The President’s latest proposal to make “the rich pay their fair share” is just another awful idea in a series of awful ideas from this Administration. First of all, it again defines a taxpayer making $200,000 as “rich”. I know a number of such people and I suspect you do too. They live comfortable lives, but I don’t think they deserve the suddenly pejorative term “rich”, particularly if they come to that income by way of 2 working spouses and some investment income because they have saved money over time.

But, the new wrinkle here is the so-called “Millionaires” tax on incomes over $1 million. Obama’s rhetoric explains that he will only require that these incomes pay the same tax rate as “middle class families”. Well, obviously, the tax rate on these incomes is already much higher than for lower tax brackets. Most deductions for higher income people have already been largely eliminated through the alternative minimum tax and other tax laws over the last 20 years. There are really only 2 ways to get the tax rate on your $1 million income down. The first is if a bunch of that income is derived… Read More

So, you haven’t heard from me in a while. Maybe you thought my computer crashed or I don’t love you anymore. But, neither is true.

The whole debt limit debate and compromise was very tense, very sensitive and very important. Going “over the cliff” was simply unacceptable. As I have explained before, we were never in danger of default. The government was going to pay interest on the debt and could issue new debt to pay off maturing notes. But, it would have required a 50% reduction overnight in non-interest government spending, which would have been very difficult to do. But, more importantly, fear heading towards panic was showing up in markets. That panic would have led to another financial meltdown, maybe not as bad as 2008, but certainly bad enough to plunge the nation and the globe back into deep recession. But, this time it would be completely government-made.

We could not let this happen. But, neither could we just extend the debt limit without showing the markets that we were making progress towards getting these deficits under control. If we did that, the markets would set their own debt limit by not lending us any… Read More

Today, economic issues dominate the scene in America. We have record-breaking, unsustainable deficits and face credit downgrades and a looming debt crisis. We are supposedly in the middle of economic recovery, but no one can really feel it. Unemployment is stubbornly high and shows no signs of coming down any time soon. Inflation is now running over 3%, which is relatively low, but since savings accounts pay essentially nothing, the wealth of Americans is being eroded. Europe and, yes, even China have economic challenges. Decisions about issues as diverse as national defense, the environment and immigration are all now impacted by the economic prospects and our current fiscal situation.

President Obama has been the major contributor to these problems. He has massively grown spending, deficits and debt in a misguided and failed Keynesian attempt to fix the economy. His strong and very liberal ideology continues to churn out job-killing policies in the areas of health care, energy, finance and manufacturing. He claims to love the jobs created by these industries, but his administration does whatever it can to restrict the products that these industries make and to punish… Read More

More Facts, Ma’am: Sergeant Joe Friday probably never said that, but you know what I’m getting at. With the debt limit debate getting close to the final days, you may wonder what happens if we actually go “over the cliff” and do not extend the debt limit by the supposedly magic August 2nd date? The following information is gleaned from a presentation made to the Republican caucus by a former Bush Administration deputy secretary at the Treasury Department who now works with a think tank called the “Bipartisan Policy Center” in DC:

There is general agreement that the federal government will have exhausted all alternative funding sources and will run out of cash on or about August 2nd. This date is largely driven by $23 billion worth of Social Security checks that are scheduled to go out on that day. At that point, the US government is on a cash basis with no ability to borrow more money. That means that it can only spend the same amount of money that comes in. And, this is not an annual issue, it is a daily issue. If $20 billion comes in on Thursday, then you can send $20 billion out. If only $10 billion comes in on Friday,… Read More

Just the Facts, Ma’am: This was the famous retort offered by fictional LA police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, on the TV show Dragnet whenever a female witness started to delve into conjecture or opinion. In these missives, I usually give you heavy doses of my commentary and opinion.

Not today, or tomorrow. As the debt limit debate reaches the critical stage, I felt maybe you needed some facts, just plain facts, about the country’s financial status. Last week in a Budget Committee hearing, the actuaries for the Social Security and Medicare systems testified as to the status of these two programs and provided actuarial projections for both. Here is a summary of the salient points they made. I will let you draw your own conclusions:

Social Security and Medicare currently amount to 35% of all federal spending. Both systems are currently in negative cash flow and are on track for insolvency or exhaustion of their trust funds. The reasons for these impending problems are largely demographic. The United States traditionally had a birth rate of about 3 children per woman up until 1965. By 1975, that rate had dropped to 2 children per… Read More

I have had a fascination with all things British since I was young. I attribute this interest in part to an English aunt with whom I spent quite a bit of time while young, and then a yearlong class in high school on the subject of British history for which my textbook was Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples. Adding to this, during my business career, a British publicly-held company was a major investor in my company and, as a result, I traveled to England 2-3 times a year for nearly 10 years. At one time, I could rattle off every English monarch from William the Conqueror through Elizabeth II, including the years of their reigns.

I can’t do that anymore. But, I know the place and people pretty well, and I like all things British, except of course, the weather. I even like the food!

Because of this knowledge and interest, I was asked to Co-Chair the US-UK caucus in the House of Representatives. We now have a bipartisan membership of 90 members of Congress. I have always considered the mission of this caucus as one of preserving and expanding the “special relationship” that exists and has existed between our two… Read More

I don’t fit neatly into a box. I am a conservative Republican who doesn’t raise taxes and votes to cut nearly every bit of government spending I can find. But, I am against the wars in Afghanistan and Libya, think we should cut defense spending, support legalizing internet gambling, sponsor a lot of bills to prevent abuse of animals, want pristine, clean oceans and believe we need some government support of home mortgages. No, that is not a box.

For those of you who don’t know my background, I am a native Californian raised by two very conservative and politically active parents. “We were Taft Republicans”, my mother often told me to make sure I understood that Dwight Eisenhower was way too moderate for them. The last Democrat I voted for was Sam Yorty for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 1970s. I think he later changed parties. I’m about as Republican as you get.

But, my ideology guides my thinking. It does not replace it. I believe that this job is about solving problems. And, there is never only one prescription to right every wrong. Napoleon Bonaparte was certainly the most brilliant military strategist of the 19th century and… Read More

If I were to tell you things were chaotic in Washington last week, you might correctly exclaim, “So, what else is new?”. But, things seem to be even more chaotic than normal right now. I submit the following rundown for your consideration:

The President announced his latest strategy for Afghanistan in which he tries to thread the policy needle by giving a timetable for some withdrawal, but at the same time keeps more troops there throughout his term than at any time during the Bush presidency. I don’t think he succeeded in pleasing anyone with this plan – certainly not this Member of Congress. He also still has not indicated what it is we are now fighting for and what the desired end-state looks like. Bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda is largely out of Afghanistan. Are we nation building? I think we are and I don’t think that is worth $2 billion a week and more American lives. I also believe you either fight wars with all you’ve got, or don’t fight them at all. Vietnam taught us that. The President seems to want to fight half a war. Speaker Boehner criticized the President’s speech and basically called … Read More