Newt on Detroit

 

The final collapse of Detroit should lead to thorough congressional investigations into the pathology that killed a great American city. You might think "killed" is too strong a term, but consider these facts about what was once our fourth largest city with the highest per capita income of any city in America.

The recent bankruptcy in Detroit is a harbinger of the steady decay of government competence in America. To have the city with the highest per capita income in America in 1950 collapse economically, culturally and in the basic aspects of civilization is horrifying. To have a city of 1,400,000 people decline to fewer than 700,000 is astonishing. With the collapse in population there are 78,000 empty houses. Some can be bought for $1 (yes, it's true) and no one will buy them.

The number of Detroit manufacturing jobs dropped from 296,000 to 27,000.

No one will create new jobs in the city because it has become a public safety and public services wasteland. In some ways it resembles the post-devastation world of the movie Mad Max.

Imagine a world in which 40% of the traffic lights don't work. Almost one third of the ambulances don't work. Of the ambulances that have been repaired some have over 250,000 miles on them. In some dangerous neighborhoods ambulances will not go without police. On average it takes the police nearly an hour to show up when called. Faced with this public safety crisis, the politicians cut the police force by 40% and closed most police stations to the public 16 hours a day.

As the politicians have eliminated public safety personnel and budgets, crime has soared. You are 11 times more likely to be killed in Detroit than in New York. You are 5 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than the national average. The police solve fewer than 10% of the crimes committed in Detroit. (You thought the reference to Mad Max was exaggerated?)

Mark Steyn has a devastating analysis of the collapse of Detroit and its wider implications. He writes:

"The tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, is now a border between the First World and the Third World — or, if you prefer, the developed world and the post-developed world. To any American time-transported from the mid 20th century, the city’s implosion would be literally incredible: Were he to compare photographs of today’s Hiroshima with today’s Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan."

The greatest problem in Detroit isn't structural. It is the collapse of human capital. Consider Steyn's further observation: "Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor...The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence."

Detroit is a human tragedy for the unnecessary pain its residents are living through. It is an historic tragedy for the loss of a great American city and a symbol of American industrial power. It is a sobering warning of what can happen in the rest of the country if we continue to tolerate massive, systemic breakdown in government.

Detroit is not unique. It is in fact a warning signal of what can happen to us at every level of government if we continue to tolerate the breakdown in government capabilities and performance.

For two generations we have had a political system dominated by protecting the government class and growing a dependency class. More and more people got unsustainable deals through government employee union power to coerce politicians (for whom they were often the largest and most powerful reelection threat). More and more people were told they didn't have to learn or work or be productive because someone else would take care of it all for them.

These pathologies need to be exposed and studied. Their lessons should be applied at every level of government across the country.

Detroit's problems are not new. I outlined the pathology and some possible solutions at the Mackinac Policy Conference in June 2010. I also spoke there in September 2007.

Six months later on March 27, 2008 at the American Enterprise Institute I responded to then Senator Obama's speech in Philadelphia on race. A significant part of my talk focused on Detroit:

Senator Obama asserted, the history of legalized discrimination 'helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persist today in so many urban and rural communities.'

So let’s take Senator Obama seriously about discussing this. His analysis is simply factually false. The collapse of Detroit, from 1950 to 2008, which I think should be the centerpiece of the fall campaign, because it is the case study in bad culture and bad government. Detroit in 1950 had 1,800,000 people. Last year, it dropped below 900,000. Less than half the housing stock is needed. It is the first American city in history to drop below a million.

The numbers are actually worse than that in the last three years: Detroit had three times the out-migration rate of any other city in the United States. Twenty-seven thousand additional people fled Detroit. It dropped from being the number one per capita income city in the United States to ranking number sixty-second.

Now, you could say, well, it’s all the auto industry’s fault. That’s simply not true. First of all, there are large parts of America that have very successful auto industries. They tend to be in right-to-work states with low tax rates and without the United Auto Workers. But they’re quite successful. We’ve had a very large increase in factories that produce cars.

Second, even in Michigan, despite a very destructive governor and a very destructive state legislature, Grand Rapids is in the middle of a building boom. Now why is Grand Rapids, on the western side of Michigan, growing dramatically while Detroit, on the eastern side of Michigan, is continuing to collapse?

The results are even worse. The best estimate of the Gates Foundation was that a freshman entering the Detroit school system had one chance in four of graduating on time. Three out of four children in Detroit are being cheated by one of the most expensive school bureaucracies in America.

But that’s because we measure the wrong metric. The primary metric of the Detroit school bureaucracy has nothing to do with the children. It has to do with whether or not the paychecks are issued every month. And it has been a stunningly effective bureaucracy at issuing paychecks. It just doesn’t do anything for the paychecks. And yet no one wants to talk about this.

So start with the idea that if we’re going to have an honest conversation, we ought to start with Detroit because if we can’t have an honest conversation about how big a disaster Detroit is, we sure can’t have an honest conversation about poverty in America, and we sure can’t have a conversation about what needs to change.

It’s that simple and that direct. And I think virtually no one on the Left is prepared today to talk candidly about Detroit because it is their institutions and their culture which has caused the collapse of one of America’s great cities.

And you may think I’m exaggerating. Consider the following. An entrepreneur offered $200 million to develop charter schools in Detroit and was rejected on the grounds that he was obviously a white racist attempting to overturn the black power structure. “I am disappointed and saddened by the anger and hostility that has greeted our proposal,” explained [Bob] Thompson to the Associated Press.

"Because of these contentious conditions, we are not going to move forward with our planned charter high schools. Our proposal to build a number of new, very small charter high schools in Detroit was intended to increase options for Detroit parents and children. The proposal was meant to be for kids, and not against anyone in any institution."

Now what does that tell you about pathology, when you can have a system failing, and remember, if you’re an African-American male, and you drop out of high school, you face a 73 percent unemployment rate in your 20s and a 60 percent chance of going to jail.

And you have to ask yourself, by what moral authority did the Detroit school bureaucracy block $200 million from saving young men from going to jail, from giving them an opportunity to go to college, from offering them hope? And why did no one speak out against it?

The disaster in Detroit involves ruined lives, lost futures, tragic deaths, avoidable poverty, and a host of societal, governmental, economic and political pathologies.

The Congress should thoroughly explore the disaster and outline what steps we need to do to avoid repeating this terrible human tragedy in other cities.

Your Friend,

Newt

Four Scandals - by Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, as always, presents articulate and analytical verbiage on problems confronting America. The problem this time is that the people elected a corrupt and arrogant President who, in turned, hired a dishonest administration who both are now caught up in scandal after scandal,.... undeniabley so. You can go to Gingrich Productions and sign up for this e-mail newsletter. Read Newt's article below:

When I started writing this it was called "three scandals".

There was the Benghazi Scandal, the IRS Scandal, and the little covered but equally alarming Secretary Sebelius scandal.

Then as I was writing we learned that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months worth of phone call records for more than 100 Associated Press reporters. This is the largest violation of the First Amendment in modern times and so we now have four scandals in the Obama Administration.

The White House wants Americans to believe the four scandals are all, in one way or another, the rogue acts of insignificant subordinates.

They want us to believe that a few misguided but well-meaning IRS agents in regional offices took the initiative to persecute and harass conservatives in an election year.

They want us to believe that repeated requests for more security at the Benghazi compound were ignored by fourth-tier bureaucrats at the State Department, never making it to the Department’s leadership. That the talking points were altered by unknown analysts at the CIA, rather than senior administration officials as evidence suggests. That the explosive allegations of a senior diplomat are really just the ramblings of a disgruntled employee.

They want us to believe that the White House was completely unaware that the Department of Justice secretly grabbed two months of phone records from Associated Press reporters who cover the administration, in an effort to identify their sources.

And no doubt we will soon discover that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s shakedown of insurance companies for money which Congress refused to appropriate was really the initiative of some unfortunate functionary deep in the bowels of the Department.

But in truth, these scandals are not the random acts of a few bureaucrats who got out of hand.

These scandals are in fact the natural manifestations of Obamaism.

Unaccountable power, untethered from law or the Constitution, and employed for political gain is standard operating procedure in an administration which seeks to make government bigger and bigger. It is the Chicago machine transplanted to the federal government.

And they continue without shame, lying about what they’ve done, then lying about lying, and finally lying about the people who are telling the truth until everyone forgets what they lied about in the first place.

When the President blamed the terrorist attacks in Benghazi on a protest that never happened, anyone who dared challenge the official story was smeared as a crazy extremist or a bitter partisan.

When the Secretary of State vowed to prosecute the creator of an obscure anti-Islam Internet video, those who doubted the explanation were intolerant.

When the U.N. ambassador said on five Sunday talk shows that the violence arose from a spontaneous demonstration against the video, people who questioned the claim were politicizing a tragedy.

It is now obvious to everyone that the Obama Administration was deliberately dishonest. And so the White House tells Americans to forget about it, “Benghazi happened a long time ago.”

The subordinates have been punished. The whistleblowers have been demoted. Move along, nothing to see here.

The administration took the same approach to the IRS scandal. Apparently beginning in 2010, the IRS singled out groups with “tea party” or “patriot" in their name (presumably assuming that groups on the Left don’t describe themselves as “patriotic”), as well as organizations “involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement[s],” or making statements which “criticize how the country is being run.”

The IRS asked many of these groups to provide lists of their donors, the amount of each donation, and lots of details about the organizations’ activities. Here is an example of one appalling letter from the IRS to a Tea Party group which was targeted.

When the IRS confessed to some of this on Friday in advance of an investigation made public yesterday, it tried to blame low level IRS employees in a Cincinnati office. But it is already being widely reported that senior IRS officials in Washington knew for almost two years that the agency was targeting conservative organizations, even though they testified before Congress more than a year ago and claimed the IRS was doing no such thing.

So they lied to Congress, then lied to the press when caught, and now once again they’re lying about lying. This is the agency which is integral to implementing Obamacare.

How would you like the IRS bureaucrats deciding your health treatments?

Chilling isn't it?

Meanwhile, the White House maintains it had no idea the IRS was abusing power to target the administration’s political enemies, although the Presidential spokesman, Jay Carney, has admitted some people in the White House knew something at a recent press briefing.

Carney's comment begins to move toward Senator Howard Baker's famous Watergate question, "What did you know and when did you know it?"

Speaking of abuses of power, the White House also says it was unaware the Department of Justice secretly obtained two months worth of phone records for more than 100 Associated Press reporters, many of whom cover the Obama administration.

The DOJ is trying to discover the source of unauthorized and damaging national security leaks which informed an AP story on al Qaeda last year.

That is in contrast with the damaging national security leaks which supported the President’s reelection last year: they have not shown much interest in discovering who told the New York Times about President Obama’s “kill list” or his administration’s work on the Stuxnet virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program, or who granted Hollywood filmmakers unprecedented access to officials who divulged details of the bin Laden raid.

Of course, two months worth of phone records are likely to reveal communications with AP sources on hundreds of other stories about the administration in that period of time. But the White House says it is not involved.

Finally, we learned this week that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has been shaking down the health care companies for donations to fund implementation of Obamacare. When Congress refused to appropriate more money to set up the health insurance exchanges, Secretary Sebelius began asking these companies to contribute to Enroll America, a nonprofit organization created to promote Obamacare. It is headed by a former White House official.

As Senator Lamar Alexander said, “Such private fundraising circumvents the constitutional requirement that only Congress may appropriate funds. If the secretary or others in her department are closely coordinating the activities of Enroll America...then those actions may be in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.”

Senator Alexander points out the Secretary’s activities are functionally no different from those which led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which the executive branch attempted to continue supporting a program Congress had not authorized using private donations. Fourteen officials were indicted in Iran-Contra.

Among all these lies and abuses of power from senior administration officials, how can the White House credibly continue to blame low level subordinates? And if he’s not responsible for the State Department, the Department of Justice, the IRS, or the Department of Health and Human Services (all of which were carrying on activities transparently to his political advantage) is President Obama responsible for anything at all in the executive branch?

Things that Piss Me Off Right After Christmas

New York Times calls the U.S. the stingiest Nation. I shouldn't even get mad at anything coming out of the New York Times which basically has the same credibility as the National Enquirer, but,...these America haters continue to pick a topic and get it bass ackwards. Not only does the U.S. give generously to all sorts of charities and nations, we give money to our enemies. We give hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinians who were cheering in the streets while watching the 9-11 attacks on Television. The problem is that we are too generous to the wrong people and nations.

Social Security Payroll Tax Cut. This is the issue where the Federal Government reduces the amount of tax that comes out of our pay checks towards Social Security. Rather than enact any kind of Federal Income Tax or Capital Gains reduction or reform, Obama's brilliant brainstorm of reducing the amount we contribute to the already unfunded and going bankrupt Social Security is a brain teaser to put it mildly. The Democrats and the mainstream liberal media (there I go being redundant again) sure spun this as a Democrat victory and a Republican defeat. A rational person will see this as a defeat for the American People. We the People get a tiny amount of additional take home income in out checks, while social security continues heading towards a cliff. Obama gets to shelf any decision on the oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S., and we'll be back in the same boat again in two months. The promise of the Democrats to work towards a year long reduction in social security payroll tax is like staring at a flat tire when your engine is blown and the steering wheel is missing.

Then we have that idiot Harry Reid (D-NV who stated: "Everything we do around here does not have to wind up in a fight." Well Harry, I reckon it does when one side wants to spend this country into bankruptcy and default, while over taxing the job creators to sabotage the economy, meanwhile placating the people by giving them tax reduction gimmicks that put a few bucks in their pockets at the expense of Social Security solvency. Are we to be bought that cheaply?


Making Newt to look like a Bomb Thrower. With George H.W. Bush formally supporting Mitt Romney, the media train is reporting that Newt Gingrich is too much of a bomb thrower,...much too caustic to gain mainstream Republican support. On the other hand, they paint him as a classic political insider. Wonder which one is closer to the truth as it can't be both. Where the "Bomb Throwing" rep comes from is the 1990 fight between the first Bush Administration's desire to raise taxes, despite Bush's promise not to do so. Anyone remember the "Read my lips, no new taxes" speech? Gingrich's refusal to support Bush's 1990 budget deal was seen as both disloyal and anti-pragmatic, and that's we the lack of support from the Republican mainstream comes from.

Cain Down And Out,....Newt's My Pick Now

Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, participated in the Thanksgiving Family Forum hosted by The Family Leader. He answers questions concerning loss of values, Faith vs. secularism, and his world view in terms of freedom, responsibility, and morality.

Other questions and answers include the role of the federal government as it pertains to achieving a common good, is here any moral justification for war, Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), abortion, adoption, and the judicial system.

Newt also expresses his deeply held convictions regarding America, and how his experiences have helped shape the love he has for country.

Learn more at http://www.newt.org

This previous aired on 19 November, a week before Thanksgiving.

Gingrich's Immigration Plan

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is being bashed about by other conservatives who are accusing him of advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants after the comment's Newt made at the last debate in Washington, DC.

Gingrich faced harsh criticism after suggesting that some illegal immigrants with close ties to their community should not be deported. Gingrich's says "Several of my friends were explicitly distorting what I said, even though they knew better. So I think it takes a few days to clarify that in fact what they are saying isn't true."

Under Gingrich's plan for immigration reform, the federal government would establish a system of local boards to determine whether illegal immigrants could be permitted to remain in the United States based on their ties to the community. Gingrich's say's it's based on the World War II model of draft boards where the local community selected who would be drafted and who wound not. "It requires
trusting citizens rather than bureaucrats. It's a jury system for local communities."

Gingrich added that he thought that immigrants eligible to stay should have spent at least 25 years in the country, have close ties to a community and a family, but predicted that most would voluntarily leave. But Gingrich also said, at the debate, that the Republican party is the party of family, and (we) can't rip families apart who have been here for 25 years.

On the Gingrich's website, there is a plan that outlines several steps that would need to be taken before implementing the local board plan:

Secure the border by January 1, 2014;

Make it easier to deport people; set up a guest-worker program;

Streamline the visa process;

Make English the official language of government;

Promote immigration among high-skilled foreign workers (especially those with skills in math and science);

Punish employers who hire illegal immigrants;

Require immigrants to take a comprehensive test on American history;

Then set up the boards to determine who can stay and who should leave.

"I have a very clear position," Gingrich says,....... "I have not suggested amnesty for 11 million people.....I am for a path to legality for those people who's ties are so deeply into America and would truly be tragic to try and rip their family apart."

No matter what you think of Gingrich's plan or position, I think he is being honest and practical, as opposed to other conservatives' calls to find, detain then deport up to 25 million illegal aliens. Doing that is just not practical. What say you?

Tax Simplification by Newt Gingrich

I think that no matter his personal issues with multiple divorces and campaign staff reported deserting him early in the campaign, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich remains one of the smartest, and most experienced Republicans candidates. He is starting to get a lot more support in the Republican primary, practically quadrupling his numbers in the last two months.  Here is what he has to say about Tax Simplification:

A significant amount of attention during this campaign has focused on simplifying the tax code. There is no question that our tax code has become a burden to the American people and must be reformed. In our 21st Century Contract With America, we address tax simplification in a way that is both bold and pragmatic. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, I led the effort to reform welfare, resulting in 66% of those on welfare getting a job or going to school. So I know what it takes to actually pass historic reforms. The 21st Century Contract With America has a tax simplification plan that I am uniquely qualified to pass through Congress. Here is the plan you have helped us develop:

All tax filers would be given the option to pay their income taxes under the current income tax provisions or choose to pay income taxes under a lower single rate of taxation of 15% or less with limited deductions.

This optional flat tax reform could save taxpayers more than an estimated $400 billion in compliance costs each year such as record keeping, paying for tax advice, and filling out complicated tax returns. This savings doesn't even account for eliminating the countless hours of aggravation and worry and the sheer complexity of tax compliance. These tax compliance savings are the functional equivalent of a permanent, pro-growth tax cut and will provide a substantial boost to our annual growth rate.

This faster, flatter, fairer tax structure would also be simple: tax returns could be done on a single page. Subtract from your income a standard deduction and deductions for charity and home ownership, multiply the result by the fixed single rate of taxation of 15% or less, and the process is over. Gone will be the stressful hours spent figuring out whether you qualify for this or that deduction. No more headaches trying to determine where estimated tax payments go. Tax preparation fees could be money spent on something more rewarding.

Such an optional flat tax system would create a new standard deduction, which would be above the established poverty level, meaning an optional flat tax would not unfairly target the poor. And because the flat tax is optional, it does not raise taxes on a single person or unfairly impact seniors or lower income workers.

Once we combine these pro-growth tax reforms with my other reform proposals for welfare reform, social security, and lower spending contained in the 21st Century Contract with America, we will experience a stunning and swift turnaround in the economy.

Newt Gingrich - on U.S. Energy Policy

The U.S. continues to rely on foreign oil for a large amount of our energy needs, placing U.S. National Security at risk, especially when oil export countries and shipment routes are under threat of radical governments rising to power in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan and Yemen. And not to mention the constant threat of a nuclear Iran.

We continue to sit still while we should be developing a greater nuclear energy capability; we should be drilling for more oil and more natural gas; We should not only developing more clean coal sources but uses for coal as an energy as well; and we should be developing massive solar and wind energy capabilities.

Watch Newt's speech at the 2011 CPAC convention calling for an American energy plan and a new Environmental Solutions Agency to replace the old EPA. Be patient, it takes him awhile to get through other issues before he talks about energy policy.

Message from Newt Gingrich on Obamacare

On Tuesday, November 2nd, voters from across the country sent the clear message that they're fed up with President Obama's anti-jobs, big-government agenda. Tax-and-spend liberals who supported the stimulus, cap and trade energy taxes, and a government takeover of health care were voted out of office in droves in the largest wave election in 70 years.

And with all of the new voices in Congress, conservatives have an historic opportunity to change the course of the nation by reducing spending, cutting taxes, and creating an environment in which jobs can finally be created again in the private sector in the numbers that we need to cut the unemployment rate in half.

The first step they must take, however, is to repeal and replace all of the policies passed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that resulted in putting more people on food stamps and prevented more people from taking home paychecks.

And at the top of the list is the repeal of ObamaCare.

No matter how much the new Congress does to encourage private sector growth, ObamaCare will become a severe drag on the economy and lead to lower quality care. Many businesses facing unknown tax hikes and enormous regulations from this law will not hire additional full time workers.

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid team also ignores the fact that major companies like McDonald's, 3M, and Boeing have said the new taxes and mandates will force them to drop coverage or lay off workers. Instead of listening to them, the Obama administration has threatened those who dare to blame higher taxes and more regulation for an inability to grow their businesses.

Cowboy's note: I have several friends of mine who received notices that their healthcare deductibles are almost going to double!

Here are some facts you need to know about ObamaCare:

* Costs taxpayers a staggering $1 trillion over the next decade.
* Increases health care spending by more than $200 billion.
* Raises drug prices and the cost of premiums.
* Raises taxes on small businesses.
* Burdens state governments with costs nearing $10 billion between 2014 and 2019.
* Forces companies to drop employer-provided health coverage for workers.
* Incentivizes individuals to drop their own coverage, pay a penalty, and only get health insurance when they get sick.

Cowboy's note: Not to mention it's unconstitutional! Something like 23 States to date have filed suit to stop Obamacare.

Despite all these problems, President Obama and his liberal allies still defend the law as good for American business. But this should not be surprising; they still defend the $787 billion stimulus legislation as good for job creation. Put simply, as long as ObamaCare is the law of the land, America will not be providing an environment that allows businesses to grow, which means accepting stagnant growth and high unemployment as the new normal.

We shouldn't have to accept that. For that reason, we must begin the process of repealing this destructive law and replacing it with common sense health reforms.

Repeal and replace will not happen overnight and it will not happen after a week's worth of debate in Congress. Repeal will require a grassroots movement that puts strong and sustained pressure on Washington.

The time to start that movement is today.

Cowboy's note: Keep up the pressure on your law makers not to be law breakers and get this crap repealed. I have the satisfaction of telling my Congressman that I would do everything in my power to get him sent home because of his votes in support of the Obama agenda. In fact, I created this blog because of Obama's agenda, my crappy Congressman and the whole taxation without representation path by the Democrats. Satisfaction I say because on Jan 2d, 2011 he will not be seated in the 112th Congress - he was defeated by a Republican in a largely Democratic demographic district.

Over the next few weeks we will be very active in starting the movement to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

We intend for this advocacy effort to be our biggest to date.

Thanks for everything you did to elect job creators last week, and thank you for all that you will do to keep the pressure on the new representatives in Congress to do the right thing.