Posted on 07/24/2015 8:15:53 AM PDT by jfd1776
We worry about our presidential primary process. Some wonder why. Some believe that we worry too much, and it all fixes itself in time; why get so worked up? Be patient, they say, the primaries will handle it, and then comes the election, don’t worry so much.
And if you’re not in an early primary state, you have no effect anyway, so you’re better off saving your energy and just watching TV or going to a game. So we’re told, especially by friends and acquaintances who just don’t think it all matters that much, and who wonder why we’re willing to lose hair, patience, and temper about circumstances so far out of our control.
Please allow me, for a moment, to recount a moment from my youth, long ago now.
LONG AGO AND NOT TOO FAR AWAY
When I was 17, I was a freshman in college, and my Economics 101 class – my first liberal arts class in college, in fact, at 8:00am or 9:00am – was taught by Professor Robert Eisner, a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. A prestigious title, appropriate for the chairman of the economics department at a prestigious school.
Early on in the class – the first day, in fact, if memory serves – Professor Eisner opened it up for questions.
Now, this was Econ 101, a class required for most Econ and Poli Sci majors like me, and it was also one of those classes that meets the general core requirements for most students in the College of Liberal Arts. So it was packed. There were about three hundred students, mostly impressionable, awed young freshmen, probably still pinching themselves about having gotten into a “midwest ivy” – all seated in the big central lecture hall in the Tech building at the north end of campus.
This was a full-fledged theater, an overpowering room for students newly arrived from the 25-seat classrooms of high school. Anything uttered in that hall had a deep resonance that inspired confidence, authority, belief. And the esteemed future president of the American Economic Association had the stage all to himself.
One student asked his question: "Professor, what is the effect that inflation has on the economy?"
I should mention at this point that it was the fall of 1980, and inflation was about 13%. Jimmy Carter was the President (but thankfully, not for much longer). Inflation was a major political issue that fall.
Prof. Eisner answered the student as follows:
"Thanks for asking. That's a very good question. Actually, inflation has no bearing on the economy, because as prices go up, so do wages, so it all balances out."
No, that's not paraphrased. 35 years later, I know that I remember it word for word.
That sentence is ingrained in my memory. “As prices go up, so do wages, so it all balances out.” Here I was, in my first class at Northwestern University, and the pompous Keynesian at the podium, former economic advisor to Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, was taking advantage of his position to warp the economic understanding of a classroom full of awestruck youngsters (and future voters).
I will never forget that moment... because even though I was just a 17-year-old kid, I knew my professor was unbelievably wrong on this issue.
Here’s how I responded:
“That’s insane, sir! You’re thinking of wage negotiations in union contracts or annual reviews, which react to the prior year’s reported inflation. There’s a lag, a permanent lag as wages attempt to catch up. The higher the inflation rate, the greater the lag… and while some employers can afford to give raises that honestly attempt to keep up, many, probably most, can NOT afford to. So the greater the inflation, the further people fall behind!”
Yes, that’s how I responded. In my head. I didn’t actually say anything out loud.
I was a freshman on his first day of school in a class of 300. I did not have the courage to challenge a member of the president’s council of economic advisors.
A year or so later, that reticence was gone, and I was arguing with professors – as all conservative students must, to protect their fellow students from the indoctrination of the left in a soft science like economics. But not in a freshman pre-requisite class of hundreds. Those critical courses go by, again and again, with the “teachers” (and yes, I use the word loosely) utterly unchallenged.
TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS
How could a man in such a position be so wrong?
Yes, he was a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors... but as that president was Jimmy Carter, that entire Council of Economic Advisors was populated by, shall we say, "Jimmy Carter’s kind of economists."
Here’s my point in posting this painful memory – a true “loss of innocence moment” for a conservative youth:
A president makes a LOT of appointments. It's not enough to want professionals with experience and credentials - heck, Bob Eisner was a professor at Northwestern; it's reasonable to assume he'd be good at it. He wrote articles and even books on macroeconomics; if you’re hiring an economist, his credentials were exactly what an HR person would look for.
But credentials are not enough.
The president has to know where he stands, himself, not just on one issue, but on many, before he starts hiring people.
A president has to be solidly committed to the right ideology, so that he is able to pick appointees who are not just experts in general, but who also are people who can carry out the president’s policies when he's not watching.
A president CANNOT be a completely hands-on manager. It’s impossible; his job is too big. His cabinet and other direct appointees – and their undersecretaries and special advisors below them – have to be able to be trusted to carry on his vision in their respective departments.
Democrats are good at this. They have little trouble finding dozens of good little marxists to do their will.
But a lot of Republicans are very bad at it... and make lousy appointments as a result. Look at the Bushes, father and son. Good men, honorable men... but they weren't truly committed ideologues, even when they honestly professed an ideology that they thought they held – so they couldn't really appoint a lot of good ideologues to work for them. The nation drifted during their presidencies.
Under the Bushes, the administration didn’t forcibly drive the country leftward, as all Democratic administrations do so purposefully, but their administrations didn’t reverse the trend either, as only a Reaganite administration could even attempt. And as George W. Bush had a Congress on his side, at least for a while, there is really no excuse.
A president will appoint people like him… not just on the issues, but on the level of fervor about those issues.
If he’s strongly committed to a muscular foreign policy, he will appoint Secretaries of State and Defense, National Security Advisors and UN Ambassadors, who reflect that mindset, courage, and determination.
If he is soft on foreign policy, even if he means well, he cannot be expected to be able to judge the right appointees.
Even if he knows that smaller government is better – but he doesn’t have the full philosophical underpinnings of the Founding Fathers and the limited-government champions who followed them, such as Bastiat, Hazlitt, Read, and Friedman – then how can we expect him to appoint people who share not only a general feeling but also a religious fervor to return America to the limited government that is our birthright? How can we enjoy the limitless potential of limited government if we don’t have a presidential administration committed to cutting the bureaucracy and returning us to our Constitutional roots?
Think back on the George W. Bush administration, and its beginnings. Bush II was committed to needed Social Security reform, but not SO committed that he kept at it when it got difficult. Bush II was committed to repairing the damage done to the housing market by the CRA and the DoJ’s threats against the banking community that had resulted in the growing problem of unaffordable mortgages and unqualified homeowners… but not SO committed that his administration made it a big political issue. He was right on the issue, but didn’t realize the need to use his bully pulpit to force a correction before it exploded in the housing collapse and financial crises.
Being right is critical, yes, but being committed – understanding why these things matter, and understanding how destructive the wrong position can be – is critical as well. Every decision made by our government is like a snowball on a snow-covered mountaintop: it may start as a single line of regulatory text in the Federal Register, but as it rolls downward from Washington, it has an enormous effect, either for good or ill.
In the Reagan administration, there was a saying: “Personnel is policy.” They understood, and did everything possible to fill the government with appointees who were committed to the Founders’ philosophy.
PEOPLE AND POLICIES
Not every Republican has this appreciation for the need to infuse a government with people who are committed to our Founders’ vision. Some even join with the Left in thinking that the individual people don’t matter all that much; a good policy will produce the required results, no matter who’s enforcing it.
Look at the tax code. It’s insanely complicated, true, but it doesn’t discriminate against religious groups or conservative organizations. In the hands of a politicized bureaucracy, however, it can – and under the Obama administration, it has.
Or look at federal land management. It’s logically set up to manage federal lands and award contracts for mining, logging, and drilling rights. But in the hands of a politicized bureaucracy, the ability to issue permits is also an ability to absolutely refuse permits and shut down whole sectors.
Or look at the well-intentioned pollution-control and poison-control goals of the EPA. Set up to require that factories are generally safe, in the hands of anti-capitalist bureaucrats, the agency has become a license to kill whole manufacturing industries.
To solve our nation’s many problems – not just the ones writ larger by the Obama administration, but the entire leftward drift of recent generations – we don't just need to elect a Republican in 2016. That’s not enough.
We need a committed conservative ideologue. A man or woman who is fully committed to the ideals of our Founding Fathers. Someone whose goal is to shrink the government, and who can and will appoint people we can trust to carry out that goal at every level. Cabinet members and undersecretaries, czars and functionaries, judges and prosecutors, all the people who set policy in this massive leviathan.
We can clearly trust several of our potential candidates for this – Governor Bobby Jindal, Senator Ted Cruz, maybe two or three others. Our task in the months to come – before the primaries begin – is to identify which candidates can truly be trusted to make the appointments that will return our many departments and agencies to lawful, Constitutional practices.
We have some great choices in our very broad presidential field this year; let's pray we do in fact choose one of the best, not one of the worst.
There is so much riding on this. The Republican nominee in 2016 needs to be someone who can win in November… and he or she must also be someone who fully appreciates how much needs to be done, on January 20, 2017 and in the years to come.
In the early years of the Obama administration, as the Tea Party gained steam and held rallies across the country, one of the chants we shouted at those rallies was “No More Bailouts!”
Well, it’s time to add one more version of that for 2016. “No More Milquetoasts!”
Copyright 2016 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based Customs broker and international trade compliance trainer. A movement conservative during the 1980s, his conservative principles survived his Northwestern education because his parents inoculated him first with years of reading National Review and watching Firing Line.
Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included. Follow John F. Di Leo on Facebook or LinkedIn, or on Twitter at @johnfdileo, or on his own page at JohnFDiLeo.com.
This is one the BEST reads on here in awhile! Where is the “Like” Button?!
Thank you very much!
And thank you for your service, Veteran!
God Bless!
JFD
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