Tonight, all over Iowa, Republicans will be debating with one another not just who can win (we\u2019ve all read loads of stories about the \u201ccan he win\u201d factors).\u00a0 Electability will be balanced with a second question, not necessarily one that produces a different answer, but a different question nonetheless.\u00a0 Who as president would do best at getting the job done?<\/p>\n
Some years, the nature of \u201cthe job\u201d is all over the map.\u00a0 Not this year.<\/p>\n
This year, we have a national government that has indulged in the greatest peacetime run up in spending and the greatest peacetime explosion of debt in our history.\u00a0 Government has expanded to a point that, in the sweep and depth of its ever-more-intrusive regulations, reflects a conviction that it operates with no bounds.\u00a0 Forget about the Constitution.<\/p>\n
We were told that this big time burgeoning of the Federal state was needed to restore the faltering economy.\u00a0 When the predicted revival failed to materialize, we were told that an even greater government was needed.\u00a0 Despite solid evidence in the failure of the economy to respond to repeated rounds of stimulation, we were told the administration had the right prescriptions.\u00a0 Perhaps because it had lost its edge and got a little lazy, the patient just irrationally insisted on not recovering.<\/p>\n
Those who said that the answer was less government, not more, were brushed aside.\u00a0 The administration dismissed calls for policies more like those that produced the largest peacetime expansion in our history beginning in the 1980s and doubled down on policies like those that produced the nation\u2019s longest contraction in the 1930s.<\/p>\n
Harvard economist Robert Barro has demonstrated that while more spending may give a short burst of economic growth, after a first flush of excitement, the thrill goes away and all that government spending ends up retarding economic growth.\u00a0 It makes our economy weaker, not stronger.<\/p>\n
It weakens us in other ways too.\u00a0 The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that our explosively expanding national debt is our greatest national security threat.\u00a0 That observation applies not just to our formal debt but to our informal one, the unfunded liabilities of our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the other programs of our entitlement state.\u00a0 Defending the nation is a big expensive job, and continuing in the direction the administration is leading us, a job too expensive for our government to afford.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, our economy\u2019s health depends on new business creation and expansion.\u00a0 Entrepreneurship is highly sensitive to personal tax rates, including the capital gain tax rate.\u00a0 All capital is sensitive to the corporate tax rate and to the weight and predictability of regulation.\u00a0 Essential to renewed growth is the ability of individuals and businesses big and small to shift resources quickly and easily into promising concepts and then pursue those ideas as rapidly as they can.<\/p>\n
Instead, go from industry to industry.\u00a0 The administration has all but banned energy industry exploration and development in the United States and is resisting buying energy from Canada.\u00a0 It has introduced paralyzing regulation, taxes and uncertainty into our massive health care industry.\u00a0 It has begun a war on manufacturing and agriculture through its Environmental Protection Agency.\u00a0 And the financial industry legislation and regulations it has sponsored have left every business large and small across the nation questioning whether capital could be got when needed.<\/p>\n
The point is, when Iowa voters gather tonight, they will be asking who can fix this mess?<\/p>\n
Who has the clarity about what is wrong to know what to do?\u00a0 Who displays the steadiness under fire to keep to the course?\u00a0 Who has the capacity to explain what his or her administration is doing and to bring along the American people?\u00a0 Who knows how to give leadership to Congress, keeping in mind that leadership also means negotiation?\u00a0 It means showing respect to members of both parties \u2013 and occasionally it means asking the people of particular states and Congressional districts to put in a good word for your program with their senator or member of Congress.<\/p>\n
Watching this year\u2019s many GOP presidential debates, listening to reports from Iowa and around the country, you can\u2019t help being impressed.\u00a0 Republicans in the Hawkeye state and everywhere are approaching the challenge of national restoration with deep seriousness.\u00a0 More than in most years, you get the feeling of deliberation, of extended private as well as public debate, of a determination to get it right\u2026 to put up the right candidate for \u201cthe job\u201d — and a broad consensus on what \u201cthe job\u201d actually is.<\/p>\n
This is why democracy is the best of all the forms of government ever tried.\u00a0 This is why American democracy is the best of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tonight, all over Iowa, Republicans will be debating with one another not just who can win (we\u2019ve all read loads of stories about the \u201ccan he win\u201d factors).\u00a0 Electability will be balanced with a second question, not necessarily one that produces a different answer, but a different question nonetheless.\u00a0 Who as president would do best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-commentary-general","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1083,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}