The Election is Over: Stop Whining and Start Doing

Right From the Start

The 2012 election is over and before the ashes cooled Republicans were happily engaged in their favorite pastime – beating the holy bejeezus out of their own party’s losers. Most of this comes from a bunch of self-anointed talking heads; not a one of whom has ever had the courage to subject themselves to the grueling trials of a high profile campaign or the intense scrutiny of an ever more biased national media. These people remind me of the thirty/forty something crowd of diminished testosterone sports bar “heroes” who pontificate about what this pro football team, or that pro basketball team, should have done the previous weekend to win. They too have never stood in the pocket while three hundred pound linemen charged or shot the three pointer as the clock winds down.

Worse still is their “analysis.” The candidate was too conservative. The candidate was not conservative enough. The candidate should have emphasized social values. The candidate shouldn’t have spent so much time on social values. The candidate has never successfully run anything. The candidate was too rich to connect with voters. In other words, an analysis of the analysts reveals crap, crap and more crap.

But there is one element of criticism that is fair, obvious and accurate. Republicans have to stop running stupid people. And by that I refer to Rep. Todd Akins running for the Senate in Missouri who proclaimed that women have a natural biological defense against “legitimate rape.” Or Richard Mourdock who proclaimed that it was “God’s will” if a woman gets pregnant as a result of rape. Or Christine O’Donnell who bragged about dabbling in witchcraft and hanging out with people who practiced witchcraft.

That admonition does not apply to Democrats who appear to revel in nominating and electing stupid people. There is Vice president Joe Biden who declared to a room full of African Americans that Republicans were trying to put them back into chains or that then- Sen. Barack Obama was the first African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Or Sen. Harry Reid who stated that Mr. Obama would make a good candidate because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Or Kyrsten Sinema, newly elected Representative from Arizona, who recently said of stay-at-home mothers,

“These women who act like staying at home, leeching off their husbands or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks is some sort of feminism because they’re choosing to live that life. That’s bullshit. I mean, what the f**k are we really talking about here?”

Regardless of the propensity of Democrats to embrace stupid candidates, the Republicans need to shun them.So for all of those honyockers (oh, for God’s sake get a dictionary) pontificating about what should have been, maybe you could shut up and start working on ideas about what can be done to resolve some of the problems facing the country.

For instance, Mr. Obama’s sole solution for ending America’s fiscal and economic crises is to raise taxes on the rich. Bill Kristol of the conservative National Review has suggested that Republicans simply cave in and give Mr. Obama what he wants. His rationale is that Republicans should quit defending the rich. That is the dumbest comment I have heard in the post-election season. I don’t know about Republicans (I am a conservative by choice and a Republican by default – there are no conservatives in the Democrat party) but conservatives do not resist increasing the taxes on the rich because they want to defend their wealth. They resist raising taxes on anyone in order to continue reckless spending by the government. They live by the creed that that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem – I stand with them.

Mr. Obama’s tax increase does nothing except provide additional spending for a nation that already spends too much. Instead of simply resisting an increase on taxes for the rich, Republicans ought to say that they are willing to accept the tax increase if it is used exclusively to reduce the national debt. As I noted in a previous column:

“Because these are uncommon times, I would support a tax increase of limited duration on those earning in excess of $500,000 per year. The revenue generated would be used exclusively to reduce the principle of the national debt and when the national debt has been reduced to fifty percent of Gross Domestic Product (slightly above the average since the conclusion of World War II) the tax will be eliminated. In order to ensure this would happen without the President and/or the Congress manipulating the process the national debt would have to be capped at its current authorization – this would allow a small amount of growth while Congress implemented the necessary reforms to eliminate future deficit spending. The current authorized cap would thereafter be reduced annually by the amount of revenue generated through the temporary tax increase until it reached the fifty percent of GDP level and thereafter would be tagged to the GDP growth. An exception in case of war or other national emergency should be made but should also require a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress.

[Unfortunately, since the date of that column and because of Mr. Obama’s prolific spending habits, we have already bumped up against the ceiling of the current debt limitations which simply means that entitlement reform must happen quicker and the spending cuts must be deeper.]

Or with regard to the problem of illegal immigration. Frankly, we do not need immigration reform, we need a solution to a massive number of illegal immigrants who entered the country as a result of three problems: a lack of secure borders, the inducement of better wages and welfare benefits than what they could obtain in their country of origin, and a jaded political system which thought more about capitalizing on their presence than on controlling their entry.

In a previous column, I wrote:

“The debate over illegal immigrants is marked repeatedly with exaggerations and deliberate lies over competing positions such that it is virtually impossible to have an intelligent debate without first demonstrating your historic bona fides. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich re-ignited the flames with his recent comments about establishing a guest worker program for illegals who have been here for a significant number of years.

“I stand with Mr. Gingrich regarding this element of the immigration debate. Since first addressing the issue in October of 2006 I have consistently opposed amnesty for illegal immigrants. I have criticized both President Ronald Reagan’s amnesty and President George Bush’s path to citizenship. My objection is that each simply encourages a new wave of illegal immigration. I have reiterated time and again that three main things need to be done to address the problem.”

There are four critical elements for dealing with the current illegal immigrant population. First, secure the borders so that the problem does not increase. Second, remove the incentives that encourage immigrants to enter illegally by imposing stiff penalties on those who hire illegals, and eliminating access to welfare, including schools and healthcare, for those here illegally. Third, establish a guest workers program for those already here illegally – the idea that we can or should deport tens of millions of people already here defies logic and fiscal common sense. (For the increasingly dense liberal population, a guest workers program would mean that those who participate are now here legally.) And fourth, establish a path to citizenship for those who entered illegally as minors with their parents – that path should include military service and/or public works project service (not public welfare service). For those who have entered illegally as adults, their path to citizenship would require a return to their country of origin and commencement of the process at the back of the line.

Mr. Obama’s solution for the economy, healthcare and illegal immigration are reckless, economically insane and reek of political opportunism rather the promotion of the commonweal. Conservatives and Republicans must proffer solutions that are just, fair, and economically sound and learn to discuss them in those terms. Conservatives and Republicans must recognize that Hispanics possess a work ethic and a desire for prosperity that is identical to what conservatives preach.

So while the Republicans are getting rid of their stupid people, put the boot to the bigots also. Leave that to the Democrats who routinely embrace the anti-Semites and seek to lynch those of color who stray to conservatism. The Democrats are hard at work trying to enslave Hispanics in a welfare state as they have successfully done with African-Americans such that they can count on their monolithic vote to ensure that the welfare never ends. Conservatives have about a generation to embrace the dreams of Hispanics before they too fall victim to the allure of social welfarism.