Presidential White Papers: Newt Gingrich By Club For Growth

Source: http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers/?subsec=137&id=903

INTRODUCTION

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Among all likely candidates for President in 2012, none has a record in public office or in commentary on public affairs as long or as thorough as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.  He has been voting or commenting on every important issue facing American politics, almost without interruption, for more than 30 years.  An exhaustive analysis of every nuance of each proposal is neither possible here, nor terribly useful for our purposes.  This report will focus on the highlights of his 19-year congressional voting record, as well as the economic policy positions he has most consistently championed in his post-congressional writings up to the present day.   

Gingrich is best known for leading the 1994 “Republican Revolution” that swept the GOP into the House majority for the first time in over forty years, and he deserves immense credit for that.  His actual voting record in the House, however, was somewhat less stellar.

The Club for Growth did not have its own scorecard for members of Congress during Gingrich’s tenure from 1979-98, but the non-partisan and pro-free market National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has been issuing a congressional scorecard for decades and Gingrich’s record on economic issues, as provided by NTU, is worth analyzing.  From 1979-98, Gingrich had an average score of 61% (with 100% being a perfect score on supporting lower taxes and limited government).  The average Republican score over this time period was slightly lower at 56%. 



TAXES

The Club for Growth is committed to lower taxes – especially lower tax rates – across the board.  Lower taxes on work, savings, and investments lead to greater levels of these activities, thus encouraging greater economic growth.

From an economic growth perspective, Newt Gingrich is excellent on tax issues, except when he’s not.  In general, Gingrich does favor lower, flatter tax rates, and has a pro-growth instinct toward reforms that lower rates and broaden the base.  But he also has a persistent habit of supporting big-government tinkering that manifests itself in many unhelpful ways.

First, the good stuff.  On various high-profile tax votes in Congress, Gingrich amassed the following pro-growth tax record:

• Voted YES on the Reagan tax cut of 1981


• Voted YES on the Reagan tax reform bill of 1986


• Voted NO on the George H.W. Bush “Read My Lips” tax hike in 1990.


• Voted NO on the Clinton tax hike in 1993.


• Voted YES on the capital gains tax cut in 1997.

His vote and leadership against the 1990 Bush tax increase is especially praiseworthy, as it exhibited political courage to fight against a bad policy that was promoted by the president and congressional leadership of his own party.

Further, Gingrich can be one of the most clear-eyed and forceful advocates for supply-side economics and the value of free enterprise.  He has most recently favored:

• an immediate and permanent repeal of the Death Tax;


• elimination of all capital gains taxes;


• reduction of the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent;


• a 50 percent payroll tax cut for both employers and employees;


• a 100 percent tax write off for businesses’ equipment purchases.

Gingrich also favors broader fundamental tax reform.  In a 2008 op-ed, he enthusiastically praised the idea of an optional, single-rate income tax reform proposal.  According to Gingrich, “[a]n optional flat tax would save taxpayers more than $100 billion per year and reduce compliance costs by over 90 percent. This is a stimulus package that would have an immediate effect on our American economy.”

In addition, Gingrich has advocated a near flat tax proposal that would lower the current 25 percent income tax rate to 15 percent.  This would, in Gingrich’s words, “in effect, establish a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 90% of American workers.”  Both of these options would be enormously good for our economy.

Now the bad stuff.  Gingrich has an affinity – all too common even among conservative politicians – for gimmicky, special interest tax incentives that empower politicians to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.  His favorite device is the tax credit.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Gingrich proposed a six month, $1,000-per person tax credit for 50 percent of the cost of personal travel more than 100 miles from one’s  home.  The idea sounds nice, but just as Cash for Clunkers only expedited the purchase of cars people were going to buy anyway (at non-car buying taxpayers’ expense), Gingrich’s Cash for Getaways would only have subsidized trips people were going to make anyway, enabling a transfer payment to frequent travelers from families without the time or inclination to travel.  This proposal would also require more government to administer and oversee compliance.  It is not a fiscally conservative policy.  While perhaps not a large issue in itself, this is indicative of an approach Gingrich has frequently advocated.  At times he has sponsored bills or issued proposals to do the following:

• A tax credit for the purchase of home computers used for educational or professional purposes.


• A $1,000 tax credit for low-income first-time homebuyers.


• Refundable tax credits for auto companies for the cost of flex-fuels cars, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and the development of hydrogen cars. 


• Tax credits to encourage investment in biofuels and “renewable forms of energy.”


• A permanent 50 percent tax credit for research and development, or at least for “companies that are willing to take on government's ‘grand challenges’ (for example, the first inhabitable moon base).”


• A special business tax credit for “corporations that fund basic research in science and technology at our nation's universities.”

Along with these gimmicky tax proposals, Gingrich voted for at least one tax increase during his time in Congress.  In 1984, he supported a $50 billion tax bill  that closed $15 billion in loopholes, eliminated a tax break on interest income, increased cigarette taxes, and raised taxes on distilled liquor.



SPENDING

The Club for Growth is committed to reducing government spending.  Less spending enhances economic growth by enabling lower taxes and diminishing the government’s economically inefficient allocation of resources.

Gingrich’s record is mostly supportive of smaller government, but he likes to tinker with the economy using more federal government involvement in areas that he is most passionate about.  This is most pronounced on spending issues, and has led him to some very bad positions.

During his time in Congress, he had an exemplary voting record on a lot of the top spending proposals:

• Voted NO on the Chrysler bailout in 1979


• Voted YES on the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget bill in 1985


• Voted YES on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the “Contract for America” effort that he led) in 1995


• Led the effort and voted YES to cut $16.4 billion from the budget in 1995.


• Voted YES on welfare reform in 1996

Gingrich has also been a vocal opponent of most of the big spending habits pushed by the White House and Congress over the past few years.  He opposed the $787 billion stimulus proposal,  the auto bailout,  and Cash for Clunkers.

But Gingrich also has a recurring impulse to insert the government into the private economy.  A particularly bad mark on his record came in 2003, when he urged “every conservative member of Congress” to support the Medicare drug benefit bill.  He called it the “most important reorganization of our nation's healthcare system since the original Medicare Bill of 1965.”  The drug benefit now costs taxpayers over $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

This flaw appeared again in late 2008, when he backed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.   While he was initially opposed to it, he “reluctantly” endorsed it when successful passage was uncertain in Congress.

Prior to those big errors, and somewhat since then, Gingrich has shown an odd condescension toward fiscal conservatives who do not share his views.  In 1998, he derided a group of House conservatives by calling them the “the perfectionist caucus” for opposing a 4,000-page omnibus spending bill, adding that “those of us who have grown up and matured in this process understand after the last four years that we have to work together on big issues.”



FREE TRADE

Free trade is a vital policy necessary for maximizing economic growth.  In recent decades, America’s commitment to expanding trade has resulted in lower costs for consumers, job growth, and higher levels of productivity and innovation.   

In 1994, William F. Buckley, Jr. called Gingrich a “profoundly committed free trader,” and his record and rhetoric over the years bears out that characterization.   Gingrich has been a reliable advocate for free international trade, and a critic of both the politics and economics of protectionism.

In 1993, Gingrich supported the North American Free Trade Agreement,  and later argued for including Chile into the deal, with the eventual goal of having the entire Western Hemisphere as a free trade zone.

In 1994, Gingrich supported passage of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, which established fast track authority for the president and the World Trade Organization.

In 1998, Gingrich supported Most Favored Nation (now Permanent Normal Trade Relations) status with China.  And he supported free trade legislation between the United States and sub-Saharan African nations.

In 2010, Gingrich called for the creation of “Free Cities,” Hong Kong-style free trade zones, developed from scratch according to agreements reached between the United States and the “receptive governments” controlling the agreed-upon spots.

Evidence of any pro-protectionism support is scant.  However, Gingrich did vote YES to keep trade-distorting peanut subsidies in 1985,  although he later redeemed himself by voting against them in 1990.  



REGULATION


Excessive government regulation stymies individual and business innovation necessary for strong economic expansion. The Club for Growth supports less and more sensible government regulation as a critical step toward increasing freedom and growth in the marketplace.

There’s a long list of big government regulations that Gingrich has opposed.  Commendably, he advocates full repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley.   He vocally opposed ObamaCare and favors repeal.  He supports lifting restrictions on energy production like offshore drilling, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and nuclear plant construction.

Gingrich opposes the “Employee Free Choice Act,” or “card check,” especially its binding arbitration provision.   And he opposed the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill in 2010, calling it “another big government power grab.”

Once again, however, Gingrich’s penchant for tinkering undermines his otherwise very strong record of pro-growth deregulation.

He fought President Obama’s cap-and-trade  scheme and wants to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.   He also opposes the Obama EPA’s controversial plan to regulate carbon emissions via the Clean Air Act, and has urged Congress to prevent its implementation.   But previously, in 2008, he starred in a television ad with Nancy Pelosi urging a bipartisan solution to climate change.  In a debate with Senator John Kerry in 2007, Gingrich said, “the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere." While he insisted that government regulation wasn’t the answer, he said, “I would agree you would get more change more rapidly with an incentivized market rather than a laissez-faire approach.”  That’s Gingrich-speak for government involvement.

More recently, Gingrich defended federal ethanol policies.  Even Al Gore now admits ethanol subsidies hurt the environment and that he only supported them because of Iowa’s influential presidential caucuses.  Gingrich singled out a Wall Street Journal editorial critical of ethanol policies, and suggested ethanol’s “big city” critics get their facts straight.   Responding to the fact that, without subsidies, tariffs, and federal mandates, there would be no ethanol market, Gingrich said, “If they’re prepared to insist on a flex-fuel vehicle and every car in America capable of buying ethanol, I think the industry can stand on its own.”  Thus, Gingrich would favor eliminating ethanol subsidies only after Congress mandates that everyone buy ethanol cars.

Gingrich has also long endorsed a federal role in supporting renewable energy projects and the development of clean energy technologies.

These inconsistencies are notable because they are inconsistencies.  Gingrich’s default approach to regulatory issues is usually to favor the free market and empower entrepreneurs and consumers.  Despite that good record, too often Gingrich seems overly compelled to find government answers to complex issues when the hurdles to free market solutions appear too high.



ENTITLEMENT REFORM

America’s major entitlement programs are already insolvent.  The Club for Growth supports entitlement reforms that enable personal ownership of retirement and health care programs, benefit from market returns, and diminish dependency on government.

Gingrich has long advocated reforms, of one sort or another, of the federal government’s three major entitlement programs – Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  But he has three glaring mistakes in his record that can’t be overlooked.

On Social Security, Gingrich has been consistently pro-growth and pro-reform and for all the right reasons.  He favors personal Social Security savings accounts owned by individual taxpayers and off limits to congressional spendthrifts.  He has written:

“With large personal social security savings accounts, even low- and moderate-income workers will accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars by retirement and will be able to leave a financial legacy to their children or other heirs. Personal social security savings accounts offer workers far greater personal choice, ownership and control than the current system.”

In addition to his own plans, Gingrich supported President Bush’s effort in 2005 to reform Social Security with personal accounts, and a 2004 plan offered by Congressman Paul Ryan and then- Senator John Sununu that would have done much the same.

Gingrich also favors comprehensive reform of the notoriously inefficient Medicaid program.  He originally proposed the idea of block-granting the program back to the states in 1995, giving them more flexibility to administer it.

He has long advocated expanded health savings accounts, tax free accounts coupled with high-deductible catastrophic coverage to allow people to build a medical nest egg, like a health care 401(k) plan.

As noted above, however, Gingrich has a few doozies in his record.  First, in his 2008 book Real Change, Gingrich advocated an individual mandate for health insurance – a similar mandate is central to ObamaCare and is being challenged by 26 states in court as being unconstitutional.  Gingrich wrote:

“[I]ndividuals are expected to help pay for their care.  Everyone should be required to have coverage.  Those with very low incomes should receive vouchers or tax credits to help them buy insurance.  Those who oppose the concept of insurance should be required to post a bond to cover costs.”

The second large error in Gingrich’s entitlement record was equally troubling: the former Speaker played a high profile advocacy role on behalf of President George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit bill in 2003.  Gingrich penned several op-eds supporting the general thrust and specific provisions of the bill, urging House Republicans to pass what was billed at the time to be a $400 billion expansion of the federal government.

Among the lowlights of his advocacy:

“Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill.  It is the most important reorganization of our nation’s healthcare system since the original Medicare Bill of 1965 and the largest and most positive change in direction for the health system in 60 years for people over 65.”



“Congress should allow seniors to get the drugs they need by adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.”

Gingrich still maintains his support for Medicare Part D, and in a 2006 op-ed lauded the virtues of the first year of its implementation.



Finally, Gingrich supported the creation and eventual expansion of SCHIP, the government-run health care program for children of low-income families.  




SCHOOL CHOICE

The Club for Growth supports broad school choice, including charter schools and voucher programs that create a competitive education market including public, private, religious, and non-religious schools.  More competition in education will lead to higher quality and lower costs.   

Education reform is another area that perfectly illustrates Gingrich’s dual (and occasionally contradictory) tendencies toward both pro-growth conservatism and big-government meddler.

For decades, Gingrich has been an unequivocal advocate for school choice, writing in a 2006 op-ed:  

“The status quo is failing our students, and to truly see real change, we need to enact real change. The simplest and surest way to transform education is to give students and parents the freedom to choose where they will go to school. This means eliminating restrictive zoning laws that force kids into schools simply because they live nearby. This means introducing free-market forces into education, encouraging schools to compete for students, much like businesses compete for customers. This means that schools that do not perform will either improve or close their doors — which is as it should be. There is no middle ground.”

Gingrich admirably advocates charter schools, vouchers for families with children trapped in failing schools, and greater flexibility in rewarding good teachers and dismissing bad ones.

But Gingrich’s tinkering side reveals itself when he suggests that the federal government “save the children.”  In 2006, he wrote:

“Finally, Congress should tie education funding to school accountability. The No Child Left Behind law is making it blaringly obvious just how many schools are crippling and destroying children. We should save the children. Congress should require school systems to institute metrics-based performance standards in order to receive federal funding to ensure that every child is getting the education that they deserve.”

Demanding that the federal government get involved in what most conservatives believe is a state or local issue is something that Gingrich doesn’t seem to appreciate.



TORT REFORM

The American economy suffers from excessive litigation which increases the cost of doing business and slows economic growth. The Club for Growth supports major reforms to our tort system to restore a more just and less costly balance in tort litigation.   

Gingrich has been a clear and consistent advocate for lawsuit abuse reform for years.  The “Common Sense Legal Reform Act” was part of the Contract with America in 1994, and was passed by both the House and Senate, but vetoed by President Bill Clinton.    The bill would have reformed the tort system by penalizing frivolous and predatory lawsuits by imposing “loser pays” rules and capping punitive damages.

More recently, Gingrich has supported tort reform in the context of health care reform and cost-containment.  In 2009, Gingrich criticized President Obama’s health care overhaul for skirting the issue of lawsuit abuse reform: “The “plain and simple truth” is that leaving the tort system ‘as is’ ignores more than $200 billion in potential savings annually in health care.”   Specifically, Gingrich cited statistics pertaining to the expensive and wasteful practice of “defensive medicine,” in which doctors perform unnecessary tests solely to protect themselves from predatory lawsuits.

In 2002, Gingrich called for a cap on “pain and suffering” awards in medical malpractice suits, and cited the dangerous shortage of doctors in many states that had not – to date – reformed their liability laws.   In 2006, Gingrich noted the quick reversal of Texas’ trend of losing doctors after the state passed medical malpractice reform.

Gingrich has also called for the establishment of special “health courts” to manage the glut and exploding costs of medical malpractice litigation.



POLITICAL FREE SPEECH

Maximizing prosperity requires sound government policies.  When government strays from these policies, citizens must be free to exercise their constitutional rights to petition and criticize those policies and the politicians responsible for them.

Except for one large blemish, Gingrich has what seems to be a clear, strong, and positive stand on behalf of political free speech.

In 1995, he countered calls for spending restrictions in campaigns by noting the 1992 presidential campaigns combined spent half of the major television networks’ news budgets.  He said giving journalists free, unlimited access to the public while restricting campaign contributions represented “a nonsensical socialist analysis based on hatred of the free enterprise system.”

Gingrich has rightly been a harsh critic of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, saying in 2006 that it ought to have been named the “McCain-Feingold censorship law” and compared it to the Sedition Act of 1798.

According to Gingrich,

“A truly functioning campaign system would take power out of Washington and return it to its owners—the American people. Such a system would allow individuals to make unlimited contributions to candidates for Congress in their district, so long as it is reported immediately on the Internet and is transparent and accessible.”

Gingrich strongly supported Citizens United in their challenge against the constitutionality of the McCain Feingold bill, and recently appeared in a video produced by Citizen United commemorating the anniversary of the successful ruling.

Nevertheless, Gingrich supported the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987,  a proposal that would force broadcasters to air all sides of a controversial issue.  It obviously infringes 1st Amendment rights and it can only lead to bigger government as bureaucrats haggle over what’s controversial, what’s “fair”, and other details.



POLITICAL ACTIVITY & ENDORSEMENTS

Robust political activity is essential to producing a federal government that is more respectful of free markets and produces more pro-economic growth policies.  The Club for Growth’s PAC has been active in some of the more central battles within the Republican Party nominating process in recent years, supporting pro-growth candidates over pro-government ones. 

Whereas in most policy areas Gingrich’s record has been consistently or largely good, his record of involvement in political activity in which a clear pro-growth and anti-growth choice was available has been frequently poor. 

In the 2009 special election for Congress in New York’s 23rd district, Gingrich was outspoken in his support of liberal Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, up to the moment she finally quit the race after center-right voters rallied behind Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman.  Long after most prominent conservatives had endorsed Hoffman, Gingrich held firm in his advocacy for a liberal candidate who supported Obama’s stimulus plan and the pro-union “card check” proposal, among other bad positions.

In 2010, Gingrich openly campaigned for embattled U.S. Senator Robert Bennett in Utah, whom Gingrich’s wrongly called “a true-blue conservative.”  In 2008,  Gingrich aggressively supported and campaigned for liberal Congressman Wayne Gilchrist (R-MD) when he faced a conservative challenge from now-Congressman Andy Harris.  In 2006, same thing, when Gingrich backed liberal Congressman Joe Schwarz (R-MI) when he was challenged by conservative now-Congressman Tim Walberg.

It is of course common for leading Republicans to support incumbent Republicans who face primary opposition.  However, Gingrich has taken this to another level, supporting incumbents even when he had long been out of office himself, and doing so with a vigor and passion that is entirely inconsistent with the level of conservatism that the candidates themselves espouse.

In Gingrich’s worldview, he appears to elevate partisanship to principle.  His conflation of party expansion with genuine political or policy success is a common mistake, especially among establishment leaders and Washington insiders.  This mistake can easily morph into a strange contempt for serious conservative reformers within the GOP.  After all, from a pro-growth perspective, it is clear that the candidates Gingrich strongly opposed, Senator Mike Lee and Congressmen Andy Harris and Tim Walberg are far superior to the RINO incumbents they defeated.

Here again, Gingrich’s penchant for condescension appears.  In that NY-23 race, for instance, Gingrich went so far as to attack conservatives who supported Hoffman (whom Gingrich belatedly endorsed himself), saying: “So I say to my conservative friends who suddenly decided that whether they’re from Minnesota or Alaska or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans?  I don’t think so.”



SUMMATION

As a historical figure, it is undeniable that Newt Gingrich has played leading roles in some of the most important battles on behalf of economic growth and limited government in the last quarter century.

His opposition and momentary defeat of the 1990 Bush tax increase, his leadership of the 1994 Republican Revolution, and his spearheading of the provisions of the Contract With America are major league achievements.  His consistent support for pro-growth tax reform, free trade, Social Security reform, tort reform, and political free speech also evidence a clear and impressive understanding of the fundamentals that underlie the free enterprise system that has made America prosperous.

Unfortunately, the problems in Speaker Gingrich’s record are frequent enough and serious enough to give pause.  On two of the most important recent issues that confronted limited government conservatives (creating the new budget busting Medicare drug entitlement, and the Wall Street bailout), Gingrich was on the wrong side.  His advocacy of an individual health care mandate is problematic.  His penchant for tinkering with rewards for favored industries and outcomes shows a troubling willingness to use federal power to coerce taxpayers into his preferred direction.  And his occasional hostility toward conservatives who do not share his desire to support liberal Republicans or to compromise on matters of principle is worrisome.

The totality leads one to be rather unsure what kind of president Newt Gingrich would be.  Past is often prologue, and in Gingrich’s case there is an enormous volume of past on which to base a judgment.  One could reasonably expect a President Gingrich to lead America in a pro-growth and limited government direction generally, possibly with flashes of real brilliance and accomplishment, but also likely with some serious disappointments and unevenness.

11 Natural Ways to Stop a Crohn’s Disease Flare By Carole Jacobs

Source: http://www.lifescript.com/health/centers/crohns/articles/11_natural_ways_to_stop_a_crohns_disease_flare.aspx

June 10, 2011

You may have been told eating a bland, low-fiber, white-flour diet is unhealthy. But when symptoms of Crohn’s disease flare, it can lead to relief. What are some other ways to avoid and soothe symptoms of the disease? Read on for 11 tips from top experts. Plus, how well do you understand Chron’s disease? Take our quiz to find out…

It’s important to eat a rainbow-like variety of high-fiber foods such as fruits and vegetables, right? Not if you have Crohn’s disease. Those foods might actually aggravate your condition, dietitians say.

Potato products, bread and bananas were least likely to cause problems for people suffering symptoms of Crohn’s disease, according to a 2006 study from Utrecht University and University Medical Center, Netherlands.

“It sounds really unhealthy, but it’s only temporary,” says Susie Ofria, R.D., a registered dietitian at Gottlieb Memorial in Melrose Park, Ill. “Once you’re out of your flare, you can start reintroducing whole grains and raw veggies into your diet one item at a time.”

Besides white foods, “eating smaller meals and avoiding certain foods also can dramatically decrease pain and symptoms,” says Laura Jeffers, R.D., M.Ed., outpatient nutrition manager at the Cleveland Clinic.

Read on for 11 ways to minimize pain and discomfort during a Crohn’s disease flare.

1. Consult a doctor or dietitian who specializes in Crohn’s treatment.
The pain and inflammation of Crohn’s disease can ruin your appetite and make it hard to digest and absorb nutrients, says Armen Simonian, M.D., a Trenton-based gastroenterologist at Capital Health Regional Medical Center and director of the Center for Digestive Health in New Jersey.

That’s why women with Crohn’s disease are sitting ducks for nutritional deficiencies.

Dietitians can order blood tests to help you correct nutritional problems and pinpoint foods that exacerbate symptoms.

“A dietitian can help you figure out which foods are safe to eat and those that cause symptoms,” says Nicole Kuhl, R.D., a registered dietitian in Santa Monica, Calif.

2. Determine what triggers your flares.
Triggers can vary, says Susy Weems, Ph.D., R.D., director of nutrition sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

That’s why Crohn’s patients are advised to “keep a food diary to track what you’re eating and how you feel,” advises Lisa Moskowitz, R.D., a New York-based dietitian.Write down everything you eat for a month or two, including quantity, time and the symptoms you have. That will help you and your doctor or dietitian create a balanced diet that avoids foods that exacerbate symptoms of Crohn’s disease, like cramping, gas and diarrhea, she says.

“If a certain food bothers you, remove it from your diet for about a month and see if symptoms of Crohn’s disease improve,” Kuhl says.

Experts agree, however, that when symptoms flare, forget about normal healthy eating and stick to a “Wonder Bread” diet.

3. Don’t skimp on calories.
You’ll lose necessary nutrients if you have chronic diarrhea and possibly vomiting, according to the Crohn’s & Ulcerative Colitis Foundation (CCFA), a nonprofit organization for people with these digestive disorders.

That’s why your body needs more calories to fight Crohn’s disease.

Medications also work better if you’re well nourished, says the CCFA.

“With Crohn's disease, you need to eat a high-calorie, high-protein diet, even when you don't feel like eating,” Simonian says.

But big meals can overstress your digestive system, increasing gas, pain and diarrhea.

That’s why Weems advises sticking to “five or six small meals daily to ensure you get enough protein, calories and nutrients to replenish and repair your body.”

To aid digestion, take small bites of food and chew it really well, says Ofria.

“Also take vitamins and minerals that your physician recommends,” Weems says.

4. Cut back on fiber.
High-fiber foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains are not your friends during Crohn’s flare, says Jeffers.“Stick to a low-fiber diet that revolves around white bread and other refined white flour products, smooth and bland cooked cereals like Cream of Wheat, white rice and pastas, and well-cooked or steamed veggies (not cruciferous) that are soft enough to cut with the side of a fork,“ she says.

Here are more tips from Jeffers:

• Avoid vegetables like lentils, beans, legumes, cabbage, broccoli and onions. They’re difficult to digest and cause gas, bloating and pain.


• Avoid crunchy foods, such as raw veggies and fruits, which irritate your intestines and increase diarrhea.


• Steer clear of anything with hulls or seeds, such as nuts, seeds, popcorn, strawberries, watermelon, grapes and crunchy nut butters. (Smooth nut butters are an excellent alternative and a great source of protein.)


• Limit fruit to bananas. (Avoid fruits with skins, such as apples.)


• Canned fruit is fine if it doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup, which can aggravate diarrhea.


• Avoid dried fruit, which is hard to digest and may get stuck in the intestines.


• Steer clear of citrus fruits, which have seeds and are also very acidic, because these may increase pain and irritation.

5. Eat healthy fats.
Foods rich in polyunsaturated fats (walnuts, olive, flaxseed oils and butters) and omega-3 fatty acids (salmon, tuna and mackerel), can promote healing, says Christian Renna, D.O., an integrated medicine physician who specializes in autoimmune diseases with Lifespan Medicine in Santa Monica, Calif.

The anti-inflammatory nature of omega-3 fatty acids eases Crohn’s symptoms, according to a 2011 study conducted at the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease at St. Panteleimon General Hospital in Nicea, Greece.

6. Drink plenty of liquids.
“People with Crohn’s disease are at increased risk for diarrhea, so drink lots of water with and in between meals to avoid dehydration,” says Jeffers, who also offers these tips:

• For each pound you weigh, drink one half-ounce of water per day, in addition to water-based foods, such as soups.


• Also avoid highly acidic fruit juices made with citrus, cranberries and pineapple, which increase inflammation.
  
  You may be able to tolerate low-acid juices made with bananas, pears, mangoes, grapes, watermelon, coconut and apricots. Avoid fruit-flavored juices and drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup, which also increases inflammation.


• Sip beverages rather than gulp them. Gulping introduces air into the digestive system, causing discomfort.


• Avoid carbonated beverages like soft drinks and sparkling waters because they increase gas and flatulence. Most soft drinks also contain high fructose corn syrup.


• Avoid caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea and chocolate-based drinks, which increase inflammation and exacerbate diarrhea.


• Stay away from alcohol, including beer, wine and hard liquor, which irritates intestines and increases pain.

So what can you drink? Sip homemade chicken or vegetable broth.

“You’re getting a really nutritious drink that’s easy to digest,” Kuhl says. 

7. Focus on lean protein.
Your body needs protein to build and heal tissue. If you have Crohn’s disease, you may not absorb enough to promote healing and prevent muscle wasting, says Moskowitz.To reduce pain, gas and other symptoms, try these tips:

• If red meat makes you feel queasy and exacerbates diarrhea, switch to leaner cuts like sirloin or ground round, or stick to fish or poultry without the skin, says Moskowitz.


• Avoid fatty hot dogs, sausage, pork and anything with a tough skin. The fat can cause diarrhea and their skin can be difficult to digest, says Jeffers.


• Liquid formulas like Ensure, Glucerna and Pulmocare, which are absorbed in the upper rather than in the lower intestine, help some Crohn’s patients, says Jeffers.

8. Watch out for dairy products.
You may feel better if you limit or avoid dairy products during your flare.

“They may cause gas, abdominal pain and diarrhea in some women with Crohn’s,” says Jeffers.

Can’t live without your milk mustache? Try lactose-free varieties or add an enzyme product, such as Lactaid, which breaks down lactose, suggests the CCFA.

Or for a healthy, easy-to-digest protein, eat plain yogurt. It contains acidophilus, a probiotic that has been shown to ease Crohn’s symptoms. 

9. Get plenty of vitamin D.
Vitamin-D deficiency, which is more common in northern climates that get less sun, can lead to Crohn’s disease, according to a 2010 study conducted at McGill University and the Université de Montréal.

If Crohn’s disease runs in your immediate family, you may be able to ward it off by getting enough vitamin D, the study advises.

If you already have Crohn’s, this powerful anti-inflammatory vitamin and hormone can relieve inflammation and ease symptoms, says Michael Holick, Ph.D., M.D., professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University Medical School, prominent vitamin-D researcher and author of The Vitamin D Solution (Penguin).

The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends getting 600 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D daily.

The best source of vitamin D is the sun, which activates the body’s production of vitamin D, says Holick.If you don’t get enough sun, eat foods rich in vitamin D, including beef liver, egg yolks, sardines, salmon, shrimp, cod and, if you’re able to, fortified milk. Also take a vitamin-D supplement.

10. Avoid hot spices and fake sugar.
Spicy foods like four-alarm Mexican, Thai or Indian cuisine, as well as whole spices, can irritate the lining of your intestines and increase pain, says Jeffers.

Avoid hot spices like chili powder, ginger, horseradish, Chinese mustard and black pepper.

But if you’re going to use whole spices in cooking, make sure they’re very mild and finely ground,” Jeffers says.

And avoid artificial sugar substitutes.

“Sorbitol, found in sports drinks, soft drinks and many processed foods, can really put you over the edge if you have Crohn’s disease,” Moskowitz says.

That’s because sorbitol can damage the intestinal mucosa, trigger spasms and increase inflammation, according to a 2009 Brown University study. 

11. Embrace probiotics, not prebiotics.
Pro- and pre-biotics are all the rage for improving digestion, but will they relieve symptoms of Crohn’s disease? Probiotics are friendly bacteria that live in your gut and aid digestion, while prebiotics help stimulate the growth of the beneficial bacteria, says the Mayo Clinic.

A 2011 study conducted by the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Saint Panteleimon General Hospital in Nicea, Greece found that probiotics relieved Crohn’s symptoms.

But prebiotics appear to add fuel to the fire. A 2010 Harvard study found that prebiotics didn’t ease Crohn’s symptoms, and increased flatulence.

How Well Do You Understand Chron's Disease?
A diagnosis of Crohn’s disease comes as a shock for many people, some who never suspected their abdominal discomfort could be something serious. This inflammatory disorder has far-ranging – and often serious – symptoms. Find out how much you know about it.

Loved by media, Barney Frank Helped Cause Financial Crisis

Source: http://news.investors.com/Article/593006/201111281824/liberal-frank-leaves-legacy-of-financial-failure.htm

11/28/2011

Congress: Establishment media are swooning over the unexpected departure of ultraliberal Barney Frank. But this "champion of the little guy" actually helped cause the mortgage disaster, then kept the system broken.

'Congress will now be a little dumber," was the kind of nonsense we heard from the mainstream liberal media after Frank, D-Mass., former chairman of the House Banking Committee, said no to running for re-election next year.

Formally reprimanded by a heavily Democratic House on a 408-to-18 vote in 1990 for ethics offenses regarding his financial relationship with a male prostitute, Frank has for decades been a fast-talking, acidic presence in House debates.

But he wasn't smart enough to realize that the politically correct poisoning of mortgages would lead to a calamity rivaling the Great Depression. "I, like many others, did not see the crisis coming," Frank said Monday.

He sure didn't. Back in 2003, what did he say when the Bush administration proposed what the New York Times described as "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago," including a new agency to supervise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Frank said: "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Fannie and Freddie, of course, are those corrupt public-private hybrid monstrosities that gave lots of mortgages to people with horrendous credit ratings.

After 1996's welfare reform, liberals like Frank found other ways to redistribute wealth. Yet even after the politicization of mortgages led to the financial crisis, last year's Dodd-Frank reform kept "too big to fail" and other defects in our federally mismanaged banking system.

Manhattan Institute scholar and "After the Fall" author Nicole Gelinas warned before Dodd-Frank's passage that the law "encourages wild risk-taking — and penalizes prudence" by making well-run banks pay to bail out poorly run ones.

As a result, Gelinas said: "Every firm will take more risks, guaranteeing another crisis down the line, and more taxpayer bailouts."

The media would have us believe this is the departure of a great statesman. But as the 17th House Democrat to announce his departure, Frank becomes just another liberal who realizes his party has little chance of winning in 2012 after the mess they've spent the economy into.

With Frank's district newly re-carved after the 2010 Census, Sean Bielat, the smart ex-Marine who gave him a run for his money in 2010, might just win this time.

Making sense of Barney Frank's departure isn't hard. A once-powerful liberal who loved to make congressional witnesses look dumb, he leaves a legacy of failure that, with time, makes him look dumber and dumber.

The Gingrich Education Plan

Source: http://www.newt.org/solutions/21st-century-learning-system

“We must envision a 21st century system of lifetime learning more flexible, more productive, more individualized and more capable than any bureaucracy could achieve.”

– Newt Gingrich

The continued growth of American jobs and American prosperity in a knowledge-based, internet-connected, globally-competitive world will be determined by quality of America's schools. If America is going to remain competitive with China and India in the 21st century, then we must commit to improving education, especially in math and science, and moving from a bureaucrat-dominated status quo to an innovative system that emphasizes accountability, transparency, and parental choice:

Empower parents to pick the right school for their child.  Parents had the right to choose the school that is best for their child, and should never be trapped in a failing school against their will.

Institute a Pell Grant-style system for Kindergarten through 12th Grade. Per-pupil school district funding should go into each child’s backpack, and follow them to the school their parents wish to attend. Parents who home school their children should receive a tax credit or be allowed to keep the Pell Grant.

Require transparency and accountability about achievement. Each state must set a rigorous standard that allows every student everywhere to master the skills they will need to be competitive, and develop a process for grading the effectiveness of every school.

Implement a “no limits” charter system.

• All of the money allocated for student education goes directly to the school.


• The school manages its own staff, whereby it is exempt from laws regarding tenure, and need not unionize.


• The school defines its own curriculum, in line with the state standards and assessments.  Students in charters are not exempt from state assessments.  The schools are not exempt from reporting requirements, nor should they be.


• State law allows the school to "franchise" its model without limitation.  That means they need not apply for a new school every time they can build a new one.  If they have the demand, they must be able to serve it.


• The state has NO CAPS on the number of charter schools that can be approved, and the process for approving charter schools is smooth and efficient.

Establish a pay for performance system.  States and school governing boards should lift all existing prohibitions that prevent a principal from evaluating teachers based in part on student achievement.

Welcome business talent in our communities into the classroom. Every state should open their systems up to part-time teachers so that retired physicists, neighborhood pharmacists, or local accountants could teach one or two hours a day and bring knowledge to the classroom, and business-like adult expectations to the students.  And programs like Teach For America should be encouraged and not limited.

Restore American history and values into the classroom. America is a learned civilization and every American, including immigrants, should learn American history and the principles of American self-government, productivity and prosperity. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1820: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Every student must learn to read and much of what they read should reinforce American civilization.

Protect the rights of home-schooled children by ensuring they have the same access to taxpayer funded, extra-curricular educational opportunities as any public school student.

Encourage states to think outside outdated boundaries of education. States have developed very innovative models:

• Students who graduate early should get the cost of the years they skip as an automatic scholarship, following the model of Governor Daniels’s program in Indiana.


• Every state should have a work-study college that enables students to graduate debt free, following the model of the College of the Ozarks in Missouri.


• Individualized, 24/7 learning should be universally available online, with the Florida Virtual School (over 120,000 students for K-12) as a model.

Shrink the federal Department of Education and return power to states and communities. The Department's only role will be to collect research and data, and help find new and innovative approaches to then be adopted voluntarily at the local level.

David Axelrod's Pattern Of Sexual Misbehavior By Ann Coulter

Source: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-11-09.html

November 9, 2011

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.

After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless.

Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.

The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them.

John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false.

Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent.

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.

But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.

Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.

Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced.

The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.

But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.

Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.

Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.

Your honor, who knows what could be in these records!

A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).

With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.

And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)

Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.

In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."

Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story."

This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist.

Herman Cain:My Plan to Revive Economic Growth: It is inherently American to work, to risk and to dream.Our government's policies should encourage that

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576569023689099648.html

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011.

Last week, President Obama unveiled his eagerly anticipated jobs plan. After 43 minutes of his speechifying, Americans were left wondering: We waited 30 months for this?

Indeed, it seems Mr. Obama's first term has been spent advancing a legislative agenda that pays no mind to our ailing economy and the Americans whose sufferings are casualties in his ideological war. After a failed stimulus package, preferential industry bailouts, and the disastrous government overhaul of the health-care industry, it seems the plight of the American worker has remained an afterthought.

This is the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression. If the Obama administration's aim was to merely tie for last place with the previous worst recovery, it would have created eight million more jobs, based on comparative data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If our recovery were more typical of the
postwar era, as former Sen. Phil Gramm reported on this page in April, we would have 14 million more jobs today.

As a longtime leader in the business community, I know firsthand that government does not create jobs. It can only create the conditions in which businesses operate. These conditions can spur growth, or they can suppress it. The conditions imposed by the current administration have suppressed growth.

Still, there is hope. That hope begins with economic certainty, a sort of assurance the president seems unwilling to provide. I, on the other hand, have proposed a plan that would stabilize and grow our economy:

"Cain's Vision for Economic Growth," also known as the 9-9-9 Plan, is founded upon three guiding economic principles: Production drives the economy. Risk-taking creates growth. Units of measurement must be dependable.

The plan begins with restructuring the tax code to include the broadest possible base at the lowest possible rate. The elements are:

• A 9% corporate flat tax. Businesses would deduct purchases from other businesses and all capital investment. The resulting gross income is taxed at 9%.

• A 9% personal flat tax. Individuals would deduct charitable contributions, then pay 9% on the rest of their income. Capital gains are excluded.

• A 9% national sales tax. This levy would be placed on the consumption of all new goods. Used goods purchased would be excluded.

My plan would also permanently eliminate taxes on repatriated profits, as well as payroll taxes and the estate tax.

All of these measures would free up capital, spur production, and incentivize risk-taking, thereby fueling the economy and creating jobs. The plan has been designed to be revenue neutral initially, and then revenues would grow in line with the economy.

But these policies must be coupled with sound money. A dollar must be worth the same tomorrow as it is today. Stabilizing the dollar's value starts with the federal government taking significant measures to rein in its spending and pay down the national debt. Americans must be assured that the federal government will live
within its means and get serious about eliminating our crippling debt. Repealing ObamaCare, Sarbanes-Oxley and the Dodd-Frank bank-regulation bill would be critical steps.

Finally, my plan promotes enterprise zones, also known as "empowerment zones." Coupled with tax reform and monetary stabilization, empowerment zones would revitalize inner cities by providing tax credits to businesses that hire workers living and working in underprivileged areas.

Some of the most tragic unemployment numbers can be found in minority communities and in urban centers around the country. Empowerment zones would create a whole new generation of wage-earners providing for their families. The late Jack Kemp, a secretary of the department of Housing and Urban Development and a dear friend, was one of the first lawmakers to propose empowerment zones. He understood the tremendous economic benefits they would provide.

Each job lost today is not merely a statistic. Americans are struggling to determine whether to pay their mortgages or buy groceries, whether to buy school uniforms or pay the electric bill.

Such despair is unfitting for the greatest nation the world has ever known. After all, it is inherently American to work, to risk and to dream. Our government's policies should encourage that, not stifle it.

Mr. Cain, a Republican, is running for president of the United States. He is a former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza and a former chairman of the board of directors to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Romney: My plan to turn around the U.S. economy

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-05/Romney-My-10-point-plan-to-create-American-jobs/50265720/1

9/6/2011

Barack Obama has had his turn at fixing the American economy. Millions of unemployed Americans can judge by their own experiences what he has done and failed to do.

For my part, I believe America can do better. I have spent most of my career in the private sector starting new businesses and turning around ailing ones. Unlike career politicians who've never met a payroll, I know why jobs come and go.

Today, I'm introducing a plan consisting of 59 specific proposals — including 10 concrete actions I will take on my first day in office — to turn around America's economy. Each proposal is rooted in the conservative premise that government itself cannot create jobs. At best, government can provide a framework in which economic growth can occur. All too often, however, government gets in the way. The past three years of unparalleled government expansion have retaught that lesson all too well.

Only the individual initiative of entrepreneurs, workers, investors and inventors enables companies, and our economy as a whole, to flourish. We must once again unleash the tremendous economic potential of the American people. The contrast between what the Obama administration has done and what I would do as president could not be starker.

First, President Obama has raised or threatened to raise taxes on both individuals and businesses. I would press hard in the opposite direction. Marginal income tax rates and tax rates on savings and investment must be kept low. Further, taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains for middle-income taxpayers should be eliminated. Our corporate tax rate is among the world's highest. It leaves U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage and induces them to park their profits abroad, benefiting the rest of the world at our expense. I will fix these problems with permanent solutions. Ultimately, I will press for a total overhaul of our overly complex and inefficient system of taxation.

With scant regard for the costs imposed on consumers and businesses, President Obama has vastly expanded the regulatory reach of government. The federal government has estimated the price tag for its regulations at $1.75 trillion. I will pare back regulation, including eliminating "ObamaCare." I will direct every government agency to limit annual increases in regulatory costs to zero. The impact of any proposed new regulation must be offset by removing another regulation of equivalent cost. Every one of President Obama's regulations must be scrutinized, and those that unduly burden job creation must be axed.

Where President Obama left America's trade interests untended, I recognize the job-creating potential of international commerce. I will create the "Reagan Economic Zone," a partnership among countries committed to free enterprise and free trade. It will serve as a powerful engine for opening markets to our goods and services, and also a mechanism for confronting nations like China that violate trade rules while free-riding on the international system. I will not stand by while China pursues an economic development policy that relies on the unfair treatment of U.S. companies and the theft of their intellectual property. I have no interest in starting a trade war with China, but I cannot accept our current trade surrender.

The Obama administration has severely restricted domestic energy production. I will ensure we utilize to the fullest extent our nation's nuclear know-how and immense reserves in oil, gas and coal. By rationalizing and streamlining regulation, we will harness these resources everywhere it can be done safely, taking into account local concerns. A huge number of jobs is at stake. So, too, is the price of energy, which strongly influences economic growth. We are an energy-rich country that, thanks to environmental extremism, has chosen to live like an energy-poor country. That has to end.

Seeking to pay back political favors, President Obama has catered to the institutional interests of union bosses at the expense of both workers and businesses. I will fight against measures that deprive workers of basic rights, such as the secret ballot. And I will not tolerate federal intrusions of the kind that the National Labor Relations Board initiated when it filed suit against Boeing for opening a plant in a right-to-work state.

We also need a rational system for worker retraining, instead of the existing 47 separate programs run by nine federal agencies. America can have the world's most competitive workforce, and under my leadership, we will.

Finally, President Obama has engaged in a massive spending binge of choice. He threw dollars at every problem he encountered, running up the national debt and accomplishing worse than nothing in exchange. I will restore fiscal discipline by cutting the federal budget and placing an ironclad cap on spending. I will also press for a Constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Tellingly, while the private sector shed 1.8 million jobs since Barack Obama took office, the federal workforce grew by 142,500, or almost 7%. A rollback is urgently required.

As this catalogue of differences makes clear, our country has arrived at a fork in the road. In one direction lies the heavy hand of the state, indebtedness and decline. In the other direction lies limited government, free enterprise and economic growth. I know which direction is the American way. And I know in which direction lie the millions of jobs we need.

Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, was a Republican presidential candidate in 2008.

Saving the American Idea: Rejecting Fear, Envy and the Politics of Division By Paul Ryan

Source: http://paulryan.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=266160

October 26, 2011

The Heritage Foundation – Washington, D.C.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you so much, Ed, for that kind introduction.

We’re here today to explore the American Idea, and I can’t think of a better venue for this topic. The mission of the Heritage Foundation is to promote the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

These are the principles that define the American Idea. And this mission has never been timelier, because these principles are very much under threat from policies here in Washington.

The American Idea belongs to all of us – inherited from our nation’s Founders, preserved by the countless sacrifices of our veterans, and advanced by visionary leaders, past and present.

What makes America exceptional – what gives life to the American Idea – is our dedication to the self-evident truth that we are all created equal, giving us equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that means opportunity.

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.”

This commitment to liberty and equality is something we take for granted during times of prosperity, when a growing economic pie gives all Americans the opportunity to pursue their dreams, to provide brighter futures for their kids, or maybe just to meet their families’ needs.

These are tough times. We know all too well that too many Americans are hurting today. And these hardships have reopened our longstanding national debate over what it means to be an exceptional nation. Have those periods of unprecedented prosperity in America’s past been the product of our Founding principles?

Or, as some would argue, have we made it this far only in spite of our outdated values? Are we still an exceptional nation? Should we even seek to be unique? Or should we become more like the rest of the world – more bureaucratic, less hopeful, and less free?

The American Idea is not tried in times of prosperity. Instead, it is tested when times are tough: when the pie is shrinking, when businesses are closing, and when workers are losing their jobs.

Those are the times when America’s commitment to equality of opportunity is called into question. That’s when the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns – when many in Washington use the politics of division to evade responsibility for their failures and to advance their own narrow political interests.

To my great disappointment, it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment – especially those who were filled with great hope a few years ago, when then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois.

Do you remember what he said? He said that what’s stopped us from meeting our nation’s greatest challenges is “the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics – the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And yet, nearly three years into his presidency, look at where we are now:

• Petty and trivial? Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?

  
  



• Chronic avoidance of tough decisions? The President still has not put forward a credible plan to tackle the threat of ever-rising spending and debt, and it’s been over 900 days since his party passed a budget in the Senate.

  
  



• A preference for scoring cheap political points instead of consensus-building? This is the same President who is currently campaigning against a do-nothing Congress, when in fact, the House of Representatives has passed over a dozen bills to help get the economy moving and deal with the debt, only to see the President’s party kill those bills in the do-nothing Senate.

  
  

Look, we put our cards on the table. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives advanced a far-reaching plan filled with common-sense reforms aimed at putting the budget on the path to balance and the economy on the path to prosperity.

But instead of working together where we agree, the President has opted for divisive rhetoric and the broken politics of the past. He is going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats, and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for punitive tax hikes on job creators.

The tax increases proposed by Senate Democrats and endorsed by the President – when combined with the new taxes in the health-care law, and the President’s other tax preferences – would push the top federal tax rate to roughly 50 percent in just 14 months, while doing nothing to promote job creation.

This tax increase on so-called “millionaires and billionaires” would actually constitute a huge tax hike on the nation’s most successful small businesses. According to the Tax Foundation, the surtax would hit roughly 35 percent of small-business income.

As P.J. O’Rourke put it, “The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.”

Actually, the news is even worse. As a practical matter, when you try to chase ever-higher spending with ever-higher tax increases, you eventually run into a brick wall of math.

The President has been talking a lot about math lately. He’s been saying that “If we’re not willing to ask those who’ve done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit… the math says… we’ve got to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor.”

This is really a stunning assertion from the President. When you look at the actual math, you quickly realize that the way out of this mess is to combine economic growth with reasonable, responsible spending restraint. Yet neither of these things factors into the President’s zero-sum logic.

According to the President’s logic, we should give up on trying to reform our tax code to grow the economy and get more revenue that way. Instead, these goals are taking a backseat to the President’s misguided understanding of fairness.

Remember that 2008 debate, when ABC’s Charlie Gibson pointed out that raising the capital gains tax rate actually tends to drive revenues down?

Obama replied: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” That’s the kind of logic we are unfortunately seeing today. 

Also according to the President’s logic, spending restraint is incompatible with a strong, well-functioning safety net. The belief that recipients of government aid are better off the more we spend on them is remarkably persistent. No matter how many times this central tenet of liberalism gets debunked, like Brett Favre, it just keeps coming back.

The President has wrongly framed Republican efforts to get government spending under control as hard-hearted attacks on the poor. In reality, spending on programs for seniors and for lower-income families continues to grow every year under the House-passed budget – it just grows at a sustainable rate. We direct tax dollars where they’re needed most, and stop spending money we don’t have on boondoggles we don’t need.

The President’s political math is a muddled mix of false accusations and false choices. The actual math is apolitical, and it’s clear: By the time my kids are my age, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the size of government will be double what it is today.

Government health care programs alone will have grown to consume 45 percent of federal spending. The primary driver of this increase is runaway inflation in health care costs, which are rising at 2 to 3 times the rate of GDP.

It’s impossible to keep funding health care expenditures at this rate. Even President Obama has said, “If you look at the numbers, Medicare in particular will run out of money, and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.”

So the real debate is about how best to control these unsustainable costs. And if I could sum up that disagreement in a couple of sentences, I would say this: Our plan is to empower patients. Their plan is to empower bureaucrats.

The Republican plan gives individuals the power to put market pressure on providers and make them compete.

The President’s plan is to give 15 unelected bureaucrats in Washington the power to cut Medicare in ways that, according to Medicare’s own chief actuary, would simply drive providers out of business. This would result in harsh disruptions and denied care for seniors.

Pain like this simply can’t be sustained. So when it comes to out-of-control spending on entitlements, the President’s math simply doesn’t add up.

And his math is no better on the tax side. Let’s say we took all the income from those the President calls “rich” – those making $250,000 or more. A 100 percent tax rate on their total annual income would only fund the government for six months. Just six months!

What about some of the other tax hikes the President likes to talk about? Under the President’s policies, deficits are set to rise by a whopping $9.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

• Letting the top two tax rates expire would equal roughly 8 percent of that planned deficit increase.

  
  



• Eliminating tax subsidies for oil and gas companies would only equal 0.5 percent of the President’s planned deficits.

  
  



• And what about corporate jet owners? That provision would reduce those deficits by just 0.03 percent.

  
  

Look, I’m all for closing tax loopholes – but you can’t close our nation’s deficits by chasing ever-higher spending with politically motivated tax hikes here and there. Instead, tax reform must broaden the base and lower rates.

This policy approach, which has attracted strong bipartisan support, would bolster our fiscal health by increasing competitiveness and encouraging more investment and job creation.

Lately, the President has been fond of taking Ronald Reagan quotes out of context, in an effort to persuade Republicans that Reagan would have agreed with the idea of using fear and envy to push a partisan agenda of permanently higher taxes.

Every time he does this, I can picture Reagan shaking his head: “There you go again.”

Obama quotes Reagan as saying that bus drivers shouldn’t pay a higher effective tax rate than millionaires. Well, that’s a no-brainer. Nobody disagrees with that.

But it is simply disingenuous to use this quote as evidence that Reagan would have supported the tax increases that Obama wants Congress to pass.

Reagan was attempting to build support for the landmark 1986 tax reform, a revenue-neutral law that reformed the tax code by lowering tax rates while broadening the tax base.

Reagan’s point – which President Obama clearly missed – was not that we should raise tax rates to chase out-of-control spending in Washington.

His point was that we should get rid of loopholes that are exploited by the few, so that we could lower everyone’s tax rates and help the economy grow.

The House-passed budget includes this kind of tax reform, which many agree would provide an immediate boost to the economy. Our budget proposed getting rid of scores of loopholes, lowering the hurdles for job creation and economic growth, and making our tax code fair, simple, and competitive.

In his address to Congress last month, the President said he agrees in principle with this kind of reform, especially when it comes to the uncompetitive way we tax our businesses.

This made Republicans think, well, we might have an opportunity here for the kind of genuine consensus-building that the President talked about as a candidate.

Yet he chose not to pursue this kind of tax reform. Instead, he sent us a partisan bill filled with the same stimulus proposals that failed two years ago, only this time he also asked for permanent tax hikes to go with them.

He’s also failed to work with us on another area where one would think we could find common ground: ending the lavish subsidies and government benefits that go to those who are already successful.

The House-passed budget was full of proposals to get rid of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.

• Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically-connected solar energy firms?

  
  



• Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?

  
  



• Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?

  
  

Rather than raising taxes and making it more difficult for Americans to become wealthy, let’s lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.

The President likes to use Warren Buffett and his secretary as an example of why we should raise taxes on the rich.

Well, Warren Buffett gets the same health and retirement benefits from the government as his secretary.

But our proposals to modestly income-adjust Social Security and Medicare benefits have been met with sheer demagoguery by leading members of the President’s party.

The politics of division have always struck me as odd: the eagerness to take more, combined with the refusal to subsidize less.

Instead of working with us on these common-sense reforms, the President is barnstorming swing states, pushing a divisive message that pits one group of Americans against another on the basis of class.

This just won’t work in America. Class is not a fixed designation in this country. We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups.

The Treasury Department’s latest study on income mobility in America found that during the ten-year period starting in 1996, roughly half of the taxpayers who started in the bottom 20 percent had moved up to a higher income group by 2005.

Meanwhile, half of all taxpayers ended up in a different income group at the end of ten years. Many moved up, and some moved down, but economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most people over this period.

Another recent survey of over 500 successful entrepreneurs found that 93 percent came from middle-class or lower-class backgrounds. The majority were the first in their families to launch a business.

Their stories are the American story: Millions of immigrants fled from the closed societies of the Old World to the security of equal rights in this land of upward mobility.

Telling Americans they are stuck in their current station in life, that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control, and that government’s role is to help them cope with it – well, that’s not who we are. That’s not what we do.

Our Founding Fathers rejected this mentality. In societies marked by class structure, an elite class made up of rich and powerful patrons supplies the needs of a large client underclass that toils, but cannot own. The unfairness of closed societies is the kindling for class warfare, where the interests of “capital” and “labor” are perpetually in conflict. What one class wins, the other loses.

The legacy of this tradition can still be seen in Europe today: Top-heavy welfare states have replaced the traditional aristocracies, and masses of the long-term unemployed are locked into the new lower class.

The United States was destined to break out of this bleak history. Our future would not be staked on traditional class structures, but on civic solidarity. Gone would be the struggle of class against class.

Instead, Americans would work, compete, and co-operate in an open market, climb the ladder of opportunity, and keep the fruits of their efforts.

Self-government and the rule of law would secure our equal, God-given rights. Our political and economic systems – rooted in freedom and responsibility – would reward, and thus cultivate, traditional virtues.

Given that the President’s policies have moved us closer to the European model, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that his class-based rhetoric has followed suit.

We shouldn’t be surprised... but we have every right to be disappointed. Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy, and resentment.

This has the potential to be just as damaging as his misguided policies. Sowing social unrest and class resentment makes America weaker, not stronger. Pitting one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country – corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.

Ironically, equality of outcome is a form of inequality – one that is based on political influence and bureaucratic favoritism.

That’s the real class warfare that threatens us: A class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society. And their gains will come at the expense of working Americans, entrepreneurs, and that small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.

It’s disappointing that this President’s actions have exacerbated this form of class warfare in so many ways:

• While the EPA is busy punishing commercially competitive sources of energy, a class of bureaucrats at the Department of Energy has been acting like the world’s worst venture capital fund, spending recklessly on politically favored alternatives.

  
  



• While the unemployment rate remains stuck above 9 percent, a class of bureaucrats at the National Labor Relations Board is threatening hundreds of jobs by suing an American employer for politically motivated reasons.

  
  



• And while millions of Americans are left wondering whether their employers will drop their health insurance because of the new health care law, a class of bureaucrats at HHS has handed out over 1,400 waivers to those firms and unions with the political connections to lobby for them.

  
  

These actions starkly highlight the difference between the two parties that lies at the heart of the matter: Whether we are a nation that still believes in equality of opportunity, or whether we are moving away from that, and towards an insistence on equality of outcome.

If you believe in the former, you follow the American Idea that justice is done when we level the playing field at the starting line, and rewards are proportionate to merit and effort.

If you believe in the latter kind of equality, you think most differences in wealth and rewards are matters of luck or exploitation, and that few really deserve what they have.

That’s the moral basis of class warfare – a false morality that confuses fairness with redistribution, and promotes class envy instead of social mobility.

I’d like to introduce President Obama to the Ronald Reagan he isn’t so eager to quote – the man who said, “Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes – one rich, one poor – both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?”

President Reagan was absolutely right. Instead of policies that make it harder for Americans to rise, let’s lower the hurdles to upward mobility.

That’s what the American Idea is all about. You know, in the midst of all the joys and sorrows of our everyday lives, I think we sometimes forget why America was considered such an exceptional nation at its Founding, and why it remains so.

To me, the results of the Founders’ exceptional vision can be summed up in a single sentence: Throughout human history, the American Idea has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.

Americans, guided by our ideals, have sacrificed everything to combat tyranny and brutal dictators; we’ve expanded opportunity, opened markets, and inspired others to resist oppression; we’ve exported innovation and imagination; and we’ve welcomed immigrants seeking a fresh start.

Here in America – unlike most places on earth – all citizens have the right to rise.

Thank you.

My Tax and Spending Reform Plan:Individuals will have the option of paying a20% flat-rate income tax and I'll cap spending at 18% of GDP By Rick Perry

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204777904576651330270547222-lMyQjAxMTAxMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html

The folks in Washington might not like to hear it, but the plain truth is the U.S. government spends too much. Taxes are too high, too complex, and too riddled with special interest loopholes. And our expensive entitlement system is unsustainable in the long run.

Without significant change quickly, our nation will go the way of some in Europe: mired in debt and unable to pay our bills. President Obama and many in Washington seem unable or unwilling to tackle these issues, either out of fear of alienating the left or because they want Americans to be dependent on big government.

On Tuesday I will announce my "Cut, Balance and Grow" plan to scrap the current tax code, lower and simplify tax rates, cut spending and balance the federal budget, reform entitlements, and grow jobs and economic opportunity.

The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate. The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents.

This simple 20% flat tax will allow Americans to file their taxes on a postcard, saving up to $483 billion in compliance costs. By eliminating the dozens of carve-outs that make the current code so incomprehensible, we will renew incentives for entrepreneurial risk-taking and investment that creates jobs, inspires Americans to work hard and forms the foundation of a strong economy. My plan also abolishes the death tax once and for all, providing needed certainty to American family farms and small businesses.

My plan restores American competitiveness in the global marketplace and provides strong incentives for U.S.-based employers to build new factories and create thousands of jobs here at home.

First, we will lower the corporate tax rate to 20%—dropping it from the second highest in the developed world to a rate on par with our global competitors. Second, we will encourage the swift repatriation of some of the $1.4 trillion estimated to be parked overseas by temporarily lowering the rate to 5.25%. And third, we will transition to a "territorial tax system"—as seen in Hong Kong and France, for example—that only taxes in-country income.

The mind-boggling complexity of the current tax code helps large corporations with lawyers and accountants devise the best tax-avoidance strategies money can buy. That is why Cut, Balance and Grow also phases out corporate loopholes and special-interest tax breaks to provide a level playing field for employers of all sizes.

To help older Americans, we will eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits, boosting the incomes of 17 million current beneficiaries who see their benefits taxed if they continue to work and earn income in addition to Social Security earnings.

We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain.

All of these tax cuts will be meaningless if we do not control federal spending. Last year the government spent $1.3 trillion more than it collected, and total federal debt now approaches $15 trillion. By the end of 2011, the Office of Management and Budget expects the gross amount of federal debt to exceed the size of America's entire economy for the first time in over 65 years.

Under my plan, we will establish a clear goal of balancing the budget by 2020. It will be an extremely difficult task exacerbated by the current economic crisis and our need for significant tax cuts to spur growth. But that growth is what will get us to balance, if we are willing to make the hard decisions of cutting.

We should start moving toward fiscal responsibility by capping federal spending at 18% of our gross domestic product, banning earmarks and future bailouts, and passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. My plan freezes federal civilian hiring and salaries until the budget is balanced. And to fix the regulatory excess of the Obama administration and its predecessors, my plan puts an immediate moratorium on pending federal regulations and provides a full audit of all regulations passed since 2008 to determine their need, impact and effect on job creation.

ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed and, if necessary, replaced by market-oriented, common-sense measures.

America must also once and for all face up to entitlement reform. To preserve benefits for current and near-term Social Security beneficiaries, my plan permanently stops politicians from raiding the program's trust fund. Congressional IOUs are no substitute for workers' Social Security payments. We should use the federal Highway Trust Fund as a model for protecting the integrity of a pay-as-you-go system.

Cut, Balance and Grow also gives younger workers the option to own their Social Security contributions through personal retirement accounts that Washington politicians can never raid. Because young workers will own their contributions, they will be free to seek a market rate of return if they choose, and to leave their retirement savings to their dependents when they die.

Fixing America's tax, spending and entitlement cultures will not be easy. But the status quo of byzantine taxes, loose spending and the perpetual delay of entitlement reform is a recipe for disaster.

Cut, Balance and Grow strikes a major blow against the Washington-knows-best mindset. It takes money from spendthrift bureaucrats and returns it to families. It puts fewer job-killing regulations on employers and more restrictions on politicians. It gives more freedom to Americans to control their own destiny. And just as importantly, the Cut, Balance and Grow plan paves the way for the job creation, balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility we need to get America working again.

Mr. Perry, a Republican, is the governor of Texas and a candidate for president.