Free trade is for dupes and idiots, Part 2

In his SOTU speech, Barack Obama announced that his Administration is (unconstitutionally and thus illegally) negotiating trade agreements with the EU and countries of the Pacific Rim. Free trade proponents – including Iain Murray of the pseudoconservative American Spectator – applauded him, as they are ideologically aligned with him. In defense of their (and his) free trade agenda, they have regurgitated their standard litany of lies about trade.

Murray falsely claims that:

“The benefits of free trade are many, and accepted by virtually all economists. They include reductions in the cost of living, greater choice and increased quality of goods, higher incomes on both sides, economic growth and, perhaps most important in an increasingly corporatist America, a reduction in the effectiveness of lobbying. Protectionism provides the reverse in all of these cases, and would be just as foolish now as when the Smoot-Hawley law deepened the Depression. (…)

However, that last benefit in the list I just provided has not escaped the eye of special interests. Indeed, most of the free trade agreements which America has negotiated in recent years have been heavily influenced by lobbyists, not only from industry, but also from the environmental and labor organizations. They have consistently insisted on inserting measures into the agreements that maintain protections for their interests and reduce the scope for the full benefits from free trade.”

All of his claims are blatant lies.

There are NO benefits from free trade. None whatsoever. It is protectionism that brings about the benefits he claims, not free trade.

How do we know it? From the facts – from the results of real life, not theoretical theses put forward by Murray and others living in their academic ivory towers.

Increased quality of goods? Don’t make me laugh. The goods that the US imports from China and other “developing” countries are of abysmally low quality, made from weak materials in a poor fashion, breaking down after little time of use, and many of them – including toys and food – are poisoned with lead (toys) or melamine (food). The problem is so grave that one American mother raised that question in a 2007 GOP presidential debate. Virtually anyone who has bought anything made in China will attest to the poor quality of Chinese goods.

Reductions in the cost of living? Rising incomes on both sides? Is that a joke? Since the ratification of the first “free trade” deals in the 1990s, the real wages and real income of low-income and middle-class workers has remained flat in inflation-adjusted dollars. The only Americans who have seen their incomes rise since then have been the wealthy – the CEOs of large corporations who are happy to ship jobs overseas (mostly to China).

Greater choice? China’s price-dumping, flooding of the US with extremely low quality goods, and refusal to implement any environmental or labor standards has undercut and undermined American companies and to the flooding of store shelves with Chinese products, leaving Americans with little choice other than these low-quality products.

Reduction in the effectiveness of lobbyists? Don’t make me laugh. It was precisely lobbyists – and no one else – who wanted and secured the passage of all free trade deals ratified by the US, from the WTO to the GATT to NAFTA, to Most Favored Nation status for China, to the disastrous KORUS FTA.

American workers and voters did not want these disastrous free trade deals. Indeed, they vehemently protested against them and urged their Congressmen and Senators to vote against them (especially against the KORUS FTA).

It was the greedy CEOs of large multinational corporations and their lobbyists on Capitol Hill who campaigned for and secured the passage of these disastrous (for America) deals.

Economic growth? That’s the most idiotic claim Murray has made. Free trade has done nothing but stymie US economic growth. Historically, the US economy has grown fastest when operating under protectionist (economically nationalist) policies: protective tariffs.

Indeed, this is what all history – of all countries – shows. It proves that protectionism is what brings about fast economic growth, while “free trade” (i.e. being a dupe who borrows money to buy foreign products and destroys his own industry) leads to economic stagnation.

Protectionism (economic nationalism) is the trade policy of ascendant economic powers; free trade, the policy of descending, declining ones.

EVERY country which ever became an economic power became one by protecting and nurturing its industrial base – England under the Acts of Navigation, France under Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Napoleon Bonaparte, Britain until the mid-19^th century, Prussia under the Customs Union (1834-1871), unified Germany under Bismarck and his successors, the US from 1861 to the 1960s, postwar Japan, China today.

NO country ever became an economic power by indulging in free trade, which is only for dupes and idiots and leads to economic disaster.

The US became the world’s economic superpower – indeed, was once the economic envy of the world – because from 1861 until at least the 1960s it protected and nurtured its industry with tariffs that effectively barred most foreign products from the US and protected its industrial base while not hampering competition between domestic producers in any way (and antitrust legislation ensured that such competition would stay alive in the US).

Thus, the US became a world producer of everything, an economically fully self-sufficient country, supplying not just its large population but the entire world with all sorts of products, from alloys, to cars, to planes, to everything else. By the 1940s and the early 1950s, it accounted for 50% of the world’s industrial production, partially due to the damage WW2 inflicted on Europe but partially due to the protection of the American industry (which was indispensable in winning that war by producing weapons for the US and its allies).

This was because, from its founding until at least the 1960s, the US followed the preceipts of the Founding Fathers, especially Alexander Hamilton: Trade surpluses are preferrable to trade deficits. It does matter where things are produced. There is no free lunch. Manufacturing, not finance, is the nation’s economic muscle.

But today, the US hardly manufactures anything and has become dependent on foreign countries – especially China – on all sorts of products, including the necessities of life.

“Free trade” has been a total disaster for the US. Since 2000 alone, thanks to free-trade policies, over 55,000 factories across the country have been closed and relocated overseas, mainly to China, and 6 million good, well-paying manufacturing jobs have been shipped – mostly to China. The only reward is the dubious privilege of buying low-quality Chinese goods.

Before NAFTA’s ratification, the US had an annual trade surplus with Mexico; since 1993, however, it has had a trade deficit with that country every year and the 2012 trade deficit was the largest between the two in history. After ratification of the KORUS FTA, America’s trade deficit with South Korea jumped threefold in April 2012 alone. Our trade deficit with Japan is the largest ever between us.

America’s trade deficit with China is the largest ever between any two countries in human history: $300 bn in 2012.

Not just between the US and China, but the largest between any two countries on God’s green Earth in all recorded human history!

And yes, trade deficits do matter. A lot. They decrease the country’s GDP while increasing the GDP of the country you’re buying from. This is not surprising to anyone who knows economics 101: to be able to buy something, you have to earn the money to buy it – or borrow it. If you borrow money, you’re driving yourself deeper into debt. If you buy it with the money you’re already have, you’re transferring your income to the other guy. He earns money and you lose it.

If he sells you more than he buys from you, he makes more money at YOUR expense than YOU do at his expense. In other words, on net, he earns money at YOUR expense: he takes money from you, while you lose money.

Producing goods creates jobs (all goods have to be made by someone). If you buy goods from a foreign country, you’re creating jobs in THAT country rather than yours, and increasing the income of THAT country rather than yours, while you lose money and jobs (or, at minimum, the opportunity to create jobs at home).

That country gains and you lose.

If you buy more from abroad than you export, you’ll have to borrow money to buy those things, thus driving yourself deeper and deeper into debt.

Those “economists” who support free trade clearly don’t even know Economics 101, or the Basic Facts of Life 101.

Free trade has also been a political disaster for Republicans. They’ve been complicit in its making, indeed often leading the campaign for it, and helped destroy most of American industry. Might the wiping out of most factories in the Midwest and the Northeast have had anything to do with Republicans inability to win those states and their foolish advocacy of free trade?

Illinois and Michigan haven’t voted Republican since 1984; Pennsylvania, not since 1988; Ohio, not since 2004.

By contrast, from 1860 to 1924, Republicans – then known as The Party of Protection – put 12 presidents only in the White House. The Democrats put only 2.

In short, the claims of Iain Murray and other free traders – none of whom have ever built a great nation – are blatant lies.

Protect the nuclear deterrent, reduce entitlement costs

As Washington ponders what to do about America’s large annual budget deficit ($1.2 trillion per year), the Left has taken aim at America’s nuclear deterrent – the most important asset the US military has, one which protects America and its 30+ allies against the most catastrophic threats – and demands cut in it while refusing to agree to any cuts in entitlements and discretionary social programs. Last month, 44 stridently liberal House Democrats, led by Ed Markey and Barney Frank, demanded exactly such policy in a letter to Congressional leadership.

But they’re dead wrong, and the policy they advocate is destructive, subversive, treasonous, and unconstitutional.

Here’s why. Here are seven good reasons why the nuclear deterrent should NOT be cut and why entitlement costs should be reformed (i.e. significantly reduced):

1) Protecting America is not only an enumerated power but the highest Constitutional DUTY of the federal government, as articulated in the Preamble, in Art. I Sec. 8, and in Art. IV Sec. 4. The majority of enumerated powers delegated to the Congress and listed in Art. I Sec. 8 relate to  military affairs. The military is the ONLY significant expenditure authorized by the Constitution.

By contrast, entitlement programs (and discretionary social programs) are unconstitutional. They are outside the scope of the powers vested in the federal government by the Constitution.

No person who takes his/her oath to the Constitution seriously could advocate deep cuts in funding for America’s defense, especially not for the kind of defense against the most catastrophic threats, while simoultaneously refusing to agree to any cuts in unconstitutional entitlement programs.

2) The nuclear deterrent costs very little: $32 bn per year according to the Stimson Center. This includes all nuclear warheads, all of their delivery systems, and all of their supporting facilities. Over the next decade or so, the US will need to modernize its nuclear deterrent; the Stimson Center estimates that with these modernization costs accounted for, the total cost will rise to only $39.2 bn per year, or $392 bn over the next decade.

How much is $39.2 bn? Just 6.1% of the total military budget ($633 bn authorized for FY2013), and just 1% out of a $3.699 trillion annual federal budget. Just one percent. Just one cent on the dollar.

Individual nuclear weapon systems cost even less. The ICBM  leg of the nuclear triad costs only $1.1 bn per year to maintain; the bomber leg, $2.5 bn.

By contrast, the Big Three entitlement programs alone constitute 62-63% of the ENTIRE federal budgets, and their costs grow on autopilot every year. Social Security alone costs well over $700 bn every year. See the Heritage Foundation graphs below.

3) Given entitlements’ huge costs, and the nuclear deterrent’s tiny cost, it is clear that it is ENTITLEMENTS, not nuclear weapons, that should be cut, or at least looked to for savings. By contrast, the US could give up its entire nuclear deterrent unilaterally tomorrow, and this would cut the federal budget by a paltry 1% – not even a dent in the annual budget deficit ($1.2 trillion) or total annual federal spending. Cutting or even eliminating the nuclear deterrent would do NOTHING do solve the deficit problem. Reforming entitlements and thus reducing their costs (e.g. by means-testing SS and Medicare, increasing the eligibility age, and giving people the freedom to leave the SS system and open private retirement accounts instead) would go a long way to reduce budget deficits and public debt.

4) If entitlements are not reformed soon, they will, within a few decades, swallow the entire federal budget, leaving the US with no money for defense or anything else. Furthermore, if they are not reformed soon, they will bury America under a mountain of debt, as they collectively have liabilities of $100 trillion. Again, even eliminating the nuclear deterrent unilaterally would do NOTHING to stop this tsunami of entitlement spending and entitlement-driven debt.

5) Making further deep cuts in the nuclear deterrent, while Russia retains its huge arsenal and China has a large one (far larger than what disarmament advocates and government bureaucrats claim), would invite a Russian (if not Chinese) nuclear first strike on the US, as the US nuclear arsenal would, after further deep cuts, be far too small to be survivable or to credibly threaten most of Russia’s and China’s military assets.

6) Entitlements and other social programs make people permanently dependent on the government (in this case, the federal government) and thus teach dependence instead of self-reliance, which used to be a defining American trait. Today, instead of people providing for their and their families’ needs, virtually everyone wants to rely on a government program (i.e. on tax money confiscated from someone else) instead.

7) Entitlements and other social programs, by encouraging dependence on the federal government and by resulting in a mass confiscation of wealth from producers and transfer of that wealth to those who didn’t earn it, are immoral. In the Bible, God upholds the sanctity of private property: He says that we are prohibited not only to steal, but even to covet it.

In short, the Left’s claims are blatant lies, and their policy proposals are downright destructive. Were their cretinous policies to be implemented (God forbid), the US would be gutting its own nuclear deterrent (thus opening itself  and over 30 allies to a Russian or Chinese nuclear blackmail or even attack) while completely failing to make any meaningful reduction in federal spending, budget deficits, or debt. Such policies are totally unnacceptable and must be rejected completely. No ifs, no buts.

What a constitutional federal budget would look like

As you may know, Dear Readers, the US Constitution authorizes only a very limited federal government: limited in what it is allowed to do, including the range of issues it is allowed to handle and spend money on.

Domestically, the federal government is authorized only to protect copyrights and patents, prosecute those who counterfeit US currency and securities (as well as traitors and spies), govern the District of Columbia and federal territories, prevent the emergence of barriers to interstate commerce such as interstate tolls, handle mail delivery, protect civil rights, coin money and regulate its value, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

On the foreign front, the federal government is responsible for providing for the common defense, managing foreign affairs and regulating commerce with foreign countries and Indian tribes.

The limited, enumerated powers of the federal government are listed and explained in more detail here, here, and here.

That being the case, I’ve decided to produce this blueprint of a federal budget based solely on what is authorized by the Constitution.

Methodology

The articles by expert lawyer Publius Huldah (dealing with the powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branch of the federal government) were used to determine what programs and agencies are constitutional and which ones are not (see here, here, and here).

Unconstitutional programs would, of course, have to be abolished if the Constitution were to be strictly enforced – either immediately (e.g. the Departments of Education and Energy) or gradually phased out while honoring the promises made to current seniors.

Constitutional programs and agencies would be retained. What funding should they receive is a separate matter beyond the scope of this article; it was assumed for the purposes of this article that they would  (at least initially) be retained at their FY2012 funding levels. In the future, of course, Congress may increase or decrease their budgets as it sees it and as national needs dictate.

For purposes of this study only, the President’s FY2012 Budget Proposal, as depicted by graphic artist Jess Bachmann in his FY2012 budget poster, was used to obtain the numbers proposed by the President for various programs. If newer budget figures for some agencies are available, they are given.

On this basis, it was assumed that constitutional federal programs and agencies would be funded at the levels requested by the President for FY2012, while unconstitutional federal programs and agencies would be abolished or gradually phased out.

The results

This study has found that  the majority of current federal programs and agencies are unconstitutional; that is, the federal government has grown far beyond the limits authorized by the Constitution.

Constitutional agencies and programs

Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution authorizes the Congress to spend money only on a limited range of programs, agencies, and objects.

Those agencies and programs which are constitutionally lawful include:

1) The Department of Defense. Defense is the #1 Constitutional duty of the federal government; and the Constitution authorizes an Army and a Navy. The DOD’s budget request for FY2012 was $667 bn, but it was never approved and a Consolidated Appropriations Act was passed and signed instead. For FY2013, the Congress has just passed a $633 bn Authorization Bill, while the Defense Appropriations Bill awaits Senate consideration. For FY2013, we will assume, in line with the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act, that the defense budget is $633 bn. Sequestration, however, will cut that amount significantly.

2) The DOE’s National Security programs, including nuclear weapons and facilities, defense environmental cleanup, and naval nuclear reactors. $19.979 bn. (The rest of the DOE is unconstitutional, however.)

3) The Department of the Treasury (which has existed since the Washington Administration): $14.043 bn.

4) The Department of Justice: $20.910 bn minus the DEA ($2.002 bn) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ($1.147 bn), as federal laws related to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives are unconstitutional. Total:  $17.761 bn.

5) The Department of Homeland Security ($43.436 bn) minus those of its programs which violate civil liberties protected by the Constitution and the TSA ($5.114 bn).

6) The Department of Veterans’ Affairs: $58.775 bn.

7) The Department of State ($50.921 bn) minus foreign aid, the Millenium Challenge Corporation, the Peace Corps, and International Narcotics Control, leaving $31.662 bn. This includes Foreign Military Financing for allies such as Israel, as well as International Peacekeeping and US contributions to international organizations of which the US is a member (whether these expenditures should continue as a matter of usefulness is a separate issue).

8) The National Archives and Records Administration: $407 mn.

9) The District of Columbia: $458 mn.

10) The US Postal Service: $5.947 bn. (While the USPS is constitutional, it should be privatized.)

11) The International Trade Administration: $517 mn.

12) The Department of the Interior: $12.057. Its tasks include, inter alia, protecting national forests and managing federal lands, although arguably federal lands in western states should be transferred to these states or to seniors in exchange for them renouncing their claims to SS and Medicare benefits.

13) The US Census Office (authorized by the Constitution to conduct a census every 10 years): $1.025 bn.

14) The US Patent Office.

15) The National Institute of Standards and Technology to enforce uniform standards of weights and measures: $1.004 bn.

16) The Office of Governmental Ethics: $14 mn.

17) The Executive Office of the President: $469 mn.

18) The Legislative Branch: $5.032 bn.

19) The Judicial Brach: $6.853 bn.

20) The Army Corps of Engineers: $4.574 bn.

21) A Civil Rights Commission to oversee the observation of civil rights.

22) A Federal Election Commission to conduct elections to the US House of Representatives and, unless and until the 17th Amendment is repealed, to the Senate.

23) Every four years, there may be additional expenses for the inauguration of a new presidential term.

24) The Securities and Exchange Commission: $1.408 bn.

While these are 23 different agencies and programs, they collectively add up to only $853.307 bn. This means that only $853.307 bn out of the federal budget is constitutional. Or, if we use solely Jess Bachmann’s numbers, borrowed from the President’s FY2012 budget proposal, for the DOD, only $891.307 bn per year out of all federal spending is constitutional.

This is only 24.057% of the total proposed FY2012 budget ($3.699 trillion). That means that over 75% of the federal budget for FY2012 was unconstitutional. More than three quarters!

In other words, out of every dollar that Washington spends, only 25 cents are spent on constitutional agencies and programs, and 75 cents are not.

Unconstitutional programs

This means that all other federal programs and agencies are unconstitutional.

This includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which collectively cost $1.498 trillion in FY2012 (all of these programs are already in the red, i.e. the payroll taxes levied to pay for them are already insufficient to cover their costs). The Constitution does not authorize such (or any other) entitlement programs. (However, they cannot be abolished outright and would have to be phased out gradually over a few decades because many seniors are dependent on them.)

The Departments of Education, Energy (except defense-related programs, which should be moved to the DOD), Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Commerce (except a few DOC agencies) are completely unconstitutional as well, as are all other federal agencies, including the myriad small, unconstitutional agencies such as the “National Labor Relations Board” and the “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission”.

Conclusions

A constitutional federal budget – i.e. one for a federal government limited to its constitutional powers and duties (defense, foreign affairs, international trade, maintaining standards of weights and measures, protecting civil rights, organizing the census, enforcing bankruptcy laws, prosecuting traitors and spies, and delivering mail)  - would be a budget just one fourth the size of the current federal budget.

However, because a vast majority of Americans opposes any entitlement reform, and because both Republicans and Democrats support immoral, unconstitutional, and unaffordable “social safety nets” and other unconstitutional programs (such as the Departments of Education and Agriculture), the federal budget is as large as it is today, and America is drowning in debt, with all the financial and economic consequences stemming from that.

The coming decline and fall of America

In 1897, as the United Kingdom celebrated the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign, it stood at the peak of its military, economic, and diplomatic power, as it spanned one quarter of the world and was being patrolled by the Royal Navy, stronger than the next two navies combined. Even then, however, a young American boy predicted that the US would eventually replace the UK as the world’s top dog. And it eventually did, in 1945, as Britain, bankrupt and weakened, had to dismantle its empire.

In 2007, Fareed Zakaria predicted that “history will happen to us after all.” By that, he meant that the US would eventually be replaced as the world’s top dog by someone else, as all previous leading superpowers once were.

And that is about to happen sooner than almost any American realizes.

Sooner than you probably think.

This year, despite reports of economic growth cooling down, China will likey post, again, a 9% economic growth rate, just like last year. It has recently announced tax cuts to stimulate further economic growth. Its Communist Party has recently chosen two reformers, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, to be the number one and number two on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee (its top power organ). It has convinced countries of the Pacific Rim to join a trade bloc that excludes the US, rather than joining a proposed American-led trading block – the Trans-Pacific Partnership – that would exclude China. Its currency, the Renminbi, is increasingly replacing the dollar as the reserve currency of East Asia. China is also becoming an increasingly important export market for Asian countries, while the importance of the US market is decreasing.

China is also building new and new advanced branches of industry that it once didn’t have – like the airliner industry – which will compete with Boeing and Airbus.

China’s economic policy of mercantilism – minimizing imports and maximizing exports – has proven itself to be remarkably successful. China has managed to protect its economy. Its industries, industrial production, and exports are growing. America’s industrial base is disappearing.

Militarily, China has been even more successful. It now has at least 1,800, and up to 3,000, nuclear warheads and the means to deliver over 1,200 of them immediately without involving its SRBMs or GLCMs. It has a growing, and increasingly modern, Navy which now includes an aircraft carrier, 68 submarines (ballistic and attack submarines alike, nuclear and conventional), very modern destroyers with highly capable air defense systems, very modern frigates, and hundreds of attack boats. It has an increasingly modern Air Force with a growing fleet (over 400) of Su-27, Su-30MKK, J-11, and J-10 fighters, soon to be joined by 48 Su-35s and, starting in 2017-2019, by J-20 and J-31 stealthy fighters, as well as AWACS and tankers. When its J-20 fighter enters service in 2017-2019, it will render every Western fighter except the F-22 obsolete, impotent, irrelevant, and useless. Already the Flanker family has rendered every fighter on the planet except the F-22, the F-15C/D, and the Typhoon obsolete.

Most worrisomely, China has built up such a huge and diverse arsenal of anti-access/area-denial weapons which can deny the US military access to a combat theater and, should the US military attempt access, inflict high casualties on it. These weapons range from land attack and anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles to submarines to naval mines to cyberweapons to anti-satellite weapons.

The US, for decades the world’s top military and economic dog, is now being increasingly outmatched by China. And, as America’s military and economic power declines precipitously, and that of China grows exponentially, Beijing looks like a far more attractive partner than Washington, thus affecting the two countries’ diplomatic attractiveness and capabilities.

What are the causes that are leading to America’s decline and eventual downfall and to China’s rise to top dog status?

Firstly, the US is indulging in statist, almost socialist, eocnomic policies – nationalizations, bailouts, high taxes, high government spending, massive overregulation and overlitigation, and a hugely complex, 66,000-page tax code.

Secondly, massive defense cuts which – with or without sequestration – will dramatically weaken the US military and render it decisively inferior to the Chinese and Russian militaries by no later than the 2020s.

Thirdly, a political system and a culture which allow subversive, anti-American views and policies to be tolerated, openly proclaimed, and even implemented as a national policy.

Fourthly, a political system and a weak legal system which allows foreign lobbyists to hugely influence US foreign policy.

Fifth, weak, timid pro-appeasement politicians in both parties who prefer a foreign policy of appeasement to Ronald Reagan’s firm policy.

Sixth, a complete ignorance on the part of both the populace and the political class.

And seventh, a complete breakdown of the American work ethic. Until the 1960s, the vast majority of Americans believed and knew that they had to earn everything they had. “Welfare” as we think of it was a tiny program operated by your city or county government and reserved only for the truly needy. Welfare was not the American way of life. Today, a majority of Americans are dependent on the federal government, one way or another, for their livelihoods, and believe that they are owed a living by someone else. Most of them believe they are entitled to a living at someone else’s expense. The “takers” have already outnumbered the “takers”, as evidenced by Obama’s reelection. The federal government provides a huge cornucopia of benefits – from Head Start and free K-12 education to Medicaid and foodstamps – to over 40%, and perhaps over 50%, of Americans. Meanwhile, 47% of Americans pay no taxes to pay for the cornucopia of benefits they enjoy.

As a wise man once warned, the Republic will collapse when citizens start believing they can vote themselves money.

Meanwhile, China has none of those weaknesses. Its free market economy encourages entrepreneurs to build and expand businesses. Its corporate income tax rate is 25%, it has no capital gains or dividends tax, labor costs are low, and regulations are less restrictive than in the US. Environmental and labor laws are among the most lax in the world.

The Chinese military, as noted above and as documented extensively on this website, is becoming stronger every year, with new, more deadly weapons entering service with the PLA in ever greater numbers.

China’s diplomatic influence around the world, as a result, is growing.

Chinese kids are the best students in the world, as proven time after time by PISA tests, which rank Shanghai students first in the world in reading, maths, and science. Chinese elementary school students have more homework to do every week than American students have ever had. China has high educational standards and strictly enforces them.

China’s political system, while cruel and unjust, ensures that seven men on the Politburo Standing Committee can make decisions easily and, once these decisions are made, they are strictly enforced. There is no political gridlock or logjam in China, and the country doesn’t have a dysfunctional political system like the US has, whereby the Congress can’t even pass any budget for over 3 years and cannot reduce annual federal spending by more than a smidgen by means other than automatic across-the-board sequestration.

And in China, anti-Chinese views and policies, such as those blaming China for the world’s problems or calls for deep cuts in China’s military, are not tolerated. And the people who propagate such beliefs are rightly treated as traitors and scum, not tolerated or celebrated like POGO, TCS, ACA, the “Council for a Livable World”, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Barack Obama are in the US.

For these and other reasons, China’s military and economic power is growing, while America’s is shrinking precipitously. And absent reforms that are highly unlikely to be implemented in the US, China will overtake the US as the world’s top dog – economically and militarily – by no later than the 2020s.

And no one will be sadder to see that happen than me.

„“In terms of the indices of overall power – GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment – Asia will surpass North America and Europe combined,” the report concludes.

“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” — prepared by the office of the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — projects that the “unipolar” world that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union will not continue.

“With the rapid rise of other countries, the ‘unipolar moment’ is over and no country – whether the U.S., China, or any other country – will be a hegemonic power,” the report argues.

“The United States’ relative economic decline vis-a-vis the rising states is inevitable and already occurring,but its future role in the international system is much harder to assess,” it argues.

“Global Trends” projects that the United States will retain a unique role in the international system — in part because of its history and past leadership.

“The U.S. most likely will remain ‘first among equals’ among the other great powers, due to the legacy of its leadership role in the world and the dominant role it has played in international politics across the board in both hard and soft power,” it argues.

And the intelligence community does believe the United States will be supplanted as the world’s only superpower by another country.

“The replacement of the United States by another global power and erection of a new international order seems the least likely outcome in this time period,” the report projects.

The report argues that rising powers like China, India and Brazil are not unified by any common ideology and are more focused on their regional role. And the report warns against the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from the world’s stage.

“A collapse or sudden retreat of US power would most likely result in an extended period of global anarchy,” it argues.” – http://michellefields.com/2012/12/10/intelligence-community-u-s-will-no-longer-be-sole-superpower-by-2030/; http://pl.scribd.com/doc/115962650/GlobalTrends-2030

Free trade is for dupes and idiots

For decades, globalists and libertarian free trade ideologues have been telling us that free trade has been “good” for America, that it’s a traditional conservative/Republican policy, and that any suggestion that America should protect its industry – i.e. protectionism – is a Big Government policy and a betray of “free market principles”. Free trade is the religion of the CATO Institute, the Mercatus Center, the Heritage Foundation, and the so-called Club for (Corporate Profits) Growth, which should call itself the Club for Corporate CEOs’ Greed).

But they are wrong. Protectionism, not free trade, has traditionally been the policy of conservatives and Republicans, and it is the policy on which nations ascend economically; they descend on free trade.

Every nation which ever became a great power – from England under the Acts of Navigation, to Colbert’s France, to the US from 1861 to 1945, to postwar Japan, to China today – became such because it protected its economy (especially its industry).

Unlike Hamilton, Clay, and Lincoln, the free trade ideologues at the forementioned organizations never built a great nation.

Republicans won their first presidential election in 1860 (while also capturing the Senate) running on a pledge to institute tariffs to protect the industry. And they did. This nearly insulated America’s (or rather, the North’s) growing industry, allowing it to become the envy of the world. Successive Republican Presidents and Congresses continued these policies, shielding American industries with protective tariffs, thus allowing these industries to grow and leading America to overtake Britain (and the rest of the world) by all measures of industrial production (including coal mining and steel production) by the 1890s.

Protectionist tariffs on foreign products also allowed Congress to keep the books balanced and pay Civil War debts quickly while keeping taxes on Americans and American companies low. Before 1913, there wasn’t even any federal income tax.

America thus became the greatest industrial power on Earth, the envy of the world.

I said “successive Republican Presidents and Congresses”, because a protectionist economic policy proved itself to be not only economically successful, but also politically popular. From 1860 to 1924, the GOP – then known as the Party of Protection – put 12 presidents in the White House, versus only 2 Democrats.

By 1945, America, partially thanks to its protectionist policies and partially due to the destruction that WW2 inflicted on Europe and Asia, accounted for 42% of the world’s industrial production.

But then, something happened.

American political elites (including, increasingly, Republicans) caught the free trade virus and indulged in suicidal “free trade” economic policies.

The US joined the WTO organization, where it doesn’t have a vote, signed the GATT, and signed free trade agreements with many countries, opening its markets to their products while they kept their markets firmly closed to American goods and services.

Thus, the US stopped posting trade surpluses and, starting in 1971, began to run trade deficits which, since 1971, have been growing almost nonstop.

Big corporations, always greedily lusting for more profits and bigger salaries for their CEOs, began shipping jobs overseas.

By the 1980s, the situation was so dire that Ronald Reagan recognized the problem and asked the Congress to institute protective tariffs.

Yet, America’s slide towards the abyss on the skis greased by free traders was only slowed down, not stopped. In 1992, the US, at President Bush’s behest, suicidally signed NAFTA, opening its market to cheap Mexican products. In 1993, Republicans saved NAFTA from defeat by voting for it together with the pro-free-trade wing of the Democratic Party. Republicans literally rescued NAFTA from the dustbin of history (where it belongs) by voting for it – and thus own it.

The result? Millions of good-paying industrial jobs were lost, as factories were shipped to Mexico. Before 1993, the US had a trade surplus with Mexico. Since 1993, it has had a trade deficit with that country every single year.

In 1994, China began, on a large scale, its campaign to maximize its exports while closing its market to imports, and thus to steal Western industries, by devaluing its currency by 45%. Simoultaneously, tariffs on foreign products were hiked, and export rebates to Chinese exporters began to be provided, similarly to how they are provided in Japan.

(Japan has a 15% VAT rate on products sold on its soil, but it provides a rebate to its exporters for every product they sell abroad. So cars exported to the US face no American tariffs and are even rebated by the Japanese government, while American cars exported to Japan are taxed 15% as soon as they arrive at the Yokohama docks).

Yet, despite Chinese cheating on trade, the Congress – dominated by Republicans – gave China Most Favored Nation trade status, thus absolving Chinese products of most tariffs (while China did not reciprocate). In 2001, the Congress gave China that status permanently. In 2002, a Republican President allowed China to join the WTO. Thus, Chinese products enter America almost free of any tariffs or duties, but American products shipped to China are subject to steep tariffs.

Yet, Republicans, instead of learning from their mistakes, doubled down on their “free trade” policies. They gave Vietnam Most Favored Nation status in 2007. They gave President Bush an unconstitutional unilateral “expedited” negotiation authority to negotiate even more one-sided, unfair free trade agreements for dupes. They supported the FTAs Bush signed with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea late in his term.

In the 2008 election, all leading Republican candidates – McCain, Romney, and Giuliani – ran on free trade platforms.

The eventual Republican nominee, John McCain, even scaremongered people about “the siren song of protectionism” and went to a closed Ohio factory (which was closed because its owner shifted production overseas).

It didn’t endear him any voters, however. In the 2008 election, proud free trader John McCain was crushed 373-165, by the biggest margin of any Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater, losing even longtime Republican states like North Carolina, Indiana, and Virginia.

The election of Barack Obama probably gave some Americans hope that he would uphold his campaign promise to withdraw the US from NAFTA and to protect the US industry. He didn’t. He has barely been willing to impose tariffs on imported tires to save the tire industry.

With their own free trade mistakes costing them politically and the country economically, Republicans should have had, by 2012, learned that they were wrong and should have proposed a better policy, right? Wrong. Most Republicans continued to cling to their free trade ideology, as did the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who lambasted Obama for not signing any new FTAs for dupes (as if that were a bad thing), pledged to negotiate new FTAs, and firmly embraced free trade ideology. And although he pledged to designate China a currency manipulator if elected, and to enforce intellectual property laws, he wasn’t willing to do anything more than that, and even these half-measures earned him the ire of free trade ideologues such as the think-tanks and organizations listed above.

So, as the year 2012 begins to draw to an end, let us take inventory of 67 years of “free trade policies”.

They have destroyed the greatest industrial base the world has ever seen.

They have caused 55,000 factories to be closed and production to be shifted to countries where people work for slave wages and where there are no real environmental protection laws.

They have caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their well-paying manufacturing jobs and middle class worker wages to stagnate, in real terms, for over 2 decades.

They have brought about disastrous consequences for national security, as America is now dependent on foreign countries for essential things, even things essential for defense, such as Rare Earth Elements and the products made from them.

They have cost the Republican Party successive Congressional and Presidential elections, as former industrial powerhouses such as Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia – formerly red states – have turned against the GOP and become blue or purple states. Republicans have not win Michigan since 1984 and have lost both Ohio and Virginia in both of the last 2 presidential elections.

The GOP’s reputation as the Party of Protection has been tarnished and replaced by the reputation of a party that kowtows to big businesses and outsources jobs overseas.

America, formerly self-sufficient and producing everything in the world, now imports virtually everything it needs, from textiles and simple products to cars and Advanced Technology Products like computers and cell phones.

America lost her crown as the biggest exporter in the world to Germany in 2003, which itself was overtaken by China around 2010.

America’s trade deficits with Mexico, Japan, the EU, and the world at large are the highest they have ever been.

America’s trade deficit with China is the highest ever between any two countries.

And what were these trade deficits paid for with? Borrowed money. America is now the largest debtor in world history.

And to pay for lost revenue from abolished tariffs on foreign products, taxes are being hiked on Americans and American companies.

Can America be rescued? Yes, it still can, but there isn’t much time, and it will require a complete break with the free trade ideology and policies of the free trade ideologues running the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Mercatus Center, and the Club for Corporate CEOs’ Greed. The US should:

• Immediately implement the Export-Import Certificates proposed by Raymond, Howard, and Jesse Richman. This means that no country would be allowed to export more to the US than it imports from America.
• Immediately impose a 25% tariff on all Chinese products imported into the US. China will then have a choice between letting American products into its market or financing the US Pacific Fleet.
• Strictly enforce intellectual property laws.
• Write, and strictly enforce, product quality standards on all imported products.
• Terminate the useless Export-Import Bank.
• Withdraw from NAFTA, the WTO, and the GATT.
• Abolish all loopholes in the taxcode and use the resulting revenue (as well as the revenue coming from tariffs on Chinese products) to cut taxes across the board for all Americans and all American companies. The corporate income tax rate should be no higher than 12.5% (it’s 35% today).
• Designate China as a currency manipulator.

Tens of millions of jobs will then be created and production will be shipped back to the US – because then, in order to sell products in the huge American market, you will have to produce things in the US. And foreign countries wishing to export to the US will have to open their own markets to American products on the basis of reciprocity.

Americans: Cut spending, except the spending we personally live off

The most recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll finds that the vast majority of Americans oppose any cuts in the government programs they personally benefit from (i.e. receive money from), and support cutting spending only in what they personally don’t benefit (or at least don’t believe they benefit) from.

The latest edition of this poll has actually found that Americans are “more protective than ever” of these programs.

The poll also finds that, contrary to two widely-reported polls that purported to show a large majority of Americans supporting deep cuts in defense spending, only 15% of men and 19% of women support such a course of action.

79% of Americans oppose any cuts in Medicare. Only 17% would be okay with some cuts in it, and only 3% would like to see “lots of cuts” to it.

Opposition to any reforms or cuts to the program transcend beyond demographic divisions. 71% of men, 87% of women, 93% of non-Hispanic blacks, 78% of whites, and 68% of men over the age of 50 (although that demographic group is more open to cuts than women or younger people).

As the National Journal reports:

The figures were similar for Social Security, the other big, universal entitlement that enjoys widespread popular support.

As with many other surveys, the latest edition of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll found more support for cutting so-called means-tested programs that are available only to the poor or lower-middle class. Still, 45 percent of men and 52 percent of women said that the government shouldn’t make any cuts in “food stamps and housing vouchers” that go to poor families. Among white men without a college degree, a once Democratic-leaning group that has become elusive for the party, some 45 percent wanted the government to leave these programs alone.

However, it’s not as if public opinion has swung to a clear defense of expansionist government. Previous editions of the Congressional Connection Poll and other surveys have found stern opposition to the president’s health care law, and especially the mandate that Americans buy health insurance.

The poll also belies the 2 rigged polls produced earlier this year by the liberal CPI/NPR and by the University of Maryland which puported to show majorities (over 60%) of Americans support deep defense spending cuts.

In reality, as the UT/National Journal poll shows, only 19% of men and 15% of women support cutting defense spending “a lot”, while 34% of women and 32% of men say that it shouldn’t be cut at all, and a large plurality (47%) of both men and women take a centrist position, saying that defense spending has to see some cuts and thus to contribute to deficit reduction, but not be cut deeply. Thus, a plurality of Americans want defense to contribute to deficit reduction, but they’re wary of deep cuts, worried (quite rightly) that such cuts would impair the nation’s ability to defend itself (which they would).

And what’s most interesting about these results is that on defense spending, women are at least slightly more conservative than men. This is in stark contrast to the liberal views expressed by most women on other issues. It shows that providing for the common defense has an appeal that transcends gender barriers and, if anything, the necessity to provide for it resonates more strongly with the fairer sex than with men.

(Or maybe most American women simply understand that they cannot bet their children’s and their country’s security on American men breaking free of their defense cuts kool-aid?)

Finally, what this poll also shows is that the vast majority of Americans are trying to have it both ways: they want the federal budget to be balanced and spending to be cut, but at the same time, they’re warning politicians not to even think about touching entitlement programs or other popular federal giveaways, such as food stamps (although the percentage of Americans defending the latter is much lower). The problem is that the budget deficit will never be significantly reduced, let alone eliminated, if entitlement programs are left untouched, because they, by themselves, constitute 63% of all federal spending.

Thus, what the poll shows is that the vast majority of Americans don’t want limited government; they want to continue to receive their government handouts.

The poll’s full results can be found here:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/poll-shows-public-wants-entitlements-left-untouched-20121204

The poll was conducted between Nov. 29^th and Dec. 2^nd on a sample of 1,003 people.

Denial of reality

Tuesday’s shellacking should’ve been a wake-up call for Republicans to go back to basics, back to the drawing board, and think whether their message – not just their candidates – alienated Republican voters.

One would hope that Republicans would finally realize that they cannot claim to be the party of limited government and freedom and then in the next breath tell people what they can or cannot do with their bodies; that they need to finally reach out to women, youngsters, and minorities (particularly Hispanics).

But one would be wrong.

While Republican strategists do understand this, many Republican/conservative columnists do not. Examples include AmSpec’s Jeffrey Lord and George Neumayr and AT’s Tara Servatius. They wrongly claim that the GOP lost because its nominee wasn’t conservative enough and that this caused millions of conservatives to stay home on Election Day. They flatly deny that a demographic shift has occurred in the US, or that the GOP needs to reach out to Hispanics, youngsters, and women.

Essentially, they’re asking Republicans: “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

To understand why they’re dead wrong, just look at exit polls from this year, 2008, 2004, and 1980.

Mitt Romney has actually won a larger share of the white vote (59%) than Ronald Reagan did in 1980 (56%). So simple math tells us that if today’s electorate were as white as it was in 1980, Mitt Romney would’ve won by an even larger landslide than Reagan.

But this didn’t happen. Why? Because the electorate is far less white than in 1980.

In 1980, whites were about 80% of the electorate; blacks were about 10-11% and Latinos just 2%. Asians were even less numerous. But this year, whites were only 72% of the electorate, while Latinos constituted 10% (up from 8% in 2008) and blacks constituted 13%. Furthermore, they, along with Democrats and youngsters, had the same or greater turnout than in 2008.

Moreover, millions of old white voters have died since 2008, while millions of young voters (millenials) have turned 18 and become eligible to vote. And these voters are overwhelmingly pro-Obama. That’s a net swing of many millions of voters.

So yes, despite Lord’s, Neumayr’s, and Servatius’s denial, there has been a HUGE demographic change since 2004 (let alone since 1980). The American electorate has changed beyond recognition, but the GOP hasn’t changed with it. Republicans are still running in an electorate that no longer exists.

Today’s electorate is far less white, more Hispanic, more youthful, more black, and more Asian than in 1980 or even 2004. And yet, among all minorities, as well as youngsters and women, Republicans got crushed. 90% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, over 60% of youngsters, over 70% of Asians, over 70% of Jews, and 53% of women in an electorate in which women are the majority.

The role of a party is to win elections, and for that, you have to cause voters to want to vote for you. But right now, these huge majorities of every demographic group except whites. Why? Because on divisive social and immigration issues, Republicans not only support extreme policies, but also voice their support for these in words that most Americans find offensive.

Take abortion, for example. Most Americans, including a solid majority of women, are pro-choice, and 75% of them say that abortion should be legal at least in cases of rape and incest. Yet, GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan opposes even these exceptions, as do failed GOP Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock (both of whom made ridiculous gaffes that cost the GOP two perfectly winnable seats), and the Republican platform endorsed a CONSTITUTIONAL ban on abortion without exceptions.

That’s right. At the same time Republicans were condemning Todd Akin’s comments on pregnancy resulting from rape, his stance on abortion was being enshrined in the official Republican platform. As John Avlon points out:

“Good people can disagree about the difficult moral question of abortion. But how some self-described libertarians can pretend that forcing a woman to carry her rapist’s child to term is not among the most brutal forms of big government intrusion is beyond me.

That contradiction — driven by a common sense and common decency — is perhaps why a Gallup Poll found that 75% of Americans do not support bans on abortion when the woman is a victim of rape or incest. This is an area of broad consensus with the American people, even on this most personal and polarizing issue.

So the real scandal is not just the sincere stupidity of Akin’s statement — it is the policy that undergirds it, enshrined in the Republican National Platform. The problem is bigger than politics, and that’s why it is worth discussing in this election, even when Akin is off the front pages.”

And Republicans were warned about the consequences before the Republican Convention even began (emphasis added):

“The story dominates political coverage in the week before the Republican National Convention, forcing certain GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to repeatedly address it when he wanted to focus on convincing Americans why he would be a better president than Barack Obama.

Even more, the controversy surrounding Akin’s remarks on “legitimate” rape has forced Republicans to publicly confront the 15,000-pound elephant in their living room: the party’s internal rift between traditional fiscal conservatives such as Romney and the increasingly influential social conservatives of the religious right such as Akin.

Republican officials told CNN on condition of not being identified that the Akin controversy hurts on several fronts. It decreases the chances of capturing McCaskill’s Senate seat, which is crucial to GOP hopes of winning control of the chamber, they said.

At the same time, the brouhaha shifts the national discussion to divisive social issues that could repel swing voters rather than economic issues that could attract them in a climate of high unemployment and stumbling recovery, the GOP officials said.“

Thus, Republicans blew a golden opportunity to attack Obama’s utterly failed ultraliberal tax-and-spend policies and shifted the discussion to divisive social issues, thus alienating swing voters.

Republicans thus alienated tens of millions of women who could’ve otherwise voted for the GOP based on economic issues, as well as tens of millions of youngsters who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal (i.e. libertarian-minded). They’ve also alienated them with their stance on gay marriage, as proven by the failure of marriage amendments and the approval of SSM by voters in 4 states.

This Big Government stance on social issues likely cost Republicans a lot of swing states, including Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the poll numbers. In all of these states, the ladies voted overwhelmingly for Obama. And it’s easy to tell why: Republicans played right into Obama’s hands and the Dems’ “War on Women” theme.

Republicans also shot themselves in the foot with their hardline stance on immigration, which cost them dearly the Hispanic vote and thus the swing states of Colorado and Nevada. If Republicans don’t significantly soften their stance now, by 2016 Texas and Arizona may become swing states. Note to potential future presidential candidates: endorsing “self-deportation” and palling with Kris Kobach doesn’t help.

Wise strategists and statesmen such as Mike Murphy and Jeb Bush understand this. So do Mona Charen and Michael Tanner.

The question is, will these sane voices prevail, and make the GOP a party for all Americans who support limited government and a strong national defense, or will delusional people such as Jeffrey Lord, George Neumayr, John Hawkins, and Tara Servatius prevail? We will see during the next four years.

Rebuke of the “Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities”

One of the many leftist groups active in the US today calling for deep cuts to the defense budget and for the gutting of the US military is a group calling itself “Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities”. It’s not actually a group businessmen, but rather a project of the extremely leftist, George Soros funded “Center for American Progress”, and it includes well known anti-defense hacks such as Franklin C. “Chuck” Spinney, who has been proven to have been lying numerous times. BSLP calls for deep (15%) cuts in defense spending and for the money currently spent on defense to be redirected towards (federal spending on) education, healthcare, “alternative energy”, foreign aid, and deficit reduction.

This proposal is downright destructive (not to mention unconstitutional), and I will show you why.

But first, it must be pointed out that the US already spends more than enough on education, healthcare, and failed “alternative energy” projects, and far more than any other country in the world.

Regarding education, America already spends more money on it – in absolute terms and per student – than any other country in the world by far, yet, there are no results to show for this huge spending. American schools and students consistently rank among the worst in the OECD. In the latest available (2009) PISA rankings, they ranked 17th in reading, 31st in maths, and 23rd in science.

This is in part because the federal and state governments spend so much on education without asking schools, students, or teachers and their unions for anything in return. This is also in large part due to federal meddling with education, which must be completely ended if American schools are to improve substantially. This means abolishing the unconstitutional federal Education Department and federal education spending (or returning it back to the states without strings attached).

Regarding healthcare, again, the US spends far more on it than any other country in the world by far – well over $2 trillion every year. Half of it is government spending (federal, state, and local), and half of it is in the private sector. It amounts to 17% of America’s GDP and is headed towards 20% of GDP. $2 trillion per year is spent on treating cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s diseases alone (the four most common diseases and causes of death in the US.) The federal Department of Health and Human Services alone has an annual budget of $900 bn, making it by far the largest department of the federal government. State, local, and private expenditures increase the annual healthcare cost to well over $2 trillion. Yet, apparently, this is not enough for these BLSP/CAP Soros-funded liberals.

And as knowledgeable people from both sides of the aisle – Republicans as well as Democrats like Sam Nunn – recognize – America’s healthcare spending, both governmental and private – is too high and unsustainable and constitutes a drag on the economy. Accordingly, it needs to be reduced. (Ordinary Americans could reduce healthcare costs by $1 trillion per year by adopting healthy lifestyles.)

“Alternative energy sources” and projects have proven themselves to be totally useless and uneconomical. As decades of Western experimentations with these green boondoggles have proven, they are not, and will never be, even close to economical. They require huge capital and ongoing subsidies, without which they would die. In a free market, they could never compete. (And it is NOT the proper role of any government – federal, state, or local – to pick winners and losers in a market.)

Foreign aid has been a total waste of money. The US has tried, and continues to try, curry favor with various regimes that either turn against the US or waste the money on their leaders’ lavish lifestyles.

Furthermore, foreign aid and federal spending on education, healthcare, and “alternative energy sources” are unconstitutional, because the Constitution does NOT authorize the Congress to spend money on any of these things. The Constitution limits the objects on which the Congress can spend money to those listed here.

Under the Constitution, education, healthcare, and “alternative energy sources” are just a few of the myriad of issues reserved to the states and the people.

And the federal government is supposed to operate according to the Constitution, not the wishes of a few extremely leftist “businessmen” and anti-defense hacks.

Last but certainly not least, cuts of the depth demanded by BLSP – cuts as deep as 15% – would gut the US military, thus jeopardizing national security. The DOD’s FY2012 base budget was $531 bn, and cutting it by 15% would mean cutting it by $79.65 bn, i.e. down to just $451.35 bn – not even nearly enough to fund even the military’s basic functions, such as nuclear deterrence. This is because a strong military – let alone the strongest military on Earth – cannot be maintained on the cheap. It requires substantial, continuing funding. It cannot be done with a paltry annual budget like $451.35 bn. It would not be enough.

Maintaining a strong military requires substantial funding for missions such as:

• Providing air superiority to control the airspace over America itself (and Canada), which requires a large number of advanced 5th generation aircraft to defeat incoming enemy aircraft (including bombers and their escort fighters);
• Providing a large ground army to protect America’s land borders, or at least, the long border with Mexico, where a full-scale war with drug cartels is already ongoing (don’t take my word for it – visit Arizona);
• Patrolling America’s long coasts: the two vast ocean costs and the Gulf Coast (where the Russians sometimes sent Akula class subs), and protecting the undersea resources and fishing areas in US territorial waters;
• Providing a large, modern, survivable nuclear deterrent (which requires a large, survivable, modern nuclear triad and a large nuclear stockpile);
• Providing a multi-layered missile defense system to protect the homeland;
• Providing the human, space-, air-, sea-, and ground-based intelligence capabilities to collect all pertinent intel data about America’s enemies and making informed decisions about national security issues;
• Providing the administrative support required;
• Providing the healthcare, retirement, housing, and family support programs for the military’s members;
• Providing a military judicial system; and
• Other national security requirements.

And that’s just for the purpose of defending America itself (to say nothing of protecting America’s allies). Each of these missions requires substantial funding for the US military to be able to carry it out successfully and thus defeat America’s enemies.

The fact is that a strong military cannot be maintained on the cheap. Substantial, continued funding is required to provide the troops, training, fuel, ammunition, spare parts, maintenance, base infrastructure, and equipment needed to keep the US military strong and to provide for America’s security.

While there is some waste in the budget of the DOD (and every other government agency), there isn’t enough waste in it to cut it as deeply as sequestration would require. (Note: crucial weapon programs such as the Next Gen Bomber, the SSBN replacement program, or the V-22 are not “waste.”)

Better business practices such as fixed-price contracts, multi-year orders, base closure, and TRICARE reforms (all of which have to be authorized by Congress, BTW) can save money, but not enough to allow for deep defense budget cuts. The reality is that high-quality people, weapons, base infrastructure, and training are not and will never be cheap. In other words, defense on the cheap is not possible.

In short, defense on the cheap is not possible. Deep defense cuts are exactly that – deep cuts in America’s defense capabilities. With a significantly reduced defense budget, it will not be possible to pay for the missions that need to be carried out and for the weapons, units, and training the military will need to carry out those missions and counter our enemies’ current and projected capabilities.

The consequences of Barack Obama’s reelection

As everyone knows by now, Obama has been narrowly reelected for a second term. I will not mince words: this is a disaster for the United States, its allies (especially Israel), the Western civilization, and the world at large.

His reelection will bring about disastrous consequences for the US both at home and abroad. Let’s consider what these consequences will be in terms of domestic policy, foreign/defense policy, and politics (including the future of the GOP).

Domestically:

Obama will claim his reelection as a mandate for massive tax hikes and massive new domestic spending, as well as a mandate for anything else he may want to do, e.g. veto any entitlement reform. He will insist on massive tax hikes and veto any attempt to even slightly reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Taxes will rise across the board. Spending will balloon, and America will be buried under a mountain of debt from which it will likely never recover. It will share Greece’s fate.

During the next 4 years, he will also have an opportunity to appoint 4 new SCOTUS judges to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg (aged 79), Antonin Scalia (aged 76), Anthony Kennedy (76), and Stephen Breyer (74). Thus, by replacing them with young liberal jurists, Obama will create a 7-2 liberal supermajority which will sit on the bench for decades, together with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. These liberal judges will rubber-stamp Obama’s (and future Democratic presidents’) policies, overturn conservative ones, and change the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constutition to one which will suit Obama.

Remember that in 2008 and 2010, in the Heller v. DC and MacDonald v. Chicago cases, your God-given right to defend yourself was just one vote away from being consigned to the dustbin of history. It will be gone in a matter of months after Obama appoints Anthony Kennedy’s or Antonin Scalia’s replacement. They are unlikely to remain on the Supreme Court by the end of Obama’s second term, when they both will be 80 years old.

Obama will also continue to block any attempt to develop America’s God-given natural resources. High gasoline prices – and thus, high prices of everything – will become the new normal, as will high unemployment and stagnant economic growth.

Abroad:

Obama and Senate Democrats (who will retain their majority of seats) will insist on sequestration of defense spending going through unless Republicans agree to massive tax hikes. Since there is zero chance of Republicans agreeing to such thing, it means that sequestration will kick in on January 2nd.

Obama will also unilaterally and deeply cut America’s nuclear deterrent, at the same time that Russia and China are growing their arsenals. This means that Russia and China will gain nuclear superiority over the US and thus the ability to blackmail America and its allies with nuclear weapons.

Obama will also forego any plans to deploy ballistic missile defense systems in Europe, as he has already promised to Russian leaders in his “flexibility” remark.

He will also continue to appease Russia, China, Iran, and other enemies of the United States.

Because Obama plans to unilaterally cut America’s nuclear deterrent deeply, this means that other countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, will have to develop their own nuclear weapons. Countries that cannot afford to develop their own nuclear deterrents will have to seek the protection of those who can, and will have to develop multilateral alliances.

And, as America’s military and economic power continue to quickly decline under Obama, all foreign countries, from Britain to South Korea, from Canada to the Philippines, will have to reorient their foreign policy away from Washington and towards Beijing and seek friendly relations with China. The PRC will replace the US as the world’s top military and economic power no later than in the next decade, and probably much sooner than that, so relations with China will be much more important than relations with the US.

Isolationists will rejoice at this prospect. I do not. I love America and I know from facts that the US is the guaranteer of the security of the entire Western civilization and of peace in the world. Without America, the Western civilization will not survive.

Politically:

Obama’s reelection also means huge, negative consequences for the GOP and the conservative movement.

Firstly, Obamacare will not be repealed, and it will become a permanent feature of the American society. You read that right: with Obama and a Democratic Senate majority, Obamacare will never be repealed.

Recall that, in order to make Obamacare look deficit-neutral, the Dems structured it in a way so as to ensure that while the taxes to pay for it kicked in immediately after it was signed into law, the goodies won’t kick in until 2014. When Americans are thrown off their employer-provided insurance policies and forced to rely on the federal government for healthcare, they will fight tooth and nail to keep their “free” healthcare, just like they fight tooth and nail to keep their SS, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits. And of course, Obamacare bureaucrats will fight tooth and nail to protect their jobs.

So, because there is no chance of repealing Obamacare within the next 2 years, starting in 2014, Republicans will be running for office promising only to “modernize” Obamacare. And Newt Gingrich will be calling plans to tinker with it “right-wing social engineering”.

Obama will also expand welfare, entitlement, and subsidy programs as well as other federal giveaways. By 2016, or perhaps even by 2016, the takers will outnumber the makers. And when that happens, the Democrats will become a permanent majority and Republicans a permanent minority… unless the GOP becomes the second party of Big Government, fully adopting the Democrats’ policies.

After all, why would the takers vote for a party that pledges to cut taxes they don’t pay, but wants to cut the cornucopia of federal benefits (paid for by someone else) they do enjoy?

There might never again be a Republican president.

Americans have been taught to live at someone else’s expense. This election was the last chance to turn things around and educate the American people that they must start to take responsibility for themselves. That opportunity has now been lost.

Obama and the Dhimmicrats will also claim that Obama’s victory means that conservative policies have been discredited, including socially, fiscally, and defense-conservative policies. They will claim that social and fiscal conservatism have been discredited.

So just as night follows day, you can expect Republicans outside the South to dump the GOP’s socially and fiscally conservative platform plans and to jump on the abortion/gay marriage bandwagon. You can also bet that Republicans will dump Paul Ryan and his brave fiscally-conservative plan to save America from a crushing debt. Do not expect Republicans to ever again offer any conservative policies, including entitlement reform, because entitlements will continue to be considered the third rail of American politics.

Last but not least, you can bet that the fringe of the Republican Party will falsely claim that the Party lost because it nominated a moderate. There is a real risk that in 2016, as a term-limited Obama will have to retire, the Party will nominate a fringe candidate who will lose the election to the next Democrat nominee by a landslide. We have already seen the GOP shoot itself in the foot this way in multiple Senate races in 2010 and this year. If it hadn’t been for the fringe of the party and its candidates like Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Kurt Buck, the Dems and Republicans would each have 50 seats in the Senate now. And if it hadn’t been for Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and their supporters, Republicans would’ve likely had 51 Senate seats now, and thus the power to stop or at least slow down Obama’s agenda in both houses of Congress. (Richard Lugar would’ve been a shoo-in for reelection, and had either Steelman or Brunner been the Republican Senate nominee in Missouri, Claire McCaskill would’ve been sent packing.)

The fringe of the Republican Party, especially radical Christians (the litmus test Republicans), will not give up, even now, after they cost the GOP 2 Senate election and perhaps helped cost the Party the presidential election. And they will never learn from their mistakes.

In short, Obama’s reelection portends disastrous consequences for America, its allies, the Western civilization, and the world at large (except America’s enemies). There is no silver lining. There is no consolation. Obama’s second term will be nothing but an unmitigated disaster.

Even if Republicans stage a comeback in 2014 and 2016, it will be too late by then.

For more on the disastrous consequences of this year’s election, please read these excellent articles by Peter Ferrara and Robert Stacy McCain:

 

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/31/election-2012-america-will-nev/

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/11/07/doomed-beyond-all-hope-of-rede

Rebuttal of Doug Bandow’s blatant lies about defense spending

In early February, the leftist (and misnamed) “American Conservative” magazine published on its website an utterly ridiculous screed (titled “The Attack of the Pork Hawks”)  by well-known leftist libertarian Doug Bandow, who has long advocated deep defense cuts and has been consistently lying about America’s defense spending. Although his screed was published 8 months ago in a niche mag that few people (and no conservatives) read, it made the same utterly false claims that leftist libertarians and liberals alike frequently make about conservatives and defense issues, so I’ve decided to write this rebuttal to refute all such claims once and for all.

Firstly, Bandow claims, in the opening of his screed, that conservatives who advocate robust defense spending, or increases of it, become big-government, big-spending liberals, just like the liberals who zealously defend education spending or the Medicare program.

Thus, Bandow revealed his utter ignorance of the Constitution, as well as his leftist, liberal, un-conservative mindset: he sees no difference whatsoever between providing for the common defense and spending money on unconstiutional welfare and education programs that handle issues reserved to the states and the people.

Under the Constitution, providing generously for the common defense is not only legitimate, it is actually the highest Constitutional DUTY of the federal government, as required by Art. IV, Sec. 4 of the Constitution, and as further proven by the Preamble, which says that one of the reasons why the federal government was created in the first place is to “provide for the common defence”. Furthermore, the majority of the enumerated powers granted to the Congress by Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution relates to military matters, making clear that defense is to be the federal government’s first Constitutional duty.

And defending America itself (to say nothing of its allies) cannot be done cheaply, contrary to Bandow’s lies (see below) and requires substantial, continous funding, so it’s Constitutionally legitimate.

By contrast, all federal welfare, education, agriculture, and health programs are unconstitutional, as they are beyod the scope of the feds’ enumerated powers.

Secondly, Bandow falsely claims that the US military budget is “bloated” and significantly too high for defending America. At the same time, he wants the US to terminate its defense commitments to all of its allies and dump them, and falsely claims that doing so would permit deep cuts in the US defense budget.

But again, that is not true. Defending America itself cannot be done on the cheap. A significantly reduced defense budget would be woefully inadequate to protect America, because defending the US itself (to say nothing of its allies) requires, inter alia:

• Providing air superiority to control the airspace over America itself (and Canada), which requires a large number of advanced 5th generation aircraft to defeat incoming enemy aircraft (including bombers and their escort fighters);
• Providing a large ground army to protect America’s land borders, or at least, the long border with Mexico, where a full-scale war with drug cartels is already ongoing (don’t take my word for it – visit Arizona);
• Patrolling America’s long coasts: the two vast ocean costs and the Gulf Coast (where the Russians sometimes sent Akula class subs), and protecting the undersea resources and fishing areas in US territorial waters;
• Providing a large, modern, survivable nuclear deterrent (which requires a large, survivable, modern nuclear triad and a large nuclear stockpile);
• Providing a multi-layered missile defense system to protect the homeland;
• Providing the human, space-, air-, sea-, and ground-based intelligence capabilities to collect all pertinent intel data about America’s enemies and making informed decisions about national security issues;
• Providing the administrative support required;
• Providing the healthcare, retirement, housing, and family support programs for the military’s members;
• Providing a military judicial system; and
• Other national security requirements.

All of that costs a lot of money. Yet, all of that is absolutely necessary to defend America itself, even if all allies are to be dumped. So no, even if they were all dumped and left to fend for themselves, the US would still need to spend roughly as much as defense as it does now. Any deep cuts would greatly undermine America’s defense capabilities.

And dumping America’s allies is a foolish idea, from America’s own security standpoint as well as a moral one. Not only would it be immoral, it would DECREASE America’s security, for two reasons:

• Threats to crucial allies and trade partners such as Japan, South Korea, and Western European countries would, by the virtue of these countries’ economic importance for the US, have serious consequences for America itself. Aggression against these countries would send serious repercussions throughout the US economy.
• Dumping these allies would force them to develop their own nuclear weapons, thus greatly worsening the already serious nuclear proliferation problem.

And Bandow’s ridiculous fantasy that the US can retrench safely behind oceans and not be threatened by those who would attack Japan or South Korea is downright ridiculous and laughable. The crocodile would not content itself with merely these countries; it would eventually, sooner rather than later, come to eat America itself. The US has already tried such a naive isolationist foreign policy multiple times, and each time, it failed abysmally. As George Santayana rightly says, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Bandow swears that deep defense spending cuts would not have to mean cuts in the development of new weapons, “only” in force structure, which he wants to see cut deeply across all services. He claims the US has an oversized  and “titantic” military, and claims it is too big to defend America.

But the US military is neither oversized nor “titanic”, and it is not too big at all. If anything, the US Navy and the USAF are too small. The entire US military was deeply cut after the Cold War’s end, and it is now 50% smaller than it was in 1991. The USN and the USAF have been cut deven deeper: the Navy now has only 284 ships, versus over 500 in 1989 and 592 in the Reagan years; it’s the smallest Navy since 1916. The USAF now has only 156 bombers (versus several hundred in 1991), 420 ICBMs (versus over 600 in 1991), and far fewer fighters, airlifters, and helicopters than in 1991. Its aircraft fleet today is actually the smallest and the oldest in the Air Force’s entire history.

Yet, two independent, neutral panels – the QDER Independent Review Panel and a CNAS group – have produced reports showing that the Navy needs 346 ships, versus today’s 284, just to back up American diplomacy abroad and deter enemies (to say nothing of defending America’s allies). Even today, the Navy can supply only 59% of Combatant Commanders’ requests for ships in general, and only 61% of their requests for submarines. And even under current budgets, the Navy’s cruiser, destroyer, and submarine fleets will fall precipitously below today’s already-inadequate levels. Yet, Bandow wants the Navy (and the defense budget) to be cut even further – and deeply. And despite his utterly false claims, such small ship and aircraft fleets would be woefully inadequate to protect even America itself, to say nothing of its allies.

Moreover, in contrast to Bandow’s isolationist delusions, the threats to America’s borders – ncluding American commercial shipping – are not limited to America’s borders. Pirates and aggresive countries like China and Iran are just few such threats. Yet, the US is totally dependent on the sea for prosperity and jobs: a large share of America’s GDP is due to foreign trade: exports and imports. The US economy is totally dependent on foreign trade, and the vast majority of exports and imports come by sea. But protecting American merchant vessels around the world will require a large navy – far larger than what Bandow claims. Cutting the Navy’s size would only place American merchant sailors, jobs, and prosperity at risk.

Bandow falsely claims that even after deep cuts, the Navy and Air Force would still be large enough to protect sealanes and airspace (he’s wrong regardless of how deeply he wants them to be cut, because the services are too small even today, so cutting them even further would make them even more inadequate). Moreover, if Bandow got what he wanted, the Navy and Air Force would be cut so deeply they would have no “reserve capacity” to respond to unforeseen threats, despite his claims to the contrary.

Sequestration would have similar consequences, and Bandow has joined the chorus of the leftists denying its destructive impact on the military. He claims it would be a mere cut in the growth rate (while simoultaneously saying it would bring defense spending back to 2007 levels). He invokes libertarian liars Veronique de Rugy (who isn’t even American and has already been utterly disproven here numerous times) and CATO’s Ben Friedman, who falsely claimed in February that sequestration would only cut defense spending’s growth rate to 10% per year, as opposed to a supposed 18% growth rate without sequestration, and that by FY2021, defense spending would still be 18% higher than today even with sequestration, as opposed to 21% without it.

But those claims and numbers are utterly false.  Today’s base defense budget is $531 bn. As this CBO report proves (see Table 1-4 on page 11), under sequestration, defense spending would be cut to just $469 bn and stay below today’s level for the entire decade (if not longer). By FY2021, it would still be at just $489 bn – $42 bn below today’s level – and in FY2022, at just $493 bn, $38 bn less than today.

At the same time, OCO spending, also subject to sequestration, would eventually zero out after US troops leave Afghanistan, so the total military budget would also be much smaller than today.

Thus, Bandow’s and Andrew McCarthy’s claim that by FY2021 defense spending would be higher than today even with sequestration is a blatant lie, meaning that these guys are liars.

Bandow also repeated de Rugy’s blatant lie that sequestration would only revert defense spending back to FY2007 levels. That’s also false; it would actually set defense spending back by an entire decade, to FY2003 levels, when the world was not nearly as dangerous as today, and China and Russia were not nearly as strong and belligerent as they are today. $469 bn would be, in real terms, the smallest base defense budget since FY2003.

And this deep cut would have the consequences listed here.

Bandow’s claim that sequestration’s cuts would be split equally between defense and nondefense spending is also false, as proven here.

His claim that military spending has increased by 74.5% since 2001, and that in 2007 it was 39% above 2001 levels, is also a blatant lie, as is his claim that it was only $300 bn in 2001. In FY2001, it was actually $390 bn in today’s money ($291.1 bn in CY2000 dollars). Today, the base defense budget ($531 bn) is only 35%, and the total military budget ($645 bn) only 65% above, FY2001 levels. Only, given that it occurred over 11 years and began from the lowest ebb since before Pearl Harbor.

Bandow’s complaints about US defense spending being higher in raw dollars than it was during the Korean and Vietnam War and the Reagan yers are irrelevant. As a share of America’s GDP and the total federal budget – the measures that truly count – defense spending is much lower than it was then, and lower thn ever since FY1941, excepting the late 1990s.

Bandow, like other isolationists, wants the US to dump what it calls “rich allies”, while objecting to the “isolationist” label. But that’s what he and his “noninterventionist” buddies are: they want America to dump all of its allies, not defend them against any bullies, appease all of America’s adversaries, withdraw from all alliances and some other multilateral fora, and adopt a “see no evil, hear no evil” foreign policy. That’s what the US was doing until 12/7/1941. It IS isolationism.

And what “rich allies” is Bandow talking about? Perhaps Poland, a poor country that the US has already sold out once? Perhaps Georgia, a strategically important, but poor country attacked by Russia in 2008? Perhaps the Philippines and Vietnam, whom China is bullying? Perhaps Taiwan – a small island democracy that just wants to be free from China’s Communist regime?

Bandow complains about America’s actions against these countries, especially China, and asks what would Americans think if China had bases in Mexico and patrolled the waters around the US. He claims that China’s military buildup is America’s fault.

But he’s lying. The US doesn’t have bases in any country bordering China, except Afghanistan (to be closed in 2014). America has had bases in Japan and SK for decades, yet, these bases have never been used to launch aggression against anyone, including China. The US has never attacked China. All it is doing is defending its Pacific allies against possible Chinese and NK aggression.

OTOH, what should the Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Filipino people think now, when China is bullying their civilian ships, taking over islands by force, and threatening to use force against all of these countries? And when China has 1,600 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan alone?

What should India think, when China is building bases in Pakistan and Burma, on India’s doorstep?

The US is not the aggressor here. China is.

Bandow falsely claims that China is spending so much on its military because the US is doing the same. But China has been steadily increasing its military budget by double digits every year of the last 22 years – even during the 1990s, when the US was deeply reducing its own. China’s military buildup has nothing to do with US military spending, and everything to do with China’s aggressive designs. If the US cuts its defense budget, China will only take that as a sign of weakness.

And China isn’t the only potential aggressor. Russia has recently sent nuclear-armed bombers near and into US airspace (they said they were “practicing attacking the enemy”) and its submarines to prowl in the Gulf and the East Coast. What should Americans think when Russia behaves so aggressively on America’s doorstep (and maintains its ties to Cuba)?

In short, all of Doug Bandow’s claims are blatant lies. The defense budget is not “bloated” at all and is barely adequate; the Navy’s and USAF’s force structure is woefully inadequate and vastly smaller than in 1991; dumping America’s allies would be a foolish and immoral policy yet would not allow for deep defense budget cuts; America is not to blame for other countries’ aggressive behavior; and their behavior is a result of their (particularly China’s) aggressive designs, not America’s overseas bases or military spending.

Doug Bandow is a disgraced libertarian liar. Not a word he says is true.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/attack-of-the-pork-hawks/