Rebuttal of Jacob Sullum’s lies about defense spending and Mitt Romney

Oh dear, oh dear. Another ReasonMag editor doesn’t understand the huge difference between providing for the common defense and spending on Solyndras.

Yesterday, the pseudoconservative Townhall magazine published a ridiculous screed by Jacob Sullum, one of misnamed “Reason” magazine’s editors. In that  ”article”, Sullum makes a number of utterly false claims, most of them on page 2:

“Perhaps recognizing that reality, Romney wants to boost military spending, even though, as Obama noted, we already “spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined.” Romney poses as a fiscal conservative, claiming he wants to eliminate every program “we don’t absolutely have to have.” Yet when it comes to military spending, he is completely unwilling to prioritize, insisting that any “cuts,” even if they only amount to a slower rate of growth, would be “devastating.”"

Those claims are blatant lies. Firstly, the defense spending cuts that Obama has programmed under the Budget Control Act – both the First Tier cuts and sequestration – are real cuts, not mere cuts to the rate of growth, contrary to what is often claimed by libertarians and liberals. Under the first tier of the BCA, the base defense budget is to be cut from $535 bn today to $521 bn in 2013 and will not recover until FY2018. Meanwhile, the Afghan war budget is being reduced and will zero out after American troops leave Afghanistan.

If sequestration kicks in, as it is currently scheduled to do (and Obama threatens to veto ANY effort to undo it), the base defense budget will be cut down by $66 bn overnight, all the way down to $469, and not recover to today’s level of $535 bn for at least a decade (if ever). By FY2022, under sequestration it would still be a paltry $493 bn – not even close to enough to protect America (to say nothing of protecting its allies).  See the graph below.

And yes, such deep cuts WOULD be devastating for the military, as documented here. Secretary Panetta has already warned that such deep budgetary cuts would force the DOD to:

• Cancel the F-35 program completely without replacement, and thus betray foreign program partners (including Israel);
• Cancel all except the most basic upgrades for F-15s and F-16s while cutting the fighter fleet by 35%;
• Eliminate the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad completely while cutting the bomber fleet by 2/3 and cancelling the bomber replacement program (also needed for conventional penetration strike);
• Delay the SSBN replacement program;
• Cut the USN’s ship fleet to 230 vessels, the smallest size since 1915, and vastly inadequate (independent studies say the Navy needs 346 ships);
• Forego the deployment of any missile defense system abroad;
• Cut the Army to its smallest size since 1940;
• Cancel virtually all Army modernization programs;
• Cut the Marines down to just 145,000 personnel (which, according to the USMC’s Commandant, would make the USMC “unable to handle even one major contingency”; in other words, if big trouble flares up, don’t bother calling the Marines);
• Cutting Israeli cooperative missile defense programs;
• Cut personnel benefits programs to such depth that it would break faith with them (e.g. massive cuts in DOD health programs and retirement benefits), thus discouraging people from joining the military or reenlisting.

Now, why does this matter? Because those weapon systems, units, and troops are needed. For the details, see here.

Anyone who claims that the cuts mandated by the BCA would amount to a mere cut in the rate of growth is LYING. L-Y-I-N-G. The people who spread such lies are children of the Father of Lies himself.

Sullum also lied when he claimed that Mitt Romney opposes all defense spending cuts. Romney has not said that. He said he opposes President Obama’s real and massive defense cuts, which collectively amount to $1 trillion over a decade and would, under sequestration (which was Obama’s idea) bring down defense spending to woefully inadequate levels. THAT is what Romney opposes – and rightly so.

Sullum also lied when he accused Romney of being “unwilling to prioritize”. Prioritization is no solution when defense spending is being cut as deeply as it would be under Obama’s sequestration – because there will not be enough funding for ANY mission of the military. Not training, not maintenance, not procurement, not R&D.

Romney has set priorities for the military, BTW: building up the Navy and speeding up the Air Force’s modernization. Even under a slightly increased budget as proposed by Romney (4% of GDP vs 3.47% of GDP today), something else would have to give to pay for these priorities. In other words, a Romney Administration will inevitably have to set priorities for the DOD and budget on the basis of these priorities.

Sullum’s accusation that

“Romney poses as a fiscal conservative, claiming he wants to eliminate every program “we don’t absolutely have to have.”  Yet when it comes to military spending, he is completely unwilling to prioritize… (…)”

is also patently false. Romney does not merely pose as a fiscal conservative, he IS one. And if he’s President, he and his Defense Secretary (likely to be John Lehman) will review the defense budget line by line and eliminate every unneded program and bureaucracy. At DODBuzz, people are already speculating that on his first day as President, Romney will 1) terminate the Littoral Combat Ship program; 2) fire every admiral involved in the LCS; 3) fire more admirals to put the fear of God into them; 4) fire even more admirals until the ratio of admirals to ships gets down to 1:15.

Sullum also falsely claimed that

“The grotesquely bloated military budget that Romney supports is not necessary for defense, unless you define that function so broadly that it requires policing the planet.”

That is a blatant lie. The military budget is not bloated at all. Not by any honest measure. Not even if the military’s sole mission is to defend America and none of her allies.

The entire military budget (including base defense spending, the DOE’s nuclear programs, and the Afghan war budget) currently amounts to just 4.22% of GDP and less than 17% of total federal spending. These are the lowest shares of GDP and the federal budget consumed by federal spending since FY1948, if you exclude the late 1990s and the early Bush years.

The current base defense budget ($535 bn, i.e. 3.47% of GDP, even less than what was spent in FY1948, or indeed at any point during the last 70 years except the late 1990s) is the minimum amount needed to protect America.

Defending America cannot be done on the cheap. Providing for America’s defense needs alone – to say nothing of America’s allies – requires, among other things:

• 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.

This is not cheap.

Sullum also falsely claims that:

“Republicans are supposed to be skeptical of government’s competence and wary of unintended consequences. Unfortunately, that skepticism stops at the border.”

He sees no difference whatsoever between providing for the common defense – which is the federal government’s #1 Constitutional DUTY – on the one hand, and spending money on Solyndras, teachers, Education Departments, farm subsidies, bridges to nowhere, and electric cars on the other hand. Someone needs to tell him that the former is the federal government’s highest Constitutional DUTY, while the latter things are utterly unconstitutional.

In short, Sullum’s screed is a litany of blatant lies. Shame on Townhall for publishing it.

http://townhall.com/columnists/jacobsullum/2012/10/24/a_foreign_policy_of_arrogant_meddling/page/2

Rebuttal of Obama’s blatant debate lies

During the third presidential debate, Barack Obama stated a lot of blatant lies to cover up his sordid foreign policy record. Here’s a rebuttal of some of them:

1) He claims that ship numbers don’t matter because today’s ships are more capable and because the Navy has carriers and submarines today. But during the Reagan years (when the Navy was more than twice as big as it is today), the USN had far more carriers and submarines than today, and the Pacific Fleet alone was larger than the USN is today. Even during the Clinton years the Navy had more ships than today.

Furthermore, and most importantly, ship numbers matter a great deal, because a single ship, no matter how capable, can only be in one place at any given time. Yet, today’s Navy only has 284 ships, not even close to enough to meet even today’s requirements: the Navy today can meet only 59% of Combatant Commanders’s needs for ships and only 61% of their needs for submarines.

And earlier this year, when CENTCOM commander Gen. James Mattis requested a third carrier group to be deployed to the Gulf, he was refused, because all other available carriers were needed in the Pacific.

Moreover, as two independent studies – one by the bipartisan QDR Independent Review Panel and another one by the CNAS – have found – the Navy needs 346 ships to execute all of its missions, not the meagre 284 it has today.

Furthermore, under Obama’s own plans, even if sequestration does not proceed, the USN’s cruiser, destroyer, and submarine fleets will decline precipitously below today’s already-inadequate levels, as documented by Ronald O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service. Moreover, comparing ships to “bayonets and horses” and thus implying that warships are relics of the past is not just wrong, it’s demeaning for the Navy. So Mitt Romney is right: the Navy DOES need a lot more ships than it has today.

2) He claims that when he sits down with the Joint Chiefs, he gives them what is needed to protect America. This is utterly false. Obama has only weakened the military, and significantly so. He has cut the defense budget significantly, killed over 50 crucial weapon programs, and used the defense budget as a piggybank for his domestic pet projects. In 2009, Obama ordered the DOD to kill over 30 crucial weapon programs, including the F-22, the Zumwalt class, the AC-X, the CSAR helicopter, the MKV, the KEI, and many others. In 2010, he signed, and rammed through a lame-duck Senate, the unequal New START treaty, which obligates only the US (not Russia) to cut its nuclear arsenal deeply. In January 2011, his administration announced another $178 bn in defense budget cuts and “efficiencies”.

And on April 13th, 2011, he demanded another $400 bn in defense budget cuts without even telling his own Defense Secretary or the Joint Chiefs.

In the summer of 2011, in the debt ceiling deal negotiations, he demanded massive defense budget cuts and got them – in the form of first tier BCA-mandated defense budget cuts ($487 bn) and a $600 bn sequester (which was HIS idea, not House Republicans’, contrary to his blatant debate lie, as confirmed by Bob Woodward’s newest book).

And now, Obama threatens to veto any attempt to cance sequestration, and to let it proceed, unless Congress agrees to his demands of massive tax hikes. In other words, he’s holding the US military hostage to his tax hikes agenda. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIixemuEe1s)

The fact is that Obama couldn’t care less about the military’s needs. He cares only about gutting America’s defense and finding the money for his unconstitutional domestic pet projects.

3) Obama claims that Romney would take America’s foreign policy back to the 1980s because Romney called Russia “America’s #1 geopolitical foe.” But Romney does not advocate a return to the Cold War. He advocates a more realistic, sober policy towards Russia, instead of the craven appeasement of the Kremlin that Obama has pursued for the last 3.5 years (the utterly failed “reset” policy).

Russia has repayed this craven appeasement with bomber exercises off the coasts of Alaska and California (whereby the Russians said they were “practicing attacking the enemy”, i.e. the US) without prior notification as required by the New START treaty, providing continued diplomatic protection to the regimes of Syria, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Belarus (and providing the first two with modern weapons), threatening to use nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles against America and its allies, increased espionage, and an arms race against the US, driven by Putin’s hostility towards America as well as his desire to restore Russia’s superpower status. And with booming oil revenue, he has more than enough money to do that.

Russia has also harassed America’s ambassador to that country, expelled USAID from its soil, and withdrawn from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, thus showing further its hostility towards the US.

Russia is no friend of the US. It’s a foe.

Romney’s plan is to treat Russia according to its ACTIONS, not according to Obama’s naive, childish dreams about “reset” and friendship with a KGB-thug-led Russia which sees itself as America’s enemy and practices attacks on the US. He will not start a new Cold War with Russia, but he will not cave in (or pledge any “flexibility”) to Russia either. For the first time ever, Putin will have to deal with a tough US president, not three successive appeasers (Clinton, Bush, and Obama).

4) Obama claims that Romney wants to add $2 trillion to the defense budget over the next 10 years. This is also patently false, as I have already documented here. To wit:

First, some simple math. Adding $2 trillion to defense over the next decade means adding $200 bn every year on average. If, in one year, the increase is smaller than the $200 bn average, increases in later years would have to be higher.

Spending $8.3 trillion on defense over the next decade would mean spending $830 bn every year, on average, on defense.

Mitt Romney does not propose anything even close to that. His proposals are far more modest, and very modest by historical standards.

Let’s start with the size of today’s (FY2012) base defense budget. It amounts to $531 bn, i.e. 3.47% of America’s GDP (which is $15.29 trillion) and less than 15% of the total federal budget. Obama’s proposed FY2013 base defense budget amounts to $525 bn, i.e. 3.43% of GDP.

(The Overseas Contingency Operations budget, i.e. the war costs, are planned to be $88.5 bn in FY2013, FY2014, and FY2015 before the US withdraws from Afghanistan, but they’re separate from the base defense budget; in any case, Mitt Romney’s pledge, and his detractors’ false claims, pertain to the base defense budget, so we’ll look only at that one for the purposes of this analysis.)

A 3.47% of GDP base defense budget means that, excluding the late 1990s, America is now devoting less (as a percentage of GDP) of its own wealth to its national defense than at any time since FY1941.

Mitt Romney’s plans

As stated above, Gov. Romney proposes to raise the base defense budget to 4% of GDP.* As stated above, America’s GDP is currently $15.29 trillion, so 4% of it would amount to $611.6 bn, or just $86.6 above what Obama plans for FY2013.

How the base defense budget would grow thereafter would be determined by how fast the US economy would grow, since Gov. Romney pledges to peg the defense budget to the economy’s size. If the economy doesn’t grow, neither will the defense budget; if it grows slowly, so will the defense budget.

Even if it grows at a fast pace like 4% per year, the defense budget would, as a simple mathematical consequence, also grow only by 4% per year under Romney’s plan.

Let’s assume, for example, that next year, the economy grows by 4%, from $15.29 trillion to $15.9016 trillion. Assuming even such luck with economic growth (i.e. a rapid recovery), the base defense budget, as a 4% fraction of GDP, would still amount only to $636.064 bn in FY2014. But that’s totally dependent on the economy growing rapidly. Even then, under such optimistic economic growth assumptions, the FY2014 base defense budget would still be only  $103 bn per year higher than Obama’s plan for FY2014 (which is 533.6 bn, see Figure 1-3 on page 1-3 of this DOD document).

And remember, they claimed Romney wants to increase base defense spending by $200 bn on average! Which only shows how badly wrong they are.

But let’s assume optimistically that within the next five years, by 2017, the economy grows to $17 trillion (a highly unlikely scenario). Even if that happens, that would still leave defense spending, as a 4% of GDP item, at $680 bn in FY2017 or FY2018. By comparison, Obama plans to spend $567.3 bn in FY2017 on defense. (See this DOD document, page 1-3, Figure 1-3.) The difference is $113 bn, far short of the $200 bn difference the Obama camp and its liberal allies claim.

Rebuttal of lies about Romney’s defense spending plans

The Democrats and their propagandists, such as Soros-funded “Center for American Progress” hacks, and their media allies like CNN, falsely allege that Mitt Romney plans to increase base defense spending by $2 trillion over the next decade (FY2013-FY2022) compared to Obama’s plans. They allege that this would be the result of increasing the base defense budget to a full 4% of GDP (which Romney pledges to do).

Amazingly, the non-liberal media, such as the Washington Times, have repeated that lie robotically without any critical look.

But it’s a blatant lie, and I’ll show you why.

First, some simple math. Adding $2 trillion to defense over the next decade means adding $200 bn every year on average. If, in one year, the increase is smaller than the $200 bn average, increases in later years would have to be higher.

Spending $8.3 trillion on defense over the next decade would mean spending $830 bn every year, on average, on defense.

Mitt Romney does not propose anything even close to that. His proposals are far more modest, and very modest by historical standards.

Let’s start with the size of today’s (FY2012) base defense budget. It amounts to $531 bn, i.e. 3.47% of America’s GDP (which is $15.29 trillion) and less than 15% of the total federal budget. Obama’s proposed FY2013 base defense budget amounts to $525 bn, i.e. 3.43% of GDP.

(The Overseas Contingency Operations budget, i.e. the war costs, are planned to be $88.5 bn in FY2013, FY2014, and FY2015 before the US withdraws from Afghanistan, but they’re separate from the base defense budget; in any case, Mitt Romney’s pledge, and his detractors’ false claims, pertain to the base defense budget, so we’ll look only at that one for the purposes of this analysis.)

A 3.47% of GDP base defense budget means that, excluding the late 1990s, America is now devoting less (as a percentage of GDP) of its own wealth to its national defense than at any time since FY1941.

Mitt Romney’s plans

As stated above, Gov. Romney proposes to raise the base defense budget to 4% of GDP.* As stated above, America’s GDP is currently $15.29 trillion, so 4% of it would amount to $611.6 bn, or just $86.6 above what Obama plans for FY2013.

How the base defense budget would grow thereafter would be determined by how fast the US economy would grow, since Gov. Romney pledges to peg the defense budget to the economy’s size. If the economy doesn’t grow, neither will the defense budget; if it grows slowly, so will the defense budget.

Even if it grows at a fast pace like 4% per year, the defense budget would, as a simple mathematical consequence, also grow only by 4% per year under Romney’s plan.

Let’s assume, for example, that next year, the economy grows by 4%, from $15.29 trillion to $15.9016 trillion. Assuming even such luck with economic growth (i.e. a rapid recovery), the base defense budget, as a 4% fraction of GDP, would still amount only to $636.064 bn in FY2014. But that’s totally dependent on the economy growing rapidly. Even then, under such optimistic economic growth assumptions, the FY2014 base defense budget would still be only  $103 bn per year higher than Obama’s plan for FY2014 (which is 533.6 bn, see Figure 1-3 on page 1-3 of this DOD document).

And remember, they claimed Romney wants to increase base defense spending by $200 bn on average! Which only shows how badly wrong they are.

But let’s assume optimistically that within the next five years, by 2017, the economy grows to $17 trillion (a highly unlikely scenario). Even if that happens, that would still leave defense spending, as a 4% of GDP item, at $680 bn in FY2017 or FY2018. By comparison, Obama plans to spend $567.3 bn in FY2017 on defense. (See this DOD document, page 1-3, Figure 1-3.) The difference is $113 bn, far short of the $200 bn difference the Obama camp and its liberal allies claim.

All of these figures – even those based on very optimistic assumptions about future US economic growth – are also far short of the $830 bn annual average that Romney would have to spend if he were to spend $8.3 trillion on defense on the next decade as his detractors falsely accuse him of wanting.

This means that either they can’t do simple math or they are deliberately lying to distort Mitt Romney’s plans (or both). In any case, such blatant lying out to be a disqualifier for anyone who engages in it.

Constitutional and budgetary process issues

Moreover, by engaging in such attacks on Gov. Romney, they have also shown their utter ignorance of the Constitution and the federal budgetary process of today.

The Constitution grants “the power of the purse” exclusively to the Congress, not the President. It is the Congress, not the President, that sets spending levels (including defense budgets). It is the Congress who decides how much money will be spent, and on what exactly.

To see 4% of GDP (let alone 830 bn per year) devoted to defense, the Romney Administration would have to ask the Congress to appropriate that money and convince it that it’s necessary (good luck convincing the Congress to do that in a time of budgetary constraints). Top Romney Administration defense officials would have to testify in front of no less than six separate Congressional committees and convince all of them that America needs to devote this or that amount to defense.

Unfortunately, Congress is unlikely to spend a full 4% of GDP, let alone 830 bn per year, on defense. It may very well avert sequestration (which Republicans and Democrats agree is a disastrous and dumb idea), and a Republican-controlled Congress might pass a defense budget slightly larger than the one proposed Obama. But that’s the best-case scenario the DOD can hope for. Congress is highly unlikely to appropriate anything more than that.

Such attacks on Romney’s proposals also reveal these authors’ ignorance of the federal budgetary process. As Bruce Bartlett has demonstrated in the Forbes magazine, today, a president’s budget request is almost irrelevant. Congress passes budgets it, not the President, deems wise. It’s a far cry from the pre-1974 era, when the President’s budget proposal was the starting point for any discussion, because, among other reasons, it was the only document where complete numbers for the entire federal government could be found. Nowadays, the president’s budget proposal is just one among many.

The proposal that stands the highest chance of passing both houses of Congress is Sen. Toomey’s budget plan, which, for the entire next decade, would set base defense budget levels at the caps instituted by the First Tier of the Budget Control Act, while OCO spending would have to be phased out by no later than FY2018.

Mitt Romney’s detractors also try to portray him as a hypocrite because he has picked Paul Ryan as his running mate, and Ryan voted for the Budget Control Act and proposes to increase defense spending over Obama’s plans only by a modest amount.

But Romney also proposes only a modest defense budget increase, and unlike Ryan, Gov. Romney opposed the Budget Control Act from the very beginning, in large part BECAUSE of its defense cuts provisions. Moreover, Romney has said that Republicans made a big blunder by agreeing to this bill and to its defense cuts provisions.

Regarding Ryan’s proposal to cut foreign aid, it’s the right proposal. Foreign countries – or at minimum, those which aren’t friendly to America – should no longer milk American taxpayers’ subsidies.

So Mitt Romney’s detractors’ claims are completely false:

• Mitt Romney does not plan to increase defense spending by 2 trillion dollars over the next decade. Not even close.
• Mitt Romney does not plan to spend 8.3 trillion on defense over the next decade. Not even close. It wouldn’t be close even if the US economy suddenly began to grow rapidly.
• Mitt Romney is not hypocritical despite picking Paul Ryan – both gentlemen would like to increase defense funding only to a modest degree, and Romney has said that Congressional Republicans (including Ryan) made a huge error by agreeing to the BCA and its defense cuts provisions.

Romney is even bolder and smarter than Reagan

Mitt Romney has picked Paul Ryan, the bold chairman of the House Budget Committee and a young rising star of the GOP, to be his running mate.

This means that Romney is even bolder and smarter than Ronald Reagan (no offense to the late 40th President intended; he’s my greatest political hero and one of the greatest US presidents ever).

Ronald Reagan was a great, bold, and smart president, but he did make a few mistakes, and arguably the most fatal one was to choose George H.W. Bush as his running mate, a decision that cost the GOP dearly in the 1990s and 2000s.

To find out why, let’s first recount the circumstances under which it was made. In 1980, during the Republican National Convention in Detroit, after Reagan had been nominated, he still had to choose his running mate and announce his name to the world.

The GOP establishment dearly wanted a RINO like Gerald Ford or Daddy Bush to be selected. They even threatened Reagan with withholding any support from him, including money from the GOP’s whale donors, unless Reagan would pick one of these RINOs.

Ed Rollins, who was a very close aid of Reagan’s at the time and would later chair Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign, narrates what happened:

“The short list for VP was down to Paul Laxalt, Jack Kemp, George Bush, Howard Baker — and heaven help us — Jerry Ford.

Reagan’s personal A-list included just Laxalt and Kemp….”

(Paul Laxalt is, of course, a former Governor of and Senator from Nevada, California’s eastern neighbor. He served as Governor in Carson City while Reagan run things in Sacramento; was a staunch conservative except on the issue of the MX missile; and he was a longtime trusted friend of Reagan’s.)

After noting that both Laxalt and Kemp would’ve made “superb vice presidents”, with Rollins specifically calling Kemp “the bridge to the next generation of conservatives”, Rollins goes on to say that:

“As usual, Reagan’s instincts were better than anyone else’s. I’d later learn that he didn’t always rely on those instincts. He’d fight like hell for the big things, but give in on the little ones. What he didn’t realize that night at the convention was that nothing was bigger than the choice he’d make in the next few hours. He let his handlers roll him on Laxalt and Kemp.”

So in the end, Ronald Reagan caved in to the GOP Establishment and chose Daddy Bush.

The decision had disastrous, though long-term, consequences for the Republican Party. Daddy Bush rode Ronald Reagan’s coattails to the White House in 1988, then impleneted liberal policies and broke his No New Taxes Pledge, and was unceremoniously booted out of the White House just four years later, crawling out of DC with just 39% of the popular vote. A party that stood at the height of its popularity and power in the 1980s was now out of the wilderness thanks to Bush and Republicans like him, with the Democrats controlling the White House, the House, and the Senate.

Eight years later, Bush’s son (who would’ve been a nobody if his daddy hadn’t been President) barely won the election by a smidgen, barely won reelection in 2004, and ruined the GOP’s reputation with his Big Government domestic policies and with the Iraq war that by 2005 began to become more and more unpopular. The  GOP, thanks to him, lost the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. As a result, Barack Obama is now President.

These were the long-term disastrous consequences of choosing Daddy Bush as the VP candidate in 1980. Of course, Roanald Reagan could not have foreseen them. No one could have. But Ronald Reagan should have known that a RINO like Daddy Bush would’ve meant trouble sooner or later. He should’ve listened to his political instincts, which were sound.

But Mitt Romney has made a better decision.

Like Reagan, Romney is the underdog in a battle to unseat an incumbent, failed, extremely liberal Demoratic President, and is trailing him in the polls (although only by small margins). And like Reagan, Romney was certainly pressured and blackmailed by the GOP Establishment (if only it were as ruthless and as harsh with the Democrats as it is with conservatives!).

But unlike Reagan, Romney has not succumbed to this pressure and has chosen a conservative running mate.

And whereas Ronald Reagan sadly passed on the chance to pick the man who, at the time, was “the bridge to the next generation of conservatives” (Jack Kemp), Mitt Romney has chosen one of the leaders of the next generation of conservatives (and the political heir to Jack Kemp) as his running mate. And in so doing, he has provided for the Conservative Succession, an important goal as nicely explained by Jeffrey Lord here.

Mitt Romney is 64. He will be the last Baby Boomer to be elected President. Paul Ryan (born in 1970) is a member, indeed a leader, of the next generation of conservatives. Nominating him for Vice President will practically guarantee him (if he and Romney win this election) the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016 or 2020. It puts him firmly in line to become the party’s standard bearer by then. And as a consequence, it will bring about a whole new generation of conservatives into the highest echelons of the federal government, including the executive branch.

It means that a Conservative Succession, a turnover from one generation of Republicans (a moderate one) to another, more conservative and far bolder generation of Republicans, has been provided for.

And therefore, it means that conservatives, indeed all Americans who are not liberals, now have a reason to vote for Romney rather than just against Obama.

Or, as Jeff Lord put it in his masterpiece article:

“The irony here for Romney and conservatives is that at this point they badly need each other. Romney needs an energized conservative base to both defeat Obama and govern successfully. Without enthusiastic conservative support, Obama wins.

And conservatives? They are in fact the heart and soul of the modern GOP. They have, in many ways, de facto control of the party. It is in the conservative interest to make absolutely certain that in electing Mitt Romney they are paving the way for, yes indeed, a post-Romney presidency.

Understanding that if in fact Romney is elected, at some point whether in four or eight years, there will be a Conservative Succession.

And that Conservative Succession must be provided for now — in 2012. With a young conservative who has Nixonian staying power, and who himself or herself is willing and able to bring along other young conservatives as he or she makes his way through the corridors of power.”

You can read the whole thing here: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/06/12/mitt-romney-and-the-conservati/2

Romney should pound Obama on sequestration and previous defense cuts

When Barack Obama visited Virginia on his propaganda tour this week, Mitt Romney and other Republicans rightly pounded Obama for his massive defense cuts, including sequestration. However, they did not appear to do so effectively enough, because Obama retains a lead over Romney in Virginia.

Yet, it will hit the military, the defense industry, and the entire Nation hard on January 2nd, 2013, if it is not cancelled. Over 103 bn dollars will be cut out of the base defense budget if it isn’t. The consequences for Virginia would be, inter alia, the following:

1) Every shipbuilding program would have to be cut deeply by the same percentage. And, as Secretary Panetta says, since you can’t buy 3/4s of a ship, that means no warships could be bought at all.

2) At least one, and perhaps more than one, carrier group would have to be eliminated.

3) The Virginia-based Northrop Grumman can forget about the opportunity to build a next-generation long-range-bomber for the Air Force.

4) The Navy can forget about adding the Virginia Payload Module to its submarines or modifying any further cruisers or DDGs with BMD capability. In fact, the Navy would have to be cut to below 230 ships – thus becoming smaller than the Russian Navy – down from today’s already-inadequate fleet of 285 ships. No prizes for guessing where most of these decommisioned ships would have to come from – NS Norfolk, VA, the Navy’s largest base.

5) At least one CAW, probably two, would have to be eliminated. Again, no prizes for guessing where that CAW would come from – most likely NAS Oceana, VA.

6) Hundreds of thousands of troops, including thousands of those based in Virginia, would have to be laid off immediately.

7) Massive layoffs would occur in the US defense industry, with up to 1 million jobs on the line. Virginia would be hit harder than any other state except California.

And that’s just for starters, and just the consequences for Virginia.

Barack Obama and his propaganda team falsely claim that these cuts are part of some sacred agreement that Republicans agreed to, and that they’ve not presented any serious solution to sequestration.

But that’s not true. Republicans HAVE presented serious solutions: the Sequester Reconciliation Act (authored by Rep. Paul Ryan and passed by the House), the Ryan Budget Plan (also passed by the House), and the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act (H.R. 3662, which would replace only 1 out of every 3 retiring government workers).

Yet, Obama has threatened to veto both Acts (he can’t veto a budget resolution) and any other legislation that does not raise taxes on the most productive Americans (those who earn more than 250,000 dollars a year), even though his own SECDEF says that sequestration would be an utter disaster.

It is also not true that Republicans created this problem. Obama demanded massive defense cuts – on top of all the cuts Secretary Gates had administered and scheduled before April 2011 – long before the need to raise the debt ceiling even arose. He demanded them in a GWU speech on April 13th, 2011. Then, in negotiations on the debt ceiling deal and the spending cuts that accompanied it, it was Obama and his Congressional Democrat chums who demanded deep defense cuts as a part of any deal, with Obama saying he wanted to deeply cut defense to protect welfare programs. The eventual deal contained 487 bn in immediate defense budget cuts and a sequester threatening to cut another 550 bn out of defense, starting in FY2013, if the Super Committee could not agree to any savings (which it couldn’t, so now the sequester has kicked in). Both of these tranches of defense cuts were included at the Democrats’ and Obama’s insistence.

The sequester itself was created by them specifically to force Republicans to choose between massive defense cuts and massive tax hikes, because Obama and the Dems know that Republicans hate both. It was a purely partisan tool to start with.

And yet, Obama, along with the Democrat-controlled, do-nothing-Senate, still uses the sequester as a political tool to extract massive tax hikes from Republicans. He continues to threaten to veto any legislation that does not raise taxes on the most productive Americans.

Republicans, including Mitt Romney, need to call Obama out on this in stronger words than those used so far.

To hold the US military, national security, and industrial base at risk for the sake of a political agenda (of raising taxes) is the most despicable thing a President can do. It completely disqualifies Obama from being President and even dog catcher. By doing so, Obama has proven that not only is he unfit to be President, he’s unfit to be a toilet cleaner.

Romney needs to wage a no-holds-barred offensive against Obama for that reason – in Virginia and beyond.

http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2012/07/open-letter-president-obama-ahead-virginia-visit

Why conventional wisdom and “Republican strategists” are wrong

The Hill magazine has recently published an article profiling Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s rise in stature in the Senate and the ranks of the GOP, primarily due to her study of, and hard work on, defense and FP issues. She has been especially outspoken about the dangers – military and economic – of sequestration, which would cut $600 bn (not $500 bn as the Hill claims) out of the defense budget over the next decade on top of the 487 bn cuts already mandated by the First Tier of the Budget Control Act:

“Freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) has turned the threat of $500 billion in defense cuts into her signature political issue, raising her Senate profile and sparking speculation that she could become Mitt Romney’s running mate.

Her focus on defense has helped her carve out a unique space among the vice presidential contenders; she’s frequently mentioned as a sleeper pick behind a top tier that includes her colleagues Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

And her work has given her a platform alongside big-name defense hawks like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, has praised her efforts, even throwing in some flattery on the Senate floor on Friday.

“Our most eloquent member has arrived on the floor,” McCain said of Ayotte. “Not to mention other attributes that we are lacking in.””

However, as the Hill notes, several (if not most) “Republican strategists” are still propagating the conventional wisdom that the economy is the sole issue of this election (or at least one that the GOP ticket needs to obsessively focus on) and that defense and FP issues are unimportant, if not irrelevant. For that reason, they are dismissing Ayotte and other figures who specialize in defense and FP:

“This is an economic election, and while she is from a battleground state and that’s important, her credentials may not match up with what the campaign really needs, which is a No. 2 who can speak eloquently on the economy,” said one Republican strategist.

“If this was post-9/11, she would be a perfect VP candidate,” the strategist said. “I’m not saying she’s not qualified — she could do a very good job — but her skill set is only part of what’s needed, not all.”

But they and Washington conventional wisdom are wrong, as usual.

Firstly, while the economy is the #1 issue of this election, it isn’t the only one, nor is it one that eclipses all others in terms of importance. There are also several other crucial issues which the GOP ticket MUST be prepared to credibly address. Defense and foreign policy are two such issues.

Secondly, knowing Romney’s limited knowledge of and experience in foreign policy, the Obama team plans to savagely attack him on this issue. They will be merciless and will not, unlike Republicans, restrict themselves in any way – whether in terms of the scope of topics they will discuss nor in terms of the blatant lies they will state and methods of attack they will employ.

If Romney does not educate himself adequately on defense issues before the presidential debates, he will be savagely attacked and may lose the election. And you can take that one to the bank.

OTOH, if Romney picks a person knowledgeable about defense and FP, such as Ayotte or Kyl, he will gain a credible defender on that front, will inoculate himself against such criticism, and will even be able to credibly attack Barack Obama. Which brings me to my next point.

Barack Obama’s national security record, as I have documented here and elsewhere, is disastrous. Not just bad; it’s downright disastrous. (For the latest examples of that, see here, here, and here.) It gives Republicans a HUGE opening to attack and defeat Obama – if they are willing to do so and know how. If they do so competently, they can add greatly to Obama’s woes and defeat him. Attacking him on defense foreign policy is even more important given that Romney cannot credibly criticize Obama on socialized medicine – because he instituted the prototype of Obama’s scheme in Massachusetts in 2006. It would be a foolish mistake, one which would cost Republicans the election, to waste this great opportunity to pound on Obama’s disastrous national security record.

Those Republican strategists and Washington conventional wisdom are wrong. Romney does not need a veep who can eloquently speak on economic issues. Romney can do that himself, and is an expert on the subject. He already has the economic front covered, so to speak.

But Romney is very inexperienced in, and not knowledgeable about, foreign policy – and Obama will exploit that weakness mercilessly unless Romney selects a defense/FP expert as his running mate.

The only thing that disqualifies Kelly Ayotte – although it’s really a disqualifier – is her lack of experience and proper vetting. She’s been a Senator for just 1.5 years, and this is her first elected office. Prior to that, she was an appointed AG of New Hampshire. She has little political experience and has not yet gained the stature of John C. Stennis, Barry Goldwater, John Warner, John McCain, or Jon Kyl. And, due to her short (so far) stint on the national stage, she has not been properly vetted yet. Nominating her for vice president would cause the American people to doubt Ayotte’s qualifications for the Vice Presidency and Romney’s wisdom and decision-making skills.

Fortunately, Romney does not have to choose between an experienced running mate and one who is knowledgeable about defense and foreign policy. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl meets both requirements, and also has no skeletons in his closet.

Jon Kyl should be Romney’s running mate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/236029-tough-defense-talk-ups-ayottes-veep-creds

How to think about, and fight, socialized medicine

Today, on June 28th, 2012 – a date that will live in infamy – the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s socialized medicine scheme, including its individual mandate. The Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 ruling, authored partially by Chief Justice Roberts, who correctly says that the Interstate Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause cannot justify the scheme and its mandate, but wrongly claim that the mandate and its associated fine are nonetheless constitutional because they constitute a tax that the federal government may levy, he says.

He’s wrong, but those who invested their hope and trust in the SCOTUS as a check on the other two branches of the federal government were also wrong. How to refute the ruling, and how to think about and act with regard to it?

1) John Roberts’s claim that the taxation clause of the Constitution authorizes the mandate and its associated fine is completely wrong.

The mandate is not a tax, and neither is the associated fine. A mandate is a legal compulsion to do something. A fine is a governmental punishment levied for violating a law. Thus, two questions arise: what can the federal government legislate on, and what issues can it make mandates and provide for punishment on?

The President may only sign or veto what the Congress sends him and manage employees of the Executive Branch. The Congress may only provide punishments for specific issues and groups of people:

a) on military bases, docks, and shipyards;

b) in the District of Columbia;

c) with regard to members of the military and other uniformed federal services (who must subject themselves to exceptional discipline) – vide the UCMJ; and

d) with regard to a few discreet issues, namely copyright and patent protection, counterfeiting US securities and currency, federal tax evasion, and immigration.

Buying (or refusing to buy) health insurance (or any insurance policies of any kind) is NOT an issue on which Congress may make criminal laws and provide for punishments.

Furthermore, Congress may not legislate on healthcare issues, or about insurance policies, at all! It may pass any laws ONLY on the few issues authorized to it by the Constitution. These are: defense, foreign policy, war and peace, a uniform national currency, a uniform standard of weights and measures, immigration, fighting pirates, punishing offenses against the Law of Nations, mail delivery, bankruptcy, copyright and patent protection, protecting US securities, and the District of Columbia. Post-Civil War Amendments have added to this short list the protection of civil rights and providing for the Presidential succession.

That’s it! Those are all the lawmaking powers of the Congress! The national legislature may NOT make ANY laws – with or without mandates and fines – pertaining to ANY other issues, including healthcare and insurance policy issues.

Healthcare, insurance, welfare programs, etc. are just a few of the myriad of issues reserved to the States and the People. Thus, as the four conservative judges, led by Antonin Scalia, have rightly written in a dissenting opinion, the ENTIRE Obamacare statute (the PPACA) is unconstitutional as it is beyond the Congress’ proper Constitutional remit.

2) This is NOT the end of the fight against Obama’s socialized medicine scheme!

The Supreme Court is NOT the ultimate authority on the genuine meaning of the US Constitution – the Federalist Papers are. The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton (the men who wrote most of the Constitution), reveal the Founding Fathers’ originally intended, and the only correct, meaning of the Supreme Law of the Land. They are most authoritative and have long been recognized as such, until the 1930s, when Charles Evans Hughes’ “The Constitution is what the judges say it is” paradigm became the ruling judicial philosophy in America.

Just think about it: who knows the Constitution’s true meaning better – the men who wrote it or 9 people sitting on the SCOTUS bench today?

The Supreme Court was intended by the Founders to be just one of the many checks and balances on the Federal Government. The intent was that if the Congress passed an unconstitutional law, the President would veto it; if the President colluded with the Congress, the SCOTUS would strike it down. But what if the SCOTUS upheld it? Did the Founders advocate accepting the SCOTUS ruling, no matter what is was, and accepting the Court as the final authority on the Constitution’s meaning?

No. They advocated that the states nullify (invalidate) such unconstitutional “laws” by passing resolutions or statutes to that effect, and that the people elect a Congress that will impeach usurping judges and remove them from office. The Founding Fathers were smart, and they had guts and balls, unlike today’s American politicians. They did not advocate running to federal judges crying and begging them to overturn an unconstitutional law. They advocated nullifying it by state resolutions, refusing to comply with it, and removing those who enacted it from office (peacefully).

And this is what they did when the Federalist-dominated Congress passed, and President Adams signed, the oppressive Alien and Sedition Acts which, if allowed to stand, would’ve created a police state in America. Virginia and Kentucky nullified them and refused to comply with them. James Madison wrote Virginia’s Nullification Resolution, and Thomas Jefferson wrote Kentucky’s version.

Think about it. Suppose that you’re President. Let’s say the Congress passes a law requiring every Jew to wear an armband with the Star of David and provides a heavy fine for those Jews who don’t comply. You veto the bill, but the Congress overrides your veto and the SCOTUS upholds the bill. What do you do? Do you comply with it and require US Attorneys to enforce it? Not if you treat your oath seriously. Your oath says nothing about obeying the Congress or the SCOTUS. It says you are to uphold the Constitution.

When Congress passes a constitutional, but lousy law, the right recourse is to elect better Reps and Senators and repeal the law. (The current tax code is an example.)

But when the Congress passes an unconstitutional bill (let alone that violates Americans’ freedoms as blatantly as the PPACA does) and the Supreme Court upholds it, electing better Reps and Senators is not enough! The proper remedy in such case is to NULLIFY the bill, refuse to comply with it, and impeach the judges who rubber-stamped it. (Judges are not appointed for life; they can, and are supposed to be, impeached and removed from office if they abuse it, as Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan have.)

So the fight against the PPACA is far from over. The right step now is to have the states nullify it and to impeach the forementioned SCOTUS judges.

3) Contrary to conventional wisdom, this ruling will not help Obama nor harm Romney. On the contrary, it will help Romney win, because by now, every Republican and indie should understand that electing Romney and a Republican congressional majority is the ONLY way to repeal this socialized medicine scheme before the federal healthcare Leviathan is born.

As Ann Coulter has rightly written, in order to make the PPACA look neutral, the Dems structured it so that the taxes to pay for it are levied immediately, but the goodies won’t be paid out until 2014. Once Americans are thrown off their employer-provided insurance policies and forced to depend on the federal government for healthcare, they will fight tooth and nail to keep their “free” healthcare. (See Britain, France, and Canada.) So, unless Republicans retake the White House and the Senate, and keep the House, the federal healthcare Leviathan will be born and America will become just another Western European style social democracy with a huge dependency class, ever-growing entitlements, and no money for defense; and starting in 2016, Republicans will be promising only to “modernize” Obamacare.

4) Hopefully, all conservatives have, by now, learned not to invest their hope and trust in the SCOTUS. It consists of the same fallen people who have said that there is a First Amendment right to desecrate the flag and disrupt the funerals of dead American heroes and a Fourth Amendment right to kill unborn children while students cannot have voluntary nondeminational prayer at school.

5) Today’s ruling proves that Newt Gingrich was right all along about the need to rein in federal judges, including those on the SCOTUS bench, and his critics were dead wrong. They look like fools now.

When he was running for President, Gingrich, recognizing that the federal judiciary had usurped powers not entrusted to it and had enforced on the country a completely wrong, leftist, socialist interpretation of the Constitution, recommended the following redress against usurping judges:

• Ensuring that the federal government does not obey wrongly decided rulings;
• Obligating SCOTUS judges to testify before the Congress on why they delivered such rulings; and
• Abolishing inferior courts when the judges who sit on them usurp powers and try to legislate from the bench.

He was right. Congress SHOULD question the Supremes on how could they conclude that the individual mandate is a tax and that the federal government’s power is essentially unlimited. The President has not only the right, but the DUTY to ignore wrongly decided SCOTUS rulings. And the Congress may, by statute, abolish courts inferior to the SCOTUS – not necessarily to abolish the seats of usurping judges, but e.g. to merge courts and thus save money.

Newt Gingrich was right, and his critics were wrong. The federal judiciary must be reined in.

CONCLUSION

Don’t worry, folks! This ruling is NOT the end of the fight against the Dems’ socialized medicine scheme. Now that the SCOTUS has refused to act as a check on the Legislative and Executive Branches, it’s time on the states – the final arbiters of the federal government’s powers – to rein in the federal government.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the blogger Publius Huldah for educating him on constitutional matters, including those raised herein.

Jon Kyl for Vice President

As you may recall, Dear Readers, a while ago I suggested that Bob McDonnell be chosen by Gov. Mitt Romney (now the de facto GOP presidential nominee) for Vice President. I based my argument on the grounds that McDonnell ticked all the required boxes – he’s conservative, represents an imporant swing state (which he’d nail down for Romney if selected for VP), has ample experience as Governor and Attorney General (and a sellable record), and also possesses significant military experience, having served in the Army and achieving the rank of Lt. Colonel.

Since then, however, McDonnell has made two mistakes. Firstly, he has signed a bill mandating transvaginal ultrasounds on all women wishing to obtain an abortion in Virginia. Although I’m pro-life, I believe this is an unacceptable invasion of privacy, and so do most Virginian women, I guess. Thus, even if McDonnell could help Romney win Virginia with that kind of a Big Government invasion of privacy on his record, he would drag Romney down elsewhere and cost him the election.

Secondly, he has accepted a rotten “compromise” on voting fraud laws in Virginia, thus annoying conservatives. Indeed, conservatives who live in Virginia tell me they are dissatisfied by him. It appears he’s trying to have it both ways – pandering to conservatives and moderates alike.

While I think that the latter mistake is forgivable, the first one would certainly cost the GOP the election, and therefore, I believe, disqualifies McDonnell as a potential VP candidate.

Yet, Mitt Romney needs a good veep to help him win the election.

Since I endorsed McDonnell for Vice President, experienced American Spectator journalist Quin Hillyer (one of the few AmSpec contributors deserving to be taken seriously) has written a landmark article which sets forth good metrics by which Romney should select his running mate. Mr Hillyer writes that:

• Anyone who lacks at least 2 years’ worth of experience in a high-profile job must be disqualified (although he has, sadly, relaxed that rule since then, making exceptions for Kelly Ayotte and Cathy McMorris Rodgers);
• The list of those who meet that minimum treshold must then be whittled down to just 5-6 people who have the most of such experience plus would be best suited to helping Romney win the election;
• The Romney camp should poll focus groups in swing states (e.g. VA, NC, FL, OH, IN, PA, IA) on what they think of this or that potential VP candidate, including videos of them speaking and negative information that the Obama team would feed them with;
• The 5-6 finalists should then be interviewed in a locked room by Romney aides and warned that any loose lips on their end would automatically disqualify them;
• The Romney camp must prepare the eventual VP selectee for the madhouse that will ensue once the choice is announced.

However, Mr Hillyer failed to add one important requirement: significant knowledge of and experience in foreign policy and defense issues.

And I’m not saying that because I’m a defense/foreign policy analyst, although I am. I’m saying that because Romney does not need another economic expert as his running mate.

Polls show that a significant majority of voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy and trust Romney and the GOP on that issue more than Obama and the Democrats. Moreover, Romney is recognized by every honest person as a man very well versed on economic issues. As far as the economy is concerned, Romney has already won the argument.

But polls show that a majority of Americans are still allowing the media to fool them that Obama is a great steward of foreign policy (when he’s not), that they trust Obama on that issue more than they trust Romney, and that Romney is not considered to be knowledgeable about the subject.

So I believe that just as the 2-year-rule should be a strict requirement, with no exceptions, candidates for VP must also be REQUIRED to demonstrate good knowledge of, and significant experience in handling, foreign policy issues (and no, Condi Rice, I’m not talking about you – no one is interested in yet another neocon advisor).

Considering all of the other requirements listed above, that leaves us with only two candidates: Governor Bob McDonnell and Senator Jon Kyl.

But McDonnell would, as stated above, cost Romney the election, so that leaves us only with Jon Kyl, recently suggested by a CFIF analyst, who says Romney should move Kyl to the top of his list of VP candidates. Mr Hillyer himself has been very sympathetic towards the Kyl option for the same reasons.

Kyl (R-AZ) is one of the Senate’s staunchest conservatives, always scoring at or near 100% in annual ACU ratings, placing him in the same class with Jim Inhofe, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, and the freshman Tea Party Senators elected last year: Paul, Lee, Johnson, and Rubio.

Kyl has been leading the Republican opposition to the Obama Administration’s dangerous foreign policy initiatives, including the New START treaty, the pending sellout to the Russians on missile defense, and now, the Law of the Sea Treaty. His commitment to a strong defense is hard to doubt.

Moreover, Kyl has also recently devoted time to explain why building a strong national defense, and protecting it against savage cuts, is not a Big Government policy and is fully consistent with conservatism, including its Limited Government Principle. This is important, because recently some libertarians masquerading as conservatives have been trying to portray this as a Big Government policy and its proponents as Big Government neocons. Kyl would educate the public, including young conservatives, about the facts, and would therefore prevent the conservative movement from being taken over by leftist libertarians. Using facts, logic, and reason, he would utterly belie libertarians’ claims.

And as a longtime Senator and the current Republican Whip/vote counter, i.e. the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, Kyl is intimately familiar with the ways of Washington (an absolutely crucial trait if you want conservative policies to get enacted, especially when you’re nominating an outsider like Romney), yet not tainted in the least by the Beltway – he has never sold out conservative principles.

Last, but not least, Kyl has no presidential ambitions of his own, and if elected, would not pander to anyone nor fight inside the future Romney Administration against anyone who does dream of being President. If he’s chosen and accepts, being Vice President will be his last service to the Nation.

So let’s sum up:

Is Jon Kyl conservative? Yes.

Does he have experience of serving in high-profile jobs? Yes.

Does he make up for Romney’s biggest weakness (foreign and defense issues)? Yes.

Would he help Mitt Romney win the election? Yes.

Would he be ready to take over the office of President anytime, should Mitt Romney die, become incapacitated, or resign? Yes.

Is he familiar with the ways of Washington? Yes.

Would he help advance conservative policies through the Congress and the future Romney Administration? Yes.

As you can see, Kyl checks all boxes. He fulfills all criteria that a good Republican Vice Presidential nominee must meet. Unless Kyl suddenly commits an apostasy against conservatism – something that he has not done during his 25 years in Congress – Romney should pick him for Vice President.

Rebuttal of John Pickerill’s praise of Ron Paul

The leftist libertarian loon John Pickerill, who falsely claims to be a conservative, has endorsed Ron Paul and claims that Paul would be impossible for Obama to defeat, while nominating Romney somehow guarantees Obama a second term. He’s completely wrong, of course, but the most laughable part of his screed is the one in which he claims that Ron Paul supports a strong defense:

“Lastly, Ron Paul believes national defense is the single most important responsibility the Constitution entrusts to the federal government.”

That is a blatant lie, but then again, blatant lies are the only things one can expect from John Pickerill and other leftist libertarians.

The truth is that Ron Paul could not care less about defense. He stridently opposes a strong defense and does not believe that defense is the federal government’s (or anyone else’s) responsibility at all. He has always supported, and continues to support, deep defense cuts which would GUT the US military. In 2010, he cosponsored deep cuts to personnel numbers, the force structure (i.e. the size of the US military), modernization programs, O&M funds, and the nuclear arsenal together with his fellow strident liberals Barney Frank and Ron Wyden. Today, he supports the sequestration of defense spending (which would totally gut the military, see here: ) and cuts BEYOND sequestration. He even denies that sequestration would result in any defense spending cuts at all and claims it would produce only reductions in defense spending growth, even though this is a blatant lie, as proven, for example, here:

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/refuting-the-cogcs-lies-about-defense-spending/

Ron Paul supports deep cuts even to defense programs that protect ONLY the US. As an example, he has repeatedly voted to cut the Ground Based Interceptor program by $100 mn. The GBI, also known as the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System, is a missile defense system consisting of 30 interceptors based in AK and CA. It protects ONLY the United States and no other country (except Canada, which is contigous to the US). Its sole purpose is to defend the US homeland. Yet, Paul opposes even THIS program and has repeatedly voted to cut it.

@To quote Ronald Reagan, “Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country.”"

One woefully out-of-date quote from Ronald Reagan (uttered before Reagan really knew Paul) from 1976 proves NOTHING. Ron Paul later showed his real face and proved himself to be a strident liberal, a total nonconservative, and a traitor to the GOP who called Reagan a totally failed President and resigned from the GOP because of him. (But in 1996, this saboteur came back crawling to the GOP.)

“Ron Paul will make sure our military spending is only for actual national security.”

It is ALREADY used only for actual national security. Hint: fighting terrorists in Afghanistan is CLOSELY related to America’s national security, despite Pickerill’s pious denials. And no, weapon programs don’t exist to enrich contractors, they exist to equip the military with the most modern weapons and equipment that America can make, equipment superior to that of America’s enemies, and for that reason, they are needed. If people get thousands of jobs as a result of producing these weapons, so much the better.

“He will keep our troops out of unconstitutional wars that entangle us in failed nation-building missions, so our troops can come home to defend America’s borders instead.”

The Afghan and Iraqi wars were authorized by Congress (by overwhelming, bipartisan margins, I might add). They were Constitutional. Furthermore, while I oppose nationbuilding and peacekeeping missions, bringing all troops back home would be much more expensive than keeping them where they are, or at least keeping some troops in strategic bases overseas.

“He will not pander to defense contracting lobbyists.”

Nor is the current Congress doing so, as evidenced by the passage of the Budget Control Act, which mandates over a trillion dollar in core defense budget cuts (including the sequester). If there are defense lobbyists on Capitol Hill, they are doing a bad job.

“He will protect our taxpayer dollars from being spent on a failed foreign policy of trying to be the policeman of the world.”

The US is not (and should not be) the world’s policeman. Any claims to the contrary are false. Furthermore, while any attempts by the US to be the world’s policeman would result in failure, isolationism, as proposed by Paul and Pickerill, would result in an even bigger failure, and a catastrophic one at that. Just like it failed in the run-up to WW2. Ron Paul’s isolationist “see no evil, hear no evil, if we leave them alone they’ll leave us alone” loony foreign policy is doomed to fail.

Furthermore, Paul would actually have been the EASIEST to beat of all Republican candidates, even easier to beat than Gingrich. That swivel-eyed loon who coddles truthers, Nazis, KKK thugs, 9/11 truthers, racists, and anti-Semites, and is a bone fide 9/11 truther and anti-Semite himself, would be so easy to beat that he would not win a single state against Obama, just like he failed to win a single state when he ran in 1988, 2008, and this time around. Paul is a loser and will never be President. He will be going home to his rocking chair after this election season is over, and not a moment too soon.

Why the flat tax is a nonstarter

Today is April 15th, the dreaded Tax Day, so it’s high time to think about what’s the best tax reform proposal for America.

The purpose of this blogpost is to explain why a flat income tax is no solution to the problem of the complexity of the current tax code.

Sen. Rand Paul has recently released his rehashed budget blueprint from last year which, of course, stands no chance of passing and which this year includes, unlike last year, a flat income tax as a component. Like last year, however, he proposes only 500 bn bucks in annual spending cuts.

He assumes that the economy will somehow miraculously rebound that it will produce the remaining 1 trillion bucks of annual revenue to balance the budget? It’s a fantasy. It won’t happen. Paul is merely repeating and rehashing the rosy budget blueprint that he introduced last year. It would never balance the budget. By contrast, the budget plans of the Republican Study Committee and the Heritage Foundation WOULD balance the budget, albeit in a decade.

His flat tax proposal is a nonstarter and shows why he is not serious about tax reform. The biggest problem with the income tax is not that it is progressive, and not even the fact that it contains many tax loopholes. The biggest problem is that it is an INCOME TAX – a tax that confiscates people’s hard-earned earnings. A tax that punishes productivity and savings instead of incentivizing them. An INCOME TAX always is, and always will be, a huge drag on the economy, whether it is flat or not.

Moreover, a flat income tax will also not solve other big problems with the INCOME TAX – the bloated, oppressive IRS; the intrusive IRS audits; the burden of filling out tax returns every year, and so forth. A flat tax is not a solution at all. It is a mere placebo.

Besides, the flat tax is such a joke that it wouldn’t stay flat for very long. It could be made progressive (i.e. new tax brackets could be added) by the next Congress. It would take only one or two Congresses to undo everything that the flat tax could give us.

Don’t believe me? Recall that the CURRENT abomination of a federal tax code started in 1913 as a flat income tax. Yet, by 1917, it was a progressive income tax whose highest rate was 77% – a rate not even the most fervent advocate of the federal income tax dreamed of in 1913.

The flat tax is not a solution, mere a placebo, and should not even be considered. Sadly, too many flat tax supporters, including Rand Paul, are wedded to their precious flat tax idol, so they are not willing to consider anything else. By far the most difficult aspect of converting people to the cause of real tax reform has been to get them to at least CONSIDER an option other than a federal income tax. Once that is done, however, it’s easy to do the rest of the “convincing” task.

Mitt Romney, for one, is open to a consumption tax, including the FairTax, and has praised many of the FT’s virtue. He is not stuck on stupid on the income tax and would like to move the US away from such taxation. That means that with Romney, half of the convincing is already down. All the work that remains is to convince Romney that the FairTax is the best plan to completely replace the federal income tax.

As my friend John Gaver rightly says, and has posted on the HF’s blog:

“I just posted this to the Heritage Blog and to their Facebook page

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Let’s see. The current tax abomination began it’s life as a Flat INCOME Tax. So what’s to make us believe that a new Flat INCOME Tax will remain flat beyond the next session of Congress. One look at the names of those in Congress will convince even the most jaded observer that the rate won’t remain flat.One of the primary problems with our current abomination is that, being a tax on INCOME, it drags down the economy, by punishing productivity and savings. Making a tax on INCOME flat, will not make it any less of a drag on the economy or stimulate savings.Yet another serious problem with our current abomination is that it has layer upon layer of hidden taxes, of which most people are not aware. These hidden taxes come in the form of corporate taxes that are embedded in the cost of every new product. This of course drags the economy down even more and amounts to double taxation, since consumers would be buying already taxed products, with after-tax money. Making the Corporate INCOME Tax the same level as the Personal Income Tax will do nothing to eliminate the many layers of hidden taxes, which constitute double-taxation.The whole idea of a Flat INCOME Tax is nothing more or less than a placebo. It will NOT solve any problems, but only mask the existing problems for a little while longer.By contrast, the FairTax will be entirely transparent and will eliminate all double-taxation. It will stimulate the economy, by removing the drag on the economy that ALL INCOME taxes create. But beyond that, it will encourage savings. But above all, unlike INCOME taxes, since it would be entirely transparent, raising the rate of the FairTax would be political suicide.A Flat INCOME Tax of any kind is a non-starter, since flattening the rates would be analogous to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The root problems would still exist. The FairTax is the only tax plan being discussed that would actually FIX the problems with our current tax system.

December 16, 2011 at 12:00am“

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