You may have noticed that we had a budget deficit in the last fiscal year of $1.8 trillion. In five years, our annual expenditures increased $2.5 trillion per year. They have never come down from the year of the international pandemic. Yet with the new government in Washington moving toward cuts, one would think an asteroid the size of Mars is headed toward the planet when any budget cuts are mentioned. What are they willing to cut? The non-military federal workforce has increased 30% in the last 25 years. This is an era where private industry companies have cut personnel because of technological advancements. Our population increased 21% during this period of time. The government has grown in all respects yet apparently there is an element of the country that thinks we can’t cut anything despite the staggering numbers laid out above. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has projected that, if we continue on our current trajectory, we will have an annual budget deficit of $2.9 trillion. Raising taxes on the “rich” or “corporations” is not the answer. Revenues keep going up every year, accelerated by the Trump tax plan… Read More

I believe one can explain almost all of what happens in politics and government by reference to the rules of politics are set out in the last 10 days. They were developed through my experience in politics and elected office. Here they all are in one spot, and if you need more information about what the rules mean, you can reference the individual explanations:

Ray Haynes Rule of Politics

“In this country, there is the evil party and the stupid party and it is not hard to tell which is which.” “Republicans lose elections because they break their campaign promises. Democrats lose elections because they keep theirs.” “Democrats are intensely partisan, and they prove that partisanship by screwing Republicans whenever they are in power. Republicans are intensely nonpartisan, and they prove that nonpartisanship by screwing Republicans whenever they are in power. So it doesn’t matter who is in power, Republicans get screwed.” “At some time in political history, Democrats married Unions as their partner in the path to political power, and Republicans married the business community as theirs. … Read More

“The greatest threat to our Republic is the unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy”

To describe why understanding this rule is so critical to making sure we protect freedom and opportunity for our children, I have a story that demonstrates how the bureaucracy spends its time trying to manipulate elected officials. Keep in mind, when I was in the Senate, I was the only Republican on a three member budget committee that spent over $50 billion in state and federal money and oversaw about 60,000 total employees. Pete Wilson was Governor, and I was brand new to the Senate Committee and actual oversight of the very large, and very expensive health and welfare budgets in state government.

The chief bureaucrat of one of departments (which, in California government is called the “career executive assignment (CEA),” that is, a permanent bureaucrat that had worked himself up the bureaucracy to become the chief advisor to the politically appointed head of the department) came to my office to defend a relatively large increase in personnel for his department. The Democrat chairman of the committee proposed eliminating some (though not all) of… Read More

“The purpose of the political process is to persuade people to entrust you with power.”

You would think this rule is an easy one, but it’s not. What is it that most people want out of government? Truth is not much. Keep the liars and the thieves out of my business, let me keep most of the money I earn to take care of my needs and the needs of my family, and let me live the life I want to live without too much government intrusion. Don’t try to raise my kids for me, I can do that myself. Don’t try to run my business for me, I can do that too. If you can keep me, my family and my property safe, I can pretty much do the rest on my own.

Thomas Jefferson said it best in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote government exists to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which he originally wrote as property), and that government derives the just powers to perform these tasks from the consent of those who they govern. The way elected officials derive that consent is through the process of election. In a republic such as ours, elected officials serve for a specific period of time, and have to go… Read More

In my first four rules of politics, I outlined the political challenges we face in the partisan battles for the soul of our country. In the next three rules, I talked about the institutional challenges of pursuing a freedom and small government agenda. The next rules will talk about the social challenges we face.

That leads me to the eighth rule of politics:

“The real battle in society is not, as Marx states it, between the working class and the rich. It is between the ruling class and the entrepreneurial class.”

There are two sources of power in any social structure. One is power obtained by wealth, the other is power gained at the end of a gun. There are also two forms of human interaction. The first is voluntary interaction, contracts, ownership and disposal of private property, and voluntary associations, like marriage, community groups and the like. The other is involuntary interactions, most easily described as transactions forced upon them by someone, either through criminal or reckless behavior, or use of government power.

Those who gather wealth by satisfying the needs and wants of others in society, the… Read More

How does government spending get so out of control? You and I both know we can’t spend more than we earn for any length of time, but that doesn’t seem to register with those elected to political office, particularly at the federal level. One would think that, at some point, they would stop spending, but they don’t. That phenomenon leads to my seventh rule of politics:

“Democrats want to increase spending for education and social services, and cut transportation and public safety. Republicans want to increase spending on transportation and public safety, and cut spending on education and social services. They reach a compromise to get a budget by increasing spending on everything.”

At the federal level, public safety is mostly national defense spending, and social service spending is welfare and social security. Education and transportation are pretty much the same at both state and federal levels. At the state level, public safety is cops and firefighters.

In every budget battle, the disputes about spending, what gets cut, what gets increased, and how spending categories get treated in the budgets tend to fall… Read More

The new administration is getting serious with countries like Mexico regarding the production and shipping of fentanyl into the United States. It is a deadly drug when not administered legally. An estimated 75,000 Americans died from the drug in 2022 and 2023. Most of them had no clue they were being exposed to the drug. I had a discussion with a drug expert regarding this subject that is quite interesting. The author expressed that he is against tariffs being imposed on Mexico. He thinks it will do nothing to solve the fentanyl crisis. Since he is against tariffs to strongarm Mexico for clamping down on production and shipments to America, I asked him how he would stop it. His answer was, “You can’t. PROHIBITION NEVER WORKS. Did alcohol prohibition stop the trafficking of booze across the Canadian border? Besides, the traffickers are already expanding into Costa Rica. They’ve partnered with Balkan cartels to expand into Ecuador and South America. Is the U.S. going to invade every country south of the border?” “Waging a war on drugs is like playing Whacka-mole. The solution is to end prohibition. Legalize these drugs and regulate them… Read More

If you ever saw the film “The Candidate” you will know that it ends with the classic line: “What do I do now?” Robert Redford’s character in that film had just won his election, and though he had spent months promising to help people and move the government towards his agenda, he had no idea how to accomplish that.

That encapsulates the feelings of most people who actually get elected to office for the first time. After months of campaigning and promising, they win, and then they are at a loss as to what to do. To all candidates I ever spoke to when they were asking for my endorsement for office (back when my endorsement meant something), I would always tell them my sixth rule of politics as advice as to how to direct their efforts during their time in office:

“There are two ways to approach your time in elected office. You will either become an advocate for the people to the bureaucracy, or you will become the mouthpiece of the bureaucracy to the people.”

Simply stated, this means you will either press the agenda of the people that elected you to the bureaucrats, or you will explain the agenda of the… Read More