By: Herman Cain
May 21, 2012
One of the worst tendencies of Washington politicians is to purportedly “fix” big problems with small solutions.
Who can forget members of Congress, announcing at the conclusion of last
year’s debt-ceiling showdown that they had agreed to a deal that would
reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years? When you consider that
the forecast deficit for that same period is well over $10 trillion –
and even that’s assuming the phony “out year” spending cuts that never
actually happen – a reduction of $1 trillion is not much of an
achievement.
That’s because Washington doesn’t solve problems. It tweaks things –
calling this “reform” – when these things need to be completely replaced
and restructured.
If you want to understand why Washington does this, consider the
reactions to Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed entitlement restructuring,
or to Gov. Scott Walker’s changes in the collective bargaining rights
of public employees in Wisconsin. Democrats aired TV commercials
depicting Ryan dumping a wheelchair-bound old woman over a cliff. Unions
have successfully forced Walker into a recall election.
Most politicians, regardless of party, don’t want to deal with that kind
of political blowback. So they settle for weak half-measures that allow
them to say they “did something,” even though the actions taken don’t
really solve anything.
This, I fear, is what will happen with all three entitlement programs.
Politicians will tweak the programs and claim they have “reformed” them,
when they really haven’t done anything to prevent the long-term fiscal
train wreck that’s coming. It isn’t enough simply to tinker with the
benefit formulas or to adjust the way revenue is raised. Social Security
was created 80 years ago. Medicare and Medicaid were created nearly 50
years ago. The world was a different place back then, and basic facts of
life that might have applied in those days are not necessarily
applicable today. It makes no sense to cling to old models, and yet the
very same people who cry “FORWARD!” in their quest for re-election
insist on clinging to these models of the past.
America needs to stop thinking in terms of reform, an all-purpose term
that is too easily applied to meaningless gestures, and start thinking
in terms of replacing and restructuring outdated programs and processes
that simply cannot be salvaged.
I said during my campaign, and I still say today, that America should
look to the Chilean counterpart of Social Security, which relies much
more heavily on private accounts and gets better results without putting
the country in fiscal jeopardy. Yes, this is a very different kind of
idea. There’s nothing wrong with that. When President George W. Bush
proposed in 2005 that we go to partial privatization of Social Security,
you would have thought from the reaction in Washington that he’d
proposed to make seniors eat dog food for the rest of their days.
In fact, Bush’s proposal represented a good start but didn’t go nearly
far enough. Yet the change-averse culture of Washington had an absolute
meltdown over even such a limited reform as this. That’s pretty ironic
considering how many of these same people get elected and re-elected
squawking about “change blah blah blah.” Apparently change is a great
idea as long as you don’t actually try it.
Now let’s be honest. It’s not only in Washington where people deny the
need to replace and restructure models that don’t work anymore. Kodak
was once the king of the photography industry, but they refused to
accept that digital technology was about to revolutionize the industry,
and they didn’t get out in front of the change. Once they got so far
behind that they couldn’t catch up, they ended up in bankruptcy.
The newspaper industry has suffered in much the same way.
Forward-looking people were predicting nearly 20 years ago that the way
people get their news would change dramatically as a result of
technology. Most of the newspaper industry refused to believe it would
happen. Many newspapers invested in shiny new printing presses as
recently as seven or eight years ago – thinking it would save them to
have the color photos “pop” better on the printed page. Now they’re
trying to lease out capacity on those printing presses to coupon
companies while they desperately seek to catch up on their digital media
strategies.
In both cases, it was a combination of short-sightedness and arrogance.
People thought their models would always work because they always had
worked. Why would that change? But of course, business models become
antiquated over time, and so do government programs. It’s not enough
just to change them. You need to completely replace the old model with a
new one.
If America is to deal with the challenges we face, we need to change our
mindset. Mere “reform” of outdated, antiquated models won’t get the job
done. When Social Security was created, it was unheard of for people to
have televisions in their homes. When Medicare and Medicaid were
created, only super-rich people had color TVs. These programs are relics
of another time, and yet we act as if they are sacrosanct and must be
kept in their original form forever – even though the numbers clearly
tell us they are going to bankrupt the country.
That makes no sense. America has never been a timid nation, so why are
we so afraid of accepting anything other than timid “reforms” when what
we really need is to restructure, and replace old models that no longer
make sense with no models that work and fit the times?
Forget reform. Replace and restructure! If we do not begin to seriously
replace and restructure the tax code, government programs and
regulations, then there will be nothing left to reform but a bankrupt
nation.
May 14, 2012
Will American voters follow Europe’s suicidal fiscal path?
By Herman Cain
May 14, 2012
I believe in democracy, and in the wisdom of ordinary people to make good decisions when they have all the information and understand the situation.
These are core principles for me, so I found them challenged this past week when voters in France and Greece acted in a way that seemed to clearly demonstrate otherwise. With much of Europe facing massive debt crises, and having agreed to abide by strict debt limits under terms of the European Union fiscal pact, French and Greek voters elected new governments that vowed to defy planned spending cuts and reject the debt limits.
This is especially egregious in Greece, which is supposed to be adhering to terms of an EU-sponsored bailout but cannot get its spending policies under control to save its life – and let there be no doubt, that’s what’s at stake here. Greece has built up so much debt bankrolling its welfare state, and has caused so much government dependence, it endured riots when it reached the inevitable point when the government had to admit it could no longer continue its reckless spending.
France is not in as much trouble, but in some ways the French election result is even more troubling because French President Nicolas Sarkozy was one of the authors of the EU pact imposing the strict debt limits. The election of socialist Francois Hollande represents a rejection of the very idea of fiscal responsibility, and leaves Germany in the precarious position of championing spending restraint and limits on debt while sentiment throughout the Eurozone seems to be moving entirely in the opposite direction.
What is going on here? Is my faith in people misplaced? And have I been wrong to express as much faith in the people of the United States – when we too face huge fiscal challenges and there seems to be little support for reform of the spending and entitlement programs that are driving the crisis?
I do not believe my faith in We the People is misplaced, but I do believe it’s important to remember the whole equation. The people will make good decisions when they have all the information and understand the situation. To the extent that people rely on politicians and the mainstream media to get their information – Houston, we have a problem.
Quite simply, it seems to be the modus operandi of the political class just about everywhere (and I include the mainstream media when I talk about the political class) to downplay the fiscal problems brought on by excessive government spending. To them, there is no problem that more government outlays cannot solve, and if there is not enough money on hand, it’s just because the people are too resistant to higher taxes.
As a case in point, the Associated Press reported on May 13 about the serious crisis facing the State of California, which finds itself $16 billion in debt. AP reporter Judy Lin offered a classic MSM take on the matter, saying the situation “will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.” (Emphasis mine.)
According to the AP, voter refusal to accept even higher taxes will mean the public, not the free-spending politicians, has failed. The real failure, of course, rests in the hands of public officials who not only refuse to limit their own spending, but also refuse to be honest with the public about the situation.
Let me give you a perfect example that’s been in the news in recent weeks. You may have heard that interest rates on student loans are scheduled to double automatically unless Congress acts to rescind the increase. Democrats are screaming bloody murder and demanding that Republicans support a measure to keep the interest rates where they are. What they don’t tell you is that Democrats put the scheduled increase in place five years ago, and the reason they did so was so they could claim the original lowering of the rate would not explode the deficit over the long term. They do the same thing with physician reimbursements for Medicare. The long-term plan always calls for a huge cut in the reimbursements, and they use this to claim that deficits in the “out years” will go down. But when the time comes for the spending cuts to happen, or for the interest rates to double, they always stop it from occurring.
That’s how politicians put projections in front of the public that make the situation look less dire than it really is. The worst example comes from ObamaCare – big surprise, right? – in which Democrats counted $500 billion as a “spending cut,” then counted the same $500 billion as money to fund the program. The mainstream media were well aware of this deception, but did not call ObamaCare supporters out on it.
It’s hard to blame to voters for the decisions they make when politicians hide the truth from them, and the media – which are supposed to hold politicians accountable for what they say and what they do – instead act as their propaganda ministry, assisting in the deception by ignoring the worst of their dishonesty.
Having said that, voters have to look harder and more critically at the information they’re being given. It has to be the responsibility of the public to be better informed and less willing to accept the party line of the political class and its media enablers. I still believe that the people will make the right decisions if they have all the information and understand the situation. In France and Greece, that did not happen this week because the people obviously don’t understand the stakes.
The people of the United States can and will do better. I refuse to believe otherwise.
May 14, 2012
I believe in democracy, and in the wisdom of ordinary people to make good decisions when they have all the information and understand the situation.
These are core principles for me, so I found them challenged this past week when voters in France and Greece acted in a way that seemed to clearly demonstrate otherwise. With much of Europe facing massive debt crises, and having agreed to abide by strict debt limits under terms of the European Union fiscal pact, French and Greek voters elected new governments that vowed to defy planned spending cuts and reject the debt limits.
This is especially egregious in Greece, which is supposed to be adhering to terms of an EU-sponsored bailout but cannot get its spending policies under control to save its life – and let there be no doubt, that’s what’s at stake here. Greece has built up so much debt bankrolling its welfare state, and has caused so much government dependence, it endured riots when it reached the inevitable point when the government had to admit it could no longer continue its reckless spending.
France is not in as much trouble, but in some ways the French election result is even more troubling because French President Nicolas Sarkozy was one of the authors of the EU pact imposing the strict debt limits. The election of socialist Francois Hollande represents a rejection of the very idea of fiscal responsibility, and leaves Germany in the precarious position of championing spending restraint and limits on debt while sentiment throughout the Eurozone seems to be moving entirely in the opposite direction.
What is going on here? Is my faith in people misplaced? And have I been wrong to express as much faith in the people of the United States – when we too face huge fiscal challenges and there seems to be little support for reform of the spending and entitlement programs that are driving the crisis?
I do not believe my faith in We the People is misplaced, but I do believe it’s important to remember the whole equation. The people will make good decisions when they have all the information and understand the situation. To the extent that people rely on politicians and the mainstream media to get their information – Houston, we have a problem.
Quite simply, it seems to be the modus operandi of the political class just about everywhere (and I include the mainstream media when I talk about the political class) to downplay the fiscal problems brought on by excessive government spending. To them, there is no problem that more government outlays cannot solve, and if there is not enough money on hand, it’s just because the people are too resistant to higher taxes.
As a case in point, the Associated Press reported on May 13 about the serious crisis facing the State of California, which finds itself $16 billion in debt. AP reporter Judy Lin offered a classic MSM take on the matter, saying the situation “will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.” (Emphasis mine.)
According to the AP, voter refusal to accept even higher taxes will mean the public, not the free-spending politicians, has failed. The real failure, of course, rests in the hands of public officials who not only refuse to limit their own spending, but also refuse to be honest with the public about the situation.
Let me give you a perfect example that’s been in the news in recent weeks. You may have heard that interest rates on student loans are scheduled to double automatically unless Congress acts to rescind the increase. Democrats are screaming bloody murder and demanding that Republicans support a measure to keep the interest rates where they are. What they don’t tell you is that Democrats put the scheduled increase in place five years ago, and the reason they did so was so they could claim the original lowering of the rate would not explode the deficit over the long term. They do the same thing with physician reimbursements for Medicare. The long-term plan always calls for a huge cut in the reimbursements, and they use this to claim that deficits in the “out years” will go down. But when the time comes for the spending cuts to happen, or for the interest rates to double, they always stop it from occurring.
That’s how politicians put projections in front of the public that make the situation look less dire than it really is. The worst example comes from ObamaCare – big surprise, right? – in which Democrats counted $500 billion as a “spending cut,” then counted the same $500 billion as money to fund the program. The mainstream media were well aware of this deception, but did not call ObamaCare supporters out on it.
It’s hard to blame to voters for the decisions they make when politicians hide the truth from them, and the media – which are supposed to hold politicians accountable for what they say and what they do – instead act as their propaganda ministry, assisting in the deception by ignoring the worst of their dishonesty.
Having said that, voters have to look harder and more critically at the information they’re being given. It has to be the responsibility of the public to be better informed and less willing to accept the party line of the political class and its media enablers. I still believe that the people will make the right decisions if they have all the information and understand the situation. In France and Greece, that did not happen this week because the people obviously don’t understand the stakes.
The people of the United States can and will do better. I refuse to believe otherwise.
May 7, 2012
Abuse of Power
By Herman Cain
May 7, 2012
Remember when Democrats, including a certain senator named Barack Obama, used to scream that President George W. Bush was abusing his executive powers?
Those were the good old days!
Since becoming president, Obama has turned the abuse of executive power into a high art form – especially since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and rendered him incapable of getting the most extreme elements of his left-wing agenda through Congress.
Obama is especially brazen in his use of executive orders, and most astonishingly, he makes no bones about the fact that he does so – telling a gathering in Las Vegas last October, “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.”
In Obamaspeak, “dysfunctional” is a euphemism for “won’t give me everything I want.” So what are the big emergencies that require Obama to act on his own without congressional approval? Here are nine of the most egregious examples:
Force federal contractors to disclose their political contributions. This is an example of how the government can abuse its role in business relationships to do things it could never do in the normal course of governing. Lots of firms want to do business with the federal government. While Obama cannot get away with an executive order requiring everyone to tell him the candidates or causes they supported financially, he can make it a requirement for bidding on federal contracts. Once he knows where everyone’s political donation dollars go, who do you think has the best shot at the contracts? Exactly. And what else might he do with the information he gathers? Here’s one thing . . .
Publicly attack financial backers of Mitt Romney. In April, the Obama campaign launched a web site publicly naming, and attacking the integrity of, eight private citizens who contributed money to the Romney campaign. The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel reported that Obama accused these people of having shady reputations, making insinuations pertaining to things like outsourcing of jobs and foreclosures. Strassel rightly compared this tactic to Richard Nixon’s notorious “enemies list.” Obama may insist that he takes these actions as a candidate and not as president, but that is a load of crap. The fact is that he is president, and he is attacking private citizens for exercising their right to participate in the political process.
Require private companies to give unions employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Since the 1960s, the National Labor Relations Board has required private companies who are the target of a unionization effort to give unions the home addresses of their employees. That is bad as it is, but it’s not enough for Obama-appointed NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce, who told the Associated Press in January that he now wants the companies to also give the unions their employees’ home phone numbers and e-mail addresses. So they can harass them in even more ways. Why stop there? Why not just threaten to shut down operations entirely if they are not unionized? Since you mentioned it.
Let the NLRB threaten to shut down operations entirely if they are not unionized. You may have heard about this story from South Carolina. Boeing’s attempt to open a plant in South Carolina was frustrated for months by the NLRB, which filed a lawsuit against the South Carolina project only to drop it immediately after Boeing agreed to build its 737 Max jet using union labor in Reston, Washington. The NLRB is supposed to be an independent board, but under the control of Obama’s appointees it is used to blatantly do the bidding of labor unions.
Use ObamaCare money to hide the forcing of Medicare Advantage participants into regular Medicare. Medicare Advantage is the program in which participants are covered by private insurance for which the government pays the premiums, as opposed to the government directly paying the medical bills under regular Medicare. It is a much more efficient system. But under ObamaCare, many recipients will be forced off of Medicare Advantage (so much for “if you like your plan you can keep your plan”) and onto regular Medicare. Bad news for Obama: This was scheduled to happen three weeks before the election. So Obama found more than $83 billion worth of ObamaCare funds and announced a “demonstration project” that will keep these recipients on Medicare Advantage until after the election – hiding the truth from them just long enough for him to get their votes.
Force private citizens to provide free services to the government in time of “emergency.” There has been some overreaction to an executive order Obama signed in March, which seeks to mobilize national resources in time of emergency. It is not the onset of martial law as some have claimed, but there are some things to justify concern. For one thing, Obama claims the right to compel private citizens to provide consulting services to the government without compensation. Isn’t that the sort of thing Congress should have a say in? It also makes clear that this can only be implemented according to established rules, but then declares a rather troubling exception – unless determined otherwise by the president or his national security advisor! So Obama signed an executive order giving himself more power to make unilateral decisions. That is not right.
After ripping Bush for using technology to track potential criminals, do even more of it. The issue here might be hypocrisy as much as anything else. Perhaps you can make an argument for Obama’s move to track cell phone and Internet use to catch those suspected of involvement with genocide. This order, issued in April, is supposed to be focused on those in cahoots with the governments of Iran and Syria, although there’s at least the theoretical possibility it could be expanded to be used against American citizens. I’m not inclined to scream bloody murder over potential abuses of such power. But I remember a lot of people who were during the Bush presidency. One of them was Barack Obama.
Make recess appointments when there is no recess. Obama was highly critical of Bush for making recess appointments, in spite of the fact that such appointments are entirely constitutional. These are appointments a president makes when Congress is in recess. They don’t require Senate confirmation but automatically expire at the end of that congressional session. Bush made several of them to get around Democratic opposition to his choices. Obama denounced him for doing so. So guess what Obama has done? He announced a recess appointment to name Richard Cordray as the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – even though the Senate was not technically in recess.
Use the IRS to harass your political opponents. Would President Hope-and-Change do that? You bet he would. Despite protests on the House floor from more than 63 Republican congressmen, the IRS has been mailing letters to Tea Party chapters around the country demanding identification of all their volunteers and donors. This is outrageous. Even if there was an issue with their tax status, the IRS would have no reason to demand information like this. It’s pure and simple political harassment.
But that’s Barack Obama. He observes no limits to his own power because he thinks the preservation of said power is the most important thing he can ever do. When he protested Bush’s use of executive power, he was obviously 100 percent insincere. Now that the power is his, there is no way of using it that Obama believes is inappropriate.
This is a long ways from the “hope and change” business people bought in 2008. But that’s because the real Obama is a long ways from what he portrayed himself to be. There is no excuse for anyone to buy it again in 2012.
May 7, 2012
Remember when Democrats, including a certain senator named Barack Obama, used to scream that President George W. Bush was abusing his executive powers?
Those were the good old days!
Since becoming president, Obama has turned the abuse of executive power into a high art form – especially since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and rendered him incapable of getting the most extreme elements of his left-wing agenda through Congress.
Obama is especially brazen in his use of executive orders, and most astonishingly, he makes no bones about the fact that he does so – telling a gathering in Las Vegas last October, “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.”
In Obamaspeak, “dysfunctional” is a euphemism for “won’t give me everything I want.” So what are the big emergencies that require Obama to act on his own without congressional approval? Here are nine of the most egregious examples:
Force federal contractors to disclose their political contributions. This is an example of how the government can abuse its role in business relationships to do things it could never do in the normal course of governing. Lots of firms want to do business with the federal government. While Obama cannot get away with an executive order requiring everyone to tell him the candidates or causes they supported financially, he can make it a requirement for bidding on federal contracts. Once he knows where everyone’s political donation dollars go, who do you think has the best shot at the contracts? Exactly. And what else might he do with the information he gathers? Here’s one thing . . .
Publicly attack financial backers of Mitt Romney. In April, the Obama campaign launched a web site publicly naming, and attacking the integrity of, eight private citizens who contributed money to the Romney campaign. The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel reported that Obama accused these people of having shady reputations, making insinuations pertaining to things like outsourcing of jobs and foreclosures. Strassel rightly compared this tactic to Richard Nixon’s notorious “enemies list.” Obama may insist that he takes these actions as a candidate and not as president, but that is a load of crap. The fact is that he is president, and he is attacking private citizens for exercising their right to participate in the political process.
Require private companies to give unions employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Since the 1960s, the National Labor Relations Board has required private companies who are the target of a unionization effort to give unions the home addresses of their employees. That is bad as it is, but it’s not enough for Obama-appointed NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce, who told the Associated Press in January that he now wants the companies to also give the unions their employees’ home phone numbers and e-mail addresses. So they can harass them in even more ways. Why stop there? Why not just threaten to shut down operations entirely if they are not unionized? Since you mentioned it.
Let the NLRB threaten to shut down operations entirely if they are not unionized. You may have heard about this story from South Carolina. Boeing’s attempt to open a plant in South Carolina was frustrated for months by the NLRB, which filed a lawsuit against the South Carolina project only to drop it immediately after Boeing agreed to build its 737 Max jet using union labor in Reston, Washington. The NLRB is supposed to be an independent board, but under the control of Obama’s appointees it is used to blatantly do the bidding of labor unions.
Use ObamaCare money to hide the forcing of Medicare Advantage participants into regular Medicare. Medicare Advantage is the program in which participants are covered by private insurance for which the government pays the premiums, as opposed to the government directly paying the medical bills under regular Medicare. It is a much more efficient system. But under ObamaCare, many recipients will be forced off of Medicare Advantage (so much for “if you like your plan you can keep your plan”) and onto regular Medicare. Bad news for Obama: This was scheduled to happen three weeks before the election. So Obama found more than $83 billion worth of ObamaCare funds and announced a “demonstration project” that will keep these recipients on Medicare Advantage until after the election – hiding the truth from them just long enough for him to get their votes.
Force private citizens to provide free services to the government in time of “emergency.” There has been some overreaction to an executive order Obama signed in March, which seeks to mobilize national resources in time of emergency. It is not the onset of martial law as some have claimed, but there are some things to justify concern. For one thing, Obama claims the right to compel private citizens to provide consulting services to the government without compensation. Isn’t that the sort of thing Congress should have a say in? It also makes clear that this can only be implemented according to established rules, but then declares a rather troubling exception – unless determined otherwise by the president or his national security advisor! So Obama signed an executive order giving himself more power to make unilateral decisions. That is not right.
After ripping Bush for using technology to track potential criminals, do even more of it. The issue here might be hypocrisy as much as anything else. Perhaps you can make an argument for Obama’s move to track cell phone and Internet use to catch those suspected of involvement with genocide. This order, issued in April, is supposed to be focused on those in cahoots with the governments of Iran and Syria, although there’s at least the theoretical possibility it could be expanded to be used against American citizens. I’m not inclined to scream bloody murder over potential abuses of such power. But I remember a lot of people who were during the Bush presidency. One of them was Barack Obama.
Make recess appointments when there is no recess. Obama was highly critical of Bush for making recess appointments, in spite of the fact that such appointments are entirely constitutional. These are appointments a president makes when Congress is in recess. They don’t require Senate confirmation but automatically expire at the end of that congressional session. Bush made several of them to get around Democratic opposition to his choices. Obama denounced him for doing so. So guess what Obama has done? He announced a recess appointment to name Richard Cordray as the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – even though the Senate was not technically in recess.
Use the IRS to harass your political opponents. Would President Hope-and-Change do that? You bet he would. Despite protests on the House floor from more than 63 Republican congressmen, the IRS has been mailing letters to Tea Party chapters around the country demanding identification of all their volunteers and donors. This is outrageous. Even if there was an issue with their tax status, the IRS would have no reason to demand information like this. It’s pure and simple political harassment.
But that’s Barack Obama. He observes no limits to his own power because he thinks the preservation of said power is the most important thing he can ever do. When he protested Bush’s use of executive power, he was obviously 100 percent insincere. Now that the power is his, there is no way of using it that Obama believes is inappropriate.
This is a long ways from the “hope and change” business people bought in 2008. But that’s because the real Obama is a long ways from what he portrayed himself to be. There is no excuse for anyone to buy it again in 2012.
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