Why should you bother?

FreedomWorks has a great Top Ten list of reasons to oppose the stimulus. I learned another one at breakfast this morning: the bill contains various and sundry provisions that get us significantly closer to state-run health care. It does such things as provide the funding for the oversight board that Tom Daschele recommends in his health care manifesto.

Look, let's get something clear. It isn't that I and thousands of other conservatives are oppose a stimulus package of some kind. But I, along with thousands of others, am oppose to this so-called stimulus bill because it won't achieve real stimulus.

You want to stimulate the economy with targetted jobs programs, targetted handouts, and targetted tax cuts, fine. Let's have a debate about a bill focused on that. Let's set up benchmarks and let's set up a process and let's get it done.

But if you want to pass an overhaul to our health care system, make that a separate bill and let's have a debate on it. You want to give handouts to "green" energy sources and pick the winners and losers in the energy world, that's your perogative, but let's have a debate about. You want to give away money to Hollywood, pay to build (and furnish) a permanent home for Homeland Security, pay to renovate the Commerce building, or give lots of money to universities and other public institutions so long as they agree not to allow religiously affiliated groups to use their buildings, um, ok, but let's debate those things on their own merits in their own time. Let's not lump them all into an unrelated bill.

Passing this bloated bill is not the kind of change we were promised. This is taking all the bad things Democrats got mad at the Republicans for doing for years and multiplying it times ten. And this certainly is not stimulus. It's handouts to favored interests at the great expense of Real People.

Kill this bill. Start over. Do it right or don't do it.

Thank you for 2008, and some hope for 2009

For many people, 2008 ended with no more sentiment than "good riddance."  For me, it was bittersweet.  The now-finished year treated me well - my first full year of marriage to my wonderful wife; a (largely free) trip to Colorado, where I learned to ski and didn't die trying; hiking around in the Swiss Alps and even popping into France for breakfast; buying a house in a wonderful neighborhood where we actually know (and like!) the neighbors; continuing to grow and learn professionally with great colleagues; and so much more that to mention it would risk driving you away from these posts forever.

It wasn't all perfect.  The Braves disappointed us all (again).  Small-government conservatism was thrown under a TARP by the Bush administration and a new administration will likely not help bring it back, which leaves it to those of us who still espouse true conservative principles to continue to claw our way back.

For 2009, I continue to be optimistic that the Obama administration won't be a complete disaster, though I'm less enthused for what could come out of Congress.  I'm also optimistic about the economy - but only if government can stop meddling long enough to allow Real People to make some decisions for themselves.

As is the tradition for anyone with a modest case of punditry, I'll venture a few predictions for where we'll be on Jan 1, 2010:

• Obama will have 65%+ approval ratings, bolstered by nearly 50% approval among Republicans but hurt by the disappointment of the fringe Left
  
• The Big Three automakers will be the Big Two
  
• The Dow will be back to 10,000 but not to 11,000 yet.
  
• The Yankees (ug) will win the World Series; the Braves will pull in a modest yet still disappointing 3rd place in the NL East
  

That's all I got.

To everyone who made 2008 great, thank you.  I look forward to live, work, and play with you in 2009.

McCain is not the answer

If you watched McCain's debate performance last night you can't help but be a little fearful of the man. Several people have noted to me that Senators are endorsing him just because they're scared of him and don't want to deal with him on the Senate floor after he loses.

But other than his temper, we need to be worried about the ideals he holds. Would he be an excellent defender of our national security? Probably. But what about liberty? Free enterprise? James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal points to some things that had me worried in last night's debate as well:

Two of McCain's comments--"I did it out of patriotism, not for profit" and "sometimes people lost their jobs"--lead us to think that McCain's problem with economics goes beyond mere indifference. He seems to view the making of money--that is to say, the production of goods and services that people want, and the act of supplying them through voluntary exchange in a free market--as a less than honorable pursuit.

Post-Florida, it is very easy for a lazy voter to pick McCain. The media loves him and will tell you everything you need to know about how wonderful he is (you saw this in the debate last night, with regular banners at the bottom of the page while McCain was speaking letting viewers know you can read more about his economic plan or his defense plan or his other plans at CNN.com - but they never highlighted this on any other candidate that I saw).

But he isn't the answer to the Republican's problems. He talks a good game on defense, and I believe him. He talks a good game on spending, and he probably means it but who knows if he'll act. He voted against the tax cuts that have, until recently, kept the economy afloat. He limited the rights of inviduals to give to candidates through McCain-Feingold. He is zealously trying to regulate carbon and add layers of taxation on Real People through McCain-Lieberman. And he's mean, as he showed last night.

McCain is not the answer.

Populism and the election

The biggest threat to America? Populism, according to David Strom in a new article on Townhall.

Government policies have proven time and again capable of slowing economic growth, but with few exceptions they have never proven capable of stimulating the economy in the long term. Even policies that economic conservatives think of as "pro-growth," such as deregulation, tax cuts and reducing trade barriers are more accurately thought of as the removal of government-created barriers to growth than actual government stimulants to economic activity.

"The economy," simply put, is not manageable like a machine. It is dynamic, driven by the choices, actions, and desires of over 300 million Americans, and ultimately the billions of people around the world. However frustrating it is to think that our fortunes are hostage to the actions of people across the globe, there is almost nothing positive the government can do to change that fact. We all live on the same planet and are tapping into the same resources to better our lives. It is the inventiveness of individuals and firms that shape those resources into useful products and services that truly make up the economy.

That's a great assessment. Real People make the economy go, not government. We forget that pretty easily - and candidates forget it real fast.

Trust People

Joe Biden, the marginally better Democrat candidate for president than the frontrunners, has said something we support whole-heartedly.

Sen. Joe Biden said in an interview at the New Hampshire Union Leader yesterday that too many Democrats, including the frontrunners for the presidential nomination, do not have faith in the American people.

“We’ve got to trust the American people more,” Biden said.

“I think they’ve really lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them,” he said of his leading rivals.

When he asks groups of Democrats if they think the American people are stupid because they elected George W. Bush twice, most respond that, yes, they do, he said. He said he thinks that attitude is a real problem for the Democrats, who fail to understand how smart and pragmatic the American people really are.

Absolutely! And how do we trust people more? Well, we certainly don't mandate that they volunteer, as another presidential candidate suggests; we assume they have the goodness in their heart to do this on their own. We let them manage their Social Security money in the way they see best, whether that's a public or a private investment solution. We assume that people in local communities know more about managing their own affairs than people in far off places do. If people fail once, well, that happens, and if they fail over and over and over then maybe there's a place for government to step in.

But you're right, Joe. Step one is to trust Real People - instead of government. If a leading candidate makes that argument, and does so passionately, I don't see how that candidates can fail next year.

Voters choose fiscal restrain in New Jersey

A recent ballot measure in New Jersey asked voters whether they wanted to approve $450 million dollars in bonds to fund stem cell research in the state. Despite wide-spread support for stem cell research in the state, and despite a similar measure passing in California a few years back, voters rejected the measure. This quote from a political consultant for the pro-funding side sums it up well:

Mr. Oster said that although polls conducted in July, shortly after Mr. Corzine signed legislation placing the measure on the ballot, showed that nearly 7 in 10 New Jersey residents supported the research, organizers in favor of the bill also noted than barely 4 in 10 supported using state money to pay for it.

Newsflash to the GOP (and to politicans of all stripes) - Real People understand the need for financial restraint. They don't want their money wasted when there are private solutions available.

Statists would like us to believe that if the government, particularly the federal government, does not fund stem cell research then no one will. Research by the Reason Foundation from a couple years ago shows that is not true.

Already there is nearly $4 billion in private and state monies committed to stem-cell research over the next decade, with another three-quarters of a billion dollars under active consideration.

That's some real money. My guess is that money is going to be used more judiciously and have more results demanded of it than government money will, and that means cures sooner.

The real solution to outsourcing

I implore anyone of the mind that we are destroying our country and our future through out-sourcing, free trade, or mechanization of industries to read this blog post by Russ Roberts, economics professor at George Mason University. The super-abbreviated conclusion:

Preserving manufacturing jobs for their own sake is the road to stagnation.

The natural forces of competition and self-interest are encouraging manufacturing workers to get more education and find new work.

Russ really brings to life a lot of the benefits of outsourcing and trade. Yes, there are short-term pains, but those are exponentially off-set by the long-term gains - gains not just for the economy, but for Real People. (and Russ is one of the best in the business at connecting the abstract ideas of free-market thought to the lives of Real People)

How do we continue to grow the economy through free trade? First, let's agree that freer trade will lead to significant benefits for the next generation, and in many cases the current one after a number of years.

Second, let's be honest about the near-term challenges (and near-term could be months as easily as it could be years) such as job loses and shrinking towns, creatively exploring both temporary fixes like unemployment payments, continuing education grants as well as longer-term changes, such as moving away from defined benefit pensions and more towards ownership of our retirement through defined contribution plans.

Finally, let new industries grow organically while old ones fall away without intervention from government. If government tries to pick winners in the new economy or to save the losers by subsidizing their diminished existence, we are all the worse for it.

Leave the Beltway

"Hi. How things with you today"

Why is this little kid talking to me while I'm pumping gas? He's only about 10, but maybe he's trying to hassle me. But better respond. "Doin' fine.".

But what if he's just nice?

Well, he was. I had a nice chat with the little boy who starts back to Atlanta schools next week. He even complimented by business attire.

How nice it is to be out of the Washington beltway to a land where people are nice just because that's the way they were raised to be.

Right now, our Congressional reps are out of the Beltway in their home districts. I hope that while they're there they will be reminded of the Real People - the nice, salt-of-the-earth people - that are out there hoping that they don't spend there time in Washington screwing things up too much.

Encouraging news

A surprisingly positive op-ed piece about the War in Iraq appeared in yesterday's New York Times. The authors, two senior policy guys from the left-leaning Brookings institute, are exceptionally candid in their assessment:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were
surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

They conclude with this advice:

But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

This is, of course, not the message that Congressional Democrats want to hear. Now that we're moving into the August Congressional recess (where the Congressmen go home and pretend to be Real People for a few weeks) without a bill with layman's opinions on how to proceed in Iraq, maybe we will actually be able to bide our time until the long-awaited September report from General Patreaus on the progress of the Surge campaign and make a real assessment of how to proceed there.

Conservative alternative lifestyles

The buzzword on the left nowadays is "tolerance" for those with different lifestyles--like cross-dressers--but almost everything that these folks want to do, liberals won't tolerate. One smoker lamented that if "gays were discriminated against today the way smokers are, there would be an uproar." Gun owners have reason to be fearful too. In a recent blog interview on Moveon.org, John Edwards of North Carolina proclaimed that health care, child care, a livable wage and a clean environment are "rights," but owning a gun is a "privilege." The men and women who gathered in Kiowa would like to send him a copy of the Constitution.

I suspect that if liberals would loosen their puritan collars and start showing real tolerance of conservative "alternative lifestyles," they'd be having more fun too.

Read all of Steve Moore's Wall Street Journal article. A great jolt of perspective in a politically correct world.

The Bridge to A Better Place

I'm not a fan of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). I think he is indicative of all that has gone wrong with the Republican party. His continued defense of pork-barrel spending, particularly the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, has degraded the trust Real People have in the Republican party's claim at being the party of limited government.

Club for Growth has a new poll out showing that people in Stevens' own home state may be ready for a change to someone a little more principled. The Club's poll shows 66% of likely Republican voters in Alaska disapprove of the Bridge to Nowhere earmark, and an amazing 71% agreed indicate that want a candidate "who wants to cut overall federal spending, even if that includes cutting some money that would come to Alaska."

People are notorious for lying in polls of course, but let's hope this is outside of the margin-of-lying-error and some brave, fiscally sound conservative will step up to challenge Stevens in his next campaign.

Why limited government?

There is a post at Red State this morning that discusses where American conservatism goes once George Bush leaves office. The author focuses on two points, one being the need for a renewed emphasis on limited government and the other being a healthier skepticism towards engaging in war.

Now a philosophy of limited government is not the same as a philosophy of principled anti-statism. Limited government need not be impotent or feckless government. Nor should an American Conservative imagine this his native political tradition embraces rigid hostility to the state. Skepticism of the state is the more native posture. But over the last decade or so, the trend has been exactly in the opposite direction. Libertarians and anti-statists and fiscal Conservatives have howled and hurled their imprecations against the growth of the state; and all the while elected Republicans, often professed men of the Right, have expanded its scope and influence.

Beyond just believing these things again, conservatives have to be able to sell this idea. Limited government isn't just lip service - it's a BIG idea. It says that individuals - you and me and even that guy that you don't really - best know how to conduct their lives rather than government.

To me, this idea comes down to trust. Trust is what keeps our society moving. Without trust, our free market society falls apart, because a market economy requires that we trust a lot of people every day in a myriad of interactions. The more we ask government to take care of, though, the less we are required to exert our own trust in other people - we divert all our trust to government to keep us safe in our cars and make sure we get the proper amount of change at the grocery store, instead of trusting others in the same situations to do right. Worse, we watch our own ability to be trusting slip away, as we let our own accountability acquiesce to government.

The idea of limited government says that government does indeed have a place in building trust, but that a lot of things are up to individuals to handle. Limited government gives a framework in which to act freely - big government gives specifics rules for action that ultimately hinder progress (even when they seem really really helpful in the short-term).

We need to shift more and more of our trust for making societal progress away from government and back to the people we interact with every day. It's hard, because ground-up progress by Real People takes longer than top-down progress. Just because something's hard, though, doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

Economics of cats

The wife has been pleading for us to get a cat for some time now, and when she brings it up I have continued to refuse, laugh it off, find, a compelling argument for limiting the number of creatures in our home, or find something very important to deal with on the bottom of my shoe.

Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution seems to take her side, though, from a strictly economic point of view.

Fertile Ground

In 2002, if you had randomly selected one hundred politically conservative adults in America (none from the same families), you would have found, between them, 212 children. If you had selected a hundred liberal adults, they would have had 156 children. This gap is primarily caused by religious differences and marriage patterns.

That's from Arthur Brooks' truly excellent book, Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide, in the section on how families and upbringing play into how charitable we are. Conservatives are more charitable in general, and this particular sentence illustrates how it is easier for conservatives to pass down charitable traits to new generations - there are simply more of them to pass it down to.

This statistic suggests there is an increasing number of people who are predisposed to a conservative message. Why, then, do Republicans, the partisan torch-bearer for rightward-thinking individuals, not have a permanent lock on elections?

I think it has less to do with ideas and more to do with personalities. When Real People conservatives see their politicians selling out conservative principles, the party label begins to stand for nothing.

I think this is the hole the GOP currently has to climb its way out of. Unfortunately, I am not yet convinced that the GOP establishment realizes it is in this hole.

Are we looking at immigration the wrong way?

Russ Roberts asks in his blog today if we are being distracted by an unimportant argument in the immigration debate, which is that that, no matter what, illegal immigrants are here illegally. He cites a Boston Globe article that makes the case that "Illegal immigrants don't steal across the Mexican border because they lack the patience to wait their turn in line. They do it because there is no line for them to wait in."

That's not entirely true, but it certainly isn't a smooth, efficient line in which to wait. Russ Roberts expands on the point with a practical example:

For me, an illegal immigrant who comes here to work is like a father speeding to the hospital to get his son medical care. When he arrives, the hospital could say: I'm sorry, I wish we could take care of your kid, but you broke the law on the way over here. You were speeding.

In other words, some actions deemed as "illegal" don't always have nefarious ends in mind. Certainly Real People that come illegally because they want to support their family - and are unable to do so in their home country due to weak and unstable governments and economies - are making a rational choice that needs to be weighed on its merit, not dismissed outright. Rule of law is important...but does it have its limits?

The immigration debate is difficult because it so often greeted with knee-jerk responses. Articles and posts like those referenced above, despite whether you agree with it or not, remind us that this is a much more nuanced debate that many would like to believe.

Ah, Ireland

My best friend Evans is getting married in Ireland on Monday. AB and I are taking a quick jaunt across the ocean to be there (as I am the best man), and we leave tomorrow.

They are, cleverly, keeping a blog of their journeys while there, which serves to only get me more excited about returning to the Emerald Isle. This is from a post from earlier today by Evans' bride-to-be, and it reminds me of why Ireland is such a lovely place:

On the way up the coast, we stopped by a little cafe for sandwiches and soup -- the sign said that they served sandwiches and soup-- but when Evans went inside, it wasn't a cafe at all, but a little old lady's ACTUAL HOUSE!! And, she heated us up some beef vegetable soup, and made Evans a ham and cheese sandwich, and we chatted while we warmed up with some delicious hot soup and it was WONDERFUL! If that was in the U.S., we'd be like, "Uh, no, I think I'll pass on your soup, crazy old lady..."

This is the kind of things that Real People can do when the social fabric hasn't been worn down by crime and abuse. There must be places like this here in the States. Can anyone name some?

Getting Away

Ann Bailey and I escaped to a small reunion of sorts at the home of friends in Richmond this weekend. I don't think we've been so relaxed in weeks. Being away from the hustle and flow of the city is remarkably curative to one's psyche.

What was so relaxing? Seeing friends that I haven't seen in a while is always nice, and they have a lovely home with a terrific deck looking out into their wooded lot. The guys went and hit golf balls at the driving range for a bit, the girls got pedicures, we all played board games, we sipped drinks and ate too much.

The key thing, though, was the conversation. We talked about the things that I imagine Real People talk about in their lives outside of the Washington Beltway - their dogs and homes, the hapless lovelife of mutual friends, our golf game and its deficiencies. We had one serious discussion - on whether true grilling was done over coals or gas.

We skirted politics, because no one cared, and we weren't required to pretend like we cared. Life, for a day, was about the moment, about being together, not about defending our hallowed political ground or being politically correct.

Maybe I'm just become jaded to life in Washington. This weekend was a good reminder that, if that's the case, there's a cure out there.