Multiple Choice Mitt’s Changing Colors on Romneycare

April 12, 2006 is a day that will live on in infamy.  That was the day that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed his signature socialized healthcare bill into law with Ted Kennedy standing over his shoulder.  It was the first time in American history that government of any sort compelled its citizenry to purchase health insurance.  It served as the catalyst for an individual mandate on a federal level, paving the road for Obamacare.

At the time, John Kerry heaped accolades on Romney, ominously suggesting that “we really need to be doing that on the national level.” Ted Kennedy praised it as “just what the doctor ordered,” and observed that we “may well have fired a shot heard round the world.”  It took less than four years for the shot to metastasize into a bombardment – one that will permanently attenuate our free-enterprise economy.

So how did Romney feel about his signature accomplishment of an otherwise uninspiring one-term tenure as governor?

At the time of its passage, Romney dubbed it as a “once in a generation” achievement.  He referred to his magnum opus, which created subsidies for government run exchanges (larger than those created under Obamacare), as a “landmark” achievement “to get all of our citizens insurance without some new government-mandated takeover.”

From Romney’s perspective, did he consider final passage of MassCare a meritorious ideal or a mediocre compromise watered down by the Democrat legislature?

Well, immediately after he signed the bill into law, he told Newsweek reporter Jennifer Barrett that “the final legislation incorporates about 95 percent of my original proposal.”

At the time, did Romney feel that the framework for his healthcare plan was a virtuous policy endeavor for the rest of the nation?

The Biggest Mistake of the Worst Debate

Let’s face it: the ABC News New Hampshire debate was the worst debate of the entire election cycle.  And that is saying something, considering the sheer volume of debates.  How many years and election cycles will it take before Republicans learn to turn to conservatives as moderators for presidential debates, instead of washed up Democrat hacks disguised as journalists?

Now, to the extent that such a pathetic debate is worthy of any analysis, the clear winner was Mitt Romney.  Watching the debate, you’d think Ron Paul was the frontrunner.  All of the verbal altercations played out between Ron Paul and one of the other candidates.  Romney was able to sit pretty throughout the entire debate, except for one monologue from Santorum at the end of the debate.  Undoubtedly, the platform for the debate, along with the inane questions, wasn’t exactly conducive to attacking Romney’s liberal record as governor.  However, they all had an opportunity during the opening salvo of the debate.  They failed miserably.

The candidates were given an opportunity to assail Romney’s business record at Bain Capital as a job killer.  Gingrich and Santorum should have parried the question and gone after Romney on his record in politics.  They should have praised Romney’s record as a businessman while ticking off his liberal vices and his terrible record as Governor, most prominently, his record on healthcare.  They should have decried the fact that we are on the precipice of nominating Obama’s inspiration for Obamacare as his successor.  Instead, they chose an awkward position – one that placed them to Romney’s left on free-market entrepreneurship.  Why attack his record as a CEO when you can destroy him on his liberal record as governor?  This was the biggest mistake on the part of those who are seeking to derail Romney.

To be sure, it was refreshing to hear Santorum finally take Romney to task for his class system rhetoric; however, he obviated his argument by making “blue collar worker” a prominent part of his lexicon.  Santorum should have also used that response as an opportunity to attack Romneycare for its inherent class warfare.  Romneycare disincentivizes success and upward mobility by offering greater subsidies for lower income earners.

I still can’t get over the fact that we are about to nominate the godfather of market-distorting government-run healthcare in an election against government-run healthcare.  This is insane.

Romney Fundamentally Lacks Conservative Principles on Healthcare…Or Anything Else

“His only contribution to the party has been his five-year interminable presidential campaign, despite his insistence that he never intended to run for office again after 2008.”

When Mitt Romney was seeking the Republican nomination in 2008, he deflected criticism of Romneycare by blaming its disastrous effects on the liberal legislature in Massachusetts.  That was four years ago, when Romney was attempting to win the hearts of the conservative base as the alternative to John McCain.

This time around, as he seeks to eschew any ideological principles, Romney is pronouncing his signature healthcare reform as a meritorious and quite ideal plan, at least for his state.  In fact, in recent days, he has gone so far as to proclaim MassCare as a fundamentally conservative principle.

Here is what he had to say today on Fox and Friends [video]:

“I’m happy to stand by the things that I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign,” Romney said. “What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts, the plan is still favored there by three to one, and it is fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that people take personal responsibility as opposed to turning to government for giving out free care.” [emphasis added]

Romney owes Republican primary voters answers to two questions; one ideological and one political.

1) If Romneycare is built on such inviolable conservative principles; if Romneycare has been such an auspicious healthcare reform plan, then what is so terribly offensive about Obamacare?  Yes, we’ve heard that dubious distinction between state governments having the ability to promulgate tyranny, whereas the federal government is constrained by the constitution.  But why not amend the constitution so we can implement Romneycare (Obamacare) on a federal level?  Why not share your paramount success with the rest of the nation?

Mitt Romney: Leader of the Pale Pastel Wing of Party

During Saturday night’s GOP debate, Mitt Romney demonstrated once again why he is failing to gain traction with the conservative base.  He continues to muddle the distinction between Obama’s policies and true free-market doctrine.  Romney consistently invokes progressive policy doctrines, while tempering them with banal flavors of conservatism.

We must remember that every time a candidate failed to draw a sharp intellectual distinction between himself and the Democrats, that candidate was relegated to the ash heap of history.  So far, Republican voters appear to have internalized that lesson.

Here are some examples of Romney’s insipid expression of ‘conservative’ policy.


Taxes/Class System

“His [Gingrich's] plan in capital gains, to remove capital gains for people– at the very highest level of income is different than mine. I’d– I’d– eliminate capital gains, interest, and dividends for people in middle income. So– we have differences of viewpoint on– on some issues. But– but the real difference, I believe, is our backgrounds. I spent my life in the private sector.
I– I understand how the economy works. And I believe that for Americans to– to say goodbye to President Obama and elect a Republican, they need to have confidence that the person they’re electing knows how to make this economy work again and create jobs for the American middle class.” [...]
“And– and in my view, the place that we could spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut is on the middle class, that’s been most hurt by the Obama economy. That’s where I wanna eliminate taxes on interest dividends and capital gains.” [emphasis added]

Romney goes on to criticize Gingrich for not joining him in recognizing a class system and spending “our precious tax dollars” only on middle class taxpayers.  This is exactly what we mean when we say Romney is Obama-light.  He doesn’t believe in raising taxes on the rich, but he believes in the pale pastel alternative of tax cuts only to certain “classes”.  Worse, he views tax cuts as a means of “spending” as opposed to a means of returning wealth to its original owners.  Accordingly, he believes that those “expenditures” should be granted to the right people.

Newt Gingrich Tells the Truth About the Palestinian Non-Entity

“The Palestinians are the global warming climate change of geopolitical conflict. They use deceptive parlance to advance their agenda.”

Newt Gingrich hit it out of the park with his succinct assessment of the “Palestinian” cause.

One of the most incorrigible fallacies pertaining to the Middle East is the notion that the Palestinians are entitled to a state of their own.  This fallacy stems from the misconception that there is a nation of ‘Palestinians’, and to the extent that such a nation exists, this name is an accurate representation of the Arabs who live in modern Israel.  This artful manipulation of the geopolitical lexicon was meant to bestow upon a group of random Arabs a false sense of geographical ties to the Holy Land.

In 1977, during an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, PLO Executive Committee member Zuheir Mohsen described the stratagem as this:

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.”

This delusion is no trivial matter.  For years, the left wing foreign policy establishment has rapturously promoted the ‘Palestinians’ as the cause célèbre of our national security interests.  Instead of focusing on the real threats to our national security (such as those who, incidentally, fund the so-called Palestinians), the foreign policy establishment has singularly focused on creating a state for the most virulently anti-American people on the face of the planet.  Their maniacal fixation on the Palestinians has left them devoid of solutions regarding the broader turmoil in the Middle East.

The first step in undoing this foreign policy mess is for the next president to deracinate the entire myth of a ‘Palestinian people’.  Kudos to Newt Gingrich for finally telling the truth about the geopolitical cause célèbre of all the world’s imbeciles.

Anti-Pipeline Dave Heineman Should Not Run for Senate in Nebraska

One of the biggest political and policy winners for Republicans is their strong support for expeditious approval of the Keystone Pipeline.  Their unified support for this propitious project has provided voters with a sharp contrast to Obama’s casual disregard for private-sector job creation and cheap energy for consumers.  Hence, it is a no-brainer that the pipeline issue should be used as a rallying cry for all Republicans running for elected office in 2012.

In that vein, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman would be wise to remain in Lincoln, and discard any aspirations to run for Senate.

Toward the end of the summer, amidst pressure from members of his own administration, Obama was on the verge of signing off on the deal.  The State Department had published yet another favorable environmental impact study, and even Energy Secretary Steven Chu seemed to concede that opposition to the pipeline was indefensible.  But then came the vociferous protestations from Obama’s base; greenies, hippies, Hollywood bimbos, and….Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman.

Late in August, the Nebraska Republican penned a letter to the President and Secretary of State requesting that they deny the permit for the pipeline.  Heineman stated that he objected to the route of the pipeline for fear that an oil spill would affect that Ogallala Aquifer – an underground water table in western Nebraska.

Never mind that unlike oil tankers, pipelines are much safer, and in the rare event of a spill, the affected area is measured in tens of feet, not thousands.  Never mind that the EPA and the State Department saw no concern with the proposed route of the pipeline.  Disregard the fact that the only legitimate threat to the water supply comes from the ethanol production that is so blithely promoted by Nebraska’s Republicans, without any concern for the Ogallala Aquifer.  Dave Heineman felt that he must convene a special session of the legislature and block the pipeline, granting Obama the vital bipartisan cover he needed to scuttle the project.

Two months later, buoyed by Republican Heineman’s moral support, Obama suspended the pipeline until after the 2012 elections.  As they say, the rest is history.

Now, Senators Cornyn and McConnell are imploring the governor to seek the Republican nomination in the Senate race against Ben Nelson.

Let’s not muddle our unified message on energy policy by electing the Keystone Pipeline slayer to the Senate?

Fact Check: Ron Paul is Wrong About Defense Spending

Sequestration imposes real cuts on the military, not just baseline cuts 

During last week’s foreign policy debate, Ron Paul won accolades from the crowd when he professed that there are no real pending cuts to the military, just reductions in baseline spending.  Here is the full quote:
“Believe me. They’re cutting — they’re nibbling away at baseline budgeting, and its automatic increases. There’s nothing cut against the military. And the people on the Hill are nearly hysterical because they’re not going — the budget isn’t going up as rapidly as they want it to. It’s a road to disaster. We had better wake up.”

This statement is absolutely false.  Sequestration will indeed reduce military spending from ‘actual dollar amounts’ of FY 2011 spending levels over the next seven years.

In order to understand defense appropriations, we need to distinguish between the two categories of spending; base budget (ships, planes, weapons, troops) and Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).  Using CBO’s numbers, roughly $703 billion (the DOD Comptroller’s office puts that number at $688 billion) was spent on total defense spending, with $552 billion allocated for base budget (true national defense) and the rest going toward the wars (OCO).  When preparing a 10-year budget for defense spending, OCO appropriations are hard to predict because our war spending vacillates with our foreign policy decisions.  Only the base budget figures are truly fixed into the budget, just like most domestic non-security expenditures.  Consequently, whenever we mention the estimated $1 trillion in defense cuts, remember that they are exclusively incurred by the base budget, aka the military, not the war budget.

So what will the ten-year budget projection of our base defense budget look like after sequestration?  Here are the results from the latest CBO report (CBO Testimony, October 26, pages 18-19):

About that Perry Debate Blunder

Everyone has their own take on Perry's debate meltdown, in which he froze while attempting to remember the names of the departments he would eliminate.  Many of Perry's ardent supporters are devastated by this seemingly fatal mistake.  However, I would point to two observations about Perry's utter lack of ability to articulate his message.

1) This was bound to come out at some point.  Whether he was able to remember the three departments tonight or not, the result would have been the same.  Perry would have been a debater in the general election debates.  The bottom line is that you can survive the general election as a mediocre debater, but not a disastrous one.

2) Despite the fact that many suggest Perry's hear is in the right place (conservatism), do we really want to nominate someone who cannot articulate those convictions?

It is an unfortunate end to a very promising candidate.  I never thought I would say this, but I'm beginning to wonder if Newt Gingrich is the only electable alternative "conservative" to Romney.

A Conservative Look at Perry's Economic Plan

When Herman Cain proposed his 9-9-9 plan, many conservatives became energized, despite their misgivings with the fine print of the plan.  It wasn’t so much the details of the proposal that excited the base, as most conservatives intuitively recoiled from a consumption tax; it was the boldness of the plan that resonated with them.  Cain’s 9-9-9 brought some excitement to a race that was defined by a frontrunner who offered 160 pages of banal fluff.  Nevertheless, his plan was too flawed to be utilized as a viable rallying cry in the general election.  Perry appears to have proposed both a viable and bold economic plan, albeit with some inevitable flaws.

Here is a synopsis of all of the major components.

Tax Plan

The centerpiece of the plan is a flat individual income tax of 20%.  This would serve as a vehicle for massive economic growth, as it offers a huge tax cut for job-creators who currently pay as much as 35%.  However, unlike the traditional Steve Forbes flat tax, this proposal would keep the deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and state and local taxes for those earning less than $500,000 (over 99% of taxpayers).  It would also offer a standard deduction of $12,500 per household members.  Consequently, a family of four earning $50,000 would have a zero tax liability.  Update: Phillip Klein reports that the employer tax exclusion for healthcare would remain until Obamacare is repealed.

Moreover, the entire system would preserve the option to remain under the current tax code.  As such, the 47% who have zero tax liability and the 29% who have a positive tax liability (as a result of the EITC and Additional Child Tax Credit), would have no incentive to move to the flat tax.  Accordingly, there would be two shortcomings to this plan:

Barack the $15 Trillion Man

A truly historic presidency

Amidst the hype concerning the so-called era of austerity and budget cuts, the national debt is rapidly marching towards the $15 trillion milestone.  As of late last week, the national debt stood at $14.94 trillion.  For those of you keeping score, that number has grown by $646 billion since the debt ceiling was raised on August 2, as part of the great bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011.  In other words, the debt has increased by over $8 billion per day during the past 11 weeks.

Let's put these numbers in historical perspective.

Barack Obama likes to blame all of our economic woes on his predecessor.  The burgeoning national debt is no different, as he blames its precipitous rise on the Bush tax cuts.  Well, President Bush and his merry band of big-government conservatives were anything but budget hawks; nonetheless, it took them 92 months – almost the entire 8-year tenure – to accrue $4.3 trillion in debt.  Obama has accumulated that much debt in just 33 months.  Put another way, it wasn't until 1997 that we amassed as much debt as Obama has in 2.5 years.

There is also another grim, but often overlooked statistic of Obama's empire of debt.

The national debt consists of two components; debt held by the public and intra-government debt.  The debt held by the public is the sum of the treasury securities held by those outside the federal government, with the lion's share owned by foreign countries.  The debt held by the public currently stands at $10.2 trillion.  The other component, the intra-governmental share, is owed to other federal agencies and accounts, most prominently, the non-existent Social Security Trust Fund, as well as accounts holding pensions for military veterans and government workers.  That share of the debt currently stands at $4.73 trillion.

Chris Christie is Intellectually Dishonest

Earlier today, Chris Christie endorsed Mitt Romney for president, describing him as “a real hero in Republican circles.”  During his announcement, he disparaged conservatives who oppose Romneycare, by suggesting that any attempt to compare it to Obamacare is “completely intellectually dishonest.”  Governor Christie might want to look in the mirror or step down as a prominent spokesman for the Republican Party.
Any attempt to suggest that the two healthcare plans are fundamentally different is completely intellectually dishonest.

Romney on Romneycare


“Let me tell you this about our system in Massachusetts: 92 percent of our people were insured before we put our plan in place. Nothing’s changed for them. The system is the same. They have private market-based insurance.  We had 8 percent of our people that weren’t insured. And so what we did is we said let’s find a way to get them insurance, again, market-based private insurance. We didn’t come up with some new government insurance plan.” (FoxNews-Google Debate, Sept. 22)

Reality


Like every egregious government intervention in the private sector, MassCare drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion.  Massachusetts individual health premiums are now the highest in the nation.   The other 92% are being forced to pay higher premiums for what is no longer “market-based insurance.”  The 8% that are “uninsured” were put on government programs, primarily Medicaid.  That’s exactly what Obama seeks to do with Obamacare.  The costs will be even higher once the federal government stops subsidizing Romneycare through extra Medicaid grants.

Romney Finally Getting Hit on Romneycare

While there is much needless focus on whether a Mormon can be elected, there is much less focus on whether the man who created the antecedent to Obamacare can win the Republican nomination.  Until recently, the Republican presidential field has largely left Romney unscathed.  That is about to change, as Rick Perry goes full throttle on Romneycare.  Here is his latest ad:

All You Need to Know About Mitt Romney

in his own liberal words:

After a half century of robust growth in the conservative movement, it would be a travesty to nominate this guy.

Joe Walsh as the Model for 2012 House Candidates

In order to 'fundamentally restore' America, we will need to win back the House and Senate in 2012, in addition to the White House.  Yes – you read that correctly.  We don't control the House yet.

There is a popular misconception that all of the 87 freshmen members are intrepid conservatives – members of the "Tea Party Congress."  Sadly, many of the newbies are 'business as usual' types.  As Erick pointed out last week, there are members like Martha Roby, who represent conservative districts, yet, they are anything but conservative.  We will continue to name names.  These uninspiring Republicans don't vote with the Democrats and cannot be classified as RINOs, but they are lock-step followers of leadership.  If we continue electing more of the play-it-safe crowd, we will never reverse the inexorable march toward socialism and fiscal insolvency.

On Tuesday, House leadership is planning to pass Harry Reid's CR with unanimous consent.  In other words, they will lock in spending levels and policies that completely void the House-passed "Ryan" budget – without any debate.  How ironic that Boehner is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Pledge to America with this emphatic declaration: "we’ve kept that pledge, and will continue to keep our promise to the millions of Americans who remain out of work and the small businesses hamstrung by today’s economic uncertainty."  In the pledge, they promised to "fight the growth of government" and "efforts to fund the costly new healthcare law."  Well, this CR will continue $26.3 billion in funding for Obamacare, and will pave the road for an Omnibus bill in November that will grow the size of government.  It will also continue the solar energy loan program that led to Solar-gate.

All of this would not have been possible had we elected a real "Tea Party Congress" – one that would have challenged the status quo mentality of leadership.  Undoubtedly, it is quite arduous for a new member to challenge the agenda of leadership; however, it is precisely that sort of indomitability that we will need to restore this country to its constitutional roots.

The Bipartisan Social Security Demagoguery Must End Now

The source of the 76-year old monstrous lie 

The recent Social Security demagoguery that has been propagated by Mitt Romney and other big-government apologists is truly repugnant.  Accusing those who desire to preserve and expand personal retirement – of eliminating Social Security for seniors is akin to an arsonist blaming firefighters for fanning the flames.  It was the very big-government statists like Romney who obfuscated and corrupted the original intent of Social Security; it is the modern day constitutional conservatives who desire to solve the SS insolvency – with a solution that corrects those vices.

On October 29, 1936, in a campaign speech that was rife with virulent class warfare, FDR spoke at length of his one-year old Social Security Act.  He told the assembled crowd of blue collar workers in Wilkes-Barre, PA that their payroll taxes would be “held by the Government solely for the benefit of the worker in his old age.”  He referred to Social Security as an insurance program numerous times throughout the speech, concluding that “in effect, we have set up a savings account for the old age of the worker.” (emphasis added)

It’s a shame Congressman Joe Wilson wasn’t around during the speech.  He would have bellowed out an emphatic “YOU LIE.”  As Walter Williams noted, from the inception of Social Security, its advocates lied to the American people by categorizing the program as a secure savings account or insurance plan, with a defined distribution commensurate to the original contribution, which would be guaranteed as an irrevocable right.  The original government pamphlet on Social Security promised that “Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States government will set up a Social Security account for you. … The checks will come to you as a right.”

It is conservatives – those who criticize its current stewardship as a Ponzi scheme – who seek to preserve and restructure the program to reflect the way it was originally advertised.  Unfortunately, the original Social Security Act was written by malfeasants who deliberately misled the public about the true nature of the law.

Romneycare: A Microcosm of Obamacare, According to Conservative Study

Does government have the right to take over the healthcare sector, thereby infringing on liberty, killing jobs, reducing income, destroying investment, and driving up costs to consumers?  Well, as long as it is promulgated by state government, Mitt Romney thinks there is nothing wrong.

The conservative Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University has done a comprehensive study surveying the devastation of Romneycare – and it’s not pretty.  The study, which was obtained by the Boston Herald, analyzed trends in healthcare costs and employment data before and after passage of this unconstitutional behemoth.  Here are some of the key findings of the Romneycare devastation:

• cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;

• drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;

• slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and

• reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

Additionally, the study found that much of the higher costs were subsidized by the federal government (national taxpayers) through a Medicaid waiver program.  A previous Beacon Hill study found that Romneycare cost Medicaid $2.4 billion and Medicare $1.4 billion.  It is these very costly state programs that are causing federal Medicaid expenditures to rise from its current level of $280 billion to $574 billion in 2020.  It is these very state mandates that have spiked the cost of private health insurance for years.

GOP Must Use Political Victories to Oppose Obama's Stimulus in its Entirety

Pass the bill never!

The Democrats have provided Republicans with a historic opportunity to go on offense against Keynesian stimulus, and apply jujitsu against the Democrat 2012 playbook – Mediscare tactics.  They shouldn't blow it.

Last night, Democrats got wiped out in two special elections; losing by 22% in Nevada CD-2 and by 8% in a New York district that hasn’t voted Republican since 1922.  These victories were buoyed by Obama’s record disapproval ratings across every demographic, most notably, whites and independents.

While there have been copious pages of commentary published in an attempt to analyze the source of the GOP’s success, it is clear which tactic was unsuccessful: Mediscare (are you watching, Mitt Romney?).  Both Democrat candidates attacked their opponents incessantly as proverbial killers of Medicare and Social Security.  Although this pathetic line of attack is 50 years old, it was slated to serve as the impetus for Democrats’ 2012 campaign strategy.  Well, their only plan to win in 2012 failed miserably, providing Republicans with a chance to launch a counterattack.

Mitt Romney's Political Platform is a Ponzi Scheme

His transient political views are unsustainable in the GOP primary.
Mitt Romney might feel that entitlement reform is an electoral loser, but it is precisely his unprincipled Mittness Protection Program of a political platform that will lose him the nomination.  Republicans are looking for a leader – and leaders show courage by articulating bold solutions to our most consequential public policy problems, such as retirement security; not by ducking behind them and palavering liberal demagoguery.

You see, Romney's political platform, much like Social Security, is a Ponzi scheme.  His convictions, like the Social Security Trust Fund, are vapid of substance.  He supplies his current political platform with capricious policy stances that serve to sustain perceived political benefits in the future.  In that sense, his is the ultimate career politician, albeit an unsuccessful one.

He thinks that by offering 160 pages of tepid fluff, with a one-sentence oblique reference to Social Security insolvency, he will be served well in the general election.  He is also wagering that spewing Mediscare-style demagoguery will carry him through the primary.  Well, it didn't work for his father against Barry Goldwater in 1964; it certainly won't work in the era of the Tea Party and a mature, well-oiled conservative base.


Republican voters are looking for somebody who will lead public opinion, by turning the tables on Obama's Mediscare tactics.  Our nominee must complete his sentences and explain why the fact that SS is a Ponzi scheme – is reason enough to engender full-scale reform.  He must show how Obama's status quo will lead to draconian cuts, higher taxes, and delayed retirement, while his (or her) plan will preserve and expand retirement security through the empowerment of the individual, instead of government schemers.

Proposed Questions for the GOP Debate: Time for Specifics

Although a debate stage with eight candidates is inherently conducive to a circus atmosphere, the debate moderators need to focus on questions which elicit substantive answers to specific policy questions from the candidates.  Moreover, the liberal moderators from Politico and NBC should remember that they are overseeing a Republican debate.  As such, their questions should stem from conservative premises, and should provoke thoughtful responses from the candidates – responses that will demonstrate their visions of conservative governance to a conservative electorate.

Another bonus proposal would be for the Reagan Library to screen the audience more carefully to prevent outbursts of cheers and jeers, thereby engendering a more serious atmosphere than the previous debate (yes, we're looking at you, Ron Paul supporters).

Here are some proposed questions:

Rick Perry Nails it on Social Security

Rick Perry, more than any other candidate, has had the courage to call out Social Security for the Ponzi scheme that it is.  Yesterday, he made it clear that he is not backing away from the position he articulated in his book that Social security must be reformed for the younger generation:

(Video-courtesy of the left-wing site, Think Progress, that thinks there is something wrong with reforming Social Security so young workers aren't forced into a Ponzi scheme.)