The Importance of Credibility

You cannot be successful in any endeavor unless you have credibility. Credibility and trust go hand-in-hand. Both must be earned. If you lose your credibility, you will not be trusted. If you lose your credibility, it is extremely difficult to regain it and to re-earn the trust you have lost.

You cannot be successful as a parent unless you have credibility with your children. You can easily lose credibility with a child simply by not fulfilling your promises or failing to follow through on your threats. If you threaten punishment if a child does not obey you, then you must follow through on your threat or it will become extremely difficult to discipline the child in the future.

A teenager who gets in trouble loses credibility. A teenager who has lost credibility becomes an immediate suspect when a problem develops in the teenager’s school or neighborhood, even if the teenager is completely innocent and had nothing to do with the problem.

An effective witness in a civil or criminal trial must have credibility. The prior conduct of a witness can be used to destroy his or her credibility. A witness who makes inconsistent statements loses his or her credibility. A witness without credibility will not be trusted or believed.

The chief executive officer of a company cannot be successful without having credibility with the board of directors and the company’s employees. The CEO will lose credibility with the board of directors if the company fails to achieve the results promised by the CEO. The CEO will lose credibility with the employees if he doesn’t communicate with them effectively and treat them with respect.

The United Nations is not an effective organization because it has no credibility. Rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea ignore the U.N. because it doesn’t stand behind its threats. It is virtually impossible to get the members of the U.N.’s Security Council to agree to impose sanctions on rogue nations. Even when sanctions are imposed, however, they are generally weak and are not enforced. Rogue nations don’t worry about the U.N. because it has lost its credibility.

In politics, each political party is constantly trying to destroy the credibility of the opposition party. Politicians spend more time and energy working to destroy the credibility of their opponents than they do promoting their own ideas and proposals. Unfortunately, attacks on the other party’s credibility seem to work. In my opinion, the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006 because the Republicans lost credibility with the voters—not because the voters preferred the agenda of the Democrats. If the Democrats lose control of Congress this year, it will be because they have lost credibility with the voters—not because the voters prefer the Republicans.

The biggest problem facing President Obama today is that he has lost his credibility. In my opinion, President Obama has lost his credibility primarily because of his own decisions and his own conduct. In short, he has self-destructed. The loss of President Obama’s credibility has been accompanied by a loss of trust, which is making it very difficult for him to control the members of his own party and to lead the nation effectively.

President Obama started losing his credibility during his first month in office by acting in a highly partisan manner after promising to bring a new era of bipartisanship and transparency to Washington, D.C. Within days after his inauguration, President Obama allowed the Democrats in Congress to develop a pork-filled economic stimulus plan behind closed doors and without any significant involvement on the part of the Republicans. The primary purpose of the stimulus plan supposedly was to save and create jobs. President Obama sold the stimulus plan by predicting the unemployment rate would reach 9% without the stimulus plan but would stay at 8% or below if the stimulus plan were adopted. Congress agreed to spend $787 billion of borrowed money based on these predictions. The unemployment rate today is close to 10%, which is well above the rate predicted by President Obama if the stimulus bill had not passed. President Obama has lost credibility because of his off-the-mark predictions about the rate of unemployment if the stimulus plan passed or did not pass.

President Obama also has lost credibility by the way in which he has pursued his health care reform proposals. In my opinion, he has made two major mistakes. First, from the outset, the President who promised bipartisanship completely shut the Republicans out of the process and repeatedly said the Republicans had no ideas even though the Republican proposals were well documented. Two weeks ago, President Obama finally organized a summit for the purpose of hearing the Republican ideas, but he has made only modest changes in his health care plan based on the ideas expressed at the summit. It is clear the summit did not represent a sincere effort to achieve a bipartisan solution to the health care problems facing the nation. The summit was too little too late. Second, President Obama has repeatedly made promises about his health care proposals that are completely unrealistic and unbelievable. For example, he has promised to expand health care coverage and reduce costs at the same time. He has promised he can cut $500 billion out of the cost of Medicare without adversely affecting the medical coverage provided to Medicare beneficiaries. He has promised his health care legislation won’t increase the federal deficit even though every major government entitlement program has cost more than originally predicted and has substantially added to the deficit.

The strategies followed by President Obama to obtain support for his health care legislation have severely damaged his credibility. In order to obtain 60 votes for the legislation in the U.S. Senate, President Obama had to buy the votes of members of his own party, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who voted for the legislation in exchange for the now famous “Cornhusker Kickback” and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, who voted “yes” in exchange for the so-called “Louisiana Purchase.” He also bought the support of the unions by providing union members with special tax benefits not available to others.

As a result of President Obama’s loss of credibility, almost everything he does now draws suspicion. He is like the teenager who is always suspected of wrongdoing because of his troubled past. Let’s take a look at a recent example of how President Obama’s loss of credibility is affecting the public’s reaction to his decisions. Last week, President Obama nominated Scott Matheson, a lawyer and law professor, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10^th Circuit. It turns out Scott Matheson is the brother of Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who previously voted against President Obama’s health care legislation. President Obama is now trying to convince Rep. Matheson to change his mind and support the health care legislation. The White House claims there is no relationship between President Obama’s efforts to obtain the support of Rep. Matheson and President Obama’s appointment of Rep. Matheson’s brother to a lifetime position as a federal judge. If President Obama still had credibility, most of us would probably believe him when he says he is not trying to buy Rep. Matheson’s vote. As a result of his loss of credibility, however, it’s impossible not to be suspicious that President Obama is still buying votes.

Can President Obama regain his lost credibility? I believe he can, but I don’t believe he will. I’m not sure he cares. To regain his lost credibility, President Obama will have to change the way he operates. He will have to do the things he promised to do when he was running for President. He has been in office for more than a year now, and it’s fairly obvious—at least to me—that he isn’t even trying to be the bipartisan President he promised to be. Instead, he is a highly partisan President who plays bare-knuckle, hard-nosed politics and is willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish his objectives.

President Obama may accomplish some of his objectives, but in the long run I don’t think he can be successful without credibility. At this point, he doesn’t have it.

Villain of the Week

Politicians and the news media have many things in common. One common characteristic is that both need a villain to attack on a regular basis. Politicians have discovered the best way to deflect attention away from their own problems is to attack someone else. The strategy, which seems to work, is to make a lot of noise about how evil someone else is with the hope no one will notice the things you are doing that may be even worse. When politicians identify a villain, the news media will quickly jump on board, especially if they favor the politicians who are on the attack and disagree with the political philosophy of the targeted villain.

In some cases, the same person serves as the villain for an extended period of time. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney and White House aide Karl Rove served as the targeted villains during the entire eight years of the Bush Administration. The Democrats and their supporters in the news media pounded Vice President Cheney and Mr. Rove almost every day regardless of what they said or did. The Republicans also have their villains. Today’s top villains for the Republicans are President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans don’t have many friends in the mainstream news media, but there are many conservative political commentators who assist the Republicans in attacking their villains.

In some cases, an individual who otherwise does not have a high public profile becomes a villain for a short period of time because of his or her position on a particular issue. In almost all cases, the truth is irrelevant when a villain is being attacked. The villain’s positions are almost always misrepresented or taken out of context. Regrettably, the news media cannot be relied upon to set the record straight. Instead, the news media frequently becomes a co-conspirator in the political assassination of the villain.

A new villain appeared on the scene this week. The villain of the week is Jim Bunning, a Republican member of the United States Senate from my home state of Kentucky.

What did Sen. Bunning do to deserve becoming this week’s villain? In order to examine his conduct, it is first necessary to go back a few weeks in time. In February, Congress raised the federal government’s debt limit from $12.4 trillion to $14.3 trillion in order to allow the government to keep borrowing money it doesn’t have. At the same time, in order to demonstrate its fiscal responsibility, Congress adopted “pay-as-you-go” rules requiring that any increases in spending be offset by cuts in spending in other areas of the federal budget. President Obama signed the legislation adopted by Congress, including the “pay-as-you-go” rules. After signing the legislation, President Obama said, “In a perfect world, Congress would not have needed a law to act responsibly, to remember that every dollar spent would come from taxpayers today—or our children tomorrow. But this isn’t a perfect world. This is Washington. And while in theory there is bipartisan agreement on moving on balanced budgets, in practice, this responsibility for the future is often overwhelmed by the politics of the moment. It falls prey to the pressure of special interests, to the pull of local concerns, and to a reality familiar to every single American—the fact that it is a lot easier to spend a dollar than save one. That is why this rule is necessary.”

Less than a month after adopting the “pay-as-you-go” rules, a bill was introduced in Congress to extend unemployment benefits that were scheduled to expire. The cost of extending the unemployment benefits was $10 billion. In its wisdom, Congress decided to exempt the cost of the bill from the recently enacted “pay-as-you-go” rules. Sen. Bunning then appeared on the scene as the villain of the week.

Sen. Bunning had the audacity to suggest Congress should follow its own rules. He said he favored the extension of unemployment benefits, but he argued the cost of the extension should be offset by cuts in spending in other areas of the $3.5 trillion federal budget. Sen. Bunning suggested Congress use unspent money from last year’s stimulus legislation to pay for the extension, but Democrats objected. He also suggested other cost reductions, but Democrats objected. Sen. Bunning asked, “If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?”

The reaction to Sen. Bunning’s position was as predictable as the sunrise each day. In order to deflect attention from their out-of-control spending habits, the Democrats have unmercifully attacked Sen. Bunning throughout the week. He has been called evil, immoral, heartless, and even worse. He has been accused of wanting to force people out of their homes and of wanting to deny food to the needy. A friend from Kentucky referred to Sen. Bunning as a “nut case” and said he made her ashamed to be from Kentucky.

The news media jumped on board in support of the Democrats who were attacking Sen. Bunning. The television news media painted Sen. Bunning as a monster and ran stories focusing on the victims of delayed spending. ABC News Reporter Jon Karl confronted Sen. Bunning as he entered an elevator and spoke into the camera, “We wanted to ask the Senator why he is blocking a vote that would extend unemployment benefits to more than 340,000 Americans, including Brenda Wood, a teacher in Austin, Texas who has been out of work for two years.” The cameras then turned to Ms. Wood, who talked about her struggles and added, “I don’t know what I’ll do.” ABC World News Anchor Diane Sawyer said Sen. Bunning was denying “life support for the unemployed.”

The heat from the Democrats and the news media became so intense that even conservative Republicans had to distance themselves from Sen. Bunning. Finally, Sen. Bunning retreated under pressure from members of his own party, who had lost the public relations battle on this emotional issue.

Once again, the strategy of finding and attacking a villain worked. Emotion always wins out over logic. Because of all the noise, no one seemed to notice that Sen. Bunning was in favor of the bill extending unemployment benefits. He only wanted Congress to follow its own rules and to offset the cost of extending the unemployment benefits by cutting spending in other areas. He wanted Congress to do the same thing all of us have to do with our family budgets and our business budgets.

I was watching television this week when U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont made an emotional speech during which he said Sen. Bunning was immoral. Sen. Sanders, however, apparently doesn’t think it’s immoral for the federal government to continue borrowing money that will have to be repaid by our children and grandchildren. To Sen. Sanders and many others, there is nothing immoral about imposing a crushing debt load on future generations. Morality and immorality obviously mean different things to different people.

After Sen. Bunning gave up the fight, Congress passed the bill extending unemployment benefits at a cost of $10 billion with no offsetting cost reductions. In a twist of irony, President Obama hosted a reception at the White House the next day to celebrate the passage of the “pay-as-you-go” legislation. Sen. Bunning, the villain of the week, was not invited to the reception. It’s business as usual in Washington, D.C.

Finding the Truth

It is very difficult to find the truth and to know when you have found it. There are at least two sides to every story and to every issue. If you get all of your information from only one source, it’s highly likely you aren’t getting both sides of the story. Almost all sources of information are biased. The party reporting on or discussing an issue generally presents the facts supporting his or her bias while ignoring or distorting the facts supporting the other side of the issue. The only possible way to understand any issue is to read and listen to multiple sources with different biases.

Let’s consider an example of how difficult it is to find the truth about an issue. During the last several weeks, politicians and members of the news media have been excoriating the health insurance industry over recently announced premium increases. Wellpoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, recently announced premium increases of up to 39% for individual health insurance plans in California. Other insurers have filed applications with state regulators seeking to raise premiums for individual health insurance plans by 56% in Michigan, 24% in Connecticut, 23% in Maine, 20% in Oregon, and 16% in Rhode Island.

These premium increases, on the surface, seem outrageous. During the last several years, the premiums for my individual health insurance policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia have increased between 20% and 25% each year. I’m not a happy camper when I get the notice each year showing the increased premium for the following year. My reaction, based strictly on emotion, is always that the premium increases are unjustified.

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has launched a vicious attack against the insurance companies for their recently announced premium increases. In a column published this week by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Secretary Sebelius wrote, “It’s outrageous that insurance companies are reaping huge profits on the backs of working families who are already struggling to make ends meet. It’s also all too familiar.”

Predictably, Secretary Sebelius argues the premium increases prove the need for President Obama’s health insurance reform. She says, “The longer we go without reform, the more families in Georgia and across the country will open up letters saying things like ‘your premiums are going up 30 percent….’”

The New York Times has jumped on the bandwagon with those criticizing the premium increases. In an editorial published on February 19, the Times wrote, “Clients were understandably furious when Anthem Blue Cross, the largest for-profit health insurer in California, announced huge rate increases for people who buy their own insurance: an average increase of 25 percent, and a 35 percent to 39 percent rise for a quarter of the purchasers. The move also provided a textbook example of why the nation badly needs comprehensive health care reforms.”

Both Secretary Sebelius and the Times referred to the outrageous profits recently reported by WellPoint, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross in California. Secretary Sebelius wrote, “Even more infuriating for the people receiving these letters, this increase didn’t happen because Wellpoint had fallen on hard times. WellPoint recently announced more than $2.7 billion in profits from the most recent quarter alone.” The Times referred to the “substantial profits” reported by the nation’s largest health insurers last year.

If you listened only to Secretary Sebelius and The New York Times, it would be clear to you the health insurers are greedy and are taking advantage of their customers. But, as in other matters, there is another side to the story. In an editorial published on February 18, The Wall Street Journal said, “Wellpoint’s rate hikes are the direct result of the Golden State’s insurance regulations—the kind that Democrats want to impose on all 50 states. Under federal Cobra rules, the unemployed are allowed to keep their job-related health benefits for 18 to 36 months. California then goes further and bars Anthem from dropping these customers even after they have exhausted Cobra. California also caps what Anthem can charge these post-Cobra customers. Most other states direct these customers to high-risk pools that are partly subsidized, but California requires the individual market to absorb the customers and their costs.”

Wellpoint also offers health insurance plans in Maine and Connecticut and is seeking large premium increases in both of those states. A spokesman for Wellpoint was quoted as saying the increases are due to rising medical costs and sicker customer pools. As people lose their jobs, those who are younger and healthier are more likely to go without insurance, which results in a larger percentage of policyholders who are sick and elderly. In Michigan, state law requires insurers to accept all individual applicants. As a result, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, a non-profit insurer, had losses of $280 million in the individual market in Michigan. The insurance companies say they need the premium increases to offset the losses resulting from their compliance with government regulations.

As for the “outrageous” profits recently reported by WellPoint, The Wall Street Journal observed that, “$2.2 billion of WellPoint’s $2.7 billion fourth-quarter earnings came from the one-time sale of a subsidiary.” The editorial also noted that Wellpoint “lost $58 million in California on its post-Cobra customers in 2009. If Wellpoint didn’t raise premiums amid these losses, it would soon be under assault from its shareholders, if not out of business.”

It always amazes me when politicians and editorial writers refer to the “outrageous” profits reported by a business. They always throw out a big number, like a billion dollars, without providing any context to the number. You can’t evaluate whether a billion dollars is a reasonable or an unreasonable profit without knowing the amount invested in the business. A billion dollars could represent a 1% or a 40% return on investment. Don’t expect the politicians or editorial writers who are promoting a political agenda to give you the information you need, unless the information supports the position they are seeking to advance.

The New York Times argues the premium increases, combined with the “substantial” profits earned by the nation’s health insurers, prove the need for ObamaCare. The Wall Street Journal argues the premium increases represent a preview of what will happen nationwide if ObamaCare passes. “The Democratic bills would control what insurers could charge and force them to take all comers, regardless of health status. These burdens were supposed to be made tolerable by requiring all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty. Yet when this ‘individual mandate’ proved to be unpopular, Congress watered it down so that younger customers would be able to pay the penalty knowing they can wait until they’re sick to pay the more expensive premiums. The only way an insurer can make up for these higher costs is to raise premiums.”

The controversy over the increased health insurance premiums is typical of the way most issues are debated today. Each side selectively presents only the facts supporting its political agenda and ignores or distorts any facts that could be used to oppose its agenda. We expect this from lawyers, who get paid to represent a client’s interests. We expect this from politicians, who are seeking to advance their political agenda rather than find the right solution to a problem. Unfortunately, most of us now expect the same bias from the news media, which no longer provides balance and objectivity, if it ever did. Today, most members of the media are as biased as the politicians about whom they are reporting.

It would be nice if I could find a place where I could get both sides of an issue in a clear and objective manner. Unfortunately, I haven’t found such a place. Everywhere I go I can identify bias and lack of objectivity. The only solution I know for those trying to understand both sides of an issue is to read and listen to multiple sources with different biases. Finding the truth is becoming more difficult all the time.

End the War

Dear President Obama:

There is a simple and easy way for you to take a giant step toward solving one of the major problems facing the country and your administration. End the war. I’m not referring to the wars you inherited—the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, or the war against terrorism. These wars cannot easily be ended. I am referring to your war—the war you started on the campaign trail and have fought aggressively since becoming our President. I am referring, of course, to your war against business.

During the last month or so, you have finally turned your focus to the country’s high unemployment rate and to the country’s need for new jobs. You have announced plans for yet another stimulus program to address this problem. Of course, you are not referring to your new stimulus program as a stimulus program, but that’s what it is.

The problem is that jobs cannot be created without capital investment. There is only so much the government can do to encourage capital investment, but there is a lot it can do to discourage it. Since you became President, you have constantly castigated businesses and investors and threatened to impose new taxes and regulations on them. By doing so, you have discouraged capital investment by creating uncertainty about the rules, regulations, and taxes to which businesses and investors will be subject. Uncertainty is the enemy of capital investment. Businesses and investors are not willing to make new investments when they don’t know the rules of the game. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that businesses and investors have retreated to the sidelines.

The United States of America has prospered and has created the highest standard of living in the history of the world because it has a free market economy. I don’t believe you understand or appreciate the free market economy. In fact, it is fairly clear you want to change the free market economy. Your pledge to transform America and to change virtually everything about our economy may have sounded good on the campaign trial, but it hasn’t worked out so well in real life.

The private sector—not the government—is what makes our country tick. The government does not create wealth. It consumes wealth created by the private sector. Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, recently wrote, “Since the only resources the government has are the resources it takes from the private sector, using those resources to create jobs means reducing the resources available to create jobs in the private sector.”

Since you became President, the number of government jobs has been increasing during a time when the private sector has lost millions of jobs. There are fewer people in the private sector supporting more people on the public payroll. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize this is a recipe for disaster.

Many of your proposals have had a chilling effect on the private sector and thus on the private sector’s ability to create jobs. These proposals include your health care reform legislation, your cap-and-trade energy tax, your various ideas to make it easier for unions to organize and to exercise more influence over businesses, your plans to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans, who happen to be the ones who have the resources and are most likely to invest in new or existing businesses, and your general desire to impose more costs and red tape on businesses. All of these proposals in the aggregate have made it virtually impossible for investors to evaluate the risks of potential investments. The uncertainty created by these proposals has resulted in paralysis, and the paralysis has resulted in higher unemployment.

I have many friends who have been very successful in the private sector. Some are executives in large companies, and some own small businesses. I have a few friends who in the past have provided small businesses with the capital they needed to grow and expand. I also know some financial planners. I enjoy talking with my friends about their feelings about the current economy and their outlook for the future. Almost all of my friends tell me they are holding back on making major new investments in their businesses because they are concerned about the impact of future government policies.

The comments I am hearing from my friends are consistent with what I am reading. In the January 18, 2010 issue of Barron’s, for example, Meryl Witmer, General Partner of Eagle Capital Partners, was quoted as saying, “In the past six months, whenever I have talked to a company I asked the chief executive or chief financial officer what it would take to bring jobs here. They said, ‘You know, the workforce isn’t that good, and there is so much regulation. I’m moving jobs out of the U.S.’ The government needs to cut back on regulation and taxes and open things up for business, or the jobs will continue to leave.” Mr. Witmer also said, “If we don’t cut taxes—corporate taxes—jobs will keep moving away. So take the hit now and grow from that new base.”

I agree with a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, which said, “We can’t blame employers for their caution. With so much policy uncertainty out of Washington and the state capitols, no one can be sure what they will pay for energy (rising oil prices, cap and trade) or new regulation (antitrust), how high their taxes will rise, and how much each new employee will cost (health care). In this kind of world, employers will wait as long as possible to add new workers.”

The U.S. economy needs consumption for growth. We cannot have consumption without jobs. We cannot have jobs without capital spending and investment. We will not have adequate capital spending and investment as long as there is constant and significant uncertainty about how government policies will affect businesses.

Regardless of what you do, I believe the U.S. economy will improve over time, and the private sector will eventually begin to create new jobs again. This will happen much sooner, however, if you end your war against business and get out of the way. By doing so, you’ll be able to take credit for an improved economy and lower unemployment simply by letting the private sector do what it does best without government interference. You might even win re-election in 2012.

The Immoral Generation

In 1998, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw wrote a best-selling book entitled The Greatest Generation. The book describes the generation of which my parents were a part. According to the dust jacket of the book, it tells the stories of “America’s citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values—duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.”

It’s hard to believe how much has changed in a generation. Through hard work and sacrifice, The Greatest Generation built a great country for subsequent generations to enjoy. My generation inherited freedom, prosperity, values, and opportunity from The Greatest Generation, but we are rapidly destroying these invaluable gifts. Regrettably, my generation could—and probably should—be referred to by historians as “The Immoral Generation.”

There are many reasons why I think “The Immoral Generation” is an appropriate label for my generation. One of the primary reasons is the massive amount of debt being incurred today by the federal government with full knowledge the debt will have to be repaid by our children and grandchildren. It would be reckless and immoral for me to borrow money to finance an extravagant lifestyle with knowledge that my children and grandchildren would have to repay my debts following my death. This is exactly what my generation is doing by tolerating the federal government’s spending splurge. We are robbing our children and grandchildren of their future because we are unwilling to live within our means today.

The current indebtedness of the federal government exceeds $12.3 trillion, and it is expanding at a breath-taking pace. Click on the following link for a shocking display of the federal government’s immorality:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The federal government’s indebtedness is increasing at an alarming rate because the government continues to incur massive budget deficits year after year. The budget deficit this year is estimated to be $1.6 trillion. The government will incur another deficit of $1.3 trillion next year, and this assumes Congress has the will to reduce funding for certain programs, which is unlikely. Brian M. Riedl, an analyst for The Heritage Foundation, estimates that the federal government will add “an astonishing $16.3 trillion in new debt between 2009 and 2020--$130,000 per household over those 12 years.”

When the federal government reports the amount of its debt, it does not include an estimated $100 trillion or more in unfunded liabilities under the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other government retirement programs. These unfunded liabilities represent promises made by the government to its citizens that the government in all likelihood will be not be able to fulfill.

The federal government has acted irresponsibility for years under both the Democratic and the Republican administrations. The current spending splurge under President Obama, however, is completely unprecedented. Our government has gone from being irresponsible to being immoral. Our children and grandchildren will face massive tax increases in order to pay for the money we are spending today.

In a recent article for American Thinker, Peter Marin wrote, “It’s time for Americans to realize that the good times have stopped rolling. There may be no return to a robust economy. Our future can take only one of two possible paths; either we accept our unsustainable debt and reduce government spending and taxation accordingly with a structured refinancing of the Federal debt, or face the prospect of a chaotic bankruptcy with a massive collapse of the dollar on the world market followed by a severely reduced standard of living. If it's any indication of the way government has approached past difficulties, I'm betting on the chaotic. Stagflation on a large scale may well make the 1970's look like high times. Job losses that will occur may well make the 1930's look like a picnic.”

In addition to the huge burden that will fall on our children and grandchildren, the federal government’s massive indebtedness is threatening our national security. In a column written for The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Gerald F. Seib identified the following four ways the government’s budget deficits are threatening our national security:

(1) Our budget deficits make America vulnerable to foreign pressures. Mr. Seib observed that the federal government is dependent on the largesse of foreign creditors. “A foreign government, through the actions of its central bank, could put pressure on the U.S. in a way its military never could.”

(2) Chinese power is growing as a result of our huge budget deficits. Mr. Seib noted a lot of our debt is being purchased by China, which is “slowly increasing Chinese leverage over American consumers and the American government.”

(3) Our national security budgets are at risk. Mr. Seib wrote, “These national-security budgets have been largely sacrosanct in the era of terrorism. But unless the deficit arc changes, they will come under pressure for cuts.”

(4) Finally, Mr. Seib said the “American model is being undermined before the rest of the world,” which is “the great intangible impact of yawning budget deficits.” He wrote that the “image of an invincible America…..made other countries listen when Washington talked” and “often—not always, of course, but often—made other peoples and leaders yearn to be like America.”

It is hard to escape the conclusion that our immorality not only is transferring a huge burden to our children and grandchildren but also is threatening the very future of our country as a sovereign nation. In a few short years, The Immoral Generation has replaced The Greatest Generation.

Ignoring the Constitution

Fact: Amendment No. 1 to the U.S. Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Fact: In 2002, Congress passed legislation prohibiting corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate for public office within 30 days of a primary election or within 60 days of a general election. The law contains civil and criminal penalties for those who violate it.

Fact: In 2008, a lower federal court, based on the 2002 law, barred Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, from releasing a documentary critical of then Senator Hillary Clinton, a candidate for President of the United States, within 30 days of primary elections.

Fact: Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law prohibiting political spending by corporations in candidate elections was unconstitutional. The Court concluded the First Amendment prohibits the government from regulating political speech. According to the Court’s majority opinion, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

Fact: Liberals are berserk over the Court’s decision. Without mentioning the Constitution, President Obama, who once taught constitutional law, called the decision “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” (He forgot to mention unions.) Even though the Court’s decision was based on a law enacted in 2002, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, the whiner from New York, said, “With the stroke of a pen, the Court decided to overrule the 100-year-old ban on corporate expenditures and override the will of millions of Americans who want their voices heard in our democracy.” The New York Times published an editorial entitled “The Court’s Blow to Democracy.” The Times said the Supreme Court “has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19^th century” and “has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.” In a tirade about the decision, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann said, “This is a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy.”

Let me admit I’m a simple-minded individual. I’m not as sophisticated and intelligent as my liberal friends. But it seems to me there was one glaring omission from the condemning comments of those who are outraged by the Court’s decision. What was missing was any reference to the express language of the Constitution. The Constitution clearly and unambiguously prohibits Congress from making laws “abridging the freedom of speech.” There is nothing in the First Amendment or elsewhere in the Constitution stating corporations or other associations of citizens are not entitled to freedom of speech. As a result, the Court’s decision, to me, was a no-brainer. I should add, however, that the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court voted in favor of upholding the law restricting political speech. These justices used their liberal logic to conclude the Constitution permits—rather than forbids—Congress to pass laws “abridging the freedom of speech”.

Those who are objecting to the Court’s decision obviously believe the language of the Constitution should be irrelevant as long as they can make a strong policy argument in favor of their position. In other words, the constitutional prohibition against laws restricting freedom of speech is irrelevant as long as the restrictions on freedom of speech have merit in the minds of those who favor the restrictions.

There are, of course, some provisions of the Constitution that are very general in nature and are subject to legitimate differences of opinion regarding their scope. For example, Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. The power to regulate interstate commerce has been relied upon by Congress over the years continuously to expand the power and reach of the federal government. Reasonable people can disagree over the scope of the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause. It is much more difficult, however, to find a constitutional justification for prohibiting speech. The lack of a constitutional justification for prohibiting speech does not get in the way of those who want to do so. They simply ignore the Constitution and base their arguments on policies they believe to have merit without regard to whether those policies are prohibited by the Constitution.

It is true the Supreme Court, prior to its decision last week, had previously upheld laws restricting political speech by corporations. Those who are enraged by the Court’s decision are arguing the Court should have followed its own precedents even if those precedents were inconsistent with the express language of the Constitution. I believe the Constitution—not the Supreme Court—is supreme. The Supreme Court has made many mistakes during its history. For example, in 1857, the Supreme Court declared that all blacks—slaves as well as free—were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The Court also ruled Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery. 

These clearly mistaken rulings by the Supreme Court were later corrected. The Constitution does and should take priority over the Court’s prior rulings. If the Court always followed its precedents, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, “segregation would be legal, minimum-wage laws would be unconstitutional and the government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants.”

It is also true there are legitimate concerns about the influence of money in elections and in politics generally. I share these concerns. But I believe the Constitution means what it says, especially when the language is clear and unambiguous. In my simple way of thinking, if the Constitution says Congress shall make no laws abridging freedom of speech, it means Congress shall make no laws abridging freedom of speech.

There are procedures for amending the Constitution. Those who don’t like what the Constitution says should try to amend it. They should not simply ignore it.

Poetic Justice

President Obama received a well-deserved slap in the face on the first anniversary of his inauguration as the 44^th President of the United States. As everyone except Rip Van Wrinkle knows by now, the voters of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the country, rebelled against President Obama by electing a Republican to fill the seat in the U.S. Senate fondly referred to by the Democrats and members of the media as the “Kennedy seat.” The turn of events in the last several weeks has been amazing. I didn’t expect it, and I am shocked and surprised, but I am also pleased that even the voters in a traditionally liberal state are waking up and rebelling against the style and substance of the Obama Administration.

How did this happen? All of the political analysts are expressing their varying views about how President Obama and the Democratic Party suffered such a humiliating defeat. In my view, they brought it on themselves. They deserved it, just as the Republicans deserved a humiliating defeat when they lost control of both Houses of Congress in 2006. You can call it poetic justice, which refers to a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished. In this case, I’m not sure there was any virtue on the part of President Obama’s opponents to be rewarded, but there was plenty of vice that deserved to be punished, and it was.

In my opinion, a combination of factors led to the revolt in Massachusetts. All of these factors combined were more than the voters could stomach. Among the factors that led to the revolt are the following:

(1) During the 2008 Presidential campaign, President Obama was able to convince large numbers of moderate and conservative voters to ignore his record as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. He ran for President as a moderate, but he quickly returned to his liberal instincts and positions as soon as he was elected

(2) During the Presidential campaign, President Obama convinced voters he was a different type of politician and would bring a new style to Washington. He promised openness, transparency, and bipartisanship. Instead, he has governed as a rough-and-tumble, down-and-dirty Chicago politician who is willing to do almost anything, including buying votes with other people’s money, to accomplish his objectives. He completely excluded members of the minority party from secret and closed negotiations involving a major and controversial piece of legislation that, if implemented, would have dramatically altered and restructured one-sixth of the U.S. economy. By doing so, he received no support from the minority party, and he created widespread public cynicism about the political process and about his Administration.

(3) Because they controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, President Obama and the Democrats felt they could do whatever they wanted to do. After promising bipartisanship, they maintained a highly partisan political atmosphere where there was no room for compromise, where there were few checks and balances in the political process, and where they felt free to ignore public opinion and sought to impose their ideological agenda on the rest of the country.

(4) Day after day and week after week, the President and his party have been proposing new taxes, higher taxes, and more intrusive government regulations on businesses and investors. The result, not surprisingly, has been less investment, slower economic growth, and higher unemployment. Other than the threat of terrorism, the biggest problem facing the country today is the high rate of unemployment. President Obama’s policies have discouraged the new investment necessary for job creation.

(5) Since President Obama’s election, the government has represented the only segment of the economy that is growing and creating new jobs. The result is that more people are consuming wealth produced by others and fewer people are producing wealth. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand we are heading down a dead-end street.

(6) After rightly campaigning against President Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility, President Obama is presiding over a federal budget deficit three times the size of the budget deficit during President Bush’s last year in office. The Obama Administration has asked Congress to increase the amount of debt the government can issue to $14.3 trillion. The voters in Massachusetts and elsewhere understand government spending is out of control. The government’s staggering indebtedness has led to widespread feelings of pessimism and hopelessness, to concerns the country’s best days are behind us, and to the realization our children will not enjoy the same lifestyle we have enjoyed.

(7) Most citizens think the primary responsibility of the federal government is to protect the public and keep the public safe from terrorists and other foreign enemies. The Obama Administration has come across as lacking the necessary focus on national defense and as being soft on terrorists. Scott Brown, the newly elected U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, summed up the feelings of a lot of people when he said during his victory speech, “In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”

(8) After a year in office, President Obama continues to blame all of the nation’s problems on President Bush. He refuses to accept responsibility for decisions he has made since taking office. This strategy worked—and perhaps even had some merit—during President Obama’s first six months in office, but it has not been well received by most people since then.

Overall, my view is that President Obama has had a terrible first year in office. He has been far worse than I expected and feared. He has lost respect and credibility, he has lost the broad support he once enjoyed, and he has deeply disappointed those who thought he had the potential to create a new political atmosphere and to bring the country together. His defeat in Massachusetts this week was poetic justice.

Is the ballgame over for President Obama? I don’t think so. We are still in the first quarter of a four-quarter ballgame. President Obama has plenty of time to recover. If he is as smart as his supporters think he is, he will change his strategy, just as any good coach would do whose team falls far behind during the first quarter. If President Obama changes his approach to governance, his first year in office will be forgotten by the time he runs for re-election. If he does not, he will go down in history as a miserable failure. These are my opinions. At least for the time being, you are free to have and express your own.