as sunk costs… or simply unalterable history. The November election cannot turn back the clock. It can only look at a course for the future. As such, voters should evaluate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as a board of directors would if they were seeking to hire a president or CEO to run their organization.
The first thing you’d do is take a cursory look at their resumes. Obama earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia while Romney earned his from BYU. Both men earned graduate degrees at Harvard. On that score you’d have to say that the men were very similar. As for their success as students it is not currently possible to compare the two. Romney graduated in the top 5% of his class at Harvard while Obama has refused to release any of his school transcripts.
The next thing you might look at their relevant work experience.
Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, taught Constitutional law at Columbia, was elected to the Illinois Senate and then the US Senate. His most important work experience comes from his three years as President of the United States.
Romney worked as a business consultant, founded a private equity firm, managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and served as Governor of Massachusetts for four years.
Finally you might look at their family situations and personal life as you wouldn’t want your new leader embarrassing your organization. Obama is a nondenominational Christian and is by all measures a devoted husband and dedicated father of two little girls. Romney is Mormon, has been married to his wife for 43 years and the couple has raised five boys.
On first blush both men seem to have the basic qualifications necessary to be President. But one needs to look at the experience a bit deeper now.
Barack Obama’s career was fairly unremarkable prior to entering the White House. As such, his best case can be made when looking at his time in office. He was presented with a difficult situation of the American economy in 2009. What has he done? The most obvious thing is that he’s borrowed and spent a great deal of money. Results? Higher unemployment than when he took over. Fewer people are actually working than when he became President. Inflation is 3% higher although the economy is experiencing stagnant, albeit positive, growth; the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. He passed ObamaCare and was subsequently sued by 27 states and the law is in front of the Supreme Court. Osama Bin Laden is dead. American troops are out of Iraq.
Romney’s work experience is far more telling: While at Bain Capital he earned his shareholders billions of dollars via his rescuing and restructuring companies – although not all such attempts were successful. In Olympic host city Salt Lake, he took a Winter Games that what was on course to lose hundreds of millions of dollars (which is the norm for host cities) and turned it into a money maker – to the tune of $100 million – and a successful Olympics to boot. So too as Governor of Massachusetts, where he left the state with a surplus after having entered office with an expected $3 billion shortfall. Romney’s tenure as Governor was anything but spectacular however. Although he helped the city of Boston climb out of its Big Dig disaster, he left with a 34% approval rating and budget deficits returned once he left office. He also implemented the blueprint for ObamaCare in Massachusetts during his tenure.
As a member of the nation’s board of directors tasked with choosing a new leader you might want a viable third candidate, but you don’t have one. As such, the question is who will do a better job of running the country for the next four years. The answer is actually crystal clear. While Mitt Romney’s tenure as Governor of Massachusetts was less than spectacular, his business career was everything including spectacular. In addition, at the Olympics he had to deal with a plethora of international organizations, federal, state and local governments and everything was under klieg lights unlike any other event around the world. And he performed that job flawlessly.
Barack Obama on the other hand has made an absolute mess of the US economy, he has divided the country and has accumulated more debt in three years than any person in human history. At the same time he has discouraged millions of Americans from looking for work while dramatically increasing the number of people on the government dole. At the same time he has promised to put the United States on the socialist path of Europe, just as that continent is disintegrating.
American success was built on the backs of entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, capitalists and workers seeking their own piece of the American Dream. Unleashing the power of that lineup to help the country emerge from the never-ending economic quagmire we find ourselves in is going to take someone who has a basic understanding of what it takes to incentivize those players to not only want to get back into the game of productivity and profitability, but more importantly, understand what keeps them from doing so… i.e. how organizations function or don’t. The organization in this case is the United States and the thing that keeps it from functioning properly is government regulations and interference.
When the American people walk into the voting booths in November and decide which lever to pull, they should imagine themselves pulling the lever for the candidate who is going to help not just them, but the employer who pays their salary or the customer who buys their products or the employee who works for them. Or if they don’t’ have a job, who can create an economic foundation for enough to be created for them to have a choice as to which one to take. They should then open their eyes and pull the lever for Mitt Romney.
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