Per WSJ, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has asked GOP donors to hold off on deciding which candidate they will back in 2012 until he has made his decision:
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is now calling wealthy Republicans to ask them to “keep their powder dry,” as one donor put it, until he decides whether he will run. Mr. Barbour traveled Wednesday to the early-primary state of South Carolina to meet with prominent Republicans.
With Barbour perhaps being the most powerful person in the Republican Party at this time, his request will undoubtedly be given strong consideration by many. However, what does this mean for his friend and ally Mitch Daniels and his nascent presidential run? Stay tuned…
Read the rest here.
One part of President Obama’s State of the Union address was to put forward his new slogan for 2012, “Winning The Future.” As many have already noted, this phrase was made popular as the title of Newt Gingrich’s 2005 best-selling book. Since Mr. Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, was forced in part to withdraw from the 1988 presidential race because he allegedly lifted (without attribution) a similar phrase from a then popular British politician (in fact, he did not, but the Michael Dukakis campaign made it appear that he did), we can only assume that this is a potentially serious matter.
In fact, President Obama clearly took the phrase from Mr. Gingrich, and gave no attribution. Even presidents don’t have the right to plagiarize, so I can only assume that Mr. Obama is in fact signaling he will endorse Newt Gingrich for president (in which case, there would be no plagiarism). On the other hand, Mr Gingrich understandably may not want to be endorsed by Mr. Obama (in which case there might be a legitimate (albeit token) complaint by him of literary theft). Legally, book titles and most short phrases that are used without attribution cannot be considered a tort (or liable for legal action). I’m sure Mr. Obama’s attorney general is relieved this is not something he would have to deal with.
Nontheless, we are going to take the positive side of this situation, and assume that President Obama was really signaling his approval of Mr. Gingrich. We will await his formal endorsement of the former speaker some time later in the year.
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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, The Prairie Editor Blog.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the U.S. ambassador to China, sent a resignation letter to President Barack Obama on Monday and now is likely to explore a Republican presidential bid, a close associate told POLITICO.
Huntsman is the sort of candidate who should be pretty high up on my list. He clearly understands the dynamics of Southeast Asia, our foremost economic competitor, and he’s both pro-life and pro-civil unions, meaning that he is socially conservative while being culturally modern at the same time. My guess is that Huntsman would do quite well among suburban independents, who I believe will decide the coming election. But there is more to life than winning an election, and my question with regard to Huntsman is this: does he have the courage to right our fiscal ship? Will he have the fortitude to speak truth to power, the “power” being the American middle class, which is going to have to prepare for massive vegetable-eating in order to stave off national bankruptcy? Would he move forward with Paul Ryan’s entitlement reforms and tax simplification plans? Or Mitch Daniels’ health care reforms? Or Chris Christie’s public sector reforms? Huntsman is a well-spoken, telegenic, attractive candidate. But he’ll need more than that to win the nomination, let alone the election.
PPP (D) Nebraska 2012 Presidential Survey
- Mike Huckabee 51%
- Barack Obama 38%
- Mitt Romney 49%
- Barack Obama 37%
- Newt Gingrich 48%
- Barack Obama 40%
- Sarah Palin 45%
- Barack Obama 44%
Here is the official release from Gov. Tim Pawlenty on today’s ruling by a Federal Court judge in Florida that Obamacare is unconstitutional:
“Today’s court ruling correctly affirms that President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress’s health care takeover violates the U.S. Constitution. An individual health-care mandate is an unconstitutional power grab by the Federal government and drags our health care system in the wrong direction. This ruling is a big victory for states’ rights, the U.S. Constitution and market-based health care reform. I was proud to join this federal lawsuit challenging Obamacare’s individual mandate and am optimistic that higher courts will uphold the ruling.”
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the individual mandate from the recent health care reform package, also known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional. Since that section is not serverable from the rest of the legislation, this voids the entire piece of legislation, according to the ruling. You can read the entire ruling here. Here’s an excerpt from the ruling:
Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.
Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
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In closing, I will simply observe, once again, that my conclusion in this case is based on an application of the Commerce Clause law as it exists pursuant to the Supreme Court’s current interpretation and definition. Only the Supreme Court (or a Constitutional amendment) can expand that.
For all the reasons stated above and pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 80) is hereby GRANTED as to its request for declaratory relief on Count I of the Second Amended Complaint, and DENIED as to its request for injunctive relief; and the defendants’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 82) is hereby GRANTED on Count IV of the Second Amended Complaint. The respective cross-motions are each DENIED.
In accordance with Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Title 28, United States Code, Section 2201(a), a Declaratory Judgment shall be entered separately, declaring “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” unconstitutional.
This is certainly to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
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-Matt Newman is a conservative blogger from Maryland who blogs at Old Line Elephant and Tweets far too often.
I’ve made it pretty clear that I consider straw polls generally meaningless (even more so than real polls are at this early stage), but what the heck, if we’re going to post them, I’ll go along with the crowd (at least when the results are those I like to see).
There was a straw poll in Washington this weekend, and based on the fact that I’m posting the results, you’ll probably guess that Mitch Daniels won it. In fact, he pretty much blew everybody away, doubling the second-place finisher, Mitt Romney. Here are the results (for what they’re worth):
Not that I think these results bear much analysis, but Huckabee’s performance, given he got 24% in the 2008 primary, is pretty miserable.
Daniels also said that he will be making up his mind fairly soon about running:
“I think I have got to make up my mind fairly soon,” Daniels told The Times Editorial Board Thursday during a visit to Northwest Indiana.
“I don’t think that I’ve waited too long, but I believe I should come to some decision. There are a lot of people waiting and I owe them an answer.
“The country is facing survival-level problems.”
I agree with American Spectator’s comment on this statement:
While we can’t say for sure what his decision will be, it isn’t often that politicians announce, ‘The country is facing survival level problems, which is why I’ve decided against running for president.”
Free and Strong America PAC has released their total fundraising and contribution tallies for 2010. In total, Romney raised over $6 million for the year and contributed a over a million dollars to Republican candidates:
Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC Raises Over $6.3 Million and Contributes Nearly $1.2 Million in 2010
Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC today filed its Year End finance report with the Federal Election Commission, closing out its 2010 fourth quarter activity.
In its Year End report, covering November 23, 2010 through December 31, 2010, Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC reported raising $174,523.93. The PAC also has five state affiliates in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which raised an additional $36,000 during the same period, bringing total fundraising for this period to $210,523.93. Total 2010 fundraising for the federal and state PACs was $6,300,723.52.
The PAC begins 2011 with $1,446,680.28 cash on hand – $796,207.59 for its federal PAC and an additional $650,472.69 for its state PACs.
Mitt Romney formed the Free and Strong America PAC to promote Republican candidates and conservative causes around the country through speeches, political appearances and financial support. In 2010, over 500 Republican candidates and conservative causes received a total of $1,177,758.16 in support from Mitt Romney’s federal PAC and state PACs.
Rasmussen’s latest 2012 survey shows that supporters of Sarah Palin appear to be far more ready to go third-party than the supporters of other “top tier” candidates should their candidate fail to win the Republican nomination:
Suppose your favorite candidate fails to win the nomination, how likely are you to vote for a third party candidate?
- Sarah Palin supporters 46%
- Mike Huckabee supporters 35%
- Mitt Romney supporters 31%
National survey of 1,000 likely GOP primary voters was conducted January 18, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.
As our resident Herman Cain tracker – I figured I’d bring up these two interesting articles regarding Herman Cain. The first is an article from The Atlantic which reposts, with permission, Herman Cain’s article from 1994 following his debate with Bill Clinton over health care. It specifically includes the math he referenced and details about the increased cost Clinton’s health care proposal would add to his business. Here’s an excerpt:
Under your proposed health care plan, the cost to cover all 3,418 employees would be nearly $2.2 million annually. This amount of $2.2 million is a $1.7 million increase in our insurance, which is approximately 3 ½ times our prior-year insurance premiums to cover an 80% employer portion for all participating full-time employees.You mentioned during the telecast that restaurants with approximately 30% labor need only increase prices 2.5%. This price appears to be arrived at by taking 7.9% times 30%. Quite frankly, we cannot just look at a percent of a percent, but instead we must look at the actual dollars involved. A $1.7 million increase would directly decrease “bottom line” profit. In order to produce the same “bottom line” as we are generating today, a 16% to 20% in “top line” sales would be required due to variable costs such as labor, food costs, operating expenses, marketing and taxes. Thus, it is incorrect to assume we can just add $1.7 million to the “top line” and expect it to flow directly to the “bottom line.”
The second article was written by Mr. Cain himself entitled “The Real State of the Union” as a followup response to the President’s State of the Union address. It’s an interesting read with a by the numbers discussion on the current state of our union. Here’s an excerpt:
The day after the president’s State of the Union speech, an appliance installation and repair man was installing some new appliances in our home. Unsolicited, he said he had a hard time sleeping last night after hearing the president’s speech. When I asked why, he said he did not hear anything in the speech that made him feel that America is safer as a nation, nor did he hear anything that would really help grow the economy. I told him I agreed with him, and that he expressed the feelings of probably most of us who are not intoxicated by the president’s words and his delivery. Many people are, but most of us are not…Many of the most compelling facts about the real state of our economy were missing from the president’s speech.Gross Domestic Product did grow year over year in 2010 by 2.6 percent. But China’s economy grew by around 10 percent, which means, at those comparable rates, China’s economy will surpass us 15 to 20 years from now. Since China holds the largest percentage of our foreign-held debt, I consider that a national security threat as well as a threat to our financial stability. In fact, the total amount of U.S. Treasury Securities held by foreign countries increased 18.5 percent in 2010 (Treasury.gov). That’s not a comforting sign.
Check out both articles as they provide some interesting insight into the ideas of a lesser known candidate.
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-Matt Newman is a conservative blogger from Maryland who blogs at Old Line Elephant and Tweets far too often.
The rumors surrounding a Huntsman candidacy have continued to swirl, so much so that the White House is now leaking about his potential resignation. From Tapper:
White House officials tell ABC News that the Obama administration expects the US Ambassador to China, former GOP Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, to step down from his post in the coming months to explore a possible 2012 run for president. …
At the Gridiron dinner Saturday night, White House Chief of Staff William Daley joked that President Obama “has no hard feelings,” a White House source noted. “He just did an interview with the Tea Party Express about how integral he has been to the success of the Obama administration.”
From POLITICO:
For all their quips, Obama officials are a tad irritated at the barely-veiled presidential moves of their own ambassador in one of the most important countries in the world.
But the appointment of Huntsman was, in the first place, unmistakably political. With senior Obama advisers openly fretting about the prospect of facing off against a telegenic, wealthy, center-right Republican, shipping him off to Beijing was hailed as a savvy play.
The White House seems to want to force a Huntsman resignation sooner rather then later, but doesn’t seem ready to go to the lengths of firing him.
UPDATE: Gibbs confirms Huntsman’s departure:
The White House has begun seeking out replacements for Ambassador Jon Huntsman, the administration’s envoy to China who is considering a run for president in 2012, press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.
“That’s a process that has begun,” Gibbs told reporters in his daily briefing, confirming that Huntsman has told the White House that “he plans to leave during the first part of this year.”
About three years ago, I penned a piece or two for Race42008 dealing with the red/blue cultural polarization that existed in the country over the course of the past decade, and laying the blame for that divide squarely on the Baby Boomers, who, I suggested, were finally nearing retirement, at which point they’d pass the torch and take their pathologies with them. By “cultural polarization,” I wasn’t then, and am not presently, referring to cultural issues, such as the legal status of abortion, or such as which branch of government gets to write states’ marriage laws. These are issues that remain relevant to our contemporary discourse, and that folks can and will continue to argue about. Instead, the cultural divide to which I was referring had to do with the manner in which Americans, both red and blue, could seemingly no longer find political allies among those who were too far culturally removed from themselves. The exit polls from the Bush years told the story: if you were a frequent churchgoer, you were almost certainly a Republican. If you only attended religious services a few times a year, you were probably a Democrat. City boys were Kerry voters, country gents were Bush voters. And so on. This sort of stratification was interesting inasmuch as it seemed new; there were plenty of good old boy Democrats during the LBJ era. And plenty of young, educated Republicans in coastal cities who couldn’t wait to vote for Reagan. Yet by 2000, all that had changed, and the personal had become highly political.
The reason for the polarization of the 2000s, I opined, had to do with the generation that had been “in charge of the country,” so to speak, during the Clinton-Bush War of the Roses. In 1992, the torch was indeed passed to a new generation, as Bill Clinton ascended to the throne as the first Baby Boomer president. He was followed by another Boomer in George W. Bush. And the Hatfield/McCoy cultural war that followed was simply a rehashing of what Camille Paglia once referred to as the age-old battle between Hipsters and Prudes.
The Boomers, born largely in the late 1940s and the 1950s, grew up in a Mad Men sort of world, where a cultural revolution was about to take off, and you were either a traditionalist or a revolutionary. You either smoked pot or you went to work every day. You either wore a goatee and wrote bad poetry or you were buttoned-up. You either went to Woodstock or went to Vietnam. While the post-Boomer set was able to “mix and match” such life choices, those who came of age during the cultural revolution of the 1960s really had to cast their lot into one camp or the other.
As such, the large-scale political battles over the course of the past two decades have been the result of middle-aged Boomers attempting to rehash the same Hatfield/McCoy culture war over and over again. Leftist journalists and entertainers salivated over Bush’s war presidency, as it allowed them to re-live their glory days as Vietnam protestors. Aptly placed screeds in the New York Times were penned by men and women who once chanted things like, “Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh! Ho Chi Minh will win!” And across the aisle, snickering Republican congressmen and talk radio types had a field day with Clintonian sexual adventures, not simply due to serious legal issues such as the possibility that the POTUS may have committed perjury while in office, but largely due to the dog whistle effect that this debate would have on the entire Boomer generation, which would once again divide along the same battle lines that were forced upon it when “The Pill” was normalized, enabling a greater degree of sexual freedom for those who chose to do away with traditional social mores.
But ultimately, all things must come to an end, and so did the Era of the Boomers, as Hillary Clinton, the next logical choice for president for those who wanted to continue the neverending war over the 1960s, was defeated in 2008, a year in which both parties nominated non-Boomers for president (depending on how you classify President Obama, who was born on the cusp of Generation X).
During the first two years of the Obama presidency, a couple of interesting generational shifts occurred. First, the oldest Boomers turned 65, meaning the generation will be heading for retirement. Secondly, the oldest Generation X’er is now the same age as the oldest Boomer was in 1992, the year that began our decade-and-a-half national debate over proxy issues for Vietnam and The Pill. Finally, each of our major parties has now passed the torch to the post-Boomer generations when it comes to those public figures that serve as the “voice” of the party. This includes President Obama on the Left and Gen X’ers like Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan on the Right. Indeed, Palin’s statement last year that law enforcement should ease up on actually enforcing laws against marijuana puts her to Obama’s left on the issue, a positioning that would never have occurred among Boomer politicians.
But while the culture war over the 1960s may be fading into the greyness of history, a new culture war, one that is equally potent, appears to be developing, with the 1980s as its fulcrum. As aging bra-burners and retiring stuffed shirts begin to receive their Social Security checks, the newsrooms, legislative offices, and town halls of America are being taken over by a new generation, one that doesn’t remember the 1960s, and one that came of age during the era of stagflation, gas lines, malaise, and Morning in America. Yes, Generation X is taking the helm of the country, and is thus replacing the battles of the 1960s with the battles of the 1980s. Debates over sex and war are being replaced by debates over spending and government. And the pass-the-buck mentality of the Boomers with regard to big ticket issues that impact our economy at a structural level, such as entitlements, taxes, and trade, is being replaced with a buck-stops-here willingness to take these issues by the horns.
The Boomers, always narcissistic, wanted nothing more than to validate their own choices that they were forced to make early in life — the choice between a traditional life or a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They spent 16 years fiddling in office while the economy was hollowed out, and eventually melted down. Now that Generation X is taking the helm, the tenor of Washington has changed. The battle is now one between enacting a liberal version of Reaganism, which has always been Barack Obama’s stated goal, or completing Reaganism via something similar to Paul Ryan’s economic blueprint for the nation.
While highly preferable to the Boomer Wars, this new arrangement does not come without useless nostalgia. To the Right, every election cycle is 1980, and Obama is Jimmy Carter. To the Left, Obama is the new Ronald Reagan, and 2012 will be Morning in America, just like in 1984. In reality, 2012 will be neither 1980, nor 1984. It will be 2012. And regardless of its outcome, the debates over presidential sex lives have now been replaced with debates over the size of government, its role in our lives, the fundamentals of the modern economy, and the national debt. This is the new culture war, the one between those Americans who came of age as Reagan Revolutionaries, and those who came of age as Mondale’s Minions (all three of them). And while all issue areas — fiscal, social, and defense — will continue to make waves at the national level, the coming red/blue divide will no longer be one defined by the Hipster/Prude dichotomy of the 1960s, but instead by the individualist/collectivist dichotomy of the 1980s.
House votes to kill Public financing of Presidential elections. (Hat Tip: Outside the Beltway.)
Democratic Congressman slanders America.
School praised by President Obama released from union rules. (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)
Chris Christie becomes first New Jersey Governor to speak at March for Life. (Hat Tip: Campaign Spot.)
Kermit Gosnell abortion case somehow gets worse.
Another crooked abortionist exposed.
Ethiopian Christians told to convert to Islam, leave town, or die.
Spam kills suicide bomber in her apartment. (Hat Tip: Wizbang Blog.)
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The following post below deals with trade unions and why I believe they will soon be a thing of the past. Since this blog is mainly about the Race 4 2012, you may ask yourself why I have posted it here. I figure since trade unions after all do have an impact on politics, their future ought to interest us as conservatives. Without unions, the Democrats would have lost some pretty big donors. Why they will disappear you can read about below.
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Trade unions have been a part of the labor market dating back to the 19th century. In this post, I am going to explain why I think their era might be over.
I will discuss three different factors, but first, I’d like to start with why trade unions exist and why they can actually be useful.
In essence, a trade union is a form of cartel – several “sellers” of labor join together and push up the price (salaries) above it’s natural level – the level it would have in perfect competition. Perfect competition, for the uninformed, is a state where every seller and buyer is too small to affect the price: Prices equal marginal cost (the cost it takes to produce the last unit sold), and if a seller raises his/her price just 1 cent, he/she would lose all her customers. At the same time, no buyer can demand that prices be lowered; a buyer who wants to pay 1 cent less than the market price will find that no-one is willing to sell to that price. No-one has any pricing power in other words.
But if it is a cartel, doesn’t that mean it should be banned outright? After all, aren’t private cartels banned or harschly regulated? The problem of course, is that even if trade unions were banned, the market would still not be in a state of perfect competition. Why? Because there are too few buyers of labor (companies, that is). Perfect competition requires lots and lots of buyers AND sellers. If you only have a lot of sellers but very few buyers, you get something called Oligopsony – the opposite to Oligopoly (where the number of buyers are large but the sellers are few).
So, allowing the workers to form cartels (unions) may actually be better and fairer than not doing so. You may get closer to perfect competition by allowing trade unions – strange but true.
It may also be easier for a company to do salary negotiation with one or a few union representatives rather than discussing with every single worker – this goes in particular for companies with a high workers/managers ratio (if every worker is going to have the same questions, demands and suggestions, it saves a lot of time only having to hear and discuss them once with a representative from the union).
The different forms of competition
There are several forms of competition. Earlier, I mentioned the utopic state of Perfect competition which means that prices equal the cost associated with producing the last unit (marginal cost). However, how prices and output are determined is not exactly clear. In order for there to be perfect competition, goods must be homogenous – meaning they are virtually the same, so the only thing you can compete with is price.
There are several models for how firms set prices: One of them that I would like to discuss here is Bertrand competition. This model states that if there are more than 1 company, the price will equal marginal cost (so unless there’s a monopoly, you’ll have perfect competition). This model assumes that products are homogenous, so price is the only thing firms can compete with.
Explanation: Let’s say there are two firms with the same costs, selling the same product – mineral water, for example. Both brands taste the same, so the only thing consumers think about is the price. If one bottle costs $5 and the other $4.90, they will pick the cheaper one. Let’s say that marginal cost is $3. Firm 1 thinks like this: “I want to set the price at $5… but hey, if I do that, Firm 2 will just retaliate and set the price at $4.90, taking all my customers. So I’ll set my price at $4.80, and since he’s 10 cent more expensive than I am, I’ll be able to take his entire market share… but then, he’ll lower his price to $4.70 and I won’t get any customers, so I’ll have to lower mine to $4.60…”
And so on. The price will then fall to $3, which is the minimum price (below that, it would be more profitable not to produce the last unit at all).
Does the Labor market work like that? The left would have you believe that. Workers have to constantly lower their wages to keep up with the competition, and in the end, only the workers willing to work for a salary just high enough to keep starvation away will find a job. Workers with high costs (those that need to be able to afford expensive medications or those with large families) will be driven out of the market.
Labor unions is the equivalent to a cartel between our two mineral water manufacturers above. The manufacturers may co-operate, make a deal stating that none of them will sell for one cent below $5. Similarly, the trade unions may create a minimum wage – either by lobbying politicians to legislate or by all workers agreeing not to offer themselves to work at a salary below any given level. The workers are then not competing against each other anymore, just like our manufacturers above, and can force the price (salaries) up.
Of course, just like mineral water at $5 instead of $3 means that fewer bottles will be sold, the demand for labor will decrease and unemployment rise as salaries increase.
How the labor market really works
Of course, the leftist view of the labor market is overly simplified. They assume that the products (labor) is homogenous, so that everyone is equally good. That of course is not the case. Some workers are more efficient than others, and every worker has a skill set which sets them out from the crowd. In other words, workers don’t have to compete with salaries – they can compete by offering unique skills as well.
So instead of competing with everyone else, you are only competing with those who have a comparable skill set. Employers today don’t simply look for people who are able and willing to stand next to an assembly line, doing the same tasks every day for the rest of their lives. They are much more specific about what they want; some jobs require workers who can stand long hours, others require creativity, some require numerical skills and others even require charisma.
The fallacy of the leftist thinking is to treat workers as if they were all the same and had nothing to compete with except price (meaning to compete, they’d have to offer to work for low salaries). The fact of the matter is that just like almost all companies compete by offering things other than a low price – reliability, a luxury brand, durability etc, so does workers compete by offering things other than just cheap labor: Some are willing to work uncomfortable hours, others can offer a lot of academical skills (they may hold a university degree), some are really good at handling customers while others are great at working in a team.
Now we’re going to introduce another term: Monopolistic competition. This is when a company has a “local” monopoly – for example, in a small town with only one clothes shop, that shop could be said to have a local monopoly on clothes. However, if they were to raise their prices a lot, people would certainly find it profitable to travel to a neighbouring town to get clothes – or another shop would open up in the small town.
You can also have a monopoly over a brand – Pepsi has a monopoly over their Pepsi brand and Pepsi cola, but if they were to double the price of Pepsi, almost all customers would switch to Coca-Cola. The same, of course, goes for Coca-Cola. Soft drinks are an industry with monopolistic competition. Prices will not be as high as they would with monopoly, but not as low as they would with perfect competition. The reason why Pepsi can sell their product at a price that is higher than the minimum price (marginal cost), is that some people are willing to pay extra to get that Pepsi taste. In short, many – probably most – customers are not indifferent between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Some of them are willing to pay extra to get Coca-cola, while others gladly separate from their money to get Pepsi. However, the products are still so “close” that producers of Pepsi have to take the price of Coke into account, and the other way around.
In the same way, employers are not indifferent between workers. If they feel they have found a really good fit for a job, they are willing to pay more to get that specific worker. Workers can also have a “brand”, just like companies – someone who is known for being a hard-working, honest man have an easier time getting hired and getting a raise than someone known for being a lying slacker. Someone with a good brand will get a higher salary than someone with a bad brand, just like companies with respectable brands can demand higher prices than those who do not.
Companies always seek to differentiate their products – they don’t like Bertrand competition and will do pretty much anything to avoid it (although there are for sure several companies which compete with low prices). That is why we nowadays have plenty of different mineral waters in the shops; Mineral water was Bertrand’s original example of an industry where you could only compete with price, because all kinds of mineral waters taste the same. Obviously, that has changed since he invented his model (you don’t believe me, go check it out in your local grocery shop – that’s monopolistic competition in action).
Just like companies seek to differentiate, so should workers. The problem is that many of them don’t; they figure that since they are overall decent people, they deserve a job. That mentality – that job is something you have a right to have – is devastating for a person’s chance to get a job. When enough people refuse to differentiate, the country they live in slowly loses its competitive advantage.
Another issue is barriers to entry (things that can stop potential buyers/sellers from entering a market – regulation, tariffs/quotas, licenses…). Many occupations require you to be certified, and you can’t enter it just like that. Pharmacists, doctors, lawyers – all are examples of this. This limits the supply of labor and leads to higher prices.
Overall, the labor market is a lot closer to monopolistic competition than Bertrand competition. Every worker have a skill set that they have a monopoly over, but there are usually other workers with similar skill sets, so if a worker demands an outrageous salary, he/she will be replaced. While monopolies are regulated (at least in the western world), monopolistic competition is generally permitted. The reason is that monopolistic competition occurs because products are diversified and because consumers are willing to pay more to get a certain kind of product. To ban monopolistic competition would be the same thing as demanding that all products be homogenous – there would only be one kind of soft drink that both Pepsi and Coca-Cola would have to produce, and the one who could sell this one soft drink to the lowest price would then win. That would arguably lower our living standard, most of us considers a wide range of products to be preferable, even if that means higher prices. So even though monopolistic competition is inefficient (compared to perfect competition) economically, it is tolerated because even though it is not visible in the output and price equations, it leads to a higher consumer satisfaction than what would otherwise have been the case.
The same, of course, can be applied to the labor market.
I would also like to add that workers today tend to price discriminate, just like companies; they try to get paid the maximum amount they can and will demand a higher salary if they feel the company can pay more, and may accept a lower salary (rather than none at all) from an employer who they suspect cannot pay as much. This is also done by companies who offer student/retiree discount, or may offer a lower unit price if you buy in bulk. There is nothing inherently wrong with the practice, but it may partly explain why people with similar skills can have different salaries: They all try to squeeze their employers as much as possible, but how much money they get depend on how much their employers can afford. Monopolistic competition gives workers some market power, that is the ability to affect their wages. That is the case for most workers today.
This hasn’t always been the case though. Back in the 19th century, almost all work was repititive and required very few skills. Also, all workers had gone to the same kinds of schools, spent the same numbers of years there, read the same books and so on. The labor market, in short, was not nearly as differentiated as now. Since you didn’t have more skills than the guy next to you, and since your job didn’t require any charisma, creativity or anything else (the assembly line won’t move faster just because you’re charmy), pretty much the only thing you could do if you didn’t have a job and wanted one, was to offer to work for a lower salary than the ones that already had a job. They, in turn, would offer to work for an even lower salary to outcompete you, and you’d have to work for a salary even lower than that to keep your job.
Cartels are common when Bertrand competition occurs, but not so much during monopolistic competition. It is simply harder to co-operate and set a common price when products are diverse; a car from SAAB is simply not worth as much as one from Ferrari, and so they could not co-operate and set the same prices (or even set a minimum price which would be meaningless since Ferrari is not competing by offering a low price in the first place). The same of course goes for labor; everyone has a different lifestyle associated with different costs, and also different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. This might not have been so visible 150 years ago, but it certainly is today. Setting one salary for a certain type of workers at a workplace is therefore not suitable, and deciding where the minimum wage should be is very hard when living costs differ so much – the need for flexibility becomes greater by the day. In addition to that it should be mentioned that productivity (which is what really determines wage levels in the long run) today is so high that practically everyone can earn enough money to survive even if they can’t work full time. In most European countries anyway, minimum wages are far above the “survival” level.
There are still jobs which are like that, but they are getting fewer and fewer. There are three main reasons:
1) Consumers constantly demand more. We want better and more complicated products all the time. Always striving to improve is in human nature I dare to say, but to produce these more and more complicated advanced products we need more and more skills and longer and longer education. This opens up for more opportunities to diversify and create your own profile on the labor market.
2) Globalisation. The repetitive, assembly line-style jobs can still be found, but nowadays mainly in China. The jobs that are left here in the western world require a much more diverse skill set. It should be noticed that unions, when they demand unjustified wage increases, are speeding up this process by making the cost of doing business higher which leads to more companies trying to cut costs by outsourcing.
The third reason I’d like to discuss more in detail:
Human Resource Management
The science of how to solve conflicts, negotiate and just in general how to treat workers is fairly new. Back in the 19th century, even we conservatives must concede that a lot of workers were treated badly and abused by their employers. This was largely because of lack of knowledge. Today, employers have understood that you actually lose money by treating your employees like animals. They become less efficient, and since a lot of jobs today require creativity and inspiration, doing things that will make your employees feel uninspired is the last thing you want to do. You cannot check whether they are doing their best; all you can do is pay them based on their result (commission, bonuses) and create a working environment where they can feel comfortable and inspired. See, workers don’t strive to maximize their salaries – they strive to maximize utility (another word for satisfaction or happiness). Working means sacrificing utility, and the money that you get for it must be enough to make up for the utility you lose. This is the same thing as saying that working is not something we do for fun, and therefore we must be properly rewarded for it. How “un-fun” working is depends to a large extent on how you are treated on your workplace. If you feel that you are treated with respect, you may feel that you are only losing, let’s say 5 “units” of utility/happiness. Then, your employer may only have to pay you $50 000 a year to make up for these 5 lost utility units. On the other hand, if you feel that every second at work is torture, you may feel that you are losing 10 units of utility, and so demand your employer pays you $100 000 instead (no, the value of every unit of utility is not constant, but just to simplify we are assuming that here). Whether or not your employer would agree to pay you that is a separate issue, but if he didn’t, you would start looking for another job. It is said that compliments are free, but they are not only free – they can actually save money.
Trade unions have fought for better working conditions, a struggle which has in many cases been justified. Today though, almost all employers understand that you must show your workers some basic respect and treat them with decency. There are still employers who don’t get this, but hardly so many that big unions can justify their existence.
With HRM, unions are less needed than they were before, and this contributes to their death.
Individualism – the dominating Zeitgeist
Lastly, the spirit of our times (in German called Zeitgeist) is unfavorable towards the trade unions. We have simply become more individualistic over time as we have gotten richer. This is of course a double-edged sword; I don’t want to make it sound as if I do not see any trouble with this trend. But it is none the less a fact.
Trade unions encourage people to define themselves as a part of a collective, the Workers. They want them to think of the other workers as their friends, and the Capitalists (another collective) as their enemies. The class struggle is a cornerstone of unionism, and leftist politics as a whole. The problem, for them, is that fewer and fewer people are interested in being defined by where they work, if they work and how much they earn. What used to be a very important part of everyone’s self-image (whether you were a carpenter, a factory worker or maybe even a business owner) is now of a lesser importance. People change jobs, they change industries, some may own a company and therefore be a capitalist for at some point in their life only to go back to being an employee later. We define ourselves more from other things such as whether or not we are good-looking, intellectual, what personality traits we have and so on. Whether this is a good trend or not I won’t discuss tonight; there are certainly both positives and negatives associated with it. I am simply saying that it is an undeniable fact.
Today, magazines are full of guides telling people how to negotiate about their salary, how to write a resume that stands out and how to convince your boss to allow you to work flexible working hours, or to work from home. These things – working hours, salaries and so on are things the Trade union used to take care of. The trend is that people think they can do a better job than any union could do. And I happen to think they are right.
We also have empirical evidence of this: Young people in Sweden are considerably less likely to join the union (and considerably more likely to leave it) than their parents are. People in their 40′s and 50′s usually joined the union because everyone else did, and never really thought about why. Young people are more critical and individualistic and just in general don’t like it when someone tries to tell them they can’t negotiate their own salary.
Individualism doesn’t fit well with unionism. As the old, traditional union members retire and die, membership in unions will decrease, in my view to the point where unions will become irrelevant.
Summary
To summarize, it is these factors which I believe will lead to an end for Trade unions, at least the way we know them – there will certainly still be a need for someone to educate people about how to do salary negotiations and maybe also solving conflicts, and while this doesn’t necessarily have to be done by unions, that is the only role I can possibly see them have in the future. Unionism is dying a slow, painful death – painful for the leftists, many of whom rely on the unions for campaign contributions and the like. This is because we have moved from Bertrand competition to Monopolistic competition in the labor market, because
We need to remember that unions need a certain amount of members to be efficient. A union with only 1 % of all workers as members cannot function since it’s so easy to find workers who are not unionized. There is a certain “critical mass”, a percentage of the workforce which must be unionized for the unions to be able to achieve anything. Exactly how big this “mass” is can be discussed, but if the unions get too small, they will quickly disappear since the remaining members realize they are not getting any benefits anymore from their memberships. The point is that everyone doesn’t have to leave the union; if maybe half the current members left, the effect would be the same as if everyone had left.
I know this post is unusually long and more resembles an essay. I am a student of Economics, which might explain it – I guess most of you had already figured that out.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on this issue. Please leave a comment.
John Gustavsson
From a guy with family in-country:
With family in Cairo and Alexandria, I am very well attuned to the goings on in Egypt at the current moment. After speaking with uncles and cousins via landlines (all other communication is shut down in Egypt) I have begun to understand the complexity and severity of the issue.
And later:
What does this mean for Egypt going forward? Egyptians must make it known quickly that they want a moderate in power. If this does not happen then the Muslim Brotherhood will find itself in power, despite what others believe. Egyptians’ best choice at the present time is Mohammed ElBaradei, though seen as an outsider and unaware of Egyptians concerns; he gives Egypt the greatest opportunity to remain credible in the Middle East. Other names like Amr Moussa (former Minister of Foreign Affairs) have come to the surface as a potential replacement. However member of Mubarak’s ministry is an unlikely choice.
The protests right now are focused on all the right things: corruption, human rights, and freedom. If however, the Muslim Brotherhood gains power it would make this protest about religion. If this does happen, it is over for Egypt. What would that mean for the rest of the Middle East? With similar revolutions happening in Tunisia, Algiers, Jordan, and Yemen; what happens in Egypt will likely control how the citizens in other countries decide to elect their leaders.
Mr. ElLaissi makes some excellent points. America should support democracy and freedom across the world, but we must also be wary of the safety of our nation; our nation’s interests; and the safety and interests of our allies. It is a fine line, and why I am a mostly-domestic commentator as opposed to a diplomat. It’s much easier to expound on domestic policy, where answers are far simpler to delineate between right and wrong (i.e. tax policy, abortion, spending priorities, etc.) than the gray areas of foreign policy.
The 2008 Republican primary focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, with only Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) having any real policy differences from his fellow candidates with regards to foreign policy. With protests now in Albania and Yemen, and already having made substantial impacts on the governmental structures of Tunisia and Egypt, the 2012 Republican primary may very well focus on how to deal with a changing reality in and around the Middle East in addition to spending and economic issues. Certainly the weakness of President Obama’s response to the Egyptian protests now; the Iranian protests in 2009; and the Honduran coup in 2009 will provide fertile ground for any and all candidates to stake their foreign policy credentials on.
Last evening Steve Forbes addressed a gathering at the Reagan Library in LA to discuss opportunities for the new GOP controlled House of Representatives. Forbes offered his perspective on President Obama’s SOTU address and how the Republicans can most effectively advance their agenda. His approximately 40 minute address also discussed the Federal Reserve and current monetary policy and its possible impact over the next few years. There was a brief Q&A period at the end that spawned interesting commentary from Forbes.
The Forbes address can be found on the Reagan Foundation’s YouTube channel at the following link. My apologies for not directly embedding the video. The embed function has not been working today.
According to a report by South Carolina edition of The State Column, Sen. Jim DeMint is giving serious consideration to entering the presidential race. DeMint would seek to capitalize on the perceived “conservative void” in the Republican 2012 presidential field that many were hoping would be filled by Rep. Mike Pence:
South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint is reportedly considering a run for president in 2012.
The South Carolina Republican, who ruled out the possibility of a run, is said to be reconsidering his decision in light of Rep. Mike Pence’s official withdrawal from the race.
Mr. DeMint, who raised his national profile during the 2010 mid-term election, continues to build his base amongst those in the Tea Party movement and in the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
A DeMint presidential run would likely complicate plans for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, both of whom are considered the front-runners of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primary (neither have officially announced their candidacy).
Those most likely to be directly impacted by a DeMint run include former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who would compete with DeMint for supporters and financing
Sen. DeMint will travel to Iowa on March 26 to address a conservative forum organized by Rep. Steve King.
In other news, Rudy Giuliani will travel to New Hampshire on March 18th to keynote the Manchester City Republican Committee’s Lincoln-Reagan Dinner fund-raiser:
RUDY’S RETURN. The Granite Status has learned that Rudy Giuliani is planning a return visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state in mid-March.
Sources say the former New York City mayor is slated to keynote the Manchester City Republican Committee’s Lincoln-Reagan Dinner fund-raiser on March 18. The event is slated to be held at the Executive Court banquet facility.
Although he finished fourth in the 2008 first-in-the-nation presidential primary, Giuliani built a dedicated following in the state and he returned to help the state’s GOP ticket during the 2010 mid-term election.
He has not deterred speculation that he’s considering running again in 2012.
This visit, in addition to his statements from last week that there is an opening in the Republican presidential field for a “moderate” candidate to exploit will do little to quell the speculation that Hizzoner is “all in” for another presidential run.
And finally, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman encouraged former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to run for president in remarks given to a Cincinnati area Republican group this morning:
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Saturday that he hopes former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) runs for president in 2012.
Portman, speaking at a Cincinnati-area pancake breakfast where Pawlenty was the guest, stopped short of endorsing the likely presidential candidate, but encouraged Pawlenty to run.
“You know, I am not endorsing anyone, but I am happy to introduce any candidate who comes here to people like you,” Portman said, according to Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Howard Wilkinson. “But I hope Tim Pawlenty will run because he has a great record and a great message.”
Portman may be new to the Senate, but his opinion carries some weight in Republican circles. He’s a former U.S. Trade Representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Bush administration, and before that, served in the House.
The import of Portman’s statement are aided by his status as a Republican representing a state, Ohio, that’s a key bellwether in presidential elections.
Finally, consider this your Saturday Open Thread.
Thanks to Kavon for allowing me to write for Race42012. I also write for ConservativeHome.com, where the below post was originally published. It is my hope that I will be able to post worthwhile contributions to both sites to influence the debate, heading into 2012 and beyond, over America’s coming fiscal crisis.
With America’s national debt approaching $14.3 trillion, and requiring a hike of the debt ceiling to prevent a defaulting of America’s debt, the political parties and casts of characters are taking up positions for potentially a major showdown in late February/early March. While the opinions vary, the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Austin Goolsbee, laid down the gauntlet to Republicans a few weeks ago. According to Goolsbee, playing chicken with the debt ceiling is “insane.” This sets a rather strong challenge to Republicans, who I am certain will be portrayed as irresponsible by liberal media sources if they don’t kowtow to President Obama’s wishes.
Both parties are responsible for the skyrocketing national debt. Democrats created Social Security, Medicare and Mediciad, the major drivers of our national debt in the long run. Republicans refused to hold the Defense Department to the same efficiency standards they claim to want to hold other departments to, and created an unaffordable drug program in 2003. Both parties have allowed corruption and incompetence to reign in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts that will cost America trillions in the long run. Both parties also supported TARP, a major bailout of GMC and the first stimulus under Bush, and the Democrats pushed the 2009 stimulus through with some Republican support.
It is with this backdrop that the debate over raising the debt ceiling arrives. With the gauntlet thrown by Goolsbee, Republicans have to respond with decisiveness and intellectual honesty. With three options available— raise the debt ceiling with no cuts; compromise on the ceiling rise with spending cuts; or cut so much raising the debt ceiling is merely an academic question— Republicans have to sit down and make some real tough decisions about the future of the party, its members, and the nation as a whole. Below is my take on the three options available to Republicans:
1. Raise the debt ceiling with no spending cuts - otherwise known as political suicide and more signs they are not serious about spending. If they do this, both parties will likely be severely diminished in power by 2015 as our spending trajectory gets steeper. I predict that at a minimum a strong third party will come to fruition, and at the other end of the spectrum rebellion and/or a fiscal implosion will happen.
2. Compromise with Democrats – say that they will raise the debt ceiling if $500 billion (slightly under 25% of the rest of the fiscal year’s budget) is cut out of the budget this year and get a public promise out of the president and the Congressional Democratic leadership to balance the budget by the time October 2012 rolls around. Senators Coburn and Paul (R-KY) have offered their votes only if $300 billion is cut from the budget and “a balanced budget rule” is attached to raising the ceiling, respectively. While neither of these options is good enough, they are responsible steps in the right direction, and Paul’s recent release of $500 billion in cuts is reason for some optimism. Unlike some Republicans who oppose raising the debt ceiling out of the same partisan reasoning then-Senator Obama (D-IL) and then-Senate Minority Leader Reid (D-NV) used in 2006 against raising the debt ceiling then, these senators are acting like the responsible leaders we the people hope all politicians will be. With just the spending cuts and entitlement and defense reforms I have offered cutting $500 billion this year and balancing the budget by 2012 is a very doable pair of goals, and I think Republicans should use them to the advantage of the party and the nation.
3. Don’t raise the debt ceiling at all - which means the nation defaults OR Democrats are forced to work with Republicans to cut enough money out of the budget to not default for the rest of the fiscal year. Given that we will put $300 billion into the debt in three months, this means we would have to cut at least $800 billion to have a tiny amount of breathing room until the end of Fiscal Year 2011s.
I’m torn on the last two options. I like #3 best, but it would simply be a political impossibility. Cutting 40% of the rest of the year’s budget is something that cannot work with so many politicians more willing to be re-elected than help the country. I think #2 is the most workable option. Politically it gives Republicans breathing room public relations-wise with both moderates and the Tea Party. It also, most importantly, gives the nation some breathing room while its leadership and grassroots activists find ways to bring the scope of government at least to affordable levels, if not to the small size at which it belongs.
The flaw with #2 is the same one Peggy Noonan noted helped create the Tea Party Movement – compromise is usually more liberal than conservative. In this case, however, I think compromise works in the favor of Republicans, the conservative movement and America.
Susie Wiles, a political adviser who worked for Rick Scott’s gubernatorial campaign, is now on board to head a political action committee that’s gearing up for a presidential bid by Ambassador Jon Huntsman:
Wiles told the Times-Union Thursday night that she’s signed on as the new executive director of a political action committee formed by supporters of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Huntsman, the current U.S. Ambassador to China, is rumored to be considering a run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
The rumors of a Huntsman bid compelled me to add the former Utah governor to the power rankings at the beginning of the month, but even I am surprised at the aggressive moves being made for Huntsman behind the scenes. These developments will leave that many fewer talented staffers and advisers available for candidates who plan to enter later in the game.
Another piece on a bid by Huntsman recently framed how the Ambassador could spin his Obama years to his advantage in a GOP primary:
A Huntsman candidacy would surely be preceded by a high-profile break with Obama. This would not have to be over China policy. Quite the contrary. The ambassador’s argument would more likely be that, while the administration’s approach to the Middle Kingdom (which he carried out) was solid, Huntsman saw up close how it was undermined by Obama’s profligacy at home. Unquestionably, some in the GOP would never forgive Huntsman for having gone to work for the enemy. But, were his break with the White House skillfully framed, for many others it might make him a kind of hero.
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-Texas Conservative blogs at ILikeMikeHuckabee2012
PPP (D) North Carolina 2012 GOP Primary Survey
- Mike Huckabee 27% {18%} [25%] (19%) {30%} [30%] (33%)
- Newt Gingrich 18% {21%} [17%] (23%)
- Sarah Palin 16% {21%} [21%] (19%) {30%} [27%] (27%)
- Mitt Romney 11% {18%} [10%] (14%) {27%} [25%] (25%)
- Tim Pawlenty 7% {3%} [4%] (4%)
- Ron Paul 6% {7%} [7%]
- Mitch Daniels 3% {1%} [1%] (2%)
- John Thune 1% {1%} [2%] (0%)
- Someone else/Undecided 10% {12%} [12%] (16%)
PPP (D) 2012 West Virginia GOP Primary Survey
- Mike Huckabee 28% {22%} [27%]
- Sarah Palin 23% {25%} [24%]
- Newt Gingrich 17% {15%} [16%]
- Mitt Romney 10% {15%} [13%]
- Ron Paul 6%
- Tim Pawlenty 5% {2%}
- Mitch Daniels 2% {1%}
- John Thune 0% {1%}
- Someone else/Undecided 8% {17%}
Since the health care debate really got underway in 2009, the name of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has gone from that of a nobody budget geek to giving the official Republican response to President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech. Ryan has been feted, and his Roadmap supported, by conservative luminaries such as The Heritage Foundation; Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC); Michael Tanner of the CATO Institute; George Will, who thought he would do well as Mitch Daniels’ Vice President; and many others. With all due respect to these leaders of the conservative movement, and to Mr. Ryan himself, I must bring up a cautionary note regarding Ryan’s voting record and his Roadmap.
First, regarding Ryan’s voting record. Matt Lewis of Politics Daily received a massive backlash for bringing this up last February, but his concerns are worth re-reading in full here. For my purposes, here is the main point of Lewis’ op-ed:
Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of about a year, Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district—are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property—if it doesn’t like you).
While Ryan’s overall voting record is very conservative, the problem with casting these high-profile votes is that they demonstrate he is willing to fundamentally reject conservatism when the heat is on.
Additionally, in 2003 Ryan voted for the Medicare Drug Bill. This bill, which has been a major bludgeon for Democrats against claims of Republican fiscal responsibility since, would have failed if Ryan and just two other Republicans had voted against it, as Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) and former Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ) did . Not only did it increase the debt, it was passed through highly unethical means.
I don’t begrudge Ryan a bad vote or two- he’s been in Congress long enough to have made some. Additionally, he defended most of the votes mentioned by Lewis quite well in a response to the accusations. However, they hint at a pattern that conservatives should be wary of.
Now onto the Roadmap. Created in 2008 and updated in 2010, it proposes to balance the budget by 2063. This is a home run compared to what most Members are willing to propose, and yet it falls far short of what is necessary for America to get out of the financial hole it is in. Our national debt is expected to hit $20 trillion by or before 2020, and Ryan’s plan would only be cutting $370 billion per year by then. We need a lot more drastic action by our elected Representatives if we are to avoid what Kavon has called an “existential crisis.” The budget must be balanced by the end of the 2013 Fiscal Year, or the nation’s financial state will truly be set for peril.
Perhaps I am being too hard on Ryan. He is obviously an intelligent Congressman working within political reality, and the 2010 Ryan-Rivlin plan has a lot of health care cost-reduction potential. I merely mean to caution conservatives who put Ryan on a pedestal without considering, objectively, things on his record they would call RINO-ish and liberal if most other Members were to boast them. After all, how many of us consider working within the traditional rules a practical part of the solution? I certainly don’t, and I think many conservatives and Tea Partiers would agree.
Ryan’s efforts thus far in President Obama’s term have made, and will continue to make, a meaningful difference to the national debate over spending and America’s financial future. However, they are not enough, since if we continue to add debt beyond the next two years we won’t make it to 2063. I would encourage him and all others who consider themselves fiscal conservatives to look at cuts I have proposed on over a trillion dollars in inefficient federal spending that can be cut in the next 21 months. Ryan and others could also join with Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) in drastic action to prevent the debt ceiling from being hit, and with Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) in fighting the Federal Reserve and government fraud, respectively.
We’re almost to the tipping point. With his newly-gained Chairmanship of the House Budget Committee, here’s hoping Paul Ryan is willing to break a few political rules. If he slips back to pre-Obama votes on critical issues we must hold him accountable— but if he does his job as a Congressman I will be the first to praise him. Here’s hoping he does his job.
Mike Huckabee will travel to Israel on Sunday and will be leading a tour through the Holy Land . While there, Huckabee will meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Just over a week after 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney visited Israel as part of a regional tour, another likely candidate – Mike Huckabee – is scheduled to arrive on Sunday for his 13th visit.
While Huckabee is coming on his own initiative to lead a group of American Christian pilgrims, he will meet on Monday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – as Romney did – and take tours both of east Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
On Monday, Huckabee will address the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee, at the request of committee chairman Danny Danon (Likud). In a rare appearance for a US presidential candidate before a Knesset committee, Huckabee will speak about diplomacy, anti- Semitism and Israel ’s public relations effort. Danon, who has hosted Huckabee on previous trips to Israel , said he would welcome other presidential candidates at his committee as well.
On Tuesday, he will take a tour of the West Bank, led by Danon, as guest of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
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-Texas Conservative blogs at ILikeMikeHuckabee2012.com
I know this is not technically about the 2012 election cycle, but the civil unrest in Egypt could have a huge impact on the international stage depending on the outcome. For those interested, Reuters has a live feed as its happening with information from a number of different sources all being fed into this one site.
Feel free to comment / offer insight below.
Strategic National 2012 Michigan Republican Primary Poll
- Mitt Romney 24.4%
- Mike Huckabee 18.8%
- Sarah Palin17.1%
- Newt Gingrich 10.2%
- Tim Pawlenty 3.5%
- Rick Santorum 1.9%
- Jon Huntsman 1.5%
- Mitch Daniels 1.0%
- Haley Barbour 0.6%
- Undecided 21.0%
The GOP Primary survey had a total of 480 respondents, 50% female and 50% male, and a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.
While Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has already ruled out a 2012 Presidential bid, the additions to his staff as well as his new committee assignments hint at what could be down the road for the rising conservative star. The Weekly Standard reports Rubio has hired Cesar Conda as his chief of staff. Conda served as a top policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney early in the Bush Administration and advised the 2008 campaign of Gov. Mitt Romney. Conda joins Sally Canfield, Joe Pounder, and Alex Burgos as top Romney campaign veterans who have signed on with Rubio. Whether this implies a potential ticket for 2012 has yet to be determined.
Sen. Rubio was assigned to the Senate Commerce, Small Business, Foreign Relations, and Intelligence Committees. While the field in 2012 may lack a frontrunner for President, it’s quickly becoming clear that Florida’s junior senator will be at the top of many short lists for Vice President.
This didn’t get posted on R4’12 when I originally posted it on CaffeinatedThoughts. But since two of my predictions came true (Pence not running, Thune expected to announce at end of February), I thought I’d post the rest here now.
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I am not a prophet nor do I play one on television.
Nevertheless, here is my take on possible announcement dates by the candidates most likely to run for President in 2012. All of them would be wise to get in by the time the Reagan Library debate in May, 2011 is held.
Tim Pawlenty: Expected in Iowa to close his book tour the last two days of January. Perhaps while he is still in Iowa on February 1st, he will make his plans known (or make a short trip back home to tell us from his home in Minnesota). I think he is definitely in and getting in first, often, and early will allow him the press coverage that other candidates won’t get. The press will pace around him Iowa the next few months like a cat waiting feeding time. Like Mike Huckabee at this time four years ago, he is probably not well known in Iowa or around the country. That means a free ride unless he picks up steam, then out will come the sharks prepared to eat him up if he has any scandals, terrible votes, foolish statements or bad hair days.
Rick Santorum: Another candidate who needs to get in early, but who has better name recognition. He has made many trips to Iowa already and as a longtime social conservative may be the best candidate to challenge Palin and Huckabee among those voters if they run. Santorum will have to give better reasons for endorsing Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2004 than he has to date. His answer to this point is revealing – it was a tactical, political move. He can hardly argue that his pragmatic decision helped his causes as Specter continued to vote frequently with the Democrats and eventually joined them. Maybe Santorum will announce near Valentine’s Day.
John Thune: One more candidate likely to get in earlier rather than later, if he decides to run. He is not a sure thing like Santorum and Pawlenty are. (I should disclose here, my first donation ever to an out of state politician was when Thune ran against Tom Daschle. And no I didn’t give money to Daschle). Thune voted for TARP in 2007 which could be a problem for him. Complaints, however, won’t come from the mouths of Palin and Romney who both supported John McCain’s vote for it. I hold to the view McCain’s one vote in favor of TARP may have cost him the election (and not his GOP-inspiring pick of Palin). By late February, Thune might be in.
Mitt Romney: He’s in, unless his poll numbers plummet. He may jump in anyway. I predict that he will take a great risk and forego serious campaigning in Iowa. I predict he will also move to the center on social issues or minimize them at the very least. He probably won’t announce until late April, right before the Reagan Library debate. Questions linger about his implementation of Romneycare and its relation to Obamacare.
Mike Huckabee: Whether he will run or not is still an unknown. I doubt his Fox News gig is the most important factor. It may be depend on whether there is a conservative running he trusts, such as Michelle Bachmann or Jim Demint. With name recognition he does not need to get in early. He will certainly have to shore up support among fiscal conservatives and figure out how to raise more money than he did in 2008.
Sarah Palin: Like Huckabee, it is not clear whether she will run or not. And if she does not run, will she endorse somebody or not? (It won’t be Huckabee, but might be Romney or Daniels). She can also get in very late and possibly even last, with a strong following and immediate access to the press. She may wait to see who else gets in and how her numbers are at that point.
Michelle Bachmann: Threw her potential bonnet in the ring this week. Immediately well-received by those on the right. It is tough for a member of congress to get traction, but she could do it, and she has as much relevant experience as others in the field. Look for her to announce by Mid-February, if she is in. She is a Tea-Party favorite.
Newt Gingrich: I predict he will not run. He is a perennial teaser, with too much personal baggage. He must announce very early (no later than the end of February) and virtually live in Iowa to even have a shot.
Mitch Daniels: Will not run unless both Huckabee and Palin choose not to run.
Mike Pence: Won’t run unless he can get either a Romney, Huckabee or Palin endorsement.
Haley Barbour: Won’t run unless Romney drops out. He could enter late, if Romney drops out. He would be an immediate favorite of the talk show and money crowd in the GOP.
Ron Paul: Will not run or will be ignored by the other candidates if he does; unless he decides to endorse somebody, then suddenly he will be all that and a bag of chips. Gary Johnson may get in, if Paul decides not to run.
Herman Cain: Will provide lots of entertainment. Will enter on Groundhog Day.
Others Not Running: Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Rudy Giuliani (if America’s Mayor does enter, it will be on April Fool’s Day).
Other candidates I wish would consider running: Steve King (at least run for Senate, Steve!), Jim Demint, and J C Watts.
-Did I miss an article? Broken Link? If so, please email me at kavon_w_nikrad@yahoo.com.
