Is This What America Needs?

William Galston has opined in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal on 2 December 2014 that the following questions must be answered if America is to become the prosperous country it once was.

“If the information revolution is transforming the labor market, how can we bring computer-science courses into every American public school?

“If soaring costs are reducing college attendance and imposing large debt burdens on students, can we use technology to deliver high-quality postsecondary education more affordably?

“If new businesses are a key source of innovation and jobs, what should we do to turn around the alarming decline in startups?

“If basic research is both a public good and an essential foundation for long-term growth, where can we find the public resources for the sustainable investments in research that the private market will not make?

“If the public sector can no longer muster the funds required to meet our infrastructure needs, how can we create incentives for private capital to fill the gap?

“If we want a tax code that favors growth, job creation, and opportunity for average Americans, what are the key ingredients of tax reform?

“If a rising tide no longer lifts all boats, how can we ensure that average Americans share the fruits of 21st-century economic growth?”

Mr. Galston sees all improvements as economic goals. I doubt that the real causes of our national malaise are economic, or political, or social, or cultural, or educational. Our problems, at the roots, are moral and spiritual. Until we regain our spiritual equilibrium, we will never again be a world leader. We need to recognize the Creator of our world and His ways; we need our Savior to become the Lord of our lives. Our country is rife with dishonesty, greed, and unfaithfulness to spouses and family. The American family is missing fathers to guide and admonish the children and to give them examples of faithfulness and hard work. What ever happened to the old-fashioned principles of working hard on the job, earning enough money to support the family, buying the things needed and avoiding overspending? What ever happened to the principles of electing moral leaders to guide our country? What ever happened to the old-fashioned altruism and patriotism that made our country strong in the first place?

These latter things are what our nation needs—all the economic items listed above are necessary, of course; but…they will all take care of themselves if we can only gain the moral and spiritual footing necessary for a Christian society to flourish.

How Can You Effectively Express Your Opinion to the Government?

          The advent of the Internet has made it infinitely easier to express your opinion to government officials. I am not sure how seriously they take the opinion of citizens; but, at least, there is a venue in which we can all tell our representatives just what we think about the work they are doing. Following are some suggestions of how to do it:

          Go the USA.gov. This web site is a central spot from which you can easily contact every government official you have ever heard of. You can contact everyone from the President to the local dog catcher by just choosing the appropriate link.

          Let me give you some useful tips, however, about contacting legislators.

1)   Keep your communication very short; legislators do not have time to read an extensive letter. As a matter of fact, they very probably don’t read anything in your letter; they have staff members who do all the reading. I believe the staffers likely read only the subject line of your e-mails. So…put the essential information in the subject line. For instance a subject line should read something like this—“Vote NO on HR 499, Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibiton Act of 2013.”

2)   Always refer to bills before Congress and Senate by their number. If you cannot find the number of the bill to which you are referring, it is probably best not to write; because the legislator cannot know exactly what you are talking about. Frequently, web sites advocating for or against a certain bill will not give you the number of the bill—if you can’t find it, don’t write.

3)   Of course, sometimes it is prudent to write to a legislator about something other than a bill. In that case, it is perfectly okay to simply state your subject in the subject line and carry on the conversation in the body of your letter.

4)   You can find the number of the bill in question on CONGRESS.gov. You can also read a helpful summary of the bill there, too. Not infrequently, especially in state legislation, you can fine the fiscal impact of the bill. In the fiscal impact you can often find a very useful summary of the bill that is easier to understand than in the formal summary.

5)   Be sure to write to legislators with whom you do not agree—not just the ones who agree with you. After all, it is the opponents of your opinion that you would like to influence.

6)   Mention in your letter how the bill and your suggestion apply to you, personally.

7)   It is often more effective to call a legislator by phone than to write an e-mail. If you do that, call the official’s hometown office rather than the Washington switch board.

8)   If you are writing to a federal official, be sure to write to the President, too. Write to him, even if you are absolutely sure he does not agree with you.

9)   Be sure to remain respectful of your legislator when writing. Don’t make insulting comments.

You can even write to the Supreme Court from USA.gov. Just follow the prompts. To write to the Supreme Court, go to the bottom of their home page and click on Contact. Then, scroll down to Webmaster—a form will appear where you can write your opinion about any matter you wish.  

 

We Need to Look at All Sides of Welfare Programs

          Nancy and I worship in an inner-city church in Cleveland, Ohio. The church is in one of the worst slum districts of the city. It is attended by drunks, drug addicts, homeless people, and vagrants. Last week a man in that church was interviewed about his financial income. He is receiving food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and, perhaps, other forms of government welfare. He was asked where the money for these programs is coming from. He immediately said, “From the government.” He actually believes that the government is the source of his income.

          What the man does not realize is that the government does not produce one dollar of the money it redistributes to the poor. Every bit of that money comes from others who work to produce it and who pay the taxes to allow the government to distribute it to the poor.

          In order to understand the effects of government welfare programs, one must realize that there are always two parts to welfare redistribution programs—there is the visible part and the invisible part. The visible part is far more obvious than the invisible. In this man’s case, the visible part is the man who now has food to eat, a roof over his head, and medical care when he needs it. These are things that everyone can obviously see are quite beneficial. Who would not like to see all these ends accomplished?

          The invisible parts are not nearly so obvious. These invisible parts include the fact that when money is taxed away from the population at large, the taxpayers no longer have money for business improvements, for infrastructure, and for investment in projects that produce jobs. They cannot put that money back into the economy to work efficiently so as to multiply itself by real stimulation of the economy. That money that is no longer in the hands of entrepreneurs who can use it to create the jobs and the sense of self-accomplishment that the poor man badly needs if he would work for it, himself. Real production of real goods and services that can only be obtained by investment in the private economy is delayed or prevented from doing so by the visibly desirable effects of immediately available beneficial results on the poor. Government welfare programs effectively transfers money out of the hands of those who know how to increase wealth and puts it into the hands of those who do not know how to increase wealth. In the long run, this decreases the effectiveness of money that might be used to create jobs. Both the rich and the poor suffer from that effect.

          No thinking, compassionate, person would object to a reasonable government redistribution policy if it were not so extremely large and completely out of hand as it is today. At this time, the total amount of federal and state welfare spending is $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in this nation. That does not include the cost of enhanced welfare payments that does not require the government to tax and spend on the welfare programs, themselves. That is, this amount does not include the amount of money transferred to the poor by direct contributions required of business, e.g., minimum wages, maximum hours and mandatory benefits for employees, and rent control for tenants. (Imprimis October 2014)

The most insidious effect of these government give-away programs is that they leave the poor just as poor in the end as they were at the beginning. They leach away self-respect by making the poor man ever more dependent on more and more government give-away programs.

          Fortunately for the man with whom I spoke, another member of our church has taken him under his arm, so to speak, and provided him with money to pay for attendance at a local trade school in which he is learning skills necessary to become a diesel mechanic.  That is REAL charity. That kind of charity will probably make the man independent and finally allow him to become a self-supporting, independent, and happier man. Unfortunately, there are reasons why many of the church members do not or cannot realize the benefits of getting off government welfare programs any time soon. But…the government’s current policies do not seem likely to encourage many of today’s poor to raise themselves up out of the gutters of despondency and dependency to really make them self-respecting members of society. We need a smaller safety-net program for the truly disadvantaged and disenfranchised citizen.

 

Capitalism: The Best Anti-Poverty Program

The World Bank reported on Oct. 9 that the share of the world population living in extreme poverty had fallen to 15% in 2011 from 36% in 1990. Earlier this year, the International Labor Office reported that the number of workers in the world earning less than $1.25 a day has fallen to 375 million 2013 from 811 million in 1991.

Such stunning news seems to have escaped public notice, but it means something extraordinary: The past 25 years have witnessed the greatest reduction in global poverty in the history of the world.

To what should this be attributed? Official organizations noting the trend have tended to waffle, but let’s be blunt: The credit goes to the spread of capitalism. Over the past few decades, developing countries have embraced economic-policy reforms that have cleared the way for private enterprise.

China and India are leading examples. In 1978 China began allowing private agricultural plots, permitted private businesses, and ended the state monopoly on foreign trade. The result has been phenomenal economic growth, higher wages for workers—and a big decline in poverty. For the most part all the government had to do was get out of the way. State-owned enterprises are still a large part of China’s economy, but the much more dynamic and productive private sector has been the driving force for change.

In 1991 India started dismantling the “license raj”—the need for government approval to start a business, expand capacity or even purchase foreign goods like computers and spare parts. Such policies strangled the Indian economy for decades and kept millions in poverty. When the government stopped suffocating business, the Indian economy began to flourish, with faster growth, higher wages and reduced poverty.

Those who would castigate capitalism in favor of socialism should think carefully: We have a grand example before our very eyes of the effects of socialism. That example is the former U.S.S.R. That country was not able to produce the consumer goods needed by their people. Oh, they were great at building dams and moon rockets; but they were miserable at producing the things that people needed to live. And…they were very bad at providing jobs and motivating their people to go to work to earn a living. America should take the Russian economy as a warning to the U.S. Socialism is a dead end!

(This blog post was redacted from the Wall Street Journal November 2, 1914, the editorial page.)

Why I’ve Lost Trust in the U.S. Government

For the past six years, I have tried hard to give President Obama and the Administration every benefit of the doubt when I saw bad things happen. I realized that government is a complicated and difficult thing to administer; and often conflicting things tug at politicians, causing them to make decisions that will never please everyone—especially, me.

But, as time has gone on, I am giving up on trying to maintain a positive attitude toward our government. There are many reasons:

1)     It is insane to keep the Keystone pipeline sidelined when we need that facility to spark our business with oil exports and domestic oil use. The pipeline would create lots of jobs. There would be essentially no damaging environmental effect to the pipeline according to repeated examinations and evaluation of that question.

2)     The IRS scandal is real. Lois Lerner is red-handed guilty of consorting with Democrat activists against conservatives. If she were not guilty, why would she have claimed her rights under the Fifth Amendment? Yet, the government has effectively covered up her footsteps and the footsteps of other government bureaucrats in the IRS.

3)     The damage done at Benghazi was considerable; and the government is loath to admit their lack of effort to prevent such a debacle. Governmental nay-saying has obfuscated the whole situation. Somebody did not provide adequate Marine guards at the Benghazi consulate. The president is the Commander in Chief and it is his fault.

4)   Operation Fast and Furious was a stupid and bungling idea that should be examined and prosecuted.

5)   It is a travesty that conservative watch-dogs of the government have been unable to examine the above three problems because the administration has openly violated the Freedom Of Information Act in refusing to release information that is supposed to be open to the public.

6)     A U.S. Marine, Andrew Tahmooressi, is still in a Mexican jail because of a trumped-up charge by the Mexican government that he was trying to run guns into Mexico. President Obama has evidently made no effective effort to get him released. The President surely made a big effort get Bowe Bergdahl, a deserter from the U.S. Army in Afghanistan released from Taliban confinement, even though Bergdahl voluntarily left his post to conspire with the Taliban. It seems to me that Obama did this for the primary reason that he wanted to empty out the Guantanamo detention center. He traded five of the most dangerous al-Qaeda fighters in detention for Bergdahl. But he won’t lift a finger to free Tahmooressi.

7)     U.S. immigration policy is in bad shape and needs immediate attention of the President; yet, he stalls on this because he wants to be careful of his political legacy.

8)     ObamaCare was a very poor piece of legislation pushed through on a completely partisan basis. It won’t work; and it would have been much better to consider  its weak points by consulting with Republicans before turning it into law.

9)     “Foreign policy” is a joke under the Obama administration. The world needs U.S. leadership; and “leading from behind” is not the way to address the dangers abroad.

10)  Tax and spend, the Democrat way of life, has been a dismal failure in getting America out of the recession. The government’s way of dealing with the problem is an obvious refutation of Keynesian economic theory. Yet, liberals cling to its theories as though they depending on them for their very life.   

11)  All the time, while the President is needed in Washington tending to the business of government, he is out traveling around to one campaign and fund-raising event after another. This president needs to stay at home and tend the store.

 

 

 

Obama’s “Foreign Policy”—A Myth

President Obama does not know how to use the American military machinery. He does not realize that a strong American military goes a long way toward preventing war. A weak military causes America’s opponents to strike out in violence around the world.

President Obama’s policies have shrunk our country’s military to its pre-Pearl Harbor size and backed away from American leadership abroad. This is a historic retreat from our role in protecting world order since World War II. America should not cling to policies that undermine international strength.

Now, we have a weak and cringing president who is fearful of any action without the approval of the “international community.”

Restoring American military and moral strength in the world should be a relentless theme of our foreign policy. Apology and “leading from behind” will not accomplish anything but encourage chaos in the world.

 

Something Else to Blame G.W. Bush for!

George W. Bush deserves a tip of the hat. Here's what the "prophet" Bush said in 2007 about the dangers of a premature withdrawal from Iraq:

"I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we're ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we'd be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we allowed the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous."

One of those people Bush referred to who was pushing for a quick withdrawal from Iraq was then-Senator Barack Obama.

Obama won the White House in 2008 promising to be the anti-Bush, vowing to get out of Iraq. Obama got what he wanted. And now the very things George Bush warned about -- mass killings on a horrific scale, a terrorist safe haven in Iraq and American troops returning to fight a more dangerous enemy -- are reality.

By the way, we're still waiting for Obama's strategy to take on ISIS, but fortunately we don't have to wait any longer for the Forest Service's strategy for making safe, low-calorie S'mores.