On Taxes, Obama and Romney Obfuscate

Democrats are fond of saying that Republicans rely too heavily on tax cuts in their economic proposals. In reality, Mitt Romney’s tax plan is not only tepid and incomplete, but he has neglected to expose the true destructiveness of Democratic policies.

Absent an effective Republican rejoinder, President Barack Obama gleefully mocks GOP tax prescriptions, including in his address to the Democratic National Convention: “Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the mornin’,” the president quipped in that painfully pandering, g-droppin’ manner he sometimes deploys, to the admiration of Harry Reid.

Obama characterizes tax cuts as contrary to his concept of “citizenship” and detrimental to progress in fields from medicine to technology and beyond. It is emblematic of the modern Democratic party, and the Left in general, that a person can rise through its ranks, even to the office of president, while remaining ignorant of the demonstrable truth that lower tax rates often lead to economic growth and higher tax revenues.

A particularly nonsensical Democratic talking point is that lower taxes – “the Bush tax cuts,” in their misnomer – are “what got us into this mess in the first place.” But in the four years after 2003, when the second phase of Bush’s tax plan was enacted, tax revenues increased by over $700 billion. Romney’s refusal to point this out explains, in part, why he persistently trails in the polls.

And it is not as though the country’s tax burden is light. America has the highest corporate taxes in the world, while claiming a greater share of personal income than its largest trading partner, Canada – and Obama seeks to push these rates even higher.

Beyond the rates, the Byzantine nature of the US tax system, including its worldwide reporting requirements, creates an expensive and inhospitable economic environment and disadvantages Americans overseas. Romney has offered a vague plan to eliminate the double-taxation of international US businesses but, without specifics, even Joe Biden is comfortable disdaining it.

“It’s called a territorial tax,” the vice president scoffed to the DNC, with apparent confusion. This evinces an unfortunate American myopia, whereby something that is commonplace in the rest of the world is held up and marveled at like a glowing rock that fell from space. It is particularly galling in this case because the “territorial tax” Biden considers so otherworldly was, in fact, a key recommendation of Obama’s own Jobs Council.

This same blinkered perception applies to the tax burden on US citizens living abroad. A record number of Americans renounced their citizenship last year and, if Obama is re-elected and enacts his massive tax hikes and expanded reporting requirements, the number of renunciations will increase. Invariably, such news brings howls of “good riddance” from “These-Colors-Don’t-Run” nincompoops who do not understand that their erstwhile compatriots are not dodging their taxes, but escaping anomalous, extra-territorial demands placed on them by the IRS. As a consequence of this institutional stance that US citizens remain government property, wherever they reside in the world, Americans living abroad enjoy less financial freedom than ex-pats of the People’s Republic of China.

The solution is simple: American individuals and businesses should be required to file and pay taxes only in their country of residence – just like the citizens of almost every other nation on Earth. For all his economic acumen, Romney has not made this straightforward proposal.

But perhaps most troubling is Romney’s inability to translate Obama’s tax policy as it pertains to jobs.

Two-thirds of American companies are small businesses, known as Chapter-S corporations, and they pay taxes at the same rates as individuals. This is not widely understood by the general public, or by politicians – indeed, a senior Congressional Republican recently told me that half the House Budget Committee was unaware of this fact. Moreover, these small businesses create 70 percent of America’s new jobs.

So, when Obama talks of raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” or, equally absurdly, “those who can afford it,” he is saying he will raise taxes on small business. Whether he realizes this or not, one cannot know (and those who still suppose Obama’s brilliance precludes him making such rudimentary mistakes should consider the tax burden of the average Navy “corpse-man,” whether he is stationed overseas or in one of the 57 states). Either way, Obama’s plan cripples job-creation.

If Romney wants to win this election, he must clarify his tax proposals – while exposing Obama’s, as well.

 

Police State Conventions

TAMPA, FL – “They know better than we do.”

This was the comment of a Republican attendee, surveying the massive security surrounding us at the GOP Convention in Tampa. What began as a mumbled musing about the militarization of an American metropolis settled into a calm self-assurance that, whatever the authorities had chosen to do, that must be the right thing.

“Maybe there’s a threat they haven’t told us about,” he continued. “They can’t tell us everything.” He chuckled at me, expecting I would concur.

“I don’t assume they know better than we do,” I replied. “Perhaps they know less.”

As he squinted at me, he wasn’t angry or disputatious. While I cannot claim to know his exact thoughts, he just seemed confused. It had not occurred to him, apparently, that there is such a thing as too much security.

This column has often made the case that many of our liberal friends simply do not know that there is another side to policy issues. So ensconced are they among like-thinkers and fellow-travelers that they never hear a differing opinion. Some senior, experienced, ostensibly erudite leftists are utterly buffaloed by the demonstrable notion that lower tax rates commonly lead to higher tax revenues, for just one example.

But this interaction with my Republican interlocutor served as a reminder that we have blinkered associates on our side as well, albeit on different issues. For generations, conservatives have been proudly pro-police, strong on defense, and in favor of security. But the time has come to re-think that admirable respect for the rule of law and recognize that not everything done or decided by someone with a badge and a gun is right, or necessary, or even consistent with the principles of a free country. It is also perfectly consistent to favor a strong military while questioning Pentagon policies.

This was alluded to by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who, in his speech to the Convention, averred, “Republicans must acknowledge that not every dollar spent on the military is necessary or well spent.”

To bolster Paul’s point, a military that promoted Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan to the rank of Major and, after Hasan murdered 13 people, saw Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey opine that, “it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here” is not one that can claim to have unimpeachable judgment. Further, a Navy “green fleet” that requires alternative fuels costing 26 dollars a gallon is not an expenditure of unquestionable sagacity.

So Republicans who purport to be strong on defense, their strength measured in the number of dollars they wish to fling at such nonsense, are missing the solar-powered boat.

Just as there is a distinction between hard work and effective work, there is no guarantee that spending lots of money means those funds will be wisely deployed. While the GOP Convention went off without incident, that does not mean all these silly-bears were necessary. Similarly, if there is a riot at the DNC in Charlotte, that does not mean, ipso facto, that not enough money was spent.

The city of Tampa was reportedly given 50 million dollars in federal funds to keep people safe, but the overlap and Tower of Babel-type communication among municipal, county, state and federal authorities made for a right mess.

One senior Republican found former New Hampshire governor and Bush 41 Chief of Staff John Sununu stranded on the roadside, his ride having been turned back by the all-knowing police presence for violation of some aspect of their Byzantine protocols.

There is some cold, egalitarian comfort to be taken from the fact that even senior public officials are chomped by the mindless maw of the security state. This week, I spoke with former Missouri governor and senator Kit Bond (who, incidentally, assured me he will not agree to be drafted as a replacement for hapless Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin, whom Bond agrees should withdraw from the race) and he lamented that he is routinely molested and undressed at America’s airports, and neither Congressional waivers nor doctor’s notes about his metal implants spare him these ordeals. Either Bond, the septuagenarian, 40-year public servant, is the most patient sleeper cell operative in history, or the system requires reform.

Compare this with the recent London Olympics. Those of us in attendance at the Games encountered annoyances and security overkill, and questionable calls were certainly made (missiles on rooftops, for example), but the sheer mass of machine guns and fatigues, not to mention the grinning deference to police-state tactics, simply did not exist. How interesting that London, with more closed-circuit cameras than any other city and a populace inured to surveillance, was able to accommodate a much larger event with less kerfuffle than the host city where the party of limited government convened.

But the state of affairs on display in Tampa is not the city’s fault, nor Republicans’, and the security imbroglio at the Democratic convention in North Carolina won’t be that party’s fault, either. It is a cultural problem. America has adopted a safety-first mentality, as Mark Steyn observed in his critique of the decision to shut down Day One of the RNC due to the incoming storm. We must be bolder, Steyn aptly asserts. As to, “They know better than we do,” Americans should not think in these terms, and Republicans least of all. This is, however, a bipartisan conundrum.

President George W. Bush should not have created the Department of Homeland Security, much less given it such a Soviet-sounding name, and Barack Obama should have shut it down, not staffed it with nincompoops like DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (in this way, the breathtakingly ignorant Napolitano is a disgrace to an office that should not exist).

It is worth noting that, having followed Mitt Romney fairly closely since he ran for Massachusetts governor, advocated his inclusion on the ticket in 2008, and having assured anyone who would listen that he would come back for the win in 2012 (notwithstanding our misbegotten notion in late 2011 that Newt would overcome, in spite of himself), I have heard him say precious little about rolling back the nation’s rapidly expanding security apparatus. This is troubling, but hope springs eternal.

Specifically, one hopes that the impulses of the modern police state will be overcome by a President Romney’s apparent decency and sense of fair play. Further to that fair and decent aspect, a word on the rest of the potential First Family: Mrs. Romney is a gem and, as for their boy-band brace of sons, some of whom I got to speak with this week, they are gentlemen.

As to the election itself, there has been and will be such carnage of inkshed in the coming weeks, my humanity permits me to add only this: Mitt Romney will win with 300 or more Electoral College votes (270 are required for victory). This will confound network anchors and liberal pundits who have been parroting that this will be “a close race” and “a base election” and who will muse and mewl late into the evening about how “nobody saw this coming.” But as both a quantitative and a qualitative matter, this race is over.

Romney’s calm, competent presence, complemented by a specialty in fixing colossal messes, makes him the right man for this moment (among those who will be on the ballot, anyway). This is something the nation will sense, apart from politics and ideology, and some measure of this demeanor and poise was evident in Romney’s acceptance speech.

With regard to the numbers, a study of the electoral map shows four or five feasible paths to a Romney victory, starting with winning New Hampshire and retaining or flipping several combinations of states from Florida to Wisconsin. To wit, there are simply more ways for Romney to win than for Obama.

On Election Night, by the time New Mexico is called, we will already know Mitt Romney is the 45th President of the United States. The question then becomes, what will he do to return America to its rightful place as the Land of the Free?

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

 

Mitt Romney and the Ridiculous Modern Presidency

And then there’s Mitt.

After all the speechifying and handshaking and recriminations and commercials and countless debates, the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination ends pretty much where it began: with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as the presumptive winner.

The most recent pretender to the Republican crown was former Senator Rick Santorum, who bowed out of the GOP contest in advance of an uncertain primary in his home state of Pennsylvania. For this, the party and the country should be grateful. Had he carried the Keystone State and somehow gone on to seize the nomination, Santorum would have remained a tough sell.

Simply put, Santorum is not suited to be president of the United States. That’s not a slight. The vast majority of us are not cut out to be president, including the guy who currently has the job.

The problem is not Santorum’s social policies – some of which have been amplified and even outright fabricated through the power of those pesky, worldwide interwebs – it is his demeanor. He is too intense at the wrong times. One could easily see Santorum as the guy arguing a call in a friendly softball game, and taking it way too far.

And so, it shall be Romney.

Despite being preferable to Santorum, Romney is nowhere near our first choice, and he is not even in our top ten list of prominent Republicans we’d wish to see as the GOP standard-bearer this November (Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Jon Kyl, Marco Rubio, Rudy Giuliani, David Wilkins, Bill Frist, and Mitch McConnell, please call your offices). But here we are. Romney personifies Ben Franklin’s axiom that politics is the art of the possible (or, perhaps more infamously, Donald Rumsfeld’s musings on America’s preparedness for the Iraq war) – since it is not possible to have the nominee we might wish for, we must do the best we can with whom we have.

As regular readers know, this column would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, so let us apply this philosophy to Mitt’s nomination.

One of the qualities that recommend him is that no one is ever going to get misty about the guy. There is no romance to Romney. If anyone ever faints at a Romney rally, the reasons will be purely medical, utterly unrelated to whatever charisma is emanating from the stage.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan opines that America is moving toward a “post-heroic presidency.” That is, we will cease to consider the president some kind of public sector demigod, and recognize him simply as a citizen with a job to do. If this is true, now more than ever, it will be a very good thing. Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign was embarrassing, what with the chanting and the race-baiting idol-worship and the “Yes we can” rhubarb that resulted in the election of this preening, ridiculous person as president. The intervening, desolate four years and the fatuity of his term of office permit us to call that phenomenon what it was: sheer, mass idiocy, demonstrating Winston Churchill’s aphorism that, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

But, his acolytes and self-regard notwithstanding, Obama cannot be blamed for the layers of nonsense that come with the job. To wit, the modern presidency is a pompous absurdity. With its giant airplanes, its 17-car motorcades, its Praetorian Guard of a security detail and on, the office demands more deference than King George III ever did. It has taken longer than most – over two centuries – but the American Revolution has gone the way of all others: The revolutionaries have made themselves royalty.

Moreover, the American president is no longer the Leader of the Free World in any meaningful sense. Besides that the nation’s self-imposed, weakened economic state represents a de facto abdication of leadership, America is arguably the least-free country in the West. With federal “security” checkpoints posted everyplace from freeways to bus stations to sporting events, a Treasury that demands tax filings and complete account information from citizens and “U.S. persons” living abroad (anomalous among other tax treaty nations, which properly believe people should simply file and pay taxes where they reside), and a criminal justice system with a conviction rate north of 90 percent (the upshot of which is that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners), the “land of the free” is now little more than a song lyric. In short, America will search your person, take your money, and lock you up quicker than any other “free” country in history.

Would President Romney fix all this? Doubtful. Unless his anodyne economic policies and milquetoast pronouncements are masking a robust agenda of true reform (and thus far, such indications exist only in the columns of the recently unrecognizable Ann Coulter, a surprising and relentless Romney cheerleader), he will mostly likely lower expectations of the office while managing America’s decline. Even so, he beats the alternative.

As to his chances of winning, Larry Kudlow calls Romney perhaps, “the most underrated politician in America.” He’s a grinder. Many times during the GOP contest, Romney found himself eclipsed by other candidates, but he stuck to his game plan and wore them out. This augurs well for the general election, however pointless his presidency might prove.

If Gandalf the Grey taught us anything (and plainly, he did), it is this: “Even the wisest cannot see all ends.” From here, certainly, it seems America is pooched, and no potential president has the prescription to save it. But of the available options, Romney gives the country its best chance. Perhaps, somehow, circumstances will align such that Romney’s cautious, managerial, split-the-difference approach to governing will be just what the nation needs.

And if Romney’s stunning lack of star power reminds America that its president is just a person, and its politicians work for us, not the other way around, he will have served his country well. In this way, perhaps government of the people, by the people, for the people may return to the earth.

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

 

Time to Deploy Jeb

What if the Republican Party could field a presidential nominee able to guarantee victory in the state of Florida, and perhaps across the entire South? What if this person also possesses twice the executive governing experience as the GOP’s current front-runner, Mitt Romney, and is broadly considered the best Republican governor in recent decades? Finally, what if this person espouses precisely the limited government philosophy for which dispirited Republicans yearn?

To wit, what if the Republican Party turned its lowly eyes to Jeb Bush?

In the wake of Super Tuesday, with Romney capturing the grand prize of Ohio, Rick Santorum making a hat-trick of Oklahoma, North Dakota and Tennessee, Newt Gingrich winning Georgia, and Ron Paul giving everyone another stern lecture, no one is satisfied.

More than this, there is real and growing concern that none of these candidates, including and especially Romney, can defeat Barack Obama in November.

The question becomes, then, could Jeb Bush beat Barack Obama, especially if he did not secure the nomination until the GOP Convention at the end of August? Boy howdy, he could.

As the first Republican governor re-elected in Florida since Reconstruction, Jeb could carry the Sunshine State with his little finger. The rest of the South, including Virginia and North Carolina (which wandered haplessly into Democratic territory in 2008), would be pleased as punch to pull the lever for a proper conservative. Hence, Jeb removes the South from contention in a way Romney, in particular, could not.

From there, Bush’s record of accomplishment and straightforward philosophy on the role of the public sector – he maintains that government should do nothing that is advertised in the Yellow Pages – would create a welcome contrast with Obama, and rekindle enthusiasm among Republican voters.

Apart from the logistical challenges of launching a run at this late date (discussed below), there are two major impediments to Bush’s presidential candidacy: branding and will.

Branding is the easy bit. There are many who negatively associate Jeb Bush with the presidencies of his brother and father. Years ago, after I published a newspaper column extoling Jeb’s success as Florida governor and suggesting he would make a potent president, one fellow responded, “I wouldn’t listen to another Bush if it were burning.”

But consider, gentle reader, your own parents and siblings. Would it be fair, or accurate, for folks to suppose you think and act precisely as members of your family do? Whatever your opinion of the previous Bush presidencies, as Floridians can attest, Jeb is his own man.

As to the deeper challenge, that of will, the man simply does not want to do it, as he has said as much.

On a personal and professional basis, Gov. Bush has for some time been profoundly tolerant of my nonsense, and my incessant needling that he run for president. On that latter point, I am nowhere near alone, as myriad Republicans have been trying to coax him into the race for some time.

Jeb has allowed me to interview him for television and print, and, on-camera about a year ago, he was plain as can be in telling me he was not going to be a candidate. The specific reason he gave then was that he does not favor Ethanol subsidies, which suggests he would not be competitive in Iowa. But the Iowa Caucuses are long over, Santorum won (sort of) and, even if Bush’s perfectly defensible position on this issue caused him to lose the state’s 6 Electoral College votes, he could still muddle along to victory.

As the declared GOP candidates continue to go about the country, stirring up apathy, Jeb Bush is among the pantheon of dream candidates Republicans call forth, along with Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and others. But there is no substitute for Jeb. Indiana is an important state, a presidential bellwether, but it is not the must-win that Florida is. And as an articulate champion of freedom, with a sterling executive record, Republicans have no one who can hold a candle to him.

So, with a campaign in full swing, several hundred delegates already allotted, filing deadlines for state primaries and caucuses long past, and an ideal candidate who emphatically does not want the job, how could Jeb become president?

This is what conventions are for.

Romney supporters aver that neither Santorum nor Gingrich can hope to overtake him in the delegate count, and this is probably true. But they don’t have to. All Santorum, Gingrich and Paul must do is garner enough delegates to prevent Romney from reaching 1,144 before the convention. Then, with Romney denied a first-ballot victory, a Byzantine system of state and district rules kicks in, allowing many delegates to meander off and support someone else.

Jeb is someone else. And, with Romney et al. having been examined and found wanting by Republican voters, not to mention the GOP Convention being held in Tampa, Florida (an astoundingly happy coincidence), Gov. Bush would be the natural choice to lead the party. Even the most reluctant candidate – and, with his many polite yet firm Sherman-esque statements, Jeb may just be that – could not resist such a confluence of events and the acclamation of his party.

Conservative pundit Rich Lowry refers to Romney as the candidate of “Eh, I guess.” That about sums up Republican enthusiasm for the moneyed yet milquetoast former Massachusetts governor. I have been sharply critical of Romney’s tepid economic plan – and his recent announcement of a 20 percent reduction in marginal tax rates does little to change my view – while maintaining that he could at least defeat Obama. Lately, though, even that seems in doubt.

This column has called Romney the Republican Al Gore, several others have noted his similarity to John Kerry, and these are various ways of making the same observation; that is, the negative appeal of phoniness is bipartisan and powerful.

Romney is tough to take. I say that as someone who has watched him for many years, and who advocated his selection as Sen. John McCain’s running mate in 2008 (but what a loss to reality television that would have been). It comes across in speeches and debates. At the end of particularly pat answers, Romney thanks his questioner with the smugness of those South Park characters driving around in their hybrid cars: “Thaaaaanks.”

Recently, in a thumbless grasp for the support of rural voters, Romney said he is always “delighted” to go hunting. Back that up for a moment. You outdoorsy types among our readership in particular, please give this scenario careful thought: You are at home, the weekend is upcoming, a buddy calls and invites you hunting – it there any universe in which you would reply, “Why, I’d be delighted”?

The concern is that when general election voters get a load of Romney’s routine, they will inevitably be as put off as we nonplussed Republicans.

Santorum would make a newsworthy Health and Human Services Secretary, but it is hard to imagine him becoming president. As for Gingrich, who remains this column’s top choice among the currently available candidates (Newt’s single term could be as consequential as that of the only other former Speaker of the House to become president – James Polk), whether by Romney-sponsored negative advertising or the op

Finally, there’s Ron Paul. There is always Ron Paul.

With Super Tuesday in the books and Republican chances looking bleaker by the day, the party must summon its ace. When the GOP gathers in Florida, it will be time to deploy Jeb Bush.

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

 

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