Archive for September, 2010

This morning at a lumber store in Sterling, VA, John Boehner announced a new document entitled “A Pledge to America.” It was a fitting place to unveil a plan to restore America. But does the document contain the tools to get America back on track?

The document, intended to be a blueprint for Republicans governing philosophy, if and when, they regain control of Congress this November. It is mirrored off of the 1994 Contract with America, which provided voters a picture of exactly what they were voting for. The Pledge does the same. But it also goes beyond pure policy, laying out a governing philosophy that is sorely needed in today’s Washington. It is a promise to restore America back to its ideals where free people govern themselves and the government stops overstepping its bounds.

Americans don’t need reminded about what our nation stands for; they need directions as to how we are going to get back there. Fortunately that’s exactly what the Pledge does. So let’s dig in to the first section of the plan – creating jobs.

With unemployment rates continuing to linger around 10 percent, it is clear that the only thing the stimulus did was dig our nation deeper into debt. America knows that the federal government’s effort to jumpstart the economy has been a complete failure. What they don’t know is the extreme negative pressure that government debt has on the nation’s ability to create jobs.

Large government debt loads does two particularly pernicious things – takes money away from the private sector and threatens to drive up the cost of borrowing. Neither of these is exactly the road to recovery. What the Pledge promises to do is, in short, end the failed Keynesian experiment. The hope is that by eliminating the federal government’s wasteful policies, capital will more freely flow to the portions of the economy that need it. By getting spending under control we can promise to keep tax rates low, removing job-killing uncertainty from the economy. As President John F. Kennedy said, “an economy constrained by high tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never create enough jobs.”

To create incentives for job growth Republicans are pledging to:

• Make the Bush tax cuts permanent to give businesses a sense of certainty
• Provide small businesses with a tax deduction to provide an infusion of business capital
• Rein in red tape by requiring approval of any regulation that costs $100 million or more
• Repeal mandates that our costing small businesses millions in reporting costs

These policies are in direct response to businesses demanding a sense of certainty from a volatile administration. For instance Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers told MSN Money, “we don’t know what the greatest great idea from Obama will be. Therefore we are hunkering down.” Intel’s Paul Otellini has said that “I think this group doesn’t understand what it takes to create jobs.” And Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg told the Economic Club of Washington that Obama is creating “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”

Solving these problems is not all about policy. It is about a shift in ideology from demonizing business to nurturing business. We must do everything we can to reassure business leaders that they can feel safe spending some of their saved up cash reserves on capital investments and new employees. A large part of that is to simply stop the top-down tinkering that is driving much of the angst in the business community. To that end, the plan, which does not scrounge for more economic levers to pull, but instead appears content with a hands off approach, could work.

If nothing else, it represents a wholesale change from the interventionist Keynes policies which has so dominated (and disrupted) the past year. This Pledge is by no means a comprehensive solution to job creation. Nevertheless, it represents a solid start, and more importantly, it represents a promise to business leaders that they, not the government, can begin to get the economy moving again. Empowerment has long been a hallmark of America. It will be good to see its return if Republicans get their chance in November.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director

Democrats no longer reflect the majority of Americans. For almost all of the past 14 years voters’ have said that the Democratic Party better reflects their attitudes about government and better represents their values as people. That is all changing.

Democrats were granted an almost unprecedented mandate in the 2008 elections. Already having control of both Houses of Congress, American voters signaled that they were ready to hand the keys to the car completely to Democrats. We as a nation were tired of Bush’s detached leadership style. We were ready for change. We voted for change. We got change.

But Democrats have taken it too far in the other direction. Rather than represent our views of what government should be and attempt to reflect what we as citizens’ value, they attempted to implement their own vision for America. They instituted a broader social safety net akin to Western European welfare states. Democrats increased the role of government while downplaying, and sometimes vilifying, the private sector. They used the federal government as a tool for intervention in things they thought could be improved.

The problem is that this new vision for America is not one that is shared by the majority of the United States. We have a rich tradition built on individual achievement in spite of, not because of, the state. The government is viewed as a means to pave the road for individuals to achieve their dreams, not as a means to drive the car for them. The government should be small and effective, taxes should be low and fair.

To the extent that Democrats vision differs from these traditional American values, they have squandered the goodwill they have developed over the last decade. As a recent Gallup poll finds, today “fewer than half of Americans, 44%, now say that the Democratic Party represents their views on the role of government.” This represents an 18 percent drop since 1999.

Even more telling, by a 56 percent to 49 percent margin, voters now say that Republicans are the party better aligned with their overall values. Since 1999 Democrats image among voters has been in a steady decline, hastened dramatically following Democrats taking control of Congress in 2006.

Is it that American values have changed? No, the more likely answer is that the Democrats changed. America still believes in hard work, individual freedom, and personal responsibility. But now that Democrats are fully in the spotlight America is left wondering if they uphold the same principles.

America is ready for a REPRESENTATIVE government. A party that really understands and represents the voice of the people. We don’t want the government watching over us every step of the way from the cradle to the grave. We want them there to pick us up when we fall, not carry us when we want to walk. America is not going to change. Our values are deeply engrained by our hard fought independence. Whichever party wants to win had better awaken to this fact. But I can’t help but notice in these graphs that it is looking an awful like 1994.

by Brandon Greife and Reiley Hooper

Yesterday marked the six-month anniversary for the Obamacare bill. Did you remember to get it a present? What do you get a bill that already has everything? It already has all our money. I guess the only thing it could have that it doesn’t already – our support.

In a recent poll done by the AP, only 30 percent said that they favor the new bill while 40 percent remain opposed. The 10 percent approval ratings gap generally reflect the average of recent polls. According to Pollster.com, a site that aggregates and averages poll results, 49 percent of the public disapprove of the law while 41 percent favor it.

Perhaps more interesting is the 30 percent who remained neutral in the AP poll. In this debate, which has largely defined the last 18 month, how could anyone have possibly remained neutral? The results of the poll seem to indicate that it isn’t because they don’t care, it is because they do not understand.

It seems Nancy Pelosi’s now infamous prediction, that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” hasn’t come true. Quite the contrary, millions of Americans are still left wondering what the heck is in this behemoth piece of legislation. As Diann Kelley told the Associated Press, “I’m insecure about a document that was as big as the health care bill and wonder if anybody understand exactly what’s in it.”

The public are not the only ones left confused about the new law. Federal regulators, insurance companies, and doctors are just as clueless. And how could they not be? Through July 31st, 3,833 pages of federal regulations have been issued regarding the new law. Moreover, the new law provides for the creation of more than 160 boards, bureaus, and commissions that must be navigated to understand the full impact of the legislation.

I don’t understand everything that is in the bill. I don’t trust the man who says he does. But I know that healthcare has not been what the Democrats promised it would. For instance, since the bill was passed we’ve found out that a number of the benefits we were promised aren’t going to come into fruition.

The chief actuary for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a report showing that national healthcare spending will increase under the new law relative to baseline levels. So much for bending the cost-curve down. The CMS report found that spending will grow an average of 6.3 percent each year, compared to pre-reform projections showing growth around 6.0 percent. The law also is the direct result of a number premium increases. Many national carriers have said that premium increases ranging from 1 percent to 9 percent will be put into effect to be able to pay for extra benefits required under the law. Finally, it appears that the famous “if you like your plan, you can keep it” was nothing but a myth. According to Investor’s Business Daily, “Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51 percent of employers may have to relinquish their current healthcare coverage because of Obamacare.”

The path to the six-month anniversary has been littered with broken promise. Is it any surprise then that Democratic candidates are running as far away? As the Los Angeles Times reported,

“Democrats aren’t seeing the political benefit Obama promised them when he told them they’d be proud to campaign on the measure. In the House, 219 Democrats voted for the health bill, but the party’s only House members highlighting their votes in ad campaigns are a few of the 34 who opposed the measure and can now boast of their independence.”

The low approval ratings of the bill fly in the face of Bill Clinton’s prediction that “I don’t care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs the healthcare reform bill, approval will go up, because Americans are inherently optimistic.” We’re optimists, but only when there is something to be optimistic about. And it’s tough to feel hopeful when we have no clue what is in the bill and the few bits that have come out are less than wonderful. Higher costs? Higher premiums? Less choice? What exactly is there to like about that?

Sorry that after six months we continue to remain unimpressed by Obamacare. Oh, and I wouldn’t expect the numbers to change, not unless the bill begins to live up to the promises made before its passage. Happy-freakin’-anniversary! And good riddance.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

Since becoming a U.S. Congressmanm Jeff Miller (R-FL) has established himself as one of the staunchest conservatives. In addition to being a Republican leader on the House Armed Services Committee he is a tireless advocate for less government, less taxes and more personal freedoms.

Having taken the oath of office in 2001, he has witnessed the harmful impact that Democratic control of Washington has had on future generations. Unless something is done this November to help our nation change course, the burden of their reckless spending will soon be felt by young Americans.

That is why he has taken the time to explain the importance of College Republicans’ Operation Red November. As Miller explains, “things that are going on in Washington and around this country are unsustainable. Those costs are being put on the back of young Americans just like each of you. . . So you as College Republicans need to do your part as part of Operation Red November.” Check out more of what Congressman Miller had to say below:

Well Obama is at it again. Relying on fancy words, soaring rhetoric, and an emotional tone rather than actual substance to win the approval of the public. His latest attempt to sell the Democratic brand prior to the crucial 2010 midterm elections came at an CNBC town-hall forum.

Once again Obama proved to be poised and eloquent as he addressed the state of the economy. But if you have learned anything in the past two years it is that you must be careful to remember what Obama is doing while you are listening to what he is saying. For instance, President Obama said during the town-hall,

“We had to make sure that we didn’t slip into a Great Depression. Now, we’ve done that. Those programs that we put in place worked. . . And so the question then becomes what can we now put in place to make sure that the trend lines continue in a positive direction.”

I think the better question would be whether we are headed in a positive direction at all. The New York Times reported yesterday that the United States economy has lost more jobs than it has added since the recovery began. Read that carefully. Not since the recession began. We’ve lost more jobs since the so-called recovery began!

It shouldn’t be surprising then that a new report by the Labor Department found that 27 states reported higher unemployment rates in August. That is up from the 14 who saw an increase in July. What was that about maintaining the trend lines? Thirteen states continue to have jobless rates above 10 percent. Worse, many economists are predicting that the national unemployment rate will once again creep above 10 percent this year.

Then came a time for Q-and-A. Unsurprisingly most of the questions given by everyone from average Joes to Wall Street insiders, focused on an overall disappointment in how the economy was being managed. But one question especially struck a chord.

It was from an African-American woman who was a chief financial officer and a middle class American. She said,

“I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class, and I’m waiting sir, I’m waiting. I still don’t feel it yet. And I thought that – while it wouldn’t be in great measure – I would feel it in some small measure.”

How many others feel exhausted? Exhausted from searching for a non-existent job all day while we have the Vice President parading around declaring it the “Recovery Summer?” Exhausted from trying to find ways to feel hopeful about the direction of our economy while President Obama presents no clear vision on how we are going to improve it.

John Harwood, host of the forum, made the comment that a good leader makes changes if necessary.  He directed the comment to the President and asked if he, Obama,  was willing to make changes.  In this opportunity to either stand strong in his policies or to openly share his willingness to try a new angle, Obama responded by saying his economic team has been doing an “outstanding job”.  Outstanding job?  With a nation that is still floating around a 9% unemployment rate, I would say he is using the word “outstanding” very loosely.

Others in the audience also seemed tired. Among the questions were, “[H]onestly, is this my new reality?” and “Is the American dream dead for me?” What a tragic fall from the utter euphoria from 2008 when millions joined in a chant of “yes we can.”

So what is President Obama prepared to do to reverse course and get this economy back on its feet? Better yet, what is he prepared to do to restore faith among Americans?

One of the direct questions pertaining to change was whether the President would be willing to make changes among his economic advisers – namely Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. Surprisingly President Obama subtly suggested they may be on their way out.

“But the bottom line is, is that we’re constantly thinking, is what we’re doing working as well as it could? Do we have other options and other alternatives that we can explore?”

If he answered those questions truthfully then the clear response should be no. Things are not working as well as they could. The stimulus was a colossal flop that has done little but dug future generations into a debt hole they will spend their lives trying to escape from. Their policy agenda, especially a massive new healthcare bill, has so unsettled the hiring market that employers are unwilling to commit to new employees. And looming uncertainty in the form of tax hikes and burdensome regulations is stifling business growth. These are not the ingredients of a successful economic policy capable of leading us out of the recession.

But if Obama is hinting at some departures amongst his economic team one has to wonder whether or not he truly believes in the success of his policies. If he truly believed what he said, that the “programs that we put in place worked” then why do you suggest that a staff shakeup may be necessary.

Perhaps he’s coming around to the idea that maybe the economy continues to lag for a reason, namely, intrusion by an activist government. Maybe he’s figuring out that the economy won’t respond to his sophisticated diction or inflection. Then again, so long as the public remains enrapt, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

by Reiley Hooper

What’s the difference between the Democrat student groups on college campuses and the College Republicans?

I’ll tell you, but first I’ll show you:

US:

USF CR Mike Uanino helps man the table

THEM:

This appears to be charcoal on concrete

US:

Southeastern University’s second CR meeting of the year (no speaker, no free food, 30+ person turnout)

THEM:

Still concrete.

Get the picture?

I’ll be the first to admit the Republicans had a problem in 2008.  During the ’08 election I was a junior at UNC, and I saw first-hand the dominant presence the Democrats were able to establish on the college campuses.  Everywhere I looked there were stickers and fliers and graffiti (way to fight the man!) and hip cool t-shirts blazoned with Obama’s face and his promises of hope and/or change.  Granted, there was very little information provided by these liberal campaigners (beyond where the vans would be picking us up to take us to the polls); nevertheless, Obama eventually carried 66% of the voters in this country under the age of 30.

I’ve always firmly believed that college students won the election for Obama.  In 2008, John McCain and the rest of the Republican party seemed to see the Obama movement happening on the campuses and decide that it wasn’t worth the effort or the expense to fight back.  Two years ago the Republicans conceded to the aggressive recruiting tactics of the Democrats, and it cost us dearly.  That being said, we’ve learned from our mistakes, and the movement featured on the website you’re visiting right now is the result.

Operation Red November is the difference between the Democrat student groups and the College Republicans.  This time, it’s our turn to rally the troops and spread the excitement to students across the country.  Admittedly, we have the added challenge of informing students before we recruit them to join in the fight.  Blind enthusiasm and uninformed participation are as counterintuitive as tax hikes to the Republican way of thinking and we will not allow our generation to embarrass themselves again by voting first and asking questions later.

Maybe November won’t bring masses of students roaming the streets chanting our candidates’ names while wearing graphic Ts airbrushed with our party logo.  Maybe a certain hack comedian on a youth-oriented comedy network won’t help us out by blasting the opposition five nights a week during primetime.  We won’t have the hype and empty rhetoric that won the day in 2008, but we WILL have a Red November nonetheless.

It will be a Red November, and when we look back years from now we’ll be able to say we helped bring about REAL change without resorting to the deceptive tactics of the left.  2010 will be a year won by young, informed, enthusiastic voters who have faith in their party and the knowledge to back it up.

Get informed, get involved, and don’t forget to DO IT BIG!

by Lauren Atencio, 2010 College Republican Field Representative

Ladies and Gentleman of the United States:  WE HAVE DONE IT!  We have officially made it through the Great Recession. Cue the confetti drop. Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip…wait why am I the only one cheering? Didn’t everyone see the National Bureau of Economic Research report that showed that the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009? That’s something to cheer about right? Oh…so you still don’t have a job huh? Your company still isn’t making any money? Your home price continues to fall through the floor? Seems to me that a country that has been out of a recession for over a year now should be doing a little better than this.

Sure, the NBER declared the recession over, but that likely won’t make much difference to the 14.9 million without jobs. But now that the recession has been given a starting and an end point it does allow us to do one thing – judge the recovery. As John Merline of AOL News writes,

The bigger problem for Obama, though, is that now that we have an official end date for the recession, we can compare the current recovery to previous economic recoveries. And that picture is not particularly flattering at all.

Looking at the history of past recessions, the deeper the fall in GDP, the larger the post recession rebound. Take this chart put together by TD Financial Group:

As you can see, in general, past recession follow the general trend. The deeper the fall the faster the job growth on our march back to full employment. But notice where the 2008-2009 recession lies on along the trend line. That’s right, we’re an outlier. A lonely little dot that shows the deepest drop in peak-to-trough decline in GDP and yet comparatively weak growth in the four quarters after the recession was over.

The failure of our recovery is seen in other ways. Typically, around the 15^th month of a recession, we begin to see an uptick in nonfarm employment numbers. We are currently into the 30^th month following the beginning of the recession and the economy continues to shed jobs. The following chart allows us to compare the overall employment trends from this recession as compared to others dating back to World War II.

Not exactly promising. While other recessions began to see job growth, our nation continues to suffer from high unemployment. Far from getting better, many economists are now predicting that the unemployment percentage will once again reach 10 percent by the end of this year.

We’ve examined history in the aggregate, so now let’s compare the recovery following this recession with its closest kin – the 1980s recession. During that time our nation was facing similar problems. Unemployment reached 10.8 percent, which is actually about .7 percent higher than the worst of our current downturn. Given past history, that should indicate a steeper recovery. Unfortunately, we’re seeing just the opposite. In the first four quarters following the worst of the recession, the recovery is growing more than twice as slow under Obama than it did under Reagan. Even if we look at the declared end of the recessions, rather than the bottoming out, the picture does not improve. Fourteen months after the end of the 1980s recession the unemployment rate had dropped 8 percent and the economy was growing at a 7.7 percent rate. In today’s recovery the unemployment rate continues an upward creep while economic growth has averaged less than 3 percent.

As Merline’s chart shows:

That this recovery has been drastically slower than Reagan’s is clear, but why? Regan chose to drastically cut individual and corporate tax rates while slowing the growth in government spending. Barack Obama has done the exact opposite. Our corporate tax rate remains the second highest in the world, capital gains taxes are scheduled to increase, and government spending has risen to historic levels.

The cumulative result has been mass uncertainty in the very job creators we need to pull us out of the recession. Government intervention has only managed to prolong the recession, not stimulate our way out of it. Until the government gets out of the way, by showing a commitment to addressing its deficits, eliminating the regulatory uncertainty of massive legislation, and providing a certain direction on tax policy, then our recovery will continue to suffer.

Time and time again we hear that we must learn from our past mistakes so that we are not doomed to repeat them. President Obama would have been wise to study the history of recessions in the United States. He would have found that the path toward a quick recovery lies in smart, targeted, supply side strategies, not desperate stabs at Keynesian stimulation. How sad that we’ve learned from neither our mistakes nor our successes. Until we do, I’ll hold off on celebrating the end of the recession.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director (hat tip Reiley Hooper)

Taxpayers of America rejoice! Tired of the nearly endless stream of reports showing the mind-nubbingly dumb ways in which their stimulus project was spending taxpayer money, the Obama administration decided to fight back. Their report, entitled, 100 Recovery Act Projects That Are Changing America, was intended as a direct response to several reports issues by Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn highlighting the 100 Most Wasteful Stimulus Projects.

So does the Obama report allow taxpayers to rest easy knowing that their tax money was spent on worthwhile projects? No.

Just take a look at some of the projects that the report, supposedly the best-of-the best, highlights:

• A $299 million grant to build a battery manufacturing facility in Michigan for a company that was considering Asian locations. The project created or saved at least 100 jobs.
• $8.3 million in grants to Toledo to allow them to re-hire 31 police officers.
• $114 million for ECOtality, a manufacturer of electric vehicles, to help them produce 8,500 electric drive vehicles. The company reported the stimulus helped support 50 jobs.
• $3 million for the Malden Redevelopment Authority to help remove lead paint and other safety hazards. They company reports it was able to retain 5 employees that would otherwise be laid off.

There are two distinct problems with even these cream-of-the-crop proposals. First, none of these projects deliver a respectable cost-to-jobs ratio. Second, they artificially diverts capital away from other worthwhile projects.

The government is notoriously inefficient. Or to take Reagan’s preferred metaphor, “Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” In this case the taxpayers were forced to feed the giant baby a whopping $862 billion to fund the economic stimulus plan. Coming out the other end it looks a lot like what you would expect.

Even after having passed the largest stimulus in our nation’s history the unemployment rate continues to tick upwards. Moreover, things are not on track to improve anytime soon. Recently economists predicted that over the next year the unemployment rate will rise above 10 percent before finally starting to fall. Why didn’t the stimulus stimulate? One big reason is that the money was not used efficiently. It went towards things like seeing how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine, improving the freezing process of rat sperm, and improving African genital hygiene.

You may argue that these projects are cherry-picked and not indicative of the whole. But even when you look at the administration picked as its best projects you see a whole lot of money spent and very few jobs created.  For instance, their #1 project used $100 million stimulus dollars and has created 230 jobs so far. That’s approximately $430,000 per job. The second and third projects don’t get much better – $153 million to save 150 research positions and $49 million to create 100 jobs. Each of these projects arguably does worthwhile things, providing housing for wounded soldiers or cancer research, but we weren’t sold on the plan because it was worthwhile. We were sold on the plan because it was supposed to create jobs. And judging by that metric, the only one that matters, the stimulus is a miserable failure.

Second, the stimulus projects are being championed by the administration using a myopic train of thought. Nobel Prize winning economist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his seminal book, Economics in One Lesson, that,

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also look beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economists sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

Using this definition we can tell that the White House is chock full of bad economists. The short-term, long-term dichotomy has become thoroughly engrained in today’s politics. Democrats cried that we needed an enormous injection of funds to get the economy going, Republicans countered that the national debt that would be created would be a long term drag on the economy that it would actually hinder growth.

But the argument, or as Hazlitt would say “fallacy,” that I want to discuss is that Democrat’s are too focused on the good of one particular group without looking at the broader picture. We know that every dollar of government spending must eventually be pad for through future taxes. So when a government creates a stimulus project with the idea of increasing employment it is not a free bridge, future taxpayers must pay for it. But, you may say, it created jobs. Yes, it created jobs for the construction workers necessary to build the bridge. But it is also true that the cost of the bridge, say $5,000,000, is directly taken from money that would have been spread around to other jobs. That $5 million would have been spread around the economy purchasing things like televisions, computers, and cars, each of which take people to build. So the stimulus project didn’t so much create jobs as it did divert jobs.

The problem is that we can see the construction worker get hired. We can mark him on our tally of “jobs saved or created.” On the contrary the “other” jobs are spread throughout the economy and thus imminently less visible, and thus, less politically valuable. And political value is the name of the game in Washington where creating jobs is only a means to an end, namely, reelection.

President Obama is hyping the success of the stimulus in his new report 100 Stimulus Projects That are Changing America. But is this clear waste and redistribution really the kind of change they should be touting?

by Brandon Greife, Political Director

He is at it again. Paul Krugman took a few moment away from polishing his Nobel medal to write his column for the New York Times. Unwilling to look into the reasons for the crisis, disinclined from providing solutions on how to get our way out of it, Krugman instead relies on vitriol for readership.

In an attempt to overshadow his own flaming contempt for all things conservative, he attempts to channel other people’s anger at some amorphous thing. “Anger is sweeping America,” Krugman writes. “[T]he angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.”

The “they” Krugman is referring to is the “rich” people in America. He argues (wrongly) that they are angry that President Obama is considering allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for top earners.

To be fair to Krugman, rich people are very upset with the way President Obama is running this country. But I have come across no instance in which they have openly complained about the tax cuts. For instance, Steve Forbes, whom Krugman mentions pointedly in his article, ran a cover story arguing that “Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in history.” The story goes on to lament many of the President’s policies, everything from questionable offshore drilling decisions to his foolish reliance on stimulus, but nowhere does it mention the Bush-era tax cuts.

There are other wealthy individuals, many of them previous Barack Obama donors, who are beginning to come down hard on the President. Daniel S. Loeb is perhaps chief among them. Loeb, a registered Democrat, penned a letter to his investors saying that, “So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire.”

Or Paul Ottelini, CEO of Intel, who has criticized Obama because he “does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working.”

These are the kinds of people Krugman is referring to when he says “craziness has gone mainstream. . . When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.” None of the critiques he mentions even so much as skirts the boundary of “crazy.” These are smart, rational, and yes, wealthy, people who are laying out the economic case against President Obama’s policies.

They argue many things. They argue that the burdensome regulations found in many bills are diminishing their profit margins. They argue that having the second highest corporate tax rates in the world are driving down our ability to compete globally. They argue that enormous policy shifts like healthcare reform and uncertainty over capital gains taxes are driving up uncertainty while depressing hiring. But nowhere, nowhere, have I seen any of the rich businessmen complain that Obama is killing America because he wants to let tax cuts for the upper classes expire.

Instead, the people I hear complaining are economists. A new poll from CNN Money found that 60 percent argued that the best thing to do to help the economy would be to extend cut for all taxpayers. Only 10 percent said that we should extend tax cuts for only the middle class. As one of the surveyed economists said, “extend tax cuts for all income levels and do nothing else. More of the same piecemeal, patchwork policies put forth by this administration will undermine confidence and do little to change the path the economy is on.” The rich people aren’t the ones complaining, if for no other reason than they don’t have to, economists and politicians (including a good number of Democrats) are making the case for them – that it simply make no economic sense.

Nevertheless, Krugman sticks to his straw man argument – that rich people are bristling at the notion at paying higher taxes because of some “belligerent sense of entitlement.” He then goes on to lament the “spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity.”

That statement is the encapsulation of everything that is wrong with Krugman’s post. Nevemind that he wrongly imputes a position onto the rich that they themselves have not taken, the fact that he calls them “the world’s luckiest people” explains everything. This belies the growing liberal notion that the rich are the oppressive class. That they were only able to amass such wealth by plundering the poor and ripping off the rest of society. Moreover, they achieved this, not because of some unique skill or hard work, no, their only claim to success is luck. And it is because of this luck that America should not feel bad when we take what they have been given away. They didn’t earn it, they simply lucked into it, so there is no moral injustice is seizing it.

But in this free market society that we call America successful people make their own luck. Their hard work and skills put them at the right place at the right time to succeed. That isn’t to say that many people aren’t suffering, it’s to say that the wealthy are a scapegoat from the larger problems.

Krugman had it right – anger is sweeping America. But if the wealthy are furious, it is because the economic policies of Barack Obama are killing their businesses’ income, not because they have to pay more income taxes.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director

“It’s not me, it’s you.” Those are normally the words that cement the failure of a relationship that has gone awry. Across the country, Democratic candidates are hearing this sentiment, and they can’t understand why. They can’t understand why they have fallen out of favor with the population in general, but more importantly, they haven’t realized that they have lost the allegiance of today’s college students.

The fact is simple, while Democrats have spent at a record rate ($4.71 trillion added to the national debt) America has seen unemployment increase! No generation is being burdened more by Washington’s recent spending orgy than mine, and this article will explain why young people don’t like it, and what College Republicans plan to present as an alternative.

Did you know that nearly 20% of young adults are unemployed? That is twice the national average, which in itself is unacceptable. A 54.3% increase to the national debt has frightened job creators to the point where one in five young people can’t find a paying job. This clearly shows that the more government wastefully spends, the less ability people will have to find work.  Don’t think the stimulus was loaded with wasteful spending? Take a look at “Stupid Spending” on www.ourtab.org to see where our hard-earned money went. My personal favorite is the $677,000 that the Georgia State University received to study “how monkeys respond to inequity and unfairness.” I think it’s unfair that we are psychoanalyzing monkeys while millions of Americans can’t find work.

What terrifies young students the most is the amount of money they will be forced to pay to the debt. Today, every child’s share of the national debt is $118,000, money that will have to be paid off through higher taxes or reduced government services. But how can we be expected to pay this off if 20 percent of our generation doesn’t even have a job? With so much bad policy in such a short amount of time, it’s worth asking: has the statist agenda won out?

The answer is no. There is a reason why Obama has seen an 18% drop in his approval rating amongst 18-29 year old voters according to a February Pew Poll.  His plans are detrimental to young people. He said he had our best interests in mind, but he lied! He cheated on our generation, but we’ve caught him in the act. Let’s just say that come November, young adults will say to Democrats, “It’s not me, it’s your policies that have ruined our relationship.”

by Zach Howell, National Chairman of the College Republicans