A successful President Romney won't be your friend, but if we're lucky, he'll be a leader instead

Barring some unforeseen cataclysm, Mitt Romney will be the 45th president of the United States… and the vote will likely not even be close. His acceptance speech at the GOP convention last week did exactly what it had to do, it provided Americans who might have been sitting on the fence with the nudge they needed to climb down and pull the lever for him. If you had to distill his speech down to one line, it might have been “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.” In one fell swoop Romney put the absurdity of Barack Obama into context. It put in stark contrast his soaring, vainglorious rhetoric with the abject failure of virtually every aspect of his presidency. By contrast, Romney demonstrated his clear understanding of what is important to most Americans.

The question now becomes, what form will that “help” take? One assumes Barack Obama meant to help Americans by seeking to institute policies that advance his “share the wealth” agenda. That’s the problem with words like help, support, or phrases like “restore America”, “American values” or even “Hope and Change”. They mean different things to different people. Indeed they are by design sufficiently nebulous that anybody can read into them anything at all.

That is largely how Barack Obama got elected in 2008. Although he had a record that was crystal clear in demonstrating his leftist ideology, for the most part the mainstream media ignored it. As a result, many on the left (and in the middle) buried their heads and took Obama’s promise of “Hope and Change” to mean whatever they wanted it to mean. They interpreted it that Barack Obama was going to implement policies that pursued their particular hopes, whatever they might have been. As anyone who’s ever heard of a psychic reeling in a gullible customer with “There’s something in your past that troubles you…” can tell you, “Hope and Change” was a recipe for disaster and disappointment. And the resulting policies were just that. As a result, thankfully, Barack Obama is going to be a one term president.

Mitt Romney will need to follow a different path, otherwise he will suffer the same fate. His will have to be a presidency of leadership; explicit and painful leadership at that. Given the coming taxageddon, a 60% higher national debt and a floundering economy, Romney will have to deliver a variety of painful medicines to Americans of all stripes. Here are five suggestions that would help Romney combat the current malaise and help resurrect American prosperity.

1. He should freeze federal spending at current levels. Cut programs, personnel and redistribute funds among departments, but don’t increase spending by one single dime.

2. He should implement the Fair Tax. Absent that, he should immediately implement a 10% flat tax that applies to income, dividends and capital gains while eliminating all deductions, period. In addition, he should set a 20% corporate income tax.

3. He should roll over all federal debt into bonds with a minimum maturity of at least 10 years, with as much as possible into 30 year bonds.

4. He should require every federal department, commission and agency to provide a 10 page overview of every regulation on its books that impacts more than a quarter of a million people and or costs the economy by more than $100 million per year. Upon receiving those overviews, he should use a strict constructionist interpretation to determine if each is Constitutional, and rescind those deemed not to be so.

5. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he should appoint Paul Ryan to present options that will harness the power of beneficiary choice and market forces to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In January 2013 Mitt Romney will find himself in a situation similar to that in which Ronald Reagan found himself 32 years before. The biggest difference is that in 1980 federal entitlement programs cost approximately $245 billion a year and represented 8.8% of GDP while in 2011 they cost $2.25 trillion and represented a full 15% of GDP. At the same time, the national debt, which must be serviced with taxpayer dollars, stood at 25% of GDP in 1980 while today it exceeds 100%.

Because of the potential consequences of an American collapse, the economic disaster the United States faces today is more precarious than any American president has ever had to face. Mitt Romney will not have the luxury of taking half measures in order to cure this disease. Success in the next president’s term will require him to clearly communicate to Americans the difficulties that we face and the consequences of not acting; demonstrate the courage to make the painful cuts that will be necessary; and finally, possess the fortitude to endure the withering abuse that will no doubt follow.

After two decades of unfettered spending by politicians of both parties, it’s time for Americans to learn that it’s simply not possible to spend more than you have in perpetuity. It’s time for a president to step up and bear the burden of articulating the challenges ahead and his plan to solve them. At that point citizens can begin to act accordingly. That’s the kind of help Americans really need.

If Obama can claim credit for killing bin Laden a year ago, why can't he take credit for the economy today?

As President Obama and his administration are constantly telling us, the horrible economy is not his fault because he inherited the “Worst recession since the Great Depression”. One can certainly make that argument. You just can’t get it to stick.

If you could however, what you’d basically be saying is that that 3 ½ years after taking office the President of the United States is essentially helpless to impact the economy. “No, no, no!” his supporters would no doubt respond: “That’s not what we mean! The entire economy, nay the entire world’s economic system would have collapsed if President Obama had not saved us.” That’s simply a 2012 version of the absurd and decidedly non-empirical “Jobs created or saved” measure the administration proffered when it became obvious that their stimulus was a failure.

If the President is not responsible for the economy after three years in office, what are we to make of his taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden after just two? The financial meltdown began in 2007 and by 2009 we were officially out of the recession. Yet key pieces of intelligence that led to the CIA eventually locating bin Laden were discovered even earlier, in 2005 and 2007. In addition, critical to the success of the intelligence gathering process was information garnered from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed using the very “enhanced interrogation” techniques candidate Obama objected to.

As Obama seeks a second term so that he can begin to fix the economy, Vice President Biden is there to tell voters the only things they really need to know about the President’s first term: “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”. The President apparently wants to take “credit” for GM as well, despite the fact that the ill advised rescue of the UAW… er… of GM began under President Bush also. But the bottom line is that General Motors is alive, has paid back its loans, and is profitable. Alive, like so many things with this administration, is a relative thing. Yes, GM did pay back its government loans, but the money used to do so came from… other government loans. And yes, the company is currently profitable, but that is in no small part because it received $45 billion in special tax benefits not typically available to companies emerging from bankruptcy. (I’d venture to guess that even the hapless Solyndra might eke out a “profit” if given tens of billions in loans and a $45 billion write off.) The lesson for America from GM and the administration is that it’s OK if a company doesn’t pay taxes so long as its union members get paid.

As we look forward to an exciting run up to the November election, the question is, how is it that a President seeking a second four year term isn’t responsible for the economy 3 ½ years after taking office, but somehow is supposed to be given credit for killing bin Laden a year earlier? Has the Presidency been reduced to a cafeteria plan where the man sitting in the Oval Office gets to pick and choose the issues for which he wants to be held responsible? Does the fact that he takes credit for something mean that we have to agree with his assessment? What about the things he demurs to take credit for? Are we forced to blame them on President Bush or can we pick any scapegoat?

Harry Truman famously had a sign that sat at the edge of his desk in the Oval Office that read “The Buck Stops Here”, in reference to which he once told Naval War College audience: “The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.” I’m not sure what kind of a sign is sitting on Barack Obama’s desk, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t similar to that contemptuous sign you find posted on desks and doors of bureaucrats all across the country: “A lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.” Only in President Obama’s case it reads: “A lack of economic opportunity on your part doesn’t constitute failure on my part.”

Single Issue Stupidity and Rick Santorum

I remember hearing once that in Shakespeare’s day the cumulative writings an educated person could be expected to encounter over the course of their lifetime was the equivalent one week’s worth of the New York Times. Today things are slightly different in that we get a week’s worth of the New York Times every week – whether we want it or not. In addition, thousands of times that volume of content is every day via print, broadcast and internet media. As such, anyone who doesn’t want to be overwhelmed to the point of becoming catatonic has to focus their attention on sources of news and information they perceive to be reliable, honest and accurate.

Modern voters find themselves in a similar situation. The possible issues about which one might be concerned are literally infinite. From the national unemployment rate, to state referendums to local zoning ordinances, a voter can be overwhelmed with trying to get even a cursory understanding of the issues. Add to those issues dozens of candidates with varying positions and you have a recipe for catatonia. All of this while voters are busy living their lives, raising their kids, spending time with friends etc.

Voters typically deal with this surfeit of choices by narrowing the focus, in a similar way to what they do with information sources, i.e. look to sources they think they can trust. When they see a candidate pilloried on 60 Minutes for wanting to rationalize (aka “slash”) Social Security or when the New York Times runs a piece about how brilliant a particular presidential candidate is, fans of those sources know how to vote. Another way citizens decide who they are going to vote for is by joining particular organizations that seem to be made up of people who share many of their beliefs or values such as various Tea Parties or community organizations.

The extreme of this narrowing of one’s focus is the single issue voter. The person or organization focuses on a single issue upon which they make their decision as to who to vote for. One of the most well known such single issue organizations is the National Rifle Association. The NRA is an advocate for 2nd Amendment rights, which is a strong Constitutional position to take. It’s “incumbent-friendly” policy however is not very logical. It supports many Democrats who, while supporting the 2nd Amendment, shred the rest of the Constitution. In 2010 the NRA supported 53 pro 2nd Amendment House Democrats, most of whom were facing pro 2nd Amendment Republicans. It didn’t matter to the NRA that the House under Nancy Pelosi was running roughshod over the Constitution and therefore, to borrow a idea from Martin Niemöller, once the Constitution was in tatters there would be no 2nd Amendment to protect. Smart.

A similar scenario is playing itself out in the GOP primary and the beneficiary of such absurdity is Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum surged in Iowa and almost beat the regrettably frontrunning Mitt Romney. How did he do it? A big part of it was that he was essentially the last man standing in the anti-Romney corner. A significant part however is his focus on social issues, particularly his strident anti-abortion message. (In Iowa, according to St. Louis Today, among Iowa caucus-goers who regard abortion as their most significant issue, 55% voted for Santorum.)

While the notion of being anti-abortion is certainly mainstream in the GOP, having abortion as a voter’s single issue, or most important issue during what is going to be the most important election in a century makes no sense at all. There are so many threats to the nation as a whole that to base one’s vote on that single issue is absurd – particularly as abortion rates have dropped by 30% in the last 20 years and a president's impact is minimal regardless. How did unborn babies fare in the Soviet Union? Not particularly well. How did unborn girls fare in China over the last three decades? Not well either. Counter-intuitively, the Socialist Mecca of Europe has lower abortion rates than we do, but one wonders if that might be because they’ve stopped having sex or something because they are not having many babies either…

Voting for the candidate who is most vociferous in his defense of your one issue to the exclusion of everything else is suicide. While candidate Rick Santorum speaks about limited government and lower taxes and overregulation on the campaign trail, Senator Rick Santorum was far from a constitutional conservative. He voted in support of most of George Bush’s big government agenda, he voted against NAFTA, voted for steel tariffs and was a huge supporter of earmarks. And just in case there’s some uncertainty as to Rick Santorum’s view of the role of government, in 2004 he laid out his view very clearly:

One of the criticisms I make is what I refer to as more of a Libertairanish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be alone to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, that we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

Obviously Rick Santorum has never heard of the United States. Both his record and his words make it crystal clear that he is no friend of limited, constitutional government. Big government has set us on a course to turn the United States into a socialist / statist Mecca. Unfortunately for everyone involved (and that includes unborn babies) that Mecca is more like a nightmare of economic malaise, sub standard medical care, a lack of individual freedom and long term social decline. Rick Santorum may sound great on babies, but he will do nothing to take us off that path to disaster. Those single issue voters who are supporting him just might want to think again, or consider the prognosis for the country (and its unborn babies) once America becomes an economic basket case and modern day dystopia.