Columnist.
Year-end surveys convey a picture of disillusionment and cynicism among Americans about their government and their country. According to the Pew Research Center, only 19 percent now say they "trust the federal government to do what is right always or most of the time." This is close to the lowest it has been in the last 50 years. Consider that in 1964, 80 percent expressed trust in the federal government. In recent Gallup polling, 69 percent of Americans say big government is the "biggest threat" to the nation's future.
The Department of Labor has spent a good part of 2015 trying to revise the regulation of advisers that provide investment advice to our retirement plans. Specifically, DOL wants to expand inclusion of these investment advisers as "fiduciaries" under ERISA, the landmark law passed in 1974 to regulate retirement plans.
The omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress is, if nothing else, in the spirit of the season. It's a huge Christmas tree: a grand structure on which every political interest imaginable has hung its own pet program. This is to the tune of $1.1 trillion to $1.8 trillion in explicit spending and another $622 billion in indirect spending through "tax extenders." Yet, as lobbyists in Washington showed up en masse for their shares of the fruitcake, one group was elbowed out and left with coal for its stocking.
New polling shows Ted Cruz picking up major steam and looking very serious in challenging Donald Trump's leadership in the Republican presidential candidate field. A Bloomberg News/Des Moines Register poll shows Cruz now leading in Iowa. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Cruz jumping up 12 points from 10 percent in late October. Now, at 22 percent, Cruz is just 5 points behind Trump. True to form, Trump is beginning personal attacks against Cruz.
Two of the oldest and most venerated public policy institutes in Washington, D.C., the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, have produced a new joint report dealing with the issue of fighting poverty in America. The report, "Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream," is noteworthy for a number of reasons. One is that it reflects a consensus view between long established Washington institutions representing opposite sides of the political spectrum, with AEI being right of center and the Brooking Institution left of center.
Although there is a sense that Donald Trump's unusual and outlandish run for the presidency is the first ever of its kind, this is not entirely true. Californians, such as myself, remember how Arnold Schwarzenegger captured the governorship of California in 2003, in a campaign remarkably similar to Trump's. Obviously, governor of California is not the same as president of the United States, but it is the chief executive of the nation's most populous state. That year, California's incumbent Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was pulled from office in a recall election. It was a time of disillusionment and cynicism toward the governor and government, amidst a poor economy and rising energy prices.
We're in a world today increasingly defined by chaos. At home it's on our college campuses. Abroad it's spreading across the Middle East and spilling over into Europe. Who do we have to thank for it all? Liberals and moral relativists in power in our country and Europe. Liberals have led the way to destroy all sense of moral clarity in our nation, all objective sense of right and wrong and all sense of authority.
I have written numerous laudatory columns about Marco Rubio, the young Republican senator from Florida, now a serious presidential contender. It is not hard to get enthusiastic about Rubio. He radiates star quality and seems to hold promise as the kind of new conservative leader we seek. And yet, nagging doubts persist about whether he is indeed that totally committed conservative warrior, ready to fight the very tough fight to get America back on track.
After years of review, President Obama has killed the Keystone XL pipeline project. The pipeline would have moved crude oil from Western Canada to Nebraska, where it would have connected to existing pipelines and moved the oil to refineries at the U.S. Gulf Coast. The exact number of jobs that the project would have created was disputed, but a reasonable estimate seems to be several thousand jobs. These would have been largely blue-collar jobs, which is why labor unions, usually a constituency that a Democratic president seeks to please, supported the project.
About a quarter of the way into the CNBC-hosted Republican debate at the University of Colorado, Sen. Ted Cruz reached back and cast a lightning bolt into the proceedings. He jolted the debate, the whole debate process, and possibly even the election. CNBC's Carl Quintanilla raised the issue of the debt limit with Sen. Cruz. The deal that Congress and the White House is about to make, said Quintanilla, "would ... prevent a government shutdown and calm financial markets that fear another Washington-created crisis is on the way. Does your opposition to it show that you are not the kind of problem-solver America voters want?"
Americans are now in a historically long period of distrust and dissatisfaction regarding their government and their country. This goes a long way in explaining why political outsiders are dominating the polls in the Republican presidential race. Even quality conservative candidates such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz lag far behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson. They are tainted by the mere fact that they are politicians.
Five liberal Democrat presidential candidates — one actually honest enough to label himself a socialist — appeared before the American public in their first debate. They made it apparent that the only variation between any of them was just how much bigger and how much faster each one wants to grow government. Democratic Party politicians no longer feel any need to even pay lip service to the idea that America has anything to do with a free people.
Rupert Murdoch got the predictable avalanche of liberal pushback when he recently tweeted, "Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide? And much else." What? Murdoch is suggesting our current president is not a "real black"?
An ongoing point of contention in the Republican Party has been the extent to which clear identification with traditional Judeo-Christian values is a good idea. My sense is that, when we add to the equation the growing impact of non-white voters, standing strongly for these traditional values — which would put Republicans in stark contrast to Democrats — would be a win-win for Republicans.
House Speaker John Boehner, who will step down at the end of October, said on "Face the Nation" Sunday, "We have got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things that they know, they know are never going to happen." The Speaker was referring to the latest threat by conservative Republicans to hold up spending authorization for the government if it includes $500 million in taxpayer funds going to Planned Parenthood.
"The Constitution is not a value-free operating manual."
Dr. Ben Carson is now under fire for suggesting the values of Islam are not consistent with those of the United States. NBC's Chuck Todd asked Dr. Carson if the faith of a candidate for president of the United States matters. Carson responded that it depends on what that faith is. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter," said Dr. Carson. Todd then asked Dr. Carson if he thinks that Islam is consistent with American values and Carson responded, "No, I do not." He then expanded to say, "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation."
Ted Cruz is once again talking about government shutdown. This time it is about funding for Planned Parenthood. And once again it is not going over well with some in his party. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a strategy to withhold funding for the federal government unless taxpayer funds are pulled from Planned Parenthood an "exercise in futility."
Why does it surprise anyone when chaos reigns in America's inner cities when it just reflects the chaos now reigning in our whole country? I open my dictionary to the word "civilize" and I read: "1. to bring out of a condition of savagery or barbarism; to instruct in the ways of an advanced society. 2. to better the habits or manners of; refine." Somehow it's lost in today's liberal-controlled America that a civilized society does not emerge spontaneously from individuals giving maximum vent to their impulses. Civilization is the product of living by truths and rules, received through tradition, that control and direct our primitive impulses, lifting us to our highest potentials.
Many Americans rightly watch in disbelief as leaders of our country push to conclude a dangerous and ill-conceived nuclear agreement with an incorrigible and evil nation, a leading sponsor of terrorism. Since when does the United States negotiate out of fear, out of weakness? But this is what is happening. How else to explain moving forward with a deal this complicated and dangerous with people no rational person would trust? Abrogation of American leadership, meaning America acting in an unprincipled and cowardly way, leads inevitably to a world more dangerous and less free. We should be ashamed.
