Columnist.
Once in a blue moon, you find a politician willing to do the right thing even if it means his popularity will plummet. Recently elected Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, has announced a new budget for his cash-strapped state, and voters are none too happy. Polls show his approval rating at 40 percent, less than three months after he assumed office. Ohio's budget is more than $8 billion in the red, thanks to a poor economy, overspending by Kasich's predecessor, and an unfriendly business environment that has pushed jobs out of state. Ohio has lost 400,000 jobs in the last four years alone. And, like other states that received money from the 2009 federal stimulus, that money saved mostly public-sector jobs -- and on a temporary basis only. Now, school districts and other state and local agencies propped up by federal dollars will have to make do on their own.
The vote in Wisconsin to limit public-employee bargaining rights is a decisive turning point in American politics. On Wednesday, Republican state senators passed a stripped-down version of pending legislation to limit collective bargaining without a single Democrat present in the chamber. Democrats may challenge the vote in court, but for now, it looks like a huge defeat for public-employee unions. Did Wisconsin Republicans overreach? It's too early to tell, but public opinion polls are not going in their favor right now. A New York Times/CBS poll found that 60 percent of Americans oppose weakening public employees' bargaining rights, while Rasmussen reports that 52 of Wisconsin voters oppose such efforts.
Two years into his presidency, the man who promised to restore America's standing in world public opinion has rendered himself personally irrelevant on the world stage. President Obama came into office more popular abroad than he was even at home, where he won a resounding election victory. European crowds thronged his speeches; leaders complimented him on his cultural sensitivity; the foreign press praised his cosmopolitan roots. The cognoscenti were so enamored of Obama that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize barely nine months into office. The move embarrassed even Obama. But as the world faces a cataclysm of popular revolt stretching across North Africa and into the Middle East, Obama stands mostly on the sidelines. He did nothing to support the brave Iranian demonstrators who flooded the streets of Tehran after fraudulent elections there in 2009. He waited too long to weigh in on the side of Egyptians who demanded an end to autocratic rule in their country.
For years, unions have waged war on the GOP, pouring hundred of millions of dollars each election cycle into defeating Republicans at the polls. It worked well for the unions so long as Democrats controlled most state houses and governors' offices, but with the 2010 election producing huge gains for Republicans, the chickens are coming home to roost. In Wisconsin, newly elected Gov. Scott Walker wants teachers in the state to start contributing to their pensions and pay a larger share of their health insurance costs to help close a $3.6 billion budget deficit. But he also wants to rein in the power of the unions by limiting their collective bargaining rights and the state's obligation to collect union dues.
As new figures from the Census tell us, the United States is becoming an increasingly racially and ethnically diverse nation -- with a population that doesn't fit neatly into the racial boxes constructed for "diversity" purposes. So why is it that some universities and other institutions continue to use the old paradigm of granting preferences to members of groups that are deemed "underrepresented"? The Center for Equal Opportunity, which I founded in 1995, has been documenting the use of racial and ethnic preferences in college and professional school admissions for more than a dozen years. Sad to say, too little has changed in this period. Except in a handful of states that have banned the use of race or ethnicity in state employment, contracting, and education -- California and Michigan, most prominently -- many public colleges and universities still give preference in admissions to blacks and Hispanics.
House Democrats have been taunting Republicans to come up with concrete budget cuts ever since the GOP rode to victory last November on a platform of reducing spending. Now, the GOP leadership has proposed an impressive $35 billion down payment on reducing spending for the remaining eight months of the current fiscal year. But don't expect any applause from the Democratic side of the aisle. House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., offered the cuts from non-Defense discretionary programs. They include hefty slices out of the budgets for education, environmental programs, food for poor women and children -- all sacred cows for Democrats. The cuts add up to more than $43 billion in fiscal year 2011 spending, though the net savings is only $35 billion after proposed increases in some areas, such as Defense and Homeland Security.
Feb. 6 marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, but the day had meaning for me even before I went to work for President Reagan in 1983. My father, Rudy, who died at age 60 in a car wreck in 1978, shared Reagan's birthday, and I often wondered what he would have thought had he lived to see his daughter working in the White House -- and for a Republican president.
For years, conservatives have rightly decried the distortion, misrepresentation and downright ignorance of American history that has sometimes infected left-wing rhetoric. We've complained that public schools do a poor job of teaching our history and an even worse job of transmitting American values. History matters; as the philosopher George Santayana famously said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But what happens when a conservative gets it wrong? Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann gave a speech to Iowans for Tax Relief in which she said that the Founders "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." MSNBC host Chris Matthews called Bachmann a "balloon head" for her remarks, and others in the media and on the left were no less scathing. But some conservatives defended Bachmann's remarks -- even though she mangled her history.
Civility in public discourse is important, but it should not be used as an excuse to stifle legitimate debate or denude our language of color, passion, or good metaphor. Unfortunately, some in the media don't seem to understand the difference. CNN's John King, for example, apologized on air this week for a guest's use of the phrase "in the cross hairs" in reference to the Chicago mayoral race. Others have suggested that words like "target" shouldn't be used as either a verb or noun when discussing political campaigns. In the wake of the horrific murders of six people in Tucson and the maiming of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen others, reluctance to engage in shooting metaphors might be understandable. But it's foolish to think using such words had anything to do with what happened -- and curbing such metaphors lends credence to that theory. Jared Loughner, the man charged with the shootings, is, most likely, a paranoid schizophrenic with no ties to any political party or ideology.
The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others in Tucson have transfixed the nation for the past week. But as horrific as those events were, Congress has little choice but to move on. There is little Congress can do about what happened in Tucson -- or ensure something like it won't ever happen again. It is hubris to believe otherwise. What members of Congress owe their fallen colleague -- and the American people -- is to return to the business of legislating. And few periods in recent history offered greater legislative challenges than those facing the 112th Congress.
Americans abhor extremism. It is the reason our democracy has lasted for more than 200 years and why we have rejected both socialism and right-wing radicalism. American political parties have generally hewed to the center, unlike their European counterparts, so that even major political shifts moved the country only from center right (as in the Reagan and Bush administrations) to center left (as in the current administration). It is a lesson that both parties should take to heart, but one that poses special problems for the Republicans as one group of extremists attempts to hijack the GOP on a single issue: illegal immigration.
Every member of Congress takes an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," but the newly elected 112th Congress will be the first in the nation's history to hear the text actually read aloud when the House convenes Jan. 5. The success of the tea party movement in the last election is the impetus behind the first public reading (the text has been inserted in the Congressional Record twice), and it sets the stage for the battles to be waged over the next two years. Many of the conservative newcomers think of themselves first and foremost as constitutionalists, but they will face challenges when it comes time to put their principles into action.
For a dozen years now, I've spent the days leading up to Christmas in search of a special gift. Not the kind you can buy at the mall or charge on your credit card, but the gift of a traditional Midnight Mass. It goes back to my childhood when I couldn't wait until I was old enough to attend Midnight Mass with my grandmother at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver.
There are few areas in which I believe President Obama has earned high marks, but his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan last year is one I supported. Now, a new U.S. military assessment of the progress made in Afghanistan suggests that the 30,000 additional U.S. troops deployed in 2009-2010 have made a difference in southern Afghanistan, especially in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Unfortunately, those additional troops may begin to be withdrawn next July, which could not only set back current progress but subject our remaining troops to greater danger -- simply to fulfill a political promise.
The Dream Act, which provides a path to citizenship for those children who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents, passed the House by 216-198 this week, but will likely die in the Senate for lack of bipartisan support. Democrats knew they have no chance of passing the Dream Act, but tried to force the issue to a vote so they could hammer home their message to Hispanics: Democrats are your friends; Republicans are not. When it became clear Thursday they didn't have the votes in the Senate to block a Republican filibuster, they tabled the measure.
As if the collapse in the housing market had not done enough damage to the U.S. economy, the president's debt commission is now proposing changes that could take the industry off life support. Among the recommendations in the commission's 65-page report is one to eliminate the tax deduction for mortgage interest on homes over $500,000 (the current limit is $1 million) and restrict it to primary residence only. The recommendation would also eliminate interest deductibility for home equity loans (which are currently capped at $100,000). The effect of these changes would be to immediately reduce the value of all homes by as much as 15 percent. Here's why.
Not since the infamous acquittal of O.J. Simpson has the American jury system so utterly failed as it did this week in acquitting on all but one charge former Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Ghailani, an al-Qaida terrorist responsible for the deaths of 224 people. A New York City jury managed to convict Ghailani on only one charge -- conspiracy to destroy U.S. government property -- in the attack on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
The Obama administration thinks it knows best how to run health care, the banks, and the auto industry, so why not post-secondary education? And the best way to do so in Obamaland is to limit choice, which is exactly what the Department of Education has proposed in new rules affecting student loans.
Tuesday was a great night for Republicans, but it would have been better yet had Sen. Harry Reid gone down to defeat. And while many analysts have debated the role the tea party played in a few high-profile Republican losses on Election Day, including that of Reid's opponent Sharron Angle, the real story is what happened with the Hispanic vote.
Nearly one in four voters will have cast their ballot before Election Day, but I won't be one of them. Nothing but grave illness could keep me from the polls on Nov. 2. I've never missed voting in a general election since 1968. And in all those years, I voted absentee only once, when my job took me out of town on Election Day.
