Time to Get Tough (10 page)

Congressman Ryan and the Republicans committed two fatal errors. First, anyone who knows anything about negotiation knows that you always make the other guy go first. Republicans should have waited the president out and forced him to go first in naming where cuts would come from and how he planned to get the budget under control and protect America's credit rating. But he didn't. Instead, Congressman Ryan committed a major mistake. He went out and put a huge target on Republicans while Obama sat back and let the GOP commit political suicide. The second mistake Ryan made was that he scared the heck out of seniors. Like it or not, the majority of seniors love Medicare. And I like it for them. When you start talking in ways that make older Americans nervous, it's bad politics.

So what did the Democrats do? They turned Paul Ryan and his Medicare proposal into a punching bag, and Republicans lost a special congressional election in upstate New York that they should have won handily. The Democratic candidate, Kathy Hochul, bludgeoned her Republican opponent Jane Corwin with a Mediscare campaign of TV ads that featured an old lady in a wheelchair being shoved off a cliff. The ad explained that the reason grandma was being tossed over the ledge was because of “Paul Ryan and his friends in Congress.” Unfair? You bet. Good
politics? Absolutely. The GOP needs to learn how to get tough and out-negotiate Obama and his big spending allies in Washington. They also need to learn the art of using the right tone and language.

That's certainly the case when it comes to the debate surrounding how best to fix and save Social Security. Conservatives have to be smart in the way we speak. Using crazy language that terrifies seniors accomplishes nothing. It simply hands Democrats another weapon with which to demonize Republicans as heartless and stingy. Again, when someone has worked for forty years and seen the government deduct 6 percent out of each of the 480 paychecks they received over those years, it's perfectly understandable that they would want the money they are owed. It's only fair.

So the first thing we need to remind seniors is that their Social Security is safe, secure, and will not be touched in any way whatsoever. Period. We have the funds to pay them the money they are due, and we will. Then, we need to look at the next seventy-five years and address the projected $5.3 trillion shortfall. The Democrats' solution is the same solution they have for everything—tax, tax, tax. Just one problem: it doesn't work! All that ends up happening is the government big spenders raid the Social Security trust funds and blow the dough on junk programs we don't need. Bottom line: raising taxes to shore up the funding gap isn't the way to give America a government it can afford, but making the economy strong again is.

So what should we do? The first thing we need to realize is that, thanks to advancements in medicine and health, Americans live and work longer
than in the days when Social Security began. In fact, since Social Security was created in 1935, Americans' life expectancy has increased to seventy-eight, up 26 percent, whereas the retirement age to receive full benefits has only gone up only 3 percent, to sixty-seven.
¹⁵
Today people work well into their seventies, which is absolutely wonderful. So if we slowly increased the full retirement age to even just seventy, one-third of the $5.3 trillion shortfall would be eliminated right away. And don't do it now, do it in the future.
¹⁶

The fastest way we can start saving Social Security is to get Americans back to work. More citizens earning a paycheck means more workers paying into the system. It also means that we will save on the explosion of unemployment benefits we've seen under Barack Obama. For example, extended unemployment benefits in just the next two years will cost American taxpayers $34 billion.
¹⁷
If the goal is getting our deficits and debt under control, the quickest road to get there is to spark economic growth and let job creators do what they do best—create jobs.

The final part of restoring fiscal sanity to America is the most obvious, and that's to control Obama-style runaway spending. It's hard for most folks to wrap their minds around just how out-of-step and radical this president truly is when it comes to spending. Here's how the
Wall Street Journal
tried to paint the picture:

The economic idiocy of this presidency has been truly astounding. And that's why America desperately needs a president who understands and appreciates the businesses and entrepreneurs that create opportunity and jobs. But Obama spits in the face of job creators every chance he gets. Just look at the absurd tactics the Obama administration unleashed on Gibson Guitars. They raided the guitar company factories to see if they were using certain types of wood that Obama doesn't want them to use. Is this seriously how we want America to operate? Allowing the federal government to treat businesses like drug dealers because someone may have filled an order improperly is ridiculous. It's also a terrible misuse of limited resources. The fact that it only took three years for this guy to blow a hole in the national debt that's equivalent to the debt accrued in 225 years of American history shows just how radical and outside the mainstream Barack Obama is.

That said, let me be clear: I was very, very critical of President George W. Bush. I thought he betrayed his principles of fiscal conservatism by spending excessively. Furthermore, I thought that his mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina was horrible, and I questioned his judgment in launching the war in Iraq that cost us trillions in dollars and, worse, thousands in lives. But President Bush's spending excesses were nothing compared to
Obama's. In just three years, Obama has exploded our debt so that we have to borrow $4 billion every day. By comparison, under President George W. Bush, over all eight years in office, that figure was $1.6 billion a day.
¹⁹
Not great, but a lot better.

Of course, anyone who was paying attention in 2008 should have known that Obama wasn't interested in debt and deficit reduction. But the fact that he completely ignored his own debt commission's findings in the Bowles-Simpson Report proves that this president has no shame and has no intention of slowing down his spending spree. Every American, regardless of party, needs to think long and hard about what another four years of Barack Obama would mean to the national debt and the solvency of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If he had no shame in adding more to the national debt in three years than almost all other United States presidents combined, can you imagine the kind of damage he would do if given another four years without the worry of reelection? It's a horrifying thought for anyone who loves our country and wants to see her survive and thrive again.

Look, here's the deal: Barack Obama has been a total disaster. He has spent this country into the ground and destroyed jobs and economic growth. If something isn't done soon, programs Americans depend on, like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are going to go up in flames. It doesn't have to be this way. We can return America to her former greatness if we get tough and act smart.

It starts with China and OPEC. The hundreds of billions of dollars they steal from us each year must end right away. We need a president with a
titanium spine who will stand up to these shakedown artists and demand that they get their greedy hands out of our pockets effective immediately. That one action alone will result in a windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to help us pay down our debt and meet our commitments. Next, we enforce a zero-tolerance policy for the kind of brainless government waste that we've all become far too accustomed to from Washington. That means we streamline our systems and end the waste. Third, we go after the criminals and con artists who are defrauding taxpayers of $243 billion every year in Medicare fraud and billions more in other kinds of fraud, such as the disability racket. Sitting back while these crooks steal from hard-working people and rob deserving Americans of the benefits they paid for is vile. We must prosecute these thugs to the fullest extent of the law and recoup the hundreds of billions they take from us year in and year out. Fourth, we must save Social Security through economic success. Fifth, we need to put Americans back to work and kick the community organizer out of office so we can instill some fiscal sanity in Washington.

We do those five things and we will pass along to our kids and grandkids not only a government they can afford, but also one they can be proud of.

 

 

 

 

Y
our civil liberties mean nothing if you're dead. That's why the single most important function of the federal government is national defense.

Our Founding Fathers got it. They understood that nothing good in life—religious freedom, economic freedom, freedom of speech—can be enjoyed if people fear for their physical safety. But unfortunately, we live in a dangerous world that's getting more dangerous by the day. China is in the midst of a massive military buildup and the creation of cyber-warfare weapons capable of bringing America to its knees. Russia is rising.
Iran, which funds terrorists all over the world, is inching closer to the creation of an operational nuclear weapon. Pakistan has been exposed as the nation that harbored Osama bin Laden next to its equivalent of West Point, and its intelligence agency is assisting the Haqqani Network, a terrorist group more dangerous than al Qaeda. Afghanistan is still a mess and a terrorist hotbed. Syria is on the verge of civil war, and Libya is already engaged in one. And of course, there are always the certifiably insane dictators of Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.

In short, national security threats are everywhere and growing. That's why I have so much admiration and respect for the 2.4 million men and women of our Armed Forces. Every single day, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines wake up, put on a uniform, and honor their solemn pledge to defend America against our enemies. They know their lives are on the line, but they love America so much they're willing to die for her. That's a level of commitment most civilians will never experience—most of us don't have jobs that require a willingness to die for our fellow citizens. In fact, I believe we owe our veterans more than we could ever repay them. That's why I was honored to play a major role in the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission to honor our warriors with a proper memorial and help them land jobs. I put up over a million dollars to see to it that the effort was a success. I was so moved and proud to be associated with the project, because our heroes deserve the very best.

America deserves a commander in chief who respects the challenges and realities our Armed Forces face in our dangerous world. Specifically, our military deserves the best equipment, the best training, and the best
weapons. They also deserve to be paid well for the dangerous and heroic work they do. They more than earn it.

If history teaches us anything, it's that strong nations require strong leaders with clearly defined national security principles. Realities change at warp speed; international events can turn on a dime. The 9-11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Arab Spring—all these happened in the blink of an eye. A president can't always predict where the next national security “fire” will erupt, but he can and must have a steady and reliable compass to guide his decisions. Citizens need to know the values and principles their president will rely on to lead America through whatever unknown threats lie over the horizon. I believe that any credible American foreign policy doctrine should be defined by at least seven core principles: