What Is The Future Of The Republican Party?

"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." — Frédéric Bastiat (The Law)

Conservatives need to take a collective breath and look closer at the numbers before they buy into the idea that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's defeat was due to some kind of national demographic shift that now makes Democrat presidential candidates' armor impenetrable. Before you give in to the hysteria, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, Barack Obama's re-election showing was actually pretty unimpressive for a guy whose philosophies voters have supposedly adopted. As of this writing on Wednesday, Obama's vote total stood at an unimpressive 60,119,958. That's about what John Kerry got in 2004 (59,028,444). President George W. Bush actually did far better than Obama in his 2004 reelection quest, posting a vote total that was about 2 million higher (62,040,610) than what Obama got on Tuesday. That's hardly a remarkable finish in a country with a population that has increased. In fact, it's a decline of 9 million votes from Obama's 2008 total.

Had Romney (57,425,441) done as well as McCain did in 2008 (59,934,814), he and Obama would have run neck and neck, virtually matching each other's vote totals. That's hardly the stuff of demographic ruin.

The question Republicans and conservatives need to ask is not why voters showed up for Obama, whose turnout wasn't exactly extraordinary, but why millions of their own voters, people who had pulled the lever for Bush and McCain, didn't do the same for Romney or simply stayed home.

Why did Romney get a full 2 million fewer votes than McCain did? Why did those voters pull the lever for McCain, but not for Romney?  Who were they, and where did they go? That is what Republican and conservative strategists need to find out.

Is it possible that Republicans and conservative-leaning independents just weren't that wild about the guy?

Romney, you'll remember, was not exactly popular with the GOP base through two primaries — the first of which he lost outright, and the second of which he won because, quite frankly, all the other candidates were largely unpresentable on the national stage. Remember, Romney won just 52 percent of the votes cast in the primary — hardly a resounding send-off from his own party. Worse yet, Romney carried just 3 out of 43 states with 70-plus percent of the vote, compared to an average of more than 15 states by previous presumptive GOP nominees.

Evangelicals have always been suspicious of Romney's Mormonism. In fact, just days before the election, Paul Ryan had a phone teleconference with Evangelical leaders to rally them. And the exasperation with Romney's flip-flopping habit originated on the right, not on the left, and was well-known. What's more, the GOP's anti-abortion wing has never been entirely comfortable with him the way they were with George W. Bush. And some of the party's base has wandered into the Tea Party and Ron Paul camps, where Romney was never fully welcomed, if embraced at all.

The pundits claim that “Mitt Romney was only the nominee because of a thin primary field." Nonsense, he was the nominee because the entire GOP establishment threw everything it had at all the other candidates, in order to guarantee that it would get the candidate most likely to succumb to their advice and direction. As of September 2012, Romney was the only candidate left in the primary field whom no one had ever described as a conservative, let alone a constitutionalist. That, in short, is why he was the nominee.

The GOP establishment no claims that “Republicans need a candidate who can appeal to moderates". Appealing to moderates means apologizing to voters for not being quite as forward-looking as Barack Obama. It is to set oneself up as the inferior choice. It is to presume that the moderates are with the Democrat candidate by default, and must be peeled off by stealth.

This election was the last chance to spare America the final degradation of ceasing to be a constitutional republic altogether. That battle has now been lost. The things most needed now are clarity and forthrightness. AS Margaret Thatcher said; “first you win the argument, then you win the election.” The danger most imminent now is that, having forsaken the principles of liberty, the nation will simply forget that those principles ever existed. Therefore, from now on, to whatever extent possible, every candidate running against the Democrats in any election must be the most unapologetic, relentless constitutional conservative available. He or she must call out the Democrat as a leftist, a socialist, an authoritarian, and every other simply accurate designation appropriate to the situation. And he or she must be intellectually prepared to prove that case against the Democrat, and to make the moral, constitutional case for individual freedom.

Will this kind of blunt, hard truth lead to victory? Not likely, or not in the short run. The danger, however, is that if the true identity of modern American leftism is swept under the rug in the name of the big lie of "electability" (a word I hope I never hear again), the popular optics will forever belong to the Democrats, who, after all, have actively created a society in their own image and will therefore always appear as the most natural position to their monstrous offspring.

The name of conservatism, and more importantly its proud truths, must never be allowed to slip from the public consciousness. They will do exactly that if the non-Democrat in future campaigns hides from this name and from these truths. Eventually, it will be impossible — realistically, if not legally — to run as a genuine conservative. (I do not use the word "legally" facetiously; the more entrenched authoritarian socialism becomes, the more an advocate of liberty becomes a perceived threat to the nation's basic principles.)

Sarah Palin said in an article in Newsmax that election was not a Rebuke of Conservatism:

“Hang in there, America. Fight for what is right. Don’t look to government or any politician to solve your problems. Government can’t make you happy, healthy, wealthy, or wise. Obama is a master at reading the right ‘soaring’ words fed into his teleprompter, but actions speak louder than words.”

It may very well be possible that McCain got 2 million more votes than Romney because of Sarah Palin. While she invoked passion and hatred from the left and the media she also brought out passion among conservatives — a passion neither McCain nor Romney could do.

The real alternative to leftist authoritarianism (to be labeled as such at every opportunity) must be presented often and with vigor. Politely asking to be forgiven for not being as exciting as one's leftist opponent is the surest path to permanent serfdom. The only way out of this morass is to stand firm on principle and speak proudly of the superiority of one's position. Over time, a new generation may rise up that will find this clear light more appealing than the dull gray of socialism.

Yes, it may take a generation, or more. But it is the only way to victory — not merely electoral victory, which is meaningless without defining principles according to which one can govern, but victory in the name of liberty, of the American Founders, and of civilization.

Michele Bachmann came within an inch of losing her congressional seat. She almost lost in part because she has had the courage to speak out about a host of constitutional issues, from the debt to the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the government, and her supposed compatriots in the GOP quietly refused to support her campaign in the hope that she would disappear, and take her embarrassing hard truths with her.

It should be noted that Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Deb Fisher, all Tea Party backed candidates were elected to the Senate.

Charles Krauthammer makes a few good points in his latest column in the Washington Post:

“They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).

The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.

I’ve always been of the “enforcement first” school, with the subsequent promise of legalization. I still think it’s the better policy. But many Hispanics fear that there will be nothing beyond enforcement. So, promise amnesty right up front. Secure the border with guaranteed legalization to follow on the day the four border-state governors affirm that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle.

Imagine Marco Rubio advancing such a policy on the road to 2016. It would transform the landscape. He’d win the Hispanic vote. Yes, win it. A problem fixable with a single policy initiative is not structural. It is solvable.

The other part of the current lament is that the Republican Party consistently trails among blacks, young people and (unmarried) women. (Republicans are plus-7 among married women.) But this is not for reasons of culture, identity or even affinity. It is because these constituencies tend to be more politically liberal — and Republicans are the conservative party.

The country doesn’t need two liberal parties. Yes, Republicans need to weed out candidates who talk like morons about rape. But this doesn’t mean the country needs two pro-choice parties either. In fact, more women are pro-life than are pro-choice. The problem here for Republicans is not policy but delicacy — speaking about culturally sensitive and philosophically complex issues with reflection and prudence.

Additionally, warn the doomsayers, Republicans must change not just ethnically but ideologically. Back to the center. Moderation above all!

More nonsense. Tuesday’s exit polls showed that by an eight-point margin (51-43), Americans believe that government does too much. And Republicans are the party of smaller government. Moreover, onrushing economic exigencies — crushing debt, unsustainable entitlements — will make the argument for smaller government increasingly unassailable.

So, why give it up? Republicans lost the election not because they advanced a bad argument but because they advanced a good argument not well enough. Romney ran a solid campaign, but he is by nature a Northeastern moderate. He sincerely adopted the new conservatism but still spoke it as a second language.

More Ford ’76 than Reagan ’80, Romney is a transitional figure, both generationally and ideologically. Behind him, the party has an extraordinarily strong bench. In Congress — Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, (the incoming) Ted Cruz and others. And the governors — Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley, plus former governor Jeb Bush and the soon-retiring Mitch Daniels. (Chris Christie is currently in rehab.)

They were all either a little too young or just not personally prepared to run in 2012. No longer. There may not be a Reagan among them, but this generation of rising leaders is philosophically rooted and politically fluent in the new constitutional conservatism.

Ignore the trimmers. There’s no need for radical change. The other party thinks it owns the demographic future — counter that in one stroke by fixing the Latino problem. Do not, however, abandon the party’s philosophical anchor. In a world where European social democracy is imploding before our eyes, the party of smaller, more modernized government owns the ideological future.

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The answer to Romney’s failure is not retreat, not aping the Democrats’ patchwork pandering. It is to make the case for restrained, rationalized and reformed government in stark contradistinction to Obama’s increasingly unsustainable big-spending, big-government paternalism.

Republicans: No whimpering. No whining. No reinvention when none is needed. Do conservatism but do it better. There’s a whole generation of leaders ready to do just that.”

No more apologies. No more embarrassment. No more veiled language when on the big stage. The left won the day by making the most radical, anti-human irrationalism of this epoch seem safe and normal, while portraying freedom and individualism as the dangerous, radical path.

The electoral battle between leftism and liberty is lost, and perhaps will now remain so for a good long time, regardless of the name of the winning party in any given election.

The moral war, however, is still in its early stages. It is an educational war, which means a war of ideas, which means a civilizational war. It is going to get ugly, and we are going to lose more battles than we win. As you know, however, the ultimate victor is the side that wins the last battle.

Hug Fest Or Debate

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other.” — James Madison, Federalist No. 10 — 1787.

In watching last night’s presidential debate one thing became crystal clear to me — Mitt Romney, much to my chagrin, was not going to hit President Obama with his weapons of mass destruction. Instead he decided to act “presidential” and take some fictional high road that he and his political advisors though was the better course and allow Obama to act as petulant child by attacking him and in some cases spewing bald face lies.

The debate opened with the moderator, Bob Schieffer, asking a question on the current events in Libya. As I sat watching Romney, who had the first bite at this apple, I thought Romney would have an opportunity to really take Obama to the woodshed. But he didn’t. Then I had to scream at the TV and grab Romney by the throat and shake him.

Instead of pointing out the many missteps the Obama Administration made regarding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi and the murder of our ambassador along with three of his protectors Romney stated that the attack was carried out "apparently by, I think we know now, by terrorists of some kind against our people there."

He then went on to “congratulate Obama on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership in Al Qaeda and said; “But we can’t kill our way out of this mess. We’re going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy.”

There were so many things Romney could have attacked Obama on regarding the attack and the subsequent cover up. He could have challenged Obama on the State Department ignoring Ambassador Stevens request for added security. He could have mentioned the fact that the State Department was watching the attack in real time from an unmanned aerial vehicle. He could have asked Obama why he did not order the quick reaction force stationed in Italy, an hour away from Benghazi into the fight or an AC130 gunship to take out the attackers. But Romney did none of these things. Instead he turned the conversation to the economy.

When Obama accused Romney of investing in China when he was with Bain Capital Romney said nothing. This is when a screamed at the TV in hope that Romney would hear me as I wanted him to mention that General Motors, the government owned car company, has plans to build 70% of their vehicles in China, thus loosing thousands of jobs in the United States. According to recent article in Forbes Less than one in five GM vehicles are manufactured in the United States. The article states:

“According to Obama, GM does everything right. It offers high-paying jobs to American workers. It invests at home. GM put American manufacturing back in the high-tech race on American soil. The new GM is good for America, and America is good for GM, as a former GM chairman declared in 1953. GM is back where it should be.

We need to look no further than General Motors’ own figures to learn that GM outsources almost two thirds of its jobs overseas. Less than one in five GM vehicles are manufactured in the United States.

To be exact: GM’s December 31, 2011 annual report shows General Motors of North America accounting for 98,000 of the 207,000 GM jobs worldwide. But 12,000 of these jobs are in Canada and 11,500 are in Mexico. Accordingly, GM has 74,500 jobs in the United States and 122,500 abroad, even after Obama’s touted surge in Detroit jobs. Almost two thirds of GM’s jobs are in other countries.

GM’s outsourcing is not a slip. GM clearly states that foreign investment and outsourcing of jobs are an integral parts of its growth strategy.”

Romney could then have stated that GM still owes the American taxpayer $24 billion dollars. Once again Romney let Obama of the hook and allowed him to continue his rant about Romney outsourcing to China. This was driving me crazy. Romney did, however, mention Solyndra and Obama’s failed green energy initiative.

Then Obama really got testy when he accused Romney of wanting the car companies to go belly-up and lose thousands of jobs. Romney responded that he had recommended a structured bankruptcy with government guarantees for the companies when they came out of bankruptcy and for the protection of the warranties for those who owned GM and Chrysler vehicles. This is when Obama lost it and virtually called Romney a liar and screamed that we should fact-check his statement. Well it turns out the Romney was telling the truth and Obama was lying into the camera without any hesitation at all. The

“You were very clear that you would not provide government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy," Obama said, going on the offensive. "You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn't true."

But Romney rejected the claim — and he's got the op-ed he wrote to back him up. "Under no circumstances would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet," Romney said, "And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry, of course not."

In a 2008 op-ed entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," Romney did in fact call on the government to play a role in responding to the auto crisis but in the form of federal guarantees, not loans.

"The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk," Romney wrote in The New York Times editorial.

You could see the rage on Obama’s face as he lied to the American people.

Like many conservatives I was looking for an ending similar to Sunday’s Giants-Redskins game when Elli Manning hit Victor Cruz for a game winning 77 yard TD pass with seconds left on the clock. Instead we got the boring Bears-Lions game where the bears plodded to a win over the hapless Lions.

His remarks about horse, bayonets, aircraft carriers, and submarines were not only demeaning they were out of bounds for an incumbent president. Within moments of his remarks a Marine tweeted that the Marines still use bayonets, as do the rest of the military. In fact they train with them.

The whole time during the last Presidential debate, Mitt Romney looked like the incumbent and Barack Obama looked like a challenger trying to keep it together. More specifically, Barack Obama, when he made eye contact, looked like he was seeing and invisible hand writing “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin” on the wall behind Bob Schieffer. This was a man who knows the gig is almost up.

Throughout the debate, Mitt Romney smiled, agreed, and avoided fights. Barack Obama did everything he could to get into fights. That’s not what incumbents in a comfortable lead do.

The biggest issue to come out of this debate, though, was Barack Obama totally claiming that sequestration was Congress’s fault — he signed it into law — and that it would not happen, despite it being the law of the land.

Within mere moments after the conclusion of the debate, the Obama camp already walked it back. It is never good for the President of the United States when, immediately upon conclusion of a must win debate, his campaign team is already walking back his bold statements. His jokes about sequestration will haunt him in military towns and his dismissiveness of the American Navy will hurt him in key swing states.

We’re two weeks away and signs point to the Obama campaign flailing about like a chicken with its head cut off — or more precisely Florida, North Carolina, and, of all things, Virginia cut off. Colorado too seems to be slipping out of Obama’s reach making Ohio more and more necessary. Paul Ryan has begun making incursions into Western Pennsylvania, which gets Ohio media markets, but also helps Republicans in Pennsylvania — something Obama cannot do for Democrats.

Within a week, the Obama campaign will probably trot out some blonde somebody with Gloria Alred to claim Mitt Romney and his five sons have all been sharing her. It will be their October Surprise. No doubt Eric Holder will be enlisted to drum up a few indictments too. They’ll pin their hopes on last minute fiction.

The Obama campaign is desperate and scared. Desperate and scared campaigns, like animals. tend to lash out. We’re seeing signs of that now with the “binders full of women” nonsense among other things. The Obama campaign has made a near fatal — quite possibly fatal — mistake. The campaign has been run on what Barack Obama has done for people without barely a hint of what he will do in his second term. People want to vote for something. Obama has given them nothing to vote for — just reminders of a past that includes a whole lot of unemployment and a still deeply unpopular take over of the American healthcare system. At least there’s Big Bird and Sandra Fluke.

What’s more, Mitt Romney and the GOP both are benefiting tremendously from Team Obama’s pride. The Obama campaign cannot, out of pride, admit it is losing key states. Consequently, the campaign continues to pour money into states like Florida that have fully slipped away. The Obama campaign is also hoarding Democratic Party funds that could be spent on other races. An unwillingness to let go of states and money and an inability to help other Democratic campaigns is not just costing Barack Obama, but is costing the Democratic Party as a whole.

Hamburgers, Batteries And Debates

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." — Frederic Bastiat, The Law.

Yesterday I posted a blog about the administrative state and the increasing influence and power being exerted by the experts and masterminds who manage that state. Also there was round two of the Obama-Romney debate last night that I will address later.

But first let’s look at the cost of a hamburger and what is costs the taxpayer when you ride the government train called Amtrak. If you take a ride on the train from Boston to Washington D.C., known as the Northeast Corridor you will pay $6.65 for the no so tasty burger. What you may not realize is that the true cost for that burger is $16.15, leaving the taxpayer with a $9.50 deficit. No big deal you say. Wrong. Last year Amtrak lost almost $250 million on its food and beverage service and according to and August 2^nd report in the Washington Examiner the government subsidized rail service lost $833 million over the last decade on the food and managed to spend $1.70 for every dollar that they received in revenue. What a way to run a railway!

Why are they losing money on the F&B service? Are they serving burgers made with kobe beef? No. The major reason is the 1,234 union employees serving this food. According to Representative John Mica (R-FL):

“The food service is legally obligated to break even, but Amtrak lost $84 million just last year. “The rail service’s food and beverage operation has 1,234 employees, and taking into account Amtrak’s $84.5 million loss last year, that’s $68, 476 per employee.”

A similar report in the New York Times states Amtrak lost more than $800 million on its food and beverage services over the last 10 years, largely because of waste, employee theft and lack of proper oversight, government auditors have found:

“Joseph H. Boardman, president and chief executive of Amtrak, confirmed the losses but said the railroad was taking steps to address the problem. “We are still looking for ways to improve our cost recovery,” he said.

According to audits by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, and the railroad’s own inspector general, Amtrak loses about $80 million a year selling food. Since 2002, Amtrak’s food service has lost $834 million.

Amtrak said it was increasing the use of credit cards for food sales to cut down on cash thefts by employees, reducing staff, creating a better system to track inventory and to collect revenue. It has also set up a three-person loss-prevention unit.

Ted Alves, the Amtrak inspector general, testified that the bulk of the losses were on Amtrak’s long-distance routes, which account for 87 percent of the deficit. Last year, Amtrak spent $206 million in providing food services but collected only about $121 million. Long-haul routes do not include the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington.”

If McDonalds, Burger King or Jack In The Box can sell a burger for less than two dollars and make a profit how is that Amtrak loses nine bucks on a burger that the customer shells our six buck for. The reason is Amtrak’s use of over-paid employees to pass out the food.

In 1991 when I was working as a GIS consultant for the West German Railroad (Deutsche Bundesbahn) I learned quite a bit about their operations and how the made money. One of the things they do is outsource their food and beverage service to private contractors who run the dining cars and snack trollies. In this manner they do not provide pensions and health care for these employees — that’s left (under German Law) to the contractor. It’s left to the contractor to provide good service and food and make a profit.

To a lot of the people who matter in media and politics "Amtrak" means "the guys who run the Northeast Corridor trains" and it seems unimaginable that they could lose that much on food service. If you delve into the report, however, it's clear that the losses are coming from Amtrak's weird long-haul routes off the NEC rather than from the Boston-D.C. service.

That said, this is no excuse for losing tons of money on food service! If selling food on trains isn't a profit center for the train operator, then the train operator is doing something badly wrong. And Nick Rahall's (D-WV) comments on this make me want to scream:

Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia and the ranking member on the committee, said the hearing was a not-so-veiled attempt by Republicans to get rid of Amtrak food service workers, who number about 1,200.

“It’s a whopper of an idea, trading good-paying jobs for cheaper hamburgers,” Mr. Rahall said.”

This conception of government agencies as primarily jobs programs for public sector workers rather than public service providers is really toxic. The point of Amtrak is to provide passenger rail services. Its workforce practices should be designed with that end in mind. If adopting a leaner workforce would allow Amtrak to invest the money needed to run faster trains while holding fares constant, that would be a huge win for American transportation. And over the long run, the only way to have a vibrant railroad workforce in America is to have a vibrant railroad sector. But to have a vibrant railroad sector, Amtrak has to be focused on trying to run a railroad, not trying to create a handful of make-work jobs. If Amtrak was a truly private run operation I am sure their cost structure would be much different.

By now the $500 billion dollar fiasco of Solyndra is a household word. Now Obama has another brewing scandal with the battery manufacturer A123 Systems, a firm that makes batteries for green electric cars that are not selling. Yesterday A123 Systems declared bankruptcy leaving the taxpayers with a $241 million dollar debt. Of course to Obama, who touted this firm two years ago as one of his green energy firms that would employ 400 people, this is chump change. A123 Systems said it would sell its automotive business assets to Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI).

According to a report on Bloomberg:

“The filing may fuel a debate over government financing of alternative-energy and transportation businesses. Federal grants and loans to companies including A123, Fisker Automotive Inc. and Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) have drawn scrutiny from congressional Republicans following the September 2011 bankruptcy filing of solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC two years after it received a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Energy Department.

“This action is expected to allow the company to provide for an orderly sale,” A123 said in a press release. Johnson Controls plans to acquire A123’s automotive-business assets in a deal valued at $125 million and will provide financing of $72.5 million to support A123’s operations, according to the release. A deal to sell a majority stake to a Chinese company fell through, A123 said.

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Electric-vehicle sales since 2011 totaled fewer than 50,000 through September, just 5 percent of Obama’s target to have 1 million such vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015.

The debtors’ two largest customers are Fisker and AES Energy Storage LLC and its affiliates, which accounted for about 26 percent and 24 percent of their total revenue during the year ended Dec. 31, respectively, court papers show.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said last month that Obama has picked “losers” for alternative-energy loans and grants. His running mate, Paul Ryan, has called for all green-energy subsidies to be eliminated.

A123 has posted at least 14 straight quarterly losses. Its shares had fallen 85 percent this year to 24 cents as of yesterday’s close in New York.”

In a similar report on Obama’s brilliant record of investing our money President Barack Obama said last Thursday that “we got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system."

According to the Congressional Budget Office, however, the government will lose about $24 billion on the bailout.

According to a report on CNS “We got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system, but we also passed a historic law to end taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts for good,” Obama said in Miami Thursday:

“The Congressional Budget Office--based on figures from Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget---gives a different assessment.

“The cost to the federal government of the TARP’s transactions (also referred to as the subsidy cost), including grants for mortgage programs that have not yet been made, will amount to $24 billion,” said the CBO report, which was released on the same day Obama spoke.

TARP is the Troubled Asset Relief Program – the formal name of the government’s financial bailout program passed in October 2008.

CBO said that the cost of TARP “stems largely from assistance to American International Group (AIG), aid to the automotive industry, and grant programs aimed at avoiding home mortgage foreclosures,” noting that the losses will be so large they will eclipse the financial gains the government will realize from bailing out other large financial institutions.

In fact, CBO reported that as of now $65 billion in TARP funds remain outstanding.”

Why Romney did not hit this issue hard last night is beyond me. Red States has a very detailed article entitles; “The Pigs At Obama’s Green Energy Trough” that is well worth reading. There is a good expose of the corruption behind the BrightSource project.

Realistically, very few presidential debates have the kind of clear-cut winner that the first Romney-Obama debate did. It’s more productive to look at what each candidate came looking to accomplish.

Romney: Romney came in tonight with three main goals.

One, he wanted to repeat his strong showing from the first debate. He did that – he was vigorous, authoritative, and came across as the same technocratic moderate that he really is.

Two, he wanted to avoid any major gaffes that would foul up the momentum he has going. He did that, too. He never seemed stymied, never really put his foot in his mouth in a harmful way. Even when he bought into the false left-wing premise of a question on gender pay equity, he came away talking about his own experience hiring women in his cabinet (he might have mentioned his female running mate in Massachusetts as well and that Obama pays women in the White House less than men).

Three, he wanted to go in for the kill. On that, Romney failed. He let Obama get away with some flagrant lies, like claiming that Planned Parenthood performs mammograms. He completely botched an obvious attack on Obama’s disastrous and dishonest response on Libya, to the point where even moderator Candy Crowley – who was mostly running interference for Obama on this and on Fast & Furious – had to step in and remind Romney that Obama’s Administration had been dishonest on Libya. Romney forced a confrontation on the facts on oil drilling – one the fact-checkers have to give him – but like John McCain in 2008, he seemed hesitant to really take the fight to Obama on more divisive issues.

It’s true that Obama is now set up to be completely dismantled on Libya in the third debate, if Romney comes loaded for bear. But I suspect that by the time that debate arrives, nobody will be left undecided.

Obama: Obama also came in with goals, four of them.

First, Obama needed to show that he actually still wants the job. He did that – he was much more vigorous tonight, showing some fight and some indignation and squaring off in some true alpha-dog battles with Romney.

Second, Obama needed to give his partisans something to cheer for. He was late sometimes in doing so (especially waiting for his closing to attack Romney on the 47% tape) but did deliver.

Third, Obama needed to lay out something more like a positive second-term agenda. On this, he failed miserably. He has nothing to offer but a stew of “more of the same.” Closing with the 47% attack really underlines the extent to which this is a campaign bereft of positive promise.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, Obama needed to strip the bark off Romney, convince the voters that he was in no way an acceptable alternative. And outside the choir, Obama really didn’t seem to do that. He didn’t dismantle Romney’s agenda, he just disagreed with it. He basically denied the existence of the problems Romney cited on energy policy. Despite pre-debate preening on Romney’s record in Massachusetts, Obama never attacked that record. And despite his heavy reliance to date on attacking Romney as a tax-hiker, Obama spent far more of the debate bashing tax cuts, leaving little doubt which candidate was the low-tax candidate.

Romney’s strongest moments were two. One, he just buried Obama in response to an African-American man who declared himself a disheartened Obama ’08 voter; Romney responded with a blistering indictment of Obama’s economic record. And two, he offered a great answer on American competitiveness. He also came away with a good answer on immigration, albeit one that won’t please many of his own primary supporters.

As Erick Erickson writes in Red States:

“I think Mitt Romney won the debate, but not by much. He flubbed a few good opportunities to really score decisive blows on the President, but definitely drew more blood. The CNN polling and CBS News polling confirm it. While more thought Barack Obama won the debate, largely because his last performance was so bad, clear majorities outside the margin of error thought Mitt Romney would be best on the economy, jobs, the deficit, etc. That suggests Romney did win, but people viewed Obama’s debate performance as an improvement over the first one. In fact, while other areas of the debate may overshadow this point, Romney deftly dispatched Obama on his economic record. That is the one issue that matters. It got so bad, Obama had to trot out Planned Parenthood and Big Bird.

….

The President tried to claim that the reason gas prices were so low in 2008 was because the economy was so bad. He actually wanted the audience to believe that the economy is going gangbusters now as a reason for $4.00 gasoline — a delusion the undecided voters clearly did not buy. His words — he said that gas prices were so low because of the economy, which clearly means he thinks it is so high now because of the recovery. What recovery? Romney hit him hard on this and the undecided voters reacted favorably to Romney. There is more room for Romney to hit Obama on the airwaves over gas prices.

….

Candy Crowley should not have tried to referee the Libya answer as she moderated. Herding the cats was a difficult enough task. Interjecting on the Libya story made her part of the story in a way she should not have become. But for all the people heaping aspersions on her (full disclosure: I am a political contributor for CNN and have long thought the world of Candy Crowley even before I had a relationship with CNN), they should be thanking her. It was her interjection to clarify what was and was not said that muddied the water on what the President actually said”

Dick Morris has a similar take on the outcome of the debate when he writes:

“Fundamentally, Romney’s smooth, polished, dignified, articulate, sincere, and compassionate manner in the debate puts to rest eight months of Obama negative attacks on his character. Barack Obama is about to learn the lesson Jimmy Carter learned in 1980 when he lost to Reagan — and found his lead collapsing after the debates. When a president with a failed record tries to win by attacking and demonizing his opponent, he can succeed only if there are no debates. Since neither Goldwater (1964) nor McGovern (1972) had the chance to show themselves to America in debates, the negative characterization of them by first Johnson and then Nixon stuck. But Ronald Reagan’s debate performance nullified Carter’s attacks and showed him not to be the war-mongering madman the president had accused him of being. Similarly, Obama’s portrayal of Romney as insensitive, elitist, incapable of understanding the problems of the average person, a tax cheat, and a cold blooded capitalist all fell before Romney’s real persona as it came through on television.

And once Obama is stripped of his negative messaging, he has nothing to say. His defense of his economic record and his energy drilling essentially boiled down to asking people what they wanted to believe — their own eyes or Obama’s speeches.”

Since last night Crowley has issued a statement claiming Romney was rights and she was mistaken in her remarks. According to a report on Fox News this morning Crowley said; "He was right in the main. I just think he picked the wrong word.”

“The moderator in Tuesday night's presidential debate, after appearing to side with President Obama on the question of whether he called the Libya strike a terror attack from the start, conceded afterward that Mitt Romney was "right" on the broader point -- that the administration for days insisted it was a spontaneous act.

"He was right in the main. I just think he picked the wrong word," Candy Crowley said of Romney on CNN shortly after the debate ended.

Crowley was referring to the tense exchange in the final half-hour of the debate, when Romney questioned whether Obama had called the attack an "act of terror" rather than "spontaneous" violence that grew out of a protest against an anti-Islam video.

….

Obama, indicating he thought he had just gotten a boost from the moderator, then chimed in: "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?"

However, Obama didn't explicitly label the Benghazi strike terrorism in those Sept. 12 remarks. What he did say is: "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation."

Crowley, during and following the debate, pointed out that despite Obama's Sept. 12 remarks his administration was peddling a different story to the public. She said it took two weeks for officials to say more definitively that the attack was more than an out-of-control protest.

And she continued to clarify on CNN that Romney was making a legitimate point.

"Right after that I did turn around and say, 'but you are totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape'," she said.”

In the baseball playoffs, the tie goes to the runner. In debates, ties are decided by the moderator and that’s what happened during the Tuesday night presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York. CNN’s Candy Crowley made her presence felt as a moderator in a major way on two points, but none larger than the issue of Libya.

The terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and four others in Benghazi has become a sore point for Obama, but Crowley made sure she called Romney out before Obama could tag him.

When Romney said Obama had not called the attack an act of terror for 14 days, Crowley interrupted and said: “It -- it -- it -- he did in fact, sir. So let me -- let me call it an act of terror.”

Naturally, Obama asked her to restate her point and she did. “Can you say that a little louder, Candy?” asked the president. “He — he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that,” she continued.

Conservatives were outraged, arguing that Crowley’s interruption spoiled a key Romney point. They weren’t the only ones. Even Politico’s Mike Allen called the Crowley point “arguable” and pointed to the transcript of Obama’s statement saying it “generally” referred to “acts of terror.” CNN’s John King called the Obama statement a “generic” comment about terror, not specifically calling the Libya attack a terrorist act.

In the run-up to the second presidential debate, CNN’s Candy Crowley declared that she would not just be a “fly on the wall” as she played the tiny role of moderator, that she would step in whenever she chose to say, “Hey, wait a second, what about X, Y, Z?”

And boy did she, cutting off Republican Mitt Romney repeatedly and often throwing the floor to President Obama with an open “let me give the president a chance here.”

More, she alone decided the topics for the debate, picking questions from the 80 so-called “undecided” voters chosen by the Gallup polling organization. Her selections were tailor-made for Mr. Obama — Mitt Romney’s tax plan, women’s rights and contraception, outsourcing, immigration, the Libya debacle (which gave Mr. Obama to finally say that the buck stops with him, not, as Hillary Clinton said, with her).

She even chose this question, directed to both men: “I do attribute much of America’s economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration. Since both of you are Republicans, I fear the return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?” Undecided my butt. This was just another chance for Obama and the left to blame Bush — how sad. To be fair and balanced Crowley should had found a person to ask if Obama was following the policies of Jimmy Carter, after all he was a Democrat.

Ms. Crowley, who called Mr. Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as running mate a “ticket death wish,” asserted her unilateral power at the outset, telling the audience before the cameras went on that she planned to “give the debate direction and ensure the candidates give answers to the questions.”

After both candidates answered Question One, she blurted: “Let me get a more immediate answer” — whatever that means. But when Mr. Romney sought to correct falsehoods told by the president, she cut him off: “We have all these folks here.” In the end, Mr. Obama would get 9 percent more time.

Obama falsely said that he had called the murders in Benghazi a terrorist act the day after September 11. Gov. Romney was seemingly bewildered about what to say. Obama further told the outrageous untruth that in a democracy, the President should not be criticized over a defense/foreign policy disaster.

Let's look at the facts:

Obama gave a lengthy speech on September 12^th , after the murders in Libya, in which he first of all apologized to the Muslims for that infamous video. Then he talked about the terrorism of September 11, 2001, and his visits to some graves of some victims. It was in that context that he mentioned terrorist acts — NOT in the context of the killings in Libya. Those, he was still blaming on an inflamed mob and that video. For Obama to take his own words out of context to excuse his inexcusable kowtow to the Islamists was disgraceful, deceptive, but frankly, not surprising. But for Gov. Romney to not catch him on it and whip him was a disappointment. Gov. Romney might have said, "Sir, you were covering up for the al Qaeda affiliates most of September and you are still covering up for your incompetence. It is insulting to the nation."

Even worse is Obama's anti-Constitutional pretention that no one is allowed to criticize him on foreign policy or else it's "playing politics."

To this, Mr. Romney should have said that it is the essence of a free people that the elected officials can and must be criticized for their mistakes. Otherwise, we do not have a democracy.

If this is how Obama misunderstands the First Amendment, he should not be in high office.

But Mr. Romney missed that moment, too.

Something went wrong last night. Romney was not on the beam on Libya. But the dishonesty and shameless obfuscation of Obama were genuinely frightening. Look, Secretary of State Clinton has already apologized, so we know something went badly wrong in Benghazi. Only Obama is still saying he didn't do anything wrong. Obama is smooth, but he is in a box now, and let's hope that Gov. Romney does not let him out next time.

Killing Big Bird

“Today our problem is not making miracles--but managing miracles. We might well ponder a different question: What hath man wrought--and how will man use his inventions?” — Lyndon Johnson, Remarks Upon Signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, November 7, 1967.

I have a suggestion for Bill O’Reilly, the author of two bestselling books; Killing Lincoln and Killing Kennedy. He might consider another book with the title “Killing Big Bird.”

Having been routed in the first debate, President Obama has found a comeback strategy: Fly Big Bird. Specifically, mock Mitt Romney’s call to cut federal subsidies for the millionaires at the Sesame Workshop and pledge to defend the Public Broadcasting Service no matter how much money the Treasury has to borrow.

Apologizing for his disastrous performance in his first head-to-head debate with Mitt Romney, President Obama told a Hollywood fundraiser that the celebrities present “just perform flawlessly night after night. I can’t always say the same.” On his equally disastrous performance in office, the president admitted, “I goofed up.” But Romney, he joked, “is finally getting tough on Big Bird. Rounding him up. Elmo has got to watch out, too.”

Liberals in the media have tried to help the president out by amplifying this joke into a serious charge, raising the ante from rounding up Big Bird to killing him. CNN’s Soledad O’Brien said, “my son was devastated when he heard that Big Bird might be killed.”

This phony media driven dust up stems from an answer Mitt Romney gave moderator Jim Lehrer during last Wednesday’s presidential debate when he responded to a question regarding cutting federal programs:

“Okay, good. So I’ll get rid of that. I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it. That's number one.”

As Sherrie Westin, vice president of Sesame Workshop — which owns Sesame Street — had just explained to O’Brien, “The Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS. So we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship.

“So quite frankly, you know, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of Public Broadcasting but when they always sort of tout out Big Bird and say we’re going to kill Big Bird; that actually is misleading because ‘Sesame Street’ will be here.”

In fact, Romney never threatened to kill or even round up Big Bird. Pressed by Obama and moderator Jim Lehrer to identify federal spending he would cut, Romney repeated what he has been saying for a year: “I will eliminate all programs by this test: Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I’ll get rid of it. ObamaCare’s on my list.”

Gently reminding the audience that, as a PBS employee, Lehrer was hardly a disinterested party, Romney said, “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things.” He added, “I like PBS. I love Big Bird. Actually, I like you, too. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”

As even the Huffington Post admits, ending taxpayer subsidies won’t kill Big Bird. HuffPo cites the manufacturer (outsourced to China) of Big Bird’s costumes to the effect that, “even if Romney kills PBS, Big Bird will survive ‘It’s a business, and a lucrative one.’”

That’s an understatement. Sesame Workshop made $46.9 million last year from licensing Big Bird and other Sesame Street characters on an astonishing variety of merchandise, from diapers to backpacks, from clothing to toys, from decor to accessories. HuffPo cites an analyst who estimates that Hasbro’s Fisher-Price division generates $70 to $75 million a year in revenue from “Sesame Street” toys alone.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS (and NPR), reports its federal appropriations for 2013 as $445 million — up about 37 percent from $325 million in 2000. This corporate welfare for CPB may have been an indulgence we could afford in 2000, when the federal budget was running an $86 billion surplus. Today, with a deficit in excess of $1.3 trillion, it’s a luxury, and we must cut back. It’s a small cut, perhaps equivalent in a family budget to forgoing a single latte at Starbucks. But small cuts add up, and if we can’t cut corporate welfare, we can’t cut anything.

So Big Bird likes to maximize revenues and investment gains as much as the next Muppet. And now the President has made this adorable critter the symbol of federal programs that allegedly require eternal taxpayer aid, even if it has to be put on the future tax bill of today’s preschoolers. Is that funny?

On November 7, 1967 President Lyndon Johnson gave his remarks upon the signing of The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 as a part of his Great Society. In his remarks Johnson stated:

“It was in 1844 that Congress authorized $30,000 for the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Soon afterward, Samuel Morse sent a stream of dots and dashes over that line to a friend who was waiting. His message was brief and prophetic and it read: "What hath God wrought?"

Every one of us should feel the same awe and wonderment here today.

For today, miracles in communication are our daily routine. Every minute, billions of telegraph messages chatter around the world. Some are intercepted on ships. They interrupt law enforcement conferences and discussions of morality. Billions of signals rush over the ocean floor and fly above the clouds. Radio and television fill the air with sound. Satellites hurl messages thousands of miles in a matter of seconds.

Today our problem is not making miracles--but managing miracles. We might well ponder a different question: What hath man wrought--and how will man use his inventions?

The law that I will sign shortly offers one answer to that question.

It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth; our Nation wants more than a "chicken in every pot." We in America have an appetite for excellence, too.

While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act.

It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities.

It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world.

Finally--and most important--it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

….

Yes, the student in a small college tapping the resources of the greatest university in the hemisphere.

--the country doctor getting help from a distant laboratory or a teaching hospital;

--a scholar in Atlanta might draw instantly on a library in New York;

--a famous teacher could reach with ideas and inspirations into some far-off classroom, so that no child need be neglected. Eventually, I think this electronic knowledge bank could be as valuable as the Federal Reserve Bank.

And such a system could involve other nations, too--it could involve them in a partnership to share knowledge and to thus enrich all mankind.

A wild and visionary idea? Not at all. Yesterday's strangest dreams are today's headlines and change is getting swifter every moment.”

Public broadcasting is the deathless government program par excellence. It may have made some sense a few generations ago, when there were in effect three broadcast television stations, limited radio offerings, and enormous regulatory and economic barriers standing in the way of new market entrants. But that no longer is the case: Anybody with a few thousand dollars and an Internet connection can launch a television series or a radio program today and reach an audience of millions. We have more television stations than we can watch, more radio stations than we can listen to, and instantaneous connections to most of the world’s media. In fact, we could multiply public broadcasting expenditures a hundredfold and do practically nothing to improve on the already vast richness of our media environment. Firing Line is a beloved memory, but in 2012 such programming would not require a public-broadcasting infrastructure to thrive. If PBS doesn’t do it, 10 million others will. As radio talker Mark Levine has stated many times he has a group of investors lined up ready to purchase Sesame Street and run it on cable TV and the Internet. His financial advisors have told him they could “make millions” from the deal.

Outside of the popular Sesame Street what else does PBS offer for the money we give it that is not available for free on other channels such as History, National Geographic, and Discovery?

And while PBS and NPR give very little offense beyond their bland, conventional liberalism, the United States is not the sort of country that should have government-run media — or even media that is only 6 percent government run. Public broadcasting, like so much associated with the progressive heyday, is fundamentally un-republican. Nowhere in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is Congress empowered to grant monies to a media or broadcast outlet — even if you stretch the clause; “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;” to its absolute absurdity.

The increasingly infantile Obama campaign has been clinging to Big Bird as a life preserver ever since Mitt Romney destroyed the incumbent President in the first presidential debate. You can’t get a straight story about Libya from Barack Obama. We still don’t know where all his “stimulus” money went. In a few weeks, we’ll find out if the bizarre “good jobs report” that claimed 800,000 jobs appeared out of thin air in a recessionary economy was just a statistical blip. Vital documents pertaining to the deadly Fast and Furious scandal remain protected by executive privilege. But Obama will talk about Muppets all day long.

Now the Obama campaign has produced a TV ad using Big Bird – not just a lookalike or a shadowy figure, but the character himself, who even speaks during the ad – to assail Mitt Romney for daring to suggest he would cut PBS funding during the debate.

I’m sure the huge number of parents angry about what Barack Obama has done to their country would like to know if this was a fully authorized use of the Big Bird character, before they make Christmas shopping decisions this year. Maybe Obama could sell Muppets branded with his logo in his web store – you know, the part of his website that does verify the identity of credit card holders, unlike his donation page.

As strategic miscalculations go, the ad is pretty devastating because it answers the big question that emerged from wreckage of last week’s miserable performance: Why was Obama’s performance so bad? The Big Bird ad seems to suggest that the Obama campaign was unable to respond to Romney’s aggressive critiques simply because there’s no substance to their campaign. They don’t know what they’re fighting for, as opposed to calling Romney a liar and grasping at Romney’s claim that making taxpayers pay for an extremely profitable children’s television show might not be necessary in an era where America owes trillions. By contrast, since the debate Romney’s embraced big themes and made a major foreign policy address. This is exactly the “small ball” politicking that made the Romney campaign the source of press derision for so long. Now Romney has flipped the script.

As an update the production company behind Sesame Street is asking political campaigns to refrain from using their characters in campaign ads — including an Obama campaign ad that uses Big Bird.

"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down," the company said in a Tuesday statement.

In the very best postmodern fashion, Obama and his supporters have relied on a narrative about Obama that has been carefully constructed. He’s brilliant, a great writer, a rare thinker, a moderate, a first-class temperament with neatly pressed pants, a uniter, a cool guy who’s unflappable.

The first debate last Wednesday threatened to make that narrative seem absurd. You might say that the narrative got mugged by reality, and an awful lot of people were watching while it happened.

But the next day there was a new narrative in place — or rather, several narratives, all rooted in cognitive dissonance: Romney cheated, the altitude was too high for Obama, he didn’t have time to practice because he was too busy with weighty matters, Romney lied, and look at those great unemployment numbers!

Those numbers themselves are another narrative, one that no one can quite figure out because there’s a disparity between one part of the stats and other parts. In a very real sense, the numbers don’t seem to add up. But they’re good for the Obama narrative, unless you think too deeply about them.

But one of the points of a narrative is not to think too deeply about it.

Now in a sense every candidate spins a narrative about him/herself, and the media spins a narrative of its own which is either in agreement or disagreement with that candidate’s preferred narrative. But Barack Obama is the first presidential candidate I can think of — be they liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, someone I have liked and supported or someone I have detested and opposed — who is nearly all about the narrative, and who seems so aware of it As Hot Air points out Obama actually believes he won the debate.

The Scourge of Progressivism

“Rulers were accorded power, and the people consented to that power on consideration that they be accorded certain rights. The task of statesmanship has always been the redefinition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order. New conditions impose new requirements upon Government and those who conduct government.”— Franklin Roosevelt, Address to the California Commonwealth Club, September 23, 1932.

On September 23, 1932 presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an address to the California Commonwealth Club in San Francisco where he laid out his vision for governance. Delivered by Roosevelt to California’s Commonwealth Club during his first run for the White House, this speech was penned by Adolf Berle, a noted scholar and a member of Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust” who drew deeply upon earlier Progressive thought, especially that of John Dewey. During his address he stated:

“The Declaration of Independence discusses the problem of Government in terms of a contract. Government is a relation of give and take, a contract, perforce, if we would follow the thinking out of which it grew. Under such a contract rulers were accorded power, and the people consented to that power on consideration that they be accorded certain rights. The task of statesmanship has always been the redefinition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order. New conditions impose new requirements upon Government and those who conduct government.”

…

Every man has a right to life; and this means that he has also a right to make a comfortable living. He may by sloth or crime decline to exercise that right; but it may not be denied him. We have no actual famine or dearth; our industrial and agricultural mechanism can produce enough and to spare. Our Government formal and informal, political and economic, owes to everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work.

Every man has a right to his own property; which means a right to be assured, to the fullest extent attainable, in the safety of his savings. By no other means can men carry the burdens of those parts of life which, in the nature of things, afford no chance of labor: childhood, sickness, old age. In all thought of property, this right is paramount; all other property rights must yield to it. If, in accord with this principle, we must restrict the operations of the speculator, the manipulator, even the financier, I believe we must accept the restriction as needful, not to hamper individualism but to protect it. These two requirements must be satisfied, in the main, by the individuals who claim and hold control of the great industrial and financial combinations which dominate so large a part of our industrial life. They have undertaken to be, not business men, but princes of property. I am not prepared to say that the system which produces them is wrong. I am very clear that they must fearlessly and competently assume the responsibility which goes with the power. So many enlightened business men know this that the statement would be little more than a platitude, were it not for an added implication.”

Thoroughly educated in Progressive principles, Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that the task of statesmanship is to redefine our rights “in the terms of a changing and growing social order.” While the Founders thought the truths they celebrated in the Declaration of Independence were self-evident and so also timeless and unchanging, FDR argued for a new self-evident economic truth. His proposed “Economic Bill of Rights” lays out the means by which our new economic rights are to be secured, thereby achieving social equality and social justice.

The first of the 2012 Presidential Debates is over. With over 72 million viewers, the undisputed champion of this round was Mitt Romney who towered like the brilliant, unyielding professor over a petulant, adolescent "community organizer."

Wednesday night, Americans witnessed the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. By all accounts, Governor Romney soundly bested the failed president both on his command of the facts and in his demeanor. While seeing Governor Romney dominate the debate is very encouraging, it does not change the reality that America is a bankrupt nation that long ago ceased to be a free, constitutional republic.

The focus of the debate was domestic policy — the economy, health care and the role of government. Chief among these topics was the economy, according to the conventional political wisdom that Americans vote first for their economic future and for the candidate who they believe will provide the greatest sense of individual economic security and prosperity.

The caveat here is the qualifier "who they believe," and that perception will be shaped by competing visions built on both truth and leftist deception. The vision that prevails will be determined by the ability of voters to distinguish the difference. Unfortunately, the election of Obama in 2008 provided ample evidence that the American electorate's ability has diminished in recent years, primarily because the spirit of Liberty has been eroded by decades of classist propaganda promulgated by the progressive and statists left and enforced by the main stream media.

What you witnessed was a debate between a dedicated socialist/progressive ideolog (Barack Obama) and a moderate progressive who believes government has a legitimate role in our lives (Mitt Romney). Don’t get me wrong. At this stage in our history it is much better to elect a Mitt Romney progressive, and perhaps slow down the steady march of progressivism that we have seen for the past 100 years, than continue with the draconian socialist policies of the Democrat Party. The completion of Congress will tell the tale. It is also important to note that during the next four years many federal judges will be appointed (including the possibility of a Supreme Court Justice) and this is reason enough to defeat Barack Obama.

In the debate about their ideas to improve the American economy, there can be no doubt that Governor Romney's plan will result in job-creation and economic growth; two thousand years of economic history and scholarship prove incontrovertibly that lower taxes and fewer government regulations result in economic prosperity. The same history has demonstrated the universal failure of all forms of collectivism, Marxism, and statism as enthusiastically embraced by President Obama.

Governor Romney may well win the election this November and slow America's headlong plunge into economic and political collapse, but (spoiler alert), regardless of who wins the election, here is what we will find four years from now: Mitt Romney has not promised to pay down America's crushing debt, nor even to balance the federal budget, but rather to "put America on track to a balanced budget." Sounds great, but we are already bankrupt — we should have put ourselves on that track twenty years ago. Romney wants to "simplify and modify" business regulations — not eliminate them, despite their having no basis in the Constitution. He has promised to honor the institution of marriage, help you and your family, and repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Article II of the Constitution does not charge the president with honoring marriages, helping my family and me, or controlling my health care decisions. I think Mitt Romney is a fine man and would make a good president, but I do not want his help with my life. I want him to honor the oath he will take as president next January 20 — to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. But he will not do that. Four years from that day, the national debt will be far lower than if Barack Obama remains in office, but it will still be higher than it is today. Unconstitutional and tyrannical federal agencies, from the Department of Education to the EPA to the FCC, will get up to a little less mischief for a while, but they will all continue to employ millions of petty tyrants and masterminds frustrating the creative energy of millions of Americans and degrading the lives of all in the process.

Having launched the New Deal, an ambitious program of political and economic re-engineering aimed at ending the Great Depression; President Roosevelt accepted his party’s nomination to run for a second term. In this speech at the 1936 Democratic Convention, he defends his programs—some of which had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court—and tags opponents as “economic royalists.” In the speech he stated:

“An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

…

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor—other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.”

…

The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This Convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that that fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our Government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of Government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith-- in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope--renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity-- in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.

We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.”

I believe Romney, while donning the mantle of conservatism believes in the Second Bill of Rights as enumerated by FDR in his 1944 State of the Union Address when he proclaimed:

“This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.”

….

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all.

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.”

The problem is that the right to receive such goods and benefits are extracted from our fellow citizens by the government that the majority has elected. To dole out these goods and benefits the majority, while believing they are providing social justice, are giving government the coercive power of the purse and the tyranny of the bureaucracy.

It was demoralizing to watch the spectacle of two men arguing about who would make a better dictator over how much money we are allowed to keep, how we will purchase our health care, how we will educate our children, and how we will conduct our private business affairs with one another. America has drifted so far away from its founding principles that not a single commentator observed the obscenity of two presidential candidates saying such things in front of a rendering of the Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, told Americans in his First Inaugural Address, in 1801, what their president should promote for the prosperity and happiness of the people: a "wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

Standing in front of Jefferson's words that heralded the dawn of human freedom, we witnessed two men argue about what percentage of our incomes they will confiscate at the point of a gun — 35 or 40 percent? When America was still a republic of free men, President Jefferson boasted, "It may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, what farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?"

The American federal government has become a bloated, twisted caricature of republicanism (with a little "r"). Congress and the federal judiciary recognize no limitation upon their power to dictate every aspect of our lives — our incomes, medical care, education, religious institution being forced to providing birth control and abortifacients against their tenants and right down to our light bulbs and the flow rate of our shower heads and toilets. The presidency is a virtual dictatorship; last night, Governor Romney and President Obama told us they were going to raise or lower taxes, repeal and enact laws, and "invest" the incomes they seize in businesses of their choice. Standing under a giant bald eagle that held a ribbon with the words "the Constitution forever," our two candidates and every member of the press ignored the fact that the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact laws and lay taxes, and that no power is granted to the president to make business investments.

Romney-Ryan must cast their campaign in the mold of Ronald Reagan and offer a clear and bold free-enterprise plan for economic recovery. They must boost American morale, and they must speak plainly about Obama's failed socialist regime. They must also pledge to end Obama's distorted dreams of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

As Romney noted in his closing remarks:

“This is an important election and I'm concerned about the direction America has been taking over the last four years. I know this is bigger than an election about the two of us as individuals. It's bigger than our respective parties. It's an election about the course of America. What kind of America do you want to have for yourself and for your children? There are two very different paths that we began speaking about this evening, and they lead in very different directions."

The stark reality is that on November 6, Americans are electing a king to reign over a bankrupt country. If Governor Romney wins the crown, he will be a wise and frugal king, and his edicts will improve our lives for a time and delay our descent into chaos — but the chains of debt and the machinery of federal tyranny will remain when his reign ends. I have little choice but to cast my vote for Romney's ascension to the presidential throne. My fervent hope is that his policies will succeed and show America that it can return to the government our Founders envisioned. A government based on the Declaration of Independence and the tenants of the Constitution, not on Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights.