Libertarian Leanings

We Can Hope

Nile Gardiner:

President Obama, whose administration has practically worshipped at the trough of big government, looks spectacularly out of touch with a clear majority of the American people. The highly interventionist liberal experiment of the last two and a half years has been a spectacular failure, with 14 million Americans out of work, sliding consumer confidence, collapsing house prices, and falling stock markets.

This is why Barack Obama could well end up being the last big government president of the United States, a nation that simply cannot afford the lavish excesses of an imperious presidency that drains the pay-checks of hard-working Americans with impunity and reckless abandon.

(My emphasis)

Searching For Superman

Thomas Sowell warns us against it, at the same time adding some perspective on issues that Rick Perry is being pounded on by the rest of the Republican presidential contenders.

On Social Security, Governor Perry was not only right to call it a “Ponzi scheme,” but was also right to point out that this did not mean welshing on the government’s obligation to continue paying retirees what they had been promised.

...the ability to save young people from cervical cancer with a stroke of a pen was a temptation that any decent and humane individual would find hard to resist, even if Governor Perry himself now admits to having second thoughts about how it was done.

...The fact that he has more confidence in putting “boots on the ground” along the border, instead of relying on a fence that can be climbed over or tunneled under where there is no one around, is a logistical judgment, not a question of being against border control.

Perry is still out in front in spite of some truly dismal debate performances.  It's a refreshing hint that policies and results may trump the sound bites this time around.

Buffet's Doubletalk On Capital Gains

Ira Stoll raises questions that conservatives should insist be explored when we start talking about raising taxes on the rich.

...by framing the fiscal-policy discussion this way, as a debate over whether the “super-rich” should pay more, Buffett and his allies in politics and the press avoid certain other questions. And those questions are more important ones. Questions like:

• Who should allocate capital, the people who earned it and own it, or the politicians in Washington as influenced by their lobbyists and campaign contributor cronies?

• How did we accumulate $14 trillion in debt so rapidly, and what are the consequences of that?

• How and why has federal spending grown to $3.8 trillion in 2011 from $1.8 trillion in 2000?

It is implied, in the tax fairness argument, that this monstrous boost in federal spending is both fair and necessary.  Is it?

But I was struck by this bit of wording that seems to have skipped by unchallenged for quite some time.  Now, I don't want to put myself in the same league as Warren Buffett on investments, but I take issue with what Buffett said on capital gains.  Here's what he said:

“I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone—not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976–77—shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”

One thing that nobody seems to have picked up on, is that Buffett is talking about investing — buying an asset.  What about the other side of the deal?  Though Buffett says he's "never seen anyone shy away from a sensible investment," can he also say he has never seen anyone shy away from the sale of an asset because of the potential capital gains hit?  I'm skeptical.

And another question.  Rube that I am, it's hard for me to imagine a serious investor not considering the tax consequences of a deal.  But what do I know?  I'm not Warren Buffett. 

Still, I have to ask the question, what is a "sensible investment?"  I have this picture of an investor who has a particular target for return on investment.  He knows all the costs, but has to guess at the return.  If his guess hits the target the deal's a go.  If not, then in the investor's view it's not an acceptable, or sensible, investment.  So, Buffett is trying to tell us that taxes aren't part of the calculation of return?  I'm skeptical.

Herman Cain Scores An Upset In Florida

In a rather stunning upset yesterday, Herman Cain won the Florida Republican presidential straw poll. And he won it by a pretty wide margin. Cain's landslide victory, with 37 percent of the vote, exceeded the combined total for Perry and Mitt Romney, who only garnered 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Straw polls do not necessarily reflect the sentiments of voters at large. But the result of this vote rang true in one respect. Republican voters are ready to change the direction this country is going.  Herman Cain offers dramatic change. Cain's momentum was evident throughout the weekend. At a faith rally before the debate and a conservative forum after, Cain earned the loudest applause. By Friday night, he was so popular that his staff had to find a bigger room to accommodate admirers. But even then, in a room with a capacity of 700, a long line snaked out the door. Cain's centerpiece: his plan to scrap the tax code and replace it with a flat 9 percent tax on income, national sales and business profits. Saturday morning, in a speech before the vote, the crowd chanted "9-9-9!" and had an electric response to almost everything he said. "Let's send a message to Washington," he shouted. "We the people are still in charge of this country!" It resonated in a convention where vendors sold "Don't Tread on Me" ties and some activists dressed as revolutionary soldiers with tricorner hats. The more people hear from Herman Cain, the more they like him.  He comes across as very real, focused on solving problems rather than advancing a political career, but up to now he's come across as a Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.  He may have changed that perception in Florida yesterday. Members of the Republican establishment are not so smitten with Cain. In fact, Cain's victory has revived fantasies of a Chris Christie entrance into the race. From Politico: With the party’s front-runner sagging, Chris Christie is reconsidering pleas from Republican elites and donors to run for president in 2012, two Republican sources told POLITICO. From the Weekly Standard: There will be a lot of attention paid to Chris Christie’s Reagan Library speech Tuesday. From the New York Post: New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is considering a run for president, after getting lobbied hard from some of the GOP’s top leaders and money men, according to a well-placed Republican source in direct contact with Christie’s camp. It would be a dramatic change of heart for the portly, pugnacious pol, who in the past has adamantly denied White House ambitions. The question in most minds: Can Herman Cain beat Barack Obama in the general election?  The Florida straw poll says rank and file Republicans are starting to think he can.  It's the Republican establishment that needs to be convinced.

Best Line

Gary Johnson gets credit for the best line in the Republican presidential debate in Orlando last night.  Commenting on Obama's record on jobs he said...

Priceless

Well, Duh!

Dan Thomasson writes that a better staff might have saved Obama

...from some of his own inclinations, namely the expenditure of an inordinate amount of political capital on reforming health care. The ambitious plan took a year of obsessive campaigning at the expense of serious efforts to deal with the nation's declining economic condition manifested mainly in joblessness.

Well, yes. If Obama hadn't undertaken a de facto gutting of the bill of rights through health care reform — which also slammed the brakes on economic growth — he might be more popular today.

The Coming Blowout

From Rasmussen:

...the president has never trailed a Republican by more than three percentage points and has enjoyed large double-digit leads in some match-ups.

But always there are a decent number of voters who say they prefer a third option or are undecided. Currently, among those who are undecided, just 34% approve of the way the president has handled his job, while 64% disapprove. Among those who prefer a third option rather than Obama or a particular GOP candidate,  the president’s numbers are even weaker: 13% approve, and 87% disapprove.

Next November when the choices are narrowed down to Obama and the other guy, how do you suppose those 64% of undecideds who disapprove of Obama are going to vote? 

The Obama Jobs Charade

Mark Stein accurately and concisely describes Obama's jobs bill and his strategy to pass it.

“Pass this jobs bill”? Simply as a matter of humdrum reality, there is no bill, it won’t “create” any jobs, and it will be paid for with money we don’t have. But the smartest president in history has calculated that, if he says the same four monosyllables over and over, a nonexistent bill to create nonexistent jobs with nonexistent money will be yet another legislative triumph in the grand tradition of his first stimulus.

Perry's Foreign Policy

Let's give Rick Perry credit for a great sense of timing.  Taking his cue from the special election in New York's 9th Congressional District, Perry chooses this moment to start laying out his foreign policy principles, in particular that the U.S. must not waver in its support for the state of Israel.

The historic friendship between the United States and Israel stretches from the founding of the Jewish state in 1948 to the present day. Our nations have developed vital economic and security relationships in an alliance based on shared democratic principles, deep cultural ties, and common strategic interests.

Obama pays lip service to the importance of our ties to Israel, and in NY-09 they know it.  It's a district where Democrats enjoy a 3-1 advantage in voter registration, but it's also said to be the most Jewish district in the country.  And now it's a district that the Democrats have lost.  For the first time in nearly a century they lost, yet they remain oblivious to the impact of Obama's anti-Israel policies.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the district’s large concentration of Orthodox Jews made it unusual and meant the race had few national ramifications.

“In this district, there is a large number of people who went to the polls tonight who didn’t support the president to begin with and don’t support Democrats — and it’s nothing more than that,” she said in a telephone interview.

...

“I am a registered Democrat, I have always been a registered Democrat, I come from a family of Democrats — and I hate to say this, I voted Republican,” said Linda Goldberg, 61, after casting her ballot in Queens. “I need to send a message to the president that he’s not doing a very good job. Our economy is horrible. People are scared.”

Obama's policies are costly ones for the Democrats, and it is becoming more evident each day. What a perfect time for Governor Perry to put the focus on America's historic ties to Israel.  What a contrast he is to Obama and the Democrats, and in so many ways.

Update:  Obama's poll numbers slip with Jewish voters.

President Barack Obama’s support among Jews has dropped, new data shows.

Four out of 10 Jewish Americans currently disapprove of Obama, according to polling data provided to POLITICO by Gallup, which has yet to post the numbers on its website.

This 40 percent disapproval rating is 8 percent higher than the 32 percent disapproval rating among Jewish Americans that was last reported by Gallup in June.

While Obama still remains popular with Jews, the data, from a poll conducted Aug. 1-Sept.14, is the latest concrete indication that the president is facing worsening problems among a key group.

Obama’s approval rating among Jewish Americans is also down to 55 percent - a five point drop from his approval rating in June, which stood at 60 percent.

Together, the rise in disapproval and dip in approval ratings are a net negative 11 point downturn for Obama among Jews.

Hint to Debbie Wasserman Schultz:  Losing the Jewish vote is a national ramification.