My Beauty Best Teacher

Why has the internet been so successful? Because it has been largely unregulated. That's kind of the secret to creating wealth in society- you let all the greatness of man shine through in an unregulated environment. Sure, there is a lot of bad stuff that goes along with it (cyber-stalking, porn, etc), but on the whole, the internet has been very successful on many different levels. It reminds me of what happened after telephones were deregulated (the explosion of cellphones and now iPhones and Blackberries) or the continued success of the virtually unregulated soda pop market (which Obama and Democrats in Congress have just began to attack).

But if there is one thing that we have learned about Democrats during their control of our governmental institutions over the last couple years is that what Democrats do is find successful, thriving, profitable areas of the economy and kill them with taxes, regulation, and government oversight. America's health care system is about to severely drop in quality while becoming considerably more expensive now that the Democrats are going to regulate it more than it already was (and health care was already expensive, inefficient, and not top quality because of heavy government regulations). The Democrat's cap and trade scam will be the final nail in the coffin for manufacturing.

But what about the internet? Surely Democrats, who have pretended to care about free speech such that idiot social libertarians voted for them, would not attack the internet with regulations and taxes? Didn't we have to live with the screeching by social liberals who were afraid that it was the Republican Bush who was going to do this for years... for 8 years... and yet never did? Via RedState:

Last week FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and his fellow Democrats decided to take a significant step toward gaining that control by opening for public comment their proposed changes to Internet regulation. The FCC currently classifies Internet service providers as information services, which prohibits significant government regulation. Genachowski seeks to classify them as telecommunications services, which would give the FCC a much stronger regulatory hand. This change of classification would likely result in strict government regulation of the Internet, despite the Chairman’s promise to rule – er… regulate with a “light touch”. Combine that with May’s draft report from the Federal Trade Commission considering such options as rewriting copyright law to favor of print media, creating a “journalism” division of AmeriCorps, or taxing Internet devices to support newspapers, and the future doesn’t look particularly rosy for all things Internet related.

This is scary stuff. In case you haven't noticed, my blog has gone after Democrats pretty hard, exposing their various schemes to violate my freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. I'm pretty sure that Obama and the Democrats in Congress feel that I am not a 'legitimate' journalistic enterprise, and thus don't get 1st amendment rights, and so will shut me down once they gain control of the internet. I'm pretty sure that a 'light touch' will mean that I'll be slapped down, junk lawsuits will be filed against me, I'll have to pay some sort of tax for maintaining a site on the interent, or some other slimy Democrat plot will work to further deprive me of my god-given rights.

Oh, I know, the leftists were all worried that Bush was going to do this, but Bush never even got as far as Obama has, and Bush was at it for 8 years and Obama has only been ruling us like the tyrant that he is for less than 2 years. Imagine what will happen if the Democrats keep control of the House and Senate for another 2 years because you didn't do anything to support the Republican candidates for Congress. We're stuck with Obama for 2 more years, but he can't continue to rule unchecked like this, where he believes in all his hubris that he has the legitimate power to control the internet.

Last week I wrote in my post Lessons from Economic Recessions- Introduction and Great Depression:

History teaches lessons- it allows those of us in the present to see how results in the past worked. Economic recessions are a great teaching tool for policy makers and average citizens, because they teach us how the recession may have happened and how to emerge from the recession and therefore inform us as to the policy actions that we must take and those that we as citizens must support.

In that post, I talked about the lessons from the Great Depression. The lessons that I drew from the Great Depression are based though not on just data from that event, but from other recessions that our nation has entered and exited. Most liberals simply say 'government spending got us out of the Great Depression', but when I ask them about all of the other recessions that the United States entered, they have a blank look, as they do not have any knowledge of other recessions or how we emerged from them as a nation.

One of my friends in the media should try this sometime- ask a liberal policy maker- President Barack Obama, or Nancy Pelosi, or Carl Levin, or Debbie Stabenow, or Gary Peters- ask them what lessons they have personally learned from the Great Depression. I am sure they will roll off some long-winded answer that sounds educated and learned but basically boils down to 'spend more money.' Follow-up that question with a question on what lessons they learned from the Depression of 1920-21, or The Panic of 1907, or the Long Depression of 1873–79, and you'll be sure to get blank looks from these policy makers, as they don't have any knowledge about those recessions and have learned no lessons from them. They might even snap back some response to you about how unimportant it is to learn about other recessions- but they are wrong, because if you only draw your lessons on economic policy from one recession, the Great Depression, and your lessons are wrong at that, than you are sure to be wrong about very big and important policy decisions that have real effects on our nation.

Of course, my blog should not be the source for your education- I would advise you to spend some real time studying some real economists- but at least the knowledge that I display here and the lessons that I draw here are likely more educated than those of the above policy-makers, including our Harvard-trained President of the United States. So let's discuss today the The Forgotten Depression of 1920.

The Depression of 1920–21, which was an extremely sharp deflationary recession in the United States that lasted from January 1920 to July 1921, which at 18 months in duration is longer than any of the recessions after WWII, and which saw a GDP decrease of anywhere from 3% to 7%. The recession of 1920–21 was characterized by extreme deflation- anywhere from 13% to 18% — the largest one-year percentage decline in around 140 years of data. Unemployment jumped anywhere from 4 to 6% in one year, the AT&T Index of Industrial Productivity showed a decline of 29.4%, and stocks fell dramatically during the recession. It was a very bad recession that led many in society to question the stability and future of the American system of capitalism.

At the time, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — later President Hoover- urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover, as we all know now, was a progressive Republican who believed that active government response by government officials who were smarter than the rest of us could shorten a recession and led to economic growth. Hoover advocated the same policy responses in 1920 that he implemented in 1929- increased spending by the government, increased taxes especially on the evil rich, increased regulation of businesses, bailouts for banks and 'too big to fail' companies, continued support to labor unions, and more government agencies and boards to organize and improve our existing economic system.

As you can see, the responses that Hoover advocated in 1920 and implemented in 1929 are very nearly the same policies that President Obama implemented in 2009. The results of these policies are seen today and were seen in 1929- but not in 1920 because President Warren Harding ignored Hoover and did the exact opposite as what he recommended. Whereas Hoover pushed for more government spending, Harding decreased it; when Hoover wanted more regulation, Harding put in place less; for every board of smart elites that Hoover proposed to control human action, Harding cut boards and agencies so that the common man could be more free; and Harding ignored demands to raise taxes and instead slashed taxes.

The result of Harding's more conservative approach to the severe recession of 1920-1921? The recession ended quickly and ushered in an amazing period of robust economic activity the continued throughout the 1920's as Harding and Coolidge continued conservative policies. It is no surprise that the limited government, balanced budget, low taxes, low regulation, and unleashing of human freedom led to the Roaring Twenties, an amazing period in American history of social, artistic, and economic dynamism, while the active government, increased taxes, massive government spending, and more regulation of the progressive Hoover and liberal Roosevelt led to the Great Depression.

Thomas E. Woods (author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, and Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse) recently wrote a great post on this subject called The Forgotten Recession- I advise you to read the whole article, but here are several important pieces of it:

...It is hardly necessary to point out that Harding's counsel — delivered in the context of a speech to a political convention, no less — is the opposite of what the alleged experts urge upon us today. Inflation, increased government spending, and assaults on private savings combined with calls for consumer profligacy: such is the program for "recovery" in the 21st century.

Not surprisingly, many modern economists who have studied the depression of 1920–1921 have been unable to explain how the recovery could have been so swift and sweeping even though the federal government and the Federal Reserve refrained from employing any of the macroeconomic tools — public works spending, government deficits, and inflationary monetary policy — that conventional wisdom now recommends as the solution to economic slowdowns. The Keynesian economist Robert A. Gordon admitted that "government policy to moderate the depression and speed recovery was minimal. The Federal Reserve authorities were largely passive.… Despite the absence of a stimulative government policy, however, recovery was not long delayed."...

...There was nothing at all unusual about the pattern of American wealth in the 1920s. Far greater disparities have existed in countless times and places without any resulting disruption.

In fact, the Great Depression actually came in the midst of a dramatic upward trend in the share of national income devoted to wages and salaries in the United States — and a downward trend in the share going to interest, dividends, and entrepreneurial income. We do not in fact need the violent expropriation of any American in order to achieve prosperity, thank goodness...

...Harding's inchoate understanding of what was happening to the economy and why grandiose interventionist plans would only delay recovery is an extreme rarity among 20th-century American presidents. That he has been the subject of ceaseless ridicule at the hands of historians, to the point that anyone speaking a word in his favor would be dismissed out of hand, speaks volumes about our historians' capabilities outside of their own discipline.

The experience of 1920–1921 reinforces the contention of genuine free-market economists that government intervention is a hindrance to economic recovery. It is not in spite of the absence of fiscal and monetary stimulus that the economy recovered from the 1920–1921 depression. It is because those things were avoided that recovery came. The next time we are solemnly warned to recall the lessons of history lest our economy deteriorate still further, we ought to refer to this episode — and observe how hastily our interrogators try to change the subject....

Read the whole article- the logic, the understanding, the theories, and the explanation are all in there, and go into economic terms and theories that I am only beginning to gain an understanding of.

The lessons that I drew regarding the Great Depression are supported by the lessons that one can learn from the Recession of 1920-1921- that economic recessions are worsened and lengthened by a government that takes away human liberty, treats people as numbers to manage, takes wealth and property from those who have earned it, and that in every other way violates the Founding Principles of our nation (limited government, federalism, and separation of power). It is up to policy makers to learn those lessons and to vote accordingly on future legislation facing our nation.

Keep reading my blog regularly for future posts on this subject, and I continue becoming educated and drawing lessons from other past economic recessions that our nation faced and overcome.

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

History teaches lessons- it allows those of us in the present to see how results in the past worked. Economic recessions are a great teaching tool for policy makers and average citizens, because they teach us how the recession may have happened and how to emerge from the recession and therefore inform us as to the policy actions that we must take and those that we as citizens must support.

The problem is though that policymakers and citizens really only have learned about one historical economic recession, The Great Depression, and the lessons that they have been learned regarding this recession are usually the wrong lessons. There are other recessions that our nation has battled through and the lessons we can learn from them may be more instructive to policy makers and average citizens, especially in light of the current Obama recession.

The version of the Great Depression that most Americans learn is that unregulated capitalism, free trade, lax regulation, and unequal distribution of wealth led to a massive collapse of our economy in 1929, then President Hoover did nothing to intervene and help, and our nation didn't recover until FDR actively and aggressively acted with his New Deal policies of massive spending, massive debt, massive regulation, and massive changes to the American system. The problem with this version of history, and the lessons that it teaches, is that it is almost wholly false.

The Great Depression resulted from government policies- the Federal Reserve messing with rates, the regulations and taxes from the Wilson administration, etc- combined with restrictive trade policies and the collapse of a major economic power (Germany), which resulted in a recession in 1929. President Hoover then acted in a very active and ultimately destructive manner, increasing spending, regulation, and activity by the government, resulting in the recession deepening and lasting until 1932. FDR took these mistakes and expanded on them and enlarged them, and the result was that a real recovery never took place and rather the nation dropped into another recession (1937), leading us to just lump this whole time period together as the 'Great Depression.' Although the world war helped mask many of our economic problems, it wasn't until the death of FDR and the ending of his policies that our nation began to recover in any real economic normal sense, and wealth began to be created again. This is a closer version of events, with entirely different sets of lessons to learn.

But don't take my word for it- check out the following books to become more educated on the Great Depression- America's Great Depression, Great Myths of the Great Depression (this one is great- only $2, a dozen pages, and a great gift for any history teacher to receive), or Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.

In my next post I'll address other economic recessions and the lessons to learn from them.

The last time our nation had such a progressive President was back when FDR ran the US through the Great Depression, and not surprisingly, that's the last time we had a recession last this long and this deep. It was during the 1930's that communism and fascism were popular around the world. And it was during this time when the Republicans were discredited by the trauma of the stock market collapse and the start of the Depression, and so Democrats under FDR could put in place all of their progressive policies.

At one time, I thought the 1930's were at the root of all that is wrong about America, and compiled a list of all of the laws and taxes and liberal decisions passed during that time. For history's sake, here is that list:

Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI), 1936
Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI), 1929
Horse Race Wagering Tax, (MI), 1933
Sales Tax (MI), 1933
Use Tax (MI), 1937
Beer Tax (MI), 1933
Wine Tax (MI), 1933
Intangibles Tax (MI), 1939
Commercial Forest Tax (MI), 1925
Gasoline Tax (MI), 1925
Diesel Fuel Tax (MI), 1947
Motor Carriers Privilege Tax (MI), 1923
Aviation Gasoline Tax (MI), 1929
Aircraft Weight Tax (MI), 1923
Employment Security Act (MI), 1936
Social Security Act (USA), 1935
Wagner-Peyser Act (USA), 1933
Fair Labor Standards Act (USA), 1938
US v Miller (US Supreme Court), 1939
National Firearms Act (USA), 1934
Federal Reserve Act (USA), 1913
Motor Carrier Act (MI), 1933
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA), 1930
Crime Control Laws (USA), 1934
Hoover Tax Hike (USA), 1932
Amendment 16 (USA), 1913
Amendment 17 (USA), 1913
Baron-Davis Act (USA), 1931
National Labor Relations Act (USA), 1935
Walsh-Healy Act (USA), 1936
Copeland Act (USA), 1934
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (USA), 1938
Michigan Labor Unions, Act 176 of 1939 (MI), 1939
Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI), 1921
Insurance Regulation, Act 66 (MI), 1933
Regulation of Hospitals, Act 108/109 (MI), 1939
Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day, 1939
Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI), 1927
Liquor Control Act, PA 8 (MI), 1933
Sidewalk Regulation, Act 246 (MI), 1931
Government ownership of sewers, Act 316 (MI), 1931
US moves off gold standard, 1933
Ownership of private gold now a crime, 1933
State Printing Act, Act 153 (MI), 1937

Look through that list and think of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly). What the heck happened to allow that? The rise and influence of communism and fascism? Trauma from WWI? Some sort of generational cycle? Did something happen to the children in 1900 so they were fools when they came to power in the 1930's? Was it just Great Depression freak out? The lack of expansion of our borders? The rise and feminization of society? Some new invention? A religious movement? Something in the water? Email me if you have any theories.

UPDATE: Also add Reapportionment Act of 1929 to the list.

States are laboratories of democracy. That phrase is not just a pretty sounding phrase- it actually has meaning, because states around our nation employ all sorts of different policies and we as a society can see the results of those policies by looking at the results in different states. For example, some states adopt policies that you might call more conservative- lower taxes, less regulation of businesses (whether the regulation is for safety, consumers, or the environment), stronger private property rights, a push for self-employment, an emphasis on family values, more freedoms in the workplace, etc. Other states adopt policies that you could call more liberal- higher taxes (to provide more revenue to the state), more regulation of businesses (for safety, consumer protection, environment, etc), more powers for the state to confiscate or control private property, more generous welfare policies, emphasis on the freedom to choose abortions and drugs, union protections, etc. Through the beauties of federalism, different states can adopt different policies.

And over time, we can measure the results of those policies. You can measure them many ways- domestic GDP growth, happiness, health, crime, etc- all of which have demonstrated that states that are run by conservative Republicans tend to do better than liberal Democrats. But one measure that should also be considered is population changes. You see, if people don't like where they live, if they can't find a job where they live, if they are unhappy where they live, if they don't see a future for their families where they live- then they move. And the evidence points towards people moving from liberal states to conservative states.

The Next Right analyzes the data and pulls out a couple of interesting trends:

• Avg tax top marginal income rate in states gaining a Congressional seat: 2.8%.
• Avg tax top marginal income rate  in states losing a Congressional seat: 6.05%
• Michigan's prevailing wage union economy has wreaked more devastation than Hurricane Katrina did to Louisiana. Michigan was alone among the states to lose population, losing 0.6% of it. Louisiana (which had to deal with the destruction and relocation of major portions of its biggest city in this decade) gained 1.4%.
• The Midwest is also hurting, but good policy saves the day. The Midwest fared only slightly better than the Northeast at 3.9% vs. 3.2% growth, but here one begins to see the difference policy makes. The damage here was done by both Democrats and weak sister Republicans. Michigan, which stubbornly refused to change under eight years of Jennifer Granholm, has the nation's worst economy and population growth. (Let us hope, for the sake of the survival of that state, that Governor Rick Snyder and his Republican majorities in the House and Senate can deliver a Right-to-Work law.) Ohio has the second worst, under the consecutive administrations of the corrupt, tax-raising Bob Taft (a Republican) and Ted Strickland (a Democrat). Like Snyder, John Kasich has the opportunity to emerge as a hero of the recovery. But aside from tiny South Dakota, the state in the region with the best population growth at 7.8% -- 4 points higher than neighboring Iowa and 2 points higher than neighboring Wisconsin, was Minnesota, where Tim Pawlenty held the line on taxes and spending for two solid terms. (Disclaimer: I help with Gov. Pawlenty's Freedom First PAC.) Likewise, there is no real reason that industrial Indiana should have performed any better than neighboring Illinois or Ohio other than its distinctively Republican orientation and the budget-cutting leadership of Gov. Mitch Daniels. Illinois, the state whose political leadership this decade consisted of Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama, turned in a mediocre growth rate of 3.3%, lower than all of its neighbors.
• The Rise of Texas and the Decline of California. The blaring headline from the 2010 Census is, of course, Texas picking up 4 Congressional seats, landing at 38 total electoral votes. The last time a non-California state had this many was New York in the 1980s. At the same time, California leveled out at 55 electoral votes, the first time since the 1920 census that they haven't gained seats. Joel Kotkin has an excellent read on the California-Texas dynamic, stoked by Rick Perry who boasts of "hunting" for jobs every time he visits the Golden State. Texas's 20.6% growth off an already strong base shows its continued promise. California's 10% growth was the weakest in the West save for Montana (9.7%), showing again that even with its favorable geographic positioning, government for the public employee unions, by the public employee unions bleeds jobs and natives. Both states are bouyed by high immigration, much of it illegal (with Texas seemingly avoiding the social friction that characterizes the trend in California and Arizona).
• New York Nearly Fades to 4th Place. If there's a cautionary tale California should heed, it's New York. 2010 was the year California topped out its power and influence on the national stage, and may face an actual decline in Congressional representation in years to come. New York has been in population free fall for some time now. Once the Empire State in both name and fact, Florida is now within 500,000 residents of overtaking it. New York's decline from 1st to 4th seems inevitable.

Liberals I am sure are going to do their usual sputtering and spinning, and I am sure that they will say how this data is the result of a lot of conspiracy theories or something, but the truth of the matter is that when people are allowed to live free, they are allowed to make free choices absent of government regulations (whether they be for safety, 'consumer protection', or environmental protection), when their private property and earnings are protected, and when their family values are embraced and supported, they go about creating a better world to live in than what liberal policies in liberal states are creating. The ball doesn't lie.

The reason why you probably shouldn't go to the mainstream media for anything but sports editorials and the comics is because whenever it writes about anything else its amazing liberal bias shines through. Take for example a recent 'article' (not editorial) appearing in the Detroit News called Death a sure thing, taxes less so: Uncle Sam's share at 60-year low:

Taxes too high? Actually, as a share of the nation's economy, Uncle Sam's take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way.

And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing number of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike.

Income tax payments this year will be nearly 13 percent lower than they were in 2008, the last full year of the Bush presidency. Corporate taxes will be lower by a third, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

From the way this is written, you would imagine that it is Obama and the Democrats in Congress that are to thank for lower taxes and that because of all those low taxes the Democrats provided us with taxes are now at a 60 year low. In reality, tax cuts were pushed for by Republicans over Democrats objections, and it is the Democrats that we can thank for the job-killing regulations and taxes and uncertainty that has destroyed our national economy leading to few with jobs and few companies earning money, thus lower overall revenue to the national government, thus all that 'lower share' nonsense.

Democrats still don't get the Laffer Curve- that when taxes are too high, they choke off investment and economic growth, leading to less tax revenue to the national government, leading to less revenue to spend on national defense, welfare for the truly needy, money for speculative science, and a secure social security system. It is liberals and Democrats who are pushing higher taxes and thus are creating lower revenues for the national government- under Bush and Reagan and Kennedy when they cut taxes revenue to the national government went up and this could allow the federal government to do all those wonderful things liberals want them to do.

The truth is though that liberals don't really want a government that provides for the poor, the needy, the sick, and everyone else if that means that they control your behavior less with lower taxes. Nope, liberals would trade higher taxes and the control this gives them even if the revenues that the federal government are lower as a consequence. That is the only conclusion to reach, if experience demonstrates time after time the truth behind the Laffer Curve.

The author of the article in the Detroit News demonstrates that lack of knowledge of the Laffer Curve must be pervasive in the liberal community- rather than think 'taxes and regulation and government control are higher and tax revenue is down; I want tax revenue up; perhaps we should have less taxes and regulation and government control' the author of the article pushes for more taxes and regulation and government control, and then will have to cast around for someone to blame when this shortsighted and uneducated policy doesn't work (I've been in Michigan for a while and seen Democrats desperately go through a laundry list of people to blame for the failures of their policies).
For more information on the Laffer Curve, check out Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status or The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy--If We Let It Happen.

National commentators are picking up on what I've been blogging about on here for a while- that Michigan is a good example of what the whole nation will look like if Obama takes control of our government. I wrote here about how Michigan is all about hope and change. Here I wrote about how in a time of crisis in Michigan, we pass a 'bipartisan' energy plan that raises energy prices and does nothing to provide mroe energy for our citizens.

In this post I wrote about Michigan's government job creation program and how poorly run it is. Back in July, I wrote a post that compared Obama to Granholm and predicted that the results for our nation would be similar to what happened in Michigan.

Now the national media is picking up on this. Phil Gramn wrote this piece for the WSJ, and it's a good one- if you like Michigan's economy, you'll love Obama's. And the latest numbers from Michigan are shocking- by every economic measure, Michigan's economy is sinking compared to the rest of the nation. Our raising of taxes, increasing government regulation, 'green energy,' and government created jobs programs has resulted in wrecking Michigan. Good luck rest of nation when Obama brings this show to you.

UPDATE: Okay, so while Michigan's economy is collapsing, what does a Democrat-controlled government do? It tries to ban smoking. Not joking. Democrats are going to try over and over and over again to ban smoking in Michigan. They feel that is an appropriate action to do while our economy slips farther and farther into the hole. Don't kid yourself- after Obama is President, and we get attacked by terrorists, and our economy falls into the pits, he is going to do the same thing- in the name of health and the environment, he will try to ban smoking too. Mark my words.

UPDATE TWO: Ah, another columnist has picked up on how the rest of the country is becoming 'Detroitified'- that is, the rest of the country is starting to point and blame businesses for a declining economy, and starting to warm up to increasing regulation and taxes, and ignores all the real culprits and instead blames others.

At the Michigan Democratic Party State Convention, Debbie Dingell, the wife of US Rep. John Dingell and a major figure in the Michigan Democratic Party, summed up exactly what is wrong with the Michigan Democratic Party when she said

None of us can be happy with what happened in the last election. What we have to do as a party is make sure everybody is brought together. We've got to use the talents of everybody.

Democrats believe that they lost the last election not because their high tax, high regulation, no values policies drove Michigan into the ground and destroyed it, but because the elites didn't keep the peons in the party together and didn't figure out a way to use them properly. To win future elections, they believe, they need to enforce stricter party unity and figure out how to use others to their advantage better. But the message will stay the same and they will continue to believe that people are simply slaves of the state who exist to serve the wishes of the elites and those who provide the elites with votes (those on state support, those who 'work' for the state, unions who derive support from the state, and other political insiders).

Oh, not everyone in the modern-day Democratic Party thinks this way- only the leadership and the elected officials and everyone who really matters to the Party. Fools who continue to believe that the Democratic Party of today is the Democratic Party of 15 or 30 years ago are marginalized and, with a smile, told to shut up and simply pull the lever for Democrat. For example, at the convention this year there was a challenge from Detroit TV producer Ron Scott, who claimed to have about 500 supporters among more than 1,700 delegates at the convention. He wanted to challenge for the chairman's position and so (according to him) last week he made several phone calls to the party headquarters to find out what the convention rules were. He was told some of them, but was not told that he needed to pay the 'traditional' $1,000 nomination fee (a fee that serves as a barrier to most delegates), and so he wasn't on the ballot, and Mark Brewer, who oversaw the worst showing ever by Democrats in Michigan in several generations, was elected to unopposed to his ninth term.

From the Detroit News:

Ron Seigel, of Highland Park, was among the 14th District delegates who tried to get a voice on the floor but were ignored by Brewer. "I asked for a point of information," Seigal said. "This is not Democratic."

Scott described party leaders as "elites" who ignore the diversity of the Democratic base—a charge Brewer denied.

"If you look at our executive committee it's very diverse — every ethnic group, every region of the state," Brewer said. "It's one of the things we strive for."

And that quote probably is another great quote to demonstrate what is wrong with the modern-day Democratic Party- it sums up diversity as 'ethnic' and 'geographical', and it doesn't even cross the mind of the elites who run the party that there might be others in the party with diverse views and experiences and opinions on the issues. Nope, it is elites controlling the process and then putting on a nice show of 'diversity' by pointing to all the liberal elites of color from different areas of the state who all believe in the elite message of the Democratic Party of taxes, regulation, control, lack of values, green god worship, and disdain for the rest of us slaves of the state.

Don't kid yourself Democrats- your party is 100% behind the agenda that Barack Obama, Debbie Stabenow, and John Dingell champion, which is to nationalize the health care and health insurance industries through demanding consumers buy products and taxing others so that others can get free healthcare, supporting more government control over the financial system even though it was government companies like Freddie and Fannie who were the reason for the collapse in 2009, and supporting other regulations and controls and taxes that was the Democratic agenda of 2009-2011. They double-downed on this agenda, and don't forget that fact when next year they campaign as some sort of moderate or bipartisan politician- they are exactly who they were in 2009-2011, when voters wisely removed them from office. The GOP isn't a perfect party, but this convention should have convinced you that the Democrats are not a viable alternative for public office any more.

Just got back from the "National Tea Party Express III, Just Vote Them Out! Tour" stop in Clinton Twp, MI. Clinton Twp is a little north of Detroit in southeastern Michigan. It was a pretty good event- I'm not good at estimating crowds, but people just kept coming, and I guess there was anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 people there.

Although the Tea Party doesn't endorse any particular party, there were no candidates there from the Democratic Party, and not a single Democratic candidate for any office was out there talking about liberty, freedom, or limited government.

I did see four of the five Republican candidates for Governor of Michigan there- Mike Cox, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Bouchard, and Tom George- and they all gave a speech to get the crowd fired up. Mike Cox gave the best speech and still remains a guy I like for our Governor. I'll also point out that the one candidate for Governor who was not there was Rick Synder- apparently he doesn't support the things that Tea Party people believe in, like limited government, constitutional government, human freedom and liberty, less regulation of society, less bureaucracy and red tape, and lower taxes.

There were other candidates there as well, all Republicans running for various state offices here in Michigan- Judge Mikael Warren was there promoting his book America's Survival Guide, Mike Bishop was there just hanging out with his family (he is also running for Michigan Attorney General but really wasn't campaigning today), and I also saw my good friend and chairman of the The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance Leon Drolet there enjoying the crowd and talking to friends (he also is running for State Senate but wasn't really campaigning today).

Okay, enough name dropping, because the real fun of being at a Tea Party event to me is not the speakers and comedians and music- which the Tea Party Express had going- but talking to real people. There were discussions that I overheard about the Constitution, about our Founding Principles, and about how we should never compromise in our fight for liberty. There were more specific discussions that touched on economics and history. People talked about how they don't like all the bailouts for companies, about how the alliance between big business and big government and the big unions is bad for America, about how the nationalized healthcare plan that Obama is setting up is going to be bad for our country, about how cap and tax will destroy our economy, and about how our energy policies are holding back American industry. People talked about drilling, lower taxes, less regulation, less red tape, and less control over our lives will lead to greater freedom and prosperity. Average every day people talked about this stuff- I talked to a retired janitor for a good bit who said that government isn't the solution to our problems, it is the problem, and he was right on.

It was a good day- there were the smells of hot dogs cooking on the grill, people selling flags and shirts that talked about freedom and liberty, petitions circling, and lots of good people. Here are some sights and sounds from the event- pictures that I took on my cell phone- enjoy, and try to get to one of these events yourself in the future!


UPDATE: For another report, check out theblogprof's REPORT (with pics and video): More than 3,000 show up at Tea Party Express in Clinton Twp, MI.

Let's not complicate things- the election in 2012 is about choosing the vision for the future of our nation. For all of the talk on the right about Clinton being too progressive and all of the talk on the left about Bush being too conservative, the truth of the matter is that both of our last two former Presidents have been pretty moderate in reality. But in the coming election of 2012, we will have a real choice of visions this time around.

The vision of these Presidents was to add a modest amount of debt every year, grow the size of government at a steady pace by implementing programs that were called for, cut an occasional budget and talk tough about turning some government functions back to the states, keep taxes fairly the same by lowering but broadening them, keep spending the same amount on the military, invade a couple states, and not question the basic soft welfare state that our nation found itself in.

But in 2012, our nation will face a decision on which sort of vision to embrace. David Warren of the The Ottawa Citizen says this:

If what we want is a functioning, even flourishing economy, and therefore jobs, jobs, jobs, then the policies of Texas make sense. They are, as Rick Perry says, low taxes, minimal regulation, the avoidance of debt, and business-friendly attitudes. It is a political culture which at least tries to focus on the political questions (law, order, and so forth), and leave economic questions to the free market (with its inevitable bulls and bears).

If what we want instead is a dysfunctional and stagnant or shrinking economy, and therefore spreading unemployment, then California's policies are just the ticket. They are: high taxes, maximal regulation, and excruciating debt. Also, a political culture that belittles and despises business, almost as much as it belittles and despises law and order; one not merely addicted to "fine tuning" things utterly beyond anyone's comprehension, but earnestly trying to replace the free market with a "political market" for goods and services - whenever opportunity calls. ("Never waste a crisis.")

I'm not saying the generation of wealth should be the sole purpose of human existence. I am saying it is one of the purposes, and further, that by politicizing economic activity we actually mire ourselves much deeper in materialism than we would ever do by just going out and earning a living.

The Texas model works, and the California model fails. Quite apart from whether anyone in the States should vote for Rick Perry, they must choose between these models.

He's right, and it doesn't even have to be just limited to the 'Texas model', since Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman both are preaching the same kinds of policies as Rick Perry, and even a moderate Romney is talking a strong conservative game and will be pushed to the right by a Tea-Party strong Congress in 2012, much like a moderate-talking Obama was pushed to the left by a progressive-dominated Congress in 2008.

We are facing a real choice in visions in 2012- freedom or tyranny. It's not a new choice, but one that every generation must make.

Have you all seen this billboard that was put up by a tea party group in Iowa? The billboard was making two points- first, that radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive, and the second, that national socialism (German fascism), Marxist socialism (Leninism), and liberal socialism (liberal fascism) are all similar. Those are very bold points to make, and the billboard was accompanied by images that were bold- images that compared Obama to Hitler and Marx.

Of course, controversy erupted, and the billboard was removed. The Democrats were upset that Obama was compared to Hitler, because Hitler killed all the Jews. Democrats were not upset that Obama was compared to Marx, or that Obama was compared to Hitler in other ways- nope, it was just the Jewish issue that bothered Democrats. Even that is interesting- just how friendly is Obama to Jews and if he were given total power (ie, not blocked by conservatives and Republicans) what might he do to the Jews? I'm not saying Obama is Hitler, I'm just saying this- the poster makes good points, and it is a shame that it was pulled down, because it is provoking and the not that far from the truth.

Let's examine the main point- is Obama and his vision of government a version of socialism or fascism?

In Fascism Healthcare, I wrote:

Under fascism, the government does not overtly take over an industry ("seizing the means of production," in Marxist terms). Rather it leaves ostensibly private institutions in place, at least for the time being, and then subjects those "private" institutions to top-down regulation that turns them into agents of state power. No meaningful competition will be permitted. The federal government runs the system, but will do so behind a facade of private enterprise.

In The Third Way: Obama and Fascism I wrote:

There is a blog out there called "Third Way." It is staffed by Obama supporters and three of its former chairs now serve in the senior ranks of the Obama administration. This is the sort of blog that Obama reads and the sort of blog that Obama takes his marching orders from. This blog is a fascist blog that preaches a fascist ideology.

In State Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Corrupt Capitalism, Syndicalism, Corporatism... Obamaism I wrote:

...the Obama administration is putting place a version of fascism that you can nicely called Crony Capitalism or State Capitalism, whereby the government subverts the free market for the good of the 'state' and makes alliances with Big Business to crush smaller companies through regulation and taxation.

In Wikipedia Description of Fascist Sounds Like Someone I Know I wrote:

...the overall description of fascism is curiously close to Obama policies. I loosely quote "Fascism is primarily concerned with perceived problems associated with cultural, economic, political, and social decline or decadence, and seeks to solve such problems by achieving a historic national rebirth, many times by promoting cultish ideas of unity and purity." Other elements of fascism include national socialism, national syndicalism, or economic nationalism (check), class collaboration, economic planning, mixed economy, and third position (check), dictatorship, holism, major social interventionism, and statism (check again), and militarism (Obama is awfully warlike towards everything but Iraq). Apparently fascism also promotes political violence against opponents (check), welfare (check), is fiercely anti-religion (check), and promotes cults of personality (check).

So, is the billboard 100% wrong, or are there are a lot of similarities between Obama, Hitler, and Marx? I think the evidence is clear on this.

Democrats and liberals are correct- individuals buying gold does represent a grave threat to their vision of a communist United States that piles up debt obligations and lives a dangerous unreal existence of welfare, give-aways, and fanciful projects. Via Future Of Capitalism through PowerLine:

Just as the government is trying to prevent people from investing in anything other than T-Bills by raising taxes on taxable interest and dividends to confiscatory levels, it's also trying to prevent you from parking your wealth in assets, like gold, that compete with the paper dollars issued by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. A press release from Rep. Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, not yet (as of this instant) posted on Mr. Weiner's Web site, announces that a September 23 hearing of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection (a subcommittee of Rep. Henry Waxman's Commerce Committee) will focus on "legislation that would regulate gold-selling companies, an industry who's [sic] relentless advertising is now staple of cable television."

From the press release: "Under Rep. Weiner's bill, companies like Goldline would be required to disclose the reasonable resale value of items being sold." That's great. Are Mr. Weiner and Chairman Bernanke also going to agree to print on every dollar the reasonable expectation that its value will be eroded by inflation? ...

Mr. Weiner's regulatory push seems as much aimed at conservative journalists as at the gold-dealers. The press release says, "Goldline employs several conservative pundits to act as shills for its' [sic] precious metal business, including Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, and Fred Thompson. By drumming up public fears during financially uncertain times, conservative pundits are able to drive a false narrative. Glenn Beck for example has dedicated entire segments of his program to explaining why the U.S. money supply is destined for hyperinflation with Barack Obama as president."

Imagine the uproar if a Republican-majority Congress started investigating and having a regulatory crackdown on big advertisers in liberal outlets such as the New York Times. The First Amendment freedom-of-the-press crowd would be marching in the streets.

The whole situation is amazing. If Mr. Weiner really wants to calm fears about hyperinflation, the last way to do it is to have a government hearing cracking down on the people warning of it.

Regulation of gold sales (likely with taxes to follow), and investigations and witch-hunts for anyone selling gold. Is this the America that you all dreamed about when you were young? Is this the America that voters wanted when they voted for Democrats and Obama in 2008? What kind of a tyranny will this nation be when the government tries to control what sort of assets you personally put your wealth into? And just what do you think is going to happen when the government is left sitting on a massive amount of worthless US currency and you're sitting there with any amount of valuable gold? Better get a gun too when you buy that next once, because you're gonna need it now that the Democrats in Congress have cast their greedy eyes on the little yellow metal that you own.

In You Will Support Abortions Under New Healthcare Bill I wrote about two passages in the Democrat's healthcare bill that encouraged your taxpayer money to be spent on aborting babies. But after Demcrats fought hard to prevent a vote on this issue, morality prevailed, and a group of Democrats voted with Republicans to successfully ban federal funds for abortion under the public health insurance option in the bill and prohibit federal subsidies for purchasing health plans covering abortion.

The amendment does not impose a new federal abortion policy since it simply continues what has been the law in the United States since 1977. The vote was a roll call vote of 240-194.

Voting against this amendment was Michigan's 9th District Congressman, Democrat Gary Peters. He supports using taxpayer money to fund abortions, and felt that some of the $1.2 trillion dollars the federal government will spend under this health care bill should be used to encourage and support women who choose to abort their babies.

Gary Peters, elected out of a district that used to be solidly Republican, has now voted to increase taxes and regulation for energy, increase taxes and regulation for healthcare, and now to fund the expansion of abortions. Gary Peters is no blue-dog- based on his voting record, he is as liberal as they come, and voters in his district need to vote next election to throw him out of office before he works any longer on destroying Michigan jobs.

Is the Government in Accra about to shoot itself and cross-border integration in the foot? Thompson Ayodele and Olusegun Sotola of IPPA write:

The Ghana Investment Protection Council, GIPC, recently revived a regulation that requires foreign-owned businesses based in Ghana to raise at least $300,000 before they are allowed to operate. These measures are imposed to shield indigenous business owners from foreign competitors. This is hinged on the belief that there is a need to curtail the influx of neighbouring countries‘ nationals from crowding out local business interests and creating job loss for Ghanaians.
Although the argument that the policy is designed to witch-hunt the nationals of any country has been debunked by the Ghanaian authorities, industry watchers and experts are not convinced. What is evident in view of the investment pattern is that the regulation is directly aimed at local entrepreneurs from West African countries who want to invest in Ghana and not against Chinese or Indian entrepreneurs whose chunk of foreign investments‘ loans are guaranteed by their governments. Thus, raising the specified amount won‘t be a problem for the Chinese and the Indians. By and large the policy will have more direct bearing on small and medium, scale businesses owned by nationals of West African countries as they do not enjoy the protection offered by their Chinese and Indian counterparts.

Via The Daily Caller:

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty turned out a blockbuster economic growth plan this past week, including deep cuts in taxes, spending, and regulations. It’s really the first Reaganesque supply-side growth plan from any of the GOP presidential contenders. And he caps it all off with a defense of optimism as he charges ahead with a national economic growth goal of 5 percent.

That’s right: 5 percent.

Pawlenty calls this target aspirational. Okay, fine. But deeper down, he’s basically saying no to the declinists and pessimists who seem to populate the economic landscape these days. Big government doesn’t work. Let’s try something different.

Ronald Reagan always believed that America is exceptional. By removing obstacles to growth, the Gipper held that economic policies could unleash a massive outpouring of risk-taking, creativity, and entrepreneurship. He was right, and his policies launched a two-decade-long boom.

Actually, the first couple years of the Reagan recovery came in at over 7 percent. And as Pawlenty noted in his speech at the University of Chicago this week, between 1983 and 1987, the economy grew at 4.9 percent annually. I note that President John F. Kennedy also had a 5 percent growth target, a response to Ike’s three recessions.

...those on the left criticize Pawlenty...

Whether Pawlenty's goal is realistic or not is not the point- rather it is the Democratic liberal establishment's response to it. Rather than hope and change and pushing back the tide and restoring America's prosperity and believing in and pushing for and working for jobs and a great economy, liberals and Democrats, whether they are in Congress or in the White House or in the media, now simply laugh at and scoff and ridicule anyone who believes such things.

IS THIS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR? A party that's first and biggest and lasting impression of someone saying that our economy can grow again is to laugh, scoff, deny, and offer reason after reason why you won't get a job, why you won't get a raise, why your children will owe more in debts, why America will get weaker, etc- the new normal of Obama and the Democrats will be a lesser nation, one that you better get used to and expect won't improve.

The very possibility that America could rise again after the destruction that the Democrats and Obama has driven into the very foundations of America inspired the White House to reply:

With regards to 5 percent growth, we couldn’t agree more; that would be very beneficial to the economy. We think providing expansive tax cuts to the wealthy — which we did in the last term and added tremendously to our debt and resulted in this President inheriting a massive deficit and debt in 2009 — probably not the best approach.

This comment filled with snark and sarcasm and divisiveness and bitterness is what we all can now expect from Obama and an Executive Branch controlled by the Democrats. He didn't say 'That's great, how can we work together and find common ground to achieve not only 5% growth but 6% growth', but rather the reply was mocking, empty rhetoric on class warfare, and transferring blame.

Firedoglake, which Obama reads and quotes from and believes in, called Pawlenty's plan a "Unicorn and Pony Economic Plan", and suggested that it is now a 'fantasy' for America to grow again at 5% and that merely suggesting that America can be a prosperous, free, and strong nation is ridiculous.

Michael Ettlinger of the liberal Center for American Progress said, "It's patently ridiculous... it's not worth serious discussion. ... No one serious thinks that's possible."

This quote illustrates the difference between the right (conservatives, tea partiers, libertarians, moderates) and the left (liberals, communists, socialists, fascists)- the right still thinks that unleashing human liberty and freedom through private property protection, limited government, rule of law, and a love of human life will lead our nation to high GDP growth rates, and the left does not. The left believes that it is no longer even possible for America to grow, and that the ruling classes need to lock in social and economic classes through regulation, government control, and excessive taxes so that the rich can grow richer and the poor can grow poorer.

It is shocking that Obama and the Democrats believe that it isn't even possible for the United States to have a 5% GDP growth rate. According to the CIA, many nations grew faster than 5% last year- Qatar grew at 16.272%, Paraguay at 15.270, Singapore at 14.471, India at 10.365, Turkmenistan at 9.222, Argentina at 9.161, Peru at 8.795, Botswana at 8.562, Nigeria at 8.394, Sweden at 5.536, or Mexico at 5.518.

In fact, out of 184 nations listed, 68 of them grew at a rate of 5% or faster last year- and yet Obama and the Democrats think that this is impossible for the United States to do, and they believe that we've turned it around and that Americans should be happy with a growth rate of 2.834% for 2009, which makes our nation the 117th fastest growing economy in the age of Obama.

Our economy that Obama and his liberal Democrat allies thinks it is impossible and silly and just wrong for our economy to grow faster than 5%, and their policies are doing just this- high taxes, high fees, increased regulation, increased government control over society, more bureaucrats, breaking the rule of law, excessive environmental regulations, rhetorical attacks on business and investment and success and industry, policies that attack our energy industry, policies that break the law white hindering our nuclear industry, and massive stimulus and spending bills that mis-allocate resources.

Republicans offer an alternative- they still believe in America, they still believe in the dream of a growing economy, and they still think that 5% growth rate is possible. Vote for them next election.

A couple weeks ago I read an interesting article in the Telegraph- in it, longtime journalist Janet Daley suggests that the best thing that the British government can do to improve the economy and make people more wealthy and happy and free is to work really hard and be very productive in DOING LESS. The truth of the matter is that politicians have to have real guts and strength to simply say 'no, I will not spend taxpayer money trying to control people and the market,' but that may be exactly the kind of strength and guts we need today- politicians who promise to do more of less. From her article A daring idea to fix the economy: try doing less:

...the myth of government activism – the idea that intervention by the state is the answer to every economic and social problem – had been definitively routed. Apparently not: Mr Osborne and, we must assume, his boss still seem to believe that any unacceptable national situation must require direct action from them.

Or maybe they don’t believe that at all. Perhaps they just lack the political courage to admit that, in our present crisis, the best thing that the Government can do is to get out of the business of running (or subsidising, or initiating, or incentivising) things altogether – not just in the interests of saving money, but because the effects of such interference are counter-productive. What the economy is suffering from is not an insufficiency of overweening, fussy, bureaucratic initiatives that inevitably unleash an avalanche of unintended consequences, but a lack of cash in the hands of people who might spend it in ways that would actually create wealth and stimulate (in the proper sense of the word) economic growth.

If ever there was a time for radical proposals by a governing party, this is it. Rather than the imitative, mealy-mouthed shuffling of dollops of money from one departmental scheme to another, in what will inevitably look like panic in the face of rising youth unemployment and disappointing growth figures, what we need is a display of real insight and nerve...

...There is an urgent need now to rethink the whole relationship between government and populace while there is still the possibility of discussion. In Britain, Europe and America, the questions are remarkably similar. Can a free-market economy support an infinitely growing state? We will have to choose, quite soon, between liberty and the “security” of a society in which government controls the levers of economic life. Washington politicians are getting a terrible drubbing for failing to resolve their implacable differences over the size of the state (to the extent that they are unable to agree a federal budget). The US national debate may seem rough and ready to European ears – but at least they are engaging in the real argument.

She is right- the argument has been joined, and today via memeorandum I read in the Wall Street Journal an article that echo's the very ideas of Ms. Daley. From former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's article Capitalism and the Right to Rise:

...Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedoms through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations. We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it. We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws. We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved. Each time, we demand "Do something . . . anything."

As Florida's governor for eight years, I was asked to "do something" almost every day. Many times I resisted through vetoes but many times I succumbed. And I wasn't alone. Mayors, county chairs, governors and presidents never think their laws will harm the free market. But cumulatively, they do, and we have now imperiled the right to rise....

....We either can go down the road we are on, a road where the individual is allowed to succeed only so much before being punished with ruinous taxation, where commerce ignores government action at its own peril, and where the state decides how a massive share of the economy's resources should be spent.

Or we can return to the road we once knew and which has served us well: a road where individuals acting freely and with little restraint are able to pursue fortune and prosperity as they see fit, a road where the government's role is not to shape the marketplace but to help prepare its citizens to prosper from it.

In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

What Governor Bush is talking about is the same kind of thing that I personally observed during my time as a policy adviser in the state's capital. I remember distinctly one time when a young Republican 'conservative' staffer came in to work one day, upset that the car that she had recently bought turned out to have been a bad purchase. She set about writing a law that would force the state to regulate and control all sellers of automobiles in the state and then tried to convince legislators to sponsor this piece of legislation- she wanted the state to immediately do something, to step in and spend lots of money and time and effort controlling thousands of people's individual decisions just to protect several people from their own stupidity. She proposal was met with great hostility towards me, and I countered her proposal by suggesting that rather than the state doing something about used car dealers, it instead loosen regulations and fees and taxes on all car dealers, making the market more free, so that more fools like her could be separated from their money, as the hand of God in its infinite wisdom is wont to do. I wasn't joking though.

The real courage and intelligent thing to do to create a more vibrant, free market by cutting back government regulations and fees and enabling people to be people, in all their glorious faults and warts, because only by doing so can we also unleash the amazing potential for great and good things that humans contain in them. The safe, stately downward path of state control is not the path for me and is not the path that successful, free, and prosperous people- no, we choose the jagged and uneven and unpredictable path that is the path of less government regulation, taxes, fees, and supervision- that is the only true path for better protection and encouragement of life, liberty, and property.

Not that I'm telling you anything you don't know, but I always love it when statistics generally bear out my crazy theories that the way to create a prosperous free economy is to have low government regulation and low taxes. For my unit on state and local government, I found this article on Variations in Government Aid Across the Nation that was put together by the New York Times. This report looks at welfare, unemployment, housing assistance, food stamps, health insurance for poor adults, and health insurance for poor children, and measures them from state to state.

The top states in terms of providing generous benefits to their citizens- in other words, those that take money from taxpayers and re-distribute that wealth to those who did not earn it are (in descending order): Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, DC, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Iowa, and Michigan.

Out of curiosity, I decided to pull up some information on GDP growth, and provided by the Department of Commerce. The results are interesting. Here are the GDP growth rates for those states, with numbers from 2006 and 2007: Vermont (2.8, 1.5) , Maine (1.9, 1.3), Massachusetts (2.9, 2.5), DC (4.1, 4.3), Pennsylvania (1.7, 1.6), West Virginia (0.6, 0.1), Iowa (2.6, 1.7), and Michigan (-0.5, -1.2).

Those states that let citizens keep their wealth and freely make their own decisions are: Colorado, Texas, Utah, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Virginia.

Here are their GDP growth rates (2006, 2007): Colorado (4.3, 2.0), Texas (4.3, 4.1), Utah (7.2, 5.3), Florida (4.2, 0.0), Nevada (4.1, 0.6), Arizona (6.8, 1.8), Oklahoma (6.7, 4.0), and Virginia (3.2, 1.9).

As you can see, the results are pretty conclusive. States that redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, divert money from taxpayers to nonworkers, subsidize poor quality housing, give people food, and provide government-paid healthcare are less prosperous, less successful, and less free.

Those states that follow these unsuccessful public polices have GDP growth rates significantly and consistently lower, and over several generations destroy the wealth and productivity of their citizens. If our whole nation were to adopt those same policies, our children and children's children- our posterity- would grow up less free, less happy, and less prosperous than we are today.

The conclusion, as demonstrated with this limited amount of research, is clear- our public policies should emphasize self-sufficiency, less public welfare, and lower unemployment benefits, and should keep the state out of building structures for people just because of their income status, and should teach a man to fish instead of giving him fish, and should not provide as a right of birth state-supported healthcare.

UPDATE: Today I saw a report from the Mercatus Center at Georgetown called Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom. Earlier I pointed out that many of the states that provided the most social welfare services to its citizens also are less prosperous. Looking over this report, I notice that those states that provide healthcare to poor, housing subsidies, and food stamps also are less free. I guessed this fact (see above), but it's nice that my guess is now backed up in numbers that show that.

According to the rankings in the report (1 is most free, 50 is least), the least free states- the states with the most tyrrany and oppression by government- compare favorably with my list of states that had the highest social welfare.

Here are the states that provide the most social services and their rankings on freedom- Vermont (40), Maine (39), Massachusetts (43), DC (NR), Pennsylvania (20), West Virginia (33), Iowa (16), and Michigan (14). Here are the states that provide the least social services and their rankings on freedom- Colorado (2), Texas (5), Utah (11), Florida (22), Nevada (24), Arizona (8), Oklahoma (18), and Virginia (9).

There you go- states that encourage conservative values are more prosperous and more free. The data doesn't lie.

Via Powerlineblog I saw this cartoon by Chuck Asay:

Democrats and their allies in the media are trying to convince people that by raising taxes on small businesses, employers, investors, and 'the rich', then the government will collect more money and then use it to balance the deficit that they haven't even pretended to care about during their time in power. Don't fall for it people- their motives are disingenuous, the results won't be as advertised (the rich will just hide their income better, except for the not-quite-rich or honest people, who will indeed get hammered), government spending usually damages the economy (more regulation, misallotment of funds, inefficient schemes, etc), and the result will be to damage our economy further. Tax cuts are good- and they are good for everyone.

For that matter, what are the Republicans doing by simply saying they want to keep the Bush tax cuts in place!? They should be pushing for that and to double those tax cuts! Tax cuts are good; starve the beast, put more money in people's hands.

Pop quiz for you. Who said the following statement- US President Barack Obama or Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao?

The complete formulation of our economic policy is to give full play to the basic role of market forces in allocating resources under the macroeconomic guidance and regulation of the government.

Who said this statement- the leader of a a Chinese authoritarian state that operates under principles of unlimited government and no constitutional checks or the President of the US government controlled and run by the Democrats? The idea is that capitalism and market forces are good, but need to be controlled and guided and regulated by government.

Time is up- it was the Chinese Premier! But that was a tough question, right? How about another?

Did this happen in Russia or America recently?

Imagine you're a senior executive at a large business. Hard at work in your office, you're informed that, for reasons unknown, your leader wants to talk to you. He tells you that you are charging too much for your product. You assure him that prices are determined by the market. Unimpressed, the leader demands you lower your prices. Days later, government agencies announce an investigation into the business practices in your industry.

Come on now... it's tough... but did this happen recently in Russia or America? In a former communist nation now run by a dictator who operates in an increasingly tyrannical manner, or did this happen in the good-old-USA? Which country has a leader who thinks it is the proper role of government to set how much businesses can charge for products and is willing to use the power of the state to attack industries that he doesn't like?

Time is up- it was Russia! Nothing like that would ever happen in our nation, would it? State-run capitalism? Nah!