How We Can Fix Our Economic Problems

As the financial world continues to burn, what we hear from Mr. Obama is only more of the same, that the Government needs to spend, spend, spend. He calls it investment, but what he really means is spending. While I cannot disagree with incentives for hiring returning veterans, they have risked their lives to defend us, the rest of Mr. Obama's strategy for curing unemployment hasn't worked up to now, and there is absolutely no reason to believe it will work in the future. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got, it is as simple as that.

I listened to a psychologist the other day compare the Tea Party to addicts. Knowing a little something about addiction myself, I had to laugh. It is plain that this Administration is addicted to an Ideology. Everyone with a rudimentary understanding of free market economic theory knows what is necessary to jump start our economy and put America back to work, but Mr. Obama and his crowd are deeply rooted in the river of denial that their program of excessive regulation and deficit spending will one day work if they just do enough of it.

Allan Meltzer, award winning professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute recently commented that new regulations such as Obama's healthcare bill and Dodd-Frank financial reform have "exacerbated enormously" the uncertain feeling gripping corporate leaders. "How else are you going explain why there's all this cash and so little investment?," he asks. "The reason is they don't know what the rate of return on that investment is going to be."

According to the American Action Forum “at the current pace, the total regulatory burden for the year will exceed $108.5 billion, with more than 900 major regulations.”

While it may be popular in some circles to blame our economic woes on private jet owners, oil companies and millionaires, the fact is that uncertainty about tax and regulatory policy are stemming the tide of investment in our nation.

There is a Presidential candidate who gets it. There is a candidate who understands that the way to get our economy moving again is to reform our tax code. A candidate who favors an immediate cut across the board in tax rates, reducing the capital gains tax, suspending taxes on repatriated profits, and eliminating the death tax permanently.

This candidate knows that the over extension of regulatory burdens including the new health care law are impeding business growth by increasing the cost of hiring and of doing business. The crushing weight of over-regulation is killing our economy. While he understands the absolute need for clean water, air, and the importance of conservation, this candidate knows that common sense can be brought to the regulatory process. He understands that there is a point of diminishing return beyond which the gains achieved pale in comparison to the costs of achieving those gains.

There is a candidate that understands sometimes people fall on hard times, but what they need is a hand up, not a hand out. He knows the we must care for those in our nation who truly cannot care for themselves, but that empowering people to care for themselves is truly the compassionate way to help them help themselves.

We can elect a candidate who has not only balanced a budget, but turned a profit. A candidate who knows how to get things done, who has experience taking a failed entity and turning it around. We can elect a candidate who knows the meaning of meeting a payroll, who knows how to calculate the cost of hiring an employee, who knows how the federal reserve works, and what is broken inside it. We can elect a candidate who came from nothing, who followed the American dream and succeeded, and wants the dream to be available to all Americans.

We can elect that candidate. That candidate is Herman Cain!

The Key to Our Future

Current debt ceiling issues aside, probably THE most important issue facing our country for our long term future is education. Since we are busy enslaving our children for the next century, we had better make sure they learn how to think. Currently, we have an ever increasing indoctrination system which is failing our children miserably.

President Obama's Race to the Top boondoggle is a $4.35 billion competitive grant program for States, that seeks to encourage public schools to develop new ways to raise standards and measure achievement for both teachers and students in elementary and secondary schools. What it seems to have accomplished, in typical liberal “unintended consequences style” is to encourage teachers and administrators to cheat. Recently it was discovered that in 80% of Atlanta Georgia's schools, teachers and administrators were falsifying standardized tests in order to meet Race to the Top standards and qualify for grants. That was followed by the revelation that 40 school districts and 9 charter schools in Pennsylvania are being investigated for cheating. In addition more than 1,000 school districts are suspect nationwide.

In 2004 the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program came into being. It provided $7,500.00 scholarships to 3300 impoverished students in the DC area so they could attend private schools. This highly successful program increased graduation rates among its students by at least 21%. When the program came up for re-authorization in 2009, it passed the Congress but was defeated in the Senate along mostly partisan lines. The Washington Examiner said of Mr. Obama's opposition to the program;

“Many parents of children in troubled schools have already chosen the same option that Obama chose for his own children. They've enrolled them in the best private schools in the country.

Not every American parent, though, has the financial resources that the President and members of Congress have. And in places like the District of Columbia, where less than half of public school students ever graduate, the need for immediate assistance and a radically new paradigm is urgent. Yet, many D.C. parents and their children have grown disillusioned by the President's refusal to honor promises already made.

In the spring of 2009, 216 students received letters stating they had been selected to receive the opportunity scholarship. Within weeks, however, the administration rescinded those offers. Republicans tried to allow for the ongoing enrollment of new students.

Democrats, however, opposed the measure and established an effective sunset for the program once the existing awards ran out. And this despite overwhelming evidence of the scholarship's success.”

So much for “Racing to the Top”. Obama's strong support for the National Education Association would not allow him to support a highly successful school choice program, and instead forced the children he claims to want to help back into the hell holes of the DC school system. If it is so good, why don't his children go there?

This is the same NEA that voted down merit pay for teachers on July 6th of this year. What we hear from the NEA and from the Democrats in Washington is that what is needed to fix education is more money, less sugary desserts and no chocolate milk. Hogwash! Utah, one of the few states in the union with a real school choice program, has above average scores in math, science and reading, even though they spend less per student than any other state in the country, $6,612.00 in 2009. Washington DC third only to New York and New Jersey, spends $16,582.00 per student and has scores well below the national average in all categories. Money alone is not the answer. (figures from the National Center for Educational Statistics)

Who then, shall we choose to lead on educational issues in 2012? We need a person who can think outside the big national education union box when it comes to teaching our children. We need someone who knows the value of education, and who knows that the best opportunities come when control is local and incentive is provided to educators. Our next President must understand how absolutely VITAL it is for our future as a country, that our children learn to read, write, understand mathematics and science!

Herman Cain is that man. Mr. Cain understands the need to weaken the Department of Education, and push control back to the States and local school boards where it belongs. He knows that huge one size fits all programs like No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top simply do not work, because one size fits all, doesn't. It is always too large.

Herman Cain understands that when concerned parents are given a choice, they will choose the best education they can for their children and that when schools have to compete for students, the quality of all schools is elevated. He knows that when parents can choose what school their child attends, they tend to be more involved in the school itself, and in their children's education. That benefits everyone.

He believes that most teachers have a genuine passion for educating their students, and should be rewarded for their efforts, based on their merit rather than their seniority. He understands the bureaucracies that overburden teachers with paperwork and restrictions which hamper their ability to shine in the school environment. By unbundling the school system from the National Department of Education, he seeks to set educators free to use their skills and innovation to educate the leaders of tomorrow, our children. He also knows that the schools and teachers need to be held accountable, and that this is better done on a local and State level than by a leviathan in Washington DC.

For the long term, for the future of our country, and for the future of our children, we need a leader who knows what it takes to provide a world class education for our youth, to once again bring our nation to the forefront of science, technology and the arts, and to once again have the best educated high school and college graduates in the world!

That man is Herman Cain!

Herman Cain vs. Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann is a wonderful person. She is strongly conservative. Fiscally, her position is clearly on the side of balancing the budget. She has led the fight against Obamacare. She is intelligent, thoughtful and caring. As far as policy goes, she is Tea Party all the way. I believe Mrs Bachmann and Herman Cain are relatively equal on the issues. If she were to win the GOP nomination, I would have to vote for her in the general election. The problem I have with Mrs. Bachmann, and the reason I prefer Mr. Cain, is one of debate ability. I don't mean that we should debate it, I mean the Michele Bachmann, for all her wonderful qualities, just isn't a very good debater. She seems to get stuck on a single point, and when questioned, even though she is correct, she seems to leave herself nowhere to go. Often she simply repeats the same point, using the same words. It looks like she is avoiding the question, or just repeating “talking points”.

Last Sunday, I watched Bob Schieffer from CBS, make Mrs. Bachmann look like she didn't know what she was talking about. He brought up the fact that she had said the Obama Administration had issued only one oil drilling permit since the BP oil spill, and that in fact they had issued almost 300. He failed to mention that when she made that statement, she was talking about deep water drilling permits. He continued to berate her, stopping short only of calling her a liar. Mrs. Bachmann stammered and sputtered and said she stood by her statement. If I were an uninformed viewer, I would have been left with the impression that she didn't have her facts straight. She could have easily defused the situation if she had only said that she was talking about deep water drilling permits, for on that point, she is 100% correct. The Administration HAS issued about 37 shallow water permits, and some land permits, but the original statement she made was about deep water drilling permits. Sadly, when she had the chance to put Schieffer in his place, she failed to do so even though she was correct. I know she is a busy woman, but whether she doesn't have broad enough knowledge about a subject, or just isn't able to think fast enough on her feet to bring that knowledge forth, I don't know. On the subject of abolition, she said the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to abolish slavery. When asked incredulously, which of them worked against slavery, she stated correctly John Quincy Adams had. Though he might not fit the definition of Founding Father by some, he certainly was present in the fledgling government when our constitution was drafted; he was an ambassador at the time. There were others she could have mentioned. Dickinson, for one. She could have explained the 3/5ths clause, which was designed to make sure the slave states would not be over represented in congress. With that clause the abolitionists assured themselves a fighting chance to draft future law to do away with the practice. Instead she back peddled, fumbled around a bit, and came up with a line about John Quincy Adams being a boy at the time. Again she was factually correct, but the media, skillful as they are, made her look like she doesn't have a firm grasp on the facts.

What I do know, from watching, is that Herman Cain is masterful at debate craft. I watched Juan Williams interview Mr. Cain on Monday. Mr Williams asked Cain what he thought about Michele Bachmann's entry into the race in a gotcha manner. Mr. Cain was not only able to get Williams to concede the point, but Cain had him laughing in agreement in a matter of seconds. For passion, stance on the relevant issues, like-ability and background, I can fault neither. Both would make stellar Presidents in my humble opinion. The problem is getting elected. We must have a candidate with the skill of Ronald Reagan when it comes the media. Herman Cain has that skill. This is a man who got Bill Clinton to admit he was wrong about Hillary-Care's impact on small business. Bill CLINTON! Mr. “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is,” Bill Clinton. Herman Cain is rock solid on the issues, a wonderful speech maker, an intelligent businessman, and he knows how to take on the main stream media and make them look like the silly ones. Herman Cain is the man we need to nominate for the GOP candidate!