North Suburban Republican Forum » National politics

Colo. state Rep. Ramirez rips Pres. Obama on failure to lead

NSRF Administrator — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:26:21 +0000

Colo. state Rep. Ramirez rips Pres. Obama on failure to lead

Posted by Kelly Maher on January 28th, 2012

After his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Pres. Obama started a muti-state tour (targeting key election states such as Colorado – no coincidence) to plead his case. Before the president’s stop at Buckley Air Force Base on Thursday, some Republican leaders held a press conference at the state Capitol, questioning his flawed economic policies and endless campaigning.

Here’s what state Rep. Robert Ramirez, R-Westminster, told us afterward…

“He’s spending our money to campaign,” said Ramirez. “When is this man going to become president? Three years now, not one time has he been president. Even Bill Clinton, a man that I don’t really respect in a lot of ways, took the time to stop campaigning and be president of the United States. George Bush also made mistakes, but he was president of the United States. And gosh sakes, we had Ronald Reagan, for sure.

“But President Obama has not stopped. Every State of the Union has been a campaign speech. The speech the other night about, “Oh, let’s just work and put America back on track”…it’s not about America being on track to him. Mr. President, it’s time to get the engine started, it’s time to stop planning, and it’s time to start doing. Now. You have made nothing but mistakes. You have done nothing but spend taxpayer money and put us farther in debt. And I, for one, as an American, as an Hispanic American, am not proud to say you are my president.”

http://www.whosaidyousaid.com/2012/01/colo-state-rep-ramirez-rips-pres-obama-on-failure-to-lead/

Obama says adding $4 trillion to debt is unpatriotic

NSRF Administrator — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:37:47 +0000

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents — #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” – Barack Obama, July 3, 2008

CBS News, August 23, 2011:

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion. It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term…The Gross National Debt now stands at 97.6 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product – the total value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S.

The GOP’s suicide march

NSRF Administrator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:12:35 +0000

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: January 19

“Are you better off today than you were $4 trillion ago?”

— former presidential candidate Rick PerryIt’s the campaign line of the year, and while the author won’t be carrying it into the general election, the eventual nominee will.

The charge is straightforward: President Obama’s reckless spending has dangerously increased the national debt while leaving unemployment high and the economy stagnant. Concurrently, he has vastly increased the scope and reach of government with new entitlements and oppressive regulation, with higher taxes to come (to offset the unprecedented spending).

In 2010, that narrative carried the Republicans to historic electoral success. Through most of 2011, it dominated Washington discourse. The air was filled with debt talk: ceilings, supercommittees, Simpson-Bowles.

What’s the incumbent to do? He admits current conditions are bad. He knows that his major legislative initiatives — Obamacare, the near-trillion-dollar stimulus, (the rejected) cap-and-trade — are unpopular. If you can’t run on stewardship or policy, how do you win reelection?

Create an entirely new narrative. Push an entirely new issue. Change the subject from your record and your ideology, from massive debt and overreaching government, to fairness and inequality. Make the election a referendum on which party really cares about you, which party will stand up to the greedy rich who have pillaged the 99 percent and robbed the middle class of hope.

This charge, too, is straightforward: The Republicans serve as the protectors and enablers of the plutocrats, the exploiters who have profited while America suffers. They put party over nation, fat cat donors over people, political power over everything.

It’s all rather uncomplicated, capturing nicely the Manichaean core of the Occupy movement — blame the rich, then soak them. But the real beauty of this strategy is its adaptability. While its first target was the do-nothing, protect-the-rich Congress, it is perfectly tailored to fit the liabilities of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney — plutocrat, capitalist, 1 percenter.

Obama rolled out this class-war counter-narrative in his Dec. 6 “Teddy Roosevelt” speech and hasn’t governed a day since. Every action, every proposal, every “we can’t wait” circumvention of the Constitution — such as recess appointments when the Senate is not in recess — is designed to fit this reelection narrative.

Hence: Where does Obama ostentatiously introduce the recess-appointed head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? At a rally in swing-state Ohio, a stage prop for the president to declare himself tribune of the little guy, scourge of the big banks and their soulless Republican guardians.

For the first few weeks, the class-envy gambit had some effect, bumping Obama’s numbers slightly. But the story was still lagging, suffering in part from its association with an Occupy rabble that had widely worn out its welcome.

Then came the twist. Then came the most remarkable political surprise since the 2010 midterm: The struggling Democratic class-war narrative is suddenly given life and legitimacy by .?.?. Republicans! Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry make the case that private equity as practiced by Romney’s Bain Capital is nothing more than vulture capitalism looting companies and sucking them dry while casually destroying the lives of workers.

Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO nods approvingly. Michael Moore wonders aloud whether Gingrich has stolen his staff. The assault on Bain/Romney instantly turns Obama’s class-war campaign from partisan attack into universal complaint.

Suddenly Romney’s wealth, practices and taxes take center stage. And why not? If leading Republicans are denouncing rapacious capitalism that enriches the 1 percent while impoverishing everyone else, should this not be the paramount issue in a campaign occurring at a time of economic distress?

Now, economic inequality is an important issue, but the idea that it is the cause of America’s current economic troubles is absurd. Yet, in a stroke, the Republicans have succeeded in turning a Democratic talking point — a last-ditch attempt to salvage reelection by distracting from their record — into a central focus of the nation’s political discourse.

How quickly has the zeitgeist changed? Wednesday, the Republican House reconvened to reject Obama’s planned $1.2 trillion debt-ceiling increase. (Lacking Senate concurrence, the debt ceiling will be raised nonetheless.) Barely noticed. All eyes are on South Carolina and Romney’s taxes.

This is no mainstream media conspiracy. This is the GOP maneuvering itself right onto Obama terrain.

The president is a very smart man. But if he wins in November, that won’t be the reason. It will be luck. He could not have chosen more self-destructive adversaries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-legitimize-obamas-reelection-rhetoric/2012/01/19/gIQA5pB5BQ_story.html

11 stunning revelations from Larry Summers’s secret economics memo to Barack Obama

NSRF Administrator — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:26:08 +0000

11 stunning revelations from Larry Summers’s secret economics memo to Barack Obama

By James Pethokoukis

January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm

A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself:

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.

The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary. … The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.

2. Team Obama knows these deficits are dangerous (although it has offered no long-term plan to deal with them).

Closing the gap between what the campaign proposed and the estimates of the campaign offsets would require scaling back proposals by about $100 billion annually or adding new offsets totaling the same. Even this, however, would leave an average deficit over the next decade that would be worse than any post-World War II decade. This would be entirely unsustainable and could cause serious economic problems in the both the short run and the long run.

3. Obamanomics was pricier than advertised.

Your campaign proposals add about $100 billion per year to the deficit largely because rescoring indicates that some of your revenue raisers do not raise as much as the campaign assumed and some of your proposals cost more than the campaign assumed. … Treasury estimates that repealing the tax cuts above $250,000 would raise about $40 billion less than the campaign assumed. … The health plan is about $10 billion more costly than the campaign estimated and the health savings are about $25 billion lower than the campaign estimated.

4. Even Washington can only spend so much money so fast.

Constructing a package of this size, or even in the $500 billion range, is a major challenge. While the most effective stimulus is government investment, it is difficult to identify feasible spending projects on the scale that is needed to stabilize the macroeconomy. Moreover, there is a tension between the need to spend the money quickly and the desire to spend the money wisely. To get the package to the requisite size, and also to address other problems, we recommend combining it with substantial state fiscal relief and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.

5. Liberals can complain about the stimulus having too many tax cuts, but even Team Obama thought more spending was unrealistic.

As noted above, it is not possible to spend out much more than $225 billion in the next two years with high-priority investments and protections for the most vulnerable. This total, however, falls well short of what economists believe is needed for the economy, both in total and especially in 2009. As a result, to achieve our macroeconomic objectives—minimally the 2.5 million job goal—will require other sources of stimulus including state fiscal relief, tax cuts for individuals, or tax cuts for businesses.

6. Team Obama wanted to use courts to force massive mortgage principal writedowns.

The next step in the housing plan is responsible bankruptcy reform along the lines of the Durbin bill you cosponsored. This would allow bankruptcy courts to write down the principal of primary residences to the current market value. We recommend announcing this reform to begin immediately following the close of the enhanced Hope for Homeowners period.

7. Team Obama thought a stimulus plan of more than $1 trillion would spook financial markets and send interest rates climbing.

To accomplish a more significant reduction in the output gap would require stimulus of well over $1 trillion based on purely mechanical assumptions—which would likely not accomplish the goal because of the impact it would have on markets.

8. Greg Mankiw, economic adviser to Mitt Romney, was dubious about the stimulus.

Greg Mankiw is the only economist we have consulted with who refused to name a number and was generally skeptical about stimulus.

9. But the Fed was a stimulus enabler.

Senior Federal Reserve officials appear to be of the view that a plan that well exceeds $600 billion would be desirable.

10. IPAB was there at the very beginning.

There are two possibilities for making tough decisions on the long-run budget, which could be done either separately or together: creating an executive-branch “health board” (which focuses on one part of the issue) and a Congressionally chartered commission (which could focus more broadly).

11. The financial crisis wasn’t just Wall Street’s fault.

A significant cause of the current crisis lies in the failure of regulators to exercise vigorously the authority they already have.

http://blog.american.com/2012/01/11-stunning-revelations-from-larry-summers-secret-economics-memo-to-barack-obama/

Holder’s Texas Defeat

NSRF Administrator — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:12:07 +0000

The Supreme Court delivered a wallop to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday on the Justice Department’s recent federal posturing on the Voting Rights Act. In its unanimous decision, the Justices also sent a warning to civil-rights groups that further reviews of the law may be on the agenda.

In Perry v. Perez, the Justices rejected a series of election maps redrawn by a lower court in Texas to replace a map created by the Texas legislature to account for population growth and four new Congressional seats. The Supreme Court noted that the lower court had “exceeded its mission” and it sent the maps back to the drawing board.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas is one of nine states required to get preclearance from a federal court or the Justice Department for any changes in election law. While that petition was pending, the maps drawn by lawmakers were challenged on grounds that they diluted minority voting strength. A federal court in San Antonio then drew up interim maps that differed radically from the original set, creating a scenario more favorable to Democrats.

Then Mr. Holder piled on, arguing that any court-drawn plans are preferable to one that violates Section 5. The only problem is that no court has found that the original Texas maps violated any law.

In its decision yesterday, the Justices said redistricting is “‘primarily the duty and responsibility of the State,’” and that when faced with drawing an interim plan, a court should take its cues from the version done by lawmakers, with whom authority properly lies. That is a resounding and welcome note for federalism, or deference to state prerogatives, and bodes well for a serious hearing on ObamaCare.

“This Court has observed before,” the Justices wrote, that “‘faced with the necessity of drawing district lines by judicial order, a court . . . should be guided by the legislative policies underlying’ a state plan,” as long as those policies don’t violate the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution.

Constitutional challenges to Section 5, including a facial challenge to the law now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, may eventually make their way to the Supreme Court. The Perez decision is notable, however, because even though the constitutionality of the law was not directly presented to the High Court, the Justices took the opportunity to remind litigants that “This Court recently noted the ‘serious constitutional questions’ raised by Section 5′s intrusion on state sovereignty” in 2009′s Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No 1 v. Holder. In other words, watch this space.

The case now returns to the lower court in San Antonio for further proceedings, and the judges there have been instructed to use the original legislative maps as the basis for their redrawing. The result is a big victory for Texas, and a reminder to the Justice Department that federal intrusions into state law may end up causing more political headaches than they solve.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577173030198183616.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h&_nocache=1327169229963&user=welcome&mg=id-wsj

The Worst Economic Recovery Since The Great Depression

NSRF Administrator — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:46:35 +0000

1/12/2012

The record of President Obama’s first three years in office is in, and nothing that happens now can go back and change that. What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.

The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) to see the complete history of America’s recessions. What that history reveals is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.

When President Obama entered office in January, 2009, the recession was already in its 13^th month. His responsibility was to manage a timely, robust recovery to get America back on track again. Based on the historical record, that recovery was imminent, within a couple of months or so. Despite widespread fear, nothing fundamental had changed to deprive America of the long term, world-leading prosperity it had enjoyed going back 300 years.

Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama proved to be America’s first backward looking regressive. His first act was to increase federal borrowing, the national debt and the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed “stimulus” package, based on the discredited Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits and debt are what promote economic growth and recovery. That theory arose in the 1930s as the answer to the Great Depression, which, of course, never worked.

That was the beginning of President Obama’s Rip Van Winkle act, pretending not to know anything that happened over the previous 30 years proving the dramatic, historic success of the new, more modern, supply side economics, which holds that incentives for increased production are what promote economic growth and recovery. Indeed, that Rip Van Winklism pretended not to remember the 1970s either, when double digit inflation and double digit unemployment proved Keynesian economics grievously wrong.

As should have been long expected, Obama’s trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus did nothing to promote recovery and growth, and almost surely delayed it. That is because borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion back into it does nothing to promote the economy on net. Indeed, it is probably a net drag on the economy, because the private sector spends the money more productively and efficiently than the public sector.

The National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as ending in June, 2009. Yet, today, in the 49^th month since the recession started, there has still been no real recovery, like recoveries from previous recessions in America.

Unemployment actually rose after June, 2009, and did not fall back down below that level until 18 months later in December, 2010. Instead of a recovery, America has suffered the longest period of unemployment near 9% or above since the Great Depression, under President Obama’s public policy malpractice. Even today, 49 months after the recession started, the U6 unemployment rate counting the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers is still 15.2%. And that doesn’t include all the workers who have fled the workforce under Obama’s economic oppression. The unemployment rate with the full measure of discouraged workers is reported at www.shadowstats.com as about 23%, which is depression level unemployment.

Today, over 4 years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than 6 months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression.

Notably, blacks have been suffering another depression under Obama, with unemployment today, 49 months after the recession started, still at 15.8%. Black unemployment has been over 15% for 2 ½ years under Obama. Black teenage unemployment today is over 40%, where it has persisted for over 2 years as well.

Hispanics have also been suffering a depression under Obama, with unemployment today still in double digits at 11%. Hispanic unemployment has been in double digits for three years under President Obama. Over one fourth of Hispanic youths remain unemployed today, which also has persisted for years.

The Census Bureau reported in September that more Americans are in poverty today than at any time in the entire history of Census tracking poverty. Americans dependent on food stamps are at an all time high as well.

Real wages and incomes have been falling so steadily under Obama and his confused, throwback, Keynesian/neo-Marxist Obamanomics, that the Census Bureau also reported that real median family income in America has fallen all the way back to 1996 levels.

Obama apologists cannot argue that this is because the recession was so bad, because the historical record in America is the worse the recession the stronger the recovery. Based on historical precedent, we should at worst be finishing the second year of a booming recovery by now.

Compare Obama’s lack of a recovery 2 ½ years after the recession ended with the first 2 ½ years of the Reagan recovery. In those years under Reagan, the American economy created 8 million new jobs, the unemployment rate fell by 3.6 percentage points, real wages and incomes were jumping, and poverty had reversed an upsurge started under Carter, beginning a long term decline.

While Obama crows about 200,000 jobs created last month, the most for a month during his entire Administration, in September, 1983 the Reagan recovery less than a year after it began created 1.1 million jobs in that one month alone. Under Obama, we are still almost 6 million jobs below the peak before the recession started over 4 years ago! In the second year of the Reagan recovery, real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in 50 years.

The chief excuse of the Obama apologists is that what we have suffered was not just a recession, but a financial crisis, and, they argue, recovery from a financial crisis takes a lot longer than recovery from a recession. But that is not the experience of the American, free market, capitalist economy.

The experience of the American economy is reported in full at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as cited above – recessions since the Great Depression previously have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously 16 months, and the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. That is the standard by which the performance of Obamanomics is to be judged. Which of those American recessions was a “financial crisis” that breaks the pattern?

The apologists cite in their support the book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. That book “covers sixty-six countries over nearly eight centuries.” It “goes back as far as twelfth century China and medieval Europe.” The data “come from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Oceania.” The experience from 12^th century China, medieval Europe, spendthrift demagogues and socialist economies from Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia, do not set the standard of expectations for post depression, free market, capitalist America over the last 70 years, the most powerful economic engine in the history of the world.

The data in the book is marshaled to explain why, in fact, “this time is different” is actually always wrong. Seizing upon the data in the book to try to give some sort of pass to Obamanomics for failing the economic performance standards of American history is just political propaganda.

Indeed, exactly none of President Obama’s policies have been well designed to restore economic recovery and traditional American prosperity. They have consistently been the opposite of everything that Reagan did to end the American decline of the 1970s, and restore booming growth for 25 years. That is why Rush Limbaugh is saying Obama deliberately wants to trash the economy, thinking the resulting dependency will lead a majority to continue to vote for the liberal political machine. President Obama certainly thinks that traditional American, world leading prosperity is morally embarrassing because of the global inequality it represents.

The American economy will likely show continued, long overdue, signs of life in 2012, which will amount to way too little, way too late, based on historical standards. But even worse than his first term is what Obama is brewing up for 2013 on his current course.

Most people do not know that already enacted in current law for 2013 are increases in the top tax rates of virtually every major federal tax. That is because the tax increases of Obamacare become effective that year, and the Bush tax cuts expire, which Obama has refused to renew for singles reporting income over $200,000 per year, or couples reporting over $250,000 per year (in other words, the nation’s small businesses, job creators and investors, in plain English).

As a result, if the Bush tax cuts just expire for these upper income taxpayers, along with the Obamacare taxes, in 2013 the top two income tax rates will jump nearly 20%, the capital gains tax rate will soar by nearly 60%, the tax on corporate dividends will nearly triple, and the Medicare payroll tax will leap by 62% for those disfavored taxpayers.

This is on top of the U.S. corporate income tax rate, which is virtually the highest in the industrialized world. The federal rate is 35%, with state corporate rates taking it close to 40% on average. But even Communist China has a 25% rate. The average rate in the social welfare states of the European Union is less than that. Formerly socialist Canada has a 16.5% rate going down to 15% next year.

These U.S. corporate tax rates leave American companies uncompetitive in the global economy. Yet under President Obama there is no relief in sight. Instead, he has spent the past year barnstorming the country calling for still further tax increases on American business, large and small, investors, and job creators.

Higher tax rates mean producers can only keep a smaller percentage of what they produce. So tax rate increases reduce the incentive for productive activities, such as saving, investment, starting businesses, expanding businesses, job creation, entrepreneurship and work, resulting in less of each. And that is what the tax tsunami of 2013 would do, which would once again swamp the weak economy.

Most small business profits are reported from households earning more than $200,000/$250,000 per year, and those small businesses produce more than half the new jobs. So the 2013 tax tsunami effectively targets small business, and the nation’s job creators. That will hurt working people the most, because they will lose the jobs and the wage income they need to maintain their basic standard of living.

In addition, the Obama administration is in the process of imposing a blizzard of new regulatory costs and barriers that will be building to a crescendo by 2013 as well. Academic studies estimate the total costs of regulation in the economy to be rapidly rising towards $2 trillion per year, or $8,000 per employee. That is close to 10 times the corporate income tax burden, and double the individual income tax. When the resulting effects on the economy are considered, the total losses due to regulatory burdens may total $3 trillion, or one fifth of our entire economy.

But by 2013 these regulatory costs will have exploded in unprecedented fashion. That reflects the Obama Administration’s global warming crusade, assault on private energy production, the still oncoming Dodd-Frank regulatory burdens on the financial community, Obamacare regulations, particularly the job killing employer mandate, and many others.

By 2013, the Fed may be in contractionary mode as well. If history is any guide, the Fed might decide that right after the election would be the perfect time to cut back on its historically loose monetary policy with record low interest rates that have persisted for years. Adding rising interest rates to the above brew of soaring marginal tax rates across the board and exploding regulatory costs would accumulate to a powerful contractionary force.

Art Laffer predicted the Coming Crash of 2011 on the basis of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on the upper income earners alone. Those tax rate increases were extended to 2013 in December, 2010 out of fear that prediction was right. But now in 2013 in addition to those tax rate increases we have all of the tax increases of Obamacare, the further exploding costs of Obama’s building regulatory blizzard, and the possible contractionary effect of the Fed’s monetary policies, all at the same time. Unless we reverse course, the result may well be one big, bad crash in 2013.

Adding that on top of Obama’s first term, the entire period will look like an historical reenactment of the 1930s. Unless the American people choose to change leadership this year, we will have achieved that result the old fashioned way – we will have earned it.

This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/01/12/the-worst-economic-recovery-since-the-great-depression/

A 2012 Republican Strategy for Congress

NSRF Administrator — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:15:06 +0000

A series of votes can clarify the differences between the two parties on energy, taxes, spending and regulation.

By RON JOHNSON

Americans are frustrated over Washington’s inability to address our nation’s economic and fiscal problems. That’s why I have been working with a growing group of senators and House members to develop a plan that can build public support for solutions. It’s called “America’s Choice.”

America’s Choice seeks to highlight the differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party led by President Obama. It could do so over the coming months by presenting to the country, through a series of votes in the House of Representatives, the battle between those who believe in broadest terms in limited government and freedom and those who promote government control and dependency.

What are the choices these votes could present? Growing government spending and debt or growing the private sector and reducing government. Limiting energy development or using America’s energy resources. Punishing success or pro-growth tax reform. A government takeover of health care or repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with patient-centered, free-market reforms.

The alternatives are stark. President Obama’s faith in government is so strong that he has increased its size to 24% of gross domestic product from 21%, and increased our nation’s debt by over $4 trillion. Republicans, on the other hand, believe long-term self-sustaining jobs are created in the private sector—that government cannot tax, spend and borrow our nation to prosperity.

Will green energy power America’s future? The administration has squandered billions of dollars on politically connected, green-energy boondoggle projects, while at the same time maintaining a de facto moratorium on off-shore drilling, and dragging its feet on granting permits for other energy utilization projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and restricting and limiting leases for offshore energy production. Republicans could propose a plan to utilize crucial domestic resources, including oil, natural gas and coal, to produce energy and create jobs.

Enlarge Image

Associated PressPresident Barack Obama greets donors after speaking at a campaign fundraising event in November 2011.

Regulatory overreach in this administration has been breathtaking. Executive agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor have been in hyper-drive, adding to the already job-crushing $1.75 trillion annual cost, according to the Small Business Administration, of federal regulatory compliance. Republicans could propose a regulatory moratorium to give businesses a chance to recover, and then enact real reform to achieve common-sense regulatory balance.

President Obama has launched a divisive campaign pitting one group of Americans against another. Yet 10% of Americans already pay 70% of all income taxes. Increasing the tax burden on that group is counterproductive. Sowing class division is an act of political cynicism producing terrible economic consequences. Significant pro-growth tax reform is the better path to build our economy and create jobs.

Government takeover of our health-care system has been a liberal-progressive dream for decades. President Obama and Democrats in Congress passed the partisan Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It neither protects patients, nor does it make health care more affordable. But it will lead to a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy, and it will blow a hole in an already horribly broken budget.

Republicans are united in our commitment to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms. Malpractice tort reform, health savings account expansion, insurance purchase across state lines, reduction of government mandates, and equalized tax treatment of insurance premiums are some of the key changes we will propose to the country.

America’s Choice would clearly present two different visions of the country’s future—one represented by the Republican Party and the other represented by the Democratic Party and its leader, President Obama. Once Congress returns from recess later this month, the Republican majority in the House could focus on one major area of domestic policy at a time. For example, February could be used to debate, craft and pass an energy utilization policy.

When the House debates and passes an agenda item, Republican senators, candidates and conservative groups could concentrate on the same issue, using the same powerful facts and figures to inform and persuade the American public. Coordinating our focused efforts improves our ability to compete with the presidential bully pulpit and counteract media outlets that often work to marginalize us.

In 2011, President Obama stopped running the country and started running his re-election campaign. In his cynical attempt to divert attention away from his record by dividing us, Republicans have been put on defense. The America’s Choice agenda would put us on offense.

If done well, we just might put enough pressure on Senate Democrats and the president to actually pass legislation that will begin to solve our problems. If not, Republicans will have provided Americans with a clear choice in November.

Mr. Johnson is a Republican senator from Wisconsin.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577148803361818044.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

NSRF January 2012 Monthly Newsletter

NSRF Administrator — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:59:14 +0000

Monthly newsletter of the North Suburban Republican Forum for January, 2012.

Click here to read the newsletter.

“Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?”

NSRF Administrator — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:27:50 +0000

By GERALD F. SEIB

President Barack Obama, who made history in 2008 by becoming the first African-American elected president, would like to notch another historic achievement next year.

He will try to win re-election while likely saddled with a higher unemployment rate than any other president seeking a second term in 76 years.

Mr. Obama undoubtedly would prefer to forgo that distinction, but there is no escaping the harsh economic backdrop that will mark the campaign of 2012. The economic malaise sets the stage for a presidential contest that analysts in both parties expect to be very close, and a much tougher haul for the president than his election in 2008, when he became the first Democrat in 32 years to win a majority of the national vote.

Tim Foley

The election season is about to start with a rush, though it is likely to turn into a long slog through the year. The Iowa caucuses, which will start the process of picking a Republican challenger to the president, are held in nine days (Jan. 3), to be followed by the New Hampshire primary a week later and the South Carolina and Florida primaries by the end of January. But, because so many Republican delegates will be chosen slowly under this year’s calendar, the fight for the GOP nomination could easily stretch through the spring.

Most presidential elections turn on the economy, but that figures to be especially true this time. Recent weeks have brought a few, tentative signs that the nation’s bleak jobs picture may be improving, which would certainly help the president. Still, the unemployment rate stands at an unhealthy 8.6%, and few analysts think it will drop fast enough to reach the 7.4% rate that prevailed when Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984, or even the 7.5% when Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid in 1980. Not since Franklin Roosevelt won re-election in 1936 has a president faced a worse jobless situation.

More broadly, Mr. Reagan set the modern standard for gauging the economic mood of voters in an election year in that 1980 race, when he unseated Mr. Carter in large measure by asking voters simply: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Video: More on Campaign 2012

If the coming election is determined by that maxim, or by most traditional measures, President Obama would seem to face bleak prospects. Consider just a few snapshots of leading economic and political indicators:

Unemployment, the economic statistic that packs the most political punch, has risen to 8.6% now from 7.8% the month Mr. Obama took office. It topped 10% briefly in 2009.

The misery index—the combination of the unemployment and inflation rates—has risen to about 12 now from 7.83 when he took office.

Median family income fell in the first two years of the Obama term, after rising the previous four years.

As of September, 12.6% of U.S. mortgage borrowers had missed at least one payment on their mortgage or were in foreclosure, down from a peak of about 15% but still well above the normal range of 5% to 7% in the last two decades, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In large measure because of a decline in home values, household net worth dropped 1.7% over the last year; under every president since 1948, it rose in the year preceding the election.

Mr. Obama’s job approval stands at 46% in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, below the levels George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had a year before they were re-elected, and below where George H.W. Bush stood a year before he lost his re-election bid.

Approval of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy is even lower; it stands at 39%.

The upshot: By most normal standards for gauging a president’s chances of re-election, Mr. Obama would appear sunk.

But “this isn’t an ordinary year,” argues David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political adviser. And it’s just possible that the normal political metrics don’t hold in a time of unusual economic and political ferment. Indeed, Mr. Obama holds some advantages that are obscured by the overall economic gloom.

For starters, after more than three years in office, he still isn’t shouldering most of the blame for the economic slump. When the Journal/NBC News poll last month asked Americans who they think is most to blame for current economic problems, both former President Bush and Wall Street bankers were fingered more often than was President Obama.

That attitude gives some resonance to Mr. Obama’s argument—already oft-stated and sure to be repeated a lot in the campaign to come—that the Republican administration of George W. Bush allowed the country to fall into a deep economic ditch, and that it isn’t Mr. Obama’s fault it’s taking a long time to climb out.

Second, whatever unhappiness exists with Mr. Obama’s economic record, there is ample reason to think Republicans are even less popular. Just over 40% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the president, but 48% hold an unfavorable view of Republicans. And when Americans are asked which party is better at dealing with the economy, the two parties are rated about evenly.

“That Republicans are still not seen as a truly acceptable alternative at the moment gets at the anger and the frustration the public has at Washington, that nobody is doing anything right,” says Jay Campbell, a Democratic pollster who works for Peter Hart Research. Hart Research helps conduct the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, along with Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies.

The gridlock that has taken hold in Congress since Republicans won control of the House last year doesn’t appear to be helping the GOP either. A record 42% of Americans call the current Congress one of the worst ever, and they rate Republicans’ performance in it slightly below that of the Democrats.

Moreover, none of the Republicans jockeying for the right to run against Mr. Obama next year is exactly soaring in public esteem. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now one of the two front-runners for the GOP nomination, is popular among his party’s conservatives, but gets low ratings among the kinds of independent swing voters who tend to decide national elections. His main opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, does better among independent voters but isn’t particularly popular among his own party’s conservatives.

Taken together, all these forces suggest that a close election lies ahead. Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who heads Public Opinion Strategies, says there is a “core coalition of voters” who already have decided that they won’t vote for Mr. Obama again, including Southerners and traditionally Democratic blue-collar workers. On the other hand, he notes, his own party’s candidates “are not in particularly good shape in terms of overall standing with the country.”

If that sounds like a formula for a tight finish after a campaign that isn’t particularly uplifting—well, that’s precisely the kind of forecast most political pros are offering.

Gerald F. Seib is The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau chief. Email: jerry.seib@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204026804577100710435635928.html?KEYWORDS=are+you+better+off+than+you+were+four+years+ago

A Message from Mitt Romney….

NSRF Administrator — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:14:33 +0000

MITT ROMNEY WANTS YOU TO BE PART OF HIS

COLORADO WINNING TEAM FOR PRESIDENT

For several months national and early primary state polls show Governor Romney the clear choice of mainstream Republicans for the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate. Governor Romney:

Is the most electable of all Republican candidates because he can win the majority of unaffiliated voters, the group of voters who will decide the winner of the general election.
Consistently demonstrates a superior understanding of how to create jobs and expand the economy.
Has a 59-point jobs plan to grow the economy and create jobs which stands in stark contrast with the Obama Administration failed policies.
Looks and acts the most presidential of all Republican candidates.
Is endorsed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and numerous Colorado GOP leaders, including Senator Hank Brown, Governor Bill Owens, Senator Wayne Allard, Attorney General John Suthers, Congressman Bob Beauprez, Secretary of State Scott Gessler and State Treasurer Walker Stapleton. [A list of Additional endorsements is attached.]

The National Review, a leading conservative magazine, concluded ROMNEY’S NUMBER ONE. [Read the full review at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284700/romney-s-one-ramesh-ponnuru ]

Adams County Republicans agree the number one priority is to defeat President Obama in the 2012 general election.

The Obama campaign team and the Democratic Party fear Governor Romney more than any other Republican candidate and have developed a campaign strategy to “kill” Governor Romney in the general election.
President Obama’s campaign plans to raise a $1 billion campaign war chest to defeat Governor Romney.
This week the Democratic National Committee released its first negative TV ads against Governor Romney.

Adams County Republicans support Governor Romney.

75% of the 4,000 Republicans that attended the 2008 precinct caucus voted for Governor Romney to be the Republican Presidential candidate out of a large field of great candidates that included Governor Huckabee, Senator Thompson, Senator McCain, Mayor Giuliani, and others.

Colorado may be the most important of the seven swing states that will decide the 2012 Presidential election. Already, President Obama has made three campaign stops in Colorado in recent months.

If Governor Romney wins Colorado he will win the Presidency.
Adams County needs to turnout a large Romney vote in the general election to ensure Colorado goes into the Romney column.

Governor Romney needs your help to win Colorado. He needs you to recruit Romney supporters to attend the February 7, 2012 precinct caucus to:

Decisively win the straw poll.
Elect Romney delegates to the county, state and the Republican National Convention.

Upon winning the Republican nomination for President Governor Romney needs you to be part of his general election Victory team to win Colorado on the way to Victory on November 6, 2012.

The Adams County Republicans for Romney for President requests you:

Sign up as your precinct captain for the Adams County Romney Campaign Team.
As a Team precinct captain you will be the Romney Campaign representative at your precinct caucus and the precinct contact person for general election campaign activities.

The Romney Colorado Team is chaired by Jack Stansbery, former Colorado Republican State Party Director. The Adams County Romney Team is chaired by Clark Bolser, former Adams County Republican Party Chairman and chair for numerous past candidate campaigns. If you have questions, please contact Clark at clarkbolser@msn.com or 303-220-1420. Click here to volunteer for the Mitt Romney campaign.