Jindal to RNC: Shift Focus from DC to Local Communities

Shortly after the November election I was talking with some disappointed and frustrated people about what one could do to help the country during another four years on the wrong path. People both inside and outside of Washington think that the federal government cannot and will not address the biggest issue of our day, which is the debt that threatens our future and the opportunities of younger generations. There are plenty of maneuvers to try to get the least bad deals in DC, and those tactics should not be ignored, but we concluded that real changes were most likely to occur at the state and local levels, and thus could provide examples of what works and does not for governance.

Governor Jindal, speaking to the RNC last night, echoed this message of focusing on the vast area between the individual and the federal government. His message: instead of focusing so much on battles in DC, focus on the local communities that are the true strength of the country. In an apparent dig at Paul Ryan, Jindal suggested we focus less on zeros and spreadsheets (more on that below), arguing that the internal battles of the federal government are not going to produce the policies we need right now and that so much centralization is undermining local communities. Jindal has a point here; with so much frustration and distrust of the federal government right now, we should naturally emphasize our local communities and governments instead.

That is not to say that the federal government and its policies are not important (and Jindal was quick to emphasize that point), but to say that Americans opposed to the path we are on should fight the battles they can win and that can have a positive impact on their lives. Doing so isn’t acquiescing to the path of managed decline we are on at the federal level, but a way of countering in a practical way the argument advanced by President Obama and other progressives that society is a choice between collective action (federal government) or the lonely and helpless individual.

The GOP is obviously adjusting to the loss from last November and is looking for a path forward as the window for saving the country from its debt problem is rapidly closing. One way to move forward is to contrast center-right policy outcomes with progressive ones, and that is unlikely to happen at the federal level right now. There are now thirty Republican governors, however, many of whom are starting to create contrasts by adjusting outdated labor laws and proposing pro-growth tax policies. Contrast that with bankrupt blue state models like California, New York, and Illinois. Contrast Texas’s job growth with no state tax to Maryland, where supposed Democrat rising star Governor O’Malley recently hiked taxes and hasn’t seen much growth as a result.

Of course, it’s essential to explain why economic growth is more important than the idea of fairness by taking from people who produce. This isn’t something that can be taken for granted; it must be explained to the millions of Americans who may believe in opportunity and hard work, but who think the market is unfair and discriminatory. This is where Jindal’s dig at Paul Ryan comes in.

Ryan is as good as anyone at explaining economic policy and why growth should be the goal over fairness. But Ryan is perceived by many as a really smart guy who sees things in terms of numbers rather than fairness. This is a misguided perception, but it exists nonetheless. Ryan reportedly wanted to talk more about poverty and how center-right growth policies help lift people into upper socioeconomic classes, but he was only able to at the very end of the Romney campaign (the Cleveland speech).

What Ryan said in the Cleveland speech, what Senator Rubio said at his convention speech, and what Governor Jindal said to the RNC are the kind of message that Republicans need to adopt. It’s not a new message, it’s just one that is often forgotten in the daily fights over which party is to blame for whatever the story of the day is, and over which party cares more about a particular group of people based on its support for funding the latest “I Care More” bill.

Jindal, Ryan, and Rubio have all shown the ability to articulate a system of governance that allows the vast space between the individual and the federal government to thrive. That vast space is where neighborhoods, schools, local governments, businesses, churches, and philanthropic organizations all exist and do what they do, and not simply because the federal government compelled them. The center-right must persuade enough people that the space created by a Constitution that limits the federal government to core functions is not only fair, but allows the efforts of communities and individuals who choose on their own to do great things.

Ryan and Rubio are in Congress now, trying to shape the debate internally. Jindal is on the outside at the local level, where most of America operates, and where people can show that policies espoused by Ryan, Rubio, and the center-right actually work. The country needs both, but Jindal is justified and probably wise to emphasize shifting the focus away from DC and towards the places where positive results are actually happening right now. Anyone unhappy with the direction of the country and performance of the federal government ought to pay heed to the likely 2016 candidate here.

Bobby Jindal on the GOP After 2012

Bobby Jindal, the popular Louisiana governor whom I advocated along with Paul Ryan as a VP nominee, has quickly seized a leading voice in the Republican party as it looks to move forward. He and Chris Christie are the new heads of the Republican Governors Association, which kicked off recently in Las Vegas.

Jindal, a potential 2016 candidate, has an excellent op-ed rejecting some of Mitt Romney’s post-election comments and advocating several ways for the Republican party to reach voters who have lost confidence in the GOP and the traditional American market.

I’m not going to speculate much on 2016 yet, but I will say this: primary debates between a combination of Jindal, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Paul Ryan would be fantastic. In the meantime, I think all of them should be out in front of the American people on a regular basis to make the case for why we can no longer rely on our existing entitlement state and must instead choose a path to greater prosperity.

America Joins the World in 2012

So says Mark Steyn, who seems to share my view on the outlook of the election:

…Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the Western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they’ll get that long.

Steyn’s book After America seems appropriate for these times. I’ve been reading it and plan on finishing it over the holidays. We may soon find out what it’s like after America is no longer America. Perhaps we are already there.

Debt Clock Ticking for Republicans and America

As the shock of Tuesday’s outcome wears off and the center-right of this country begins to strategize for the future in reaction to the mass acceptance of the growing welfare state, there are apparently some very smart people who are thinking the wrong way about how to make the Republican platform more appealing. It is no secret that the percentage of white voters has fallen significantly in the last few decades, and therefore winning that portion of the electorate handily as Mitt Romney did is now insufficient to overcome the growing minority portions of the electorate.

Those minority portions, along with single women, are voting for government promises of the welfare state, and they are voting for the party with which they associate more government promises and protection. That is why the idea of some of these smart people to have the GOP concede on amnesty, for example, is not going to make up the crucial difference the party needs to win consistently at the national level.

Yet winning on the national level is what the GOP needs to do, and quickly. The reason the GOP must figure out how to bring in some of those welfare state voters is not simply because Republicans want their candidates to win, it’s because the clock is ticking for the insolvency of those welfare programs that Democrat voters are supporting. I’ve written countless times about this coming insolvency, such as with Medicare, which will be insolvent within the next decade or so according to its own accountants.

Unless the Democrat party decides to embrace long-term structural reforms that require changing our entitlements, those programs will soon be broke. When those programs go broke, we are going to have to raise taxes and/or cut their benefits. We’re not talking about a small tax hike on the rich like President Obama campaigned on, but more like doubling everyone’s tax rates over the next few decades. We’re talking Medicare cuts mandated by IPAB thanks to Obamacare, which is now here to stay and which legally requires unelected bureaucrats to maintain Medicare’s spending at levels that no one for years has been able to figure out how to maintain without taking from seniors.

These financial threats are real, not just some ginned-up scare tactic by Republicans. They are the reason that this election meant so much to the center-right, regardless of whether the GOP candidate was Mitt Romney or a revived version of Ronald Reagan. The center-right is not overreacting to this loss in terms of its fears, nor is it reacting so strongly out of disdain for President Obama, but it does recognize that there is a very small window to start making financial changes before the problems get so bad that we can’t solve them without very painful measures that will hurt the poor, the middle class, and seniors.

That window is closing, and because President Obama and the Democrat party seem completely unwilling and/or unable to address those financial problems, the center-right knows that the Republican party must somehow win enough of the federal government to start making the necessary reforms. The Republicans had a chance to win both the Congress and the White House, but failed miserably except for in the House. The election results are scary not only because many people don’t believe that President Obama and this Congress can get the economy growing again so that people can get jobs, but also because so many people just voted for Democrats promising more of the welfare state that is crumbling.

This is why so many of us are glum and fearful. In reaction, some smart people seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions about how to best proceed. The wrong conclusions are coming from an improper diagnosis of the root problem of so much support for the welfare state. The proper conclusion of that root problem suggests that the GOP needs a dramatically fast comeback with these welfare state voters, but the way to do that seems unclear and is therefore reason to be fearful.

The comeback needs to begin now. The debt clock is ticking for Republicans and America. How can this comeback happen? My next post will make some recommendations.

A Word on 2012 Polls

I’ve been reticent to post analysis on polls here because there have been so many on a daily basis (I’ve reserved comments for Twitter). As we head into election day, however, I want to make a quick point about the polls and what they say.

If you’ve followed the polls beyond just top line numbers, you’re probably aware that there is a general split between state and national polls that is significantly related to their turnout samples. While many national polls show Democrat vs. Republican turnout to be between 2008 and 2010 levels, many swing state polls (including those in pivotal Ohio) show turnout more like 2008 for Democrats. Correspondingly, Romney has been tied or even leading in recent national polls, but continues to trail in many swing state polls like Ohio’s.

Which set of polls is generally more accurate? I think this depends on what the turnout is: if turnout is at or near 2008 levels for Democrats, President Obama will win reelection, and probably with a decent cushion. If the national turnout is something like D+3 (which is my rough prediction), then Mitt Romney probably wins.

The reason why Romney will probably win with such a turnout is because of his electoral college path. If he wins NC, VA, FL, and CO, then he needs either 1) OH or 2) WI and IA/NH/NV or 3) PA or 4) MI (the latter two seem to be a stretch to me). Ohio has consistently shown Obama leading by a few points with 2008-like turnout margins that, if adjusted to a D+3 or tighter, suggest Romney may be in the lead.

In addition, if the nation is D+3 (and pollsters like Gallup and Rasmussen think it will be closer to even or R>D) then Ohio would have to be several points more Democratic than the country. That would be a significant historical deviation for Ohio. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Romney has also closed the gap on early voting (including in states like Ohio), he is winning independents, and Republican enthusiasm is higher.

For those reasons I think Mitt Romney will win on Tuesday. Most likely he will do so by winning NC, VA, FL, CO, and OH (a decent chance that WI+IA/NH makes up for him losing OH). I might be wrong and am only guessing what I think is a plausible and likely turnout, and the crux of my argument is that President Obama will not receive a similar turnout advantage to 2008 when his favorable ratings have significantly dropped and he has presided over an historically weak economy.

I could be wrong, though. It’s possible that the President will get a similar turnout to what he received in 2008, or that key swing states like Ohio will be significantly more Democratic than the rest of the country. Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight) has relied on the state polls with very favorable turnout for Democrats, and perhaps his model and the polls on which it is based will be accurate, but I’m not betting on it.

On election night, you can remind me of my prediction if it proves incorrect. I will be working on a key swing state’s election law issues, but I will be around to monitor numbers like everyone else and will be conversing on Twitter. Some pollsters are going to look smart, and others silly on Tuesday.

2012: A New Time for Choosing

Charles Krauthammer may have best framed the implications of this election with his latest column when he wrote this:

An Obama second term means that the movement toward European-style social democracy continues, in part by legislation, in part by executive decree. The American experiment — the more individualistic, energetic, innovative, risk-taking model of democratic governance — continues to recede, yielding to the supervised life of the entitlement state.

If Obama loses, however, his presidency becomes a historical parenthesis, a passing interlude of overreaching hyper-liberalism, rejected by a center-right country that is 80 percent nonliberal.

This election is indeed a choice between the acceptance of a new liberal era and a chance at returning to a center-right nation. President Obama’s new liberal era is one in which America continues on its path of slow growth, high unemployment, and the debt cliff that will force us to take away from a society growing more and more dependent on a government that is less and less able to provide like it has. The center-right path that Mitt Romney offers is consistent with traditional American principles and rejects President Obama’s European social democracy path.

That is not to say, however, that Mitt Romney’s path is the same one we were on before President Obama took office. On the contrary, Mitt Romney has chosen to apply America’s traditional principles in new ways by selecting Paul Ryan and elevating new Republican leaders who have shown success at the state and federal levels.

In 1964, Ronald Reagan was such a rising star, and he spoke of a similar choice for those times. As Krauthammer noted, Reagan ushered in an era in which his predecessors mostly adhered to the principles of his ascendency. The reelection of President Obama will likely lead to an ascendency of new liberalism that will endure long after his presidency.

It is difficult to know for sure what that enduring legacy would look like, but it will likely feature more government, more government dependence, and upcoming decisions about which benefits are cut from which people dependent on government. That is the downward path that Reagan spoke of in the choice that he framed as up or down.

It is a time for choosing. As The Gipper said, “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Romney’s Closing Argument

While Mitt Romney and President Obama will campaign until the last day, Romney presented a speech in Iowa on Friday that represents his closing argument to Americans (transcript here; video here). This was a strong speech with a lot of important points, but perhaps the main point was this:

The President’s campaign falls far short of the magnitude of the times. And the presidency of the last four years has fallen far short of the promises of his last campaign. Four years ago, America voted for a post-partisan president, but they have seen the most political of presidents, and a Washington in gridlock because of it.

President Obama promised to bring us together, but at every turn, he has sought to divide and demonize. He promised to cut the deficit in half, but he doubled it. And his budget? It failed to win a single vote, Republican or Democrat, in either the House or the Senate. He said he would reform Medicare and Social Security and save them from pending insolvency, but he shrunk from proposing any solution at all.

And then, where are the jobs? Where are the 9 million more jobs that President Obama promised his stimulus would have created by now? They are in China, Mexico, and Canada and in countries that have made themselves more attractive for entrepreneurs and business and investment, even as President Obama’s policies have made it less attractive for them here.

And so today, his campaign tries to deflect and detract, to minimize the failures, and to make this election about small shiny objects.

The contrast of the campaigns is stark, not just in political philosophies, but in their focus. The President’s campaign has been negative, small, and divisive. That is because he has failed to deliver on his promises and he does not have a good record on which to run.

The Romney campaign, in contrast, is impressively one of the big picture. Perhaps the most symbolic example of this was his selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate. Adding Ryan to the ticket made Mitt Romney’s ticket one about a future with new leaders and new ideas. The Obama campaign pretended to welcome that big picture battle, but has mostly remained petty, joking about Big Bird, bayonets, binders, and your “first time.”

All elections are important, but this one will likely be viewed as a turning point for our country in years to come. We are at a point in time where it will be very difficult to change direction to save ourselves from crushing debt without abrupt and radical changes later if we do not start to gradually make changes to our institutions now.

President Obama has not shown any reason for us to believe that he would do that. On the contrary, he has accelerated the growth of government and has divided us to an extent that makes it as difficult as it has ever been to come together to get things done.

Mitt Romney is far from an ideologue; he is a businessman and executive who does what it takes to succeed, and he has done so with integrity and character. He will continue to do so as President.

If we reelect President Obama, however, the country will head down the path of stagnation and eventual decline as our debts overwhelm us and more people require assistance because they cannot find work to make themselves self-sustainable.

May we make the sensible choice on November 6, and may we look back in years to come and be relieved that we began to make the changes we needed to get off the path that we have been on under this President.

Paul Ryan Delivers Terrific Speech on Poverty

Speaking in Cleveland today, Paul Ryan delivered a powerful speech on the subject of poverty (you can watch it here; the transcript is here). I’ve been to Cleveland several times. It is an underrated city that always seems to be in sports purgatory, and it is no stranger to poverty, much like the historic number of Americans struggling with it today in this weak economy.

Paul Ryan rejected the false choice between growing and unsustainable government and a society that leaves the needy to fend for themselves, much like I did in a recent post responding to an article written by Jonathan Cohn. The argument that Ryan and I are both making is that there are other ways to help people in need than simply trusting a larger and larger government:

But part of what makes America great is that when we don’t succeed, we look out for one another through our communities. My party has a vision for making our communities stronger – but we don’t always do a good job of laying out that vision.

Mitt Romney and I want to change that. Each of us understands the importance of community from experience. I come from a town that’s been hit as hard as any.  A lot of guys I grew up with worked at the GM plant in my hometown, and they lost their jobs when it closed.

What happened next is the same thing that happens in communities around the country every day. The town pulled together. Our churches and charities and friends and neighbors were there for one another. In textbooks, they call this civil society.  In my own experience, I know it as Janesville, Wisconsin.

As for Mitt Romney, he not only understands the importance of community – he’s lived it. He’s a guy who, at the height of a successful business, took the time to serve as a lay pastor for his church for fourteen years, counseling people in Boston’s inner-city neighborhoods, especially when they lost a job. He’s a man who could easily have contented himself with giving donations to needy causes, but everyone who knows him will tell you that Mitt has always given his time and attention to those around him who are hurting.

As I wrote earlier and will write again here in light of Ryan’s speech: How much one cares for the needy is not a direct correlation to how much one supports government programs with the goal of helping the needy. It is a false choice to say that one must choose between more government and not helping people.

Reasonable people can disagree over the best means for helping people who need it, but the false choice is an intellectually shallow and dishonest one. If one wants to argue that the government is best at creating upward mobility, go ahead, but don’t pretend that it’s the only serious argument.

On the contrary, it’s difficult to prove that government is better at creating the upward mobility that lifts people out of poverty than the free enterprise system is. America, after all, did not become the most prosperous nation because its government created wealth and opportunity, but because government was limited in such a way that people could use their abilities to succeed in the market (don’t get caught up in Jonathan Chait’s follow-up that focuses on inequality rather than actual weatlth; what good is equality if everyone is poor?).

Chait and others who generally agree with him fail to explain why, if the government is the best instrument at creating prosperity and upward mobility, our founding fathers explicitly limited it to secure basic rights of individuals rather than requiring it to create jobs and prosperity. As Paul Ryan explained:

Mitt Romney and I are running because we believe that Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency.

Some on the left like Mr. Chait take issue with free enterprise because it creates what they believe to be an unfair distribution of wealth that leaves many people in need that only the government can service (or, at least, that the government is the best option for serving). But as Paul Ryan said and I wrote earlier, local communities can provide that help, sometimes better than government because local communities and organizations are more proximate to and familiar with the people and problems they are dealing with than the centralized federal government.

The answer to poverty is more jobs. The way to create jobs is to create more opportunity for success and wealth. The best way to create opportunities for wealth and success is to allow a free market system. And the best way to care for people who are not succeeding in the free market is to allow the people and organizations close to them to customize solutions that best fit the situation and that don’t risk a bigger government that costs too much and takes away more liberty. It is that large government that our Constitution was designed to prevent.

Obama Campaign Is Talking Down to Women

The so-called “war on women” that the Obama campaign alleges that Mitt Romney is waging does not exist, but the Obama campaign is insulting to a woman’s intelligence. First, the Obama campaign is trying to turn Mitt Romney’s explanation of how he sought more female leadership for his government cabinet into a criticism by seizing on the word “binder.” Second, President Obama is resurrecting a discussion over the already-passed Fair Pay Act and hoping that women do not know what it actually does. Third, the Obama administration has tried to force a contraception mandate that has never before existed or been demanded while suggesting that any opposition to it is extreme.

The “binders full of women” remark that Mitt Romney used in the second debate sounds odd when taken by itself. Its context, however, is one that should be encouraging to women. As Romney explained, he had not received enough applications from female candidates for his cabinet, so he asked for more. And guess what? Half of his cabinet consisted of women. If President Obama thinks this is a war on women, he should look into the female staff at the White House receiving unequal pay.

In the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act–an odd law to bring to the forefront of a major campaign–the President seems to think women do not know what it is and will judge it by its name only. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, as I wrote about back when it was passed, is a response to a Supreme Court judgment that simply said a woman’s employment discrimination suit was barred by what is called that statute of limitations (basically, this is the time a person has after an alleged wrongdoing to bring a lawsuit). Congress simply changed the legal procedural rules so that more such lawsuits could be brought at later times, but what one needs to prove the claim has not changed.

As well-known legal expert Richard Epstein explained at the time, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will force employers to spend more money on oversight to avoid such litigation. In other words, women may become more expensive to hire due to an increased risk of lawsuit. Does making an employee cost the employer more increase the employee’s chances of getting a job and receiving equal pay? Do the math.

Lastly, the Obama administration has pushed an unprecedented mandate that insurance companies cover contraception. There are policy arguments that women need help accessing such medication, but no one is making a serious constitutional argument that suggests there is some guaranteed right to contraception that government must provide and of which government has been depriving women since the marketing of such products began decades ago. Mitt Romney is not trying to take away anyone’s access to contraception (he cannot anyway, thanks to the Supreme Court over forty years ago). Nor is Mitt Romney trying to reverse Roe v. Wade (he cannot do this either; only the Supreme Court can reverse this ruling–which it will not–and there is an almost zero chance of a constitutional amendment changing this).

The Obama campaign has ginned up controversy that does not exist in order to sway just enough women voters to win reelection. The Republican party and Mitt Romney are not trying to take anything away from women; in fact, Mitt Romney has a record of promoting female talent. That’s where the “binders” nonsense came from. As someone who has worked for great female managers and who has been involved in promoting female talent in an organization acclaimed for its female leadership, I would not support Mitt Romney or the Republican party if it were in any way waging a war on women. The Obama campaign, however, hopes that enough women are not smart enough to see through what it is trying to do.

The only real war on women right now is the Obama economy that makes it almost impossible to get a job, let alone fair pay.

Left’s False Choice About Spending and Caring More

Jonathan Cohn has an interesting, although deeply flawed, column today comparing red and blue states that he sees as representing an increasing national divide over general philosophy of government. I think there are stark differences in red and blue America that are real and instructive, but his flawed conclusion is this: Because states that spend more money are generally wealthier and better off, more states should spend more. He also adds the modern liberal creed that supporting government programs that purportedly help the needy means you care more, so red states that limit those programs generally care less. (NOTE: He also confirmed with me that he is suggesting that because some states choose to not spend what he considers enough on programs for the needy, they should be stripped of that choice, ceding more power to the federal government).

The premise that general support for government programs directly correlates to how much one cares about the goals of those programs is complete nonsense, but many liberals use that logic to assign themselves credibility. This is flawed logic that uses a straw man, and it goes like this: Conservatives care more about liberty, economic growth, and wealth than they do the poor, so by rejecting conservatism and supporting government programs that supposedly care about the needy, one cares more about helping the needy. Of course, rejecting a view that one perceives as not caring does not make one caring and neither does supporting a view that asserts that it cares because it supports programs that try to help, regardless of how effective those programs are.

Cohn’s observation that governments that spend more provide more is mundane. Of course spending more money can get you more. If the answer to our problems were spending more money, however, then why not spend infinitely? Why would we ever limit our spending? While even lefties like Cohn would likely admit that there is some limit to how much a government can spend (after all, there is only so much money), he and many other lefties often don’t make the case for marginal benefit. In other words, how much does each additional dollar you spend benefit more than the last dollar you spent? To many lefties, every additional dollar towards a program with a worthy goal is generally worth it.

Here’s an example of marginal benefit based on a subject I know well from experience: People always want their healthcare products to be safer, but at some point, the safety measures on which one spends money will begin to provide less benefit than the cost. Is it worth it, for example, to spend an extra ten dollars on a product that gets you only 0.00001% better safety than the next product? Perhaps not, and the same can be applied to other areas. Should we spend an extra percentage of our economic output as a country on education if it only gets us only an additional 0.01% of students graduating high school (I’m just making up numbers for the sake of argument)? Reasonable people can disagree over whether those benefits outweigh the costs, but the liberal argument is generally that because we support a cause we should support more spending for it with little regard for the bang for your buck.

There are plenty of examples of high spending with small marginal benefits. Blue states that Cohn reveres include near bankrupt states like California, Illinois, and New York. Those are states I’ve highlighted over several years because they are in dire financial trouble and should be a warning to the rest of the nation. Those states spend a lot of money, both overall and per capita. Do they have a lot of nice benefits from that government spending? Yes, in fact, I can personally say that two of those states are nice places in which to work and live. But does that mean one should support their high levels of spending with decreasing benefit, and does supporting those high levels of spending mean that one cares more? Of course not.

One doesn’t care more because he supports a level of spending that may drive a state to bankruptcy, requiring the state to beg the federal taxpayers for bailouts or to take benefits away from people. If states and our federal government continue to spend at unsustainable levels, we’ll find out just how much people care about the needy. When the piper must be paid–and that day is soon coming (e.g., Medicare is set to be insolvent by 2024)–the money will come from somewhere, and the nice benefits that Cohn says the blue states provide more of will be taken from someone. Who will get a piece of the shrinking pie, will it be the poor and needy, who generally have less influence in politics? You know the answer, and so do I.

One can care for people in other ways besides supporting endless government expansion (and this is an argument against the one that says states should cede control to the federal government because they don’t include enough people in their government programs). Churches, service organizations, local communities, schools, families, etc. can all help care for people without requiring government programs at unaffordable levels. Many people donate their time and money to helping the needy rather than just trusting the government to take care of everyone and assigning themselves credibility for that trust. One could also argue that it is more compassionate and humane to try to limit government programs so that they help the people who truly need the help without going bankrupt and hurting everyone (or taking away more liberty than the help is worth).

Conservatives, or red states in general, don’t believe in simply reducing programs that purportedly help the poor and needy. Contrary to what President Obama suggests, the choice isn’t between spending on priorities we support and not spending on them. The choice, rather, is between focusing our limited public resources on the people who most need them while trying to get as many people to be self-sustainable as possible, and constantly spending more with little regard for the marginal benefit of each extra dollar or for the risk of arriving at a point where we have to start taking away from people who become dependent on what government provides.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, for example, recognize that our social safety net programs like Medicare are quickly going bankrupt, and that a lot of people will be hurt if we have to soon start taking benefits away or significantly hiking taxes to pay for promised benefits (and, as I’ve been saying, a little tax hike on only the richest Americans won’t pay for the difference). That’s why Romney and Ryan are offering plans to slowly transition those programs in a way that doesn’t pull the rug out from underneath people who have already planned to have the programs as they have existed. The President, in contrast, isn’t proposing anything to save these programs (he in fact cut $700 billion from Medicare for Obamacare), and the path he has put us on is one where we’ll soon be in so much debt that we’ll have to start shrinking government-provided benefits to be able to cut that debt.

Avoiding the fight over a shrinking pie that results from Mr. Cohn’s blue state model of spending into oblivion seems a lot more caring and responsible to me than does putting faith into ever-growing government as long as that government reaches for someone else’s wallet to pay its debts.

President Obama represents Cohn’s blue state model. He has offered no second term agenda other than letting the Bush-Obama tax rates increase on many (including many small business owners), letting investment tax rates and the death tax rate increase, and simply spending more on priorities like education and welfare programs. He has not offered a plan to focus the limited money we have on the people who most need it, but instead thinks like Cohn, suggesting that we simply have to spend more on the causes we support even if the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost and even if we are nearing a point where we will have to take from people in need in order to pay for promises we can’t afford. We don’t have to support that agenda to care; in fact, if we care, we might want to support an actual agenda to save government programs for the people who most need them. Only Mitt Romney is proposing such an agenda.