A Draft Campaign Stump Speech from a Truthful Presidential Candidate

I got to thinking the other day what a really truthful presidential candidate might say in a stump speech. Of course a truthful candidate would never get elected, but here is what she/he might say:

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A Draft Campaign Stump Speech from a Truthful Presidential Candidate (who would never get elected)

Thank you. I’m glad to be here in _____________ today/tonight. I’m here to ask for your vote, but unlike many politicians I’m not going to promise you everything you want, or try to shape my speech to appeal to your particular concerns or hot buttons. I’m going to tell you what I think needs to be done to save this country, and what I will try to do if I am elected. You may not like it, it may be uncomfortable, but it will be, as near as I can tell, the truth, and that might just be refreshing from a politician.

There are lots of things that need fixing in our system of government, far more than I could possibly talk about here, so let me just talk about a few of the top issues.

Let’s talk about the economy first, because the economy drives everything else. A strong economy provide jobs, and jobs provide tax revenue, and tax revenue is what pays to keep the potholes in our roads filled and the water and electricity running, and the Social Security checks coming, and..and…and…

The first uncomfortable truth is that we are going bankrupt as a country, and we need to do something about it before it destroys our economy and your jobs and savings. The federal government spends over half a trillion dollars a year more than it takes in and we have a national federal debt of about $19 trillion dollars, which is more that the entire country produces in goods and service in an entire year. Politicians and some economists have been telling you for years that it is nothing to worry about – believe me, it is something to worry about. If we divided this federal debt evenly across all the taxpayers in America, each one of you would already owe over $150,000!

The second uncomfortable truth is that we need to either raise taxes or cut government programs, or both, to stop growing the debt and begin to bring it down to a more manageable level. The federal government is simply spending way beyond its means. We all want lower taxes, and we all want all sorts of nice, even essential, government programs. And politicians in both parties have been telling you for decades that you can have both. You can’t. There is no free lunch. If we want all those nice government program we have to raise taxes to pay for them – and raise them a lot, about 40% - to eliminate the deficit and begin to slowly, over say 20 years, pay the national debt down to about 50-60% of our Gross National Product, so that we have enough borrowing capacity left to deal with the next financial crisis – and there WILL be another financial crisis from time to time. – you can bet on it.

If elected I will work with Congress to find a balance between reducing the size and cost of government and raising taxes that minimizes the pain. But it won’t eliminate the pain. You will be unhappy at the substantial tax increases. You will be unhappy when some of your favorite government programs get cut back or eliminated. If you are a government worker or contractor you may well lose your job. I’m sorry about it, but that is the real world. If we can’t afford it, if we aren’t willing to pay for it, we can’t have it.

Congress may of course balk at doing either, because most politicians these days care more about getting re-elected than saving the nation. That’s a harsh thing to say, but it is another uncomfortable truth. And in fact most of you really already know it. I can only urge you to elect people to the House and Senate who care more about saving the nation than about getting re-elected.

And in fact let’s talk now about our political system. It’s broken, and it doesn’t work. Both parties are controlled by big money donors – wealthy individuals, big corporations, powerful unions and special interest groups. There is a reason the IRS tax code runs to about 75,000 pages – it’s full of loopholes and exceptions and tax breaks for this or that special group, all bought by campaign contributions and election support to this or that legislator by this or that corporation or special interest group.

This is insane – in fact it is corruption. If you are rich or a big corporation you can hire expensive lawyers and tax accountants who will find loopholes to minimize your taxes or park your money overseas out of reach of US taxes, but if you are an average American you get stuck paying the full tax bill. That simply isn’t fair, and it time it stopped. The tax code ought to be simple, and apply equally to everyone, big or small, rich or poor. If elected I will work with Congress to try to achieve that. It won’t be easy – everyone with a tax break now will fight it tooth and nail - but it is essential if we are to root out the corruption in this system.

Another serious problem with our political system is that it is divisive; it is based on setting one group of Americans against another. This is crazy, and self-destructive. Ben Franklin said it best: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” This nation is strongest when we all work together, as we did for example during the second world war. It is weakest when we let ambitious politicians and activists divide us and pit one group against another. Working politics is not a winner-take-all proposition, it is the art of compromise, of finding ways of letting everyone get some of what they want, of representing all sides of the debate. We have lost that, and we had better get it back or we are done in the long term as a powerful nation.

I am not running as a Republican or a Democrat, or even as a third party candidate. I am running as an American, and if elected I expect to work with both parties, with both liberals and conservatives, to find compromises. That means neither side will get everything it wants, but both sides will get some of what they want. You may well be unhappy at some of the compromises – if both sides are equally unhappy than it was probably a fair compromise.

Finally let’s talk about the federal bureaucracy. The founders of our nation were smart. They could see how other systems of government worked and didn’t work, and they could see how easily power can be abused, so they tried to build a system of government that limited abuse. They created three branches of government – the executive with the president, Congress, and the courts. Only Congress could write new laws, but the president could veto them, and the courts could make sure they didn’t violate the constitution. The courts could make sure the president, in running the country, didn’t overstep his or her boundaries, and Congress had a say in who got appointed to the federal courts. So each of the three branches can limit the abuses of the other two. And then the founders of our country left a lot of power to the states, so that the states could act as a guard against abuses in the federal system.

What the founders never expected was that a fourth branch of government would emerge – the federal bureaucracy – that was largely outside of all the safeguards they put in place. President George Washington had a bureaucracy of three – three cabinet secretaries. But starting in the 1930s the federal bureaucracy has grown explosively, so that it now numbers over 430 departments, agencies and sub-agencies. Actually, no one really knows exactly how many agencies, departments and sub-agencies there are, but it directly employs over 2.6 million people, and indirectly employs many more contractors, and controls a budget of about $2 trillion dollars a year. And it all operates largely outside of any effective oversight by Congress or the president, simply because it is so vast.

The annual Code of Federal Regulations, which lists all federal regulations in effect, as of 2014, the last count I can find, stood at 175,496 pages in approximately 200 volumes. It is no doubt larger yet today. This is absurd. It takes batteries of expensive lawyers for a business to ensure that it meets all the regulations in effect, and vast staffs of people to manage the paperwork and filings involved. It is a drag on businesses.

Now we need some regulations and we need some agencies to create and enforce these regulations, but this whole federal bureaucracy has simply gotten out of hand. If elected I will work with Congress to find a way to prune the federal bureaucracy back to a more sensible size – which we need to do anyway to bring down the enormous federal deficit each year – and to bring some rationality to our regulatory system, so that business aren’t just swamped with paperwork from the federal government. Again, this won’t be easy. Bureaucracies fight hard to keep their turf and their budgets, and there will be lots of pushback from special interests. But it needs to be addressed.

There are lots of other things that need to be done, but these are a couple of the biggest issues. Now if I were a traditional candidate I would make all kinds of promises about fixing them, but the truth is the president has relatively little real power; it is Congress who holds the real power, just as the founders of our nation intended. So just electing me isn’t going to solve these problems. As president I can propose things to Congress, and help with negotiations, but nothing will get done unless you also elect to Congress Senators and House members who are willing to do the hard things, who are willing to negotiate compromises even at the risk of not being re-elected, who are willing to lead and educate their constituents instead of pandering to them, and who are willing to put the long-term health of the nation above their own short term political calculations.

We are a great nation, unusual for our generosity, for our strong work ethic, for our entrepreneurial spirit and inventiveness, and for our commitment to human rights for all humans, of whatever race, gender, or nationality. The world needs us. But we are of no use to the world if we are going to descend to petty bickering among ourselves, or if we are going to ruin the nation economically by spending beyond our means. I ask for your vote to begin the process of saving our nation from these ills. I won’t sugar coat this message - the path will be hard and painful for many in the short run, and will require sacrifices from all of us, but if we see it through we can perhaps save our great nation in the long run, and that is a noble cause worth sacrificing for.

Thank you.

Recommended: Sex, lies & excuses: Partisan madness on predators

John Podhoretz in the New York Post today makes a point I have been wanting to make, in his article Sex, lies & excuses: Partisan madness on predators. Hypocrisy I suppose is and has always been a staple of political life, but it is generally cloaked in more high-minded cover stories. These days politicians and journalists seem to be openly hypocritical without feeling any need to pretend otherwise.

Trump ought to be investigated for his supposed (still unproven) Russian connections, but Clinton shouldn't be investigated for her dealings in the Uranium One sale, despite $145 million in Russian donations to the Clinton fund and a $500,000 speaking fee to Bill from a Russian bank immediately after she approved the sale.

Republican Judge Roy Moore ought to be disqualified from running for office for his alleged (still unproven) sexual escapades, but Democrat Al Franken ought not to be removed for his (photographed) sexual excesses. Liberals deride Trump's argument that Moore's Republican vote is needed despite his unsavory character, but argue Franken's Democratic vote is so important that he ought to stay in place despite his unsavory character.

What do you suppose the liberal argument will be for Democratic Representative John Conyers, now accused by two woman?

Democrats argue that Trump ought to be impeached for his alleged (but unproven) past sexual adventures, but argue that Bill Clinton's excesses, including at least one alleged rape, ought to be overlooked because he was (by their lights) a good president.

And of course Democrats were outraged when Senate Republicans used the so-called "nuclear option" to get their Supreme Court nomination approved, even though they themselves had used the same tactic when they were in power, and bragged, before the election, that Hillary would use it to get her nominations approved.

Of course Republicans can be, and often are, just as hypocritical as Democrats, but the past few weeks the most outlandish hypocritical statements have mostly come from liberals.

More context on the state and local tax deduction

I mentioned in a recent posting the financial difficulties faced by a number of Democratically controlled high tax states. Just to get some perspective on the problems they face, here are the current estimated unfunded state and local future pension obligations for these states:

California is by far in the worst condition, with $241.3 BILLION in future pension obligations as of 2014. The state’s total future liabilities are estimated at $366 BILLION.  In 1999 Democratic lawmakers in California passed a new law (SB 400), under which than 200,000 civil servants became eligible to retire at 55 — and in many cases collect more than half their highest salary for life. California Highway Patrol officers could retire at 50 and receive as much as 90% of their peak pay for as long as they lived. This year the state will pay out $5.4 BILLION in pensions, which is about 30 times more than it was paying out in 2000.

New York City has a future pension obligation estimated this year at about $142 BILLION, and currently spends 17% of its annual budget on pensions.  In the early 2000s a new rule exempted most city employees from having to contribute towards their own retirement, which has made the problem even worse.

New York State is doing somewhat better, but New York State and local debt currently stands at $352 BILLION, and New York State and local pensions cost $34.4 BILLION this year.

Connecticut’s estimated unfunded pension liabilities stand at about $20.4 BILLION as of 2017

Illinois has more than $250 BILLION in unfunded future pension liabilities, and  Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the state of Illinois’ credit rating to Baa3, just one notch above a noninvestment-grade, or “junk,” rating.

New Jersey’s pension debt now stands at around $49.1 BILLION. The state’s total unfunded liabilities stood at about $66.2 BILLION at the end of 2016.

Notice again we are talking BILLIONS here – thousands of millions! These are big numbers..

There is, of course, no way in hell that these states will ever manage to cover these future pension obligations, especially since their high tax rates are driving businesses and wealthy individuals to leave these states and hence reduce their future tax revenues, so a painful reckoning is coming.

Tax cuts for the rich?

A common liberal theme is the claim that Republican tax cuts mostly help the rich. We are hearing this again, now that the Republicans are trying to reform the tax code. Is this always true?  Let’s think about that for a moment.

First of all, about 45% of Americans (77.5 million households) pay no tax at all, because they don’t make enough money to reach the first tax bracket. So of course tax cuts never affect them.

The top 1% of Americans, who have an average income of more than $2.1 million, pay 43.6% of all the federal individual income tax in the U.S.; the top 0.1% — just 115,000 households, whose average income is more than $9.4 million — pay more than 20% of it.

If you rank household income into 5 bands, the middle 20% (the so-called middle class) pay only 9.2% of the federal taxes.  The top 40% pay 86.5% of the federal taxes.  (the lowest 40% pay only 4.2% of the total federal taxes)

So since the rich pay most of the federal taxes paid, of course any tax cut helps them most. It could hardly be otherwise, given the math, since they pay most of the tax in the first place.

But of course facts never seem to overcome political emotions. The claim is still a good one-liner for aspiring liberal politicians, and lots of voters probably are sucked up by the populist appeal, since they don’t understand the math.

The state tax deduction

One of the features of the proposed Republican tax overhaul is the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes. This has caused a good deal of upset from Democrats, who claim it will “hurt the middle class”. Is this true, or is this just spin?

Well, the states that are screaming loudest seem to be New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut. And these are all states which have been under Democratic control for decades. And these are all states that have high state and local taxes. And these are all states with strong public sector unions, who have been strong supporters of state Democratic candidates, who in turn have negotiated generous salaries and pensions for their public sector workers. And these are all states that are in financial difficulty, largely because of huge pension obligations for their public sector union retirees. And these are all states having trouble maintaining their infrastructure, because they are short of money, because they have to pay so much for their public sector employees and their retired public sector employee’s pensions. Is there a message here….?

California’s deficit this year is about $1.6 BILLION dollars. The current estimates put New York state’s deficit at about $4 BILLION next year. New Jersey is projecting a deficit of about $3.6 BILLION within five years.  Illinois just added $5 BILLION in new taxes on its taxpayers, and still projects a deficit of at least $1.3 BILLION next year. Connecticut, at last estimate, expected to run a deficit of at least $1.6 BILLION in the 2017-2018 fiscal year.  Note that we are talking BILLIONS here!

If you think about it, what the state and local tax deduction effectively does is spread a state’s tax liability over everyone else in the country. The state collects a tax, and that tax is deducted from each taxpayer’s taxable federal income, reducing the federal tax they pay and therefore the income to the federal government, which then has to be made up by higher tax rates on everyone else in the country.. So in essence the state and local tax deduction passes part of that state tax burden on to the taxpayers elsewhere in the country.  Not exactly a fair system, I would say.

Of course these high tax states are now faced with a real worry. Several depend heavily on a relatively few very rich residents for much of their tax income, and with the loss of the state and local tax deduction, some of these very rich people may just decide to move to lower-rate states. Just one New Jersey hedge fund investor (billionaire David Tepper) moved to Florida last year and the state lost hundreds of millions in tax revenue.

So on balance I would say eliminating the state and local tax deduction on federal returns is a good thing to do – it makes the system much more fair. States which are improvident can’t pass part of their burden on to everyone else – they need to live with it. States which manage their affairs better aren’t forced by federal tax law to help bail out states that are feckless. And that seems to me right.

But these are Democratically-controlled states, so of course the Democrats are upset at the proposal, but of course they can't admit that their Democratic policies are the reason these states are in such financial trouble (they may not be able to admit that even to themselves), so they have to spin their opposition in some other way - and "hurting the middle class" is what they have chosen.

Recommended: Americans Aren't As Divided As You Think

Politico has a good article today by Ken Stern: American's Aren't As Divided As You Think. We certainly have extremists - both liberal and conservative - in this country, but the majority of the population is more moderate.  The problem is that the extremists on both wings of the political spectrum dominate the news, both mainstream news and social media, so it looks like there is far more discord than there actually is. That and the fact that politicians on both ends of the political spectrum seem to think they need to pander to the most extreme in their base in order to get re-elected has produced an impression that isn't apparently quite correct.  There certainly are disagreements on some policies, bu apparently not nearly as much disagreement as an outsider would expect from the daily drumbeat of hyperventilating news reports.

Innocent until proven guilty?

It is a fundamental principle of English law, from which American law is derived, that an accused is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. That principle seems to have gone by the board recently with all the sexual harassment accusations being tried in the press and on social media.

Now there is no question that sexual harassment and outright sexual predation  has been going on for generations, and that the rich and powerful and famous are often involved in it and use their power and wealth to protect themselves.  And there is no question that our male-dominated society has ignored and suppressed and intimidated women when they brought such accusations, and generally behaved shamefully, and even women have participated in this oppression (as when Hillary Clinton publicly attacked and trashed Bill Clinton’s accusers). And I have little doubt that most if not all of the current wave of accusations against people like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein are true.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, having no personal doubt they are true is not the same as PROVING they are true. Of course proof is hard in these cases – there are generally no third party witnesses so it becomes one person’s word against another’s, and sometimes about events decades in the past.  Probably the current wave of accusations will have a salutary effect on some men, and that is a good thing.

But politics is a dirty game, and it won’t be long before someone figures out they can ”weaponize” these accusations, pay a woman or two or a man or two to make accusations that ruins the career of their political opponent, or some vengeful spouse or lover uses this method to destroy their former spouse or lover. It will be precisely because it is so hard to prove or disprove such charges that this tactic will be appealing.

This is a dangerous path we are on. The more so because there really has been a great deal of abuse of women, and it needs to stop. But there was a reason that the “innocent until proven guilty” principle became the cornerstone of English law – it was to prevent just this sort of “trial by mob rule” that is going on now. If we begin to abandon that principle, even for a cause as good as this one, then none of us are safe from false accusations that can ruin our lives and the lives of our families.

We have seen this horror movie before, during the Communist witch hunt days in the 1950's when unscrupulous people like Joe McCarthy built a career ruining people's lives with unproven, and often false, accusations. We ought to remember that lesson now.

Rights and responsibilities

One of the things that seems to me to have been lost these days is the rather obvious connection between rights and responsibilities. I would argue that there are no rights without corresponding responsibilities. That one has no right to ask something from a community unless one is also willing to contribute more or less equally to the community. That freeloading on the generosity of others is not a concept that works in the long run, either for the freeloader or for the community.

So along those lines let me suggest some ideas.  First, for those in the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party who propose things like free college for all, free medical care for all, and perhaps even a government issued basic income, what do they expect the recipients to give back to the nation in return? 

Our nation is currently defended by a military made up of less than 1% of the population. Perhaps like Israel and Switzerland we ought to expect everyone who receives these “free” benefits to give two or three years of their lives in service to their country (with equivalent CCC-like civilian alternatives for those who are religiously opposed to being in the military).  It is true that the military has become so complex that only professionals can do the more technical jobs, but there is still plenty of “grunt work” as well that even a relatively untrained civilian can do, or be quickly trained to do.

And for those on the right wing who believe so strongly in the benefits of free enterprise, how about a system where those of us who have benefitted handsomely from free enterprise be expected to give X hours per week to unpaid service work to the community – including even (or especially) overpaid senior managers and CEOs.  There are plenty of community projects that could use experienced free help.  Yes, I know some of these overpaid people give handsomely of their money to charity, but money is cheap for them. Their time and experience is what is really precious, and that is what they ought to be donating as well.

It has in the past been one of the strengths of our nation that culturally we expected to take responsibility for our communities. It seems to me that has eroded into a greedy, self-centered  “me generation”, and that we need to get back to the concept that we each give to the community as well as get from it, as a way of ensuring the long-term health of our nation and communities.

Yes Virginia, there are “deplorables” *

Hillary Clinton got into a lot of political trouble last year, and may have lost the election in part, because of her comment labeling supporters of her opponent “deplorables”.  But in fact she was right; there are “deplorables”. She just didn’t apply the label to the right groups.

The deplorables certainly include some of the more extreme right-wing religious fundamentalists, who not only believe illiberal things about women’s rights and sexuality based on their interpretation of the writings of male-dominated cultures thousands of years ago, but insist on trying to impose their religious views on everyone else.

But the real deplorables also include:

Pampered college students who are so ignorant of the nation’s history, and of the valor and sacrifice American military, men and women alike, have made and are still making that they tear up American flags on Veteran’s Day, as happened yesterday at Brown University.

Government officials, including Hillary Clinton herself, but also including thousands of others in Congress and the administration and federal agencies who use their government positions and power to enrich themselves and their friends.

A Congress, including both parties, that is so irresponsible that it continues to buy votes with expensive federal programs, but is unwilling to take the politically painful step of raising taxes to pay for them. So that we now run an annual deficit of over half a trillion dollars, and have a federal debt that exceeds the entire gross national product of the entire country, and is still growing!

The ultra-liberal Hollywood elite who are quite willing to lecture the rest of the nation (especially those who happen to hold different views) on its failings, but have for decades tolerated blatant sexual harassment and outright sexual predation among their ranks and kept quiet about it.

The mainstream media, both liberal and conservative, many of whom have openly abandoned responsible journalism for outright partisan political activism.

And I’m sure you can add to the list.

So yes, Virginia, there really are “deplorables” in the country.

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* For those who didn't catch the 1897 reference, see here.

The Virginia and New Jersey elections

It is amazing – even perhaps pathetic – the media response to the Virginian and New Jersey gubernatorial elections. These were both races that Democrats were supposed to win, and win handily, in states that are deep blue.  The fact that they actually managed not to lose elections they were supposed to win is being spun by the media as a massive blow to Republicans!  This is a level of self-delusion that Democrats can’t afford right now, when they need to get real about why they are so far out of power locally and nationally.

On the other hand, it is good news that a moderate Democrat won in Virginia – perhaps it will give the Democratic Party some pause in its self-destructive rush to go too far left.

Pragmatic political questions

Underneath all the dramatic hyperventilation and righteous indignation and spin and distortions and virtue posturing and character assassination that passes for serious political discourse these days from both liberals and conservatives in the media and Congress there are some pragmatic questions about the future of our nation that someone ought to be attending to. These include:

1. How to craft workable political policies that embrace the concerns of both the well-off urban secular liberals and the less-well-off rural and small-town religious conservatives. After all, what Ben Franklin said at the founding of our nation still applies today: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”  Creating “us vs them” situations, as identity politics has been doing, is destructive to the nation and a long-term threat to America.  We need politicians, and political messages, that will unite us, not divide us.

2. How to get big money – personal and corporate and special interest – out of our political process. Both parties are now thoroughly beholden to wealthy donors, corporations and unions, all of whom expect to buy favorable legislation with their donations.  This is a thoroughly corrupt system, and will sink the nation eventually if it isn’t stopped.

3. How to force the federal government – meaning Congress - to live within its means, either by reducing expenditures, increasing taxes, or both. Running a half trillion dollar a year deficit simply can’t continue indefinitely, unless the government allows inflation to skyrocket so as to cut the actual value of the debt – but that destroys everyone’s savings.

4. How to address the structural changes in the workforce being created largely by automation. Capitalism depends on healthy markets, and healthy markets depend on consumers with incomes to spend. Putting large numbers of people out of work with automation (and to a much less extent, outsourcing to other nations) is an existential threat to the whole capitalist system that has brought prosperity to the nation over the past 200 years.  Someone needs to be thinking about this problem and attending to it – neither party is doing so now.

5. How to build and maintain a credible and effective military, including alliances, capable of defending the nation, deterring war, and maintaining the freedom of the seas on which so much of our trade depends, without driving the nation deeper into debt.

These are hard problems, which is probably why politicians avoid talking about them, but they are crucial pragmatic questions that bear directly on the future of our nation – far, far more important questions than the trendy social and cultural issues that seem to consume the media and our current politicians.