The debt debate, reframed

The debt debate is framed and both parties are ready to engage in it.

But the current framing of the debate is an oversimplification: it’s a fallacious false choice between new taxes (“revenues” is the euphemism), spending cuts, or both. Democrats demagogue by obfuscating the fact that no tax rate can bridge the budget gap, and Republicans wisely refuse to give in to any new taxes (doing so would be as disastrous in 2012 as “read my lips”).

At the same time, the Democrats will readily point out that the GOP is wrong in saying that we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. We actually have both problems, owing mainly to the revenue-shrinking Great Recession.

But there is a way for the GOP to agree to “revenue increases” while sticking to its principles. In this video, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) re-frames the debate in a very useful way. He says revenue growth can be achieved by growing the number of taxpayers rather than by growing the amount individuals pay. This is a new way of saying something the GOP has been saying for decades. With the intellectual clarity of Paul Ryan, Rubio has greased the left’s only foothold in this debate.

Liberals hate/reject this sort of crystal clear logic: lowering tax rates and simplifying and reducing government interference will allow small businesses to at least consider new hiring. Democrats must understand this logic somewhere deep down in the dark recesses of their grey matter, but acknowledging that most so-called rich millionaires are actually small business owners filing taxes as individuals would ruin their strategy of demagoguery and stoking class envy.

This is a good moment to soapbox about tax simplification. Shredding the old and starting over with a new simple tax system would be a good start to lubricating the machinery for job creation. Instituting one flat tax rate on all income combined with a large individual deduction (maybe, say, $12,000) and eliminating all or virtually all tax credits, write-offs and itemized deductions would take power away from Washington, go a long way to cleaning up campaign finance problems and encourage individuals to take a chance on starting a business.

It would achieve the president’s goal of cutting “tax expenditures” while satisfying populists like those in the Tea Party who object to corporate welfare and crony capitalism, among many other goals shared by Americans of all political beliefs.

But, again. Such clear reform would ruin the strategy of the ruling elites in both parties.

The death of civility in Western Wisconsin

When a member of one party runs in the primary of another as a “spoiler,” the motive can be multifaceted. In the case of a special or recall election, a primary election can delay the general election by several weeks.

It may not be ethical in everyone’s book, but it’s pragmatic politics and it’s certainly not new.

At a recent meeting of a political party where I manage social media, a spy secretly recorded the entire meeting, selling the tape to a local newspaper. The paper used the tape to generate a number of stories, and others picked it up rather quickly.

In part of the secretly recorded meeting, the vice chairman communicated a request by state leadership to inquire about finding “protest candidates” with the purpose of extending the campaigning season to benefit certain recalled politicians.

The paper ran a story. A local politician, who didn’t arrive until after said discussion, said via his campaign manager his campaign had no knowledge of the plan and wasn’t involved one iota. To my knowledge, this is entirely accurate.

In another part of the recording, I try to water down the rhetoric of finding a protest candidate by suggesting a longer campaigning season might not be good after all. I reference I conversation I’d had around two years ago with a former classmate and staff member of said politician.

That conversation took place over a beer, long before the current context was a glimmer in anyone’s eye. In fact, the conversation was before I became involved with the party when both the staffer and I were students at UW-La Crosse.

I mistakenly referred to this staffer and friend as a “campaign manager.” At the time I made the comment, I hadn’t spoken with said politician’s current campaign manager a single time.

A blogger at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was so excited by the inference that the current campaign manager had lied about not being involved that, even after a phone call with me, he neglected to provide the complete context in his blog, which was posted within hours of our phone call. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on our phone call.

In the day of the 24-hour news cycle, it’s pretty important to be very clear.

The La Crosse Tribune picked up on this blog post within hours, and it wasn’t until hours before the story was to go to press that an editor called for my take. I was working a long shift at my moonlighting job, and by the time I could reply a few hours later, the editor had gone home. That ship had sailed.

The story, the second in a series that used the secret tape recording, was printed. At least my name showed up on a front page – the first time that’s happened since I was editor of the student paper.

I don’t blame the paper. While I would have appreciated if the reporter had called me himself (the wisdom of his editor compelled her to do so herself later), another reporter did call later and (in my interpretation of the call) expressed some degree of regret that the context of my comment wasn’t made clear.

And, though the recording itself may have been illegal under WI statute 968.31, the paper is completely free from legal liability assuming they acquired the tape legally.

To be clear, spying in the meetings of one’s political opponents isn’t new either. Fascist regimes earlier in the century made ample use of spies and intimidation strategies.

But in Western Wisconsin, a region that’s traditionally enjoyed civil politics, secret tapes and scandals are unheard of. Lately, though, increasingly ugly politics have become not just the strategy of outside interest groups but the state and local parties.

As the Tribune has bemoaned numerous times in its editorials, those days are apparently over. If patdowns and card checks are now necessary at meetings of political parties, and the honors system is impossible, perhaps they’re right.

In a recent social media post, I commented about managing crisis PR. To elaborate on that post, I’ll add that, in this case, I was pretty peeved about from whence the PR crisis came: a secret tape.

It doesn’t matter. Whether you like it or not, the crisis happened. It’s your job to manage what goes on next.

W2: Wisdom-to-Welfare

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

This prediction by Alexis de Tocqueville is eerie today. In the 20th century, our government discovered it could take as much as half our incomes without much resistance, and politicians have found plenty of innovative ways to play Robin Hood.

Supporting them is the media, which is quick to attack anyone who suggests promising one new giveaway program after another, on the public’s dime, was unsustainable and unjust from the start.

I doubt I’m the only ordinary American who’s dismayed that it’s now possible to get SSI for being an alcoholic or having a “learning disorder,” and that Obama quietly rolled back welfare reform, reinstating the perverse incentive for states to fatten their welfare rolls.

I’m disgusted that one-in-three Americans now make some part of their income by having it given to them from someone else. It seems a work ethic has been replaced with “the more bad decisions you make, the more money you’ll be given.”

We’ve allowed our government to bloat into a behemoth. We need to restore the federal government to the clearly defined roles described in the Constitution.

 De Tocqueville also said, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

Let’s demand our leaders stand strong and repair the faults of America. And let’s promise them our votes if they do.

Character assassination

When Nero’s enemies became vocal in their opposition, he had them exterminated. Likewise, when Stalin seized control of the Soviet Union’s communist party, he re-branded himself as a supreme ruler and sent to the gulags any bureaucrat who didn’t bow before him.

Authoritarian regimes in the old days wielded the blunt instrument of murder and imprisonment to silence their enemies and consolidate power. Today, in the age of mass media, the art of shutting up one’s enemies has become a science, complete with textbooks and blueprints.

The most notable strategy, embraced today by just about every political hack who knows their vision for America is indefensible to the majority, is to discredit and ruin the careers of one’s enemy. Inevitably this involves creating drama, selecting and manipulating favorable facts and ignoring the rest.

The art of finding someone somewhere whose feelings might be hurt by something said or done by one’s political enemy, also called political correctness, is another weapon the hacks use when they know they’ll lose any election based on real issues and honest ideology.

These new methods allow parties to silence their foes and look concerned about social justice at the same time. What more could a talking head ask for?

So here’s a simple question for my fellow Joe and Jane six (or thirty) packs who are disgusted with the whiny, litigious direction our culture has taken. Why do we let personal attacks, drama and hysterics work? When outside groups fund round-the-clock character assassination campaigns against our legislators, why don’t we change the channel?

People have simply had it with the drama and horse manure. So let’s be well-read, vote based on facts, and ignore the rest.

Conservatism’s changing face

Old, rich, white, male, and stubbornly prejudiced.

This is the stereotype of the quintessential conservative. Other preconceived notions include that most young people are liberal, that gays simply don’t vote Republican, that conservative women tend to be dress-wearing housewives, that minorities are under liberal control, and that a convention like the Conservative Political Action Conference would be devoid of all this diversity.

If you buy into these notions, the next decade is sure to give you whiplash. This year’s CPAC crowd, a record smashing 11,000 attendees, was composed of more than 8,000 college students. Speakers included the most prominent women in the nation like Michelle Bachmann, and the most rousing standing ovations were for folks like Allen West, Marco Rubio, and Raul Labrador.

Members of the crowd shouted as they applauded speakers urging a restoration of our nation’s founding documents, a return to states’ rights, and a limited federal government (a sharp contrast with Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America”).

They leapt to their feet numerous times when speakers of all backgrounds touted the wonderful diversity of our great, complex nation, the beauty of which was on display for three days in Washington.

Sure, there is still some baseless prejudice out there, and a few groups sat this CPAC out because of its changing face, which included a new, large Tea Party presence. But the smashing success of this year’s event means that if those groups don’t adapt next year, their voices will become decreasingly relevant as those 8,000 young attendees take the reins.

Perhaps the most significant sign of the change in attitudes of the new generation of conservatives was when uber-conservative Ann Coulter welcomed GOProud, a gay conservative group, declaring that for many reasons gays are a natural fit to join the conservative movement.

The only moment more telling of these changing attitudes was the standing ovation the moment received from the overflow crowd.

This student rejects Doyle’s financial aid

Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget somehow finds $25 million in new financial aid for low-income students. The goal is to “hold harmless” students from households making less than $60,000 from the tuition increases many UW schools will be forced to implement. To the average taxpayer, this sounds wonderful. Despite a flagging economy, the governor is still finding ways to support in-need students.

What the average taxpayer may not know, though, is that the governor will scrape up the $25 million by raiding university savings accounts. This governor is stealing money students have paid in fees – to park, to dine, live on campus and many others – so he can redistribute it. The governor will swipe $5.4 million from UW-L saving accounts – 21 percent of the total package.

These auxiliary accounts, which normally pay for maintenance and growth projects, are essential to the university and must be replenished. Students will have to pay higher fees for virtually everything, and the cost of living on campus will spike by more than $1,000 per year.

To put this in perspective, the statewide financial aid package will cost UW-L $722 per student. It will cost Madison $56 per student. With my household firmly in the middle of Doyle’s income range, I stand to save $370 next year on my student loans. I don’t want it. Not at the expense of on-campus students and those who pay for other campus services. All students will pay thousands more even if they are “held harmless” from the tuition increases.

This is just one of this governor’s many shameless ploys to create the image of fiscal responsibility.

I urge people to dig deeper when considering supporting his budget.

WI Rep. Nass’s tuition cap is ignorant and arrogant

State Rep. Steve Nass’s legislation capping UW tuition increases at 4 percent is a disappointing example of the toxic mix of ignorance and arrogance that politicians of fragile character are prone to.

I had expected the new GOP Legislature to critique waste in government and the entities it funds, which is entirely appropriate. But this is disappointing.

A recent graduate with more than $30,000 in student debt, I’m qualified to acknowledge that a college education is expensive but well worth the investment if the education was a quality one and the degree respected by employers.

As former editor of the student newspaper at UW-L who sat through many budget meetings, I’m also qualified to back Chancellor Joe Gow in his assertion that it’s simply impossible to get any leaner than UW-L’s administration.

Maybe Nass should dispatch his spokesman to find out exactly what goes into a university budget. What little fat remains after a decade of cuts sure wouldn’t have covered the latest round, totaling nearly 6.5 percent of the UW-L budget.

I vote Republican, and the new Legislature’s drive to make the state business-friendly has me optimistic. Republicans’ stances on unions and red tape, that they hamstring businesses and legislatures from adapting to and surviving lean times, are on stronger footing than ever.

But this show-pony proposal, if enacted, will hamstring our world-class university system from adapting as the state keeps sneaking the rug out from under it. It’s anti-Republican, and Nass should be embarrassed. I urge Sen. Dan Kapanke, Rep. Jennifer Shilling, and Mike Huebsch, all strong supporters of UW-L through thick and thin, to push for the defeat of this nonsense proposal.

Egypt’s context, in 250 words

In 1187, Muslim armies conquered Jerusalem from Western European crusader armies. By 1400, the last remnant of the Roman Empire, known by historians as the Byzantine Empire, succumbed to the Muslims when Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, was conquered by the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

In the 1490s, Western forces conquered Spain after 700 years of Muslim rule. In the 1530s, Western armies at Vienna stopped Muslim general Sultan Suleiman’s armies from conquering all of Europe, and the massive Islamic empire (Caliphate), led by the Ottoman Turks, began its slow demise. It finally succumbed in World War I, when Western armies occupied the Middle East and gave rise to today’s fractured Middle East.

The Islamic Brotherhood was formed at the end of the Ottoman Empire, early in the 20th century. Today, they and Al Qaeda have established themselves in every state that was the vast Islamic Empire 1000 years ago, from Morocco to Indonesia. Their goal is to create unrest, and use it to establish fundamentalist Islamic governments across the old empire, and eventually recreate the old Caliphate under one Iran-style regime.

They were stopped at Vienna five centuries ago, but today Muslims make up 25% of some Western European countries due to the West’s liberal immigration policies and stagnant native population growth.

The West lost its will to fight after World War II. The Muslims’ desire to die to re-create the Caliphate under Allah is stronger than ever. God help us.