You are here: Home / Archives for Paul G. Kengor

The Progressive Income Tax Turns 100

April 16, 2013 by 5 Comments

Build It IRS Will Come SC The Progressive Income Tax Turns 100

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Investor’s Business Daily.

Maybe it’s a measure of progressives’ refusal to look back, to always move “forward.” Otherwise, they should be celebrating right now. In fact, President Obama and fellow modern progressives/liberals should be ecstatic all this year, rejoicing over the centenary of something so fundamental to their ideology, to their core goals of government, to their sense of economic and social justice—to what Obama once called “redistributive change.”

And what is this celebratory thing to the progressive mind?

It is the progressive income tax. This year, it turns 100. Its permanent establishment was set forth in two historic moments: 1) an amendment to the Constitution (the 16th Amendment), ratified February 3, 1913; and 2) its signing into law by the progressive’s progressive, President Woodrow Wilson, October 3, 1913. It was a major political victory for Wilson and fellow progressives then and still today. By my math, that ought to mean a long, sustained party by today’s progressives, a period of extended thanksgiving.

President Obama once charged that “tax cuts for the wealthy” are the Republicans’ “Holy Grail.” Tax cuts form “their central economic doctrine.” Well, the federal income tax is the Democrats’ Holy Grail. For progressives/liberals, it forms their central economic doctrine.

As merely one illustration among many I could give, former DNC head Howard Dean and MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell were recently inveighing against Republican tax cuts. Dean extolled “what an increase in the top tax rate actually does.” He insisted: “that’s what governments do—is redistribute. The argument is not whether they should redistribute or not, the question is how much we should redistribute…. The purpose of government is to make sure that capitalism works for everybody …. It’s government’s job to redistribute.”

What Dean said is, in a few lines, a cornerstone of the modern progressive manifesto. For Dean and President Obama and allies, a federal income tax based on graduated or progressive rates embodies and enables government’s primary “job” and “purpose.” They embrace a progressive tax for the chief intention of wealth redistribution, which, in turn, allows for income leveling, income “equality,” and for government to do the myriad things that progressives ever-increasingly want government to do.

And so, in 1913, progressives struck gold. The notion of taxing income wasn’t entirely new. Such taxes existed before, albeit temporarily, at very small levels and for national emergencies like war. The idea of a permanent tax for permanent income redistribution broke new ground. The only debate was the exact percentage of the tax. In no time, progressives learned they could never get enough.

In 1913, when the progressive income tax began (and the first 1040 form, with instructions, was only four pages long), the top rate was a mere 7 percent, applied only to the fabulously wealthy (incomes above $500,000). By the time Woodrow Wilson left office in 1921, the great progressive had hiked the upper rate to 73 percent. World War I (for America, 1917-18) had given Wilson a short-term justification, but so did Wilson’s passion for a robust “administrative state.”

Disagreeing with Wilson were the Republication administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, his immediate successors. Along with their Treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, they reduced the upper rate, eventually bringing it down to 25 percent by 1925. In response, the total revenue to the federal Treasury increased significantly, from $700 million to $1 billion, and the budget was repeatedly in surplus.

Unfortunately, the rate began increasing under Herbert Hoover, who jacked the top rate to 63 percent. It soon skyrocketed to 94 percent under another legendary progressive, FDR, who, amazingly, once considered a top rate of 99.5 percent on income above $100,000 (yes, you read that right).

Appalled by this was an actor named Ronald Reagan, himself a progressive Democrat—though not much longer. Reagan often noted that Karl Marx, in his “Communist Manifesto” (1848), demanded a permanent “heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” Indeed, it’s point 2 in Marx’s 10-point program, second only to his call for “abolition of property.”

The upper tax rate wasn’t reduced substantially until 1965, when it came down to 70 percent. Alas, President Ronald Reagan took it down to 28 percent. And despite claims to the contrary, federal revenues under Reagan increased (as they did in the 1920s), rising from $600 billion to nearly $1 trillion. (The Reagan deficits were caused by excessive spending and decreased revenue from the 1981-3 recession.)

The upper rate increased again (to 31 percent) under George H.W. Bush and under Bill Clinton (39.6 percent). George W. Bush cut it to 35 percent. Barack Obama has returned it to the Clinton level of 39.6 percent.

Here in 2013, 100 years henceforth, the wealthiest Americans—the top 10 percent of which already pay over 70 percent of federal tax revenue—will be paying more in taxes this year than any time in the last 30 years. For progressives, this is justice. But it is also bittersweet: As progressives know deep inside, it still isn’t enough. For them, it’s never enough.

To that end, my enduring question for progressives is one they typically avoid answering, especially those holding elected office: In your perfect world, where, exactly, would you position the top rate? I routinely hear numbers in the 50-70 percent-plus range.

Democrats like President Obama complain about Republican “intransigence” in raising tax rates. But, truth be told—and as any liberal really knows—if it wasn’t for Republican resistance, progressives would rarely, if ever, cut taxes. America would remain on a one-way upward trajectory in tax rates, just like under Woodrow Wilson and FDR, and just as it has been in its unrestrained spending for nearly 50 years. Like their refusal to cut spending (other than on defense), progressives are dragged kicking and screaming into tax cuts. They need high income taxes for the government planning and redistributing they want to do, for Obama’s sense of redistributive justice.

This year, the progressive income tax turns 100. For progressives, getting it implemented was a huge triumph. Their success in making it a permanent part of the American landscape is a more stunning achievement still.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

 

Photo credit: terrellaftermath

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , ,

Preserving Hugo Chavez

March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Hugo Chavez SC Preserving Hugo Chavez

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

The gushing, almost angelic praise for Hugo Chavez by the left in America and around the world has been shocking to behold, but hardly surprising. I will not bother repeating the litany here. Rather, I’d like to focus on another surreal aspect of Chavez’s death—namely, the rush to preserve and display his body so the faithful may pilgrimage and pay homage for decades to come.

Here again, I’m sadly not surprised. The far left has never been shy about venerating its heroes. This is supremely ironic, given that many of the subjects of veneration, as well as those doing the venerating, were not merely agnostics and atheists but militantly so. Recent examples include Asian communists Mao Tse-Tung and Ho Chi Minh, but the best example remains Vladimir Lenin.

Upon his death in January 1924, Lenin’s body was embalmed and preserved in a tomb, actually a shrine, in Red Square, whereby the faithful could forever honor the Great One. Etched in the marble holding the Bolshevik godfather’s body is this inscription: “Lenin: The Savior of the World.”

For an atheist state angrily committed to a war on religion, this would seem odd. In fact, however, it is precisely what we came to expect from communist regimes. In short order after Lenin’s death, poems and songs were written in praise of the “eternal” Lenin who “is always with us.” Yuri Gagarin, the first Soviet cosmonaut, visited Lenin’s mausoleum immediately before his flight so he could meditate over Lenin’s rotting flesh and draw strength for his mission. Later, Gagarin returned to the sacred site to report to Lenin on his mission.

The “Leninization” of the Soviet state’s spiritual life quickly took flight. Throughout the USSR, “Lenin Corners” were established, modeled on the Icon Corners of the Russian Orthodox Church. These mini-shrines included icon-like paintings of Lenin along with his words and writings.

A “secular religion” was established, one that, as noted by Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin’s biographer, demanded “unquestioning obedience” from its disciples. So certain was the Party of Lenin’s infallibility that in 1925, one year after his death, the Politburo established a special laboratory to remove, dissect, and study Lenin’s inactive brain. The purpose, said Volkogonov, was to show the world that the man’s great, infallible ideas had been hatched from an almost supernatural mind.

This nonsense (if not blasphemy) continued for decades. Just ask any former Soviet citizen who suffered through the extended nightmare. A Ukrainian citizen, Olena Doviskaya, once told me: “Everywhere you went, there were statues everywhere of Lenin. They wanted you to worship Lenin.”

Most curious about this Lenin reverence and mysticism is the fact that Lenin himself considered any worship of a divinity an outrage. Lenin blasted the notion of “god-building.” He thought the most horribly unimaginable things about religion, calling religion “abominable” and “a necrophilia.” A vicious, hateful man, Lenin might have hastily shot those responsible for deifying him.

Nonetheless, communists and certain elements of the far left have engaged in such behavior for a long time, readily placing their faith in (leftist) men and replacing traditional religion—Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.—with a Marxism or socialism that they essentially treat as a religion. Brian Lowe of the University of Virginia notes that in the Soviet system, Marx was the Messiah, the Party was the Church, the Proletariat was the Elect, the Revolution was the Second Coming, and more. The Communist Manifesto was accorded a level of sanctity approaching Holy Scripture. Marx and Lenin and Stalin were deemed other-worldly.

All of which brings me back to Hugo Chavez and his enshrinement—and its paradoxes.

Chavez comes from a Roman Catholic country, whereas Lenin came from a Russian Orthodox country. In both the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox traditions, suspected saints—people who lived uniquely holy lives—have been placed in special tombs for purposes of veneration and to see if their dead body is ultimately incorruptible, divinely protected on earth even in death.

The Bolsheviks turned this upside down. They created atheist museums where dead priests/saints were displayed with worm-holes and other decay. They attempted to pose this in contrast to Lenin’s incorruptibility, even as the jaundiced Lenin consistently required removal and re-embalming and re-waxing.

And so, is the left currently in the process of enshrining Hugo Chavez’s body as a form of saintly veneration? Will he become a symbol of the left’s sacred cows of collectivism, wealth redistribution, and nationalization?

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that secular/atheistic progressives and socialists don’t have saints and martyrs. They’re every bit as faithful as the most Bible-thumping fundamentalist. And with the death and preservation of Hugo Chavez, they might be preparing themselves a new saint.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Photo credit: www_ukberri_net (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , ,

Hugo Chavez: Faithful To Death

March 6, 2013 by 5 Comments

Hugo Chavez SC Hugo Chavez: Faithful to Death

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

There’s an old joke from the Cold War. It went like this: Hardline East German communist Walter Ulbricht (who erected the Berlin Wall) died and went to hell. There, the devil gave him a choice between the socialist sector and the capitalist sector. Devoted to the end, Ulbricht stuck to the faith, saying: “I’ll go to the socialist sector.” “Good choice,” averred the devil. “Over in the capitalist sector, they’re getting the full hellfire treatment. But in the socialist sector, they’ve run out of coal.”

Say what you want of Hugo Chavez, of his tactics, of his beliefs, and (as many are doing) of perhaps where he might be right now. But this much is certain: he stuck to the faith.

Many of us were downright amazed when Chavez, in his late 50s and desperately ill from cancer, opted to go to Cuba for treatment. It was a surefire death sentence. Only the most hopelessly devoted communist would be so naïve. Loaded with vast wealth he stole from his people, Chavez effectively chose acupuncture over the 21st-century healthcare widely available anywhere in the West.

And yet, the Venezuelan dictator clung to his religion. He went to Havana.

Chavez apparently gained some measure of comfort near the aging breast of his dying, beloved Fidel. He had so much in common with Castro, admiring the totalitarian’s unparalleled, unprecedented seizure of power and resources, all in the name of redistribution and “social justice.” Like Fidel, he pilfered enough riches from the ostracized affluent class to make himself one of the world’s wealthiest leaders. As he did, he churned the propaganda, blaming his nation’s every ill on his predecessors and on the alleged criminality of the very same rich—as Fidel has done, as the left generally has done.

A few years back, my wife and I were in Washington meeting with an old friend from grad-school days, a native of Venezuela named Daria. When we introduced her to another acquaintance, she remarked with a sad smile, “I’m from Venezuela. We’re communist now.”

In Chavez’s partial defense—and this isn’t saying much—he never achieved the scales of collectivism and depths of depravity of Fidel Castro, or of the world’s really bad communists. Venezuela didn’t become Cuba or the Soviet Union. Needless to say, Hugo Chavez was no Joe Stalin—even as, remarkably, he died on the 60th anniversary of Stalin’s death.

Nonetheless, like any man of the left, he had his enemy groups, and he used them to full advantage. Some of these assorted villains were flagged in a curious Washington Post obituary which headlined Chavez as a “passionate” albeit “polarizing” figure. What earned him even this slight compliment from the Post? Who knows? The same article noted that Chavez referred to the Catholic Church hierarchy as “devils in vestments.” But perhaps the Post was impressed less with Chavez’s opprobrium for the Catholic Church than his encomiums for Barack Obama.

Of course, Chavez was a big fan of Obama. He made this clear the first year of Obama’s presidency. In an extraordinary statement at the United Nations that September, Chavez sniffed, “It doesn’t smell of sulfur here anymore.” This was a swipe at former President George W. Bush. Waxing almost spiritual, Chavez mused: “It smells of something else. It smells of hope.”

Yes, even to Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama equaled hope: the theological virtue of Obama. The Venezuelan caudillo inspiringly appealed to David Axelrod’s legendary campaign slogan.

And like Obama, Chavez just as quickly jettisoned the words of hope when less-inspiring rhetoric better suited his intentions. He excelled at blaming things on the rich, on profit seekers, on greedy corporations, on nefarious jet-owners and millionaires and billionaires, on banks, on investors, and, of course, on George W. Bush. Unlike Obama, who he spoke of in angelic terms, Chavez called George W. Bush a “devil.”

Chavez often seemed to invoke the devil.

Alinsky-like, Chavez constantly isolated his targets and demonized them, calling them “degenerates,” “squealing pigs,” and “counter-revolutionaries.” It was pure demagoguery.

In this, and more, Hugo Chavez was faithful to the very end. Did he really think he would be healed in Havana? Was there no other hope? Or, in the end, maybe faith was all that Chavez had. He should have learned from millions of Cubans over the last 50-plus years: faith in Fidel leads only to destruction and death.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Photo credit: www_ukberri_net (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , ,

The Presidential Blame-Game

February 21, 2013 by 2 Comments

President Clinton SC The Presidential Blame Game

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

February is the month of presidents. It includes Washington’s birthday, Lincoln’s birthday, Ronald Reagan’s birthday, and, of course, Presidents Day. Given that I teach and write about presidents, this time of year always prompts me to strange musings. This year is no exception, as I’m thinking about six particular presidents: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, FDR, Herbert Hoover, Bill Clinton, and Harry Truman. How could I possibly connect these six?

Bear with me—I’ll start and end with Obama.

Barack Obama, and particularly his re-election campaign, has achieved something quite dubious of a sitting president. Namely, he has managed to successfully blame nearly every woe of the last four years on his predecessor. Never mind that every economic indicator under Obama is not only worse than under George W. Bush, but far worse. Obama has presided over a steadily worsening economic disaster, one that is stacking up as one of the most dreadful economic records of any president in history. And yet, as he does, he passes the buck to his predecessor, blaming George W. Bush.

This is unbecoming of an American leader; it’s precisely what our presidents don’t do; they don’t treat each other like this, having much more respect for the job and those who have held it. There is a long-time gentlemen’s understanding, honored by nearly every president, that you don’t blame your predecessor for your problems.

Nonetheless, George W. Bush has become Obama’s go-to scapegoat.

For the record, Obama is not completely alone in mastering this ignoble tactic. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, like Obama, conjured up various demons to advance his “progressive” agenda, with the rich atop his enemies list. But FDR also dumped on his Republican predecessor. He blamed everything on Herbert Hoover.

Notably, this really upset Hoover. Hoover was hurt deeply by FDR constantly trashing him, his record, and his policies. FDR did not treat Hoover the way we Americans expect our presidents to treat one another. Their relationship became toxic. FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, took notice. “Roosevelt couldn’t stand him,” said Truman of Hoover, “and he [Hoover] hated Roosevelt.”

Even sadder, FDR, like Obama, got away with this blame-game. FDR successfully pinned everything on Hoover in re-election upon re-election. As for Obama, a literal majority (60 percent, according to one exit poll) who voted for him in 2012 agreed with him that the terrible economy was totally Bush’s fault. They swallowed Obama’s Bush blame-game hook, line and sinker.

How do Harry Truman and Bill Clinton relate to this?

Truman and Clinton, like Obama and FDR, were, of course, both Democrats. Truman, however, was willing to put party aside to do what was right. He had character by the boatload. Truman saw how troubled Hoover was by FDR’s mistreatment. A good man, Truman did what he could to remedy the situation. (This is detailed nicely by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy in their excellent new book: “The Presidents Club.”) He reached out to Hoover after World War II and sought to use the maligned ex-president in several significant projects, including post-war reconstruction for Europe.

“I knew what I had to do,” said Truman. “I knew just the man I wanted to help me.” And so, Truman employed Hoover’s considerable managerial talents.

It was a very gracious gesture, and pure Truman. Truman saw a wrong by his fellow Democrat, FDR, and strived to correct it, regardless of his party loyalties.

Bill Clinton, unfortunately, is the anti-Truman. When Clinton, who is very friendly with both George W. Bush and his father, learned of Obama’s campaign to blame Bush for every ill in America, including those that Obama has not merely created but mushroomed to unprecedented levels, what did Clinton do? Did he telephone Obama and say “Hey, back off, that isn’t right and you know it. We presidents don’t treat ex-presidents that way.”

No, that’s what Harry Truman would have done. Bill Clinton joined the Obama campaign against Bush. The most notorious display was Clinton’s Democratic National Convention speech, where he prattled on about how not even he could have turned around the permanently disfigured economy that Barack Obama inherited from the malevolent Bush. No, no way, just impossible. Clinton incessantly pushed the line in campaign stop after campaign stop.

And no doubt, when the 2012 campaign was all over, Clinton, who perhaps even privately voted for Mitt Romney (it wouldn’t surprise me), surely flew to Texas and (Joe Biden-like) grinned and back-slapped George W. Bush and said “Hey, no hard feelings, pal!”

And George W. Bush, no doubt, did what he always did: stoically turning the other cheek, forgiving Clinton, and gently suffering the insults in silence—and again helping to make possible another Obama term.

Happy Presidents Month, America.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

God For Obamacare … Dr. Ben Carson’s Heresy

February 15, 2013 by 5 Comments

Ben Carson 2 SC God for Obamacare … Dr. Ben Carsons Heresy

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

Liberals are apoplectic over remarks by Dr. Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson, a prominent pediatric surgeon from Johns Hopkins University, dared to weigh in on healthcare—something he knows something about. In the liberal mind, Carson committed a grave transgression; he disagreed with President Obama on healthcare at a faith venue, and in Obama’s presence.

In discussing Carson’s moral effrontery, Candy Crowley, host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” asked panelists if they were offended by Carson’s comments. “He [Carson] was talking about the idea of, you know, weaving the Bible into some objections he appears to have with the president’s approach,”said Crowley. Count Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky among the offended. She told Crowley: “I think it’s … not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech and to invoke God as his [Carson’s] support for that kind of point of view.”

In truth, what the likes of Crowley and Schakowsky object to is the mere fact that Carson publicly disagreed with Obama on healthcare, especially in the context of faith. For liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans should never use their faith to disagree; only liberal Democrats enjoy such freedoms. I could give a thousand examples illustrating the point; I’ve written entire books doing so. For now, however, here are some particularly salient examples involving Obama, liberals, and healthcare reform:

From the first year of Obama’s presidency, the religious left (Obama included) incessantly claimed God’s support for their vision of healthcare reform.

In August 2009, Obama addressed a “virtual gathering” of 140,000 religious left individuals—a huge conference call to liberal Christians, Jews, and other people of faith. Obama told them he was “going to need your help” in passing healthcare. Obama penitently invoked a period of “40 days,” a trial of deliverance from conservative evildoers. He lifted up the brethren, assuring them “We are God’s partner in matters of life and death.”

Like a great commissioning, in the 40 days that followed, the religious left was filled with the spirit. A group called the Religious Institute—led by Rev. Debra Hafner and representing 4,800 clergy—went wild stumping for Obamacare. Other religious left faithful joined the crusade.

A group of 59 leftist nuns sent Congress a letter urging passage of Obamacare. This was in direct defiance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which insisted the bill “must be opposed” because of its refusal to explicitly ban abortion funding. The liberal media cheered on the nuns, gleefully exaggerating their influence. In a breathtaking display, the Los Angeles Times beamed: “Nuns’ support for health-care bill shows [Catholic] Church split.” Amazingly, the Times reported that the nuns’ letter represented not 59 nuns—but 59,000! Like Jesus with the loaves, the Times (normally militantly secular) had demonstrated miraculous powers of multiplication.

The nuns’ brazenness was matched by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, who, in March 2010, invoked the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph on behalf of Obamacare. She urged American Catholics to “pray to St. Joseph” for Obamacare.

That was prelude to what happened March 21, 2010, A.D., a rare vote not merely on a Sunday—God’s day—but the final Sunday in Lent, the week before Palm Sunday that initiates the Lord’s Passion. Obama’s healthcare bill was passed by his Democratic Congress. To Obama, Pelosi, and the religious left faithful, Jesus had gotten his healthcare package; and they had been his loyal handmaidens.

If all of that seems hypocritical enough from liberals, in light of their castigation of Dr. Ben Carson, consider this glaring double standard:

At the National Prayer Breakfast two years ago, February 3, 2011, Obama stated: “Sometimes what I can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to help deal with the healthcare system—sometimes it seems so distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the enormity of the need. And it is my faith, then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed.”

Yes, Barack Obama, at the National Prayer Breakfast, invoked his faith and the Bible on behalf of healthcare reform—much like he has done on behalf of gay marriage and other liberal agenda items.

Question for Ms. Crowley and Rep. Schakowsky and liberals everywhere: Was this appropriate? Are you offended?

But now, here comes one Ben Carson, pediatric surgeon with more than 50 honorary doctorates, named one of America’s 20 foremost physicians by CNN and TIME, and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor. He disagreed with Obama and the liberal faithful. His price: political excommunication. In Alinsky fashion, he will now be isolated and demonized. How dare he bring up healthcare at the National Prayer Breakfast.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Photo credit: Unalienable Rights by GOD- not Executive Order (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , , ,

The End Of The Reagan Era?

January 25, 2013 by 5 Comments

Ronald Reagan The End of the Reagan Era?

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

With Barack Obama’s second inauguration, liberals are touting an altogether new epoch: the end of the Reagan era.

Unfortunately, I believe they are largely correct. We are witnessing a period of left-wing ascendance, marked by gay marriage, forced taxpayer funding of abortion, an exploding government class, and big government. As to the latter, Ronald Reagan had declared in his first inaugural: “government is not the solution … government is the problem.” The first Democrat to follow Reagan, Bill Clinton, similarly stated “the era of big government is over.” Clinton’s affirmation was also an affirmation of the Reagan era.

Then came Barack Obama. Just days after his 2009 inauguration, Obama proclaimed: “the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.” He said “only government” could alter our “vicious cycle.”

Obama had repudiated Reagan, and the electorate would again reward him four years later. What Obama called for in 2009 seems to be the new American spirit in 2013.

But is it? Well, the answer is complicated.

For one, Barack Obama is undoing the Reagan era courtesy of an American public that exhibits utterly schizophrenic voting behavior. Let history record a confounding reality that will baffle future historians: The Obama era supplanted the Reagan era thanks to a voting public that adores Reagan, judges him our greatest of presidents, and overwhelmingly calls itself conservative rather than liberal. All unbelievable, yes, but true. Consider the facts:

For a long time now, starting with the Reagan presidency, Americans have described themselves as “conservative” rather than “liberal” by margins of roughly two-to-one. Generally, self-identified liberals have hovered around the 20 percent level, while conservatives have ranged in the upper-30 percent, sometimes above 40 percent.

Surely this must have changed in 2008, with Obama’s election? No; despite Obama winning the presidency by 54 to 46 percent, 21 percent of Americans who voted said they were liberal vs. 38 percent who said they were conservative.

If that seems contradictory for a nation that voted for a man from the far left as president … well, it is. But it gets worse.

A major Gallup poll conducted from January to May 2009, at the height of “Obama mania,” found more self-described conservatives than liberals not only by 40 percent to 21 percent but in literally all 50 states. That’s correct, all 50 states, from California to Massachusetts. And that electorate chose Obama.

It also chose Reagan. During that same period, a remarkable survey was done by Clarus Research Group, which asked Americans which president should be the model for Barack Obama in shaping his presidency. Their top choice was America’s most conservative president: Ronald Reagan.

How could that be? Answer: it cannot. It is impossible.

And yet, it isn’t a shock that Americans would look to Reagan as their model. Two years after the Clarus survey, a Gallup poll released for Presidents Day 2011 ranked Reagan the “greatest president” of all time, garnering 19 percent of the vote among 44 presidents (beating Lincoln fairly soundly, who finished second at 14 percent). Gallup began asking the “greatest president” question in 1999. Of the 13 times Gallup has done the survey, the public placed Reagan first four times—2001, 2005, 2011, and 2012.

How does that same citizenry twice elect Barack Obama? That’s a very good question.

Well, maybe this long admiration for Reagan conservatism suddenly changed in November 2012?

No, though liberals did draw a little closer. According to CNN exit polling, 35 percent of voters on November 6, 2012 described themselves as “conservative” and 25 percent chose “liberal.” This was identical to a Pew poll.

Importantly, some observers dispute these self-designations, insisting that many of those who call themselves conservative really aren’t. Here and there, that may be true. Overall, however, I think the designations are fairly accurate. When you break down the data and ask questions like whether voters prefer more taxes and more government, they generally don’t—even when they vote that way.

So, what does all of this mean?

It means that a self-described conservative, Reagan-loving electorate has twice voted for a hardcore leftist, Barack Obama, to, in effect, end the Reagan era. That wasn’t the intent, but that’s the result.

I’ll end with a dose of Reagan optimism: It also means that the Reagan ideal is not over. I believe that most Americans (for now) still prefer Reagan’s principles and view of government over Obama’s. The Reagan principles are ultimately time-tested and true; they are the universal, unalienable principles of the Founders, rooted in eternal Judeo-Christian beliefs and Natural Law.

The Reagan vision and values are already here, ready to be tapped and again prevail. They merely require the right spokesman (and Barack Obama’s exit from the presidency.)

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , ,

The Fiscal Cliff: What Would Reagan Do?

December 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

Ronald Reagan The Fiscal Cliff: What Would Reagan Do?

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at FoxNews.com.

As President Obama and Democrats urge Republicans to increase taxes, some liberals are curiously invoking the name of Ronald Reagan, the ultimate tax-cutting Republican. They insist that even Reagan was willing to compromise with Democrats on tax increases; thus, John Boehner and Republicans should as well. In truth, this is (at best) a false parallel.

It is correct that Ronald Reagan occasionally compromised on certain tax increases, as he did in 1982. He did so in exchange for promised spending cuts from Democrats that never materialized, to his great regret. Reagan would constantly point back to this broken promise by Democrats.

More importantly, however, President Reagan never budged on income taxes. He flatly refused to increase income taxes, which is what President Obama demands of Republicans right now. Reagan understood that not all taxes, and thus not all tax increases, were equal.

For insight into Ronald Reagan’s thinking, consider what he did in 1981, when faced with a stagnant economy: At his California ranch on August 13, 1981, Reagan, working with a Democratic House and Republican Senate, secured a 25 percent across-the-board reduction in income tax rates over a three-year period beginning in October 1981. Eventually, through this and later cuts, the upper income-tax rate was slashed from 70 percent to 28 percent.

After a slow start through 1982-83, the stimulus effect of the tax cuts was extraordinary, sparking a huge peacetime economic expansion. The “Reagan Boom” produced not only prosperity but—along with the Soviet collapse that he worked to precipitate—helped generate budget surpluses in the 1990s.

And contrary to the history that liberals continue to rewrite, the Reagan tax cuts did not decrease the revenue to the U.S. Treasury. To the contrary, tax revenues under Reagan rose from $599 billion in 1981 to nearly $1 trillion in 1989. The problem was that outlays (i.e., government spending) all along exceeded revenues, soaring from $678 billion in 1981 to $1.143 trillion in 1989.

The cause of the Reagan deficits—bear in mind that Reagan inherited a chronic deficit—was the decline in revenue from the 1982-83 recession and (as is always the case) excessive federal spending.

Spending has long been, and still remains, the primary reason for our fiscal crisis. This has been especially true since the massive growth of the federal government begun in the 1960s by LBJ’s Great Society.

Proof of this is as easy as Googling the words “historical tables deficit.” You will see two go-to sources for budget data: “OMB historical tables” and “CBO historical tables.” “OMB” is Office of Management and Budget. “CBO” is Congressional Budget Office. To keep it simple, look at the data from OMB, President Obama’s own budget office. At the OMB link is Table 1.1, “Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-2016,” an official report of all federal spending since the founding of the republic.

A close read of that chart offers a stunning display in fiscal irresponsibility. As the first two columns show, receipts (i.e., revenues) and outlays (i.e., expenditures) moved up and down throughout the first roughly 180 years of our history. In 1965, however, something historically perverse began: Spending started increasing every single year, without exception, into the Obama presidency, from 1965-2009. A slight decrease came only in 2010, but then spending promptly ratcheted right back up, and remains on a steady upward trajectory through 2017.

There are few constants in the universe: gravity is one, the sun is another. Add another: spending by Washington; it goes up every year.

Worse, in 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress responded to the slow economy with a gigantic spending infusion: an $800-billion “stimulus” package that further exploded our record deficit/debt. The “stimulus” was a costly waste that continues to bury us.

In short, this is why Republicans should not agree to Democrats’ demands for tax increases. This nation has a spending problem—a grave one—not a tax-revenue problem. Our problem today is reckless big government.

At his 1981 inaugural, Ronald Reagan, referring to the economic crisis he faced, declared that “government is not the solution … government is the problem.”

Just days after his inaugural, Barack Obama professed the opposite: “[A]t this particular moment, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs.”

To repeat: Ronald Reagan never budged on marginal income-tax rates. He decreased them, big-time. Barack Obama is demanding that they be increased. Ronald Reagan, we suspect, would be fully supportive of current Republicans holding their ground on tax rates—especially given our federal government’s unparalleled inability to control its reckless spending.

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , ,

Romney Vs. McCain And Obama Vs. Bush? Who Wins?

December 7, 2012 by 4 Comments

mittromney purepencil portraits 796x1024 Romney vs. McCain and Obama vs. Bush? Who Wins?

Shortly after the November election, I wrote an article titled, “McCain Beats Romney!” The article focused on initial reports showing that Mitt Romney received fewer votes in 2012 than John McCain received in 2008. Those reports utterly shocked and depressed conservatives.

How many fewer votes? It looked like Romney got 2-3 million less votes than McCain. I wrote at the time: “Additional votes are still coming in, but, as of the time of my writing, Romney received around 57.8 million votes in 2012. In 2008, John McCain received 59.9 million. Romney got over 2 million less votes than McCain.”

More votes remained out there. Nonetheless, when the final count was tallied, I figured that Romney would still receive fewer votes than McCain.

Well, the final count is alas approaching, chronicled by the 2012 National Popular Vote Tracker, maintained by David Wasserman. And it has a rare flicker of good news for Mitt Romney: He has surpassed John McCain’s 2008 vote total.

The latest near-final tally has Romney with 60.7 million votes, which is higher than McCain’s 59.9 million votes. That’s the good news for Mitt Romney. The bad news: It’s not a lot higher than McCain’s total, and certainly not high enough to have overtaken Barack Obama. In fact, Romney’s total is only about 1 percent higher than McCain’s.

Who would have predicted that? Republicans expected far more votes for Mitt Romney in 2012 than McCain got in 2008. Sorry, didn’t happen.

So, Mitt Romney beats John McCain, but he didn’t beat Barack Obama.

But before liberals boast about and celebrate a spectacular victory, there’s additional interesting data from the near-final vote tally. It relates not to Romney and McCain but to Barack Obama and George W. Bush—the two most recent presidents to be reelected. Consider these striking numbers:

Barack Obama was reelected with a little under 51 percent of the vote, similar to George W. Bush in his reelection. They both round up to 51 percent. Bush was reelected with 50.7 percent of the vote. Obama’s final tally remains in flux. A week-and-a-half ago, it was 50.7 percent. The latest is 50.9 percent. It could go up slightly or down slightly, but not by much.

In effect, Obama and Bush had near-equal reelection percentages, though Obama got more popular and Electoral College votes than Bush. But before liberals dub that a victory for Obama, they should consider more data:

Barack Obama is the first president to be reelected with less popular votes and less Electoral College votes. He got 4.2 million less votes in 2012 than in 2008. Obama also significantly decreased his margin of victory, shifting from a 7.3-percent margin in 2008 to a 3.6-percent margin in 2012.

To the contrary, George W. Bush gained a staggering 11.6 million more total votes in 2004 than he had in 2000. Bush also increased his percent-margin from minus 0.5 percent in 2000 to plus 2.4 percent in 2004.

And though Obama’s Electoral College victory in his reelection was larger than Bush’s, it still decreased.

Bush’s reelection also included his party retaining Congress. In fact, Republicans in 2004 picked up seats in both the House and the Senate, with sizable majorities in both. Obama was unable to come anywhere near that—quite the contrary. In 2012, Democrats retained the Senate but Republicans continued their huge margin in the House.

And there’s more: Bush was reelected with a larger number of states, winning 30 in 2000 (plus 10) and 31 in 2004 (plus 12). Obama lost states, going from 28 in 2008 (plus 6) to 26 in 2012 (plus 2), which is a bare majority. And should we even mention counties? The county map under Bush was a sea of red, and it remained a sea of red under Obama.

For Obama and liberals, this isn’t much to brag about, and hardly a sweeping mandate. Overall, it is difficult to claim that Barack Obama’s reelection is much more decisive than George W. Bush’s. If liberals didn’t see a mandate for Bush in 2004, they certainly shouldn’t be heralding one for Obama in 2012.

In terms of raw numbers, this was not a huge victory for Barack Obama—a fact that ought to give Republicans some hope for 2016, assuming they can turn out notably more people in 2016 than they did in 2012 and 2008.

Unfortunately for Republicans, it was just enough of a victory for Barack Obama to continue his “fundamental transformation” of this country.

©2012 The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , ,

America’s Fundamental Transformation

November 9, 2012 by 5 Comments

US Flag 3 SC America’s Fundamental Transformation

Timing is everything in politics. For four years, I angered conservatives by insisting that Barack Obama would get reelected. I figured that an electorate willing to elect a man with ideas and a record that far to the left in 2008 would do so again. I began changing my view, however, after the first presidential debate. Over the last three or four weeks, I became confident that Mitt Romney would defeat Obama.

Fortunately for Obama, two forces intervened to rescue him. One was the mainstream media, which ensured that Benghazi, Hurricane Sandy, and the increase in the unemployment rate wouldn’t be used to undermine Obama. As for Hurricane Sandy, Obama flew in for a photo-op and then immediately returned to campaigning. If George W. Bush were president, a relentless media would have ensured that Bush didn’t return to the campaign trail.

The second force was David Axelrod and the campaign machine. I stand in awe at what they pulled off. They managed to push considerably more Democrats than Republicans to the polls (38-32 percent margin), closer to the 2008 turnout that favored Obama than the 2010 mid-term turnout that favored Republicans. Because they did, the predictions of an easy Romney victory by the likes of Dick Morris, Michael Barone, George Will, and Newt Gingrich (and myself) were dead wrong. We were certain that pollsters were oversampling Democrats. The pro-Republican, pro-Romney, and anti-Obama enthusiasm we were seeing was extremely intense. It was inconceivable to us that it could be overcome by a higher Democrat turnout. Somehow, however, it was, obliterating Romney’s five-point victory among independents. It erased Romney’s 50-49 percent edge in the final polls by Gallup and Rasmussen.

I stand in stunned disbelief. David Axelrod, you are a miracle worker.

How much of a miracle worker? Consider:

The American people reelected a man who presided over one of the worst four-year economic records in American history. By every objective measurement, the economy is far worse than it was four years ago: 47 million on food stamps (up from 32 million); all-time record deficits and debit (dwarfing the Bush numbers); chronic unemployment; a prolonged non-recovering recovery; 636,000 homeless; a doubling of gas prices; and on and on.

For historical perspective, consider this: No president since FDR in 1940 won reelection with an unemployment rate above 7.1 percent. And for FDR, that number was a huge improvement from four years earlier.

How did Obama and his team overcome this? The answer: they successfully blamed it on George W. Bush, with Bill Clinton aiding and abetting the process. There were no limits to how much they blamed Bush and how much it worked. The Democratic base swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

Sadly, other things worked as well, and none are good for this country. The framing of Republicans as conducting a “war on women” because they don’t favor forced taxpayer funding of abortion,Planned Parenthood, and contraception worked. The insistence that government-provided contraception is a new “entitlement” worked. The demonization of the Tea Party—a movement spontaneously created by Obama’s wild spending—worked.

For that matter, Obama got away with the extraordinarily wasteful $800 billon “stimulus” package that didn’t stimulate and buried us fiscally. He even got away with the HHS mandate that constitutes the greatest threat to religious liberty (particularly against the Catholic Church) in at least a century.

In terms of social policy, the electorate has given the green light to a president who is redefining marriage and promoting forced funding of abortion and contraception and embryo destruction—at the expense of religious liberty.

Moreover, the president’s unceasing class-warfare rhetoric was rewarded by the electorate, as were his attacks on profits, the private sector, the wealthy, banking and investment, and the oil and natural gas industry. The Obama energy policy is advanced. Mitt Romney would have unleashed a boom for America’s domestic energy industry. That is now gone. That is a tragedy, the levels of which we will not be able to appreciate.

And what about Romney? I had my reservations, but America rejected a genuinely decent man who had the best business background of anyone who would have ever assumed the Oval Office. He was the perfect person for the perfect time.

In short, what we saw on November 6, 2012 was a breathtaking display of political survival by Barack Obama, the first president to be re-elected with a lower number of Electoral College votes and popular vote. What we also witnessed was the final step in the fundamental transformation of America that Barack Obama promised four years ago.

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Filed Under: Commentary, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Homeless Then And Now—Obama And Reagan

October 24, 2012 by 6 Comments

Obama Reagan SC The Homeless Then and Now—Obama and Reagan

As a biographer of Ronald Reagan, I’m constantly asked to compare today’s fiscal/economic situation to what Reagan faced in the 1980s. Today’s record debt/deficits remind of the 1980s, though today’s are far worse, with the deficit at least six times as high—and debt-to-GDP and deficit-to-GDP ratios two and three times (respectively) higher. The current economy is the worst since the early 1980s, with a prolonged non-recovering “recovery” older still. By 1984, the Reagan recovery was not just in bloom but exploding, with dramatically improved unemployment and economic growth six times higher than the current anemic rate, awarding Reagan millions of Democratic votes as he swept 49 of 50 states in his re-election.

But one comparison I haven’t been asked about are today’s homeless levels vs. those under Reagan. That’s a notable omission. One who has noticed is Dr. Tracy Miller, an economist and colleague of mine. Miller recently visited Chicago, where he went to graduate school in the 1980s, and was struck by what he saw. “I couldn’t help but notice the large number of homeless people in the downtown area,” says Miller, “including one homeless man pushing a child in a stroller.”

Miller observes: “Homelessness was frequently discussed during the 1980s, but seems to receive less media attention now. And yet, the number of homeless today is approximately twice as large as it was in the 1980s.”

Miller is correct. According to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there is at least twice the number of homeless today than at a comparable point in Reagan’s first term. HUD estimated that there were 250,000-350,000 homeless on a typical night at the end of 1983. As Dr. Miller notes, this compares with an estimated 636,000 homeless at the end of 2011, the figures heading into the fourth year of Obama’s presidency.

And yet, when Ronald Reagan faced re-election, liberal Democrats made homelessness a huge political issue, portraying the homeless as stacked like cord wood on every street corner. They made wildly unsubstantiated claims. One source maintained that there were 250,000 homeless in Chicago alone—an impossible number that the media nonetheless happily reported. Homeless advocates like the late Mitch Snyder described dire scenarios in the nation’s capital.

Those of us who lived through this spectacle recall that you couldn’t turn on the nightly news without grim “homeless updates.” It seemed to be a regular nightly report by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News. It was framed as a national pandemic, laid at the cold, uncaring feet of Reaganomics. It was used against President Reagan with great vigor and viciousness in his re-election bid.

And yet, the numbers today, during President Obama’s re-election bid, are worse. A report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness lists 636,017 homeless in 2011—which is actually down slightly from 2009, when the numbers were 643,067. The report, titled “State of Homelessness in America 2012,” suggests the small decrease of 7,000 might be attributable to the decrease in homeless military veterans: “The largest decrease was among homeless veterans, whose population declined 11 percent. The number of homeless veterans went from 75,609 in 2009 to 67,495 in 2011—a reduction of about 8,000.”

Unfortunately, the reports also states that “While the homeless population decreased nationally, it increased in 24 states and the District of Columbia.”

The year 2011 is the most recent year for which data is provided. I suspect that the numbers are worse for 2012, given the chronic long-term unemployment and the record 47 million Americans on food stamps.

Either way, 636,000 homeless is an eye-opening statistic, as is the sight of the homeless. I recently visited California. I was stunned by all the homeless I encountered in beautiful, wealthy towns like Santa Barbara. It’s impossible to walk down the street and not get asked for money. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was just reported that Erin Moran, star of the 1970s hit TV show “Happy Days” is homeless.

All of this begs a question: Why isn’t this being talked about? In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president, all you heard about were the homeless. The media went bonkers over the issue. Until the moment he left office, the press hounded Reagan about the homeless and his alleged responsibility for their plight.

In fact, still today, liberals use the homeless to discredit the Reagan record. Liberal websites run headlines like “How Reagan Created the Homeless” and “Reagan and the Homeless Epidemic in America.”

Why isn’t the media talking about the homeless under President Obama? Why aren’t liberals? Do they suddenly no longer care about the homeless? Or are the homeless merely a convenient political tool, to be ignored or exploited depending on whose party is up for re-election?

 

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and New York Times best-selling author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and“Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

©2012 The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

Photo credit: WEBN-TV (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: , , , ,