Roy growing increasingly articulate on Campaign Trail

"The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you."
Philippians 4:9

During both the primary, and the runoff, this website criticized Chip Roy's messaging.  He wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong, but his rhetoric was cliched and stale.  That has changed.

A Politico interview and a Trib appearance yesterday illustrate Roy's growth.  Most important, Roy is finally connecting abstract conservative principles with people's day-to-day lives.  We'll focus on the Trib appearance because there's video (and because we're partial to in-state media).



Health Care is the issue where Roy's growth is most evident.  He's now promoting "health care freedom" instead of "repealing Obamacare."  That's important because fixing the health care system will galvanize the public in a way that returning to the pre-2010 status quo won't.

Roy explains: "If you're going to own something, you have to solve the problem."  The uninspiring 2017 health care bills didn't do so.  Furthermore, "if you don't cause costs to go down, it's not going to work."  The primary way to accomplish this objective is to remove bureaucrats while increasing Doctors and other medical professionals.  Policy details can follow, but the problem is (finally) properly defined.  To his credit, Roy also calls BS on the so-called 'pre-existing condition' ruse.  Specifically, Roy explained yesterday government created that problem.

Roy refuses to be bullied about the national debt.  Specifically, when asked about it, Roy blames FEDERAL SPENDING not insufficient taxation.  Roy also has the political courage to explain that you can't address the national debt without addressing Medicare and Social Security.  On immigration/border issues, Roy is now discussing them with the complexity they deserve, rather than earlier platitudes about "opposing amnesty."

Bottom Line: It's an impressive, and welcome, level of growth....

Cruz/Roy should stop yammering about "repealing Obamacare," and shift to FIXING HEALTH CARE

"He who despises the word will be destroyed,
But he who fears the commandment will be rewarded."
Proverbs 13:13

During our Senate District convention Saturday, we heard from representatives of both Ted Cruz's and Chip Roy's campaign: We don't remember what either actually said, but the phrase "repeal Obamacare" or "fully repeal Obamacare" came up at least six times.

Unfortunately, that ship's sailed.

The Republicans had their opportunity to "repeal Obamacare."  They blew it.  At this point, anyone still prattling on about "repealing Obamacare" sounds like the worst kind of politician peddling the worst type of empty rhetoric.

Imagine, instead, a world where Ted Cruz and Chip Roy were attacking high health care costs at their root.  Imagine a world where you could say to your apolitical friends and neighbors "Ted Cruz and Chip Roy's health care proposal can lower your family/businesses health care costs by 80%!!!"  That's a world where the general public will pay attention.  Unfortunately, that's not a world Ted Cruz and Chip Roy are currently working to create.

Obviously, Obamacare sucks.  But the pre-2009 U.S. health care system left plenty to be desired.  It was still bureacratic.  It was still costly.  It still put up regulatory hurdles between consumers and providers.  While the system was less dysfunctional than it was today, it was still dysfunctional.  Imagine, instead, a world where the alleged "leading lights" of the conservative movement were proposing a FUNCTIONAL health care system.

The root causes of high health care costs are simple.  Tax preferences for 'employer-based' coverage, entitlement programs like Medicare, and various coverage mandates distort price signals.  Distorted price signals mean health care resources are allocated for political reasons, rather than consumer demand.  Within this framework, there are any number of approaches that could be taken...but the point is that all of them go far beyond "Repealing Obamacare."

Bottom Line: If you keep offering the same stale rhetoric, you shouldn't be surprised when people stop listening.  If those currently offering stale rhetoric would instead offer a plan to fix the problem in question, the public would be far more receptive.  That so-called "leading lights" of the conservative movement fail to see this reality is an unfortunate missed opportunity.

How Entitlement Reform will Promote Economic Growth

Last night on CNBC, Larry Kudlow called entitlement reform a distraction from economic growth; I can't find the transcript, but this tweet Kudlow sent out yesterday captures the same message:

Message to #Romney/Ryan: Don't lose the growth message.  Econ is still #1 issue.  #tcot

If Larry Kudlow believes entitlement reform is a distraction from economic growth and productive employment, then he's lost his marbles.  I can explain.

A long time ago, economists identified a phenomenon called crowding out.  Crowding out is a fancy-pants, highfalutin' term that means when Washington D.C. spends us into oblivion, there's less money left for businesses and consumers to consume and invest as they see fit.  Given that Business Investment is the primary driver of economic growth, any action that restrains Washington D.C.'s ability to crowd out business investment promotes economic growth and productive employment.

Medicare is the largest component of the Federal Budget.  It's also the fastest growing.  Left unchecked, Medicare will consume the U.S. economy.  Thus, getting Medicare on a sustainable less suicidal path is essential if we want to restrain Washington D.C.'s ability to spend us into oblivion crowd out business investment.  As Glenn Beck explains in the 2010 best-seller Broke:

As any budget expert will tell you, no honest discussion about getting the country back on a sustainable track can happen without talking about mandatory spending, of which entitlement programs are the most common form....In 2010, autopilot programs...will eat up 56 percent of our federal budget, and that does not include the interest that we pay on the money we pay on the money we have to borrow to meet those commitments (146-7)

Of course, being a blue-blooded, Wall Street, Republican Establishment type, Larry Kudlow would NEEEEEVER listen to Glenn Beck; thus, I will quote another eloquent and erudite economic analyst:

Harking back to the Founders' principles of constitutional limits to government is a very powerful message.  It's a message of freedom, especially economic freedom.  The tea partiers have delivered an extremely accurate diagnosis of what ails America right now: Government is growing too fast, too much, too expensively, and in too many places -- and in the process it is crowding out our cherished economic freedom.

That quote was from Larry Kudlow in April 2010.

Bottom Line: If you believe restoring free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity, then putting Medicare on a less suicidal trajectory is critical to free up business investment.

Back to you Larry Kudlow.

Update: It might have been better to say that increased productivity is the primary driver of economic growth, and that business investment is the primary driver of increased productivity.

Medicare 2012: Freedom vs. Death Panels

Let's talk Medicare.  With Paul Ryan on the ticket, it's going to be a major topic.  That's fine with me.

Medicare is Broke.  It's not going broke, IT'S ALREADY THERE!!!  Medicare, as it's been understood for 50 years, isn't an option.  Left unchanged, Medicare will eventually consume our economy.  The relevant question is not whether Medicare will change, but how it will change.

In 2010, Barack Obama signed massive changes to Medicare into law as part of his health care law.  That legislation contained $700 billion in cuts to Medicare THAT ARE NOW WRITTEN INTO LAW.  To oversee these cuts, Obama's Health Care Law creates a new entity, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).  According to the New England Journal of Medicine:

Provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (now being referred to as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) create an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to meet the need to oversee health care system costs.1 The legislation establishes specific target growth rates for Medicare and charges the IPAB with ensuring that Medicare expenditures stay within these limits. The IPAB must also make recommendations to Congress as to how to control health care costs more generally.

 Translated into English, this means 15 unelected bureaucrats will ration health care from Washington D.C. without accountability to Congress or the American People.  For the record, IPAB was what Sarah Palin was talking about when she referred to 'death panels.'  That's Obama's vision.

Patient centered Medicare reform, by contrast, puts individual Americans in charge of their own Health Care.  Instead of an unaccountable Medicare Politburo making decisions for the entire country, Washington D.C. would send the money directly to individuals.  This would leave individuals free to purchase Health Care services in whatever manner they see fit.  Over time, as traditional price signals return to the Health Care services market, costs will come down.  Paul Ryan's budget proposal is one example of patient centered Medicare reform.

Medicare, as it was understood for 50 years, went away with Obama's health care law.  It's not coming back, because WE CAN'T AFFORD IT.  The relevant question now is what will replace it.  We can either follow Obama's vision of unaccountable bureaucrats rationing care or we can pursue patient centered reforms along the lines of Paul Ryan's proposal.  On way or the other, however, we must choose, because we can't afford the old status quo.

Why Barack Obama Wants Chaos

Barack Obama and the Hard Left are laying a trap for the next President.  Unless the Republican nominee recognizes and prepares for this trap, he risks walking right into it when he assumes office next January.  Barack Obama and the Hard Left are currently sowing chaos that they hope will overwhelm the first year of the next administration in order to entrench the "Fundamental Transformation" he's already got written.

To prepare for this trap, the next President must understand Barack Obama's real agenda.  Barack Obama's actions over the last year reveal a man clearly uninterested in re-election.  For example, Catholics are swing voters in traditional swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida; why would any politician interested in winning an election in those states issue a mandate that offends the deepest moral beliefs of The Catholic Church?!?  Clearly, a politician interested in those states would NEVER take such an action.  Thus, one must conclude Barack Obama is uninterested in re-election.  What, then, is Barack Obama's real agenda?!?

Barack Obama's primary agenda, at this point, is to ensure the legislative changes he has already accomplished go fully into effect.  To secure his fundamental transformation of America, Barack Obama and the Hard Left will sow chaos throughout the United States and the World in 2012.  Expect that chaos to spillover into 2013/14 and the first year of the new administration, regardless of the new President's identity.  Barack Obama and the Hard Left understand that, in American politics, major changes in policy occur almost exclusively in the first year of new Presidential administrations.  Thus, Barack Obama and the Hard Left understand that if the new President spends 2013 reacting to National and Global Chaos, this window for major policy changes can pass without unwinding Obama's previous legislative victories.

Barack Obama's allies in the #Occupy movement have clearly stated their intention to "Recreate [the chaos of 19]68" in 2012.  To understand why recreating 1968 benefits the hard left, one needs to properly understand the events of 1969.  In 1969, Richard Nixon assumed the Presidency following the Biggest Expansion of Government (prior to Obama) in American History.  Nixon's inauguration was followed shortly thereafter by Leftist Campus Takeovers, the Emergence of the Weathermen, Homosexual Attacks on the NYPD, the Manson Murders, and the Marxist-inspired 'Days of Rage.'  Against this backdrop, and a continuing War in Vietnam, conservative efforts to unwind Medicare and the War on Poverty floundered.  From the perspective of the Hard Left, which seeks to expand government and does not particularly care who holds elected office at any given time, 1969 (and Richard Nixon's entire Presidency) was an unqualified victory.

At CPAC 2011, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said the left "need only play good defense.  The federal spending commitments now in place will bring about the leviathan state they have always sought.   The health care travesty now on the books will engulf private markets and produce a single-payer system or its equivalent, and it won?t take long to happen."  Conservatives MUST remember this fact as we move forward into 2012 and beyond.  Between Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and Automatic Defense Cuts, Barack Obama's fundamental transformation of America is already law.  During the coming chaos, whether it's in the form of #Occupy Related Violence, Drug Cartel Violence, a shooting war in the Middle East or any other source, the Federal Bureaucracy will continue business as usual.  Under current law, business as usual will entrench Barack Obama's fundamental transformation.  That's one of the reasons we should expect the coming chaos to continue (at least) into 2014 which is, NOT coincidentally, the year Obamacare goes into full effect.

Fortunately, the coming chaos is a surmountable challenge.  The key, for conservatives, is to recognize the coming chaos for what it really is and act accordingly.  That means electing to Congress committed conservatives who will enact conservative legislation NO MATTER WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD.

The coming chaos is deliberate, and Barack Obama and the Hard Left are behind it.  Their goal is to distract and confuse the new administration in 2013 the same way the hard left did to Richard Nixon in 1969.  Forewarned is forearmed and, as long as a conservative Congress is willing to move forward no matter what, they will fail....