Mar 16, 2012 | Economy, Take Action
By Dr. Harold Pease
For nearly two decades the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal have teamed-up tracking and rating the 184 nations of the earth on economic freedom. In their 2012 ratings “Hong Kong and Singapore finished first and second in the rankings for the 18th straight year. Australia and New Zealand ranked third and fourth, and Switzerland fifth. Canada finished sixth, … falling out of the group of ‘free’ economies into the ‘mostly free’ category;” a fall made by the United States in 2010. The U.S. also slipped from a three-way tie for ninth place last year to tenth place today. Even Mauritius, taking eighth, a small island off the coast of Africa, was seen as more economically free than we, as were Chile and Ireland taking seventh and ninth.
The 484-page rather complex document, rated countries in ten types of freedom: labor, business, trade, fiscal, government spending, monetary, investment, financial, property, and freedom from corruption. These ten then were evaluated on the basis of “the rule of law, the intrusiveness of government, regulatory efficiency, and the openness of free markets.” A country’s overall score was the average of these categories.
The average economic freedom score for the world dropped two-tenths of a point from 2011, primarily because countries tried to spend their way out of recession and failed. “Rapid expansion of government, more than any market factor, appears to be responsible for flagging economic dynamism. Government spending has not only failed to arrest the economic crisis, but also—in many countries—seems to be prolonging it. The big-government approach has led to bloated public debt, turning an economic slowdown into a fiscal crisis with economic stagnation fueling long-term unemployment,” they concluded.
The United States was no exception with respect to the mounting burden of reckless government spending. The U. S. economic freedom score dropped by 1.5 from last year, a drop attributed to “deteriorating scores for government spending, freedom from corruption, and investment freedom.”
The solutions proposed by Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom basically amount to undoing much of what has been done since 2008. The authors especially cited the need to unwind government intervention and reduce government involvement in commercial decision-making. They advocated the abolition of the TARP program followed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Congress should “repeal all U.S. government regulatory measures that interfere with mortgage markets.” This should be followed by the “repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which discriminates against small firms and reduces competition.” The overall guideline, as historically it once was; “companies should be allowed to fail, and laws and regulations should create no expectation of a future bailout.”
With respect to reducing government involvement in commercial decision-making, they concluded, “Congress must eliminate the insidious practice of earmarking, which corrupts the legislative process. The government needs to divest itself of all assets acquired in connection with the financial crisis and recession and refrain from interfering in bankruptcy cases. These reforms, like the others, would both complement and reinforce the overall restoration of America’s economic freedom.” Examples might be the return of General Motors to the private sector and the housing market, now largely owned by the federal government, as well.
Why does economic freedom matter, the Heritage Foundation asks and answers? Because it “is a crucial component of liberty. It empowers people to work, produce, consume, own, trade, and invest according to their personal choices.” Indeed, each person controls the fruits of his or her own labor and initiative. Government produces nothing but takes from those who do produce and redistributes it to others. To that extent freedom to keep the rewards of one’s own labor is impaired.
For most of our history we were the freest nation on earth with no significant competition resulting in our people becoming the most abundant ever. Now we are almost out of the top ten and out of the “free” and into the “mostly free” category with the resultant loss of that abundance. Such is inexcusable and indefensible. Our answer is simply less debt, less taxes, and less government. It has always been so.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Mar 1, 2012 | Economy, Globalism
By Dr. Harold Pease
Three of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates and the present occupant of the White House appear to be, or are favorable to, provoking Iran for a response worthy of a preemptive strike. Only Ron Paul, of our options for president, is decidedly against.
Forgive me for not believing that the world is flat, as did virtually everyone before Columbus and that Iraq had something to do with 9 /11, or that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction as President George W. Bush told us. Once again, I feel drawn into another Middle East black hole of lies, no end wars, death of our young men and women, loss of our treasure, and yet another Patriot Act which only limits the liberties of American citizens. History repeats itself, but why so soon?
It seems to hinge on whether Iran is that close to getting a deployable nuclear weapon and if it really matters if it does? In a compelling article by Charles Scaliger, “Is it Nuts to Let Iran Go Nuclear?” recently published in The New American, Scaliger argues that our interests in the Middle East “boil down to oil and Israel.”
Oil should not be a major concern to us as we have a plentiful supply on “Alaska’s North Slope and the east and west coasts of the United States.” Presently, and strangely, these resources are made off-limits to drilling by our own government resulting in prices at the pump soaring to $4.40 per gallon; so inept are we in utilizing our natural resources. The price of gasoline per gallon when Barack Obama took office was $1.87. Moreover, we have access to the “Athabasca tar sands of northern Alberta (the world’s second largest oil reserves)” but instead our president vetoes the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would relieve our price pain by bringing crude oil into the United States. Instead, we prefer the “added costs (political and military as well as economic) of continuing to ship in our oil from hostile countries on the other side of the world.” All this brings meaning to the old adage, “We looked and the enemy was us.”
The second reason for caring about the Middle East is Israel. But Israel has demonstrated for over 40 years that it is quite capable of defending herself. As a young boy, I remember well when six nations in 1967, each larger than Israel, attacked this tiny nation and she defeated them all in just six days. It was called the Six Day War. I was envious of her strength and valor as the U.S. at the time was mired down in Vietnam, fighting an enemy equal to the population of New York State and geographically the size of Missouri. We lost that war. They met similar odds against Israel with similar results in 1948 and in 1973. Scaliger reminds us that in 1981 the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq and in 2007 a nuclear facility in Syria. If Iran attacked Israel, there is little doubt who would win. Israel does not need our onsite protection.
But what if Iran did get a nuclear weapon as feared? Scaliger reminds us that China had one in 1964 but did not have the delivery system to put it on American soil for thirty years. India took 25 years “to go from its first nuclear test to the actual production of nuclear weapons….” and it took their Pakistani neighbors 26 years. Why the long delay? “Developing nuclear weapons requires mastery of a number of intricate technologies, among them engineering centrifuge cascades….” Scaliger notes, “There is a very big difference between having a nuclear ‘device’ and having nuclear weapons.” Iran is “many years away from creating a deliverable nuclear weapon that could threaten Saudi Arabia or Israel and probably decades away from creating an ICBM or submarine-launched missile that could menace the American mainland.”
Don’t forget that all Middle Eastern countries know that a nuke on Israel means nukes on them from us, and we do not need to be present to deliver. Mutual Assure Destruction (MAD) kept the peace during the “Cold War,” it will in the Middle East for the same reason.
So why is there all the hype? I cannot answer fully but suggest that we look to who benefits from perpetual war—The Council on Foreign Relations in its bid for world dominance and the industries that make the weapons of war. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to warn us of the military industrial complex; perhaps it is time to take his warning seriously.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Feb 23, 2012 | Economy, Healthcare, Take Action, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Both parties have succumbed to the temptation of getting elected by promising ever more goodies from the public coffers, irrespective of constitutional limits, and to the point that they have irresponsibly enslaved our children with 15.25 trillion dollar indebtedness.
Everything is talked about in the presidential debates except this. We will just pretend it away. Why? Because both parties know that the cuts that have to be made to save the terminal cancer patient have to be drastic and advocating such to a population drunk with the idea that they are entitled to such is political suicide. Congress appears to be, or is, inept in solving this and other debt related problems.
Predicting a Super Committee failure, Freedom Works, a Tea Party affiliate, selected 12 of their own members and through the Internet invited 150,000 members to make suggestions on what should be done. Boldly they opened the unfunded liabilities door, Pandora’s box, the door neither party dares to open as potentially it could destroy career politicians and political parties.
What follows are their recommendations with respect to Medicare and Medicaid. Almost everyone knows that Medicare, 13% of the federal budget, growing at about 7% each year, is unsustainable. Formerly the favored method of controlling expenditures in this area was to limit reimbursement rates to healthcare providers rather than focus on fraud and the use of the free market to limit costs.
The Tea Party Debt Commission saw the Medicare program as outdated, inefficient, and corrupt and recommended six major changes that if followed would save, they predicted, $676,000,000 the first year and $2,030,843,000,000 in 10 years. These changes are first “let individuals opt out of Medicare under Senator Jim DeMint’s ‘Retirement Freedom Act.”’ Second, let all new Medicare beneficiaries after 2013 enroll in the Federal Employees’ Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) introduced by Senator Rand Paul as the “Congressional Health Care for Seniors Act.” Third, reduce Medicare subsidies to actual cost of hospitals’ graduate medical education. Fourth, maintain Medicare’s physician payment rates at the 2011 level. Fifth, convert the open-ended Medicaid program into a capped block grant to the states. And six, call on all states to reform their medical malpractice and product liability systems—tort reform.
Opting into the same Medicare program the members of Congress use, the second Tea Party change recommended, is much better for participants because it “relies on competing private insurers to provide benefits, and as a result has very little of the fraud and waste problems that plague today’s outdated and poorly designed Medicare system.” One wonders why Congress can make for themselves such a good system and leave us one with “somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of Medicare’s $450 billion annual budget being attributable to waste, fraud, and abuse….”
Converting Medicaid to block grants to states, Tea Party Debt Commission recommendation number five, is critical in stopping Medicare’s open ended liability. They argue that the program “has exploded into a semi-middle class entitlement that is bankrupting the states while providing low-quality care to poor families.” The conversion to grants “would give states the incentives and flexibility to focus scarce resources on those who truly need help.” It would also incentivize removing fraud.
Their answer to excessive medical malpractice awards that drive up medical costs for everyone was recommendation number six, state tort reform. They especially endorsed the “loser pays rule” so successful in the states that have it. Here those unsuccessful in winning frivolous lawsuits are punished thus discouraging such by others, especially lawyers, looking to benefit off the taxpayer. I once knew a woman who busied herself with multiple simultaneous frivolous lawsuits as a source of income because those sued would prefer to pay her, because it was less expensive, than to defend themselves.
Bottom line we can keep Medicare, even making it more efficient and sustainable, with six changes. It is not too late, but we need to realize our danger and move quickly to do so. Will Congress explore these changes with intent to make them? Not unless you ask them to do so.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Feb 1, 2012 | Constitution, Economy, Taxes, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold W. Pease
The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville in 1840, once prophetically said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the publics’ money.” That day is here!!
Both parties have succumbed to the temptation of getting elected by promising ever more goodies from the public coffers, irrespective of constitutional limits, and to the point that they have irresponsibly enslaved our children with 15.25 trillion dollars indebtedness. Both parties are blatantly guilty with democrats far more so the last three years. The national debt has increased at an average of 4 billion dollars a day under President Barack Obama. The seriousness of this led Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to exclaim, “Our national debt is our biggest national security threat.”
Last summer both big government parties, Democrat and Republican, unable to come to any agreement, turned their authority over to what was called a “Super Committee” of six democrats and six republicans and still could not reduce the debt by 1.2 trillion dollars over ten years. Impasse!!
Everything is talked about in the presidential debates except this national security threat. We will just pretend it away. Why? Because both parties know that the cuts that have to be made to save the terminal cancer patient have to be drastic, career politicians, which they are, do not want the media to blame their party—which it will! So, the ship (the United States) will sink for lack of real leadership, each party blaming the other.
Not so fast! The Tea Party Patriot movement comes to the rescue again. They predicted correctly that neither party really represents limited constitutional government and both are addicted to debt. It is like an addict prescribing his own detox program. Consequently Freedom Works, a Tea Party affiliate, selected 12 of their own members and through the Internet invited 150,000 members to make suggestions on what should be done.
The Tea Party Plan cuts, caps, and balances federal spending. The budget is balanced in four years, without tax hikes, and remains balanced. Federal spending is reduced by $9.7 trillion over the next ten years. The plan shrinks the federal government from 24 % of GDP to about 16 %. Finally it stops the growth of the debt and begins paying it down. Within a generation there would be no national debt. Bold indeed!
These goals are accomplished, their report continues, by repealing ObamaCare, eliminating four unconstitutional, costly, inefficient Cabinet agencies—Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD—and reducing or privatizing many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The report calls for ending farm subsidies, government student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us—luxuries we can no longer afford. Social Security is saved and improved by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts, a program successfully tried in Chile. It gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the special Congressional health care plan. Moreover, it suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.
The new plan offers a rational transition to ownership of our own retirement and more control and choice over our health care. Why did the government fail to accomplish the same thing—even behind closed doors? Remember, Congress, as Alexis de Tocqueville predicted, has learned that it can bribe the public with the publics’ own money. Their first concern is to protect their jobs and party. Outsiders, without a personal stake in the outcome, can see much more and do much more without the inevitable political wrangling. Will the media give this plan a fair hearing or will they simply ignore it?
I will follow in another column with Tea Party specifics on dealing with unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security which the two big government parties will never talk about.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Dec 29, 2011 | Economy
By Dr. Harold Pease
College enrollment is now in progress and a new semester or quarter begins in January. Dare I say to a generation whose work ethic has greatly diminished, what I was told prior to my many years of college? If you get a college degree you likely will have a higher level of income and more favorable working conditions. Certainly there are notable exceptions like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have no degrees, and those who major in medieval art, or some such discipline were there exists no real employment demand. But by in large in this country, barring an accident or unusual health concern, if you are poor by the age of forty you chose to be so.
Your choices, made between ages twenty and thirty, largely place you where you will be the rest of your life. The road to security and prosperity is education and is available to everyone willing to work. I tell my students that they may not be able to run out of the ghetto, even walk, but all can crawl.
There was no silver spoon in my mouth, being second oldest of 14 children, this option applied to me as well. Few were poorer than we. All night factory work and all day classes meant sleeping when you could. This was so for many years.
Others may find work and satisfaction outside formal education, but most will struggle in its absence. I have yet to meet a re-entry student; one who dropped out then returned years later, who did not wish they had stayed in school. The choice seems to be clear for most young people, work your butt off in school for at least four years in expectation of an easier life, or without school for forty without such.
Many, all with excuses, do not choose the education highway, dropping out of high school or college and thus choose poverty. They allow themselves to accept a lower place in society. Some pick up the visual signs of poverty such as degrading language, coarseness in their behaviors, and the appearance of one who is poor. Sometimes homes are not painted and lawns uncut, back yards dirt and weeds. In time they are easily recognizable as poor. Many come to believe that they are owed the basics, even some of the privileges of life. These become wards of the state and accepting of the philosophy that “it’s not my fault” and politicians have no problem confiscating the rewards of those who do labor to give to them. Food stamps, subsidized school lunches, housing, and healthcare and hundreds of other charity programs, instead of incentivizing this class to believe in themselves and work to be self reliant, seemingly teach, even enable, dependence.
Unscrupulous politicians learn quickly that these can be managed by subsidized gift- giving from those who do produce, which ensures that they remain in office. The “freebie class” becomes their base. Last year 47.5% of the adult population paid no federal income tax. Those who paid for all the programs of the poor were the other 52.5%. As a class, the poor want more, lose their sense of gratitude for those who are forced to subsidize them, and grow ever larger without education. The tax paying class diminishes as confiscatory taxes rob them of the benefits of their labor. They become the working poor. In time they too may be, without additional education, enticed to work less and join the poor class.
So back to the choices we make which select our future dependence or independence. Those choices remain available. Some few reenter the education highway. Now with a companion and children they sacrifice evenings to elevate themselves. Perhaps it takes twice or thrice the time but there is an end to poverty if one chooses wisely.
Stay in school my young friends and return my older friends. You will never be sorry that you made this choice. Your choices today will place you where you will be ten years from now. This law applies to all. You do not have to rob, or have the government rob for you, the fruits of others. You do not have to be the fodder for politicians who wish to give you the benefits of those who produce so that they can remain in power and addict you to the philosophy that it is owed you.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Dec 4, 2011 | Economy, Healthcare, Taxes, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Be grateful for your right to criticize the government, whether as a Tea Party Patriot or as Occupy Wall Street. This can be lost. It helps to remember that we can vote to make things much worse if we continue to travel further into socialism. Take Austria in 1938 for example, as related by eyewitness Kitty Werthmann, whose account is herein summarized. They too voted for socialism to end dire economic conditions and died as a nation for so doing.
With unemployment and interest rates at 25%, the country was in deep depression and “people were going from house to house begging for food.” Kitty remembers her mother cooking a big kettle of soup and baking bread to feed her staving neighbors, about “30 daily.” The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party, two conflicting varieties of socialism, were fighting each other. The Germans, under Adolf Hitler, promised an environment of no crime, full employment, a high standard of living, and happiness. Austrians “became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.” The Austrian government could not deliver these conditions, so 98% of the population, believing the lies, “voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.” When this happened, the people danced for joy in the streets for three days.
Almost immediately law and order returned and “everyone was employed” in government created jobs, but what followed under fascist socialism was pure hell. In return for believing the empty promises, education was nationalized and freedom of religion in public education ended. Crosses in the predominantly Catholic schools were “replaced with Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag” and prayer, replaced with singing praises of Germany. “Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance.” If their children were not present, parents were threatened first with “a stiff letter of warning,” then with a $300.00 fine, and then with jail. The day consisted of two hours of political indoctrination followed by sports and fun. The children loved it but “lived without religion.” Having no moral compass, illegitimacy flourished. “Unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.”
Men and women had equal rights under Hitler. They found out what that meant when workloads were equal, making no distinction on the basis of sex. When the war came in 1939, the draft was compulsory for both sexes and women served on the front lines as well. Many became “emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.” Kitty Werthmann continues, “When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.”
Under Hitler’s socialism everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. Healthcare was socialized as well, free to everyone. “Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.” Of course, to pay for this benefit for the less productive, “the tax rate had to be raised to 80% of our income.”
When the war started, a food bank was established. “All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.” Socialism now controlled life and death by controlling who ate.
Small businesses were intentionally over-regulated out of business leaving the government owned large businesses the only ones existing. “We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished.” Moreover, “farmers were told what to produce, and how to produce it.”
Worse yet, finding it so easy to kill six million Jews, Hitler next moved on the mentally retarded as not having value and liquidated them as well. To prevent the population from revolting, guns had long since been registered, then outlawed, and freedom of speech ended as well. “Anyone who said something against the government was taken away.”
How close are we to having implemented some of the above socialism by false promises, as did they, too close? No wonder Tea Party Patriots have said no further. It’s not a matter of gridlock for them, but liberty. So far both groups can criticize the government, but the slippery slope for the end of such is at our backside.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
