It isn’t often that the Europeans learn from America’s mistakes and adopt a model that is much clearer, succinct, and successful. The European Central Bank obviously has issues, being faced with a couple dozen separate fiscal policies to balance, but its single mandate of targeting price stability is a vastly superior model than the bipolar dual-mandate of the U.S. Federal Reserve. As the editors of the Wall Street Journal write of the Fed’s mandate to target full employment “The U.S. spent the end of the 1970s and early 1980s digging out of the mess created by the Fed’s effort to boost job creation by printing money.” They are using the same tactics again today, with the same limited effect, and unfortunately the possibility that the outcome will be the same too.
But there is hope. The new Congress is full of people willing, and waiting, to strip the Fed of its disastrous dual mandate. Paul Ryan has been asking for a repeal since 1999. Today he is joined by Senator Bob Corker and fellow Congressman Mike Pence as well as numerous other federal legislators in that call.
It is not too late to turn around the dysfunctional pieces of American government. The Federal Reserve is only one. There are many leaders filling in the gap of cluelessness left behind by the Barack Obama administration. Rick Perry of Texas is one of these leaders. His new book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington is Perry’s manifesto. Kenneth Hanner at Human Events writes of Perry:
He calls Congress “arguably one of the most incompetent regimes with one of the worst track records of mismanagement in the history of mankind” and says the Supreme Court “long ago wrested away from the people the power to decide what is right and what is wrong and at the most fundamental level how we should live our lives.”
In his book, Perry writes the gameplan for returning America to its foundations of a federal republic, led by the states, who give only necessary power to the federal government, and nothing more. The benefits of states’ rights should be apparent to all, those living in liberal states, and those living in conservative states. As Perry says to Hanner, “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas. If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.” It’s as simple as that.
Two people who understand the benefits of freedom, no matter who has it, are Dick Armey, Chairman of FreedomWorks, and Glenn Beck. The two are on a massive push to get Americans involved in their own government. FreedomWorks is on the front line and is vowing to hold the new Congress accountable to their many campaign promises of smaller govnerment. The old Republicans vs. Democrats game has been trashed. It is now the people who must constantly police their government officials to assure that they adhere to their electoral mandates. FreedomWorks is doing just that. Check out their website Now We Must Govern. Armey is also at the forefront of protecting new congressmen from the lobbyists that will harange them in Washington, attempting to corrupt their values with “campaign donations.” Armey has written them a seven page letter of warning that tells the new congressmen how not to be co-opted by special interests.
At the same time that conservatives are moving the country forward, liberals in the media and government are doing their best to pretend its still February of 2008 and that the country still loves Barack Obama. Paul Krugman, the most purposefully wrong man in America, in his usual mind numbing fashion is lambasting conservatives for even thinking about holding the president accountable. Krugman predicts that conservatives will hold the vote to increase the nation’s debt ceiling (the amount it can borrow) hostage in order to force Barack Obama to cut spending. What I, and I’m sure you, are having trouble understating about Mr. Krugman’s anger, is that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this plan. The president, by this time, should understand the mandate that he has been given. Cut spending, keep taxes low (cut them if possible, especially the business killing corporate tax) and cease the endless drive toward greater regulation (a la card check, cap and trade, etc.) The nation wants none of it. Krugman writes this paragraph in his piece:
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.
The difference between Krugman and a conservative, is that Krugman wants to be governed. He wants the federal government telling him what to do. As a professor and Nobel economist, without the institutionalization of life, built around the federal government, Krugman has nothing to live for. Conservatives want to be left alone by their federal government to pursue private business, increase the wealth of their family, and to generate prosperity for the country.
Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine all knew what freedom meant. They didn’t wait for the government to give it to them in a competitive grant. They rose up against tyranny and took their freedom, the same way Americans are rising up today. There may not be any shots fired (thank God), but Americans are definitely in revolution mode. They have absolutely had it with big government telling them what to do.
There simply isn’t any more time for the kind of government that has been in place since 2008 when Barack Obama began telling the world America was sorry for its sins. Right now the German government is tracking two radical Islamic terrorists within its borders, and trying to prevent more from entering the country because of extremely credible evidence that an attack on Germany is coming within days. The target of these terrorists may even be the German parliament building, writes the Wall Street Journal. While the Germans are frantically looking for these terrorists, the Obama administration won’t even acknowledge that America is at war with radical Islamic militants around the world. Instead, they are having the TSA frisk nuns, children and pilots before they get on airplanes. Are you ready to travel by plane for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Hanukkah?
Barack Obama is being aided in his dismemberment of the American state by big spending Republicans like Dick Lugar. Lugar should be target number one for the Tea Party going into 2012. He voted for TARP and voted to confirm both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He is also actively trying to stop a ban of earmarks in the Senate. Lugar is the most senior GOP senator, and should think hard about retirement, before the Tea Party decides that for him.
Another senator on the list to be replaced is Maine Republican, Olympia Snowe. She has been as conservative as Snowe could be recently but her trail of bad votes is a mile long. Snowe is absolutely no conservative, and simply blows with the wind. Maine residents elected Paul LePage as their governor this year. LePage is a serious conservative, and a senator in his mold would be a boon to the chamber. The people of Maine also elected big majorities of conservatives in both their House and Senate. Look for big trouble for Snowe going forward here.
Similar conservative revolutions happened across the country, in places like Wisconsin and Ohio. Look for the Castle Doctrine and Right to Work laws to be passed in some of these newly conservative controlled states as their citizens embrace freedom. Watch my Liberty & Freedom map for news on the success of those two initiatives.
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