ConservativeHome's The Republican

Separate secularism and state

John Rossomando
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A reporter’s question to GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich whether or not he would impose Christian values “on everyone else” Wednesday during the announcement of his 21^st Century Contract With America showcases the growing intolerance of Christians on the part of militant secularists. This is also true of the other relgiously motivated attacks on other GOP presidential candidates.

My question to this secularist journalists is: “When will you keep your secular utilitarian worldview to yourself and stop trying to force everyone else to accept it?” 

The First Amendment’s establishment clause aimed to prevent Congress from legislating matters of THEOLOGY like the divinity of Christ, the number of sacraments, and the like. Never matters of morality. Even the most deistic founders like Jefferson and Franklin did not see any problem with allowing Christianity from influencing moral legislation.

Jefferson wrote the following in an 1809 letter to a certain James Fishback:

“Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.”

Even the Supreme Court acknowledged the place Christianity played in forging the nation’s common morality in the 1892 Holy Trinity case when it referenced the 1824 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Updegraph v. Commonwealth that found that:

“The constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporation of the common law doctrine of Christianity…”

But now what protects orthodox Christians and Jews from having courts, boards of education, legislatures, or executive agencies from imposing secular, neopagan utilitarian values on them and their children in our current era. Nothing.

In reality their morality is a jump back to the past and is a reincarnation of pagan 2^nd century B.C. Epicureanism brought into the modern era through the likes of John Stuart Mill, David Hume, and John Dewey.

Neopagan utilitarianism has effectively been incorporated into our legal system without recourse for dissent.

Progressives arrogantly posit that they are the ultimate in human evolution. But how is taking a jump backwards over 2,000 years to the pre-Christian worldview where people were viewed as things anything other than regressive?

The irony is their morality is what is outdated.

Secularists feel all too confident on pretending they are the arbiters of reality and unilaterally deciding that Christians and Jews who don’t accept their call to compulsory Unitarian-Universalism have no right to participate in our democracy.

The sad fact is the First Amendment no longer provides orthodox believers any protections from the whims of judges, legislators, and bureaucrats who use their power to impose their neopagan values.

Consequently, the only solution now is to push through state constitutional amendments placing the same sorts of disabilities that have been imposed on religion on militant secularism.

Only then will there be a level playing field. Until then, the values of moral egotism (aka moral relativism), sexual self-indulgence, and hostility to traditional religion will continue to be forced down our throats in the name of tolerance and enlightenment.

Restore freedom of conscience by separating militant secularism and state. 

Solyndra and its stepsisters show the need to end federal pay-to-play

John Rossomando
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The Solyndra scandal along with subsequent revelations that politically connected yet financially troubled solar manufacturers may have traded political influence in return for billions worth of loan guarantees makes the need to ban pay-to-play in federal contracting loom larger than ever.

When I first looked into Solyndra last winter, I thought it was peculiar that the president, the vice president and the secretary of energy decided to show up at a random solar company to showcase a particular loan guarantee.

That immediately smelled of a political rat to me. But lone behold there stood Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser who raised $53,000 for President Obama in 2008 and who is a major investor in Solyndra through his Argonaut Private Equity Firm.

And now a look at the makeup of some of some of the other more recent green jobs loan guarantees in the solar industry.

The Department of Energy rushes out a $737 million loan guarantee to Santa Monica-based SolarReserve with hours ticking away before the green jobs program expires. Yet what do we find when we take a closer look at this company?  

A certain Steve Miller who represents Kaiser’s company on its board of directors as well as Solyndra; a representative of Pacific Capital Management where former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law, Ronald Pelosi, holds a position of leadership; two representatives of the U.S. Renewable Energy Group that has ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; and heavy-hitting Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, brother of Obama ally John Podesta, who lobbied for SolarReserve to the tune of $100,000.

And then there’s First Solar, the recipient in $2.1 billion in loan guarantees despite the collapse of its stock price since February. Its chairman and founder Michael Ahearn, a major Democratic donor, dumped $69 million in stock in August. What does he know that the Obama administration is looking the other way at?

And the investment website The Motley Fool reported Wednesday that First Solar faces a potentially bleak future as its technology increasingly is becoming eclipsed by its competitors, as I found in yesterday’s Daily Caller piece.

How can it be that companies with terrible financials can be allowed anywhere near billions worth of taxpayer loan guarantees in absence of political favors?

Dave Weigel writes over at Slate: “It's early in this scandal. Will loan guarantees be a political problem for a few months, as Republicans find a Democratic donor within six degrees of every program?* Or will they become the next earmarks — once the way that Washington send money back to congressional districts, now politically toxic?”

He’s right, companies should compete on the merits of their proposals and their financial viability alone and not because their competitive advantage is political largesse.

The federal government needs to do what the states have done and criminalize pay-to-play politics to ensure that Democratic and Republican donors are not able to personally benefit from their connections.  It also would help to deter politicians from corrupting the system.

Control over the contracting process should be placed under the auspices of the inspectors general of each agency to ensure federal contracting is free from political largesse.

 

Boob bait for the bubbas: Republicans have fallen for the bait year after year; will they really have the moral fortitude to resist the temptation after 2012?

Ryan Streeter
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“Boob bait for the bubbas,” as Andrew Biggs reminds us today at The American, was the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s description of how to get Republicans to embrace increased government spending: call it a tax break.

The bubbas are the Republicans “who will support anything that calls itself a tax cut even if it walks, talks, and quacks like government spending.” The “boob bait” is, well, you get the picture.

Republicans have had boob bait set in front of them many times since Moynihan talked about it – and they’ve fallen for it almost every time.

They have not only fallen for it. They’ve found themselves bound to it by Americans for Tax Reform's taxpayer protection pledge that they've signed. ATR’s pledge not to raise taxes allows – encourages, actually – using breaks in the tax code as a way to keep rates from going up.

So what’s the net effect of all this tax code manipulation? Biggs reports:

Tax expenditures have grown by about 24 percent relative to the size of the economy since 1974, from 5.8 percent of GDP to 7.2 percent. So not only do tax expenditures add to overall government spending, they’re adding more today than they did 37 years ago.

So how much spending is this? $1.08 trillion. Biggs writes:

That $1.08 trillion in tax expenditures is 24 percent of all federal spending, and is all off the books, allowing a much bigger government than official statistics tell—and much bigger than people might be willing to tolerate if they knew

These expenditures are the 900 lb. gorilla sitting over there in the corner every time you hear Republicans say they are for “comprehensive tax reform” - something just about all leading Republicans say we should pursue if we're successful in beating Obama next year.

Getting a dollar for dollar offset in tax rate decreases for every eliminated tax break will be next to impossible given how many thousands of provisions we’ve allowed into the tax code. Some group, interest, or industry will see a net increase in their tax liability, and Republicans will once again be tempted to take the boob bait.

Give Cain's 9-9-9 plan a fair shake

Ryan Streeter
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Herman Cain has been turning heads lately. Most have considered him an outsider, unelectable at best. And yet voters have begun to regard him as a top-tier candidate, if a recent Fox News poll is to be believed.

His performance in recent debates has helped him. But so has his consistent, repeated claims about his 9-9-9 plan. Unlike Romney's 59 point economic plan, widely panned as unoriginal, Cain's plan is much simpler and much more original (meaning, also, much less likely to become an actual law).

Cain's plan is clearly too extreme for today's politicians. It's hard to imagine it passing into law any time in the next decade. Still, as Josheph Curl recently wrote in the Washington Times: 

A flat income tax of 9 percent would bring in about $1.12 trillion. Corporate taxes at 9 percent — about $270 billion. A national 9 percent sales tax, about $378 billion.

That’s only (only!) $1.768 trillion, well short of what this year’s tax revenue of $2.16 trillion. But wait. With some hefty growth (and using a projection not far above the Obama administration’s own estimates), the 9 percent income tax would bring in about $1.4 trillion, corporate taxes an estimated $321 billion, and the national sales tax about $450 billion. Boom — $2.17 trillion.

Sure, that’s well short of the $3.8 trillion Mr. Obama wants to spend, but it does at least match up with current revenue. And, hmm, maybe America should spend less, and, this is crazy, try to match its expenditures with its revenues.

It's hard to imagine an income tax and corporate tax set at the same rate as a (generally regressive) sales tax, but there's a lot to like about Cain's proposal. It would help restrain spending while keeping us current with our public obligations. It would also make filing your annual taxes a heck of a lot easier.

Hey Lady Gaga: What about the nerds? Are some bullying victims more equal than others?

John Rossomando
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Lady Gaga appeared at an Obama fundraiser last weekend demanding attention legislation aimed at protecting gay bullying victims from their tormenters.

But what about all of the other kids around the country who get picked on, beaten up or ostracized for being smart, overweight, or just well looking different than the other kids?

As someone who was relegated to the nerdy side of the cafeteria when I was in high school, what about us, Miss Germanotta – to use Lady Gaga’s proper name?

I do not mean to diminish or condone bullying against anyone on account of who individuals have a sexual interest in, but the fact is gays only constitute between 1 and 3 percent of the population.

Why should it be a crime to pick on them, but leave it perfectly okay to pick on other kids because they just don’t fit in?

Gay activists seem to have an incipient feeling their sufferings and travails have more value than those of boys who get bullied but like girls and girls who get bullied but like boys.

But what about kids who get bullied by gays and their allies in school for being Christians? Should the gay bullies and their allies face the same draconian penalties that some gay activists want imposed on bullies?

The difference between the gay Brahmins and the nerds is that nerds don’t have billions of dollars and the force of the state behind them.

I refer to them as Brahmins because someone of a lower caste would face death for assaulting a Brahmin in traditional Hindu society. However, a Brahmin traditionally could get away with similar infractions against members of lower castes.

The talk about gay bullying is nothing more than a red herring aimed at demonizing Christians who hold orthodox views about sexual morality by tying them to gay suicides.

But the dirty truth that gay activists do not want you to know about is that social acceptance of homosexuality does not statistically reduce the number of gays who commit suicide in societies where homosexuality is accepted. E.g. The Netherlands.

All this talk about gay bullying and gay suicide just goes to show that some groups are just more equal than others.

If we are going to increase penalties for bullying, let’s do it for every victim and not just those who have billions of dollars in politicians and PR behind them.

 

Why are Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and other unelectables running for President while Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and Paul Ryan are not?

Ryan Streeter
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There are people on the stage during each Republican debate whom we all know will never win the nomination, let alone the Presidency.

Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, and even Michele Bachmann are all honorable and dedicated American patriots. But they don’t stand a chance.

Meanwhile, people who should be on the stage have chosen not to be.

And they keep emerging in prominent public forums in ways that remind us how sad we are that they aren’t running.

In the past 48 hours, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and Paul Ryan have all given speeches that show why they should be running – and perhaps why they aren’t.

They should be running because they are utterly committed to addressing America’s gravest of problems. They aren’t running because each of them doesn’t feel like being President is their highest calling – they’re just as happy doing other things to advance the cause that got them into politics in the first place.

Here are the speeches:

Chris Christie’s speech last night at the Reagan Ranch was Christie at his best – and will only inflame the “Run, Chris, Run” passions of many throughout the GOP. He had some memorable lines, such as calling Obama a “bystander in the Oval Office” – a phrase that will certainly be not only repeated but become a part of public discourse. But he also made the point that our exceptionalism begins at home:

Americans do not have the luxury of thinking that what we have long viewed as purely domestic matters have no consequences beyond our borders.  To the contrary. What we say and what we do here at home affects how others see us and in turn affects what it is they say and do.

Mitch Daniels made a similar point at his speech at AEI on Monday. Watch it here. Daniels made the case for why we need mathematical sobriety in our public debate about what will be an inevitable economic collapse unless that sobriety overtakes us.

Meanwhile, over in the Bay Area on the west coast, Paul Ryan gave a talk at the Hoover Institution on how we can fix our broken health care system by reforming the health care marketplace into a consumer-centric, market-driven arena. It’s a classic Paul Ryan speech filled with his trademark “wonkiness,” but also rooted in right reason and commonsense. Upon reading it, it’s hard to argue that there is a better solution to our health care problem than what Ryan lays out.

If it’s not frustrating enough that none of these three reformers is running in 2012, watch Jeb Bush on Morning Joe yesterday to get a sense of how a reformer thinks (in this case, about education).

All of the foregoing reformers should be running for President. But they’re not. And the reasons each gives for why they aren’t running makes us want them to run all the more. Listening to them talk makes swallowing those reasons all the more difficult.

Transform unemployment from a handout to a hand up

John Rossomando
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The nation’s 9 percent unemployment rate lurks large in the minds of most Americans. The thought of people staying on unemployment benefits for 99 weeks should raise questions about whether the program helps of hurts.

Having been through the system myself over the past two years, I can attest that the unemployment system works to keep people unemployed. Conservatism, as defined by the late Jack Kemp, aims to help people to help themselves and looks to give people a hand up and not a handout.

In many states, the current unemployment system gives people a check without any sense of accountability. It says, “Here’s your money; you are on your own.”

As anyone who’s been unemployed for any period of time can attest, it is one of the most demoralizing and depressing experiences anyone can go through.

But when employers see a candidate who has been out of work for a long period of time, they worry that candidate has lost his or her touch. Skills tend to degrade due to lack of use, and visibly depressed job candidates frequently do not give the best first impressions.

In June 2009, I found myself in this very position after my newspaper, The Bulletin, suspended publication in Philadelphia. Anyone who has paid attention to the newspaper industry knows that journalism has radically changed in the past few years and journalists need to get up with the times or be left behind.

But when I went to the Pennsylvania Skill Source Center, which oversees job training and retraining for the state, I ended up finding out they only funded training for blue-collar, mostly unionized career paths. (I didn’t have the money to afford it on my own.)

One would think the best way to get people back into the workforce is to help them get the skills they need to stay relevant, provided they don’t have the funds on their own.

Receiving unemployment benefits should be tied to participation in mentorship or volunteer programs that help unemployed individuals improve their skills and marketability. They shouldn’t be allowed to sit idle as they continue to draw benefits.

Additionally, job training monies should be portable. Unemployment recipients should be able to take their monies to any collegiate or training program that can be demonstrated to enhance their skills.

The longer a person sits idle, the more likely they become to being societal burdens. If you want people off of unemployment give them a hand at avoiding idleness and making them productive members of society. 

Where have the Republican reformers gone? Conservative voters haven't gotten the message about tax and entitlement reform - because candidates and politicians are too timid to talk about them

Ryan Streeter
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Conservative voters do a pretty good job of recognizing reformers when they see them. Last week, we reported that in our latest poll, voters pick Paul Ryan and Chris Christie long before they choose Rick Perry and Mitt Romney when asked who they think the best Republican reformers are.

What about the issues? We also asked them which of the following four reform proposals, which Republicans are pushing and Democrats resisting, are the most urgent. The results are as follows:

61% - Repealing ObamaCare and using market-based reforms to lower health care costs

20.5% - Imposing a moratorium on new federal regulations and repealing the worst regulations currently on the books

11.5% - Making entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security solvent

  7.5% - Lowering tax rates and removing most exemptions and deductions

 
We have consistently seen that even the most fiscally conservative voters become less conservative when asked about their appetite for reforming Medicare and Social Security. So the 11.5% figure on entitlements isn’t terribly surprising. Despite all of Paul Ryan’s charts, graphs, and videos, voters don’t feel as urgent about reforming entitlement programs as they do other programs that have a less negative effect on the deficit.

Tax reform, likewise, would have a profound effect on the economy. All evidence suggests that it would spur growth significantly. But it registers at the bottom among voters.

So why the high marks for repealing ObamaCare and, to a lesser extent, regulatory reform?

We didn’t probe respondents about motivation or intention. But I have a simple theory: ObamaCare and regulations are frequently cited on the cable shows and in the news as having a deleterious effect on jobs and businesses. And jobs are on people’s minds these day. Of course, part of ObamaCare’s negative ratings stems from the fact that people witnessed its creation amidst rancorous politics. But overall, the effects on the economy seem most likely to explain why repealing the health care law and regulations get higher marks than entitlement and tax reform.

This suggests that Republicans could do the entitlement and tax reform cause some good by making a clear economic case for doing so.

What these results also show, though, is that our candidates and political leaders have failed to make a persuasive case about deficit reduction. Entitlement and tax reform are the two pillars of deficit reduction - an unavoidable conclusion from the facts and from the recommendations of everything from Obama's deficit commission to the Paul Ryan budget.

The fact that urgency on this front is low is because our political class is too timid to be urgent about these issues. Case in point: the Social Security debate in the 2012 GOP race quickly became, and stayed, an exercise in political demagoguery. When's the last time our candidates actually debated the issue - as an issue?

Amb. John Bolton: Proposed defense cuts send message of 'continued American decline'

John Rossomando
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ConHomeUSA: Have the Republican candidates for president have paid enough attention to foreign policy issues?

 Bolton: I don’t think they have. But I think it’s less their fault than te president’s fault for three years now, of not paying enough attention to foreign policy. People talk about the presidency as the “Bully Pulpit”, and there’s no doubt that the president helps set a major part of the presidential debate.  

He is so uninterested in international affairs that it’s had an effect across the board among Republicans in Congress and now at the presidential level. So I don’t see it as much their fault when it comes time for them to speak out more in the debates.  And the questions on foreign policy come out in the last half-hour after most people are asleep and after questions about what kind of pizza you like and that sort of thing.

The opportunities for the candidates to state their positions are reduced, and it feeds the impression that national security is not that important. I happen to think that’s a big mistake because I think there’s a very strong feeling, especially among Republicans, about America’s place in the world and of having a president who stands up for America and who isn’t apologizing for America … unlike Obama who is content with American decline.

I think that a candidate who does that is going to be tapping into a very big well of emotional concerns that would be very helpful politically.

ConHomeUSA: Some in the Republican Party, especially some in the tea parties, like Congressman Ron Paul think we should become more isolationist and more inwardly focused as a country? Do you think the Republican Party resist the impulse to become more inward-looking and isolationist?

Bolton: There are some elements like Congressman Paul who believe that, but even among the tea party, some of the very libertarian tea party people are also great American patriots who believe in peace through strength. They understand the connection between the domestic economy and national security.

The Ron Pauls get a lot of attention, and it is a voice within the party. But I don’t think it’s close to being anything like a predominate voice or even a very strong voice.

I think most Americans, most Republicans especially,  take a long view. They understand that the president’s gotta be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Obviously cutting the role of federal regulation and federal spending, taxing and the like to allow the economy to recover is critical, but the president also has to be alert to the threats we face internationally.

Look at the instability in the Middle East and the effect it has on gasoline prices that every American sees every week when they go to fill their car up.

ConHomeUSA: Do the looming budget cuts in the Defense Department concern you?

Bolton: I am very worried about the cuts that Obama has already imposed and the cuts that are in the works with the first round of the debt ceiling legislation. And I am even more worried the massive cuts that would come from the trigger mechanism if the supercommittee doesn’t reach agreement.

I have to say I’m very pessimistic about the prospects for the supercommittee reaching agreement, and I am very worried about the potential impact of the trigger mechanism. It’s something that I don’t think we fully understood when the debt ceiling deal was being cut, and the Democrats have found a way to put us unbelievably given the importance of the issue … in an unpleasant place of choosing between higher taxes and lower defense expenditures.

Neither side of that equation is something that we conservatives want to see, so we need to find a way, either in the joint committee or otherwise, to put the onus on the Democrats and let them make the tough choice.

ConHomeUSA: What message will they send to China, the Islamist radicals, and others that want to do us harm?

Bolton: I think it sends the message of continued American decline. They can see it in the president already. They can see it in the fact he’s weak and indecisive.

They see these defense cuts and you add lack of capacity to weakness and indecision on the part of the president, and it is just going to get our adversaries to challenge us even more on a whole variety of fronts than they are already.

That’s one reason why this election of 2012 is so critical. It’s not just the future of the country’s economy and the kind of domestic society we are; it’s whether we will be able to protect our interests in the wider world.  

ConHomeUSA: Would Abbas and the Palestinians have decided to unilaterally seek U.N. recognition were George W. Bush still in the White House?

Bolton: I would have hoped that President Bush would have done what his father did when we faced a similar problem with the PLO back in 1989 and we threatened to cutoff funding to the U.N. if any U.N. agency admitted the PLO or enhanced its status. That stopped that whole effort dead in its tracks.

But the fact that in this last several weeks where it’s been clear that even the Obama administration was telling the Palestinians, ‘Don’t go ahead with this’. The Palestinians have flat out ignored us.

It shows they don’t think they are going to pay a price. It shows that they think they are dealing with a weak administration, or the administration was sending signals under the radar that actually they think they could live with this resolution.

Either one ought to be unacceptable. It’s not just an issue for Jewish-Americans. It should be an issue for all Americans given the support that Israel has on a bipartisan basis across our population.

How will this move affect American standing in the world, especially if the Palestinians find enough votes in the General Assembly to make a statement in favor of Palestinian independence?

Although our veto will stop it. It will show incompetence and weakness on the part of the administration, and all that does is to incentivize people who don’t have our best interests at heart to try and advance their own agendas, which is exactly what I think is going to happen now.

ConHomeUSA: Do you feel your assessment that the Arab spring revolutions would bring about an advancement of Islamist radicalism in the Middle East has been vindicated by developments over the past nine months?

Bolton: I don’t see much that’s encouraging on the Arab spring front in the Middle East. I think things are going in the wrong direction, and I don’t think that the issue is resolved one way or another.

But it doesn’t look good, really, since December when this began. We’re over nine months into it, and some really serious problems still remain. So I’m quite concerned about the direction it’s taking from country by  country, and what that means for the U.S. and for our friends in the region  and the stability we’ve sought there for a long, long time.

ConHomeUSA: Will the Middle East become an even more dangerous place in the aftermath of the revolutions in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen?

Bolton: Sure there’s a problem there. If you look at Egypt, even the pro-democracy leaders have called for substantial modifications to the Camp David Accords with Israel, which has been the bedrock of our policy there for over 30 years.

And when you see Turkey moving in the wrong direction in terms of its relations with Israel. When you see the uncertainty about what the post-Gaddafi regime will look like in Libya.

Kind of country by country, you have to worry about Israel’s strategic security  and what it means, and what might come next.  I think it is time for a very active American role to head off these difficulties, but I just don’t see that coming from the administration.

Obama just does not pay attention to international affairs. I think he spends less time on national security than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. I think it has more to do with what his priorities are than what I think this country’s priorities ought to be.

ConHomeUSA: Should the Obama administration do more to support dissidents in places like Syria and Iran?

Bolton: My feeling is that we ought to be pursuing a very active policy of regime change in both Iran and Syria going back to my time during the Bush administration. These are regimes that are not going to change as long as they are in power.

It was foolish of the Obama administration to ever believe that Bashar al-Assad was ever a reformer as they kept saying over and over, and over again.

We can see now how far from the truth that is. We can’t live in a world of illusion, and that is as much as we hoped for the best as a result of the Arab spring, we can’t make policy according to our hopes and aspirations for how it’s going to turn out.

We have to make our policies in a very realistic fashion and base our policies on what’s actually happening, not on what we wish would happen.  

ConHomeUSA: Will the Maliki government be able to survive the looming completion of the U.S. pullout from Iraq?

Bolton: I think it’s going to be a new-run thing for them because of the efforts by Iran to assert its influence because of al-Qaida and other groups that want to get back in.

I think it’s potentially very troublesome, and we could lose a lot of what we’ve gained there.

That’s why I thought the whole notion of withdrawal according to a prefixed schedule rather than looking at facts on the ground was a mistake.

And it was a mistake that the Bush administration made as well as the Obama administration.

I think unfortunately we’re now going to pay the price of that mistake.

ConHomeUSA: You have been critical of the Obama administration’s policies on Afghanistan, what ramifications do you see ahead as the U.S. withdraws its troops?

Bolton: We have two strategic goals there. One I think is keeping Afghanistan from falling back under the control of the Taliban and al-Qaida where it can be used as a base for terrorist acts against our friends and allies.

And that’s why we overthrew the Taliban after 9/11.

And second to make sure that the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan too doesn’t result in Pakistan being taken over by radicals or militant Islamists who then get control of that country’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, which would be an immediate worldwide threat.

So there again, I don’t think withdrawal according to an absolute and arbitrary time schedule rather than the conditions on the ground is sensible from our perspective.

ConHomeUSA: How do you feel the Obama administration has handled Pakistan?

Bolton: More could be done. It’s a difficult line to walk because we are at war with one part of the government of Pakistan at the same time we are trying to cooperate with another part of the government of Pakistan.

It’s probably the most complex relationship with any country we have in the world today.

I think the Obama adminstration’s problem as much as anything has been inconsistency. One year they are doing one thing, and the next year they are doing something else. And I think that is in part because the president phases in and phases out, and that helps contribute to the inconsistency.

ConHomeUSA: What impact has the Obama administration’s foreign policy had on China’s military expansion?

Bolton: I think when they see a weak and indecisive president, they try to take advantage of it, which I think their growing military capacity will give them the opportunity to do.

ConHomeUSA: What impact will this expansion have on the future of American foreign policy?

Bolton: I think we’ve got to be prepared to deal with a China that’s trying to assert its influence beyond East Asia, and certainly I think much of what we are seeing is their thirst for minerals, oil and natural gas, and raw materials they need for their economy.

In one sense that’s not unusual, but if we’re not prepared to deal with it, we’re not just going to see our economic influence, but also our political influence diminished as well.

And I think this administration has no clue what to do about any of that.

ConHomeUSA: What advice would you have for the next Republican administration should President Obama lose re-election in 2012?

Bolton: The precondition for everything else is to get our economy moving again. There’s no disagreement with the focus that people have had on economic issues.

You cannot have a strong defense without a strong domestic economy. So if we don’t get out from under this morass of taxation and regulation, and federal spending, we won’t be able to protect ourselves in the wider world.

But I have great confidence we’ll be able to do that if we get the federal government off its back.

I think we need a president who can address not just the damage of four years of Obama, but we need to be brutally honest here – the last couple of years of the Bush administration did do us internationally and work to correct them.

We need somebody who’s prepared to think in grand strategy terms of how you deal with a rising China.

This might be a peaceful rise of China as some have said, but we need to be prepared for the opposite. And we’re not. Right now we’re not doing either one very effectively.

Whatever happened to upward mobility as a goal for policy makers and politicians?

Ryan Streeter
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Yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said the following about the current GOP presidential field:

I don't think they're yet talking about the things…that have a lot of zeros attached to them, the ones that are threatening to kill not just an economy but the entire idea of America, the idea of upward mobility from the bottom and tomorrow is better than today…I'll tell you what's bothering me a little bit [is] the president is clearly in very desperate political shape. And it seems more clear every day. And I worry a little bit, ironically, that the Republican field or our nominee might look at that and say, I'll just play it safe, I'll get elected as the default option, you know, he made it worse, I'm not him, vote for me. (emphasis added)

Daniels is known as a serious reformer, and his public pronouncements about the new “red menace,” America’s debt, have been widely covered, lauded, and discussed. His sobriety and proven record of reform convinced many he would be the most capable of fixing the nation’s fiscal mess – if he were to run for President in 2012 (and, as we all know, he's not) and win.

But along with his message about America's fiscal condition, Daniels has also consistently preached the gospel of upward mobility – something one rarely hears Republicans talk about, and something about Daniels that has gotten little coverage.

Back in a February speech to CPAC that was broadly praised, Daniels said:

We must display a heart for every American, and a special passion for those still on the first rung of life’s ladder. Upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise, and the stagnation of the middle class is in fact becoming a problem, on any fair reading of the facts. Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some. (emphasis added)

And just last week on The Daily Show, he told John Stewart “the heart of our challenge is to restore and strengthen upward mobility in this country and the possibilities for a stable and hopeful middle class.” (emphasis added) He made this point a couple of times in the interview.

Daniels’ new book is effectively a meditation on how to reverse the generation-long trend toward ordinary workers in the private sector being forced to pay for more and more government that doesn’t offer them much in return. A central thread in the book is that our fiscal crisis and the government that has created it does the most violence to the middle class and the vulnerable, and a range of ideas in the book – from growth-oriented tax simplification and reforming the safety net through a negative income tax – are aimed at spurring growth that benefits the middle class, not just the wealthy.

The only other Republican who repeatedly points to upward mobility as the goal of our economic policy is Paul Ryan.

For instance, Ryan told Bloomberg over the weekend:

The president is using rhetoric that divides people, that preys on people’s sense of anxiety, fear, envy. What we’re trying to do is appeal to people’s sense of hope, aspiration. We want an equal- opportunity society. We want a society of upward mobility, and that is what we’re striving for. (emphasis added)

In his statement on the Congressional Budget Office’s August warning about the deficit, he said that the House Republicans’ efforts were aimed at ensuring “upward mobility and greater opportunity for all Americans.” (emphasis added)

Ryan is clearly comfortable with upward mobility as an object of public policy. He freely uses the expression or its variants while giving speeches or meeting with constituents.

Daniels has noted this about Ryan, too. Last month, on CSPAN’s Washington Journal, he praised Ryan as someone who would “do whatever it takes to restore upward mobility in this country, to restore the conditions for a stable, broad middle class.”

This kind of language is sorely missing in the rhetoric we’re hearing from the 2012 GOP presidential candidates, and one doesn’t hear much of it from Republicans in Congress, either.

Does that really matter? Some might say it’s all a matter of language and doesn’t make any material difference in policy and politics.

It does matter.

First, the idea of upward mobility is a different priority than abstract notions such as fairness or incomplete goals such as lower government spending. Rather, it trains our focus on median income and the demographics of middle America. The middle class in America faces a massive collective tax burden in the future, primarily because of entitlements, and they will be the most affected – negatively or positively – by the direction our economy takes over the next decade. One more decade like what we have just experienced, and the idea that the middle class is the incubator out of which dreams for a better life grow will be an antique.

Second, talking about upward mobility is also good politics - or better politics than what we presently see. Restoring hope for the middle, rather than pitting the top against the bottom as Obama is determined to do, offers the best alternative for explaining a vision for the future to voters. Right now, Republicans are all too comfortable defending wealthy Americans against Obama’s attacks. They need to put forward a different counterpunch that appeals to more Americans and is consistent with conservative fiscal and economic policy. Talking about what we need to do to foster more upward mobility is a better approach than pointing out ad nauseum that the rich already pay a lot in taxes, which - however true - does not resonate positively with voters.