The American People Deserve Better Than This Campaign

As we are fast approaching elation day, I can’t help but think the ramifications of one of the most hard-fought, expensive campaigns in American political history will continue to reverberate.

First and foremost, the real issues facing the country went largely unaddressed during this campaign.

While President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are locked in an arduous struggle replete with vicious negative ads, neither candidate has offered a coherent and comprehensive plan to address the debt, the deficit and unemployment.

Representative Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, has developed his own budget and entitlement-reform proposals.  But it is not clear how either ticket will deal with the large scale fiscal challenges facing this nation, which are bringing us to the brink of financial collapse.

In fact, the most important issue facing the country – how to create jobs and reduce unemployment – has barely been addressed at all.

Unemployment (which was over 8 percent for 43 months and remains at 7.8 percent today) did not disqualify President Obama from re-election, notwithstanding the economic pain that Americans are currently feeling, and will continue to feel, once the dust has settled after November 6^th.  But what is also clear is that the American people’s dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation in our country has gotten worse, not better.  Satisfaction with Congress is at or below record lows with only about 10 percent approval.

The federal government and the political class in Washington have ongoing and, I dare say, record credibility problems with an increasingly cynical electorate.

To be sure, we saw the power of the presidency in the general election.  In both the primaries and general election, we saw the rise of powerful super PACs, political action committees funded by very wealthy individuals either directly or anonymously.  These committees have demonstrated the ability to sway the political dialog.

We also saw the power of the media to drive a narrative – whether that narrative touted Romney’s nomination as inevitable or, more recently, in pushing the story that Obama was leading substantially throughout the last several months.

This account cam complete with polls that appeared to overestimate the incumbent’s advantage.

What is probably clearest about this election is that although the campaign has further polarized the electorate, and the critical issues facing this nation have been largely glossed over the enduring confidence of the American people remains strong.

It is now time to turn to the crises that face our county.  Domestically, our fiscal situation must be addressed.  The current pace of spending is unsustainable.  A consensus must be reached – and FAST – to avoid further spiraling debt.  Internationally, the threats from Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida continue to loom large.  This will be a pivotal year for Afghanistan, as we wind down our presence there.

Despite those challenges, my hope in the months ahead is that the extraordinarily resilient nature of the American people will become as evident to our leaders as they are to everyone else.

Obama's Redistribution Won't Work

A recently discovered tape in which Barak Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in wealth redistribution may serve a useful purpose – if it gets people to think about what the consequences for redistribution are.  History is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty.

The communist nations were a classic example.  In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of society more prosperous.  But, when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce.

As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler’s Holocaust in the 1940s.  You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment.

You cannot confiscate future wealth – and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.  And unlike farmers, industrialists are tied to the land in a particular country.  Financiers are even less tied down, vast sums of money can be dispatched electronically to any part of the world.

If confiscatory policies can produce counterproductive repercussions in a dictatorship, they are even harder to carry out in a democracy.  A dictatorship can suddenly swoop down and grab whatever it wants.  But a democracy must first have public discussions and debates.

Those who are targeted for confiscation can see the handwriting on the wall, and act accordingly.

When successful people with much human capital leave the country, either voluntarily or because of hostile governments, damage can be done to the economy they leave behind.  We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime.

Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for future fish.  If redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to be productive in other ways.

Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.  That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them.