The American Spectator : It Is Over

Page 10f2

It Is Over

THE CURRENT CRISIS

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 10.21.10 @ 6:08AM

WASHINGTON -- The Democrats are about to be beaten by something that they do not in their heart of . .hearts think exists, a huge national majority. At this late hour, with the storm clouds gathering and the

" livestock getting restless, they see only sunshine. Yes, there is "foreign money" out there. Yes, the media

has bun led broadcastin the uri of the Democratic messa e. And naturall an voices can be

" heard. Yet surely there is no majority gathering to unseat the party of decency and good deeds. WeI L.. there is, and it is nothing like the Democrats describe it.

Many of these peo Ie are Tea Partiers. Now the certainl do exist. Yet the are nothin like the "Qg_mocrats e leve them to be. They are not angry and warlike. They are concerned about what the Democrats have done these ast months, but the will retire them the old fashioned wa throu h the ballot ox.

Yet, once again he was misinformed by hjs experts. Michael Barone speaks more accurately of the historic recursors to the Tea Party Movement. He sa s voters concerned about limited government and federal spending were ormmg a pro IglOUS movement toward the end of the 1930s. T e movement m

jIis mind mIght have successfully challenged President Franklin D. Roosevelt by 1940, but the rising' threat of Nazism intervened. Doubtless there have been other precursors to the Tea Party Movement, '

http://spectator.org/archives/20 1 Oil 0/21/it-is-over/print

10/2112010

The American Spectator : It Is Over

Page 2 of2

. ig centralized government and local government since the foundjng of the Republic.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His new book, After the Hangover:

The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, was published on April 20 by Thomas Nelson. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.

http://spectator.org/archives/20 1 011 0/21/it-is-over/print

10/21/2010

Print - Break It, You Own It

Page 1 of2

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE for PusUC POLICY REsEARCH

ARTICLES & COMMENTARY

Break It, You Own It By Scott Gottlieb

Politico's The Arena

Sunday, September 26,2010

But the measures are also destructive to the existin insurance markets. So the

a mmlstr n IS watc m msurance businesses ada t to accommodate the new Obama

rules, in ways that are leaving politicians spooked. and consumers unhapDY.

The bigger story, however, may be the quiet steps that large group plans are takil!B.

But the bigger casualty may be choice itself. The fastest wa to cut costs is to reduce 0 tions and em 10 er 1 ns are rollin 0 t new products With narrow ne orkS of doctors an ospitals. This is the irony of Obamacare. The President promised more chok,e .and lower prices. We're gettjng the opposite Now that the administration has broken the private market, they will own these

consequences. -

Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a residentfellow at AEI. Photo Credit: White House Photo by Pete Souza

http://www.aei.org/print?pub=artic1e&publd= 1 0257 6&authors=<a href=scholar/90>Scott Gottlieb</a>

10/2112010

There's No Avoiding 'Repeal and Replace' - National Review Online

Page 1 of3

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE

www.nationalreview.com

PRINT

JAMES C. CAPRETTA

ARCHIVE I LOG IN

OCTOBER 20, 20104:00 A.M.

There's No Avoiding 'Repeal and Replace'

It's essential for limited government.

Scores of House and Senate candidates are campaigning on a platform of reestablishing limited government. Ther~ could hardly be a more encouraging development for our republic. After decades of legislators' piling countless new

... programs on top of old ones, and two years of the most intense tax-and-spend binge ever conducted by an administration, government finances have reached the breaking point. Something is going to give, and probably sooner rather than later. Voters know this, which is why they are ready to take matters into their own hands and send a brigade of genuine change agents to the House and Senate on November 2. And these new members will come with

Llf'1~l_ear marching orders: Cut government spending, hold the line on taxes, and shake up Washington in ways not seen .. in (31 many years.

The crusade will no doubt start where it should, by reining in the obvious excesses of the sprawling and bureaucratic federal enterprise. Wasteful stimulus projects should be terminated immediately. Earmarking and pork projects should be banned from future appropriations measures. The federal workforce should be downsized, and government pay held in check until commensurate with wages in the private economy. Whole departments should be targeted for restructuring and elimination, and others scaled back dramatically. Obama's massive increases to appropriations should be reversed, and funding restored to its pre-2009level. All of this, and much more, should be pursued with

vigor, and without delay, come January. All'( e I'l lor, Pt e-r !

But Washington's newcomers must not lose sight of the big enchilada on the government-reform menu: the repeal and

-

replacement of Obamacare .

.. Because the hard truth is that the proponents of a supersized welfare state believe they have already won the fight. ..

Their vision is now the law, with the government on course to control the flow of resources in the entire health sector.

Even if every other idea to downsize the government is enacted, Obamacare as passed has us on the road to unlimited government - with America's midd)e class increasingly dependent on the benefits they receive from elected political leaders.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that Obamacare will add 35 million new people to the federal

.

health-entitlement rolls by 2019, at a cost of $214 billion in that year alone. And that's almost certainly a vast underestimate of the true costs. Douglas Holtz-Eakin - a former director ofCBO and now president of the American Action Forum - and Cameron Smith have estimated that Obamacare will lead to much more migration out of

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic1es/print/250359

1012112010

There's No Avoiding 'Repeal and Replace' - National Review Online

Page 2 of3

employer-sponsored plans than assumed by CBO: Tens of millions of workers - and the firms that employ them-

~ 1

will figure out that all involved wjll be far better off with the workers getting the massive subsidies provided by the

f~eral government in the so-called "insurance exchanges," rather than with the much smaller tax break they receive for getting job-based insurance. According to Holtz-Eakin and Smith, an additional 35 million people are therefore likely to end up in the government's new subsidized insurance system, on top of the 35 million already assumed by CBO in its cost estimate, putting the total entitlement expansion at 70 million, or more than Medicare's total enrollment today. The additional enrollees will drive up the costs ofObamacare's new premium subsidy program to $1.4 trillion over the first decade, or about $1 trillion more than CBO estimated.

And that would be just the beginning of it. Both CBO and the chief actuary of the Medicare program expect that once Obamacare is in place, the cost of providing benefits to tens of millions of new enrollees will grow just as rapidly in

..

future years as Medicare and Medicaid have in the past. CBO forecasts that total federal health-entitlement spending

...

will increase from 5.5 percent ofGDP today to 10.9 percent ofGDP in just 25 years. (This estimate uses different, but

more realistic, estimates of future Medicare payment rates than Obamacare prescribes.)

~at's needed to head off fiscal calamity is a market-based health reform that puts cost-conscious consumers, not the government, in charge. It's the opposite of the Obamacare prescription, and it starts with converting today's existing federal support for health-insurance coverage - Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax preference for employer-paid'

,

insurance premiums - into fixed-dollar contributions for the cost of coverage instead of open-ended programs that

encourage and underwrite rising costs and inefficiency. ) It,' t'I , 11 fh e 'J trt 1111"

rIt's the kind ofreform that Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed in his Roadmap. Indeed, it's the essential . centerpiece ofany serious conservative effort to reform the nation's entitlement programs and bring federal commitments over the long run in line with a rate of taxation that promotes strong economic growth.

Fortunately, and to their everlasting credit, most of to day's fiscally conservative candidates are campajgning hard on

4 7

repealing Obamacare, and many have also taken the courageous step of endorsing, in broad terms, the need for

.......... ,

fundamental reform of both Social Security and the health-entitlement programs. They aren't shying away from the

j -

challenge, at least not yet.

But the climb will get much steeper once they get to Washington. For starters, the president wields a veto pen, which A means repeal and replacement is likely to be a multi-year endeavor, not a short-term fix. Moreover, the entir~ Washington establishment, including the national media, will be lined up against them. When things look hopeless, i! will be tempting to tum full attention and energy to lower hanging fruit.

But that would be a mistake. Yes . , c' al to rein in overnment excesses wherever the exi t. But if Obamacare is

allowed to stand, the fight over the size and reach of the federal government will have been lost. Repeal and

• j

replacement is a must, no matter how hard or long the journey. The new troops coming to Washjngton must see it that

-

~ay, and see themselves as laying the crucial foundation for a final victory when the time is ripe.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/printl250359

10121/2010

Killing our choices - NYPOST.com

Page 1 of2

Updated: Thu., Oct. 21, 2010, 4:28 AM

Killing our choices

By SALLY PIPES

Last Updated: 4:28 AM, October 21, 2010 Posted: 9:55 PM, October 20,2010

Q,ver the summer, NHealth a Virginia-based insurer that specialized in consumer-directed health plans, announced it was

closing due to the "new demands imposed by national health-care reforms," i

These smaller players are naturall the first to dro out of the et: They don't have the economies of scale to comply

with new federa IC a es, especra y the proposed "minimum medical-loss ratio" rules, which force insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on medical claims in the individual and small-group markets and 85 percent in the large-group market.

.J:be president's health-reform law is almost seven months old and it's already threatening tbOIIS.mds of Americans' ability, to access affordable health insurance,

Whether in the courts or at the polls the countey's march toward ObamaCare must be stop~ed,

Sally Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research In slitute. Her latest book is "The Truth About ObamaCare. "

http://www.nypost.comlf/printlnews/opinionlopedcolumnists/killing_ our _ choices _ Oia VS 1 LORJRNZqnh... 10/2112010

1 of 2

BN

Sarkozy Faces Strike Threat as Lady Gaga Scraps Two Paris Shows Oct 21 2010 4:29:16

By Helene Fouquet and Gregory Viscusi

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy ,faces a double threat as labor unions consider extending

amendments e ays a Senate vote on the legislation.

Government officials began tallying the cost of transport disruptions and strikes at oil refineries, saying they're hurting French competitiveness. Strikes against the bill, which would raise the retirement age to 62 from 60, have cg)]sed about'

J:alf the country's service stations to run out of gasoline and, prompted the singer Lady Gaga to cancel two shows jn Paris.

"All this is costing the French economy very dearly at a time when we're coming out of the crisis, regaining market share," Christian Estrosi, France's industry minister, said in an interview on France Info radio.

2nions, balking at the government's refusal to halt the pension bill, may decide on a seventh da of rotests when they mee y. e Senate, which lanned to vote on the bill today, 1S 1 e y 0 eep debating as lawmakers consider 238 a~endments. A vote may come as late as Oct. 24 '

The government says it won't bow to the opposjtion Socialist'Party's demand to sus end debate in the u er house of par 1amen or to un10n requests to withdraw the bill. Police have been deployed to keep fuel supplies flowing.

"We have several weeks of fuel reserves in the depots," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio today. "The real problem is how we can ensure distribution to gas stations." He said 14 of France's 219 fuel depots were blocked by protesters, and that police have removed blockades at eight depots since yesterday.

Fuel Shortages

About half the 12,000 service stations in France are experiencing supply shortages, said Serge Papin, head of the Super U network of 800 outlets which has placed a 30-euro ($42.12) cap on fuel purchases. The worst shortages are in western and central France, he told France Inter radio.

On Oct. 19, unions staged the fourth national strike and the sixth day of protests in two months against the bill, which also raises the age for a full pension to 67, moving France into line with other Group of Seven nations.

Other European countries, including Germany, Italy and Britain, have recently raised their retirement ages or extended the number of years of work needed to qualify for a pension.

On1ons are d1v1ded as they meet today to discuss how to pursue the protest movement. "There is no way out because the government remains intransigent," CGT Secretary General Bernard Thibault said on RMC radio. "There is no reason to stop the protests. They should be as big as possible," he said, calling for another large demonstration next week.

~~e~ - Your definitive source

If you need help on the BLOOMBERG press the HELP key twice Copyright (c) 2010, Bloomberg, L. P.

2 of 2

Sarkozy Faces Strike Threat as Lady Gaga Scraps Two Paris Shows oct 21 2010 4:29:16

Declining to Strike

BN

The smaller CFE/CGC union, which has mostly private sector members, said it won't join any strikes or protests once the bill clears the Senate. The pension bill passed the lower house of parliament last month.

~kozy's government says the retirement overhaul is needed balance the pension s stem's budget by 2018. The changes are

ozy pans 0 cut it to 6 percent next year.

Lady Gaga, known for her outlandish costumes, put off shows slated for Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 until Dec. 19 and Dec. 20 because trucks may not be able to reach the Bercy concert venue, the singer said in a statement on her website.

"As there is no certainty that the trucks can make it to Bercy for this weekend's shows, the Lady Gaga performances are now postponed," according to the statement.

For Related News and Information:

On the French economy: NI FPECO <GO> Top French news: TOP FR <GO>

Economic indicator watch: ECOW EU <GO>

--With assistance from Tara Patel and Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris. Editor: James Hertling, Eddie Buckle

To contact the reporters on this story:

Gregory Viscusi in Paris at +33 1 5365-5068 or gviscusi@bloomberg.net;

Helene Fouquet in Paris at +33-1-5365-5038 or hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

James Hertling at +33-1-5365-5075 or jhertling@bloomberg.net

~~~ - Your definitive source

If you need help on the BLOOMBERG press the HELP key twice Copyright (c) 2010, Bloomberg, L. P.

1Roleb80l<tIjnWilliWmIDidmdrover Fisher to 21 points I Columbus Dispatch Politics

Home Dispatch.com RSS

About

Dispatch Politics

P<lglg6 Mol12

Poll: Portman extends lead over Fisher to 21 points ShareThis

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 06:45 AM BY DARREL ROWLAND

The Columbus Dispatch

In the latest sign that Ohio's U.S. Senate race is all but over,_a new Roll shows Republican Rob Portman with a 21-point lead over

Democrat Lee Fisher. ,,_

"It's difficult to see how Fisher can get from here to the finish line ahead," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.

The Republican's lead of 55 percent to 34 percent is 2 points higher than in QUinnipiac's poll released two weeks a 0 in the matchu to en. eorge . oinovich, who is retiring.

JONATHAN QUILTER I DISPATCH Republican Rob Portman

"There's a national wave going on and Rob Portman is riding it. Lee Fisher's being drowned under

it:' Brown said. -

Portman leads among all demographic groups except Democrats especially men and independent 'voters.

Brown noted the national Democratic group that funds Senate races abandoned Ohio long ago.

"They can read poll numbers, too."

The Ohio Poll had Portman up by 22 points late last week.

The new Quinnipiac Poll shows that 54 ercent of Ohio voters (including 60 percent of independents) want the state's new senator to enerall oppose e policies of President Barack a.

A plurality of 44 percent (same among independents) wants Republicans to win the 10 seats that would give the party control over the U.S. Senate next year .

.A total of 47 percent have a favorable opinion of Portman, while 29 percent hold a positive view g_f FisheL ..

fittt:pf/~dixJbrtokprditiCs.comllive/contentilocal_ news/stories/20 1 Oil 0/20/20-q-poll-po... 1IDAZUZIDlID

ffilrlebBol~tJln\\ii_ijiamlIlHdek6rover Fisher to 21 points I Columbus Dispatch Politics

The lieutenant governor hasn't had enou h mone for criticall im ortant statewide TV ad or severa wee s. s of the end of September, he had a meager $376,000 on hand. Portman had more

, }

than $6.2 million.

The former Cincinnati congressman and official in the administration of President George W. Bush also has reaped benefits from outside groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 7 American Crossroads, associated with former Bush adviser Karl Rove, which already have spent

nearly $500,000 on pro-Portman or anti-Fisher ads in the Columbus market alone. 7

The telephone poll, which includes cell-phone-only households, from Oct. 12 through Sunday of L188 Ohio likely voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

The full poll is at http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1322.xml?ReleaseID=1521

Read 2 comments»

Type in your comments below

Name (appears on your post)

Comments

Beedo

Characters left: 4000

I~e.~_!he numbers you see in the image on the right:

~ost Comment

Please note by clicking on "Post Comment" you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Service and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Be polite. Inappropriate posts may be removed by the moderator. Send us your feedback.

©2009, The Columbus Dispatch, Reproduction prohibited

hJiqDp'i~m~lqrofui'cs.comllive/contentilocal_news/stories/2010110/20/20-q-poll-po ... 1ll0l'~010000

~4dMtlBifupdllits-linrgovemor's race [ Columbus Dispatch Politics

Home Dispatch.com RSS

About

Dispatch Politics

Kasich lead at 10 points in governor's race

ShareThis

New Quinnipiac Poll has GOP contender holding edge over Strickland

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 02:51 AM BY DARREL ROWLAND

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Ohio voters apparently are locking in their choice fQr governor, and ~hat's not good news for Gov. Ted Strickland, a new poll indicates. "'"

Bepublican John Kasich is 10 percentage points up on the Democratic incumbent - 51 percent to 41 ercent - in a Quinnipiac £011 release yesterday. That's virtually identical to Kasich's lead twQ weeks eadier.

"Obviously, as we get closer to Election Day, an awful lot of people already have made up their minds," said Peter Brown, assistant ~irector of the Connecticut university's polling institute.

"Anything is possible in politics, but if Gov. Strickland is able to pull out a victory, it will take the kind of final drive that makes history."

... Kasich's advantage stems from a 27-PQint lead among independents - 59 percent to 32 percent. The two candidates are holding their ~espective party bases about equally well.

"The route for the Strickland camp to victory is obvious: to disproportionately turn their people out and hope they can narrow Kasich's lead among independents," Brown said .

ED MATTHEWS I DISPATCH Poll worker Pat Powell, left, explains the voting procedure to Zack Perez of Grove City, so he can cast his ballot during in-person early voting at the Franklin County Board of Elections. There are less than two weeks until Election Day, Nov. 2 .

.!be PQlI's breakdown of likely voters, with percentages rounded, is 34 percent independent, 32_ percent Democratic, 29 percent Republican and 4 percent others.

T~ Poll's breakdown of likely voters was 9percent independent, 42percent Democratic and 49 "

lfttt:pfI.M"\\WllfdDqixiokprditiCs.comllive/contentilocal_ news/stories/20 1 0/1 0/20/copy/kasich-... lWttWmIID

~~dMi:lllifupdUierJmrgovemor.s race I Columbus Dispatch Politics

percent Republican. Under that scenario, Strickland actuall was

ahea pomt.

The disparities drew fire from the Strickland campaign.

"With just two weeks until Election Da , it is our opinion that the Quinnlplac po are Irresponsible, inaccurate and completely removed from the reality of the Ohio governor's race," said Strickland campaign spoKesWoman us Smith.

The governor's campaign manager criticized the Ohio Poll last week for projecting more Republican than Democratic voters in a state where, on paper at least, Democrats enjoy a registration advantage of hundreds of thousands.

"Obviously, we're seeing a different electorate than the Strickland

people," Brown acknowledged. 7

"The question is: Who turns out?"

Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine also downplayed the new poll: 'Td rather be ahead than behind, absolutely, but we run like we're 6polnts down."

Even though President Barack Obama drew 35,000 people for an Ohio State UniverSIty appearance Sunday - his biggest crowd since hiS inauguration - the president actually is "an extremely heavy anchor around Ted Strickland's neck" with independents, Brown

;>

said.

voters say - by 35 percent to 4 ercent - that Obama's

campaigning makes t em less likely to vote for Strickland.

The telephone poll of 1,188 likely voters in Ohio, conducted Oct. 12 through Sunday and including cell-phone-only households, has a ~argin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett contributed to this story.

drowland@dispatch.com

Read all 38 comments»

• P."l;crt:,~.:t 'Ia-,\ ~"'li )n~M ::. \'!It-l. ·,Ii'.'1o.ro)*J bf.lJiMio 1J'1~1 dll ... ' \tlu)" iiliUfl;'t'

4S"'. Kuhfl ~(!}. S;11dC..lld 1\ lob cHttftmt

......... ~~- ,

,", '" .'P -,;qj~<:')'.:.~

"" n~di~.,~t ~"" ~I'{rtuhm' tttw( .. , "fw ~"tJU I!dll~ ',\I;ll!k~ de ~ bl?~f I ob l'f·;':tW#-nt ~Im'j tW.ll.lU)·~

S1\ Y;J'>.kh

• "'ttJll~ ~t>F 'llinir:1I N if1m ttinkt1

4i'; F\.iU¥dlr:: l3\.ti(tI~1f~UC' H'ir ~'WI~ t"'p!.j : .. n~~'

jo. "'11('* e ... '~><k Ot~lRl:' ·~;Hip.)1#1~ rcr ltd St;l.{itlaht. d~~ ttl .. ! I[-.:oh WOl (ftl;!j; :U;dr to 't"~h tt)f lMdl;Hrl.lllh Ubit: ttl \'IJ~ 'Of Sttk\hm.t. 01 I'L~II't It m;i:lc. ... 4 diO''-NfI¢WY

SI:f,>I((lttillti>tr--A I

DispatchPolitics

DispatchPolitics.com Complete coverage of Ohio politics

t Voters Guide

Complete guide to candidates, levies and issues on the November ballot

t The Daily Briefing

The Dispatch's public affairs team sates the appetites of political junkies with bite-sized portions of the news and what's behind it.

t Buckeye Forum

Veteran political reporters examine Ohio politics in this weekly pod cast.

Today's political news

t Ad watch I 'We Agree,' by the Republican Governors Association

t Ex-official hit with 3 charges in e-mail snooping

t Push challenges citizenship of illegal immigrants' kids

t Military taking gays as recruits t Clarence Thomas' wife asks Anita Hill for apology

litttpl.ltwwwfa.ok}llIiiilVcs.comllive/contentilocal_ news/stories/20 1 Oil 0/20/copy/kasich- ... l1JJ12UWlID

Is Barney Frank? By Thomas Sowell 10/21/2010

You would be hard pressed to find a politician who is less frank than Congressman Barney Frank. Even in an occupation, where truth and candor are often lacking, Congressman Frank is in a class by himself when it comes to rewriting history in creative ways. Moreover, he has a lot of history to rewrite in his re-election campaign this year.

No one contributed more to the policies behind the housing boom and bust, which led to the economic disaster we are now in, than Congressman Barney Frank.

His powerful position on the House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services gave him leverage to force through legislation and policies which pressured banks and other lenders to grant mortgage loans to people who would not qualify under the standards which had long prevailed, and had long made mortgage loans among the safest investments around.

All this was done in the name of promoting more home-ownership among people who had neither the income nor the credit history that would meet traditional mortgage lending standards. ' To those who warned of the risks in the new olicies, Con ressman Frank re lied in 2003 that critics "exaggerate a threat of safety" and "conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see." Far rom elng

reluctant to promote risky practices, Barne Frank said, "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation." '

Wit the federal regulators leaning on banks to make more loans to people who did not meet traditional qualifications u the "underserved population" in political Newspeak -- and quotas being given to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy'

I more of these riskier mortgages from the ori inal lenders critics ointed out the dan ers in these ressures to meet ... ar Itrary home ownership goals. But Barney Frank counter-attacked against these critics.

In 2004 he said: "I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to .p._ush them to meet the goals Of affordable hOllsinlJ." He went further: "I would like to get Fannie and Freddie more'

deeply into helping low-income housing." ..

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were crucial to these schemes to force lenders to lend to those whom politicians wanted .!bem to lend to, rather than to those who were most likely to pay them back. So it is no surprise that Barney Frank was' very protective towards these two government-sponsored enterprises that were buying up mortgages that banks were'

_y0lling to make under political pressure, but were often unwilling to keep. ...

The risks which banks were passing on to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ultimately risks to the taxpayers. Although

there was no formal guarantee to these enter rises, ever bo new that the federal overnment would alwa s bail •

them out, I necessary, to keep them from failing. Everybody except Barney Frank.

"There is no guarantee," according Congressman Frank in 2003, "there is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee." Barney Frank is a master of rhetoric, who does not let the facts cramp his style.

Fast forward now to 2008, after the risky mortgages had led to hu e numbers of defaults, dra in down Fannie Mae

Freddie Mac an e lnanCla mar ets In general u and with them the whole economy.

, Barney Frank was all over the media, pointing the finger of blame at everybody else, When financial analyst Maria Bartiromo asked Congressman Frank who was responsible for the financial crisis, he said, "right-wing Republicans." It so happens that conservatives were the loudest critics who had warned for years against the policies that Barney Frank pushed, but why let facts get in the way?

Ms. Bartiromo did not just accept whatever Barney Frank said. She said: "With all due respect, congressman, I saw videotapes of you saying in the past: 'Oh, let's open up the lending. The housing market is fine.'" His reply? "No, you

didn't see any such tap~s," - llte,,~ y'"" tv'vt t3~CJ~.

,"I did. I saw them on TV," she said. But Barney Frank did not budge. He understood that a good offense is the best ~fense. He also und~rstands that rewriting history this election year is his best bet for keeping his long political career

alive. -

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.

#printMode

Page 1 of3

Putnam

INVESTMENTS

Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, ucn-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or vtsi! www.djreprints.corn

See a sample reprint in PDF fonmat. Order a reprint of this article now

THE WAll STREET JOURNAL.

WSJc':O,f

OPINION

OCTOBER 21,2010

ObamaCare's Incentive to Drop Insurance

My state of Tennessee could reduce costs by over $146 million using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer coverage to thefederal government.

By PHILIP BREDESEN

One of the principles of game theory is that you should view the game through your opponent's eyes, not just your own.

This past spring, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (President Obama's health reform) created a system of ;rtensive federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through new organizations called "excban~es II The. . details of these subsidies were painstakingly worked out by members of my own political party to reflect their values:

They decided who was to benefit from the subsidies and what was to be purchased with them. They paid a lot of "ittentlOn to their own strategies, but what I believe they failed to consider properly were the possible strategies of 'Others.

Our federal deficit is already at unsustainable levels, and most Americans understand that we can ill afford another

..

entitlement program that adds substantially to it. But our recent health reform has created a situation where there are

strong economic incentives for employers to drop health coverage altogether. The consequence will be to drive many more people than projected-and with them, much greater cost-into the reform's federally subsidized system. This ;rrl happen because the subsidies that become available to people purchasing insurance through exchan es are I

One implication of the magnitude of these subsidies seems clear: For a person starting a business in 2014. it will be logical and responsib~ simply to plan from the outset never to offer health benefits. Employees, thanks to the exchanges, can easily purchase excellent, fairly priced insurance, without pre-existing condition limItations, through the exchanges. As it grows, the business can avoid a reat deal of cost because the federal government will now pay muc of what the business would have incurred for its share of health insurance. The small business tax credits included in health reform are limited and short-term, and the eventual penalty for not providing coverage, of

$2,000 per employee, is still far less than the cost of insurance it replaces. ;

In 2014, when these exchanges come into operation, a typical family. of four with an annual income of $90,000 and a 45-year-old policy holder qualifies for a federal subsidy of 40% of their health-insurance cost. For that same family with an income of $50,000 (close to the median family income in America), the subsidy is 76% of the cost.

~ttt'5 betn ~n {GIve fI"'-et 1A-5fI{5(1 f#(Y ttl t l"'l lLc f,'4t ~Xl/ #-tIUl-l /l.e_ (0" f. http://online.wsj .comlarticle/SB 1 000 142405270230451 07045755626438040 15252.html? ... 10/20/2010

#printMode

Page 2 of3

For an entrepreneur wanting a lean, employee-oriented company, it's a natural position to take: "We don't provide

.

company housmg, we don't provide company cars, we don't provide company insurance. Our approach is to put your compensation in your paycheck and let you decide how to spend it. "

But while health reform may alter the landscape for small business in unexpected ways, it also opens the door to what is a potentially far larger effect on the Treasury.

The authors of health reform primarily targeted the uninsured and those now buying expensive individual olicies. But there's a very large thir group that can also enter and that may have been grossly underestimated: the 170 million

,

Americans who currently have employer-sponsored group insurance. Because of the magnitude of the new subsidies

2"eated by Congress, the economics become compelling for many employers to simply drop coverage and help their

employees obtain replacement coverage through an exchange. •

.~t's do a thought experiment. We'll use my own state of Tennessee and our state employees for our data. The year is. 2014 and the Affordable Care Act is now in full operation. We're a large employer, with about 40,000 direct employees

;

who participate in our health plan. In our thought experiment, let's exit the health-benefits business this year and help our employees use an exchange to purchase their own.

first of all, we need to keep our employees financially whole. With our current plan, they contribute 20% of the total cost of their health insurance, and that contribution in 2014 will total about $86 million. If all these employees now buy their insurance through an exchange, that personal share will increase by another $38 million. We'll adjust our employees' compensation in some rough fashion so that no em loyee is paying more for insurance as a result of our actlOn. a ng into account the new taxes that would be incurred, the change in employee eligibility for subsidies, and allowing for inefficiency in how we distribute this new compensation, we'll triple our budget for this to $114 million. ...

Now that we've protected our employees, we'll also have to pay a federal penalty of $2,000 for each employee because

;

we no longer offer health insurance; that's another $86 million. The total state cost is now about $200 million.

......... ..

our cost will be

6 million. We can reduce our annual costs b over $146

i1lion using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer them to the federal government.

That's just for our core employees. We also have 30,000 retirees under the age of 65,128,000 employees in our local school systems, and 110,000 employees in local government, all of which presents strategies even more economically attractive than the thought experiment we just performed. Local governments will find eliminating all coverage particularly attractive, as many of them are small and will thus incur minor or no penalties; many have health plans that will not meet the minimum benefit threshold, and so they'll see a substantial and unavoidable increase in cost if they continue providing benefits under the new federal rules.

Q_ur thought experiment shows how the economics of dropping existing covera&e is about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private. By 2014, there will be a mini-industry of consultants knocking on employers', ioors to explain the new opportunity. And in the years after 2014, the economics just keep getting better.

The consequence of these generous subsidies will be that America's health reform may well drive many more people than projected out of employer-sponsored insurance and into the heavily subsidized federal system. Perhaps this is a ~iscalculation by the Congress, perhaps not. One principle of game theory is to think like your opponent; another is • that there's always a larger game.

Mr. Bredesen Democrat' e governor of Tennessee and the author of "Fresh Medicine: How to Fix Reform and

Build a Sustaina e Health Care System, "just out by Atlantic Monthly Press.

I { YO\lf i» tlJ ~

I (;_( yo lit Y ~.J. If /

http://online.wsj.comlarticle/SB 1 000 142405270230451 0704575562643804015252.html? ... 1012012010

#printMode

Page 1 of2

Dow' Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-roacy copies for distribution to your colleaques. clients or customers, use the Ogier Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visil www.djreprints.com

See a sample reprint in PDF fonnat. Order a reprint of this article now

THE W4LL STREET JOllRNAL.

OPINION

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Obama's Incoherent Closing Argument

While the economy is the NO.1 issue, the president constantly changes the subject. By KARL ROVE

At an April 2008 fund-raiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama let loose with his famous "they cling to guns or religion" lme. Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning ... because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."

Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.

The economy andjobs are the NO.1 issue in every poll. Yet Mr. Obama oflate has talked about immigration reform ~d weighed in (unprompted) on the Ground Zero mosque. He devoted Labor Day to an ineffective Mideast peace - initiative. He demeans large blocs of voters and now is ending his midterm pitch with attacks on nonexistent foreign Empaign contributions and weird assertions that "the Empire is striking back."

Meanwhile, Republicans have talked about little else than the economy-drawing attention to lackluster job growth, the failed stimulus, out-of-control spending, escalating deficits and the dangers of ObamaCare.

On Sunday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod promised that the administration's focus next year would be "to

;

g_:nerate more growth andjobs" and "on our fiscal situation." That must have left congressional Democrats-battered

for months by the GOP's message discipline-wondering why there's been no focus on that up to now.

About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000-2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004-2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of StrategiC Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and

Much of the blame lies with the president, who has left his party witf an incoherent closing argument 12 days before the election.

In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core oftheir difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions. "

.£ommunications? After the president devoted 58 speeches and events to health care oyer a 51-week period, his bill grew progressively less

• 4

popular.

-

. The comment about bipartisanship is a joke. As a candidate Mr.

~

Obama spoke about it, but as a president whose party enjoyed

massive majorities in both houses of Congress, he ignored it. He could

http://online.wsj.com/article/SBI 000 1424052702304741404575564383870852928.html?.. 1 0/20/201 0

#printMode

Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states. as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is the author of the book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).

Email the author atKarl@Rove.comor visit him on the web atRove.com. Or, you can send a Tweet to @karlrove.

Page 2 of2

have severely weakened his opposition by drawing them in. Instead, Mr. Obama strengthened Republicans by taunting them with their seeming irrelevance, and he fashioned legislation that only Democ~ats could vote for. Now many of them will lose their jobs because ofth'1ir

... .

votes.

How many? Virtually everyone agrees that 20 of the 37 Senate seats on the ballot this year are in play. Twelve are now held by Democrats and eight by Republicans. The Republican-held seats appear increasingly safe. It's Democrats' seats that are at risk.

As for the lower chamber, the political handicappers Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg both now have 91 Democratic House seats and nine Republican House seats in play (albeit with slightly different names on each list). Politico.com sees 99 Democratic House seats up for grabs versus five Republican seats.

How many are likely to fall? The American Enterprise Institute's Henry Olson examined wave elections (in which one party gains a big number of seats) and found that the winning party picks up roughly 70% of the seats considered vulnerable. If that model holds, we're looking at a net Republican pickup of 64 to 69 seats in the House and roughly eight seats in the Senate.

Matthew Kaminski and OpinionJournal.com Columnist John Fund discuss the Pennsylvania polls and the national voter mood.

I doubt Republican gains will be that big, at least in the House. Democratic candidates have a financial edge-they ended the third quarter with an average of 53% more cash on hand than their Republican opponents. While the GOP is closing the financial gap in the final weeks, money matters.

Democrats have also invested heavily to turn out their vote. Not only will unions spend an estimated $200 million to get their supporters to the polls, but the Democratic National Committee is also investing $50 million in helping state Democratic parties with their ground games. The GOP's efforts have been much smaller.

These tactical advantages will save some Democrats in close contests.

Still, even a superior ground game will not save most of them. The political environment is awful. The party's record is toxic with the public. And compounding these problems, Mr. Obama is now overseeing one ofthe worst White House

>

l!,lidterm strategies in American history ....

Earlier this year Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas warned moderate Democrats of a midterm bloodbath comparable to 2:294. "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me," he reported the president as having said. "We're going to see how much difference that makes now," Mr. Berry added. Yes, we will.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com

http://online.wsj .comlarticle/SB 1 0001424052702304 741404575564383870852928.html?.. 1 0/20/20 1 0

#printMode

Page 1 of2

Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercia! use only. To order presentation-reaoy copies for distribution to your colleagues. clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.ojrepnnts.corn

See a sample reprint in PDF format. Order a reprint of this article now

THE WALL STREET JOl1RL'lAL.

WONDER LAND i OCTOBER 21,2010

The Biggest Race You Haven't Heard Of

A rare chance to defuse the pension bomb. By DANIEL HENNINGER

Forget Andrew Cuomo and Carl Paladino. ~et us turn instead to a race that might truly matter in terms of the nation's economic future. It's the most important 2010 election you've never beard of-for comptroller of New York State.

"Comptroller" is the second or third most boring word in the English language. Comptroller: That's the green-eyeshade guy who keeps the books. He's always adding up columns and somehow it all balances. But as everyone now knows, in the public sector the books don't balance. They balloon.

Harry Wilson (left) takes on Thomas DiNapoli for N.Y. State comptroller.

mandated-to PilY9ilthese pension obligatiQn~.:

New York, like California and many other once-important states, is sitting on a public- pension debt bomb. If it blows. it will take great .!waths of the productive American economy with it for years. Harry Wilson thinks he can defuse the New York bomb.

If Harry Wilson can get the public-pension death spiral under controL in New York-and he just might have the professional and intellectual

;

tools to do it-it should be possible to reform pensions in any state. That matters. The United States needs a growth rate well above the

•

2%-something that the Obama years have allowed. That means the J?eople in all 50 states have to be pulling on the oars. They won't be able to do that if their productive energies are being siphoned into

;

more and yet more taxes that will be demanded- indeed virtually

It's Harry Wilson or the deluge. The question is whether New York's moderate Democrats and independents will figure

this out in the next two weeks. 1

Harry Wilson, the man who wants to assume res onsibili for the NewYor State Common Retirement Fund's deficit of $30 billion to I $80 billion (as he points out, no one knows the actual total) is a 39-

j

year-old who made his money working on Wall Street, investing and restructuring troubled businesses. His opponent, incumbent Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, an Albany lifer, has built hi~ entire campaign around the argument that Mr. Wilson's experience on Wall Street disqualifies him from managing New York State's money. Mr.

http://online.wsj.comlarticle/SB 1 000 1424052702304 741404575564133687036768.html?... 1 0/20/20 1 0

#printMode

Page 2 of2

Harry Wilson thinks he can defuse the New York state public-pension bomb.

DiNapoli succeeded comptroller Alan Hevesi, who two weeks ago pleaded guilty to trading access to the pension system in return for

..

favors.

-

In years past, this would be a familiar race between a member of the Albany machine (Mr. DiNapoli entered New York politics at the age of 18) and a young idealist from the lost tribe known as the New York Republicans. Tom DiNapoli would win. Harry Wilson would go back to Wall Street. New Yorkers, anesthetized by the dysfunctional politics oftheir one-party state, would go back to sleep. This year may be different.

Harry Wilson is not a tea party candidate. But like that movement, he's the kind of candidate that the American system ~ems to produce when It's on the ropes. In a recent debate, Mr. DiNapoli again accused Mr. Wilson of being "from," • Wall Street." Mr. Wilson replied, "I didn't grow up on Wall Street. I grew up in Johnstown" (median family income in the central New York town: about $40,000).

His mother was a seamstress and his father a bartender. Harry went to Harvard. We may assume it wasn't a legacy

• admission. Then, as sometimes happens if you're smart and upwardly mobile (assuming that too Isn't pohtically

mcorrect), Mr. Wilson ended up at Goldman Sachs and several other investment firms. '

Some days ago, I got a piece of what someone like Harry Wilson would call campaign literature-a 53-page analysis of the public pension crisis in New York and the U.S., with footnotes from the National Bureau of Economic Research and such. One detail: The total of unfunded pension liabilities in the u.S. is estimated at $3 trillion. By comparisOrk taxpayer outlays for the TARP were some $127 billion and for the S&L crisis in the 1980s, $125 billion. Your grandchildren will be pqy.ingJi~:x:e!> for these pension debts. (Or, like the students in France, rioting against their nation's dying ligh~.)

Mike Bloomberg has endorsed Mr. Wilson. The local Post and Daily News have endorsed him. The crisis is so obvious and dire that last weekend even the New York Times endorsed him. So why isn't he 25 points ahead?_

.. He's running in New York, a kind of reservation for public unions. Beyond the autopilot vote, Mr. Wilson's biggest

.

problem is convincing people who are going to vote for the Democrat Andrew Cuomo that they should also vote for

Republican Harry Wilson. The easiest route to that result would be if Mr. Cuomo endorsed Mr. Wilson. '

Mr. Cuomo, another lifetime pol, will be tethered forever to the Albany graveyard unless his state's spending and pension problem gets fixed, and the only person willing to participate in New York's politics with a clue of how to do that is Harry Wilson.

If Chris Christie (whom Andrew Cuomo purports to admire) can get New Jersey righted, it should be possible for a

. "

~omo- Wilson alliance to fix another failing American state. Check back the morning of Nov. 3 to see if New York still ~a~~ ,

Write to henninger@wsj.com

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com

http://online.wsj.com/articie/SB1000 1424052702304 741404575564133687036768.html? ... 1012012010

#printMode

Page 1 of2

Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial usc only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your cotleaques. clients or customers, lise the Order Reprints tool at Ihe bottom of any arucle or "isH W'NVv'.djreprints.com

See a sample reprint in PDF format. Order a reprint of this article now

THE WALL STREET JOURL~AL.

OPINION

OCTOBER 21,2.010

France's Perpetual Revolution

The left seems to haue forqotten Marx's line about history repeating itselfas tragedy and farce. By GUY SORMAN

The French have a long tradition of taking to the streets as an irrational answer to economic reforms. In 1848, when a democratically elected government tried to contam monetary inflation, the nascent Socialist Party raised barricades in Pans. Alexis de Tocqueville, then a member of the parliament, wrote in his "Memoires" that the French knew a lot • about politics and understood nothing about economics. The current disruption of French cities by strikes and riots

illustrates the continuity of this political culture. »

The pretext for the current "social movement" as we call it in French, is a perfectly rational initiative by President ~olas Sarkozy to raise the legal age of retirement to 62 from 60. It had been lowered to 60 from 65 in 1983 by the ~ocialist Fran<;ois Mitterrand. Going up to 62 is thus a modest return to sanity: 62 happens to be the average in the European Union.

The rationale behind this reform-an aging population-can be understood by all the French. Longer life expectancy and slow economIC growth offer no other choice to save the public pension funds from bankruptcy. Why then such a

•

violent reaction from the street?

The leftist unions that have started the strikes represent the public sector, a quarter of the active population. For them, any chan e in the pension-fund regulations is but a first breach in the welfare state. The French left sees how the Scandinavian, German and British governments are cuttin

growt .

The French unions fear that France will follow~ince they represent the public sector, they are not that interested in. reviving the market economy. Moreover, the welfare state is perceived by the French left as a historical conquest on the

- ,

road to socialism, which remains the ultimate goal. Knowing who the unions represent allows us to understand their

choice for violence over negotiations' France is not a northern European. pragmatic country. 1IP

_This does not suffice to explain the support for the strikers bv high school students and the mild sympathy from a majority of the French-or at least the passivity of the silent majorit:x. Mr. Sarkozy's character may explain, in part, the ~ed feeling of the French toward the strikes and the riots. The president is a polarizing figure who is generati~ stronger hostility from the left than his older conservative predecessors did.

What's more, the French are proud of their Revolution: To replay it, in a less bloody and more theatrical form, is often perceived as a patriotic and cultural duty. It does not help that in the French school curriculum the 1789-1793 ' Revolution is taught w:jth enthusiasm by leftist teachers. They apparently missed Marx's line about history repeating

- ---.,

itself as tragedy and farce.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SBI000 1424052702304741404575564354040 144426.html?... 1 0/20/201 0

#printMode

Page 2 of2

For the young, street riots are a sort of generational rite of passage. They replay the Revolution as their parents did in May 1968. The comparison is somewhat irrelevant: May 1968 was a Parisian rebellion of rich kids asking for more personal freedom in a still-authoritarian society dominated by the haughty figure of Gen. Charles de Gaulle. At that time, there was no unemployment, no fear for the future. Also in May 1968, there was no equivalent of the violent mobs we see today. This new kind of gratuitous violence is the regrettable outcome of decades of uncontrolled, immigration, a lack of opportunities, and police tolerance for vast lawless suburban zones.

The current violence will subside when the French citizenry gets tired of the theatrics and demands order. In 1968, the de Gaulle government was able to re-establish order when the French could not find any more gasoline at the pump. The same denouement can be expected this time, and nothing will be resolved: The pension age will be raised to 62, but the real battle will take place later .

..!.he debate over how to strike the right balance between the welfare state that Europeans love and a dynamic economy started many years ago in the Scandinavian countries. Denmark, for one, came up with the creative concept of "flexisecurity": The labor market has been deregulated, and dismissed employees are immediately sent to traintng schools and must accept the first new job offered to them. Less regulation has actually created more jobs. Germany has rekindled the job market by reducing unemployment benefits. The United Kingdom under David Cameron is shifting welfare support from the middle class toward the real poor. In France, Mr. Sarkozy-who was elected on a free-market • platform-has in office become enamored with statism, like all his predecessors.

To conclude that France never changes, however, would be slightly mistaken)n spite of a Napoleonic right and a Marxist left,_!he French economy has become much more market-oriented than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The best and the brightest now want to become entrepreneurs, not top bureaucrats. Such an evolution was not desired by political leaders but instead has been forced on French society through the liberating influence of globalization and the European Union. This confrontation between Mr. Sarkozv and the unjons doesn't mean much compared to those, historical trends.

Mr. Sorman, a contributing editor at City Journal, is the author, most recently, of"Economics Does Not Lie: A Defense of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis" (Encounter Books, 2009).

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are.governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit

www.djreprints.com .

http://online.wsj.comlartic1e/SB 1 000 1424052702304741404575564354040 144426.html? ... 10/20/2010

#printMode

Page 1 of2

Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial USB only. To order presentauon-reaoy copies for distribution to your colleagues. clients or customers. use lhe Order Reprints tool at !he bottom of any article or vi~;il wvvw.djreprints.com

See a sample reprint in PDF format Order a reprint of this article now

THE WALL STREET JOllRNAL.

OPINION

OCTOBER 21,2010

Britain Bows Out of the Security Game

New defense cuts will leave the U.K. unable to support even its current deployment in Afghanistan. By MAX BOOT

Britain emerged as a world power in the years after its defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. By 1815, following the ~feat of Napoleon, it had become the most powerful nation in the world. Then came World War I and World War IIboth conflicts for which Britain was not well-prepared. It's been downhill ever since. In the three decades after 1945, Britain shed virtually all of the colonies that had taken centuries to acquire.

Yet Britannia remained one ofthe world's leading military powers. still able to project power around the globe. In 1982 Britain carried out one of the most ambitious amphibious operations since Inchon, sending 65 warships and 7,000 Royal Marines and soldiers to evict the Argentines from the Falkland Islands, one of its few remaining colonies .

.

.. Britain was also America's most important ally in the 1991 Gulf War. the 2003 Iraq War and the 2001 Mghan War. Th~ British sent 45,000 troops to the Gulf in 1991, includin an entire armored division and sent rou hI the sa

~m er In 2003, Including an armored brigade. Today they still have 9.500 troops in Mghanistan. making them the second-largest foreign contingent after the Americans.

But the days of British military power appear to be ending-with the obituary written, ironically. by a Tory-dominated government supposedly dedicated to a strong defense. •

The Strategic Defense and Security Review released this week by Prime Minister David Cameron is bad news for anyone who believes that a strong Britain is a vital bulwark ofliberty. Granted, the news isn't as bad as it could have been. The government will cut "only" 8% from the defense budget over the next four years-not the 10% to 20% that "had been rumored. Britain will continue to spend at least 2% ofGDP on defense-far less than the U.S. (nearly 5%) but more than most members of the European Union.

In announcing the cutbacks, Mr. Cameron promised that Britain would still "punch above its weight." His words ring hollow.

The British army, already cut a third since the end ofthe Cold War, will lose another 7,000 soldiers, dropping to 95,500 Tommies from 102,500, one-sixth the size of the U.S. Army. Also gone will be 40% of the British army's tanks and 35% of its artillery, thus making it very difficult to replicate the sort of armored blitzkrieg that Britain carried out against Iraq In 1991 and 2003. In the future BrItain win be able to keep only one brigade of about 7,500 soldiers in the field long-term, well below the number deployed today in Mghanistan.

Both the navy and air force will also see manpower reductions, about 5,000 in each case. Only 40 new F -35 fighter aircraft will be bought, down from initial projections of 138. The-navy will lose its Harrier jump jets and its flagship_,_

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB 10001424052702304741404575564313178698450.html?... 1 0/20/201 0

#printMode

Page 2 of2

_the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. Britain will be left with one aircraft carrier but, ludicrously, without any carrier-strike ~rcraft until 2020. The Royal Navy will be allowed to finish building two new aircraft carriers, but only one will be .. 2,Perational; the other may be sold or mothballed. The navy's fleet of destroyers and frigates-its workhorses-will shrink to 19 from 23, the lowest number of warshi s since the da s of the S anish Armada. A decision about replacing Britain s agmg In ent submarines, which carry its nuclear deterrent. has been postponed.

-

Republicans expecting to take over one or both houses of Congress may be tempted to emulate the British example to deal with our own budget woes. But while Mr. Cameron's courageous cutbacks in bloated domestic spending should inspire admiration, his scything of defense-one of the core responSIbIhties of government-is an example that we would do well to avoiq.

,

The fact that British defense capabilities are in steep decline means that even more of the burden of defending what used to be called the Free World will fall on our overstretched armed forces. The British can cut back secure in the knowledge that Uncle Sam Will protect them if anything goes truly wrong. But who would we count on in a crunch?

Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is writing a history of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com

http://online.wsj.com/artic1e/SB 10001424052702304741404575564313178698450.html?... 10/20/2010

America, we have a problem

~ a New York Times interview last week, President Obama acknowledged that there's "no such thing as shovel-ready projects."

This was one of his main selling points for the $862 billion stimulus package. He now admits they don't exist, and the stimulus is clearly not working .•

The public was told that unem 10 m I ot 0 above 8 ercent if th imulus acka e passed.

ey passed It and unemployment went to over 9.6 percent and stayed there. So now the resident and his economic a visors say we might have to just get used to high unemployment. And they want to 22end even more money.

Another New York Times article titled "Obama on Defensive at Forum" was buried in the lower left corner of Page 17 of the October 15, 2010 edition. It reported that a recent black college graduate "complained that despite the government's costly actions, our unemployment rate still rises, and businesses uncertain about taxes are not hiring college graduates like me."

"Mr. Obama said that most of the unemplo ed had lost their 'obs before he took office," the Times reported. He's right. But he faile to mention that the number of unemployed has increased by over 40 percent since he has been in office. Those that are unemployed don't care when they lost their job. They ;:yant aJob.

lour of the five top advisors who developed this flawed economic advice have now moved on to other endeavors, while nearly 15 million people are stdl unemployed. People expected things to get better, not ~.

The ublic was told that the health care deform bill would lower health care costs, increase access to b_ealth care and lower the national debt on9 term. Early implementation has resulted in increased costs, not quite everybody getting h~gJthinsurgnc::_~ and a mass of confusion about the bill as we gradually discover what's really in the bill. The majority of Americans want the legislation repealed.

The public was told repeatedly by the president that If you like the insurance you have then you can keep it. It turns out that you can keep our in?l)fgn.c(,!qnl if the company you work for gets a special' waiver rom the administration At last count, more than 30 major corporations ave een grante special waivers.

We were promised transparency in government. Oh well! I guess it depends on your definition of transparency. But we now know that the administration's definition is not the same as us regular folks. Broken campaign promises disappoint us. Bad legislation and policies hurt us, the economy and the nation. ~st presidents keep some of their promises and get some decisions right. Unfortunately, this. e_cesident is havlllg trouble getbng e.,Yen some decisions right. I stopped counting the broken promise~ A caller to my radio show last week said she was going to back President Obama no matter what. And when I pointed out these disturbin results, she said it did not matter to her.

That's part 0 t e problem. In spite of President Obama's failed policies and lack of leadership, some people will still follow him right off the proverbial cliff.

But it gets worse! He actually thinks he's doing a good job. Here's what he said in an interview with the New York Times:

I think they (people) could saki on g bunch affronts he (the president) still has an incomplete. But I keep a checklist of what we committed to doing, and we've probably accomplished 70 percent of tHe things that we talked about during the campaign. And I hope as long as I'm president, I've got a \ chance to work on the other 30 percent.

(JJ __Accomplishing 70 percentofthe wrong things is not an incomplete grade. It's failu@.:..

America, we have a problem. This problem cannot be solyed for another two years. But it can begin in

November of 20J 0 .

Herman Cain is a former CEO, a radio talk show host on AM 750 and 95.5 FM WSB in Atlanta and a EO)( News contributor.

PostPartisan - The Democrats' dubious alliance with public sector unions

Page 1 of 1

~ If present trends continue. Democrats are beaded fQ[ ,a

(~ ; 1 big defeat in November, though the precise size of the

,~~ . landslide remains to be determined. And as bad as'losin

....... ~/~""'" -7co:.:u;:::..:;be::...:.:fo:::.r,.:;th:;e::.m;,:,':,.:D:;e:.;m,:.;o:::c::.:r:.;;at;;::s~c::o:.::u;;:ld:-:f~in:::d:;t:.:;ha:::.;t:::-it,_,i:;:,s-"o""nu.1 ::""'" beginning 0 t eir troubles. The reason: the Democratic Party's increasingly dependent relationship with

increasingly unpopular public sector unioQL '

LANE

The Democrats' dubious alliance with public sector unions

Public sector unions are not just the base of the party -- they're the base of the base. As the 2010 campaign has ground on, other supporters and donors, notably Wall Street, have abandoned Democratic candidates. But unions representing teachers and state and local employees have doubled down. According to the Wall Street ,Iollenal the Nation?1 Education Association, the largest U.S. teachers union, spent more than $3.4 million on ad buys and direct-mail campaigns for the key electioneering period from Sept. 1 to Oct. 14. The American Federatiol], of State, County and Municipal Employees spent $2.1 million in that p-eriod. Union members and their families are key to the Democratic "ground game" for Nov. 2. '

But in an era of increasing discontent over taxes, government spending ~d the perks of government employees, these are not necessarilYJ!lg, allies you want to have. A party that depends on the public employees to get elected will have trouble reaching out to the wider electorate -- i.e. I the people who pay the taxes that support public employee salaries and

_gen~ons >

In politics, you never want to find yourself beholden to a minority whose core interests often clash with the interests of voters. Yet that is exactly where Democrats at all levels of government could find themselves after

ll2U

This dilemma could be particularly acute for three of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates who appear likeliest to emerge victorious: Jerry Brown in California, Andrew Cuomo in New York and Martin O'Malley in Maryland. E.2fh would take office in a state burdened by huge publicsector health benefits and pension liabilities. Yet tackling that problem would inevitably put each man at odds with his state's unions -- the very people who helped him get elected.

How they handle that dilemma will affect not only their political futures, but that of the Democratic Party as a whole.

http://voices.washingt01'1:Post.com/postpartisanl20 1 011 O/the _democrats_dubious _alliance.... 10119/2010

The American Spectator: AmSpecBlog : McConnell AP Story: ObamaCare Repeal Alarms Flare Again

Page 1 of3

AMSPECBLOG

McConnell AP Story: ObamaCare Repeal Alarms Flare Again

By Jeffrey Lord on 10.21.10 @ 8:27AM

News.

Last night, this story appeared on the AP.

The headline: GOP leader hopes to work with Obama on some issues

The reporter quoted Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP Leader who was at his home in Louisville, Kentucky, as saying, among other things, this:

WASHINGTON CAP) -- The Senate's top Republican says President Barack Obama and a more-ReRublicaJ? Congress could join to pass laws on trade and spending policy and make changes to the health care overhaul ifth~ administration listens to voters on Election Day.

Then, further down, the story has these two paragraphs below. I have highlighted the interesting parts in bold print:

Speaking from his home in Louisville, Ky., McConnell said there are several areas of agreement that already exist between congressional Republicans and Obama that, theoretically, could pass

- ,

quickly.

-

Those issues, he said, include an at-cane tax reporting law on businesses that's part ofthe unpopular health care overh~ul. Even Obama w~nts the so-called 1099 urovision changed so tha~ businesses are not overburdened with paperwork.

What's missing here?

Earlier in the day, we had a ~ about a report that Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican, had told a group of high-dollar GOP donors the following: '

,

The junior senator from Tennessee told the gathering of donors not to worry about the incoming class of "crazier

-

Republicans" because the majority of Senate Republicans, especially minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-

....

http://spectator .org/blog/20 1 all 0/21 Imcconnell-ap-story -0 bamacare-r/print

10/21/2010

The American Spectator: AmSpecBlog : McConnell AP Story: ObamaCare Repeal Alarms Flare Again

Page 2 of3

Ky.), had no intention of repealing the president's health care bill. The

Senator McConnell's office quickly sent us a denial, which we noted in a second post to be found here.

),hen, last evening, the story took an interesting turn with the statement from Senator McConnell to th~ AP.

-

It gave the clear im ression that the Senator, precisely as Senator Corker had been

Clearl there is a considerable difference between repealing one section of ObamaCare -- Section 10 9 in this instance -- an repea Illg t e entire bi .

After some back and forth between The American Spectator and Senator McConnell's office, the ~nator himseI~ was reached and this clarifying statement was issued: \

While we were unable to block the Democrats from passing the health spendin_g bill -- the single worst piece of legislation that's passed since I've been in the Senate -- the Republican leadership in the House and Senate is @,mmitted to its repeal. While Democrats will filibuster our efforts~ and if we're successful the President will veto, I believe we should give them that opportunity. We should vote, again, for repeal. Americans have spoken out, loud and clear, and we heard them. Repeal is part of the Pledge to America, and the Republican leadership is

united in that effort. Jo tv A I c J" I 5 If?

The problem with the McConnell statement to the Associated Press is not a small detail. It goes to the very heart of the issue.

There is no way on earth to achieve the conservative goal of small government, of limited government, if in fact ideological surrender is the end result of so-called "bipartisanship."

..

_B:.esult? The bulk of ObamaCare will then be allowed to stand,J2olitically untouchable.

~ with the stimulus, Democrats must have 100% comple!e ownership of ObamaCare. Either it'~ tmealed in toto -- or It IS left to stand untouched as the monstroS1!Y. it is. If the GOP falls for any _ "bipartisanship" they will sim 1 remove the intense ressure D ocrats are alread feelin on the issue -- a pressure t at IS in the process of losing them the House and l?ossibly _!he Senate.

Which is why, all last evening, alarm bells began to ring in conservative circles as Senator McConnell's remarks to the AP made the rounds.

(I)un.s)

;'h.q k ~ f/ri/e IUrl I PI 7'a{Yt ",n I I1j"f f/l . . r",

http://spectator.orglblog/201 011 0/21/mcconnell-ap-stoij-obamacare-r/print

10/21/2010

The American Spectator: AmSpecBlog : McConnell AP Story: ObamaCare Repeal Alarms Flare Again Page 3 of 3

With the statement formally issued by McConnell last night, it appears this issue is -- with considerable '!!leasiness -- put to momentary rest for the next 12 days in the run-up to the election., .....

And if they can't get a repeal past a presidential veto?

Then ObamaCare and its consequences will continue to sit as is -- and Democrats will continue to reap the political liabilities they themserves created.

And, as Ronald Reagan once said when asked his goal in handling Cold War strategy he replied simply:

"We win. They lose."

Too much water has gone over the Big Government dam for conservatives to do anything other than follow Reagan's strategy. Simply put:

Winning is a total repeal of ObamaCare. All at once.

Losing is anything less.

Jeffrey Lord is aformer Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpal@aol.com.

Ilrtl If'/)I Ill, t1 rr f? It W; A ) fA11-# { fttl3 r= u lif, '-IWt (Ill)

http://spectator.orglblog/20 1 Oil 0/21 Imcconnell-ap-story-obamacare-r/print

10/2112010

The American Spectator: Setting Himself Up for a 'Chubbing'

Page 1 of2

Setting Himself Up for a 'Chubbing'

THEOBAMA WATCH

By Ken Blackwell on 10.21.10 @ 6:07AM

They cling to their guns and religion. They fear people who are not like themselves.

This is an administration that allowed a known . ihadist to roam freel throu h a rna' or arm base in Texas. NI aI Hasan open)! defied higher authority._He even gave PowerPoint IITesentations on why our enemies were right to use violence against us!

--

When this walking time bomb finally explodedl killing fourteen at Fort Hood, the Obama administration

promised us an "investigation." What they delivered is nothin more than a whitewash of ears of '

bureaucratIc co 10 0 terrorism and winkin at treason. It didn't even mention Islamism or ·ihad. The mur erer had a business card calling himself a "Soldier of Allah." He cried out "Allahu Akbar" as e murdered his fellow soldiers.

The Obama administration's investigators could not find their rumps with both hands.

federal investigators had known about Hasan and his family going back to 2001!

the FBI, we learn, was aware that Nidal Hasan had been exchanging emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, the al Qaeda leader holed u in Yemen. But the feds determined that because Nidal Hasan was said to be an Army psyc Iatnst, and because he was asking Awlaki about the mental stresses on Muslims in our army,

§at hiSemaiis were okax: . -

http://spectator.org/archives/20 1 0/1 0/21/setting-himself-up-for-a-chubb/print

10/21/2010

The American Spectator: Setting Himself Up for a 'Chubbing'

Page 2 of2

:what's the difference? Our top leaders then -- from President Roosevelt down to the lowliest private-were determined to win World War II. The 06ama administration, as we learned from Bob Woodward's book, is primarily concerned about public relations.

They don't actually want our enemies to win, but they're determined not to call the struggle a "war." It's an "overseas contingency." And they want to give enemy combatants all the protections and privileges of domestic criminal defendants. It's how the ACLU goes to war.

As Woodward makes clear, this administration is deathly afraid of offending its left-wing base. They'd prefer not to mentIon Mghanistan or Guantanamo Bay If they can aVOla it.

Here's the best hat 0·· . din the actions of the Obama administration:

idal Hasan's arraignment has been held over for three at Fort Hood -- until a er the midterm

elections.

Wh does this matter? Because he is being charged with thirteen deaths, not fourteen. One of Ni

overnment as r· jurisdiction -- from the District of Columbia, to national arks to milita

~nstallations. It applies to our ases in Afghamstan and to our units and planes operating there. It , applies to Fort Hood.

The law is called the Lacy and Conner Peterson Act even thou h it would not have a lied in the case of

that young mot er an orn son. Their murder was a state criminal matter for California.

,The UW A is also a part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). So why isn't Nidal Has~n being charged with the death of an unborn child, too? 4

,-Might it be because the Obama administration chooses not to raise this issue in the critical weeks leading up to midterm elections? Could it be because it does not want to further antagonize its liberal

~ f/./('1 wtJ-v11 ftc) At- 1,-t:-5rt f fi'~ qn v" &(/"'1 cltr'j / 4$ K. If Pf'~

ow remind us Mr. President: Exactl who is it w

. afraid? I think it's

not the American peop e. Sadly, I think it's our current leadership,.

Stand by for Mr. Obama and his party to get a Chubbing next month.

Ken Blackwell is aformer u.s. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/10/21/setting-himself-up-for-a-chubb/print

10/21/2010

Print - Are Foreign and Illegal Workers Funding Democrats' Attack Ads?

Page 1 of2

A-I ~

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE for Pusrrc POLICY REsEARCH

ARTICLES & COMMENTARY

Are Foreign and Illegal Workers Funding Democrats' Attack Ads?

By Marc A. Thiessen Washington Post

Monday, October 18, 2010

Chamber receives from its affiliates abroad.

They "also" represent legal residents? Exactly how many illegal workers are on the rolls of the SE.IU and other trade unions? Do the unions track which of their members are here illegally? How much do these illegal workers contribute to union coffers each year? And is any of this money being used to fund union efforts to elect Democrats this N ovemper?

http://www.aei.org/print?pub=article&publd=102676&authors=<ahref=scholar/100066>MarcA.Thiess... 10/21/2010

Print - Are Foreign and Illegal Workers Funding Democrats' Attack Ads?

Page 2 of2

MarcA. Thiessen is a visitingfellow atAEI. Photo Credit: iStockphoto/james steidl

You can find this article online at http://www.aei.org/article/102676

http://www.aei.org/print?pub=article&pubId=102676&authors=<ahref=scholarIl00066>MarcA.Thiess... 10/2112010