How Not to Create a Job and Spend $447 Billion Doing It

Yesterday the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report on the state of poverty in America which stated that 46.2 million Americans were poor last year.  That translates into the fact that one in seven of us are living in poverty.

Naturally, the quickest way to lower that number is to get the private sector business environment in gear so that good jobs are available to those in this demographic.  Unfortunately, President Obama's new jobs plan appears to be mostly rehashed spending from the first stimulus law in 2009.  Look inside and you will see (not shovel-ready) infrastructure projects, additional bail-out funds to states, along with subsidies and loan guarantees to fund Green jobs.

One of the proposals in the president's plan is the payroll tax cut.  Congress could do some good by following through on this one and perhaps extending it through 2013.  It's still difficult to see how much benefit can come from a temporary cut, but by having the lower rate in place for two years it would make employers definitely consider it in hiring.  The Republicans proposed this in 2009 as an alternative to Obama's spendathon, but he and his Congressional leaders refused to listen. 

Of course paying for it is problematic.  Obama's plan to raise taxes in 2013 on the very people that he expects to do all this hiring is absolute lunacy.  His plan is pretty straight forward.  To employers he's saying, "please take some money and hire some people, then after you help me get re-elected I'll ask for all that money back".

Better would be to reform the entire tax code into a flatter, wider and simpler system eliminating the massive loopholes in our current system.  This would have the side benefit of eliminating some of the accounting drag on businesses.  A simpler tax code has the same effect as loosening regulations.  It allows more of a business's activities to be about productivity which leads to less overhead, greater profits, greater growth which of course leads to more hiring.

Infrastructure plays a large part in Obama's jobs plan.  But this has no chance of helping create jobs in the near term.  Let's take a step back and evaluate our transportation funding.  For the year 2008, transportation funding was $10.7 billion.  For 2010 funding doubled to $21.3 billion.  On top of this was the $48.1 billion that was part of Stimulus I.  So in two years we increased spending by $58 billion and the president wants to add another $50 billion, which is utter nonsense if he wants the money to be stimulative.  There are not enough good quality projects where we can spend the money already allocated.  It will be years before this new money could be matched up with any projects of value.  You just can't increase spending by ten-fold in this way and expect to see short term results.

Yes we need to work on our infrastructure.  But we need to do it in a frugal manner and while instituting a real long term plan.  There was a large outcry about the Bridge to Nowhere, but how many "bridge to nowhere"-type projects will be wrongly funded as we try to spend money as quick as we can?

As for the Green job funding, keep the name Solyndra in your memory.  You will hear much about it over the next year.  The solar panel manufacturer received over $500 million in loan guarantees from Stimulus I, but went bankrupt recently and 1,100 people lost their jobs.  The FBI raided their offices last week, but recent emails point to the White House pressuring the OMB to make the loan in 2009.  One analyst even stated that Solyndra would run out of money in September 2011.  The date Solyndra filed for bankruptcy - September 6, 2011.

Also not mentioned is that nearly half of the original $36 billion renewable energy loan program in Stimulus I has yet to be given out.  Aside from that we have the millions of dollars spent for energy efficient upgrading and weatherization that have succeeded thus far in creating one job for every $5 million spent.  Pouring anymore down those money pits would be beyond foolish.

Then the president believes we need to send even more tax dollars to states so that they can once again put off making tough decisions.  The truth is a lot of states are in bad financial shape and cuts need to be made - the sooner the better.  A temporary bailout will not eliminate the problem.  When states refuse to make the necessary cuts, the threat of increased taxes loom.  In that environment, businesses are left to worry about those kind of changes to their bottom line.  So where is this type of stimulus creating jobs?

Finally, Obama believes we need to extend unemployment benefits even further.  At the risk of angering some readers, let me say that this is ridiculous.  In what world does the president believe paying people to stay home will get more people working?  If there was any substantial effect from the recipients of government aid helping stimulate the economy, then we wouldn't be in the fix that we find ourselves. 

If it's solely to help the unemployed, then we are doing the opposite of what we should be doing.  Basic economic textbooks, along with real life experience, will tell you that unemployment payments extend unemployment.  Even worse, chronic unemployment makes each potential worker unemployable in the eyes of the men and women who hire.  This is why, even when a government program helps an employer to create jobs, only half of those jobs went to the unemployed.  Instead, employers poached workers from other companies.

Contrary to popular thinking, the solution to our problems today is to simply put into place the type of common sense reforms that will help our economy at any time.  The idea that we need temporary efforts for a temporary problem comes from a misunderstanding of how the economy works.

Last year, the Cash for Clunkers was a good example of a failed temporary policy.  It didn't create new car buyers, but it did cause people who already planned on buying a care to move up the timing of their purchase to qualify.  In the end, it was not an incentive to cause people to purchase a car and the end result was that the price of used cars went up thanks to all the quality used cars that were taken out of circulation.  In effect, the government gave a lot of money to the middle class and affluent to buy a new car and caused the poor to pay more for a used car.

Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. President.  We don't need anymore of that type of help.  Stimulus II: Economic Boogaloo and Cash for Green Clunkers just won't work.  You talked a big game about reforming Washington.  Isn't it time we tried something we know will work, like tax reform?  See Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 1981-1988 in the White House records if you need some pointers on how best to proceed.  We're getting a little bit tired of waiting for you to become the one we've been waiting for.

How the Ball Lost Its Bounce

Zero.

0.00000

Nada.

That is how many jobs were added in the August jobs report - zero.  At this point can anyone even trot out the cliched "unexpectedly worse" line to describe this report?  It's absolutely not unexpected if you understand how our economy operates.

Let me provide a quick picture of how our economy works.

Imagine a bouncy ball - it represents the movement of our economy moving forward in time.  As the ball moves upward, our economy is experiencing growth.  But as the economy grows, poor decisions or wagers accumulate.  Think about the tech bubble or the housing bubble.  As people continue to overprice certain stocks or commodities, overhire & overspend, the ball begins to become weighted down by all this - we'll call it excess.

Burdened by the weight, the ball begins to fall.  Somewhere underneath is a natural floor which the ball will hit.  This is the downturn of a recession.  But when the ball hits this floor, all the excess will be broken off the ball and the bouncy ball will do what bouncy balls tend to do when they hit the floor quickly.  It will bounce back.  And the cycle will repeat itself if left alone.

The problem develops when the government tries to alter the cycle.  Can government help?  Yes, but only when it understands how.

In 2008-2009, both Presidents Bush & Obama saw an economy in a death fall and they believed they could and should do something about it and they did.  Rather than allow the ball to fall to its natural floor, they attempted to arrest the fall - which they did.

(Wait a minute.  Are you giving President Obama credit for ending the economic downturn?  Absolutely.)

The policies put into place, mostly by Obama, created a soft landing place for our economy, sort of like a pillow, in an attempt to protect Americans from being hurt by the fall.  It arrested the fall before it hit a natural floor, thus keeping the downturn from going as low as it may have. 

But, unlike what Obama says, that does not mean he prevented another Great Depression.  In fact, he has ensured that we would go through a depression.

By cushioning the fall, protecting homeowners, bailing out banks & the auto industry, funding states, Obama prevented the ball from shedding the excess that had accumulated on it.  Now it just sits there, overweighted with no bounce.  It's not going anywhere for a while.  This pretty much represents, if not a literal depression,  then at least the quagmire our economy is stuck in.

Even worse, the president's administration is putting in place new regulations that will represent obstacles to growth, so that even if we can get the ball bouncing, it will be hard to build any momentum.

Contrary to how this recession was handled, look at how Ronald Reagan reacted to taking office under a similar economic downturn.

Reagan understood that a falling economy could not be propped up.  Rather than attempt to stop the fall, he & Treasury Secretary Volker put into place policies that actually accelerated the fall.  By doing so, the economy hit the floor sooner and quicker.  This created an even larger bounce than would normally be expected.  The economy quickly shed the excess and took off. 

In addition, Reagan's tax & regulatory policies gave the economy room to grow so the ball bounced higher and higher than ever before and created a higher floor for the next bounce.

President Obama will give a speech next week on jobs.  I wish it mattered.  Unfortunately, I don't see how it does.  As long as our ball sits on the ground, covered in excess, surrounded by new regulations and the threat of higher taxes, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Who's Anti-Science Now?

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, signalling the end of the Soviet Empire.  At least that's how it was reported.  Like a football game, victory should never be openly declared until time has expired.  But by the time The Wall fell, the West, led by America had already taken a knee to run out the clock.  In truth, the end of the Soviet Empire was assured early in Ronald Reagan's second term.  When President Reagan introduced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, the Soviets had their collectivist legs knocked out from under them.  They had used up all their resources in defending the body blows Reagan's defense buildup had caused and were in no shape to withstand this new futuristic StarWars weapons system with its space-based Lasers.  StarWars' offensive potential (in the Soviets' minds) was a knock-out blow.

A similar knock-out blow may have been delivered against Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) recently.  But it may be years before most will learn anything of it.  In 1996, two Danish scientists hypothesized that the sun and cosmic rays promote the formation of cloud formation at the molecular level.  If true, it would show that changes in cloud formation (and thus climate temperatures) were directly correlated to changes in the the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere, which is controlled by the sun's magnetic field.

The day after presenting their hypothesis at a scientific conference in Britain, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), denounced their theory and sought to discredit them.  An attendee from the conference, spoke of their theory in a lecture at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories.  CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere. 

A CERN scientist, Jasper Kirby, saw the importance of the theory and developed an experiment that would create a cloud chamber.  In 1998, Kirby told the scientific press, "The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”   Some in the scientific community were put off by the thought that such an experiment would take place and pressured CERN to withdraw support for Kirby.  It took nearly a decade to be able to move forward with the project and several years to build it.

The research was published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature.  In Kirby's cloud chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays), it follows that the sun has a large controlling effect on the Earth's temperature apart from its natural radiant effect.

This data will be very unpopular with those scientists whose livelihood relies on AGW for funding.  Many of these same scientists have decried the unscientific masses who deny the existence of AGW today.  Will they now step up and accept the science?  Or was their stance not really about science in the first place?

This is hard science with data originating at one of the premier scientific institutions on earth.  Of course it's too early to declare victory for common sense and good science.  But several year from now, we will see that while the IPCC began to unravel under it's own doctored science in 2010, it was when Kirby's research was released in August 2011 that the clock began to run out on the AGW scaremongers.

How odd is it that Reagan's threat of rays from space ended the Soviet threat, while cosmic rays from deep space may be the end of AGW?  Who knew science had such a wonderful sense of irony?

Dude, Where's My Recovery? - Part I

Dude, Where's My Recovery? - Part II

After committing our military to fight a (air only) war in Bosnia...no, uhm, Somalia....uh....Libya (sorry, I was looking through the Congressional minutes for the authorization to use force, but I can't seem to find it), President Obama went on a Job Creation Jaunt to South America, where he samba'd, kicked a few soccer balls and agreed to fund and purchase oil from Brazil's newly discovered off-shore oil fields (I could of swore he meant create domestic jobs, but I must have read that memo incorrectly).  Except for a few snapshots in Rio with the landmark Christ the Redeemer statue, not sure why he didn't just take a trip to Miami & New Orleans.

Here in North America, spring has begun.  With the arrival of the warm air and sun, the new housing numbers came in.  New home sales in February were the worst ever for a single month in the 48 years these numbers have been tracked.  I remember hearing alot about Recovery Spring, then Recovery Summer last year as Washington tried to inspire a recovery, all to no avail.  But I've heard nothing but crickets about a Recovery Spring this year. Seems no one in Washington wants to talk about the economy.  So you may ask, "Dude, where's my recovery?"

While we are no longer in recession, the economy can't regain lost ground without going into overdrive.  Simply resuming normal economic activity will not create jobs to replace those that were lost.   President Obama has made the claim over and over that he acted to stop the fall, but stopping a falling economy is only half the battle.

Casual Friday Edition

*    Our prayers go out to the people of Japan along with the other coastal areas that may soon be affected by today's earthquake.  I really should say earthquakes, plural.  From Gateway Pundit

So far there have been 18 aftershocks: 8.9, 6.4, 6.4, 6.8, 7.1, 6.3, 6.3, 5.8, 5.9, 6.3, 6.1, 6.1, 5.9, 5.8, 5.7, 5.6, 5.9, 6.2.

The earthquake in Haiti last year registered at 7.0.

*     As I told everyone to expect, blogging has been light this week due to my trip to Jefferson City.  Conversations, discussions, arguments along with drinking often goes long into the night in our state capitol.  I'm not much on that last item, but when the other three are happening I'm having fun.

I spent a good amount of time talking with as many of the State Senators as I could, to express my opposition to Senator Ridgeway's Right to Work bill.  Economic arguments aside for the moment, I'm fighting this bill for three very rational reasons that my fellow Republicans can understand.

1. Illegal immigration - Right to Work states have a far greater presence of illegal immigrants.  Until the federal government enforces our nation's borders, this will not change.
2. Public Unions - I'm in favor of restricting the Public Employee Unions collective bargaining.  I believe all Americans can understand the conservative position on this issue when they can separate how they see private and public unions.  In attempting to restrict Private Unions, the distinction becomes less clear and hurts the taxpayers.
3. Politics - Pushing Right to Work can only succeed as a ballot proposition.  A ballot proposition will bring Democrat voters out in force, especially union voters.  Winning a ballot initiative while losing the Republican majority will end with the repeal of Right to Work in the next legislative session.  In a swing state such as Missouri, it's a no-win issue for Republicans.

*    Speaking of Public Employee Unions....  I find it difficult for a group who is failing in their sworn duties to the people of Wisconsin, while hiding illegally in another state, in order to avoid the results of last year's election to call what happened this week "undemocratic".

Governor Walker wanted to have a full budget appropriations bill, but due to the lack of a quorum of members, the appropriations elements of the bill were removed allowing the bill to pass by simple majority.  This is the opposite of undemocratic.  The majority passed a bill - flat out and simple.  The minority failed in their effort to hijack the process through illegitimate means.  Their only complaint is that they didn't get their way.  That's democracy in action.

Last year, the Republicans and Tea Party didn't get their way on Healthcare Reform because they were in the minority.  After the vote was over, there were no riots and cries of the end of democracy despite a few controversial legislative moves.  Instead conservatives took their argument to the voters and made historic gains in the next election.  That is how democracy works. 

When we lose, we fight our battles at the polls, not in the streets or in the halls of the capitol.  This is a democracy, not a thugocracy.

*    Speaking of the halls of the capitol....    While in the capitol, I spent a lot of time talking with my fellow union leaders and found to my dismay that everything I had to say was news to them.  Generally, my positions reside well on the conservative side of the spectrum, while union leaders are usually found on the opposite.  As we discussed many of the issues before Congress I found that even the well read and knowledgeable leaders of the left were absolutely clueless on the true positions of conservatives.  I won't go into it now, but I will soon post on the Myths about Republicans/Conservatives.  To all my Democrat friends - please look for it.

Nuts

*    Jack Lew, Director - Office of Management and Budget writes in USA Today that the Social Security Trust Fund is solvent until 2037.  Charles Krauthammer takes Director Lew to task for this fraudulent statement.  He writes at National Review,

The Social Security trust fund is a fiction...[OMB report] “The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the government’s ability to pay benefits.” 

....when Jack Lew tells you that there are trillions in this lockbox that keep the system solvent until 2037, he is perpetrating a fiction certified as such by his own OMB. What happens when you retire? Your Social Security will come out of the taxes and borrowing of that fiscal year.

To understand the size of the issue read my post Tell Them About the Twinkie

*     Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota took issue with Representative Peter King's hearings on Radical Islamist groups.  Rep. Ellison made his point by crying while telling a lie.  When the facts are not on your side, just make stuff up.  Gateway Pundit has the story.

*     Bad news for anyone holding out hope that Democrats will be serious about cutting the deficit.  In arguing against the Republicans budget cutting proposals, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, said [h/t Robert Costa, NRO],

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

Our nation's deficit this year will be over $1.5 trillion, we're literally broke, the states are going broke, the Republicans seek to cut a lousy $61 billion of a $3.5 trillion budget, and the leader of the Democrats refuses to accept the loss of a cowboy poetry festival.  When an animated aardvark and a cowboy poetry festival are unacceptable cuts, you are being completely unserious.

*     Ken Salazar, Interior Department Secretary told Congress that oil production in the gulf remained at an all-time high.  He backed this up by noting the number of oil rigs in the gulf had risen.  What he didn't bother to tell Congress was how many of those rigs were currently operating.  Check out the Energy Tomorrow blog and you will find that before the oil spill, 55 rotary drills were in operation, but only 25 were operating last week. [h/t Gateway Pundit]

*     Nobel-prize-winning-economist-turned-partisan-hack-Paul-Krugman, says that America is not broke as long as they can still borrow money.  Isn't that what led to the financial crash in 2008?  Some economist, huh? [h/t Newsbusters]

*     Just try and imagine President Reagan saying anything like this. 

“Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.’”

Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard took the words right out of my mouth when he commented on the President's current job.

It’s a tough job—maybe tougher than being president of China. But Barack Obama ran for president of the United States. Maybe he should start behaving as one.

Some days I despair.  When will we have the opportunity to have a man like Reagan lead us again?

Do you want to know how proud I am to say I grew up while he was President?

I often wear a Reagan shirt to my Union conferences and meetings.  When you're right, it doesn't matter who thinks you're wrong.

Surreal is this Blindman's Budget

Yesterday I attempted to explain the basics of budgeting.  As I'm sure you know, the Federal Budget process is far removed from those basics.  In order to show you just how far off we are, here is a little chart from budget data found on the White House website (Office of Management & Budget).

Only a blind-man could look at this chart and fail to see that something must be done.  But Obama's new budget fails to notice reality.  Instead his proposed budget is a surreal venture that seeks to march onward listening to the beat of a drum that only the President can hear.  Talk of any higher spending needed to fix the economy now falls on deaf ears (Krugman), yet on he marches.

Reflections: A Ronald Reagan Rundown (updated)

Amidst the Super Bowl hoopla this weekend, the interweb will also be running over with various tributes, memorials, anecdotes and other such musings on our 40th president to celebrate what would have been his centennial birthday.  Born on February 6th, 1911 he lived a life that not only saw the events of the 20th century, but he without a doubt, played the largest part in steering them over the last quarter century.  The Soviet Union was born in 1917 while he was still a boy.  When he ascended to the Presidency, America seemed to be a weakening nation, unable to stand in opposition to this menace.  Eight short years later, the Evil Empire was in its death throes and would soon collapse as liberty spread across eastern Europe.  Americans came to the realization that the specter of nuclear war had passed into the night with each ping of the hammer that fell the Berlin Wall.  The Soviet Empire ultimately, could not outlive Ronald Wilson Reagan.  Thank you Mr. President.

Here's a rundown on some of the various Reagan tributes I thought you might like.

John Yoo at NRO's Corner Blog

Steven Hayward at NRO

The Washington Times

Ed Rollins, CNNOpinion

Daniel Flynn, Frontpage

Lou Cannon, Politics Daily

Mark Joseph, Investors Business Daily

Deroy Murdock, National Review - Reagan Revealed 

John Heubusch, Pajama's Media 

Edmund Morris, Washington Post

Senator Orrin Hatch, on the Senate floor 
Too often, I've heard the compaint from friends that the Republicans are all about saying, "No" and don't want to do anything.  Sen. Hatch reminds us of something Reagan said that gives encouragement to those who say, "NO".  Hatch writes,

Ronald Reagan succeeded as president because he knew what he was about. In his farewell address from the Oval Office, he said, ‘I went into politics in part to put up my hand and say, Stop. I was a citizen politician, and it seemed the right thing for a citizen to do. I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded the people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.’

I attempt to end the perception that Reagan was not conservative enough to be a Republican today in Want some Tea with that birthday cake, Mr. President?

As I have an opportunity to read more this weekend, I will update this page so check back.

Finally, I offer this - the speech by President Reagan on June 12, 1987 that he gave outside the Berlin Wall.  Despite what has been written about him this week, this was no quiet or soft diplomacy.  With the world watching and with the greatest symbol of the east-west divide framed behind him, he called out Mr. Gorbachev by name and told him, not asked, but told him to "Tear down this wall!"  Today, we have leaders fearful of printing cartoons, but the Gipper would not back down.  This epitomized his "peace through strength" diplomacy.  He said to the Soviet Premier, "Hey, I'm here.  I'm not going anywhere.  I'm not here to fight, unless you want to fight.  But I got a better idea.  What we got over here is pretty good and we want you to have it too.  Come down, open the door and shake my hand.  This whole thing has gone on too long.  It's time for it to end.  Now open the door."  Firm, but fair. 

Want some Tea with that birthday cake, Mr. President?

This Sunday would have been Ronald Reagan's 100 birthday.  The press will be full of stories and coverage of this.  Most will be reverent and celebratory of the man,  his life and his presidency.  This is a surprising turn, since he was condemned and belittled on a daily basis while serving as our 40th president.

I was still a teenager during Reagan's presidency, so some may say I was too young too know what I am talking about.  But I remember all to well how he was thought of at the time.  He was a heartless, evil, senile old racist who was too stupid to understand diplomacy, too stubborn to change and too air-headed to run the country.  The press' treatment of him was eerily similar to that of George W. Bush. 

This is a bit from Saturday Night Live during the Iran-Contra affair (notably not a high point).  It shows that the perceived notion of Reagan in the press and the White House's use of that image to disguise the "truth".  And it's really funny.

Following my post, Reagan/Obama 1984, I received comments that today's GOP is too far right of Reagan.  But that couldn't be more wrong.  Let's try taking a look at the big picture.  During the Great Depression, the country began a lurch to the left.  Reagan, who was once a Roosevelt Democrat, was famous for declaring, "I didn't leave the Democratic party.  The party left me".  Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon were a fixture in that leftward tilt.  President Kennedy's tax plan was more conservative than anything Nixon did in office.

Reagan/Obama 1984

I wrote this a few days ago.  I was waiting for someone else to make this point, but no one did. 
It's a bit lengthy, but I think worth the read.

Reagan/Obama 1984

by

Sam Ritter

As I read and listened to the comments following President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, it became obvious that the concerted effort to seem more Reaganesque had succeeded.  Following news reports that he had put Reagan on his reading list and then submitted an editorial on Reagan to USA Today, it was expected that the President would try to hit the sunny side of America - Reagan style.  The commentators made this the central theme of the post speech discussion.  Time magazine photoshopped President Obama with an apparently, approving Reagan for its cover.  But was Barack Obama channeling Ronald Reagan or something very different?

            President Reagan often proclaimed an optimistic future for America. As he would say, it was morning in America.  His presidency, not unlike others, was heavily draped in patriotic colors.  But it has become clear that some Americans have misunderstood this patriotism.  In fact, functioning patriotism has come to be an elusive enigma that seems to leave some on the left groping in the dark.  They have proclaimed taxes patriotic, but decry the patriotic glory of everyday Americans taking pride in the accomplishments of their fellow citizens during the Olympics.  They disparage our founders and are ashamed of those espousing American exceptionalism.  They wish to educate our children of all the wrongs ever perpetuated by America, but seek to bypass all the good that has come to exist because of her.

            In the past I never understood why they seemed so inept at showing patriotism, but now it seems they’ve let their slip show.  They, along with our President, either have no idea what patriotism is or they do, and have absolutely no need for it.  The SOTU, protestations otherwise was not a patriotic address – it was a nationalistic address.  Therein lays the danger.

            The patriotism/nationalism dichotomy has always been difficult for some to comprehend.  For some, overt patriotism would lead to nationalism, it was feared.  But that shows a basic failure to understand the underlying nature of the concepts.  Perhaps some have been distracted by the principle of American exceptionalism, which holds that the nature of America’s founding and the documents and ideals that have formed our nation are unique, i.e. exceptional.  Many misunderstand and believe this to mean that some feel that Americans are a better, more exceptional people than those of other nations.  This is of course, far from the truth.

            While both patriotism and nationalism are centered on our attitude and feelings toward our nation, they are very different.  They represent two sides of the same coin as they relate the citizenry toward the state. Patriotism is about pride – pride in the nation, pride in our fellow citizens, pride in accomplishments without a loss of self, whereas nationalism is about submission – pieces in a cog working for the greater good, submitting their own desires toward the collective, marked by a self-less devotion.  Often there will be an overlap between the two, which can be seen most clearly during martial events.  During WWII, patriotic Americans heeded the national call for sacrifice, while the German people surely felt a sense of patriotic pride following military victories.  But at the core, they retain differences.

            At times, the left has revealed how they truly feel about America.  Remember when Michelle Obama said, “And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”  In the absence of pride, there is no patriotism.  Without a patriotic pride in America, there is no reverence for the nature and history of America.  When nothing of America’s past is sacred and honored, the only way forward is to remake America into what you want it to be.  During the 2008 campaign, we heard both Obamas talk about how the world “as it is just isn’t good enough” and fighting for the world “as it should be”.

            In his address, Obama called upon us to realize our Sputnik moment, and then proceeded to “launch” into a list of “investments” for the greater good.  Children must go to college because our nation needs them to have a college degree.  We must move forward as a nation to beat the Chinese in solar panels and win the green revolution.  We will lose the future without high speed rail.  It all sounded like the normal boilerplate we hear in these types of speeches, but was it?

            Sputnik put fear in Americans, not because it showed that we were behind technologically or commercially to the Soviets, but because we feared that it put us at a disadvantage militarily and thus mortally.  When JFK called on America to go boldly where no man has gone before, it wasn’t because he wanted to ride the technological wave of the future.  He, along with many Americans feared a militarization of space – armed satellites ready to rein destruction on us from above.  For the protection of America, he stated a goal and made it clear that America would accomplish what it set out to do.  Because this was a matter of national defense, it was a task for the federal government.

            Watch the movie “The Right Stuff” based on the novel by Tom Wolfe and you will see the rugged individuals who came to epitomize the early days of NASA.  Life and death were on the line for our first “space voyagers” much as it was on the line for America as we entered the Space Race with the Soviets.  To compare our perceived deficiency in solar panels or high speed rail to the Chinese with these events is beyond believability.

            Yet, there was our president telling us we need to “Win The Future™”, by circumventing our capitalist system and throwing our efforts to the state in order to succeed in the marketplace of the future.  By his reasoning, I’m amazed that America has survived to the present, unless my history is off and Eli Whitney worked for the Department of the Interior.  Or were John Fulton and Henry Ford working for the Federal Transportation Authority?  Is it too much to think that Samuel Colt was part of the ATF?  I’m not sure which area of the Federal government Steve Jobs worked in as he developed the iPOD.  To understand where Obama is wrong is to understand when and where the state should have primacy.  In matters of national defense, it should.  In matters of commerce, it should not.  It is understood that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government directive to regulate, but it does not have primacy and should only interfere with the open marketplace as a last resort, whereas “provide for the common defence” is a stated federal obligation found in the preamble.

            In truth, America succeeds because of our open marketplace, where good ideas flourish and bad ideas are quickly and mercilessly destroyed.  Many can recall the state of fear that believed Japan’s lead in the electronic age was going to leave us behind?  Even when America does not lead the way, our open market allows American innovation to improve and market these ideas and succeed. If an idea is worthy, it will succeed in the market and if not, it will fail miserably as it should.  In the government bureaucracy an idea may continue to be pursued regardless of any future success.

Certainly some good ideas develop from government research, but often they are inadvertent successes.  The basic framework for the internet was developed as a defense project.  Many innovations have developed from NASA, but as side effects, so to speak.  Among these are freeze drying, solar energy, portable cordless vacuums, Light-emitting diodes (LED) and Tempur foam.  What this shows is that in any properly funded research and development department, good ideas will come, often in unexpected forms.  But this does not show that the state is the best place for research.  The government beast makes for a highly inefficient laboratory with no true mechanism for harvesting the good or ridding the bad.  At this point in time, NASA is a mess of a bureaucracy filled with red-tape, whose once tightly focused mission has become so scattershot that it is no longer able to complete its primary goal of sending Americans into space, but must pay to hitch a ride with the Russians.  By raising the specter of Sputnik, the irony of NASA’s current failures could not be made clearer.

            Yet despite what was made clear by his allusion, the President called for Americans to put more of our private sector and research under the control and direction of the state and asked the American people to rally together toward our common good as dictated by him.  Thus lays the heart of the leftists’ nationalism.  For those who think of Mussolini or Hitler, Obama’s is not a militant nationalism.  No, this movement flows from leftist, social justice thinkers who believe America needs to be liberated; liberated not from some external enemy, but from the enemy within – free market capitalism.  Obama seeks to accomplish this from the top down, but others seek the same from the bottom up.  We’ve seen this recently in the call by Francis Fox Piven for mass protests and riots among the working class.  Our open markets are the oppressor that must be vanquished.  This way forward is with the mass of nameless, faceless “oppressed” in open rebellion.  Both directions seek to suppress the will of the individual to the group.  This is a radical departure for a nation founded upon the virtues of the individual and the general will identified in liberal nationalism as originally espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  In his writings, Rousseau claimed that citizens constrained to obey the general will are free.  He emphasized that the general will exists to protect individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it

Taking their cue from him, the founders formed a nation of individuals called to a joined purpose of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a general will that leaves them free to follow the path of their own choosing.  Obama now seeks to call us for joined goals through singular means – individuals need not apply, as we must sacrifice ourselves for the common good.  By invoking Reagan, Obama sought to put a happy, patriotic face on left-wing/Marxist nationalism and make it more palatable to the people.  By their reactions, this has worked with the mainstream press. Thus far it has failed with the people.  With the advent of the Tea Parties, there is a renewed interest in the founders and perhaps as the public becomes more aware of federal encroachment, it can be restrained or even pulled back.

But the leftist, like an expert chess player sees several steps ahead.  If you’ve ever wondered why the leftists seek out a crisis, it is because of this – the American people are willing to humble themselves for the public good and pull together during a crisis, whether war, disaster, terrorism attack, etc. because that is part of our nation’s social contract.  In that moment, our civic nationalism becomes exploitable and that is exactly where Barack Hussein Obama wants us.  Only in the Orwellian world found in the aptly titled “1984” would it be anything other than reprehensible that this man could ever be compared to Ronald Wilson Reagan.