Victor Davis Hanson: Change We Can Believe In

So, fellow critics of Obama, what would we do instead? It is easy to harp, as Obama did in 2007-8, but hard to govern, as Obama learned in 2009. So for all the criticism, let us put up some sample proposals of our own.

1. Pay as you go, balanced budget—whatever you wish to call a return to fiscal sanity. Conservatives need to stop talking about tolerable deficits in terms of GDP; and liberals should cease the charade that trillion-plus annual borrowing is great stimulus.

The psychological effect on the American people of paying down the debt through annual surpluses would be incalculable. “Decline” is as much psychological as real, and begins with perceptions of financial insolvency. We have a $11 trillion economy, so balancing the books is not impossible. Note how Obama intends to “address the deficit” only after he has set two budgets that will increase it by nearly four trillion dollars. Note how Bush’s sin of running up large annual deficits is used to excuse Obama’s mortal sin of doubling them. Note how Democrats, after lining up for a trillion-dollar federal take-over of health care, are worried about a multi-billion dollar expense in Afghanistan. Cuts in defense, as the later Romans knew, are always the first reaction to profligate domestic spending and entitlement.

2. Freeze federal spending at the present rate, and let increased revenues balance the budget....

Here are a few ideas of my own. I tire of Hanson’s half-measures.

1. Let’s limit the Federal Government to what it can raise from Tariffs and Bonds. Eliminate the Income Tax completely. Let’s outlaw welfare completely. The Federal Government should have never gotten into the entitlement business in the first place.

2. Don’t freeze Federal spending, eliminate it. Much of it needs to be banned Constitutionally. We pay Congress Critters far too much money, and we have allowed them to pervert the intention of the Founders to have “Citizen Legislators” run the place.

3. Repeal the 17th Amendment and return the election of US Senators to the State Legislatures where they belong.

4. Institute a Constitutional advertising cap of $5000 on every candidate for political office.

5. Make US Citizenship a birthright for children who are actually born of US Citizens. Return “Federal Land” to the States who really own it in the first place, and let their Sovereign Citizens decide what they thing the “best use” for that land really is. We won’t have race problems in this Country if we teach “Sovereign Citizens” exactly what that phrase means, and then treat them that way. We won’t need affirmative action beyond selling those Sovereigns that former “Federal” land...

6. Control and funding of our Public Schools needs to be returned to the citizens. Get the Unions and Government out of the Schools and let Communities in the States decide how they want to raise and educate their children. (We have over 100 “Administrators” making in excess of $120K annually in ONE district out here!!)

7. Get the UN out of the United States, and require that the United States formally withdraw from the United Nations. It matters not where the UN goes as long as it leaves this Continent.

8. We need to collectively find the stones required to carry out the above items. To a large degree we have become a Nation of wimps that don’t understand the most basic principles under which we live, which is why so many people are finding it impossible to recognize how rapidly their rights are eroding.

One last thought on what we need...

“Of every one hundred men, Ten should not be there,
Eighty are nothing but targets,
Nine are real fighters...
We are lucky to have them, They make the battle.

Ah, but the One, One of them is a Warrior...
And he will bring the others back.”

Hericletus (circa 500 BC)

Ronald Reagan was such a Constitutional Warrior....

“2. Freeze federal spending at the present rate, and let increased revenues balance the budget. The idea that we could ever cut outright the budget seems long ago impossible—given the culture of complaint and the melodramatic rants about starvation and murder if another entitlement is not granted. Still, some sort of leadership is required to remind the American people that much of what their government does is not just unnecessary, but counter-productive and they would be better off without it.”

Though I agree with this, it is virtually impossible.

Our full time Congress has to be seen as doing something, & almost anything they do spends more money; so unless our Congress meets only part time to pass a “frozen” budget & deal with other, non-spending issues, the spending will continue w/o limit & can only be balanced with more taxes.

Where is the politician who runs for office promising to eliminate a whole department? Lots of people run promising to “restrain” the growth of government, but almost no one ever seriously promises to cut it, and no one does it.

If you can’t defund and decertify the Department of Education, then you aren’t really trying. That is the first thing that ought to be passed back to the states.

I agree that federal land should be passed back to the states. And that most of that should then be privatized.

We should set our sights on energy independence. Real energy independence. The hundreds of billions we send out of the country each year funding other countries’ national budgets and putting other countries’ people to work should be invested here, putting our people to work, and paying into our tax bases.

Just the simple act of building energy independence will balance our budgets, stabilize our dollar, and free us of undue foreign influence from either commodity providers (the Sauds, for example) or capital providers (the Chinese, for example).

Finally, take effective control of our borders. Immigration policy should serve the interests of citizens and should be made transparently with the consent of citizens.

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