Arizona Legislative District 6 Republican Committee

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Ben Bernanke at the recent Senate Budget Committee if the lack of Presidential leadership was hurting the US economy. He asked, “I’m afraid President Obama has just been phoning it in here the last couple years in terms of our debt and deficit issue. … Can you speak to how harmful that is in terms of economic growth?”

Now Bernanke can’t answer these sorts of things straight away. But he basically got there. Here’s what he said:

Well Senator, I’m not going to comment on parliamentary maneuverings, but Senator Wyden made exactly the same question. You know, is uncertainty about the future of the tax code, government programs, and so on a negative for growth? I think it is because firms like to have certainty, like to be able to plan. And again I would take on the same responsibility as a regulator, that we need to make regulations as clear and as effective as possible.

So he’s saying that firms like to have certainty and that as a regulator, Bernanke wants things to be clear and effective. Today Jake Tapper asked Jay Carney about this. Should Senate pass a budget? Does the President have an opinion on this? Turns out that the answer is no

TAPPER: The White House has no opinion about whether or not the Senate should pass a budget? The president’s going to introduce one. The Fed chair says not having one is bad for growth. But the White House has no opinion about whether –

CARNEY: I have no opinion — the White House has no opinion on Chairman Bernanke’s assessment of how the Senate ought to do its business.

I think it is worth recalling why the Senate stopped passing budgets. Because they are politically difficult, and being accountable is hard in an election year. The Senate last passed a budget on April 29, 2009. They didn’t work on a budget in 2010. Why? Because a budget requires taking responsibility for the fiscal state of our country. And it was clear that the 2010 election was going to be rough for Democrats. So what did they do? They ducked. They dodged all responsibility. Republicans were willing to do it in the House, but the Senate was not. They didn’t even bring a serious budget to the floor and haven’t since.

And since the Republicans have been able to put their ideas up for inspection by the American people. See the Ryan Budget. Republicans are willing to fight an election on ideas and tell the American people what sacrifices will need to be made to address our fiscal crisis.

But now, not only is the Senate failing the American people, but President Obama is helping the Senate in dodging this responsibility. The fact is that he has no opinion on running the country like an adult. He has “no opinion” about giving business certainty.

Thank you Ron Johnson for asking the question and getting the clarity on this from Chairman Bernanke. And thank you to Jake Tapper for asking the White House if they are interested in leading.

They aren’t.

 

Sometimes – well, frankly, pretty often – Mitt Romney scares the crap out of me.

I’m already on record saying that I think he’d be a much better President than Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, and nothing that has happened in the last month has changed that. Both Gingrich and Santorum are completely devoid of either the temperament or experience to handle the job of chief executive of the massive Federal government, a point which Newt Gingrich in particular seems determined to reinforce every single day between now and Super Tuesday (at least). Additionally, both Gingrich and Santorum have been C- candidates (at best) in terms of building a national campaign organization and raising money, both of which are necessary to have any chance to get the job of President, if they want to prove that I’m wrong about their experience and temperament. I am as close to 100% certain as I can be that both would lose in a landslide to Obama.

The problem is that I’m coming close to reaching that same conclusion about Mitt Romney. I don’t know what his problem is. I know there are some pretty serious questions about his ideological moorings, but that’s really less important (note that I did not say not important at all) in an executive than it is a legislator. That said, the number of people who have succesfully gained the nomination of either party without engaging in a substantial amount of flip-floppery is pretty small. The guy’s negatives, at least on paper, would seem to be clearly outweighed by his positives: he is clearly smart, clean cut, completely free of skeletons in his closet, able to self fund, and with a respectable dossier of executive experience. Furthermore, as I have explained before, he has spent the last 6 years ingratiating himself to conservative primary voters in a way that few previous candidates have (remember how McCain didn’t even bother to show up at CPAC in 2007 and in fact tried to set up a competing event down the hall?)

Beyond the “on paper” aspect of Mitt Romney, however, he appears to be a terrible political candidate. I mean, just awful. In debates, he can undo two solid hours of snappy comebacks and intelligent points with a single bizarre and frightening attempt at a natural laugh. (“Are you going to release twelve years of your taxes?” “Maybe! HA HA!”) This quality was absolutely laid bare in spades last night when Romney came out to speak to his supporters in Colorado. The Colorado result was still up in the air at that point but it was clear already that his campaign wasn’t going to have a good night.

Now, if there is one thing Mitt Romney should be used to by now, it is losing elections. By this point, he should have had enough practice at this that he could pull off at least a passable imitation of a leader rallying the troops. Instead, he wandered onto stage shellshocked and dazed, looking like a man who had physically taken a punch, and wandered aimlessly through almost the exact same speech he had given after his resounding victory in Florida. It was bad enough that I, as a Romney supporter, said to myself, “Holy cow, this guy is doomed.”

The problem Mitt Romney has is that he is totally and completely unable to generate loyalty in a broad enough base. He certainly has a small core of diehards, but the vast majority of his support comes from people like me who can only manage a resigned, “Well, I guess he’s the best we have. Sigh.” In modern politics, no amount of looking like a central casting President can compensate for an ability to make people feel, even through the lens of a television camera, that you are a guy who is with them and someone who they want to mount Pickett’s Charge with. Romney just can’t do it.

If you will permit me a digression here, caused no doubt by my longing for Spring Training, into a baseball analogy that I think is apt here (non-baseball fans may skip this paragraph as it will likely cause your eyes to glaze over). Bill James has noted that throughout history, Hall of Famers have accounted for just over 10% of all at-bats in the major leagues. However, only about 1% of all major leaguers make it to the Hall of Fame. Now, some of this phenomenon is explainable by what constitutes a Hall of Famer – Hall of Famers tend to be talented enough that they are not subject to platoon duty, and by definition they are the players who have longer and relatively injury-free careers. However, at least some of the effect is due to the fact that a large number of humans (especially the sort who rise to become high level baseball executives) are highly risk averse. Thus, long after Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson were elite (or even average, in some cases) major league pitchers, MLB general managers continued to shell out huge money at least on the theory that they were safer bets than any of the prospects available in the minor league farm systems. Thus also, the Los Angeles Angels shelled out an ungodly amount of money on a 10-year contract to the 32-year-old Albert Pujols despite already having a 26-year-old first baseman who as a rookie hit 29 home runs and had a .768 OPS. Note that this risk aversion is entirely a function of perception, rather than reality. Is it really true that a 46-year-old Randy Johnson is less of a risk (particularly given the propensity for injury that comes with playing professional sports in your mid-40s)  in your starting rotation than your top AAA prospect? Probably not, but due to perception some GM is going to give the geriatric Big Unit a shot. If you charted the future expected careers based on expected career paths charted by age and experience of Albert Pujols and Mark Trumbo, Trumbo’s next 10 years should be superior in the aggregate to Pujols’ – but that did not stop the Angles from spending a bazillion dollars on Pujols.

Which brings us back to Mitt Romney – there is no evidence at all that he is any less of a risk (at least electorally speaking) than any of the other candidates. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that almost every time he actually faces the voters, he loses. His polling, several months out, always projects him to do much better than he actually does when the rubber hits the road. This is because, while picking people based on risk aversion may work to some extent in baseball, it is a recipe for failure in politics (see also Kerry, John). For the fans of Moneyball, Mitt Romney is the Billy Beane of political candidates. If he doesn’t show sometime soon that he can figure out how to actually connect with people, I’m going to lose any hope of winning this Presidential election. And I just don’t know, at this point in his career, how Mitt Romney can be taught new tricks.

Romney took a punch in the mouth yesterday, even if it was mostly a completely symbolic punch. This really is his last chance to get back up and prove to his supporters that he’s not as bad of a candidate as he has looked so far.

What Is It with Massachusettes Governors and Armored Vehicles?

There are actually some reasons to vote for Mitt Romney in this year’s GOP Primaries. I don’t personally find them compelling, and have endorsed one of Gov. Romney’s opponents. I admire the man’s ability to manage large projects and he does know how an executive office works. Voting for Mitt Romney may not be my personal predilection, but it isn’t quite as pointless as wearing a rally cap or tossing maidens down a well for good luck.

People have also offered sales pitches on Romney’s behalf that are about as believable as SpongeBob Squarepants discovering the Higgs Boson. One of the sadder aspects of Mitt Romney’s mild ride this year has been watching people I have deemed intellectually powerful perform about as well at ratiocination as my little boy’s favorite cartoon character would at advancing particle physics. When Jonah Goldberg of National Review Magazine wrote The Case For Romney about a week ago, I remembered what outstanding work he had done in the past, and therefore delayed this post until it could age a bit and marinate. I felt I owed him a better expression of my angst than “WTF?”

Goldberg states the hypothesis that Mitt Romney would make a great president for Conservatives because he would owe us. He states the following:

…there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you…..If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Oh my! Is that really so? When he was Governor of Massachusetts, how did he repay all the Republicans he owed up there? Romneycare? Was it the complete and utter destruction of the state’s GOP infrastructure and popularity in his wake? Martha Coakley has done far more to help Republicans win high office in Massachusetts than Mitt Romney.

Jonah Goldberg tries to explain why Mitt Romney doesn’t quite gel with Middle Class and Working Class Conservative voters. He makes Romney sound like the slightly nerdy white guy sitting around studying mathematics problems in Southside Richmond, VA. Romney doesn’t dislike these people as much as he doesn’t grok their folkways quite, and can’t make himself look authentic.

I think this dramatically understates Mitt Romney’s problems with Conservative voters. To Governor Romney, Southern and Mid-Western Social Conservatives are like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the great Western Little Big Man was to the Cheyenne Indians who rescued him from death. Mitt Romney doesn’t even subconsciously believe he comes from the same species. The word Cheyenne, when translated literally, means “human being.” Those who were not Cheyenne were considered something else.

Mitt Romney, I’ve come to sincerely believe, considers those not from his own rather isolated Cheyenne Village to be something else. It explains how he could even accidently articulate the fact that he doesn’t worry about the very poor. He’s willing to be nice to people like myself, but it’s not like he’ll any more use for me after Election Day than he would for a prophylactic after an act of sexual intercourse.

I couldn’t make Mitt Romney understand who I am and where I come from even if he was really bored one afternoon and decide to amuse himself by actually giving a rat’s anus. There simply isn’t any way on God’s Green Earth that Mitt Romney would ever afford me the status of someone he would actually owe something to. If I ever were presumptuous enough to suggest such a thing it would serve as a profound affront to his self-image and dignity.

Like Ann Coulter in the wake of her “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE” debacle and the Massachusetts GOP, anyone foolish enough to believe Mitt Romney owed them something in return for a vote would quickly discover the finite limits of Lord Willard’s sense of noblesse oblige. Some reasons actually exist to support to support Mitt Romney for President. One or two of them might even be worthwhile. However, any sense that he feels a bond of honor to movement Conservatism is simply delusional.

I look back at all the great, wise and hilarious things Jonah Goldberg has written for National Review Magazine. This body of superb political commentary gives me reason to hope this endorsement he penned of Mitt Romney was just the lower tail of his Bell Curve. Jonah, for the sake of your honor as a man of intellect; climb down from the Mitt Romney Tank.

Government dependency is on the rise according to a new Heritage Foundation study.  Americans can thank President Barack Obama for a huge spike in the numbers of Americans dependent on government resources, but both parties can share in the blame.  If the federal government does not make government smaller and less intrusive, then there may not be much private sector wealth creation for government bureaucrats to take to redistribute to dependent Americans. 

American are relying on government handouts rather than hard work for many of the necessities of life.  One in five Americans rely on the federal government for housing, health care, food, college tuition and retirement resources.  The 10th year of The Heritage Foundation government dependency study, the 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, proves that members of both parties need to take a hard look in the mirror and figure out a way to slow, then end, the creeping expansion of the federal government into every aspect of our lives.

John Merline of Investor’s Business Daily writes that that the Obama presidency can take credit for 23% of the surge in dependency. 

The American public’s dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.

Merline points out that the Obama increase is the largest two-year jump since the Presidency of Jimmy Carter.  The reason for the stimulus in government dependency was President Obama’s and Congress’ efforts to increase housing subsidies, expand Medicaid and more welfare spending including food stamps. 

If more people become reliant on government, expect Americans to go down the road of our European friends who have relied on big welfare states for years.  With a big welfare state and less people working to pay for big government, the federal government’s natural inclination is to raise taxes on job creators to engage in wealth redistribution.  The take away from this study is that big government and a shift to a dependent society will be the death of free markets and the idea of a relatively unencumbered version of capitalism.  Get ready for the slow walk to socialism that we can see every day destroying Europe.

As Patrick Tyrrell of The Heritage Foundation, my employer, puts it “Dependence on Government at All-Time High.”  Tyrrell points to some facts in the new study that should shock Americans.

• Dependent Americans – One in five Americans—the highest in the nation’s history—relies on the federal government for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement assistance. That’s more than 67.3 million Americans who receive subsidies from Washington.
• Government Stimulus for Dependency – Government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with the most assistance going toward housing, health and welfare, and retirement.
• Record High Dependency Spending – The federal government spent more taxpayer dollars than ever before in 2011 to subsidize Americans. The average individual who relies on Washington could receive benefits valued at $32,748, more than the nation’s average disposable personal income ($32,446).
• Almost 50% of Americans Don’t Pay Income Tax – At the same time, nearly half of the U.S. population (49.5 percent) does not pay any federal income taxes.
• Future Dependency Spending Projected to Explode – In the next 25 years, more than 77 million baby boomers will retire. They will begin collecting checks from Social Security, drawing benefits from Medicare, and relying on Medicaid for long-term care.
• 70% of  Federal Budget Dedicated to Dependency – As of now, 70 percent of the federal government’s budget goes to individual assistance programs, up dramatically in just the past few years. However, research shows that private, community, and charitable aid helps individuals rise from their difficulties with better success than federal government handouts. Plus, local and private aid is often more effectively distributed.

Government debt stands at about $15.2 trillion; a number higher than the economic output of the United States for an average year.  Dependency is growing as government grows.  These trends are bad for freedom and the future of America.

Although this trend toward government dependency has accelerated under President Obama, he is not wholly to blame.  Both parties have supported a massive expansion of welfare programs over the past few years.  The food stamp program is the fourth largest entitlement program and stands at about $89 billion for this year.  There are 72 means tested welfare programs that grow in size and scope every year. 

Bailouts have made big corporate America dependent on government money when they can’t make ends meet.  Medicare Part D was a creation of a Republican administration that expanded dependency of the elderly on government subsidized prescription drugs.  If both parties don’t stop promising more government largess in an effort to buy off American voters, our nation is endanger of insolvency.

What is it with Salem Radio’s major hosts? Geez. You want to find out what the Romney campaign thinks, flip on Michael Medved or Hugh Hewitt or a number of the other Salem Radio hosts and you’ll find a host fully in line with Mitt Romney and fully out of step with the bulk of the conservative movement.

In fact, it is striking to find Salem’s radio hosts so in the tank for Romney when the top radio shows in the country from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck to Mark Levin to Neal Boortz to Laura Ingraham have all either stayed on the sidelines or gone largely against Romney.

And if being out of step with the larger conservative movement on this issue weren’t enough, Michael Medved has decided to trot out the newest pro-Romney talking point with some serious condescension. You see, it is not Mitt Romney. It is you hicks, rubes, and idiots that are to blame. “Dammit, why won’t you like him??!!??” Medved comes close to asking.

Mitt Romney has not changed. You people have! This follows an earlier Michael Medved lament where he threw out every straw man he could at both Rush Limbaugh and me in the name of defending his Massachusetts Moderate.

Most interesting, in that earlier opinion piece Medved claimed the Republican Party had to abandon conservatism to win in 2012. This time around, Medved claims Romney actually is a conservative. It’s just conservatives have become radically conservative. He seems to be shifting positions as often as Mitt Romney.

To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht’s “The Solution,” it seems a lot of Romney’s ardent supporters have viewed the base of the Republican Party and decided the base should be replaced with a new base rather than admit the their candidate is the problem.Many Romney backers, as indicative of Medved’s latest column, do seem to want another conservative base instead of the one that exists since the majority of the one that exists keeps rejecting their candidate of choice.

To believe Michael Medved we must accept that Mitt Romney has not changed since 2008, but rather the party has changed. Except Romney has morphed on immigration (again), taxes (again), has scaled back his language on conservatism and is, in fact, running very much as John McCain did in 2008.

We must also ignore the fact that more of the base was focused on Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, and Thompson in 2008 than on Romney. Medved may have been consistently for Romney as a lot of Republican oriented opinion leaders have been, but the base never was. Romney supporters who claim Romney has been wholly vetted forget that in 2008 all eyes were on Giuliani till his collapse, shifted quickly to Fred Thompson, and then spent a good deal of time dealing with the unexpected rise of Huckabee.

Romney is only just now being more fully vetted by conservative voters. A lot of the opinion leaders who supported Romney in 2008 and reject him now supported him in 2008 as a way to stop McCain and also did not expect the post 2008 Romney to revert to a brand of Massachusetts moderation.

In fact, it is largely accepted that Mitt Romney is running from McCain’s play book this time while in 2008 he ran against and to the right of John McCain.

That the base of the party sees it, resents it, and has redoubled their distrust in Romney because of it, Medved not only does not see it, but drips with condescension at the base because of his willful blinders.

About the only thing we can learn from Michael Medved’s piece is that the Romney campaign serves up some powerful kool-aid. But hey, at least now Medved doesn’t think we should abandon conservatism in favor of moderation. No, now it is that Mitt Romney has always been conservative and the rest of us are just too radical now.

We’ve directed a lot of attention to the deficiencies of the House version of the highway bill (here and here).  We must also work to defeat the Senate version, which is even worse.  The 2-year $109 billion Senate bill (S.1813) offers no reform to mass transit and continues to mandate that states use 10% of their funding for wasteful “enhancement projects.”  As bad as the House bill is for conservatives, the Senate bill is absolutely indefensible.  Yet, amazingly, it was reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with unanimous support from Republican members last year.  Last night, it was approved by the Finance Committee.

The Senate bill will spawn even larger deficits in the long-run.  Even for the two-year authorization period of the bill, there will be a $35 billion deficit between trust fund outlays and gas tax revenue.  Both the House and Senate versions rely on drawing down all existing funds in the trust fund to cover some of the gap ( to the extent that those funds really exist outside of an accounting gimmick).  However, there will still be a $13 billion shortfall over the next two years (and much more in the long-term).  The House bill relies on new royalties from oil exploration (that will never be approved by Democrats), but the Senate bill relies on phantom savings (from revenues that are already used to offset other expenditures) plus…you guessed it; tax increases.

After the EPW committee approved the underlying provisions of the bill, the Senate Finance Committee voted last night to approve $7 billion in sundry tax increases to fund this terrible bill.  One of those provisions includes a tax hike on inherited “stretched” IRAs and 401(k)s.

Here are the details from the horse’s mouth (Baucus Chairman’s Mark).

Require Distributions of Inherited IRAs within 5 years.  Under current law, holders of IRAs and 401(k)-type accounts are required to begin taking taxable distributions from those accounts once they reach age 70-1/2.  However, they can stretch those distributions over many years if they leave their account to a very young beneficiary.  When the account holder dies, the taxation of the account is then spread over the life of the beneficiary.  The Chairman’s Modification would require the retirement savings accounts to be treated, for tax purposes, as distributed within five years of the death of the account holder, unless the beneficiary is the account holder’s age, a child with special needs or older than 70.  This provision is estimated to raise $4.648 billion over ten years.

Hence, if someone bequeaths a retirement savings account to his grandchild, the beneficiary will have to liquidate the fund within 5 years and pay full taxes on the distributions.  This applies irrespective of how young the grandchild would be at the time of the grandparent’s death.

This ridiculous bill also transfers some revenue on tariffs from imported cars to plug the hole in the trust fund.  The problem is that this revenue is already accounted for and is used for other purposes.  This bill merely spread the same money around and uses the savings for multiple expenditures; not unlike the effort to use “war savings” as pay-fors.

The committee report passed with 17 ayes, 6 nays, and 1 present vote.  Here is the breakdown of the vote:

Ayes: Baucus, Rockefeller, Conrad (proxy), Bingaman, Kerry (proxy), Wyden, Schumer,

Stabenow, Cantwell, Nelson, Menendez, Carper, Cardin, Snowe, Crapo (proxy), Roberts (proxy), Thune

Nays: Hatch, Grassley (proxy), Enzi, Cornyn (proxy), Coburn (proxy), Burr (proxy)

Present: Kyl (proxy)

Snowe, Crap, Roberts, and Thune were the 4 Republicans who voted for this travesty.

The full Senate will vote for cloture on the tax hiking, deficit-spending highway bill on Thursday afternoon.  We must defeat both bills, especially the Senate version.  Nevertheless, the House bill is almost as offensive.  Once we agree to the premise that we must overspend the level of gas tax revenue purveying the trust fund, we will always be exposed to future tax increases and bailouts to bridge the gap.

Call your Senators and tell them to vote no on cloture for S.1813 – the highway bill with tax increases.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project  [Follow @RMConservative]

While the recent increase of attention to the ongoing carnage in Syria is a welcome change from the Obama administration’s collective state of denial over the past ten months, signals remain mixed, and our policy is unclear if not non-existent.  This week alone, for example, we got the welcome news that the Pentagon is preparing military options on Syria for the President, but at the same time White House press secretary announced those options will not be exercised.

The waters have been further muddied by the President’s insistence that there is no parity between the situation in Libya last year and what we face now in Syria. In Libya, the threat to civilians and opportunity to topple a vicious dictator were sufficient cause for Mr. Obama to engage the U.S. military, even without a pressing national security interest at stake.  While it can be argued that once the U.S. engaged in Libya it might have been preferable to lead from the front to secure weapons stockpiles and guard against al Qaida encroachment, the fact remains that the world is a better place with Colonel Qaddafi gone, as Mr. Obama routinely reminds us.

Meanwhile, as many as ten times the civilians killed in Libya before NATO’s intervention have died in Syria over the last year.  Bashir Assad is no less cruel and repressive a tyrant than Muammar Qaddafi. The threat of Syria’s unknown stockpiles of WMD falling into bad hands demands our urgent attention.  And, above all, the United States has a clear strategic interest in toppling this vital ally of Iran.

But Syria is somehow different, and not worthy of the same sort of military assistance we offered to the Libyan rebels.

Rather than taking decisive action in the form of military aid through our purported ally Turkey (perhaps in August when the President issued a statement calling for Assad’s ouster on his way out of town for vacation), the U.S. has remained on the diplomatic equivalent of a hamster wheel.  From the ill-advised resumption of “normal” relations with Syria last January through the pathetic failure of the Security Council resolution this weekend, our efforts to resolve the situation have been futile wastes of time and energy as the slaughter in Syria goes on to the tune of 100 people a day.

In dealing with Libya and Syria, consistency need not be the hobgoblin of little minds but can rather be the hallmark of a consistent and coordinated foreign policy.  There are equivalencies to be drawn between the two crises, and once these are recognized we should take equivalent action.  It is not a decision to be taken lightly, but we would not be alone and the cause is just.  We have the unified support of our European and Arab allies.  We have moral and strategic interests at stake.  Rather than whining about the shocking moral turpitude of the United Nations, the President of the United States needs to remember his responsibilities as the leader of the free world–and lead.

I’m traveling today, so this will be a ‘light’ edition. Today is February 8th. On this date in 1936, the first NFL draft was held. The first player drafted was Jay Berwanger, to the Eagles. Berwanger is also the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy the year before, an award known today as the Heisman Trophy. Berwanger, a halfback, is also known for his tackling future President Gerald Ford in 1934, leaving a scar beneath Ford’s left eye. The moral of the story is, if you scar Gerald Ford, they give you a trophy, and then a job.

Government Can’t Make Us Happy | John Stossel
“Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the right to pursue happiness has been perverted into a government-backed entitlement to happiness.”

Who is hurt most by rising energy costs? | Hot Air
“According to a new study, the hardest hit are precisely who you would expect. The poor and the elderly are having the biggest bite taken out of their checkbooks.”

Sue Myrick 15th House Republican member to retire | Human Events
“The decision of Myrick—a former Charlotte mayor who first came to Congress in the “Gingrich Class” of 1994—was somewhat of a surprise, in that she represents a district that has been in Republican hands without interruption since 1952 and continued re-election for her, as one local wag put it, ‘was the nearest thing to eternal life on earth.’”

Today’s Word of the Day comes from Dictionary.com.
piacular (pahy-AK-yuh-ler): adjective 1. Expiatory; atoning; reparatory. 2. Requiring expiation; sinful or wicked

The annual federal budget is a whopping $3.6 trillion, but that figure fails to capture the true burden of government on taxpayers.

There are a number of GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) that are considered off budget.  Politicians use off-budget entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Postal Service to obfuscate the true cost of government.  Additionally, the government runs a number of credit programs, in which taxpayers are on the hook for loan guarantees.  These guarantees include loans for college students and for energy programs, such as the one that purveyed failed green energy programs like Solyndra.

Under current law, Congress only factors in the cost of the loan itself when formulating the annual budget.  Perforce, if the money is paid back with interest, there is no cost to the government.  However, as we have learned so painfully, the loans are, all too often, never paid back.  Taxpayers have been called on to bailout a modicum of failed loan guarantees.  In the private sector, they use “fair value” accounting in calculating the costs of credit programs.  Fair value accounts for the costs of the market risk the lender incurs by issuing a loan, in addition to the actual borrowing costs.

Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 3581 – The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act (Scott Garrett).  This legislation brings Freddie and Fannie back on budget so taxpayers can see the true cost of these officious and destructive enterprises.  In addition, the bill will subject all loan guarantees to the “fair value” accounting method that is used in the private sector.

Astoundingly, almost every Democrat voted no on this commonsense bill.  Remember that this bill doesn’t mandate any changes to these programs or enterprises; it is not an ideologically charged bill.  This legislation merely forces Congress to reflect the true cost of government in the annual budget, not unlike what every family does with their household budget.  Sadly, even this moderate reform was too bold for Democrats.

We will be forced to clash with members of the House leadership over the next few weeks, but we should commend them when they bring legislation from conservatives, such as this budget reform bill, to the floor.  As for the Senate, we need to get them to agree to pass any budget, much less use prudent accounting methods.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Sean Trende to discuss his book The Lost Majority: Why the Future of Government is Up for Grabs–and Who Will Take It, why gaining electoral majorities is a very difficult task, and why conventional wisdom is often wrong.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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In today’s Morning Jolt Jim Geraghty observed, while implicitly dismissing former (involuntarily) Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper’s (D, PA) sudden getting religion over Obamacare for the cynical political move that it probably is, that the myth of the conservative Democratic Congressman was, well, a myth – and that he’s been saying that since 2010. Well, I’ve been saying that, too – so I decided to look at all the examples of so-called conservative Democrats found in that article, and where they are now. The results were amazingly gratifying:

• Bart Gordon (forced to retire, 2010)
  
• Bobby Bright (removed, 2010)
  
• Dan Boren (cutting and running, 2012)
  
• Gene Taylor (removed, 2010)
  
• Heath Shuler (cutting and running, 2012)
  
• Joe Donnelly (switching out to lose Senate race, 2012)
• John Barrow (going out fighting [cruelly redistricted], 2012)
  
• S.H. Sandlin (removed, 2010)
  
• Walt Minnick (removed, 2010)

In other words, it turns out that they really are a myth, now. It used to be that they were a myth because you couldn’t count on them to vote conservative when it counted; now they’re a myth because it’s getting harder and harder to find them in their supposed natural habitat. Which is a shame, but then nobody forced them to keep supporting a party leadership that pretty much hates everything that conservative Democrats supposedly stand for…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Mitt Romney had a horrible, horrible night. Early yesterday, Mitt Romney’s campaign called Missouri a “beauty contest” and said to focus on Colorado. We did. Wow.

I’ve said since Sunday that yesterday would be the first day of voting that Mitt Romney’s “poor” comment to Soledad O’Brien would have an impact. It typically takes a week for comments like that to be digested by voters. Six days after Romney opened his mouth, Rick Santorum swept the night.

From Missouri to Minnesota to Colorado the Republican electorate sent a very clear signal — they want conviction over electability. They do not like Mitt Romney. They see Santorum as authentic. They see Mitt Romney as a fraud. Rick Santorum swept the races. Romney, the front runner, got crushed by conservatives.

The pattern has held up from Iowa to South Carolina to Florida to Nevada to last night. In every county that saw increased turn out, Not Romney won. In counties with decreased turnout, Romney won most often, but not always.

The real winner last night is CPAC – the conservative political action conference. At the end of this week, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich will, in that order, address the crowd. Conservatives in the heartland last night rejected Mitt Romney as inauthentic. CPAC will be a must win speech for Romney.

Considering how often Mitt Romney has lost in the past decade, you’d think he would have given a better concession speech last night. He did not and will need to up his game for his CPAC speech. He must now seriously woo the conservatives he thought he would not need.

But what of Romney vs. Santorum? My prediction is that Romney has nothing to lose and will go negative. He will suddenly become as noxious as his supporters are on twitter and in the Washington Post. It will backfire on him. He will seem Newtish and Newt’s recent complaints about Romney’s negativity will be looked at anew.

Gingrich is a big loser after last night. But I think the untold story is just how terrible Ron Paul did. He had a caucus strategy that has failed across the board. He has won no states. His strategy is failing him.

What a night.

RedState Morning Briefing
For February 1, 2012

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

1. A Big, Big Win for Santorum . . . Errr . . . CPAC

2. Justice Ginsburg and the Need to Oppose Radical Judicial Nominees

3. Ron Paul, Constitutional Scholar

———————————————————————-

1. A Big, Big Win for Santorum . . . Errr . . . CPAC

Mitt Romney had a horrible, horrible night. Early yesterday, Mitt Romney’s campaign called Missouri a “beauty contest” and said to focus on Colorado. We did. Wow.

I’ve said since Sunday that yesterday would be the first day of voting that Mitt Romney’s “poor” comment to Soledad O’Brien would have an impact. It typically takes a week for comments like that to be digested by voters. Six days after Romney opened his mouth, Rick Santorum swept the night.

From Missouri to Minnesota to Colorado the Republican electorate sent a very clear signal — they want conviction over electability. They do not like Mitt Romney. They see Santorum as authentic. They see Mitt Romney as a fraud. Rick Santorum swept the races. Romney, the front runner, got crushed by conservatives.

The pattern has held up from Iowa to South Carolina to Florida to Nevada to last night. In every county that saw increased turn out, Not Romney won. In counties with decreased turnout, Romney won most often, but not always.

The real winner last night is CPAC – the conservative political action conference. At the end of this week, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich will, in that order, address the crowd. Conservatives in the hearthland last night rejected Mitt Romney as inauthentic. CPAC will be a must win speech for Romney.

Considering how often Mitt Romney has lost in the past decade, you’d think he would have given a better concession speech last night. He did not and will need to up his game for his CPAC speech. He must now seriously woo the conservatives he thought he would not need.

But what of Romney vs. Santorum? My prediction is that Romney has nothing to lose and will go negative. He will suddenly become as noxious as his supporters are on twitter and in the Washington Post. It will backfire on him. He will seem Newtish and Newt’s recent complaints about Romney’s negativity will be looked at anew.

Gingrich is a big loser after last night. But I think the untold story is just how terrible Ron Paul did. He had a caucus strategy that has failed across the board. He has won no states. His strategy is failing him.

What a night.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Justice Ginsburg and the Need to Oppose Radical Judicial Nominees

While most of us have been caught up in the brouhaha of electoral politics, liberal activists have been working indefatigably to pack the courts – the unelected branch of government – with radical statists. We might have turned over a number of congressional seats in 2010, but Obama has successfully turned over many conservative seats in our federal court system. Since taking office, Obama has appointed 125 people to federal judgeships, including 25 to appellate courts, and 2 to the Supreme Court.

After three years, Obama’s mark on the federal courts is beginning to become quite potent. The Fourth Circuit appellate court used to be filled with a majority of strict constructionist judges. Now, following Obama’s appointment of five new radicals, the court has totally shifted. This once conservative court ruled in favor of the administration in upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare last year. Obama’s indelible stain on the judicial system will reverberate for years to come.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Ron Paul, Constitutional Scholar

People like to say, “Ron Paul’s got a great domestic program, it’s just his foreign policy I don’t like.” Really, people only say that because they don’t take the time to understand what Ron Paul’s domestic program is all about, or at least the more insane details thereof. One particular example of this is Ron Paul’s view on monetary policy.

Paul, who likes to present himself as some sort of Constitutional scholar, has said in his last several concession speeches that “the Constitution still says that only gold and silver can be legal tender!” This absolutely absurd reading of the Constitution is universally rejected by anyone who can read English. Let’s look at Article 1, Section 10, from which Ron Paul draws his support.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

As of today, Rick Santorum officially has no more delegates than he had yesterday. That said, as CNN is just now this moment calling Colorado for Santorum in a stunning upset, his clean sweep of the states who voted/caucused today is a stunning rebuke to both Romney’s purported march through February and Newt Gingrich’s position as the favored not-Romney candidate.

Santorum’s performance was impressive in each state, vastly outperforming his position in the polls, which had him losing by 9 points in Colorado (he won by 5) and winning by only 9 in Minnesota (he won by 18). It is hard to tell who got clobbered worse – Romney, who fell all the way to third in Minnesota, or Gingrich, who finished well behind the flailing Romney in every state. Newt Gingrich didn’t even bother to give a speech tonight, which was probably a good idea if Romney’s shell-shocked and confused concession was any indication of what we could have expected. Although Santorum didn’t get any official delegates tonight, he certainly has bought himself one heck of a news cycle, and has in one day sucked the oxygen out of virtually every other campaign with the stunning results tonight.

For about the 9th or 10th time during this news cycle, the race has fundamentally changed its structure. For the first time I can recall, we are less than a month away from Super Tuesday and no one has any idea what is going to happen. Right now the question becomes whether Rick Santorum can get himself the money and organization to make this last beyond this week and into expensive contests in the larger states. One thing is for sure – this thing is a long way from over.

Background Information on Ruth’s comments to Egyptians looking for guidance on writing a new constitution:

Justice Ginsburg And The Need To Oppose Radical Judicial Nominees

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Trashes Constitution

Ginsburg to Egyptians…

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

People like to say, “Ron Paul’s got a great domestic program, it’s just his foreign policy I don’t like.” Really, people only say that because they don’t take the time to understand what Ron Paul’s domestic program is all about, or at least the more insane details thereof. One particular example of this is Ron Paul’s view on monetary policy.

Paul, who likes to present himself as some sort of Constitutional scholar, has said in his last several concession speeches that “the Constitution still says that only gold and silver can be legal tender!” This absolutely absurd reading of the Constitution is universally rejected by anyone who can read English. Let’s look at Article 1, Section 10, from which Ron Paul draws his support:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Emphasis mine. However, it is also worth noting that Article 1, Section 10, is conveniently titled “Powers Prohibited of States.” Ron Paul might still have at least a non-farcical point if it were not for the existence of Article 1, Section 8 (helpfully titled “Powers of Congress”):

The Congress shall have Power. . . To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof[.]

Get it? The reason states do not have the power to create their own legal tender (other than gold or silver coin) is because that is a power expressly reserved to the Federal government. Remember that this was one of the central evils of the Articles of Confederation – that every state had its own currency, which hindered trade and created economic chaos – and so the founders reserved to the Federal government the right to establish a single currency for the whole nation. States are absolutely and completely prohibited by these sections of the Constitution from generating their own currency other than literal gold and silver coins.

Therefore, even if you ignore that Article 1, Section 10 is expressly confined to restrict the powers of the States, it would not stand for the proposition that Ron Paul wants it to stand for, which is that the Federal government must constitutionally adhere gold/silver standard. It would instead mean that the Federal government was prohibited from using currency that was not literally gold or silver coin. This conclusion is of course absurd (and ultimately would have no salutary effect on monetary policy whatsoever) which is why no person who hasn’t suggested that the government is using paper money to try to track you has ever suggested it.

I get that some people want someone who is a principled, small government isolationist constitutionalist. Sadly, Ron Paul is not that person – he’s just a nut onto whom people are projecting those qualities.

Renee Ellmers (R-NC), took on Henry Waxman (D-CA) in spectacular fashion today in a joint House-Senate hearing on the payroll tax cut extension.

“What you say is completely and totally incorrect.”

Unfortunately a transcript is not yet available, but Rep. Ellmers takes the whole committee to task on ineffectiveness, useless rhetoric, and grandstanding, in a classic rant. It is especially satisfying to hear someone in Congress call out Democrats on their use of “emergency” rhetoric after failing to take care of any of our economic problems, or even pass a budget, last year. More of this, please.

Should be an interesting night. Click the box or join in in the comments!

Around these parts, we have a word that aptly describes shale formations: ubitquitious. (sic)

Every conventional oil and gas basin must have a hydrocarbon source, and that source is a shale. And since shales are low in permeability, we’re finding that the source rock still contains plenty of hydrocarbons, if you can figure out how to get the stuff out.

One of the newly-emerging plays is the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, which is being explored in a wide arc that cuts across central Louisiana and southern Mississippi.

Although the promise of the Marine Shale has yet to be proved, there is reason for optimism: if you follow that arc to the west, roughly parallel to the Texas coast, you’re smack-dab in the middle of the Eagle Ford trend of south Texas, currently the site of one of the hottest oil drilling plays in the country. The Tusc is equivalent in age to the Eagle Ford, and the newest well just tested almost 800 barrels of oil per day.

Yes, the shales are indeed ubiquitious.

Tuscaloosa shale promising

St. Helena well’s initial production spurs interest

The Encana Weyerhauser well, completed in November, averaged 784 barrels of oil per day and 309,000 cubic feet of natural gas, according to Encana’s filing with the state Department of Natural Resources. …

Around two dozen wells have been drilled or are being drilled in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, an oil-rich formation that covers Louisiana’s midsection. Energy companies have leased more than 1 million acres in the formation, but so far the firms aren’t sharing much of their early production figures.

Kirk A. Barrell, president of Amelia Resources, of Texas, said before the formation can be considered economically viable, 10 to 20 wells will have to be completed.

“You need the initial (production) rates for 10 to 20 wells, but you also need to get 12 to 15 months out and see what the decline of that rate is,” Barrell said.

Barrell has a blog called The Tusacaloosa Trend:

Sources indicate that Devon will be adding a 2nd rig to the TMS play soon. Encana, who has been rumored for weeks to be adding rigs, now appears to be slowing down the plan. Several sources indicate that it is for corporate reasons relating to very depressed natural gas prices and not the TMS results. The initial rates on the Weyerhaeuser 73H-1 and their record drilling time and lateral length on the Anderson 17H-1 are very encouraging. Sources indicate that after 5-6 completions, a full operational plan will be implemented.

It is worth noting that RedState’s editor, Erick Erickson, attended high school in Jackson, LA. Jackson is in East Feliciana Parish, right in the heart of the Marine Shale play. Considering that Erick’s younger years were spent in Abu Dhabi, we should not be surprised if eventually oil and gas leasing action heats up in and around Macon, GA.

Cross-posted at stevemaley.com.

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Today could end up being an embarrassing day for any Republican presidential candidate not named Rick Santorum.

Today, Colorado and Minnesota hold their caucuses, and Missouri holds their weird non-binding primary. Newt failed to qualify for the Missouri ballot, which means Santorum is widely expected to win Missouri today. The only company polling Minnesota right now is PPP, which today released a poll purporting to show Santorum leading by 9 in that state. Additionally, PPP released a poll showing Santorum running a strong second in Colorado. To recap, at the end of the day today:

• Rick Santorum, whose campaign was left for dead after an abysmal finish in Florida, might win 2 of the 3 contests today.
• Mitt Romney, who was supposed to sweep February, could end up only winning one of the three caucuses today, and that by a relatively slim margin.
• Newt Gingrich is facing a day with two third place finishes and a DNQ. His argument that Santorum should step aside grows weaker by the day (incidentally, anyone who says Santorum is a stalking horse for Romney has not been paying attention to the Santorum campaign).
• Ron Paul could finish the day far behind all three of the other candidates in delegates.

Ultimately, although today isn’t getting as much press coverage as recent election days, it could end up reshaping the race yet again. This could signal that the great mass of “Not Romney” voters isn’t ready to assimilate yet, and may have determined to abandon ship on the Gingrich campaign. Time will tell whether this time, Santorumentum will have a shelf life of longer than three days.