Widget Image
Follow PPD Social Media
follow
1,000 Followers
follow
0 Followers
follow
People's Pundit Locals Community
Saturday, February 8, 2025
SECTIONS
logo
mobile-logo
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post (Page 474)
Policy

US-Capitol-Building-iStockPhoto

U.S. Capitol Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo: iStockPhoto)

Since I’ve referred to the International Monetary Fund as both “the Dumpster Fire of the Global Economy” and “the Dr. Kevorkian of Global Economic Policy,” readers can safely conclude that I’m not a fan of the international bureaucracy. My main gripe is that senior bureaucrats routinely make the mistake of bailing out profligate governments (often as a back-door way of bailing out banks that foolishly lent to those governments), and they compound that mistake by then insisting on big tax hikes.

But as I’ve noted when writing about international bureaucracies, the professional economists who work for these organizations often produce very good work.

And that’s true even for the IMF. The bureaucracy published a study a few years ago entitled “The Size of Government and U.S.–European Differences in Economic Performance” and it has some useful and interesting conclusions. Here are some excerpts, along with my observations. We’ll start with the question the authors want to answer.

How much of a drag is the modern welfare state on economic performance? … One standard approach has been to estimate the disincentive effects of taxes and deduce that lower taxes would imply higher welfare. However, in the context of modern democracies, this argument begs the question why voters prefer an inferior economic outcome (a higher tax burden) instead of voting for parties that would minimize taxes.

Actually, we don’t need to “beg the question.” We get bad policy because voters get seduced into voting for politicians who promise to pillage the “rich” and give goodies to everyone else. And since voters generally don’t understand that this approach leads to “an inferior economic outcome,” the process can continue indefinitely (or until the ratio between those pulling the wagon and those riding in the wagon gets too imbalanced).

But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to the main focus of the study. The authors note that Europe isn’t converging with the United States, which is what standard economic theory says should be happening.

The academic debate over the long-term failure of European countries to catch up with U.S. economic performance also points to the need for a better assessment of the economic effects of large governments. Over the last three decades, European countries have not made inroads in closing a gap in per capita income vis-à-vis the US. …This paper focuses on…the role of the size of the public sector… The literature studying the impact of government on economic performance is large. Theory has focused on welfare effects—stressing the distortionary impact of taxation and government spending… observed government sizes generally tend to be too large, thus depressing welfare in many countries, or actual policies depart from allocationally optimal ones, especially in the “Rhineland-model” European economies.

And here are some of the results.

… a higher tax wedge results in lower hours worked. Moreover, the equation can be used to predict hours worked as a function of the tax wedge. …based on these calibrations, and using the welfare measure described in Appendix II, the steady-state welfare effects of varying the size of government can be analyzed. Table 2 provides the results of two such thought experiments: (i) to cut the marginal tax rate by five percentage points and (ii) to adopt U.S. taxation levels (in both accompanied by offsetting changes in spending), with the welfare change measured in the incremental consumption equivalent of the tax cuts. For example, had Belgium between 1990–99 cut marginal income tax rates by five percentage points, it would have reaped a welfare gain equivalent to 7⅓ percent of aggregate consumption (or of 21 percent if it had adopted US tax levels). These are large potential welfare gains from cutting back government.

Here’s a table from the study showing the theoretical gains from lowering tax rates, either by 5-percentage points, or all the way down to American levels.

But the authors note that their model is incomplete, with some countries doing better than what’s implied by their fiscal systems.

The basic model has considerable difficulties in accounting for labor supply in very high-tax countries, which it frequently underpredicted (e.g., the Nordic countries, excluding Norway…). …One group comprising Sweden and Denmark… Both countries are often singled out as countries with large government, but, as seen in the previous, both also have higher than predicted labor supply in the baseline model.

The study tries to explain such differences by considering whether some governments spend money in an effective manner on “active labor market policies” that produce higher levels of labor supply.

Perhaps that’s a partial explanation, but I think there’s a much simpler way of making sense of the data. The Nordic nations, as I’ve repeatedly written, have strongly pro-market policies once fiscal policy is taken out of the equation.

So if you just look at fiscal policy, they should be way behind the United States. But since they are more market-oriented than America in other areas (trade, rule of law, regulation, and monetary policy), that shrinks the gap.

That being said, I’m not going to be too critical of the IMF study since it does reach a very sensible conclusion.

…the size of government does play a significant role in explaining lower European labor supply…the size of European governments appears to imply large welfare costs. …Moreover, government policies that do not directly increase the size of government, e.g., regulation, are observed to also impart significant costs.

By the way, don’t assume this IMF study is an outlier. When economists at international bureaucracies are free to do real research without interference by their political masters, it’s not uncommon for them to produce sensible results.

Last but not least, here’s the video I narrated on the “Rahn Curve” and the growth-maximizing size of government.

CATO economist Daniel Mitchell reviews the latest

Elections

Republican presidential candidate and New York businessman Donald J. Trump.

Republican presidential candidate and New York businessman Donald J. Trump.

In Gettysburg on Saturday, Donald Trump laid out a “contract with the America voter,” a six-point plan to restore accountability and take on corruption in Washington, D.C. The Republican presidential candidate called the proposal his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again,” including a 10-point legislative agenda that “begins with restoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington.”

“I’m not a politician, and have never wanted to be one. But when I saw the trouble our country was in, I knew I couldn’t stand by and watch any longer. Our country has been so good to me, I love our country, I felt I had to act,” he said in his address at The Eisenhower Complex. “Change has to come from outside this broken system. The fact that the Washington establishment has tried so hard to stop our campaign is only more proof that our campaign represents the kind of change that only arrives once in a lifetime.”

Before laying out the details of the plan and his legislative proposals, he briefly addressed what he called an assault by a corrupt Big Media. Mr. Trump asked voters to ignore their attempt to depress voter turnout and preserve the status quo by helping to elect a Wall Street- and Washington-preferred status quo candidate over an agent of change.

“I am asking the American people to rise above the noise and the clutter of our broken politics, and to embrace that great faith and optimism that has always been the central ingredient in the American character,” said Mr. Trump. “I am asking you to dream big.”

The 100-day plan focuses on taking six actions against corruption, seven to protect American workers, and five to restore security and the constitutional rule of law. The 10-point legislative agenda aims to ensure that America’s economy is revitalized and citizens are protected.

Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the “Gettysburg speech will be the most decisive break with the corrupt establishment in modern times. He is detailed and decisive.” Mr. Gingrich knows a thing or two about making contracts with the American people, which is how he engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in decades during the 1990s.

“Hillary Clinton isn’t running against me,” Mr. Trump said. “She is running against change. She is running against you, the American people.”

Mr. Trump’s “Contract with the American Voter” and comments, with added commentary from PPD, are broken down below in full.

CORRUPTION AND SPECIAL INTEREST COLLUSION

  • FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;
  • SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
  • THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
  • FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
  • FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
  • SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

While most Republican candidates focus on what the economic impact of government regulations can be on small businesses, rarely have they spoken about how they are used by special interest to gain a competitive advantage over those who cannot afford lobbyists. He said his plan would add a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.

ACTIONS TO PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS

  • FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205
  • SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
  • THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator
  • FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately
  • FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
  • SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
  • SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure

While Mrs. Clinton said she now supports Mr. Trump’s intention to renegotiate NAFTA, she asked donors to imagine how much they would profit if she doubled trade under the agreement. According to her Wall Street speech transcripts leaked by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, she praised TPP and said her “dream” was to have “open borders” and open trade” on the American continents.

“We have enormous environmental blocks, structural blocs,” he said regarding bureaucratic regulations. “We’re going to fix our own environment.”

5 ACTIONS To RESTORE SECURITY & CONSTITUTIONAL RULE OF LAW

  • FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
  • SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
  • THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
  • FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
  • FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

As People’s Pundit Daily has previously reported, American voters overwhelmingly support Mr. Trump’s proposals on sanctuary cities and refugee resettlement. Mrs. Clinton plans to increase the number of Syrian refugees into the country by 550%, though according to a leaked transcript of her Wall Street speeches, she told donors there are no safe measures to vet refugees.

LEGISLATIVE MEASURES WITHIN THE FIRST 100 DAYS

1. Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

2. End The Offshoring Act Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

3. American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

4. School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

5. Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

6. Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.

7. End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.

8. Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.

9. Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values

10. Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

“On November 8th, Americans will be voting on this 100 day plan to restore security and honesty to government,” he said in closing. “This is my pledge to you and if we follow these steps, we will once more have a government of, by, and for the people.”

In Gettysburg on Saturday, Donald Trump laid

Politics

Hillary Rodham Clinton has a long record of using public service to enrich herself, sell out American interests and further her own political ambitions for power.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has a long record of using public service to enrich herself, sell out American interests and further her own political ambitions for power.

An email released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks reveals how the Wall Street elites prefer Democrat Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump. A forwarded email from Wall Street insider Robert Wolf to John Podesta, reading simply “Subject: Re:,” offered the Clinton campaign chairman insight into who the big bank elites wanted to see win the presidency and how they felt about each primary candidate.

Clearly, mirroring the big money trail, they prefer Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump. In fact, they prefer just about every other candidate other than Donald Trump, including those who ran against the New York businessman during the Republican primary. Further, New York, New York is the only area that Mr. Trump did not carry during the primary (Gov. John Kasich did).

Wolf, the former President and Chief Operating Officer of UBS Investment Bank, as well as Chairman and CEO of UBS’s Group Americas division, wrote to William D. Cohan on February 24, 2016. He then forwarded that conversation to Podesta.

“[sic] so in your humble opinion how would assess what’s likely now to happen on both the dem and rep side of the equation and how is wall street feeling about each…?”, Cohen initially asked Wolf, adding “in other words, i assume with HRC looking better these days, wall street is pretty happy with that and with Trump, wall street must be in despair, especially all those people who were supporting Bush, or walker or the others who have dropped out and where does bloomberg fit in all of this at the moment?”

Cohan was once an investigative reporter for the Raleigh Times before he went on to work on Wall Street for seventeen years as a mergers and acquisitions banker.

Mr. Trump had argued during the Republican primary that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and others, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, were too cozy with Wall Street to deny the wishes of their donors. He was wildly successful making the argument that he was an independent man free to do what was in the voters’ interests, and Wall Street elites were concerned about him.

“I think the business community will show their full support behind the Secretary as most will align with her policies on immigration, education, infrastructure, climate change and the future of the Supreme Court,” Wolf wrote to Cohen. “I am not sure the business community has yet to figure out how to view Trump as the GOP nominee since he hasn’t really shown any granularity to his policiy [sic] vision and it has been more rhetoric.”

Cohen then wrote back clarifying some of the questions he had regarding Wall Street’s feelings toward the candidates.

“in other words, i assume with HRC looking better these days, wall street is pretty happy with that and with Trump, wall street must be in despair, especially all those people who were supporting Bush, or walker or the others who have dropped out,” he wrote.

The email was released along with the transcripts of the former secretary of state’s speeches to Wall Street and foreign investment firms. Mrs. Clinton asked Goldman Sachs to “imagine” how much “everyone is this room would profit” if she doubled NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Democratic candidate now claims she will renegotiate NAFTA but told big donors a few months before that politicians need to have two positions–one public and one private.

Mrs. Clinton also praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and said that her “dream” is to have “open borders” and “open trade” in North America. It’s exactly the reason why Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders repeatedly called on Mrs. Clinton to release the transcripts and exactly why she wouldn’t do it. With the primary still ongoing and rumors former New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg might enter the race, Wolf explains Wall Street would be open to an independent bid if Sen. Sanders were to defeat Mrs. Clinton.

“With respect to Mayor Bloomberg, I think he has a real opportunity to enter and do well only if it is Sanders v Trump and only if Secretary Clinton was not the expected Democratic nominee.”

Nevertheless, Wolf then forward the aforementioned conversation over to Podesta.

“You can see Bill’s questions to me,” he wrote along with the forwarded message. “I have become friends with him and can get insights but recall in general he is not a fan of most banks especially Goldman so don’t know his angle yet.”

An email released by the anti-secrecy group

News, Video

[brid video=”70086″ player=”2077″ title=”Clinton Denies “Quid Pro Quo” Allegations America’ Newsroom”]

David Goodfriend, a surrogate for Hillary Clinton, flipped out on Fox News Friday when pressed by Bill Hemmer to defend an email suggesting a $12M pay-for-play deal with Morocco. Mr. Goodfriend accused Mr. Hemmer of attempting to help Donald Trump by questioning the apparent pay-for-play.

Oh, and Bill Hemmer apparently “loves the Russians.”

To be serious, Mr. Hemmer is widely respected by his journalistic colleagues in and out of Fox News. With the treasure trove of media collusion revealed by emails released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, it is rich for Goodfriend to level such a charge.

Goodfriend, also an adjunct professor at Georgetown, said some of his own emails were released by WikiLeaks, which revealed Clinton campaign chair John Podesta booking flights for him to travel around the trail delivering talking points during media appearances. During the interview with Hemmer, he said there were “discrepancies” between his email records and the WikiLeaks records.

As of now, Democrats have not challenged the veracity of the records. But that appears to have changed since DNC Chair Donna Brazile was caught providing Hillary Clinton debate questions before the debate while she was at CNN.

Clinton surrogate David Goodfriend flipped out on

World

ISIS executes spies video

Photo: The Clarion Project

While U.S. coalition forces were focusing on the Mosul offensive, which just claimed the first American life, an Islamic State attack on Kirkuk took them by surprise. The Obama administration and U.S. military officials have argued for weeks they expected the Islamic State to go underground and revert to guerrilla tactics once they’re pushed out of Mosul.

But they haven’t been pushed out of Mosul and ISIS militants in uniform just launched a brazen, conventional military attack on the Kurdish city Friday resulted in gun battles with security forces. Early reports claim roughly two dozen civilians and security forces have been killed, and some of the Islamic militant fighters are holding a hotel in the center of the city.

While the guns battles rage in Kirkuk, another group of ISIS fighters–including three suicide bombers–targeted a power station north of the city, slaughtering over a dozen workers, including some from Iran.

Still, the push for Mosul continues. Thousands of ISIS fighters are still in and around Mosul, though U.S. officials claim the noose is tightening. But it’s coming at a heavy cost. Kurdish fighters, who opened a new front north of the city on Thursday are being battered by waves of suicide car bombers and fighters with suicide belts who are ambushing the Kurds from fortified houses once they enter a village.

While U.S. coalition forces were focusing on

Opinion

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shakes hands with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after the presidential debate at Hofstra University. (Photo: Associated Press/AP)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shakes hands with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after the presidential debate at Hofstra University. (Photo: Associated Press/AP)

I’ve dismissed talk of Hillary Clinton’s “secrecy problem” as mere babble in an election year. I thought, for example, that Clinton had no obligation to disclose her mild pneumonia, a temporary ailment she was over in a few days.

Thus, I assumed there was something politically damaging in her discussions with Wall Street bigwigs, for which Goldman Sachs paid $225,000 a shot. Why else would she deem it safer to let our imaginations run wild about their contents than to release the transcripts and let the chips fall where they may?

Now we have the three transcripts. Everyone can read them, and everyone should. What they show is Clinton’s extraordinary understanding of our world — its leaders and their politics, terrorist groups and their vulnerabilities, the interplay of global forces, and the economic well-being of Americans.

Note that Clinton’s political foes are feasting over the exciting fact that the speeches were “leaked.” They’re saying little about what was in them.

One can understand Clinton’s hesitation to release the transcripts during the primaries. Bernie Sanders was making a popular and heated case against the billionaire financiers. Any record of Clinton’s saying nice things to the Wall Street titans would have been twisted out of proportion.

And Clinton did say nice things. She said, “I had great relations and worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown and a lot of respect for the work you do.”

Then came the pivot: “But I do … think that when we talk about the regulators and the politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in ’08, you know, were devastating, and they had repercussions throughout the world.”

She did suggest that people in the industry could help improve the regulatory system. Even that could be defended on the grounds that only insiders understood the exotic financial instruments that almost brought the house down. (Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had said he couldn’t make heads or tails of them.)

Some are troubled by the remark that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms were done for partially political reasons. That should come as no great shock. In later public speeches, Clinton has called for tightening the Dodd-Frank regulations.

No one can find a quid pro quo — a trade of favors — between Clinton and the financial wizards who paid so handsomely for her thoughts. That’s the main thing.

On the contrary, Clinton has long called for ending the “carried interest” tax loophole, which benefits private equity managers. She opposed the Bear Stearns bailout. She’s now calling for a stiff hike in taxes paid by the richest Americans — that is, many of the people in her audience.

Clinton was for letting Puerto Rico restructure its debts, a move opposed by Puerto Rico’s creditors. “We can no longer sit idly by while hedge funds seek to maximize their profits at the island’s expense,” she said in May.

Let’s remember that Clinton was a senator from New York. Financial services rank No. 1 in the state for total payroll. They provide over 160,000 jobs.

Helping hometown employers is why Sanders of Vermont defended the F-35 stealth fighter boondoggle. It’s why Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts agitated for ending the tax on medical devices that helps pay for Obamacare. It’s why anti-government conservatives in the farm belt back government subsidies to farmers.

Clinton has cashed her checks for the Goldman speeches. Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to maintain extensive business ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, according to his son.

Why Clinton insisted on keeping her brilliant Wall Street talks secret will remain an enduring mystery of this campaign. Heck, why didn’t she post them on her website? Beats me.

Why Hillary Clinton insisted on keeping her

Opinion

media-bias An American voter holds a "Honest Journalism is Dead" sign at a rally.

An American voter holds a “Honest Journalism is Dead” sign at a rally.

I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t know how reasonable people can fail to recognize the overt collusion of the Obama administration, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party and the liberal media to shield Hillary Clinton from accountability for her many misdeeds and abundant corruption.

Perhaps I can be considered a bit of an alarmist, but if I am, so are millions of others when it comes to the dire state of this nation on a number of fronts. We have a staggering national debt, a dangerously declining military and a runaway regulatory state that is suppressing our liberties, insulating government from accountability and helping to smother economic growth. We have onerous taxes on people who are still working (notwithstanding the malicious lie that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share), an exploding welfare state, a war on the Second Amendment and the rights of private gun owners, and a government-caused health insurance catastrophe — with liberal promises of more of the same.

We have unprotected borders (which threatens jobs, national sovereignty and the integrity of democratic processes), a war on Christian religious liberties by militant secularists who deny they’re doing it and a sick, amoral culture supported by the openly valueless Democratic Party, which glorifies abortion as a quasi-religious right so important it must be subsidized by the federal government. We have politicized governmental entities — e.g., the IRS, Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Communications Commission — and we are suffering ever-deteriorating race relations and a war on cops fomented and fueled by the president and his race-exploitive Democratic Party. We have proliferating Islamic terrorism accompanied by an administration that is in denial about it and sees more danger in generic extremism and conservative “bitter clingers” than it does in Islamic extremism.

These multitudinous existential threats to the United States are enough to cause anyone who cares about America, as founded, to lose sleep. I have confidence in the United States and the American people to rise to these challenges if they set their minds to it. The problem is that the entire liberal establishment is determined to obstruct the resolution of these problems. Liberals are primarily responsible for every last one of them and don’t even want to address them. To them, America is on the right course. They’ll tell you they want more jobs, for example, but they do everything in their power to keep that from happening — from minimum wage hikes to higher individual and corporate taxes to oppressive regulations to demonizing businesses, producers and entrepreneurs, who “didn’t build that.”

That’s why many believe we must oust Democrats from control of the White House. But in the past few months, anyone not afflicted with blinding liberal bias has been able to see that these policy issues are just the beginning of our problems. In addition to this destructive agenda, there is a level of collusion among the above-mentioned institutions — the Obama administration, the DNC, the Clinton machine and the liberal media — that is unprecedented in this nation.

We see this collusion and its poison fruit everywhere we look, in the coordinated witch hunt against a phantom anti-Islam video to shield Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Obama administration from accountability for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, in the White House, Department of Justice and FBI scheme to protect Clinton from prosecution for her destruction of emails, in the DNC’s nefarious orchestration of violence and bullying of women at rallies for Donald Trump — evidenced by the fact that the main operative of that enterprise visited the White House hundreds of times — in the DNC’s voter fraud operation, in Clinton’s admitting that her private positions differ from her public ones, in the pay-to-play scandals of the Clinton Foundation and the administration’s insulating it from investigation, in the administration’s politicizing its actions according to various “food groups,” such as “needy Latinos,” in Clinton’s lying about the threat of terrorists entering the United States among the refugees with whom she wants to flood this country, in the denigration of Catholics, in the delivery of debate questions to Clinton in advance, in the probable cover-up of Clinton’s health issues, in the White House plan to target “violent ideologies,” in liberals’ goal of resurrecting the so-called Fairness Doctrine to suppress conservative opinion on radio, in the Democrats’ refusal to enforce immigration laws, in the surrendering of our sovereignty to the United Nations, in the promotion of voter fraud by opposing voter ID laws with the cudgel of phony allegations of racism, in the political targeting of conservatives by the IRS, in the circumvention of the legislative branch through lawless executive orders, in the liberal media’s absurdly disproportionate contributions to Democratic politicians and in the media’s highlighting of allegations against Trump and blackout of allegations against Bill and Hillary Clinton.

I’m concerned about the imminent destruction of our nation through disastrous policies should the Democrats remain in control. I fear a dangerous, Third World level of lawless one-party rule by a party that has demonstrated its contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, the separation of powers, the democratic process, the watchdog role of the media, the military, American sovereignty, capitalism and liberty. If Hillary Clinton can get away with all of her corruption before she is even in charge of the executive branch, can you imagine what she’d be able to do when controlling it, presumably with a mandate to continue in the same vein?

Call me crazy. Call me an alarmist. Call me hyperbolic. But understand I am but one of the millions who fear for America’s future — and with overwhelmingly good reason.

The choice between Clinton and Trump? It’s not even close.

[mybooktable book=”the-emmaus-code-finding-jesus-in-the-old-testament” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

I've never been much of a conspiracy

Opinion

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the third presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at UNLV in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the third presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at UNLV in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Pressed by moderator Chris Wallace as to whether he would accept defeat should Hillary Clinton win the election, Donald Trump replied, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”

“That’s horrifying,” said Clinton, setting off a chain reaction on the post-debate panels with talking heads falling all over one another in purple-faced anger, outrage and disbelief.

“Disqualifying!” was the cry on Clinton cable.

“Trump Won’t Say If He Will Accept Election Results,” wailed The New York Times. “Trump Won’t Vow to Honor Results,” ran the banner in The Washington Post.

But what do these chattering classes and establishment bulletin boards think the Donald is going to do if he falls short of 270 electoral votes?

Lead a Coxey’s Army on Washington and burn it down as British General Robert Ross did in August 1814, while “Little Jemmy” Madison fled on horseback out the Brookeville Road?

What explains the hysteria of the establishment?

In a word, fear.

The establishment is horrified at the Donald’s defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority.

It may rule and run the country, and may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.

Having fixed the future, the establishment finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.

Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: Its ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.

Trump is “talking down our democracy,” said a shocked Clinton.

After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed “democracy” as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach.

Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England and France to bring Christianity to the New World.

oday, Clintons, Obamas and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to “establish democracy” among the “lesser breeds without the Law.”

Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to re-establish their true God.

And Allah is no democrat.

By suggesting he might not accept the results of a “rigged election” Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.

For none of the three — diversity, equality, democracy — is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.

When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of government they had created, he answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it.

Consider: Six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.

If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it.

And if felons decide the electoral votes of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that election?

In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority, the matter went to the House.

There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency to Adams — and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Adams himself.

Were Jackson’s people wrong to regard as a “corrupt bargain” the deal that robbed the general of the presidency?

The establishment also recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke’s declaration that it is now “torches and pitchforks time.”

Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in “Points of Rebellion”:

“We must realize that today’s Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.”

Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for “revolution” seems more constrained.

What goes around comes around.

Now that the populist-nationalist right, not the

Opinion

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016. (Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016. (Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool via AP)

Something happened that day in 2012 when Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev passed on to President Vladimir Putin the notorious private message President Barack Obama had asked him to convey — Tell Vladimir I’ll be more flexible after the election.

That is the exact moment, I believe, when Mr. Putin concluded 1) that the long-awaited opportunity to avenge the fall of the Soviet Union had arrived; 2) that the American president was weak; and 3) that if the American public elected such a man, they must be weak, too.

Mr. Putin decided to destroy the West, using his KGB-trained hybrid warfare skills to infiltrate, divide and conquer. We saw it in Crimea. We have seen it in eastern Ukraine and Syria. We are seeing it in NATO, as Turkey and other Eastern European states are pulled towards Moscow’s sphere of influence. And yes, we are seeing it in the United States.

I have no doubt that Russian actors are behind the hacking of Democratic internal campaign emails. That is not the problem: We hack them as well. The problem is that Mr. Putin sees the cyber assault as an opening to destroy this country as we know it, driving a wedge between Americans.

I’m also sure the KGB was behind the placement of overwhelming numbers of Marxists in our educational system over the preceding decades. Moscow succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.

Today, our universities are not halls of learning but really reeducation camps, preaching a long-dead ideology that even the Russians don’t value anymore. The dominance of the intellectual classes cracked open the door for Russia and others in exactly the way Vlad’s security service bosses imagined all those years ago.

It must be gratifying for the leadership in the Kremlin to see Mr. Obama actively assisting them in their mission. He has been the racial divider-in-chief. He shares the goals of the KGB back in the day — to change America as we know it.

Recently, we learned that Russia was behind the funding of many anti-fracking groups in the West, an obvious attempt to cripple the American economic engine that once defeated the Soviet Union. That strategy hasn’t worked out so well so far, as the Bakken fracking fields drove down the price of crude anyway. Still, the effort offers a revealing glimpse into how the Kremlin works.

I have no doubt that Mr. Putin is funding many fringe political groups in the U.S. and Europe, attempting to crack open the widening fissures of discontent against the liberal, immoral (as Russia sees it), progressive policies of the neo-Bolsheviks in our midst.

All of this is happening as Russia floats the largest armada assembled since the end of the Cold War down the English Channel, as a refurbished Russian carrier operates close to NATO borders, and as Russian forces fight in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad against American-backed Sunni rebel groups.

This dividing and conquering is assisted by a well-funded Russian state media propaganda operation that now enjoys a global reach, spinning the Russian narrative better than Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama could ever do themselves. I think that is why the Left in the U.S. is so angry — Mr. Putin is beating them at their own game, a game they have been playing for years against the American conservative movement.

America is cracking right down the middle. My son, who is considering entering a service academy next fall, recently told me that he doesn’t want to go in the military if Mrs. Clinton is elected because he doesn’t want to kill other Americans. I thought that was a very prescient statement.

Russia is fostering these divisions. Mr. Obama has enabled and nurtured them. As for Mr. Putin, he has a long-term goal in mind. He’s looking way down the line, towards the day when he steps down and Russia is once again a superpower, exporting food and hydrocarbons and deploying its military all over the world, working in conjunction with China to dominate a weak and divided West.

And it’s working.

Copyright © 2016 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

The day Barack Obama told Dmitry Medvedev

People's Pundit Daily
You have %%pigeonMeterAvailable%% free %%pigeonCopyPage%% remaining this month. Get unlimited access and support reader-funded, independent data journalism.

Start a 14-day free trial now. Pay later!

Start Trial

Subscribe