Citizen Bain

There is a film about a ruthless, wealthy man who just wanted to be loved. The man bought up everything that caught his eye, but it was not enough. All he really yearned for was his childhood sled.

Replace “his childhood sled” with “the presidency of the United States” and you have the gist of a new movie about Mitt Romney’s career in venture capital, which this column calls, “Citizen Bain.”

The actual, considerably less-catchy, almost yuletide title is, “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” and viewers might be surprised that the 28-minute film is the work of supposedly rightist Republicans, rather than seething, class-warrior Democrats (though the latter are reportedly working on a sequel, to be released during the general election).

Sponsored by supporters of Newt Gingrich, and produced on a Super-PAC basis at arm’s length from the former Speaker (Super-PACs being yet another absurdity of America’s campaign finance laws, requiring candidates to have no official involvement in, and to feign implausible ignorance of, the actions of some of their most heavily invested advocates), the movie is meant to document Romney’s career at Bain Capital.

Four companies are highlighted, ostensibly representing thousands of jobs lost to Romney’s personal greed. That is, by taking over entities that were not viable and selling off their assets, Romney made himself unspeakably wealthy by putting vulnerable people out of work. Counting his money with one hand while twirling his Snidely Whiplash moustache with the other, Mitt supposedly went about the country seeking out simple lives to destroy.

Bollocks on stilts, it says here.

Forces for and against Romney’s candidacy, as well as neutral observers (to the extent those truly exist in this age of ubiquitous politics), have analyzed his Bain career to determine whether he was a net creator, or eliminator, of jobs. Results have varied, but none of this is the point. Jobs are important, as are the lives and livelihoods of individuals, but even those of us who are sharp critics of Romney must recognize that when it comes to wealth creation and contribution to the economy, Mitt is very much on the happy side of par.

Josef Schumpeter observed that capitalism is incomprehensible without understanding the role of the entrepreneur. Specifically, absent individuals with ideas and courage, combined with people who can pony up the money to turn those ideas into reality, nothing would get invented, produced, bought or sold. At Bain Capital, Romney was part of that second group, selecting nascent enterprises for investment, and he was very, very good at it.

Venture capital, like any number of investment fields, requires a highly specific skill set, and you can come in for an intergalactic hosing if you don’t know what you’re doing. Indeed, this column has a monsoon of respect for Mitt’s acumen when it comes to picking companies, and for what he was able to accomplish in the private sector. Newt Gingrich should, too.

Simply put, without men like Mitt, able to identify opportunities and provide the capital to make them successful, our economy would not work. Conversely, the free market can trundle along just fine without Gingrich being compensated by government agencies to the tune of $1.6 million for his services as a “historian” (which, as George Will points out, is a heckuva lot more than anyone ever paid Herodotus).

Of course, we are talking business here, and in that arena, Mitt trumps Newt every day of the week and twice on Sundays. In matters of public policy, however, and in terms of a record of fostering limited government, Gingrich wins going away.

To wit, much as I may admire Mitt’s business skills, I still don’t think he should be president, unless and until he smartens up – starting with his tax plan, which the Wall Street Journal and others have correctly called, “timid.”

While the film’s faux-populist silly-bears may scare off some potential Romney voters, it is perhaps likelier to entrench his current supporters. More than anything, though, it reveals a disappointing side to Gingrich – one which we hoped he would keep under wraps until near the end of his first term as president.

Our disappointment in Newt is informed by the fact that he has a responsibility to present an alternative on Romney’s right. For all the story-ginning excitement among those who sell news for a living, none of the other Republican candidates has much chance of surpassing the former Massachusetts governor.

With successive strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Ron Paul seems to be getting weirder, if that were possible, cackling through speeches like Dwight Schrute at the Dunder-Mifflin sales conference. As for Rick Santorum, politically interested people who for years have been spraining their fingers on the mute button whenever he appears on a news program already know what new voters will soon discover – he does not wear well. Santorum’s trouble isn’t his unwavering social conservatism, or that he lost his last Senate race by 17 points, it’s that he’s even less likeable than Romney.

One assumes Rick Perry is simply giving his donors their money’s worth, giving a conspicuous best effort before repairing to his successful governorship of Texas and shootin’ coyotes full-time. Finally, this column sheds no tears for Jon Huntsman who, we have every confidence, will emerge from this race to find no shortage of audiences to which to deliver his special brand of squinting, stern lectures.

Our support of Gingrich is not born of some notion that he is the best possible person to lead America. Rather, he is the best among the candidates who are currently on offer (seriously, Jeb Bush, please do call your office – you have about 300 million urgent messages).

Newt presents the boldest course on the economy, with a phenomenal, pro-growth tax plan that would restore America to preeminence in global markets. This is the contrast Gingrich should draw. “Citizen Bain” does not become him.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

The Pointlessness of Mitt Romney

“Pointless…like giving caviar to an elephant.”
– William Faulkner

Leave it to Faulkner to create a simile so apt that it reaches across decades to apply, very neatly, to the futility of foisting Mitt Romney upon the Republican Party as its presidential nominee. The image of the elephant is self-evidently appropriate. As for caviar, despite its association with money and privilege, one wonders who actually enjoys its taste. Truth be told, it is over-rated, as most delicacies are. Caviar is a lot like Marmite, only more expensive and lacking its nutritional value. So it is with Romney, moneyed and privileged, yet without much to recommend him.

Of course, the late Nobel Laureate knew nothing of the former Massachusetts governor, but ‘twas always thus with a masterful turn of phrase – it can be wheeled out again and again, pertinent to any number of circumstances.

In this case, nominating Romney to lead the GOP in November, and even electing him president, would be pointless. While a President Romney may slow the country’s deterioration, and may even make good on his pledge to repeal Obamacare (that is, if the Supreme Court doesn’t drive a stake through that vampire-law first), his toothless policy proposals will do no more than delay the inevitable – that is, the end of America as we know it.

Getting the nation back to where it was in, say, 2007, is not a realistic option. The unfunded liabilities of the country, including Social Security and Medicare, total in the tens, and perhaps hundreds of trillions of dollars. As for debt and deficits, these have taken on a life of their own, rocketing to unheard-of peacetime levels. Finally, as pertains to personal freedom, the United States continues to increase constraints on its citizens, while closing itself off from the rest of the globe. To wit, America will cease to be a force for good in the world – let alone the indispensable nation – if it does not undertake immediate and drastic changes to the way it operates.

Romney, for all his Hugh Beaumont good-looks, solves none of these problems. This column maintains that Newt Gingrich, warts and all, is the strongest of the GOP candidates who have made themselves available (Jeb Bush, please call your office), and this is largely because the former Speaker has advanced, and can articulate, a platform of bold reform. Without one, America is just whistling Dixie.

The United States spends, taxes and borrows too much, has rules and laws for every facet of human existence (with more than 3,000 new federal regulations created this past year alone), countenances a Congress whose members enjoy a median net worth 35 times that of the citizens they govern, and continues to layer police-state security onto all aspects of daily life.

A word on that last – the Land of the Free loves to lock people up. America has an incarceration rate 13 times the rate of population growth, and has more individuals in prison than any other nation in the world – not per capita, but straight up. Long before he was running for president, Gingrich led the way in denouncing the American penchant for putting people behind bars. One might imagine this issue is the province of hippie-freak heroin-legalizers, or a simple matter of law-and-order politics. But prison is the default option in America, for everything from minor drug offenses to bouncing a check, and prosecutors are given overwhelming power to abuse the system, bully witnesses, and strip citizens of their right to a proper defense.

Freedom-minded conservatives should care very much about America’s lock-and-key mentality, as should bleeding-heart leftists – and let that latter group recall that Barack Obama not only failed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he signed legislation allowing Americans to be sent there.

Where is Romney on all this? When has he shown inclination or initiative to restore America’s freedoms and reform an abusive system? Does he even know the problem exists?

On spending, Romney pledges to cram government outlays back down below 20 percent of GDP, from their current 25 percent, while cutting $500 billion from the budget in 2016. For those whose pidgin politician-speak isn’t up to snuff, “cutting” means reducing the rate of growth, not actually getting to a lower number. In any case, with an entitlement-laden federal budget edging up toward $4 trillion, a promised reduction of one-eighth that amount, to be delivered four years’ hence, is just so much chin-music.

It is on taxes that Romney is at his most unctuous and misguided. He shows no intention of reducing the tax burden on those who create jobs, repeatedly stating that relief for the middle class is the best way to spend our “precious” tax dollars. Aside from the Gollum-like fascination with other people’s money, does Romney imagine tax cuts are just temporary measures to give “relief” to people until such time as rates go up again? Or does he recognize that lowering rates and simplifying the system is the way to create a thriving market and increase employment? If he does not, as seems to be the case, then Romney has no business leading a party that purports to advocate limited government and free enterprise.

In fact, quite apart from a bold plan, Romney offers almost no tax-reform plan at all. For him, maintaining the Bush tax “cuts” (an absurd moniker, inasmuch as these rates have been in place longer than the 1997 Clinton tax regime they replaced) would be sufficient. Never mind that for those who would be most likely to hire their fellow Americans, this leaves rates on income way up at 35 percent – and north of 50 percent in some cases, once state and local taxes are included.

Romney would peg corporate taxes at 25 percent – far higher than America’s competitor nations and twice the rate Gingrich is proposing. Why on God’s green Earth would anyone start a business in America right now, or in the country Romney envisions?

As former Clinton advisor Dick Morris pointed out, while giving props to Gingrich, the budget was balanced in the 1990s by way of tax cuts, not increases. Presidents of both parties, from John F. Kennedy through George W. Bush, have demonstrated that lower rates lead to higher tax revenues, while spurring the economy. For this reason, Art Laffer, supply-side pioneer and architect of the Reagan boom years, has endorsed Gingrich over Romney, stating, “Newt’s plan is right.”

In a general election, Romney could probably defeat Obama (though he might make Southern states closer-run contests than they might be for a different GOP standard-bearer), but so what? President Romney would spend his first term as he has campaigned – splitting the difference, careful to offend no one, hoping to win again in 2016 – sounding great and looking presentable while the country goes to blazes.

Many Americans understand that the economic crisis, and the nation’s towering obligations, represent an existential threat to the nation. Even so, they ought not to fall for Romney’s bleat that he is “a business guy,” and therefore equipped to make things right. It is entirely possible – indeed, demonstrable, in Romney’s case – that someone can have the foresight to be an early investor in Staples, yet misunderstand how an economy grows.

A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for managed decline. At this time for choosing, America must do better than that.


Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Newt Gingrich: One-Term President

On October 10, 2011, this column (which is an unnecessarily self-important way of saying “this guy”) anticipated the rise of Newt Gingrich in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Having presaged most polls and pundits, we (which is an unnecessarily self-important way of saying “I”) are (am) now prepared to dash whatever street cred our lucky call accrued by making an unnecessarily rash prediction: Newt Gingrich will be a one-term president.

Self-importance is significant to this exercise because if Gingrich does indeed go on to champion the GOP against Barack Obama, Americans will be treated to the World Series of Self-Importance, pitting a challenger who is pleased to tell you he has written 24 books, including 13 New York Times best-sellers, against a president who has written two books about himself.

And as for winning the presidency, Newt is quite capable of doing just that, notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that he would be a weak general election candidate. Elections are won or lost on contrasts and, between Obama and Gingrich, voters will have a clear policy choice. Plus, as a matter of simple arithmetic, if Newt is able to keep from falling far behind generic Republican polls and flip a few states back to the GOP column – Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Florida, among others – Obama’s path to re-election becomes extremely narrow.

First, Gingrich must secure the nomination. For 2012, the GOP has eschewed its all-or-none system of previous cycles and will award delegates on a proportional basis for primaries and caucuses held before March 31. This makes it numerically possible that the nomination contest will go deep into the summer, perhaps even to a brokered convention. More likely, however, Newt will win in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, leaving little doubt that he is the choice of the party, encouraging other competitors to save their money, wrap up their campaigns, and hope for Cabinet posts.

Gingrich’s principal rival, of course, is erstwhile frontrunner and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. While Romney remains likely to win the New Hampshire primary, that should be his high-water mark, and America ought to be glad of that.

Romney is the Republican Al Gore: humorless, awkward, the son of a successful politician who can fill out phenomenal suits but never seems quite comfortable in his own skin. Further, just as the 2000 presidential election should have been a layup for Gore, Romney is losing a nomination that should be his because he badly misread the moment.

After seeing the face of government overreach these past three years, and recognizing that America’s economic condition represents an existential threat to the nation, Republicans yearned for a nominee who would take bold steps to make things right. Romney responded by playing it safe, making small plans, and winning no hearts.

His tax plan, in particular, is timid and pointless. Romney would have corporate rates way up at 25 percent, considerably higher than America’s competitor nations, while leaving personal rates basically unchanged. As Newt has aptly pointed out, Romney’s proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes only for those making $200,000 or less will do nothing to spur the economy – filers at this level represent only 9.3 percent of capital gains revenue to the Treasury – and is actually to the left of Obama’s position.

Romney’s language betrays him. In a recent Iowa debate, he defended his insipid recipe by expressing concern that we, “spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut” that benefits the middle class. This sentiment sums up why Romney cannot be the Republican nominee. It is Democrats who characterize tax cuts as “spending.” Conservative Republicans consider cutting taxes to be, simply, letting people keep their own money.

At this point, the best Romney should hope for is to serve as Newt’s running mate – assuming Marco Rubio says no – and perhaps swing Michigan and lock up New Hampshire for the GOP, while doing no harm on the policy front.

So, with Romney dispatched to his well-deserved obscurity in private life or the vice presidency, how might Gingrich go on to defeat Obama, only to hand over the White House keys four years later?

Like so many men of consequence, Gingrich’s greatest qualities sow the seeds of his undoing. It begins with his world-beating intelligence.

Newt actually is brilliant, unlike Obama, whose genius is uncritically attested to by those who have heard it spoken of, or who choose not to contest the point for fear of being called racist. Indeed, Obama’s brilliance is much like global warming: Its existence is insisted upon by nasty people who stand ready to condemn you in the worst possible terms if you hesitate to agree.

Perhaps the browbeating over Obama’s alleged brain power informs some of the eagerness among Republicans to see Newt take him on in presidential debates. To wit, after generations of being lectured that the most leftward candidate is by definition the smartest, conservatives are itching to see a genuine heavyweight from their side mop the floor with a media-acclaimed poseur like Obama.

Gingrich is smart and he knows it. Obama merely thinks he’s smart because, well, Chris Matthews says so. Having learned nothing from the colossal failure of his statist policies, and now turning to class warfare as his campaign theme, Obama has gone from being merely insufferable to downright dangerous. His defeat is essential if America is to remain a country of consequence.

Obama has nothing new or helpful to offer, and this will become obvious in the debates. As is his wont, Obama will fertilize the landscape with garden-variety liberal notions that he thinks are profound, but which any Occupy Wall Streeter could recite without missing a beat in the drum circle, and Gingrich will respond with specific references, historical precedents, and good humor.

Fair enough, then, let us suppose the Self-Important World Series ends in a Gingrich sweep, and Newt is sworn in as America’s 45th president. His downfall will not come at the hands of the adversarial left – angry hippies have hated him for 20 years and their complaints and chants practically write themselves. No, Newt’s presidency will be held to a single term by the behavior and dynamics described by Republicans who served under him as Speaker of the House in the 1990s. Prominent among the many disaffected alumni of the Gingrich Revolution is Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who politely but damningly refers to Newt’s leadership as “lacking,” and suggests he demands a higher standard of those he is leading than of himself.

Assuming that not all of those who have worked with Newt and now decry him are complete cranks – undoubtedly, some are, but that’s just the law of averages, adjusted upward for Congress – there is no mutual exclusivity between the masterful, often genial Gingrich we have seen in GOP primary debates and the ogre described by his former colleagues.

We all know the type. Some people come across very well during a speech or public appearance. Meanwhile, those who know them best recognize the reality to be a total freak show, complete with temper tantrums, disingenuousness, and downright lousy behavior.

Some of this tempestuousness may, in fact, work in Newt’s favor, particularly on the foreign policy front. After the pre-emptive apologies, prominent bowing and unseemly prostration of Obama’s tenure, it might be healthy for America’s enemies to see a president who has little interest in their good opinion, and who just might be crazy enough to let the dogs off the chain.

But on a day-to-day basis, dwelling as the president does on the television screens of the nation, Newt’s disposition will become difficult to abide. The barely stifled anger, professorial condescension and notorious self-regard will begin to outweigh whatever good Gingrich is doing.

And Newt will be a very good one-term president – perhaps the best since James Polk. As Speaker of the House, Gingrich was successful in balancing the budget, reforming welfare, and allowing the private sector to thrive. But if that history is any guide, four years is more than enough time for Newt’s appeal to wear thin. All of us are who we are, and age, maturity, grandkids, what-have-you cannot change that.

In 2016, the Republican pool of presidential candidates will be deep and, with each bruising political or public relations fight, a 73-year-old Newt will be reminded that Rubio, or Paul Ryan, or Chris Christie, or Jeb Bush might be an excellent commander-in-chief. This notion will occur to American voters, too.

If he can enact even a portion of his policy proposals – repeal Obamacare, create a 15 percent optional flat tax, reduce corporate rates to 12.5 percent, eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends and death – President Gingrich will serve America well. But not long thereafter, it will be time for him to go.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Eye of Newt

President Newton Leroy Gingrich. How does that sound? Roll the words around in your mouth for a bit. Could you get used to that? It’s a cheeky, full-bodied taste, to be sure.

With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the GOP’s latest deus, opting to remain in his machina, and Sarah Palin sparing us the shrillness and acrimony that would accompany her candidacy, Republicans have come to the bracing realization that their current crop of presidential contenders is as good as things will get.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the safe choice with a haircut you can set your watch by, has reached a plateau of 25 percent in the polls, which is right about his high point from 2008. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, coming off a monster fundraising quarter even as he massively underperforms on the policy front, may once again give credence to the adage that money isn’t everything.

And Herman Cain, everyone seems to agree, is just so doggone likeable. As this column has stated, Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is the boldest proposal put forward by any GOP candidate, and would be gangbusters for the economy. But it is not sensible for Republicans to nominate someone who lacks even basic comprehension of foreign affairs, as Cain has demonstrated, notwithstanding the strength of his economic platform.

The rest of the field – Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Gary Johnson, Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul – may soldier on for some months, and might add to the policy discussion, but none of them is going to win.

And then there’s Newt. We have described him as yesterday’s man in a hurry, and the former Speaker of the House has shown remarkable energy and determination, even as folks count him out. Indeed, months after much of his staff defected to the Perry camp, Gingrich has offered stronger and more specific policy proposals in debate answers than the Texas Governor has put forward in his entire campaign.

Recently, Newt unveiled his 21st Century Contract with America, a rhetorical and philosophical follow-on from the 1994 plan that led Congressional Republicans to victory. This new compact includes fundamental tax reform, offering people a choice between a flat tax with few deductions and the current system, while eliminating taxes on capital gains and estates, and reducing corporate rates to 12.5%. It repeals Obamacare, reins in the judiciary, and offers clear steps to end economy-choking regulations and legislation such as Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley.

There are weaknesses and omissions – for example, Gingrich does not call for the outright abolition of the police-state boondoggle that is the Department of Homeland Security – but all things considered, it is the sort of platform one expects from a serious, freedom-minded presidential candidate, and its enactment would be an appropriate denouement to a political cycle in which Americans awoke to the self-evident truth that their government belongs to them, not the other way around.

If Romney or Perry had the conservative instincts or policy understanding to advance such a plan, the Republican nomination, and probably the presidential election, would be in their pocket already. But they don’t, and that’s why we’re talking about Newt.

It has been suggested – not without reason – that the Republican Party often chooses its presidential nominee by asking, “Who’s next?” – as the 2008 runner-up, that’s Romney – or, even more cynically, “Alright, who’s the oldest guy here?” – which would mean Ron Paul (if you consider him a viable candidate), followed by Newt. Four years ago, John McCain was the answer to both of those questions.

But things never happen the same way twice. The system that clinched the 2008 GOP nomination for McCain, the day before yesterday’s man, no longer exists. In 2012, delegates will be awarded proportionally in primaries held before March 31, which means the all-or-none system that allowed McCain to wrap up the nomination by securing a plurality of support in early states is gone.

For Romney’s purposes, this means his 25 percent standing is insufficient to put the contest away early. The Romney campaign’s agitation to hold the initial caucuses and primaries as soon as possible may garner him some good press and fundraising momentum – especially if, as expected, he wins New Hampshire in a walk – but it will not make his nomination a numerical certainty.

This means it may be some time before the Republicans have a presumptive nominee. And so the rumpled, corpulent Newt, who can never seem to get his tie done up properly but simply will not go away, could trundle along to surprising success. Gingrich’s problems, of course, extend beyond wardrobe and body type, but that might be a good thing.

On the slight right, we do not lionize our leaders – at least, not while they’re alive (the modern Republican tic to idealize, and name everything after, Ronald Reagan represents a considerable shift from the rough ride he received while in office). So what if Newt is flawed and unlovely?

Go ahead, try to say Newt isn’t smart. Despite his glaring and public faults, the man is brilliant to beat the band. And not brilliant in the Barack Obama way – that is, you’d better say he’s a genius or we’ll call you a racist – but in the sense that he has comprehensive and novel ideas on just about every policy area (not all of them gems, admittedly), decades of legislative success, and, for what it’s worth, a Ph.D. in History lying around somewhere.

Of course, being brilliant doesn’t make one infallible. Brilliance and bad judgment can occupy the same space.

And Newt’s bad judgment is a matter of record: his three marriages, including acrimonious and unseemly divorce circumstances, his occasional flirtation with lefty notions, his canoodling with Nancy Pelosi in a unified effort to combat “climate change,” his tempestuousness, his misbegotten labeling of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposals as “right wing social engineering,” and on.

Each of these is dreadful and, if revealed in the days before a key primary, or even a general election, might tip the balance. But all of this is already priced into the market for Newt. No one is perfect and, in Newt, Americans know what they would be getting.

And if there are, indeed, second acts in American public life, there would be a particular resonance to this one. President Bill Clinton tried to nationalize health care and failed, but the backlash to this attempt allowed Newt and his original Contract with America to claim the Congress for Republicans in 1994. The next Democratic President, Barack Obama, did manage to ram through a health care takeover, and so Gingrich returns, like Cincinnatus from the farm, with an even more comprehensive Contract, to restore limited government.

(Lest historically minded readers take umbrage, this column does not condone declaring Newt to be Dictator, as Cincinnatus was, nor do we expect he would relinquish that title after 16 days, as the Roman leader did; we’re just saying Newt would be an old guy making a comeback.)

For Gingrich, the current polling picture is a freak show. In a head-to-head matchup, he trails President Obama by a Real Clear Politics average of 15.2 percent – the largest such deficit of any Republican candidate – and from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina, there is no early contest in which he leads or appears poised to do so.

But available polls pre-date the release of Gingrich’s new Contract and, more importantly, reflect the mindset of Republican voters still Waiting for Godot. With the demurrals of Christie and Palin, along with those of some outstanding presidents America may never have – Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, et al. – the GOP recognizes that its choice most likely comes down to Romney or, well, someone else.

“I’m someone else!” was enough of a platform for Homer Simpson to get elected head of the neighborhood watch, but Republicans should expect more of their nominee, and America certainly deserves better from its next president.

So, given a binary choice between Romney’s anodyne remedies for a system of taxes, laws and regulation that is in need of comprehensive reform, and someone who purposes to make big and necessary changes, the decision should be obvious – or, at least, could become so in a protracted primary campaign.

Romney’s focus-grouped, peripheral tinkering – leaving corporate taxes far higher than those of America’s competitor nations, giving tax relief only on a class-targeted basis, etc. – is designed for no practical purpose other than to get him elected – and it may yet. But what the country requires is someone with the courage and wherewithal to overhaul the tax code, drastically reduce the reach of the federal government, and scare the holy hell out of Iran’s mullahs like no one has since, dare we say, Ronald Reagan.

Despite his warts, and in some measure because of them, Gingrich can do all these things. In this way, there may yet be a future for yesterday’s man.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Ignoring Ron Paul

Ignore Ron Paul at your peril.

In fact, even if you take full notice of the Texas Congressman, yet commit the heresy of concluding that he will not be elected president of the United States, you are still asking for a little bit of peril.

As a commentator on the slight right, one becomes inured to blowback and hate mail. A number of us earned our stripes during the 2008 presidential campaign when we learned, to our great surprise, that opposing Barack Obama made us horrible, horrible racists.

But something that started with the 2008 Paul campaign has become a notable feature of this cycle – that is, the Texas-sized chip Paul’s supporters carry on their shoulders. Sincere and energetic, perhaps even well-meaning, these people are perpetually poised to get honked off.

If you follow politics and political reporting, you have probably seen some of this. They flood websites, send angry emails, shout at newscasters shooting in public, and demand that the media “Stop ignoring Ron Paul!”

You may also have seen some pre-emptive apologies from broadcasters and commentators, cognizant of the disproportionate response they will get from Paul’s supporters if they do not show him adequate deference, regardless of his chances of victory.

I do not blame Rep. Paul personally for this. Indeed, I have met and talked with him, and found him to be a nice enough man. Even so, I do not believe he will ever be president of the United States. That’s not a personal slight, or a function of corporate interests supposedly pulling my strings. Lots of people won’t be president (Jon Huntsman, a word, please?). It’s not a dig to say so.

The commitment of Paul’s supporters, including and especially younger people whom you might not expect to see at political events, particularly Republican ones, is fascinating. Their demeanor, versus that of the man they purport to represent, as well as the age gap between them and him, make for a compelling picture. How is it that this unassuming man can motivate folks in this way? There’s an anthropology thesis in there somewhere.

Paul is an accomplished person, who has garnered a profoundly committed political following. He can claim a number of other achievements that I and many others could never match: For example, he has earned a medical degree and got himself elected to Congress.

But all things being equal, even including his recent second-place showing in New Hampshire primary polls, the chances of America electing a 76-year-old, isolationist Congressman to be only the second person in history to go straight from the House of Representatives to the presidency are remote.

The truth is, no one ignores Paul. Everyone reading this column knows precisely who he is, what he has said, and the things he represents. On some issues, he is sage; on others, he is out where the buses don’t run. For all his strengths and imperfections, he has attained clear fame.

But let us suppose that, not for the first time, I am dead wrong and Paul has a chance. I was wrong in 2008 when I thought a radical-snuggling lightweight like Barack Obama could not wrest the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton and go on to win the White House (more fool me, for underestimating the awesome and destructive power of white liberal guilt). In 2012, I hope I am even more wrong.

For example, in a recent column, I casually remarked that Herman Cain wouldn’t win, and boy howdy would I like to be wrong about that. Not long after I cast my judgment, Cain won the Florida 5 Straw Poll in a landslide, and Zogby shows him with an outright lead in national polls. His 9-9-9 plan, representing nine percent tax rates on corporations, personal income, and sales, is the boldest and most invigorating proposal of any GOP candidate. If a President Cain could actually enact such a system, America would be restored to global economic supremacy in a jiffy.

But back to the Congressman from Texas. We could do a lot worse than a President Paul, and have done (see: “Obama, Barack”). There are a number of domestic policy areas in which Paul is strong, even visionary. As two quick examples, if he could actually audit the Federal Reserve and abolish the Department of Homeland Security, I would be eager and glad to thank him.

Paul was unfairly ridiculed when he spoke of “capital flight,” which he extrapolated to suggest that the proposed fence on the southern border could be used to keep Americans in, rather than to keep Mexicans out. While actual physical impediments to leaving may or may not be in America’s future, from a taxation and capital perspective, Paul is correct. For example, as this column recently noted, the IRS claims authority over the income and assets of U.S. citizens, no matter where they live in the world. If a law-abiding, non-resident American, all paid up on their taxes, decides he or she would prefer to be free of this obligation and renounce their U.S. citizenship, the IRS may simply refuse to let them go. If a person’s income is above a certain amount, or if their net worth exceeds two million dollars, the IRS will require tax filings from that person for another decade at least, after which they will review the case. Even Russia does not do this, nor does China. America sure does.

In this way, America is easier to get into than to leave. This was Paul’s point, and such a system is anathema to the “Land of the Free.”

But it is on foreign policy that Paul falls down. His instincts are correct, inasmuch as in overseas matters, particularly the Middle East, America is constantly picking the wrong friends, arming the wrong people, and jamming its thumbs into complex problems it has neither the capacity nor humility to understand.

Even so, to expect or advocate America’s withdrawal from international defense obligations is unrealistic. Moreover, Paul’s assertion that 9/11 was brought about by U.S. “occupation,” apart from its deal-breaking offensiveness, neglects the fanatical and murderous nature of Islamist terrorism.

The economy may be the most important issue of this campaign – and on some economic issues, Paul is very good. But when discussion turns to foreign policy and Paul posits that Iran’s jihadist maniacs will be circumscribed by the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction, as the Soviets were, so why shouldn’t they have a nuclear bomb, then he is just too far wrong to lead America.

One more thought on angry supporters, please. Paul is not the only politician whose backers are getting their backs up of late. It seems some fans of Sarah Palin have gone feral. Even Ann Coulter, for years one of Palin’s most vocal defenders, has remarked that it’s no longer worth discussing the former Alaska governor on TV, lest she put a foot wrong and get an earful for it.

The insistence that Palin is suited to the Oval Office is somewhat akin to liberal demands that we all concur Obama is brilliant. Proponents’ only recourse is to attack those who disagree. I reject these shibboleths, but remain curious about just what’s gotten under the Palin people’s saddles.

This is, indeed, a new phenomenon, to see such furious behavior from supposed conservatives. Supercilious as it may sound, we simply don’t do that sort of thing. I wonder how many other rightist commentators have perused the day’s batch of electronic ire and, upon squinting, realized that an angry, misspelled, ALL CAPS, insulting diatribe is, for once, not from an outraged Obama hopey-changer, or a Moveon.org maven, or from Teresa Heinz-Kerry – but from one of ours!

Fair enough, though. Let’s have some fun with it.

Inviting a perfect storm of Republican hate mail (and, to be clear, such a thing should not exist – you’re better than that), I will say that if I had to choose between Sarah Palin and Ron Paul for president of the United States, I’d take Paul every day of the week and twice on Sundays.


Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Romney or Perry? Neither

Michele Bachmann made some sense. Near the end of the GOP presidential debate in Orlando, Florida, she observed, “Every four years, Republicans are told they have to settle.” The congresswoman’s meaning was that the party always gets urged toward someone moderate and “electable” – you know, like John McCain – rather than picking a proper conservative to run for president.

While Bachmann herself remains highly unlikely to become that proper conservative nominee, the current Republican frontrunners, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry, offer precious little hope.

In Romney’s case, his economic plan, particularly on taxes, is anemic, timid, and out of synch with the mood of the time. Perry, meanwhile, evinces an inexcusable lack of specificity and comprehension.

I don’t give a sweet tinker’s damn that Romney and Perry “look presidential,” as folks so often point out. Does a nation cracking under massive taxation, undermined and demoralized by ubiquitous government rules for living, find comfort in its president’s glorious hair or breathtaking haberdashery?

America needs bold, fearless and thoughtful leadership in order to regain its freedom and right its economy. Thus far, the two candidates most favored to contend with Barack Obama for the presidency offer nothing of the kind.

One wonders why and how men like Romney and Perry ascend to front-runner status, given the paucity of good ideas they put forward, in contrast to their struggling rivals. The best tax proposals to date have been advanced by Herman Cain – who will not win – and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty – who was never going to win either, and is now out of the race.

Indeed, after Pawlenty withdrew, Romney got his endorsement and Perry hired his advertising guys, but neither candidate had the good sense to copy his tax plan. In Perry’s case, it remains possible that he will come out with something similar but, after three debates and almost two months as a candidate, it is unacceptable that he has not done so. As for Romney, his prescription is a mess.

Cutting corporate taxes only modestly, from 35 to 25 percent, as Romney proposes, would still leave America’s rates on business much higher than those of its competitor nations. Such a move would do not one blasted thing to attract investment, but might well reduce tax revenue. Likewise, eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest only for those making under $200,000 will do nothing to encourage job-creators or goose the economy.

This sort of insipid rate-fidgeting solves no problems and satisfies no one. It is precisely the split-the-difference nonsense one unfortunately expects from tasseled-loafered Northeastern Republicans who, despite their party affiliation, are not truly animated by freedom-minded notions.

To wit, America did not have its 2010 political awakening just to end up with Romney tinkering with the tax code. A comprehensive reduction of rates is what is required, leading to an outright overhaul of the system. That is, corporate rates should be cut to 15% or less straight away, capital gains, dividend and interest taxes should be scrapped for everyone, and a single rate on income of 23% or below should be the order of the day. So why would Romney advocate such an anodyne plan instead? Does he believe that limp, non-threatening proposals will make him more palatable in the general election? Oh, for Heaven’s sake.

I have every confidence that Romney would defeat Obama. But so what? Will that usher in a new birth of freedom, as America hopes to find?

Is it any stretch to imagine President Romney shaking his head and waving his hands in his now-familiar gestures of equivocation, explaining to the American people why he couldn’t just take the limited government option on some issue or other – taxes, spending, oil drilling or debt, for example? Moreover, does anyone really think President Romney will ever present the sort of comprehensive reform for which the nation is clamoring? Would he abolish the EPA or the Department of Education? Would he wipe out the monstrous, 70,000-page tax code and start afresh? Not likely.

“I’m a business guy,” Romney pleads, and this may seem a strong quality to those who are unfamiliar with the sort of empty suits and silly-bears one routinely encounters in the “business” world.

In its conventions, redundancies, made-up language and pointless puffery, corporate culture rivals government itself for outright defiance of satire. There is good reason that iterations of “The Office” have resonated with millions of viewers on two continents. Mitt Romney might not be Michael Scott, but one could see him as David Wallace, the by-the-book, milquetoast CFO who does everything right, but still gets it wrong, and finds himself selling “Suck It” out of his palatial home.

As for Perry, where is his plan and, perhaps more important, what does he truly believe? We’ve heard about his HPV-Gardasil gack, and his repeated, cloying answer about how he “chose life” in mandating that sixth-grade girls be immunized against sexually transmitted disease does not serve him well. But on Social Security, taxes, and other specific issues, where is Perry’s core? We don’t see it. And at this point, one suspects we don’t see it because it isn’t there.

Studying up – as so many suggested Sarah Palin ought to do – is not the answer. If you want to be president of the United States, a cogent political and economic philosophy should be part of who you are, not something you manufacture just to get the job. This does not mean you should be a bloodless, single-minded creature, bred and raised to run for political office (Al Gore, please call your office), but you ought to have spent time thinking in an expansive way about what works and what does not, developing a personal set of beliefs as to the proper role of government.

So who else is there? If Republicans could wave their magic wands and pick their presidential champions, after a Harry Potter-type battle, we would likely see some pairing of Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie on the ticket.

But since none of these men is on offer for the 2012 contest, we have to do the best we have with what we’ve got. What to do, what to do…

Everyone please keep calm, but may we take one more look at Newt Gingrich? No doubt, complaints about his negative ratings and personal foibles practically write themselves – for me personally, the advertising image of him and Nancy Pelosi, seated on an outdoor loveseat, pretending to care about “climate change,” periodically hits me like shellshock. But the former Speaker (Gingrich, not Pelosi) is smarter than any two of the other GOP candidates combined and, his shortcomings notwithstanding, he has bold plans for the nation and understands the wider world.

Rumpled and corpulent, Gingrich doesn’t even “look presidential,” and God bless him for that. In debate after debate, Gingrich shows that he has thought through the issues of the day, and in presenting his views, he is fearless – as well he might be, since he is yesterday’s man with nothing to lose.

Barack Obama can and should be defeated in 2012. But in choosing his replacement, America should not settle.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Hail to the Hobgoblin

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously and aptly observed that, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Coming from his essay, “Self-Reliance,” the full quotation asserts such folly is, “adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

As if further proof of Emerson’s wisdom and foresight were needed, along comes America’s divine philosopher, President Barack Obama, abetted by his band of little statesmen, presenting yet another misbegotten plan to tax and spend – perfectly consistent with his foolish policies to date.

Following on a disastrous trillion-dollar “stimulus” plan, along with job-killing regulations across the land, the president now promises more of the same, including $1.5 trillion in new taxes. And as though government had not grown enough under his watch, he proposes that nanny state programs be expanded, proving once and for all that “Self-Reliance” has no place in Obama’s America.

At this point, Obama’s speeches practically write themselves. Each time he speaks, the only suspense lay in wondering just how big the tax bill will be. Full marks, as they say, for consistency.

The hobgoblin’s hallmark is a refusal to learn. But “little minds”? Really? Can we say such a thing about Obama and our betters at Harvard, NPR and the New York Times? Boy howdy (for the benefit of liberal readers, that means “yes”).

To abide on the left is to inhabit a little mind. Like a Manhattan studio apartment, there isn’t much space, so only the most cherished items are kept. There is no room for new ideas, only the single set of tired nostrums they inherited.

And so, in the parlance of William James, liberals simply rearrange their prejudices in lieu of thinking. Each iteration of Obama’s economic prescription bears this out, as new words are used to describe the same abysmal ideas.

“Stimulus” becomes a “jobs plan,” “tax hikes” become “revenue increases,” and “government spending” becomes “investment.”

This president doesn’t have a plan, he has a thesaurus. But this is the way of the left – they know only one way of looking at the world, and all their years marinating in news rooms, or the academy, or at Starbucks are spent coming up with novel and clever ways to say the same dopey things.

To wit, taxes always need to be higher, the rich are always wrong, Republicans are always stupid, Christianity is for cranks, and it’s all America’s fault.

I think it saves time to forego the common conservative courtesy of pretending liberals are intelligent just because, well, everyone says so. Even if this were true, it’s irrelevant so long as the left refuses to look at issues from any side but their own. This is why you find supposedly brilliant leftists observing a demonstrable and conventional conservative notion – such as, lower tax rates can lead to higher revenue – with the same screeching suspicion as the prehistoric primates beholding the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But in case it’s helpful, let’s revisit this notion of superior liberal intelligence one more time. After years of scrutiny and contemplation, I consider this president, along with Joe Biden and the vast majority of Obama’s Cabinet, individually and collectively, to be dumb as a sack of doorknobs.

The grand prize for fatuity goes to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – a “man-caused disaster” in her own right and the most malign and breathtaking imbecile in American public life.

As the Obama Administration’s fecklessness applies to the economy, this one-note approach is doing real and perhaps permanent damage to America. Increased government spending, debt and taxes have been tried and found wanting. Their outright refusal to contemplate a new paradigm, even as their own has failed so obviously and spectacularly, reveals unfathomable selfishness and intellectual vanity.

Much is made of the fact that none of Obama’s inner circle has ever run a private business, and that’s fair enough, so far as it goes. This would not be dispositive, however, if these folks showed at least some willingness to adapt and learn. It’s not just “experience” that matters – it’s judgment, too.

A person can “experience” something for ages, but still reach the wrong conclusions. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, has business “experience” to beat the band, but he has not the first clue about personal freedom or the proper role of government.

But even as unemployment soars and markets crash, Obama seems to imagine he has the country on his side – or, at least, that he can sway the national mood with just one more speech. Before seeing his poll numbers smacked by the debt ceiling negotiations, Obama reportedly warned Republican Rep. Eric Cantor that he would take his case, “to the American people,” as though this would turn the tide.

A similar attitude was on display when Obama addressed a joint session of Congress recently, suggesting there would be serious consequences if they did not pass his bill promptly. “I intend to take that message to every corner of the country,” the president ominously intoned, giving a stern look to all assembled.

Does Obama think he’s threatening anyone with this sort of talk? We are told that the presidency is a bubble, but is Obama so isolated that he is completely unaware of the punch-line he has become?

What politician up for election in 2012 is frightened of having to run against Obama’s record or cowed by the prospect that he may deploy another speech? Seriously, is Obama still taken by his own “I’m LeBron, baby” braggadocio?

Until recently, many of us who considered Obama to be a plodding, humorless, lousy speaker were like the early Christians, communicating our beliefs in no more than a whisper, since the consequences of being found out just weren’t worth the hassle. Now, though, everyone is coming to this realization and, as we long-time critics come blinking out of the catacombs, we say to our new friends, especially you independent voters, “Welcome.”

Of course, hectoring speeches can be forgiven if the substance is sound. Obama, though, offers the worst of both worlds. You can teleprompt bad ideas ‘til the cows come home, but that don’t make them right.

There is nothing for it but that America must elect a new president. As to who that will be, we cannot know, but in choosing a chief executive, the country has nowhere to go but up. Mitt Romney’s tax reform policy is limp – it’s basically Jon Huntsman’s plan without the sanctimony and Mandarin-speaking – and Rick Perry’s has yet to be revealed.

But any available candidate at least offers the hope that America will shake off the hobgoblin of foolish consistency and try something new.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com