Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama Poll

There are no details right now, but the Drudge Report is reporting a poll that says that if the 2012 Presidential Election were held today, and the candidates were Ron Paul and Barack Obama, 41% would vote for Paul, 42% for Obama.  Now, I hope libertarians and traditional conservatives can unite behind a younger and better (mostly just younger) candidate, but this is encouraging.  Despite all attempts to marginalize it, freedom is popular.

Of Presidents and Prime Ministers

The Year was 2002. Having made quick work of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and completed all military objectives that his administration had planned ahead for with little effort and little cost to American and Allied lives, President George W. Bush turned his eyes a little to the West. He really wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and implement a more America-friendly regime. Disobedience to UN mandates and intelligence suggesting there might be weapons of mass destruction gave him cover, but President Bush wasn't particularly popular abroad, there wasn't much support outside of the US for the Iraq invasion, and President Bush needed someone to support his plans.

Enter Tony Blair. The United Kingdom's Prime Minister was young, vibrant, moderate, reform-minded, and incredibly popular. There were newspaper articles about his meetings with the teachers of his children. He was seen as a man of the people, a Prime Minister that common people could identify with. In 1997, under his leadership, the "New" Labour Party had given the Conservatives their most devastating defeat ever. And importantly for President Bush, PM Blair wanted Hussein gone as much as he did.

It didn't exactly work as planned. Instead of PM Blair's popularity gaining support for President Bush's invasion, it killed PM Blair's popularity. The United States and United Kingdom had allies: Canada, Australia, Georgia, Spain for a while, and (don't forget) Poland, but many important, reliable allies like France and Germany refused to join the party. PM Blair was called as a Bush-loving neoconservative in his home country, and his support eroded to the point that he stepped down from his post in 2007.

Seven years later, while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still being fought, the world has turned its attention to the worldwide banking crisis and recession. During the first days of the recession, the world seemed to want to work together. When credit froze up, most major countries bailed out their banks, expanded deposit insurance, expanded their currency supply, and did what they could to insure that bank failures were minimized. One leader wants to do more. Much, much more. UK's Prime Minister Gordon Brown fully believes in a government spending a country out of recession, and is prepared to print as many Pounds as it takes to do it. If the UK destroys its own currency to inflate itself out of recession, it needs its trading partners to do the same, or it will destroy the standard of living for UK citizens. Unfortunately for PM Brown, many of the UK's trading partners are refusing to spend their way out of the mess, and are preferring to clean up their regulatory systems and provide a growth atmosphere for a market recovery. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is off fighting windmills of competing currencies, and many of the rest of the G20 leaders from PM Stephen Harper of Canada to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to libertarian-leaning President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic (current EU Presidency) are taking a more conservative approach. PM Brown doesn't have the respect, and certainly doesn't have the popularity to convince them.

Enter United States President Barack Obama. He's young, vibrant, liberal, and incredibly popular. He's easily the most popular world leader right now. Some European commentators have said that his "Barackness" will convince their citizens and politicians. In November, he and his Democratic Party gave the Republicans their worst defeat in years. And importantly for PM Brown, President Obama wholly endorses the idea of governments spending their way out of recession. At this week's G20 meetings, PM Brown is counting on President Obama's popularity to give him cover and gain support for the borrow-and-print-to-recover economic plan. They will gain some support, but the President and the Prime Minister need most or all major trading partners to agree to go along, or their plan doesn't have a chance of making life better for their citizens. If France, Germany, China, Japan, or Russia decide to play a different game or take their ball and go home, PM Brown doesn't get cover, he takes President Obama down with him. If "Don't Forget Spain" becomes the next "Don't Forget Poland", President Obama's popularity will fade quickly.

Pat Buchanan: Pitchfork Time

When one of the Pitchfork and Musket Junta's favorite public figures, Pat Buchanan, writes an article called Pitchfork Time, the Junta takes notice. This article is a good one. Here is an excerpt:

In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives. Yet, his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the Right. The real Obama has stood up, and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the United States Senate....
...Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21 percent of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II. Add that 28 percent of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12 percent spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40 percent of the economy in 2009.
We are not "headed down the road to socialism." We are there.

Buchanan concludes his article this way:

The president says he is gearing up for a fight on his budget.
Good. Let's give him one.

I'm with you, Pat. My pitchfork is ready.

Obama's Economic Recovery Plan ± 80%

President-elect Obama used his weekly radio YouTube address to make bold claims about his stimulus package, the amount of growth that it will create (3.7%), and the amount of jobs that it will create (3,675,000). He based it all on this report that his incoming administration created. Everyone should read the plan. Why? It will show you the absolute lack of depth and judgment that Obama's advisers have so far. It reads more like a Freshman Economics term paper than something written by high-paid economic experts. There are nuggets in there that show that brilliantly. Here's one:

The final step is to take the effect on GDP and translate it into job creation. Not all of the increasedoutput reflects increased employment: some comes from increases in hours of work among employed workers and some comes from higher productivity. We therefore use the relatively conservative rule of thumb that a 1 percent increase in GDP corresponds to an increase in employment of approximately 1 million jobs, or about three-quarters of a percent. This has been the rough correspondence over history and matches the FRB/US model reasonably well.

In other words, Obama's team has no clue how closely GDP growth relates to job growth, so they made up a number. So I just decided to do run a check on their numbers: 1% GDP growth is $138 Billion per year. 1 million average workers in the US would make just over $25 Billion. Obama's numbers have no basis in fact. Denninger found the most egregious example of this, here are his thoughts:

Obama: You Need To Fire Everyoneinvolved in producing your American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.
Why? In "Appendix 1"

We considered multipliers for the case where the federal funds rate remains constant, rather than the usual case where the Federal Reserve raises the funds rate in response to fiscal expansion, on the grounds that the funds rate is likely to be at or near its lower bound of zero for the foreseeable future.

Please tell me this is a joke. Obama really believes that The Fed can hold interest rates at zero for four years and they can spend without bound, while the bond market will blithely look on at $1-2 trillion deficits annually and the economy will begin to recover?
You're kidding, right?

To give the Obama team some credit, at least they admit how much they understand. From the Conclusion:

As emphasized at many points in the analysis, there is substantial uncertainty around all of our estimates.

Hold onto your shorts, folks. We're in for a rough ride.

Predicting a $2,000,000,000,000 Deficit

You heard it here first: the United States Government's Federal Deficit for fiscal year 2009 (ending 9/30) will be much closer to $2 Trillion than $1 Trillion. As bad as Bush's budgets were, Obama's first year will be worse than any three of Bush's. He has already warned us of a greater than 1 trillion dollar deficit, which will Tom Coburn predicts will be $1.6 Trillion. Add to that $290 Billion for the first 9 months of Obama's stimulus bill, $100 Billion or so for Iraq and Afghanistan, and a conservative $100 Billion to bail out various industries that will come to Washington with their hands out (I expect GM and Chrysler to be back, builders, and God knows who else). That brings my estimate to a staggering $2.1 Trillion dollars. As Senator Coburn has said, “The greatest moral issue of our time isn’t abortion, it’s robbing our next generation of opportunity. You’re going to save a child from being aborted so they can be born into a debtor’s prison?” As I wrote Monday, the "Keynesian multiplier" is now 0.2. We are saddling our children with $2 Trillion more debt to grow (or more likely, slow the collapse of) the economy by $0.4 Trillion. That is immoral.

Two related side notes:
CNN will air I.O.U.S.A. this weekend. This is the most important documentary in years, and it's well done.

Proving that he is truly insane, Harry Reid is repeating his try to pass a Coburn Omnibus bill. Senator Coburn has a really simple litmus test for bills that he'll obstruct. If a bill spends money on a duplicated program, he will hold obstruct it by any means necessary. Reid is trying to combine a bunch of bills that have been held up by Dr. Coburn to pass. Call your Senators and ask them to stand with the honorable Dr. No and against Dirty Harry.

The Truth and Myths of the Great Republican Defeat of 2008

So Republicans got whipped like the team in Little League that lets every kid play. They got beat in the House, they got beat in the Senate, they got beat in the White House, and they got beat in many states, counties, and cities. Over the next couple of months, many conservatives and liberals will propose reasons why they "permanent Republican majority" lost. Here are some truths and myths:

Myth #1: This represents a rejection of conservatism
To be fair to the country, no one to the right of Arianna Huffington will assert this, but you will hear it from time to time. This is absolutely, 100% incorrect. The United States, which just elected a real Progressive for President, is overwhelmingly Conservative. According to the Battleground Poll, conservatives outnumber liberals 60%-36%. People who consider themselves very conservative outnumber those who consider themselves way left of center 20%-9%. Ronald Reagan was in the middle of America. Bill Clinton and George Bush were left of center. Obama is on the fringe.

Myth #2: Sarah Palin cost McCain the election
This will be brought out by many of the moderates in the Republican Party, and the vestigial Nixon-Rockefeller wing. They slam it as a rejection of Western, Conservative, individual liberty Republicans, when McCain should have picked a Northeastern middle-of-the-road, business-first, not so mean Republican (or independent). Sarah Palin motivated Republicans and was worth between 8 and 10 points to the John McCain campaign. Had he made a boring pick or a liberal pick, Obama would have a mandate, and many Southern states with large black populations would have went blue. If Tom Ridge won McCain Pennsylvania and lost him Georgia and Mississippi, I don't know if anyone would have thought it was worth it.

Myth #3: This represents a fundamental change in the election map
See 1992, 1996 for how wrong this is. Virginia might have too many bureaucrats to go Red again, but the rest of the switched states switched because of the historical nature of the Obama campaign and the distaste for Republicans. It won't last. If Obama pushes all of his economic plans through, in 4 years, New York might be a swing state.

Truth #1: This represents a failure of Rove-ian politics
This couldn't be more true. Personal attacks don't work. Nothing personal McCain tried to pin Obama with stuck, and they made McCain look desperate. They didn't even work for Bush. I know he won, but the strategy almost cost him both elections. As a popular campaigner who connected well, he almost lost to an unpopular Bill Clinton's Vice President. Any idiot could have beaten the empty suit John Kerry. He really was the Democrats' Bob Dole. And I couldn't be happier. It's time for a higher level of political conversation in this country.

Truth #2: This represents a rejection of Bush policies
Were I an outsider, I'd think that it's a little funny, because everything the public hates about Bush, Obama promises more. After the miserable failure of No Child Left Behind, Obama's promising more government involvement in schools. After the miserable failure of Medicare Part D, Obama is promising more government healthcare. After the long and difficult Iraq War, Obama is promising more interventionism, in Darfur and Waziristan. The neoconservatives and modern Progressives are both Troskyites. In fact, the first neoconservatives were just progressives who recognized the unpopular nature of their policies in practice and became slightly more Fabian on social issues.
I'm not an outsider, and I worry for my country.

Unknown: This represents a rejection of Social Conservatism
This is probably not true, but it's worth talking about. Really, since Bush took office, the conservatives haven't had a seat at the table. Republican policies were a mixture of mostly neoconservativism with a little bit of the Moral Majority's issues thrown in. What is now called social conservatism was especially offensive to the old Rockefeller Republicans, and Goldwater was also against it. However, I don't think it's gone. California and several other states outlawed gay marriage, and Republicans in the Bible Belt generally did well. It is possible that the social conservatives that lost did so because they were too closely attached to the neoconservatives. This remains to be seen.

Republicans will do well to re-evaluate themselves. There needs to be a self-evaluation. They have to offer policies that distinguish themselves. Big government Republicanism is not only destructive to the country, it is also a losing formula. The fact is that when Democrats try to run the country through Washington, they can do it more efficiently and more fairly than Republicans. They're just better at big government. Republicans must relearn conservatism. It won't be easy, but it is necessary. A quote from Barry Goldwater could help: "I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

God Save the Republic!

Update: Interesting article from Scott Rasmussen.

Socialism and the Very Wealthy

Shannon over at Chicago Boyz has a great post about how socialism benefits the very wealthy. It is based on a revealing article by the Tax Foundation about how the United States already has the most progressive income tax system among the wealthiest nations. And it goes back to a fundamental truth about socialism and it's sloppier brother Progressivism: While Marx's ideals were about worker empowerment, every time a nation becomes more socialist, the only ones who benefit are those in government and those who can influence government. It is a shame that when the Progressives claim to be fighting for the working poor and middle class, Conservatives never hit back with truth. When government grows its income, it has to spend the money somewhere. Only 60-70% of that money makes it back to the people in most governments, and 80% in the most efficient governments. The remaining 30-40% either stays in government or goes to the most favored outside of government, whether they be Wall Street bankers or Stuttgart military contractors with no-bid contracts. The same favored class lean on governments to regulate their competitors into a non-threatening position. Finally, when taxes are increased, they never destroy those producers already in power. They destroy those on the margin, which are small competitors and start-ups. Progressivism and increased central planning tends to create a small permanent upper class, and a large, poorer, more equal lower class. The only thing that allows greater class mobility is removed barriers to market entry (real deregulation), greater opportunity, and removed disincentives for investment.

The incomparable Barry Goldwater had this to say about progressive income taxes in his classic The Conscience of a Conservative: "What is a 'fair share?' I believe that the requirements of justice are perfectly clear: government has a right to claim an equal percentage of each man's wealth, and no more.... The graduated tax is a confiscatory tax. Its effect, and to a large extent it's aim is to bring down all men to a common level. Many of the leading proponents of the graduated tax frankly admit that their purpose is to redistribute the nation's wealth. Their aim is an egalitarian society -- an objective that does violence both to the charter of the Republic and the laws of Nature. We are all equal in the eyes of God, but we are equal in no other respect."

Palin, Obama, and the French Revolution

I've heard a disturbing saying a lot recently from my poor, misled Democratic friends: "I want my President to be elite, to be smarter than me." To be fair, I hope that our President is smarter than them, too, but that's not what they mean. The implication is that because Sarah Palin went to the University of Idaho, majored in journalism, comes from a small town in Alaska, and hasn't yet made any decisions about foreign policy, she's less qualified to be President than someone who went to Harvard or Yale, has been in Washington for years, and has made hundreds of bad decisions about foreign policy. It's a dangerous sentiment.

A huge part of the reason that the First Republic failed in France was because after tearing down the monarchy, the proletariat supported the sans-coulottes, who were the members of the bourgeoisie that promised the most to the proletariat, and they were elected to the Directory. As could have been predicted, the new bourgeoisie leaders promoted the bourgeoisie above other classes, just as the aristocracy before them had done for the aristocracy, and the proletariat was no better off. Had the French followed the example of the Americans and allowed most classes to be involved in government, the compromise of leaving each other alone would have been seen as viable, and it is possible that a republic would have worked.

Right now, we have three members of the American bourgeoisie running for President and Vice President: two long-time Senators, and one young Senator who has been brought along by those of the political establishment. Sarah Palin is different. She is a member of the proletariat who cared enough about her children to run for City Council to give them a better town. When she didn't have enough impact, she ran for mayor where she could do more. Then after she accepted a state appointment and saw how corrupt her state government was, she ran for governor to revolutionize it and make it work better and more honestly for all the citizens including the proletariat. And she's been incredibly popular, because she has done exactly what she promised to do.

In a rare trust in a member of the proletariat by a member of the bourgeoisie, John McCain chose Governor Palin to be his second-in-command. It is an opportunity that rarely occurs without revolution. We have been told by our leaders over and over again that we should trust them, and that they know best how to take care of us. Over and over again that when given the choice, they will tax the proletariat to pay for the excesses of the nobility and bourgeoisie. Hopefully, if we can elect a member of the proletariat to the executive, the bourgeoisie and nobility will start to let the proletariat decide some things for themselves.

Rural Connectivity Administration

Obama is talking big about putting major investment into bringing broadband to rural communities. It sounds awful familiar. Remember the Rural Electrification Administration? It was the commission that was charged with building electrical lines to small rural communities and little houses on the prairie. And it never went away. It continued taking taxpayer money and adding bureaucracy to the top of rural electrical co-ops. When we still had a significant number of fiscal conservatives in the House, this was a target of their scorn. The slick squirrels in Washington eventually changed the name to the Rural Utility Service to obfuscate the fact that it was a worthless hanger-on bureaucracy. Now Barack Obama wants to add a Rural Connectivity Administration to the mess. Expect it to last well past the destruction of the economy of the country.

To be fair to the New Deal Socialists and the Hope and Change Socialists, the Rural Electrification Administration was and is, and the Rural Connectivity Administration will be a tiny fraction of the Federal Budget. But it's a key example of how nothing that Washington gives us ever goes away, even when it's outlived its usefulness.