There is no doubt that much of the session’s oxygen will be sucked up by the major issues that failed to produce any legislation following last year’s battles. These issues include reforming the tax code, mental health services, and education, as well as another round of sparring over Iowa setting up a health insurance exchange to work in conjunction with Obama Care.

While these will grab a majority of the headlines, and a good share of our attention here at The Conservative Reader: Iowa, there have already been a number of very interesting bills introduced that we will also be following.

As of now the bills and issues outside “the big 4” that we have flagged to watch closely are as follows: Term limits, random drug testing for recipients 84th of certain state benefits, banning red light and speed cameras, and the fate of nuclear power in Iowa.

After being deluged for so many months with candidates and their ever changing poll numbers, it is easy to forget that in many ways the caucus season is an imperfect method for measuring Iowa’s current ideological perspective. Removing the factors attached to individual candidates such as “likeability” and “electability”, and instead gauging the debate and the public reaction of Iowans to more hyper-local issues is a far more telling indicator of where we stand. Ironically these debates and their results likely will tip our hand as to which Presidential candidate will be awarded our 6 electoral votes in November.

In the following weeks stay tuned for investigations, updates, analysis, and opinions on the major issues being debated at the State House. As mentioned earlier, while we will not ignore the most publicized topics of debate this session, a number of bills that will exist in the shadows of the major priorities are just as important.

Though we will be closely watching with an appropriate level of skepticism, we wish all those involved with the 84th General Assembly well in their efforts to make improvements for all Iowans. When we feel they have achieved improvement—we will trumpet it. When we feel they have caused damage to our way of life—they will be called to account.

On with Democracy…

Already in the midst of an epic ideological struggle, our Country’s attempt to answer this question has even further defined the massive divide in political philosophy that has beset us.

The form this divide has currently taken is the debate on whether to raise the debt ceiling and, if so, on what conditions. While this has merit as a political reality the whole discussion is a mere surface abrasion of the underlying issues—issues that can’t be solved by each side conceding a point or two and adjusting some numbers.

The real value for Conservatives in the debt ceiling debate, and all budget related squabbles, is that it exposes the Country to the true fundamental underpinnings of modern day Liberalism. These underpinnings are a vision of America that not only runs counter to the fabric of our greatness, but counter to rational sensibility. Liberalism itself consists of a whole slew of false and misguided notions that have gone well hidden or under-challenged for too long.

The collection of these various notions is a vile construct. A vile construct that seeks to redefine terms and co-opt concepts. It is a world view that claims taxes=patriotism, a government expenditure=virtue, a Federal budget=a reflection of morality, increased spending=increased benefit, not raising taxes=balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, and that “winning the future”=some kind of government purchased financial transaction.

Not only are these beliefs untrue, their acceptance as facts would be a death blow to Conservatism and the key to Liberal victory. If they succeed in getting people to associate these words with the meaning they have attached to them, they have won. Let’s take a brief look at each.

Taxes=Patriotism:  While it is not too surprising that Liberals would misunderstand love of Country, this is simply ridiculous. Taxes are a legal obligation a citizen has to pay for their government, nothing more. Clearly you can be un-patriotic and pay a lot of taxes, just as you can be patriotic and pay none. By this logic are we to assume that the more taxes you pay the more patriotic you are? How about vice-versa?

Government Expenditures=Virtue:  The human necessity services of food and shelter (that made up welfare at its genesis) are a reaction to need by a compassionate country, not a virtue. Not surprisingly, treating this activity as a virtue has led to a system completely out of control, and not just in welfare. Endless un-employment checks now seem to be approaching “human rights” status, in many states a pregnant mother (and the child until the age of one) qualifies for Medicaid at 300% of the Federal Poverty Level, and then you have a real monster—the earned income tax credit. This tax credit is largely responsible for the fact that in 2009 not only did 51% of American households pay no Federal income tax, but 30% of households not only didn’t pay they actually received money. Don’t believe it? Click here . . . completely out of control.

A Budget=A Reflection of Our Morality:  The root of this view is that to a liberal, governing is an emotional exercise. Above all else this must not be allowed to become the prevailing view of the American citizenry. This approach makes spending decisions based on your “caring” about people, not on stewardship or prudence. It is the reason that, despite being $14 trillion in the hole, their rhetoric never changes and removing them from power is the only way to stop them from spending. If they cease spending money and providing for tens of millions of people, in their own minds, this means they don’t care about them anymore.

Increased Spending=Increased Benefit:  This has been disproven countless times. In the past we have had the “wars” on poverty and drugs and recently a stimulus bill that spent nearly a trillion dollars with minuscule results. Probably the best example of this fallacy is in our public education system where per pupil spending has doubled over the last 40 years while performance has remained stagnant.

Winning the Future=A Government Purchased Financial Transaction:  Republicans have spouted nonsense similar to this in the past, and they were dead wrong too. You don’t “win the future” by government spending. You “win the future” with tough, determined, self-reliant, and motivated citizens, the kind that we used to have in abundance. You “win the future” with strong families and good parenting that produces disciplined, moral children. What our big-government entitlement society seems to be producing is an increasing number of wimpy, whiny, obese, and dependent people. With traits like that it doesn’t matter how much money you spend, you aren’t winning anything—let alone the future.

As the House and Senate debate numbers and move decimal points around to solve one tiny problem at a time, the real resolution lies elsewhere. At some point in the next two years the philosophical battle that is raging will be decided by the American people, any preceding negotiations are theater useful only to stake out 2012 political ground. The possibility exists to chart a financially sustainable course even if President Obama manages to win re-election, but as long as Liberal Democrats control the Senate nothing substantive will be agreed to. Their ideology simply will not allow it to happen.

While the most important factor for Republicans is making the electorate truly realize that the financial disaster is real, much hinges on Independents accepting or rejecting the false premises that Liberalism is built on. This is why so much is riding on the Republican presidential nominee and on the candidates running for the open Senate seats in 2012. Can they effectively communicate the debt crisis and can they aggressively refute the vile construct that is Liberalism?

This is the big picture . . . and these are big, big stakes.

• Richard Doak – What if the founders were around today?
• Donald Kaul – My favorite 4^th of July speech
• Dean Baker – Keep Social Security safe from politicians who want to save it

This week I will focus my comments on Richard Doak’s imaginary view of our founding fathers.  I will cover the other articles in due time.

Richard Doak – He begins with “This Fourth of July finds the country caught up more than usual in the mythology of America.”.  This opening argument is a fundamental tactic of the Progressives, i.e. to undermine our most cherished institutions by equating them to something less (mythology).

• He asserts that “a faction” of the Supreme Court claims to discern the “original intent”.  Every Justice is required to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent … under the Constitution.  How can a Justice fulfill that oath without trying to understand the original intent of the founders?  Every decision requires a majority, not a faction (minority).
• He says that “Today’s congress and courts are more intent on freeing the rich from taxation…”.  According to The Heritage Foundation, the % of Federal Taxes paid by the top 10% of income earners has increased from just fewer than 50% in 1980 to about 70% at the end of 2008.  In 2008, 49% of U.S. households paid no Federal Income Tax.[1] The reality is that for decades congress has been intent on freeing everyone but the rich to pay taxes.
• He asserts that “The Constitution, written in 1787, created a strong central government and a unified national economy.”.  He then creates the straw man that “politics are occasionally roiled by calls for a return to a weak central government and state’s ability to veto federal actions” as existed under the Articles of Confederation.  I have attended every major Tea Party event in Iowa over the past 3 years.  I can’t recall anyone calling for a return to the Articles of Confederation.   Most Tea Party supporters simply want the country to operate under the Constitution as properly amended.
• He offers several rights, including guaranteed health care, implying the founders would have included them had they thought about them.  At the time the Constitution was written, there was substantial discontent over the welfare of the common man, both in the United States and Europe.  The French Revolution occurred in 1789.  The Articles of Confederation were introduced by James Madison that same year and ratified at the end of 1791. It is disingenuous to imply that the founders had no opportunity to think about social justice entitlements.  It is more likely that they considered such matters to be the province of individual states.
• Finally, he offers up the U.S. Post Office as a shining example that the founders were pragmatic and had no favoritism of private sector solutions vs. government solutions.   They just wanted to do “what works best”.   I can’t think of a better argument for limited government and the need to repeal Obamacare.

Evidenced by the fact that I recently finished re-reading Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative on a kindle—much has changed since it was first published in 1960. However, by the staggering parallels that its content has to the political realities of 2011, one could say that not much has changed at all.

Anyone who chooses to invest the few hours necessary to read this book will become apprised of the historical context in which the political and ideological battles of our generation fit into the course of our Country’s history. Indeed it becomes clear that the rise of the Tea Party is not the first attempt to reconfigure our relationship with government, but is merely the continuation of a movement first given voice to by Barry Goldwater 51 years ago.

Written with eloquent clarity, its importance rivals, and perhaps even trumps, the documents surrounding our Nation’s founding in importance based on its remarkable relevance to our day. While the theory behind the writings of Thomas Jefferson, The Federalist Papers, and Common Sense are inarguably still viable, Goldwater is able to make his case specifically against things that did not exist in the 18th century, but did both in the 1960’s and today. In fact, if you replace the word Communism with Terrorism, the entire list of topics that he addresses—a growing federal government, National debt, the welfare state, The United Nations, the erosion of personal freedoms, and labor unions—all remain the exact flashpoints of our modern day political struggles. Here are just a few of the many examples.

Federal Spending

“Now it would be bad enough if we had simply failed to redeem our promise to reduce spending; the fact, however, is that federal spending has greatly increased during the Republican years. Instead of a $60 billion budget, we are confronted, in fiscal 1961, with a budget of approximately $80 billion.” – Barry Goldwater

It is slightly comical, and certainly sad, to read Goldwater bemoaning the entire federal spending for a year approaching, in his mind, the absurd level of $100 billion. The reaction of his contemporaries to his concerns on spending were much the same fare that we are fed from our political leaders today—a set of recommendations from the Hoover administration claiming that the government could save the taxpayers around $7 billion a year just by eliminating extravagance and waste. Sound familiar?

This was useless lip-service then, just as it is now, and prompted Goldwater to lay down a far different doctrine—“The root evil is that government is engaged in activities in which it has no legitimate business. . . . The only way to curtail spending substantially is to eliminate the programs in which excess spending is consumed. The government must begin to withdraw from a whole series of programs that are outside its Constitutional mandate . . . and all that can be performed by lower levels of government, or by private institutions, or by individuals.”

Taxes

“Government does not have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals. One of the foremost precepts of the natural law is man’s right to the possession and use of his property.” –Barry Goldwater

Unlike today’s Republican who largely pins their argument for lower taxes on the received benefit of spurring economic growth, to Goldwater the issue was far more a moral one. He asks, “How can he be free if the fruits of his labor are not his to dispose of, but are treated, instead, as part of a common pool of public wealth?” Not only does this argument seem superior to the present day Conservative one, so do his other thoughts on the subject.

While acknowledging that every citizen has an obligation to contribute a fair share to the “legitimate functions of government”, he quickly does what politicians on the right nowadays fail to do effectively—tie the size of government’s rightful claim on our money to the definition of “the legitimate functions of government”. Though it seems overly simple, telling a person what they have to gain financially by restricting government is much more effective than making broad Constitutional arguments. One can’t help but think that advocates for eliminating federal agencies, and in general returning to only the expenditures authorized by the enumerated powers, would get much more traction by clearly making the connection that for every function of government that we can do without, you will keep more of your own money.

He also makes it clear that were he alive today he would be leading the charge for the flat tax, by calling our system of graduated tax rates “confiscatory” and “repugnant to my notions of justice”.

The Welfare State

“The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on—after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.”-B. Goldwater

Among the most poignant and impassioned arguments Goldwater makes are against the continued creation of the welfare state. Largely due to the fact that when he wrote the book the programs that make up our welfare state were not yet insolvent, massively-unfunded liabilities, the nature of his resistance is mainly on moral grounds and the effect that he envisioned it having on the recipients psyche. Just as it remains today, he predicted that the emotional impulse of voters and the temptation it presents to politicians would combine to make it a deeply entrenched and ever expanding problem.

Though in its infancy at the time, he saw the building of a welfare state not only as a political strategy by the left to move the Country in a Socialist direction, but as a corrosive practice that placed the individual at the mercy of the State. It was his sense that this relationship would, over time, sap the welfare recipient of the sense of personal responsibility required to be anything but dependent.

His position is not that there be no welfare, rather that it be administered either voluntarily from citizen to citizen or through local institutions and governments. Indicating that the political perils of this position were just as present then as they are today he states, “I feel certain that Conservatism is through unless Conservatives can demonstrate and communicate the difference between being concerned with these problems and believing that the federal government is the proper agent for their solution.”

Goldwater 2012

Reading The Conscience of a Conservative is in many ways bitter-sweet. Sweet in that it gives such clear voice to our founders’ ideals, freedom, and Conservatism; but bitter in the realization one is left with that had these battles been fought and won in his time, they would not need refighting now. Perhaps the most important thing the reader takes away from this book is a sobering reminder of how high the stakes are in the upcoming election. Armed with the knowledge of what has transpired from 1960 until now, one shudders to conceive of the consequences of not winning the battle this time around.

In further illustrating how worthwhile and relevant this book remains in 2011, let me close with what Goldwater sees as being the moment that Conservatism will defeat Liberalism:

The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, for I intend to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose upon the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined if it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked f
or neglecting my constituents’ “interests”, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest was liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

Goldwater in 2012 indeed.

We urge you, as the session progresses, to take the time to communicate with your elected representatives.  Go to this link, and find your representative’s name, click on it, and you’ll get phone numbers, email addresses, information about committee assignments and links to bill sponsorships.  I will be in contact with Peter Cownie and Pat Ward, the House and Senate members who represent me here in West Des Moines.

I exchanged emails with Peter last week.  This is his freshman years in the Statehouse, and he managed to get assigned to Appropriations, Economic Growth, Educatio nand Labor committees, and on Appropriations, he is the ranking member of the Economic Development subcommittee.  He told me that this year is pretty much all about the Budget.

Which leads me to Friday Night’s Iowa Press on IPTV.  Senator Mike Gronstal (D-Senate Majority Leader from Council Bluffs) and Representative Pat Murphy (D-Speaker of the House from Dubuque) were grilled by Dean Borg (the host), David Yepsen from the Des Moines Register, and Mike Glover from the Associated Press.

The message from Gronstal and Murphy was the same one that Peter heard… it’s about the budget.  We’ve already seen Governor Culver make two swipes at state spending to try and get the budget aligned with expected revenues.  Gronstal started responding to the budget question from Glover by saying that committees will be working hard on cutting expenses, and then proceeded to hit the first shortsighted decision which is the canceling of plans for a new state office building.  Gronstal said: “we need a new state office building, Wallace needs to be replaced but not today.”  On the one hand, if we don’t have the money, we don’t have the money… but on the other hand the cost of the new building, which “we need” will jump up every year we wait.  On the third hand, we could reduce the size of government and eliminate the need for the Wallace Building altogether, but that’s not likely to happen.  This is one project that needs more careful review in my opinion.

As they discussed ideas such as leasing the Lottery (an idea that’s been floated around lately) and allowing open positions in government to stay vacant, it became clear that Gronstal wasn’t quite prepared to express a confident opinion about anything yet… he said he wasn’t going to reject any idea until looking at the details.  Glover asked about what has been at the heart of the Lottery question for decades, which is the possibility that leasing it to private interests could quickly lead to expanded gambling in Iowa (as if any more expansion is going to really matter any longer), which Gronstal rejected out of hand.  Yepsen went on the offensive, asking about campaign contributions from gambling interests, and Gronstal didn’t like it:

Yepsen: The gambling industry makes campaign contributions to state legislators. How much does that have to do with this decision? If the gambling industry wants to buy the lottery from you and you’re getting thousands of dollars in campaign donations doesn’t it get sold?

Gronstal: No, David, I don’t think that’s true at all. Look, I think it’s an interesting idea, it’s one worth considering. If we go through that process we very well may decide, no, it doesn’t make sense. But why reject the idea of considering it? I think that’s fairly silly to reject even considering an idea. I’m actually really surprised at your critical questions. The legislature has often advocated considering privatization.

Yepsen: We always ask critical questions, Senator.

Gronstal: But the idea of privatization shouldn’t be rejected out of hand.

Yepson then took the opportunity to jump to a question that should be bugging all of us: AFSCME, the state workers union, is asking for a 5% pay raise for workers next year, and another 5% the year after that.  While people in the private sector are losing their jobs, not getting raises even close to 5%, and the key question of how every state worker makes 30% more than the average citizen.  Gronstal made one smart-mouthed response about CEOs (that was just inappropriate), and then said he wouldn’t comment on it because of the fact that the state is actively engaged in negotiations, and it’s the Governor’s job, not the General Assembly.  Yepsen kept the heat up, Murphy tried defending the salaries by talking about what some of the state workers do (covering maybe 5% of those workers… don’t get me wrong, I want police and fire protection paid well, but we’re talking about a lot of overpaid workers).

Bottom line on the union is that we won’t get any serious discussion about this from Democratic leaders because they’ll lick the union bosses’ shoes just to ensure they continue to have votes in 2010.  And we’ll be left holding the check.

There was a good conversation about the use of the state’s Rainy Day Fund and the general Cash Reserve.  It was good to hear that the leaders would consider usnig the RDF if necessary to ensure Iowans that are struggling from the weather and economic disasters of 2008 are helped appropriately… I agree that the Cash Reserve should be left alone as that is needed to ensure that we don’t need to borrow money if revenue shortfalls start to impact cash flows.

Also good conversation around the numerous proposals for local option sales taxes and the possibility of introducing flexibility for local governments to collect fees to offset property taxes.  Gronstal actually said something I can strongly agree with: property taxes are too high.  The trouble is, some fees are just another property tax, so I’m not exactly keen on that.  Local option sales taxes are fine, and all the state is doing is allowing the local governments to decide to impose them… the state doesn’t pay or benefit from that EXCEPT that the pressure on the state to help out is reduced.

They also discussed the proposal to raise the gas tax by a nickel to help create jobs and improve the existing transportation infrastructure.  I’m a bit torn… I like the fact that it helps keep people employed, but I hope we don’t end up wasting money on unnecessary projects.

They also hit on teacher pay, and corrections facility needs.  The most revealing statement of the evening came next, however.  Yepsen asked if Gay Marriage would be debated this year.  Both politicians flatly said “No.”, with Murphy adding that they were going to “let the courts make that decision”.  It shouldn’t amaze me that these guys are clearly incapable of true leadership, but I suppose when you know you lack both a credible position and will lose power if you do the right thing, having the Iowa Supreme Court there to bail you out is certainly a reasonable option.

Gronstal ended by saying this year is about the Budget and Disaster Recovery.  I wonder whether we’ll ever recover from the 2009 session?