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A 2012 Conservative Case for America’s Future
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Trust, Don’t Verify
November 17, 2011 | 27 comments
A Further Perspective
It’s About Jobs
The president’s endless deficits will only continue to crush economic activity.
America has a growth deficit. As the latest job report shows unemployment reached 9.2% — the highest rate of 2011 — investors and employers continue to react negatively to this bad news.
During the three years of the Obama administration, in this dismal economy millions of Americans have been forced to take jobs that they are overqualified for or they have simply given up looking for work entirely. If you include those workers, the real unemployment rate is higher than 16.2% by conservative estimates.
These numbers are far worse depending on geography, with the most glaring examples of misguided economic policies being in poor urban communities.
Capital always follows the path of least resistance and greatest opportunity. But not only has President Obama’s continuation of endless deficit spending not resulted in so-called Keynesian “pump priming” and economic growth, it has discouraged private investment as money continues to flow into safe havens like Treasuries.
As the debt-ceiling debate rages on and some in the Senate Republican leadership seem ready to negotiate with big-government Democrats, the proverbial 4.2 trillion dollar gorilla in the room continues to grow while trampling over our economy and the formation of small businesses.
To be clear, there are two distinct paths:
We can go the route that President Obama favors, which includes an ever-increasing debt ceiling that will continue to crush economic activity.
Or, we can force government to “eat their peas” and use the force of law to handcuff legislators to policies that spur economic growth and job creation.
And the time to choose a path is today, before August 2, when the Federal government will officially run out of money to pay outstanding obligations.
According to Michael Tanner of CATO, the Treasury Department will collect roughly $203 billion in taxes during August, but have liabilities totaling more than $307 billion. You certainly could not run your family budget with this type of recklessness. And as America runs at lightning speed toward a Greek-like financial catastrophe, as our debt is on the verge of consuming our nation’s entire output.
Throughout American history, we have never failed to increase the debt ceiling. And as irresponsible politicians grow government for their own political gain, they have left us with a financial cancer that is metastasizing rapidly.
Therefore, conservatives must act boldly and proactively. Not only must we sit at the bargaining table and demand cuts, but there must be cuts in all levels of government which amount to an immediate reduction in the deficit. Anything less is unacceptable.
The second step is to use tough statuary caps that will tie the hands of future politicians from spending beyond the historical, pre-Bush average of 18% of the Gross Domestic Product. Politicians in both parties have proven themselves untrustworthy to reduce spending, so breaking that limitation would mandate simultaneous spending reductions.
And finally, we must have Congress approve the Hatch-Lee Balanced Budget Amendment, and send it to the states for ratification. Not only would it mirror most states which have their own requirements for expenditures equalling revenue, but it additionally requires a two-thirds supermajority to approve tax increases. And once the amendment is official, it would be quite impossible in the modern era to ever repeal it.
These proposals would have been impossible in any previous congress, including the 1994 Gingrich Revolution. But things have changed now that every man, woman, and child in the United States owes $46,000, and with our debt on a path to double within 10 years.
Thanks to Tea Party activists providing the necessary backlash to an ever-expanding federal government, the proposals put forth in the Cut, Cap, and Balance pledge are not only entirely possible, a majority of Americans understand they are necessary to put America on a path to new jobs and prosperity.
The Hon. Blackwell is the best-selling author of Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.
About the Author
Ken Blackwell, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio is Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Club For Growth and the National Taxpayers Union.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
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Clint| 7.18.11 @ 7:16AM
Cut, Cap & Balance Pledge:
I pledge to urge my Senators and Member of the House of Representatives to oppose any debt limit increase unless all three of the following conditions have been met:
Cut - Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
Cap - Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.
Balance - Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.
Tenn Slim| 7.18.11 @ 8:16AM
"If you include those workers, the real unemployment rate is higher than 16.2% by conservative estimates"
I contend that the Cloward Piven Process for the Demise of the US Capitalistic system is well and truly under way.
Quietly, surley, and driven ideologically, the Process is succeeding. Obama is a willing participant, dithering, rhetorically speaking, his Pressers, while engaging, hide the real West Wing Agenda.
Folks, you can expect the demise to expand, even if the Cap, Trade, and Budget bills get to life. The Senate plus Obamas veto doom the bill prior to its first breath. Symbolic only.
Let the Default chips fall. The local economy is mostly Labor Swapping now anyway. Currency transfers are mostly cash, the US Electorate having lost full confidence in the DC government.
This country is so diverse, so absolutely able to exist w/o the DC funding with strings, that the end result will be what Cloward and Piven mostly feared. INDIVIDUALISM. This is anthema to their Process. Let Freedom ring.
end
Semper Fi
Purpleguy| 7.18.11 @ 8:29AM
The so-called demise of America started with Reagan and his budget busting military buildup with it's elimination of regulations - airline, trucking, telephone - and how's that working out for us? Reagan and his successors, Bush I and Bush II increased the deficit way more than Obama has, so just remember, 11 Trillion of the 14 Trillion you're all so screaming about came from Republican presidents, not Obama. The National Debt was less than 1 Trillion dollars when Reagan came into office btw. Yes, we need to do something, but put the blame where it really belongs will ya?
JP| 7.18.11 @ 8:51AM
Actually the deregulation of Big Telephone worked out pretty well. Ditto for Big Transportation. And you seem blissfully unaware that the US GDP in 1981 was $3 trillion. In 1989 it stood at $9 trillion. The Reagan defecits paled in comparisons to Obama (it took Reagan 8 years to amass $2 trillion; but in the process his policies lead to the creation of $6 trillion of new wealth).
As a whole. Obama and his party have borrowed $4.4 trillion during the last 30 months, but the GDP has stagnated in the process. When Obama was inaugerated, the defecit was $9 trillion, not $11 trillion (nice try). For FY 2009-10 his defecit was $1.8 trillion + $1 trillion for the Stimulus ($.8 trillion + $.2 trillion interest); for the FY 2010-11 budget, his defecit will be $1.6 trillion. FY 2011-12 estimations are near $2 trillion. That is, in three years he will have run up $6 trillion dollars in new debt. That is, by the end of 2012, 37 cents for every dollar of debt can be tied to the current President.
Jack London| 7.18.11 @ 12:33PM
And what's the best way to pay down the deficit? I'll give you a clue: it's not by slashing public spending and throwing more people out of work.
JP| 7.18.11 @ 1:17PM
Of course not. We could just wait until the bond market does the slashing, and then unemployment will be at 30% and not 9.2%. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Stormzeye| 7.18.11 @ 1:42PM
Jack,
Has the number of people engaged in make-work public employment now made the federal government "too big to fail"?
The Big E| 7.18.11 @ 3:31PM
Sure, just like the best way to pay off your credit card debt is to use it to buy more and more things that you'll someday sell at a yard sale for $5.00.
Drunken Sailor| 7.18.11 @ 4:42PM
I can't be overdrawn, I still have checks left!
Superbowl 14| 7.18.11 @ 8:38PM
Borrowing money for our children to pay so your job is protected makes as much sense as increasing the taxes on the job makers so they don't have the money to pay their employees. Either way the capital goes down a rat hole. What's wrong with living within one's means.
The Big E| 7.18.11 @ 3:25PM
Actually, the demise of America started in 1913 with the enactment of the 16th Amendment (which gave the Feds a pipeline into our wallets- and a seemingly endless supply of cash), and the 17th Amendment (which eliminated the ability of the States to check Federal power). Throw in some commerce clause rulings the 1930's and a powerful pseudo-Marxist President (FDR) given WAY too much power and the engine of America's demise revved up to full steam.
Next came another pseudo-Marxist (LBJ) and his steadfast belief that all you have to do to solve poverty is steal enough from the people who work for a living and give it those who have figured out that if you refuse to support yourself, there will be some Marxist in the Federal Government who will steal enough from others to make you happy.
Then came the second Bush (no - not Carter. Carter wanted to be the next pseudo-Marxist to gain fame by helping to destroy freedom in the world, but he was too incompetent to accomplish anything of significance towards that goal). GWB decided that in order to be popular with the press and certain people who weren't going to like him anyway, he needed to act like another pseudo-Marxist and continue to steal money from those who work for a living and give it to those who don't.
And that brings us up to the present, where we have not another pseudo-Marxist, but the real, full fledged item, who apparently has decided to show those of us who thought GWB was a profligate spender, what a profligate spender REALLY looks like.
But, hey, that's OK, because there is only so much money the Government can steal, and when they have stolen it all, those of us who know how to WORK for a living will still survive, because we will arise in the morning, hunt for our food and fuel, tend to our gardens, and defend our families and our food and fuel sources to the death, while those who have learned only how to take what the Government will steal for them will go hungry, and eventually either learn to work for a living or die.
Which will you be?
Clint| 7.18.11 @ 8:57AM
"Under President Barack Obama, the debt increased from $10.7 trillion to $14.2 trillion by February 2011.
As of June 29, 2011, the Total Public Debt Outstanding of the United States of America was $14.46 trillion and was approximately 98.6% of calendar year 2010's annual gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.66 trillion"
Louis Jenkins| 7.18.11 @ 9:15AM
As Cantor said, "Not enough taxpayers." Instead Obama wants to stick to those who are paying taxes. Get ready folks. We're either going to scream like the pigs Obama thinks we are, or we are headed for something more dire. If Jefferson could see what has happened in the USA, he'd do more than turn over in his grave.
Maddox| 7.18.11 @ 11:25AM
Jefferson has his faults but he was a patriot and a man. Washington today has few self centered men and mostly worms, parasites who are sucking us dry of wealth and freedom.
Oldefarte| 7.18.11 @ 11:44AM
I partially disagree with Ken's excellent editorial in that I think that November of next year is more important than his August 2 deadline;since I think that now the American voting public have been successful in convincing [tea party style] the Republicn Party of it desire for fiscal governmental restraint. The public now gets it; and Republicans now get their drift, but Democrats [being true to their historical nature as governmental prostitutes] will continue to do anything possible to steal taxpayers' money for their partisaned political purposes. We simply must elect as many Republicans as possible if we are to survive and prosper!!!!!!
Truncheon| 7.18.11 @ 12:22PM
"Not only must we sit at the bargaining table and demand cuts"
This collective "we" thing is so tired, and frankly pretty frightening to behold.
We live in lunatic land, a nation where the "borrowers" split into two groups, then negotiate a debt increase for themselves, while us "lenders" are never invited to the discussion.
As this is going on, putatively sane authors of best-selling books implore "us" to make sure we're at the table.
Earth to author, we're not at the table. We're never really going to be at the table. The only way to get to the table is primitive, violent, and unlikely.
masly | 7.18.11 @ 12:29PM
Let the Default chips fall. The local economy is mostly Labor Swapping now anyway. Currency transfers are mostly cash, the US Electorate having lost full confidence in the DC government.
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Apple| 7.21.11 @ 12:53AM
Dr. Lydia Masly: Please go away, you're a washed-up old prostitute trolling for underage johns.
David Wilhelms| 7.18.11 @ 5:17PM
A Balanced Budget Amendment - I've turned this over and over again in my mind - ever since Reagan's deficits and Bush's unfunded wars - and I very much am not putting out a "Liberal canard" or "red herring" - but what prevents Congress from balancing the budget now?
And what EXACTLY is the word of this panacea? Will there be exemptions for national emergency? What are the penalties for violating?
Looking at my own state of Wisconsin - which ALLEGEDLY requires a balanced budget - both Democrats and Republicans have employed accounting tricks, deferred payments, and other fiscal ledgerdemain to avoid making unpopular choices to truly balance a budget for decades.
Yes, it's time for both parties to "stop kicking the can down the road" but I need to see the wording before I sign on to this "Final Solution."
In the meantime, debate of a Balanced Budget Amendment is even more pointless than the other posturing of the Republican-dominated House. Screw your symbols. Screw your punditry and ideological purity. Do the people's business.
c. j. acworth| 7.18.11 @ 5:59PM
I also fear that a balanced budget amendment will be seen by a future congress as an excuse to raise taxes. Conservatives think of cutting first, but the inside-the-beltway mentality is always geared to raising taxes. How can the BBA be worded to prevent this? CAN a BBA be worded to prevent it?
TrueBlue| 7.18.11 @ 7:39PM
It'd require them to also put in a tax cap no higher than we currently have, or at most a few % higher than we have, though I'm against higher than current. Perhaps also including in the Amendment a flat tax that also removes all tax loopholes and write-offs (a flat tax itself won't work without removing ways for people to not pay). A flat tax of 20% (MAX), without loopholes, across the board would satisfy both parties (theoretically, ideologically is another matter). The repubs would get their tax decrease, and the dems would get their increase on the "rich" by removing their ability to pay less than the listed %.
Make it include all businesses, and you're set. Oh and while they are it they can stop federal subsidies.
David Wilhelms| 7.18.11 @ 10:43PM
And yet - no answer amongst all that verbiage.
What does even a draft Balanced Budget Amendment contain?
POST American| 7.18.11 @ 10:05PM
-----Sideshows and chickenfeed DIS-traction ALERT!-----
Keep all eyes on the illegal Federal Reserve
-the TAX FREE machinations and the global
cultural subversion and EUGENICS ops of the
ever sinister foundations and NGO's
-that 1.5 quadrillion in FAKE derivatives debt
-the 'missing' 'Banker Bailout'
-and pride of place to the ever consolidating, ever unfolding
RED China TREASON op