Winning Republican strategies for 2015

Since the recent failure of the Republican attempt to defund President Obama’s executive immigration amnesty, much has been written, most of if it unflattering, about the future of the Republican Party. Many on the Tea Party right doubt the “backbone” of the Republican leadership and question their commitment to opposing President Obama’s policies.

What these critics do not provide is an answer to how the Republicans can overcome the Democratic filibuster that derailed the attempt to defund the amnesty. The problem was not “lack of backbone” on the part of the Republican leadership. The problem was mathematics. The Republicans lacked the 60 votes required by Senate procedural rules to end a filibuster.

The Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress, but the majority is only meaningful if conservatives understand that it is a limited majority. Voters vested control of the Senate and House of Representatives with the Republicans, but they did not issue them a carte blanche to impose a conservative agenda.

The Republican majority is limited in two important ways. First, Senate rules require 60 votes for cloture to end debate on a bill. The Republicans have only 54 votes so it is axiomatic that a cloture vote will require at least six Democrats. Second, the Republicans are limited by President Obama’s veto. Even if a bill passes both houses of Congress, the president can veto it. Congress can override a presidential veto, but this requires 67 votes in the Senate and 288 in the House. Democratic votes (13 in the Senate and 41 in the House) would be required. To avoid wasting two years of a majority, Republicans need to take these limitations to heart and adapt a strategy to defeat them.

The first step is in casting aside unworkable strategies of the past. Defunding is a dead idea that should not be considered in the future. As with any other legislation, the idea is unworkable without a bipartisan majority. If Republicans have the votes to defund something, it would be better to simply repeal it outright.

Shutting the government down as a consequence of the House’s “power of the purse” has also proved unsuccessful in the past. A government shutdown is useful only as leverage if Democrats want to keep the government open. With a president who relishes the idea of using a shutdown to pummel Republicans, the strategy of a shutdown is pointless masochism. Republican leaders have quite sensibly rejected this course.

A successful Republican strategy will require one thing above all: a bipartisan majority. No conservative legislation can become law without Democratic votes. Republicans must peel off at least six Democratic senators for cloture and 13 to override Obama’s veto. This is a mathematical and constitutional fact. The question is how to do so.

The answer is to learn from the Democrats themselves. The Democrats in Congress have been successful because they stay united and split the Republicans over divisive issues like immigration. Republicans should ask themselves what issues can be used to divide the Democrats.

One such issue is the medical device tax imposed by Obamacare. This very unpopular tax is imposed on the manufacturers of such items as prosthetic limbs and pacemakers. It threatens thousands of American jobs as well as hurting the sick and disabled. There is bipartisan support for a repeal of the medical device tax, if not for Obamacare in its entirety.

If Republicans bring a repeal of the medical device tax to vote in Congress, Democrats would be forced to choose between voting to tax the sick or deserting to the Republican side. If the vote passes, Obama must allow it or publicly defend a veto. In either case, a vote to sustain the tax would be fodder for campaign ads by Republican challengers.

A second method for creating a bipartisan majority is to sweeten the pot with a compromise. Bill Clinton famously said that the Constitution could be subtitled “let’s make a deal.” If Republicans want to pass their agenda, they must induce the Democrats to vote with them, rather than simply expecting them to bow down before superior numbers.

One area where such a concession could be made is on the minimum wage. The minimum wage is an issue where the public supports the Democratic position. Recent polling has found strong support for raising the minimum wage, even in red states. In the 2014 elections, voters in four states that sent Republicans to the Senate enacted increases to their state minimum wages.

Trading a modest increase in the federal minimum wage for Democratic votes on Republican bills is a compromise that would defuse a popular Democratic issue while, at the same time, helping to advance conservative policies. The Republicans should not give in to a sharp increase in the minimum wage to $10 or $15 per hour, but a modest increase to the $8 to $9 range could be phased in over time.
Numerous studies, including one that looks at unemployment during the Great Recession, have shown that raising the minimum wage hurts low-skilled workers, but the economic effects of a modest increase to the minimum wage would be negligible. Thirty states already have minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum wage according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. At least 14 states have already enacted or scheduled minimum wages that are $9.00 per hour or higher. Further, a 2013 study of minimum wage earners by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only 4.3 percent of workers earn the minimum wage. An increase to the minimum wage would affect few workers in a small number of states.

Negative effects on the economy could be further minimized by incorporating a separate minimum wage for teenagers. The BLS study reports that only three percent of workers over age 25 earn the minimum wage, compared with 20 percent of teenagers. Instituting a lower minimum wage for teens would protect their ability to find entry-level, part-time jobs.

For Obama’s executive immigration amnesty, the contentious issue that led to the almost-shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, there is the low-yield nuclear option. In the Wall St. Journal, Curt Levey, a constitutional attorney with the Committee for Justice, called on Republicans to block Mr. Obama’s judicial nominees until he reneges on his executive action.

Blocking Obama’s appointees has many advantages that defunding lacked. First, it is possible. The Democrats cannot block the Republicans from blocking confirmations. There is no cloture or veto of a blocked confirmation. This strategy negates the two weapons that the Democrats hold.

Second, blocking confirmations is a win-win for Republicans. The optimal outcome would be that Obama reverses his executive action, which would be tantamount to surrender. If he stands firm, however, his nominees will never be seated as judges. This means that there will be more judicial openings for the next president, hopefully a Republican, to fill.

Finally, the potential for blowback is small. With a government shutdown, Republicans always take a hit in public opinion and lose support. That’s why Democrats try to goad them into that course of action. Blocking nominees is much lower profile and would not be noticed by most Americans. There would be no closed offices or parks and no furloughed workers to show on television. Lawyers who cannot get appointed to cushy jobs in federal courts are not sympathetic figures.

Many critics of the Republicans ask, “What was the point of winning the election?” if the Republicans can’t enact their agenda. The election gave the Republicans an advantage; it did not give them the ability to dictate terms to the Democrats.

The Republicans can use their majority over the next two years to further the conservative agenda and roll back pieces of Obama’s legacy, but to do so they must adopt realistic strategies that play to their strengths and work around those of the Democrats. Winning Republican strategies divide the Democrats, not themselves.

 

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Welfare worth more than $15 per hour job in 12 states

According to a report released in August by the libertarian Cato Institute, when the full package of benefits is taken into account, welfare pays more than a minimum wage job in 33 states. In 12 states, welfare pays more than an equivalent job that paid $15 per hour. In these states, the report notes that an individual who left the welfare rolls for a job paying the same amount would see a decline in take-home pay.

The report, the “Welfare vs. Work Trade Off,” notes that because welfare benefits are not taxable, their value is greater than the equivalent value of pay and benefits from an entry level job. This difference is partially offset by tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and various state tax credits. In some states, Cato notes, the combined value of the tax credits can be more than the value of taxes paid so the worker would receive a tax refund larger than their actual tax bill. In twelve states, however, the worker would have to earn more than the value of welfare benefits to bring home an equivalent income. These states include Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maryland, California, Oregon, and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia. In Georgia, a salary of $14,060 would replace welfare benefits.

The report also estimates the value of welfare benefits in terms of an hourly wage equivalent. In 33 states, welfare benefits are worth more than a minimum wage job. In the same 12 states and the District of Columbia, welfare is worth more than a job that pays $15 per hour. In Georgia, welfare is equivalent to an hourly wage of $6.76.

In other terms this means that in 42 states and the District of Columbia, welfare recipients live above the federal poverty level. In Hawaii, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia, welfare recipients make more than twice the federal poverty level. In Georgia, welfare benefits are at 101 percent of the federal poverty level.

There are 126 federal programs targeted toward low-income Americans. Of these, 72 provide either cash or individual benefits. Such programs include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps, WIC vouchers, public housing, utility assistance and cell phones. Fraud is rampant in many programs.

The Cato study comes as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the Civilian Labor Participation rate fell to 63.2 percent. According to CNN Money, this is the lowest percentage of Americans “over 16 who either have a job or are actively searching for one” since August 1978.

Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, notes that work imposes other costs aside from taxes and lost benefits. People who choose to work will have to pay for clothing, transportation, child care, and will have less leisure time.

“To be clear: There is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy,” Tanner said. “Indeed, surveys of them consistently show their desire for a job. But they’re also not stupid. If you pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many will choose not to work.”

Tanner notes that even though this may make financial sense in the short term, low wages for entry-level jobs eventually lead to better paying professional positions.

Find out where your state stands on welfare benefits HERE.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Conservatives are from Mars, liberals are from Venus

Venus (Chosovi/Wikimedia Commons)

A well known relationship book a few years posited the obvious truth that men and women thought and communicated differently.  The same seems to be true of conservatives and liberals. 

While there are exceptions to every rule, it seems that conservatives are more logical and rational while liberals tend to be more emotional and spontaneous.  This is evident from frequently heard charge that conservatives are heartless or lack compassion, while liberals are often referred to as “bleeding hearts.” 

The truth is that, for the most part, both conservatives and liberals share the common goal of improving America and making life better for its citizens.  The irony is that without thinking through the consequences of their policies, both sides often end up doing just the opposite.  This is particularly true of liberals.

In many cases, liberal social programs, while well intentioned, do more harm than good.  In some cases, the harmful effects are obvious and logical.  In others, they are masked by other factors and can only be ascertained through careful study. 

One example is the minimum wage.  Raising the minimum wage has long been viewed as a way to increase the income of the working poor.  However, numerous studies show that raising the minimum wage actually hurts the very people that it is intended to help.  Most economists now accept as fact that raising the minimum wage leads to increased unemployment among unskilled workers.  University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan notes that minimum wage increases hit younger workers especially hard.  According to Mulligan, after the minimum wage rose from $6.55 to $7.25 in July 2009, the employment rate among teens fell by eight percent in three months, a fast decline even considering the recession.

A second example is gun control.  As more states enact concealed carry laws and federal law changed in 2010 to allow guns in national parks, many liberals predicted that violent crime would increase sharply.  The same claim was made in 2004 when the Clinton-era “assault weapons” ban expired and was not renewed by Congress.  These predictions have not come true.

In contrast, in the book More Guns, Less Crime John Lott shows that states with the largest numbers of gun owners show the largest drops in violent crime.  Recent FBI statistics show that all categories of violent crime decreased in 2010.  The crime rate has been falling since 2007 even though gun sales increased dramatically following President Obama’s election in 2008.  During this time, the number of people licensed to carry guns in public has also increased sharply.  It is also noteworthy that the crime rate has decreased during a deep recession, disproving the supposed link between crime and poverty.  If liberals were correct, more guns in public, more licenses to carry in public, and more poor people should have increased the crime rate, but that has not happened.   

The FBI statistics show that the south saw the largest drops in crime of any part of the country.  The northeast with its strict gun control laws actually had increases in some types of violent crime.  The report does not break down crime rates by state, but the actual number of reported offenses is available for four Georgia cities.  Although most decreased from 2009 to 2010, Atlanta reported a significant increase in murders.  Georgia allows open or concealed carry of pistols with a Georgia Weapons Carry License (formerly called a Georgia Firearms License).

An additional example is federal spending.  It is becoming apparent to most Americans that the orgy of government spending under President Obama has not helped the economy recover.  It has been over two years since Congress passed the stimulus bill that was supposed to revive the economy. 

As a percentage of GDP, both the federal debt and the deficit are higher now than at any point since WWII according to USgovernmentspending.com.  At of the end of fiscal year 2011, the total national debt will stand at more than $18 trillion.  This represents an increase in the national debt of almost $8 trillion from 2008. 

For all that money, the results have been decidedly mixed.  The average length of a recession is eleven months.  The Great Recession officially lasted eighteen months from December 2007 to June 2009.   According to an analysis by Politifact, it is true that the recession is technically over, but unemployment remains high with many Americans out of work.  Many other economic indicators are lagging as well.  In Georgia, the unemployment rate has consistently been above the national average since the economic crisis began in 2008. 

Liberal emotionalism is exemplified by repeating calls for more of the same policies even when, in cases such as these, there is objective, empirical evidence that their effect is the opposite of what was intended.  Liberals and conservatives should both slow the rhetoric and take an objective look at the results of their policies.  Programs that don’t work or that are not cost-effective should be discarded.  States should be given the freedom to experiment with their own solutions rather than merely being forced to implement federal policy.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  The noticeable failure of liberal policies probably goes a long way in explaining why conservatives outnumber liberals by two-to-one according to Gallup.  In fact, conservatives outnumber liberals in every US state.  Perhaps the US is on the verge of stopping the insanity.

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