Obama Change

ROGER KIMBALL considers Obama change:

Will McCain pull off a Truman surprise? I hope so. As I say, I think Colin Powell was right to call Obama a “transformational figure.” He, together with a large left-wing majority in Congress, would transform America from the land of the free and the home of the brave into another socialist swamp: the land of the taxed and the home of regulated.

To the extent that they are really understood, I believe, Obama’s announced policies would frighten most Americans. They are just the sort of thing that the unrepentant bomber William Ayers looks forward to. They are fine and dandy with Rev. Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright, Obama’s pastor for twenty years. They are exactly the sort of socialist polices that organizations like Acorn applaud. But what about the rest of us?

Obama represents the union of two distinct radicalisms: the old-style socialist radicalism of the 1930s and the cultural-radicalism of the 1960s. One emphasizes increased government control of business, increased government intrusion into family life, health care, education, higher taxes more regulation. The other emphasizes the agenda of multiculturalism and political correctness and the politics of redress. Obamas’s greatest triumph has been to amalgamate these different radicalisms into a smiling rhetorical mantra called “Change.”

Will it sell? In an earlier post, I said that “Whatever else it is, this election is a referendum on two very different visions of America. Obama’s vision is of country crippled by sin; McCain and Palin’s vision is of a country fired by high ideals and expansive opportunity.” Which has more traction?

I like the contrast suggested in Mr. Kimball's commentary, and I certainly can make no sense of the idea that this country is crippled by sin.

Unions

KIM BOBO writes about unions and labor:

Fifth, support the fundamental rights of all workers to organize into unions of their choice. Although Perkins wasn’t the first choice of labor unions for secretary, she overcame their hesitations with her steadfast support for workers’ rights to organize in the workplace. Elaine Chao, in contrast, has used her public voice to attack the Employee Free Choice Act, the most significant labor law reform to come along in decades.

When the economy is in shambles, it is America’s workers who take the biggest hit. Perhaps in the coming weeks and months, we will all understand better what has happened to our economy. But as we move forward as a nation in addressing the crisis, we need a secretary of labor who knows workers, cares for their concerns, and speaks up for them. Our current secretary of labor is missing in action. We need to put the “labor” back in secretary of labor.

I'm going to admit that I understand little of what was written in Bobo's commentary. Perhaps this is because I understand unions in a much different way than she does.

Unions are legal monopolies, and most of them would not exist without government using it's power to force employers to hire union employees.

Workers have always had "fundamental rights" to form and join unions. At the same time, employers used to have the right to employ who they wanted, and this included the right to not employ a member of a union.

But unions are classic examples of organizations that are subject to the logic of collective action. As such, most unions of any size would simply not exist without the use of force.

Today unions are able to use the force of government. The force of government, under certain conditions, is used to (1) force employers to employ union members and (2) force some, probably many employees, to be members of a union when they would otherwise choose not to be. In addition, government's force is also behind many instances of union's spending money on political causes and political candidates, and the money comes from some union members who would personally not support such spending because they believe it is against their own personal best interests.

It seems to me that a government that forces an employer to hire certain employees, that forces employees to be union members when they do not want to, and that forces employees to support political causes and politicians they believe are antithetical to their interests, is a government that is unjust.

I am hard pressed to understand how a Christian can support the use of force in such ways in the lives of others.

But, there is even more that concerns me. Because unions are monopolies there are two important economic implications that result from unions.

(1) Unions cause higher wages, and higher wages mean higher costs for businesses who are forced to hire employees who are union members. The higher costs of producing and supplying goods and services mean that we all pay higher prices for goods and services. Many of these goods and services are considered by many to be needs, and therefore, unions mean that people with little income find it harder to meet their consumption needs. It doesn't make sense to me for everyone to pay higher prices so that a monopoly union can gain higher wages for it's employees.

(2) Unions reduce the number of people who are employed, which of course is the same as saying that unions lead to a higher number of unemployed than would otherwise be the case. Of course, the surest way for a person to get out of poverty is to have and keep a job. Unions, by adding to the number of unemployed, mean people in poverty will find it much more difficult to escape poverty. But, there is more on this concern as well. Future prosperity and success for our country as a whole is determined by how resources are utilized today. When we have public policies that reduce the number of policies, such as using government's force to create and maintain monopolies (unions), we will have less prosperity and less economic advance in the future that we would otherwise have. And, of course, less prosperity and less economic advance in the future means fewer people are able to escape poverty in this country than would otherwise be the case.

In contrast to the assertion that when the economy is in shambles we should help unions, I would say that this is exactly the wrong policy to support, assuming of course that we are interested in seeing more people employed and fewer people in poverty.

Record vs. Rhetoric

TOM SOWELL'S clear vision:

"Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely 'associated' with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money.

Sarah Palin has had executive experience-- and the White House is the executive branch of government. We don't have to judge her by her rhetoric because she has a record.

We don't know what Barack Obama will actually do because he has actually done very little for which he was personally accountable. Even as a state legislator, he voted 'present' innumerable times instead of taking a stand one way or the other on tough issues.

'Clean up the mess in Washington'? He was part of the mess in Chicago and lined up with the Daley machine against reformers.

He is also part of the mess in Washington, not only with numerous earmarks, but also as the Senate's second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae, and someone whose campaign has this year sought the advice of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who was at the heart of the subprime crisis."

Presidential Politics In Music

Not The Only Skeptic

I'm not the only one skeptical of Senator Obama's promises. KIMBERLY STRASSEL has written a wonderful piece about the Great Obama:

"And now, America, we introduce the Great Obama! The world's most gifted political magician! A thing of wonder. A thing of awe. Just watch him defy politics, economics, even gravity! (And hold your applause until the end, please.)

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he 'cut' zero? Abracadabra! It's called a 'refundable tax credit.' It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as 'welfare,' but please try not to ruin the show."

Oh, please, be sure to read the whole thing.

Obamatopia

Senator Obama yesterday:

It is time to turn the page on eight years of economic policies that put Wall Street before Main Street but ended up hurting both. We need policies that grow our economy from the bottom-up, so that every American, everywhere has the chance to get ahead. Not just corporate CEOs, but their secretaries too. Not just the person who owns the factory, but the men and women who work on its floor. Because if we've learned anything from this economic crisis, it's that we're all connected; we're all in this together; and we will rise or fall as one nation - as one people.

The rescue plan that passed Congress last week isn't the end of what we'll do to strengthen this economy, it's only the beginning. Now we need to pass a rescue plan for the middle-class that will provide every family immediate relief to cope with rising food and gas prices, save one million jobs by rebuilding our schools and roads, and help states and cities avoid budget cuts and tax increases. And we should extend expiring unemployment benefits to those Americans who've lost their jobs and can't find new ones. I've been fighting for this plan for months. My opponent has said nothing. And that is the choice in this election.

You've heard a lot about taxes in this campaign. Well here's the truth - John McCain and I are both offering tax cuts. The difference is, he wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but nothing at all to over 100 million Americans.

I'll give a middle-class tax cut to 95% of all workers. And if you make less than $250,000 a year, you won't see your taxes increase one single dime - not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes - nothing. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

I want to ask: "Do people really believe this foolish rhetoric?" But, of course, it appears there are people who must believe this stuff because the Senator appears by the polls to be on his way to victory. I think the good Senator from Illinois wants us to believe that his presidency will bring us heaven on earth. We will all have a right to all that we could want, and it will all be provided courtesy of the one who is President.

Of course, there are facts of life, and especially economic facts of life that one would be wise to consider. Yet, wisdom seems seldom to be part of politics and the political rhetoric of presidential campaigns. There seems very little wisdom among our political leadership these days. And, there seems little interest among the voters is wisdom as well.

The fundamental fact of economic life is scarcity. Our country has been prosperous, but that prosperity is not the gift of our political classes in Washington. That prosperity is the product of toil and investment; it is the product of risking taking and entrepreneurship; it is the product of many independent yet interconnected people each doing the best they can for themselves and for others, and in freedom and liberty. When I read the words above, I'm certain that Senator Obama has little understanding of our prosperity, and his words seem unwise in that they encourage us to neglect to see that scarcity is a fact of life. Not only can he not physically deliver all the goods and all the rights he promises in his speech, but just the effort to discover that it is not possible will involve significant increased tax burdens for all of us. No, he may say, the tax burden will only be on the wealthiest. But that cannot possibly be true. Even taking all that the most wealthy today have will not defeat scarcity and provide us will all that he promises. He promises nirvana, utopia, heaven on earth, and surely if we would stop and think and rest under a tree and ask for wisdom in these trying times we would come to realize the best for our future is not going to be found by relying on a new President, or on change that is coming to Washington, or on government's power to tax and take from others so that we can have more. All of that, if indeed we decide to rely on it, will come to less freedom and liberty for our lives and less productivity and prosperity for our own futures and the futures of our children. All that the Senator promises is not possible. It is not feasible. It is nonsense. I hope enough of us are wise enough to see this.

The Bums In Congress

Rasmussen Reports:

"Congress was front and center in the national news last week and the American people were far from impressed. If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office.

Today, just 23% have even a little confidence in the ability of Congress to deal with the nation’s economic problems and only 24% believe most Members of Congress understand legislation before they vote on it."

I would like to see most members of Congress thrown out as well. Especially all those who are covering up the fact that it was the interventionist policies of Congress, i.e., themselves, that is the largest part of the explanation for the financial turmoil today.

Unfortunately, throwing out the current batch will have little impact. There will just be a new batch of members of Congress that believe they can better determine our economies than we can ourselves. The incentives inherent in legislatures are to pass law after law pretending to do better for us than we can for ourselves. The actual impacts of most of those laws are to reduce the prosperity of our economy that we can each tap into, and in the process a handful of people get special concentrated benefits for themselves (often among these people are the very members of Congress who pass the statutes).

It seems there are few possibilities to CHANGE what happens in Congress and in the Presidency. We need to limit and constrain Congress. Replacing one group of politicians with another group of politicians will just get us another group of politicians who act in much the same ways. We need voters as well as politicians who understand this, and who understand that unless we hold to a constitution for a limited and constrained government, very little will change in the government we have to live with.

ABC News Bias

GLYNN REYNOLDS:

"THIS DEBATE 'FACT CHECK' from ABC News notes that Sarah Palin fluffed the name of a general in Afghanistan but -- as I predicted last night -- ignores Joe Biden's multiple Constitutional mistakes. Putting the President in Article I, and claiming that the VP only presides over the Senate in case of a tie would seem to be at least as significant, especially given that Biden has been in the Senate since before I hit puberty, and is, you know, runing for Vice President. Perhaps he should study up on what the job involves. And perhaps the press should try reporting on what he says more . . . ."

It seems a shame that we can't expect the news industry to give us news without bias. On the other hand, hoping for such a thing may be rather utopian. After all, I've read accounts of times when Ben Franklin would pen (and publish in his own paper) criticims of himself under an assumed name so that he could later lambast his critic under his own name.

Freeze Up?

JONATHAN ADLER:

"I found it odd that Palin could not name another Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed. After all, we know that she is aware of at least one Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade with which she disagrees. Just over a month ago she criticized the Supreme Court's decision in the Exxon Valdez case, slashing the punitive damages awarded by the trial court. So did she simply freeze up and forget? Was she afraid of a 'gotcha' comeback if she named a specific case? Or is she that much of a knucklehead that she can't even remember what she thought of the Court several weeks ago? My read of the video is that the first is most likely, but I'm sure others will disagree."

Maybe if Governor Palin was running for President I might assume she froze up. I think there is a more likely explanation. Since she is running on the McCain ticket as Vice President, I suspect she believes she needs to answer questions as the Presidential candidate would. If so, and if she and McCain had never discussed Exxon Valdez, then she would not know how she should answer the question. I'm pretty sure McCain and Palin, or Palin and McCain's people, would have discussed how to talk about Roe. I'm also pretty sure it is unlikely they discussed many other Court opinions.