Category: Politics and Issues

John Hinderaker in a recent powerline blog talked about Netherland’s politics and how it resembles what we see here.  Hinderaker reported, “Politics in the Netherlands have been increasingly contentious of late. The most recent coalition government fell earlier this month, and now Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag has not only resigned her post, but says she might be leaving the country,”  Now the key issue is why and maybe the European media noted, “Just two years ago, she was the great hope of Dutch politics, a cosmopolitan voice of reason, who made unprecedented gains for liberals by taking on the country’s far-right populists.”  The message here is that voice of reason are the progressive voices and the voice to fear are the far-right populists.

As the media report continues, “The prospect of her departure, after being hailed as a champion for the traditional Dutch liberal consensus, comes as the country’s security services warn that growing “anti-institutional extremism” poses a new threat to society…In 2021, Kaag represented a different path for the Netherlands after winning an unprecedented and surprise election performance, with her socially progressive, pro-European and welcoming to refugees Democrats 66 party, netting their best ever results.”  

The media report goes further when the reporter noted, “One notable fault-line in Dutch politics has become environmental policies, with an insurgent rural movement against plans to cut nitrogen emission in agriculture to meet European Union climate change targets…The populist farmers’ party, the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), has come from nowhere a year ago to become the second largest Dutch political party and probable kingmaker of a new government.”   And what does the “far right” fear?   The impact of the Dutch government war on nitrogen and its impact on farming industry, phenomenally successful and the war on Netherlands livestock and the world second largest food exporter.  The parliament plan to eliminate half of the livestock numbers, promoted major protests from farmers and formation of a political movement.   So as John Hinderaker notes, “So trying to destroy the country’s biggest industry is perfectly reasonable, while opposing that destruction is “extreme.”   That is the upside world we live in, destroy a profitable industry is reasonable and, in the process, reducing exports could mean starvation for those who depends on these exports but protecting those industry is “extreme.” What this shows is what I wrote recently, the idiocy of our leadership class and Europe leadership class is equally full of idiocy like their American counterpart.  

The climate change debate shows the problem with the green policies as they entail the destruction of agriculture but also in ability to increase building projects that will help alleviate housing storage and congestion on the roads as many of these building plans are being protested by environmentalist.

John Hinderaker discusses which of the present values are closer to being correct, the progressive enlightened liberal thoughts or the “far right populist views” and concludes,” But whose version of reality is the right one? Certainly not the version that says we should kill half our livestock, stop fertilizing our fields, stop constructing buildings and highways, all while welcoming infinite numbers of immigrants from underdeveloped countries, so that we can impoverish ourselves with unreliable energy that will have zero measurable impact on the Earth’s climate…The fundamental problem the world’s liberals are experiencing is precisely that their crazy plans are bumping up against reality.”  He is right, it is the leftist leadership class view of the world that is wrong and much of what “far right populist” is closer to the truth.

I have made the case that Ron DeSantis is moving toward a more modest foreign policy similar to the Weinberger doctrine and that GOP governors are leading an economic revolution resulting in lower unemployment and job creations. 

Now the next stage is revolution in education.  Yes, there are two sides to this revolution, beginning with what is being taught in the classroom and the second is school choice.  The fight over DeSantis curriculum in Florida is significant since the curriculum was designed by bipartisan group of scholars including many Black scholars tell the truth about the evil of slavery while eschewing the less accurate 1619 projects and Critical Race Theory.  It is the most significant and if DeSantis is forced to retreat or the GOP fails to defend this, the leftist will be allowed to indoctrinate American children about our history. In Florida, the teacher union were invited to participate in its development but refuse, leaving them open to outright lie about the final product along with many Democrats.  Meanwhile, many in the GOP using this issue against DeSantis and are simply surrendering to the leftist agenda and questioning their mettle in combatting the administrative state and the left. 

Charles Cooke noted about the curriculum, “ If you are able to read it and conclude that the single reference to slaves developing skills (which I’ve bolded) is indicative of the narrative direction of the course, rather than a tiny (and correct) part of it, then you are beyond saving and you deserve to live your life as an ignoramus. There is simply no way of perusing this course and concluding that its “gaslights” people or whitewashes slavery. Among many, many other things, it includes sections on “the conditions for Africans during their passage to America”; “the living conditions of slaves in British North American colonies, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, including infant mortality rates”; “the harsh conditions and their consequences on British American plantations (e.g., undernourishment, climate conditions, infant and child mortality rates of the enslaved vs. the free)”; “the harsh conditions in the Caribbean plantations (i.e., poor nutrition, rigorous labor, disease)”; “how the South tried to prevent slaves from escaping and their efforts to end the Underground Railroad”; the “overwhelming death rates” caused by the practice; the many ways in which “Africans resisted slavery”; “the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms”; and “the struggles faced by African American women in the 19th century as it relates to issues of suffrage, business and access to education.” Many of these modules apply to Florida specifically.” Cooke is right that this course does not teach that slavery was good for Black people but the complete opposite.  I want to know how many critics of this curriculum have actually read the curriculum.  I have.

To defeat this curriculum is the left goal so they can move on indoctrination of students as opposed to truth.   John Hinderaker recently showed how many students have a false impression of America as he noted, “A case in point: American college students think their country is going downhill. Not in the ways it actually is going downhill, but in the ways it is not.

This was the question:

Based on what you have learned in college so far, do you think that life in the United States has generally been getting better or worse over the last 50 years (considering issues such as life expectancy, income per person, and level of education)?

The students obviously have not learned any history:

The survey finds nearly 60% of students think life in America has gotten worse or stayed the same over the last 50 years.

Only 41% correctly understand it has overall gotten better over the last five decades.
***
Let us look at those metrics.

In 1973, 50 years ago, US life expectancy was 71.4 years, per the World Bank. In 2020, it was 77.3 years. By any objective measure, which is a huge improvement.

In the same vein, average income per person has significantly improved since 1973.

To accurately compare across time and account for inflation, we can look at income with all figures adjusted to reflect, say, 2015 dollars. When we do that, we see income per person in America rose from $28,114 to $66,866 over the last 50 years.

Yep — it is more than doubled.”

John Hinderaker concluded, “No doubt these students also have no idea that billions of people worldwide have been lifted out of poverty by the transition from socialism up to free enterprise. I seriously think the country would be better off if fewer of our young people went to college. And it would be much better if young people were getting a decent basic education through high school, as they once did, in which case the remedial function that most colleges now play (badly) would be unnecessary. But that is looking like a pipe dream, for now.”

The second revolution was in promoting school choice as a state just as Iowa has promoted school choice.   So far, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Utah have joined Arizona and West Virginia in making families eligible for education savings accounts.  This revolution was given momentum during the Pandemic as many public schools were closed and many parents simply moved their children out. Another aspect is the radicalization of the teacher unions. For many Republicans, the teacher union has a leading supporter of the Democratic Party in both manpower for get out the vote campaign and donations.  Allowing parents more of say where their children go to school or have a say in what is being taught in the classroom is the revolution that many Republican governors are leading. 

Did DeSantis revive the Weinberger doctrine in his interview with Tucker Carlson at the Family leadership summit?  Just a remainder, those principles were:

1. Forces should not be committed unless the action is vital to national interest.

2. Forces should be committed wholeheartedly with the intention of winning – or they should not be committed at all (No half-hearted commitment).

3. Forces should be committed with clearly defined political and military objectives.

4. The use of force should be the last resort (after all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted).

5. The relationship between objectives and the force committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

6. Before committing forces abroad (in foreign countries) there should be some reasonable assurance of public support.

DeSantis mentioned in his interview that the lessons he learned from his experience in the Middle East that you needed a concrete end game, and he criticized that the present foreign policy establishment failed to detail an endgame in Ukraine.  He added that they should be concerned about the southern border.  His own stated goal is a sustainable peace in Europe and details a path to that. (But he did not elaborate on how to but this format was conducive to a more in depth details.)  He added that China is the number threat and is indicating he would concentrate on dealing with China just as Reagan number one objective was the Soviet Empire.   Like Trump he would force Europe to spend on their defense.  Would be interested how DeSantis view Polish government own increase spending and the biggest land army in Europe and their economy has been growing and prepared to surpass Great Britain in 2030.  How would President DeSantis deal with Poland and other nations in Central Europe.)

DeSantis made it clear that whether military support or the imposition of troops in foreign lands must have clear objectives and his criticism of recent past in our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan dealt with changing objectives from stopping Weapons of Destruction and evolving into nation building which in Afghanistan failed.  He is talking a return of modest foreign policy that George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 and before 9/11. As the campaign continues, we will see more details about his foreign policy will surface but for now, he is following a more modest policy with China his number one threat.

Did DeSantis revive the Weinberger doctrine in his interview with Tucker Carlson at the Family leadership summit?  Just a remainder, those principles were:

1. Forces should not be committed unless the action is vital to national interest.

2. Forces should be committed wholeheartedly with the intention of winning – or they should not be committed at all (No half-hearted commitment).

3. Forces should be committed with clearly defined political and military objectives.

4. The use of force should be the last resort (after all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted).

5. The relationship between objectives and the force committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

6. Before committing forces abroad (in foreign countries) there should be some reasonable assurance of public support.

DeSantis mentioned in his interview that the lessons he learned from his experience in the Middle East that you needed a concrete end game, and he criticized that the present foreign policy establishment failed to detail an endgame in Ukraine.  He added that they should be concerned about the southern border.  His own stated goal is a sustainable peace in Europe and details a path to that. (But he did not elaborate on how to but this format was conducive to a more in depth details.)  He added that China is the number threat and is indicating he would concentrate on dealing with China just as Reagan number one objective was the Soviet Empire.   Like Trump he would force Europe to spend on their defense.  Would be interested how DeSantis view Polish government own increase spending and the biggest land army in Europe and their economy has been growing and prepared to surpass Great Britain in 2030.  How would President DeSantis deal with Poland and other nations in Central Europe.)

DeSantis made it clear that whether military support or the imposition of troops in foreign lands must have clear objectives and his criticism of recent past in our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan dealt with changing objectives from stopping Weapons of Destruction and evolving into nation building which in Afghanistan failed.  He is talking a return of modest foreign policy that George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 and before 9/11. As the campaign continues, we will see more details about his foreign policy will surface but for now, he is following a more modest policy with China his number one threat.

In April of 2020, 20,000,000 people were thrown out of work due to the lockdowns, which will prove to be one of the biggest economic disaster the United States government ever imposed on its citizens.  From the time that Pandemic began to the present, Republican states outperformed their Democratic counterparts when it came to lower unemployment and job creations.    Regardless how you rated how Republican governors compared to their Democratic counterpart or whether you reviewed states that were controlled by one party, the results were the same, Republicans outperformed Democrats.

Among Republican governors, their states returned 102.91 of jobs lost from the pandemics and their Democratic counterpart returned 100.81 percentage of their jobs.   Republicans’ governors made up 80 percent of the top ten states and 68 percent of states in the upper half of states in returning jobs from the pandemic. This reinforces the notion that GOP governors proved better at job creation.   Eighty-five percent of Republican governors reached 100 percent or more of jobs returned versus only 58 percent of Democratic governors.

Then we looked at states where the Republicans controlled both the legislature and the governor seat to their Democratic counterpart, we saw similar results as Republican states returned 103.08 jobs from pandemics compared to 100.35 for Democrats.  Eighty-seven percent of GOP states returned 100 percent or more compared to 53 percent for Democratic states.  We did find that states that have mixed government outperformed states with Democrats control and slightly under GOP states.  Seventy-five percent of mixed states returned 100 percent or more jobs from the pandemic and 102.31 percent jobs were returned. 

We have found that in previous research that Republican states had lower unemployment than their Democratic counterpart in the December of 2022 and then we continued to follow up and so far, we have found Republican states with Republican governors or Republicans complete control of all levers of government have lower unemployment than their Democratic counterpart in the latest unemployment released by Department of Labor. 

A Story of Eight States

How does Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and California compare to Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio when it comes to job production and growth? These are the eight most populous states and four have Democratic governors and four have Republican governors. These states were similar in demographics and blue states do have an advantage as they have slightly more Asians who consistently have unemployment similar or lower than Whites and these states population was slightly younger.

What we found was that these GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterparts, and this matched national trend.

In December 2022, these GOP states had an average unemployment 3.4 percent versus 4.2 percent for Democrats states and in May of 2023, GOP states had an unemployment number 3.4 percent to Democrats 4.1 percent. One reason that GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterpart was that they opened earlier, and, in the winter of 2020, three of the four GOP states did not re-lockdown their economy and kept their schools open.

Another aspect is that all the GOP states by May 2023 replaced those jobs lost from the pandemic’s lockdown for an average of 104.94 percent jobs returned and only two of the four Democratic states recovered all those jobs and the average for those Democratic states was 100.23 percent. This simply demonstrated what we saw on a national average that GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterparts with lower unemployment and returned jobs quicker from the pandemic losses.

In 2022, these Republican states had 2.9 percent GDP growth compared to 2 percent for Democratic states. And in the first quarter of 2023, these four Republican states averaged GDP was 2.55 percent versus Democratic states at 1.15 percent.

Since 2020, these GOP states consistently outperformed their Democratic counterparts. Two of the four GOP states had lower unemployment than the national average, but all the Democratic states were above the national average. All the GOP states also were able to recover all their jobs from the pandemics whereas only two of the four Democratic states were able to do this. The lower unemployment simply supports why GOP states did recover all their jobs quicker.

Finally, these four GOP states had GDP growth more than double than their Democrats counterparts in the first quarter of 2023 and this is also reflective in the better jobs report. And this continued a trend from the previous four quarters in which the Republican states outperformed their Democrat counterpart by a third more in economic growth.

Florida vs California

A good piece in Brownstone Institute detailed how Florida outperformed California in all aspects from education, economics, and overall health care during the Pandemic.  Brownstone researcher Josh Stevenson observed that having a job not only impact a person economic outlook but also their health as he observed, “The cost of destroying livelihoods has impacts on health and life expectancy.. This was well-established in Public Health yet was constantly ignored by lockdowners. Knowing that the lockdowns completely failed to prevent or even reduce Covid spread and mortality, it was clear by mid-2020 that there could only be net harm by adding economic hardship onto the already existing burden of the virus itself.”

Galvin Newsome views himself as the best governor when it comes to leading California through the pandemic and defended the Fauci’s narrative but the reality, the economic outlook of his state declined and many of his state citizens now live in Texas and Florida.  There is a wealth of data showing the complete failure of the lockdowns. Josh Stevenson reported in his research that while Florida increased their overall employment from January 2020 by 3.2 percent, California remained 11.5 percent below their pre-pandemic levels. This is verified by other data as we found Florida along with GOP and southern states did a better job replacing their workforce from the lockdowns.

Casey Mulligan, Phil Kerpen and Steven Moore reviewed in a recent paper the metrics dealing with Health care, economic, and education, found Florida came in at sixth place compared to California ranking only forty-seven.  Regardless of what Metrics you use, Florida outperformed California and Florida also outperformed New York.

Florida has 13 percent more population, so New York spends 2.24 times higher on a per capita basis and as Francis Menton of Manhattan contrarian observed, “The theory here must be that the extra spending improves the health outcomes of New York’s poor and other low-income residents. How can we measure that? Healthcare outcomes are subjective and often not subject to definitive metrics. But one thing that can be measured and directly compared is life expectancy. Surely, for almost 4.5 times the per capita state Medicaid spending as Florida, and with almost 40% of the population participating in the Medicaid program, New Yorkers must have demonstrably longer life expectancy than Floridians…In January 2023 the online pharmacy Nice RX came out with a study of life expectancy by state, using CDC data for the year 2020. And the results are New York 77.7 years; Florida 77.5 years. It is an almost imperceptible difference. This is beyond embarrassing.”

Menton also compared education spending and results as New York state pays out nearly 14,000 dollars per student compared to $8543 per student in Florida.  Menton observed that “The summary is that Florida students did substantially better in two categories, New York students better in one category, and the fourth category was essentially a tie. For this, does New York pay double and more what Florida pays? Again, it is shocking…And dare I mention that, with the far lower spending, Florida gets along just fine without any income tax at all? All I can say is, it is no wonder that Florida continues to grow its population rapidly, while New York shrinks.”

I live in Iowa, and I hear the ads, but Ron DeSantis is not talking about this impressive record.  He is not yet working to his strength, his stewardship of the economy during the Pandemic and getting children educated when the prevailing policy was to keep the school closed.  He was an island of sanity and competence when others failed on both. The biggest weakness of Trump years was Trump’s handling of the pandemic as he allowed Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birks hijacked the management of the virus while undermining Trump administration with promoting the lockdown that ensured Trump political demise in the 2020 election.  The one thing that Trump did right was to allow the federalist approach and because of this, many of those Republican states who opened the economy earlier provided the brunt of the economic growth that occurred in the second half of the 2020.

From May 2020 to December 2020, 1.5 million jobs per month were returned to the economy and this represented more than half of the jobs lost in the pandemic. It took Biden administration about two years to capture the rest of the jobs.   Red States including Florida kept the economy afloat and led what economic recovery moving into 2021.  This is the story that we do not hear, how Florida and other states including Iowa led the economic recovery while many Democratic states like California and New York preferred to close their economy and allow their people suffer to defeat Trump. DeSantis showed both competence and the wiliness to challenge the political establishment when they were obviously wrong and kept the economy going. DeSantis was right, the Democrats, the Deep State and even Trump proven wrong.  Iowa followed his lead and Iowa also outperformed many Democratic states.  That is one story that needs to be told. Competence in crisis.

The Final Battle

We are now in the final battle as a movement to identify what conservatism will be in the 21^st century and be able to turn this nation around.  The future of conservatism is to combine Trump populism with Reagan conservatism.  The battle is between the populist conservatives and more traditional conservatives.   Dominic Pino detailed this recently, “For decades, tax cuts have been at the center of the conservative economic agenda. But some on the right want to deprioritize them in favor of other economic goals. Senators Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, J. D. Vance, and others talk of the need for a new Republican economic agenda focused on things such as industrial policy or social policy. The Trump administration sought to increase tariffs, and conservative defenders of protectionism are being more vocal…Tax cuts seem to irk some right-wing commentators. In May 2020, writing for the American Conservative, Michael Cuenco bemoaned the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the 2017 tax-cut law that Donald Trump signed, and called for a “reformulation of fiscal policy along populist economic nationalist lines.” He wrote, “The reformist right should ask: is there any way to stand athwart the supply-side swamp yelling Stop?”

I made the case that the importance of supply side economy and that its definition must be expanded in my book, “Americas at the Abyss, will America survive?” I made the case that government spending must be controlled, regulations burden reduced, and supply side had to move beyond just tax cuts. Trump did two of three, reduce regulation and tax reduction which benefited most Americans. The result was continuation of the recovery and more importantly the middle class, minorities, and lower income saw their income increase.  Economic growth matters but Trump failure to get government under control hurt his overall economic plan and the massive spending during the Covid pandemic along with the anti-growth lockdown hurt the economy in 2020 and ended Trump chances to win. 

Pino noted that GOP governors are pursuing tax reductions and yet, they are conscious of making sure that they keep spending under control as not to repeat what Brownback did in Kansas, cut taxes but failed to cut spending accordingly.  The new generation of governors are doing both while not just cutting taxes but trying to flatten taxes. 

The United States is in the middle of the tax-reduction revolution on a state level and as Jared Walczak of Tax Foundation, observed, “The past three years have seen the largest wave of state-tax cuts in the modern era, certainly since income taxes were created over a century ago at the state level. We have seen more than half of the states with income taxes cut their top rates. We have seen trimming of rates in other taxes, including thirteen states with corporate-income-tax cuts, a couple of states with sales-tax cuts, and trimming other taxes as well.” And these states are enacting real tax reforms.

There are seven states that do not tax individual income including Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.  New Hampshire taxes only interest and dividends but are phasing them out so there will be eight states no tax.  Governor Burgum of North Dakota noted recent legislation in reducing taxes will move North Dakota toward a goal of no state income tax and Iowa Kim Reynolds is following a similar pattern. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves attempted to be rid of the income tax, but the legislature chose a flat tax with reduction.  Tax Foundation Walczak favored the legislature caution as he noted, “Some proposals have overreached, but lawmakers have either defeated those proposals or substantially curtailed them before enacting them,”

When Kim Reynolds did her tax reforms, these principles were considered as government spending were slowed while lowering the tax rates. Iowa house speaker pro tempore John Wills observed about the Reynolds reform “We were looking at being very cautious and being very conservative, I guess you could say, in our approach, so that if at any point the revenues weren’t coming in as projected, we could back it off. That is why the cuts are designed to step up over several years.”   The state replaced its top rates 8.53% and nine brackets to 6% and four brackets and the different brackets will be eliminated each year until the 3.9% flat tax is reached, subject to revenue triggers. For many Midwestern Republicans do not want to copy is first Illinois and for many Iowan Republicans, they realized their top rates were higher than Illinois and that was a wake-up call. The second is to not copy the Kanas model for when Brownback signed huge tax cuts with the idea of boosting economic activity, but budgetary shortfalls occurred as tax revenues increases did not materialize, and budget shortfall occurs. This led to Democrat Laura Kelly to be elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Republican politicians are taking a more caution approach and controlling government spending.

Which leads us to the future of the GOP as Republican governors are looking to control their budget and return money back to the taxpayers.  As I mentioned in a previous piece, Florida has been providing essential services for one half the cost as Democratic states like New York and do not have a state income tax.  For the GOP, the key will be combined the best of Reagan ideas with Trump populism which Trump did in his administration.  A modest foreign policy combined with tax and regulation reduction were the hall mark of the Trump years and the Republican candidate who can combine these two principles and add spending restriction can win the White House.

References

Where Tax Cuts Are Hot | National Review

Florida vs California – by Tom Donelson/ F of F (substack.com)

Substack Home – Frontier of Freedom notes and research

Substack Home – Frontier of Freedom notes and research

Leaving blue paradise – by Tom Donelson/ F of F (substack.com)

Once Again, State Budget Time in New York And Florida — Manhattan Contrarian

America at the Abyss, Will America Survive by Tom Donelson

Toward an American First Policy

For advocate of an America’s First foreign policy might begin reviewing the former Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger six rules for engagement.  The principles were:

1. Forces should not be committed unless the action is vital to national interest.

2. Forces should be committed wholeheartedly with the intention of winning – or they should not be committed at all (No half-hearted commitment).

3. Forces should be committed with clearly defined political and military objectives.

4. The use of force should be the last resort (after all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted).

5. The relationship between objectives and the force committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

6. Before committing forces abroad (in foreign countries) there should be some reasonable assurance of public support.

Casper Weinberger set these principles in the aftermath of the Vietnam war in which America was divided and there was serious question on how the war was conducted, so he set in principle ideas that political leader needs to consider.  In 1984, two events occurred, one in which 240 Marines were killed as result of a suicide bomber in Beirut and the second, the invasion of Grenada in which United States removed a Marxist government that overthrew another leftist government and supported by Cuban forces.

The Beirut attack was part of an ill-defined peace keeping mission in Lebanon and eventually Reagan, left Lebanon as oppose to getting sucked into an endless morose and in Grenada, United States went into with overpowering force, and easily removed the Cuban forces in an island in our backyard, the Caribbean. 

The first Gulf War was influenced by this principle as United States and their alliance went into Kuwait with overwhelming force, defeated the Iraqi army easily before ending the war.  And Bush administration went to the American people and Congress to gain approval to use force if diplomacy failed in persuading Hussein to leave Kuwait.  After the failure of diplomacy, the first Gulf War commenced. 

The second Gulf War and the war on terror began with these principles but after the initial victory, the United States expanded upon the objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan to reinstitute democratic government in both countries.  From there, United States engaged in long term engagement that ended in failure in Afghanistan. 

The question is how to use these principles in the future to protect American national interest and not lapse into an isolationist position.  During the Reagan years, the number one objective was to defend the West from the Soviet Empire and everything else was tied to that.  Arming the Afghan rebels against the Russian was part of that strategy and within Congress there was bipartisan support and did not involve the use of U.S. troops.  Grenada could be justified since the threat was close to home and overwhelming force and clear military objectives were present.  The first Gulf War was another war that had defined objectives, expel Hussein from Kuwait, it was in a vital area that impacted both the United States and her allies and overwhelming force was used. Many criticized President George H W Bush for not marching to Baghdad and the Bush administration felt that their mandate was limited and that they were not interested in occupying Iraq. We can argue the case but then Weinberger thesis was that there was limit to what the American public would support and what they would not.  For many in the Bush years, they feared being involved in another insurgency.

There is a bipartisan consensus among some Democrats and Republicans that China is the number one threat to United States and the question is how best to deal with this threat without getting into involved in a failed military operations or expanded war.  That requires alliances and it requires a strong Domestic economy.

Ukraine is interesting case point and not necessarily an easy case study.  The one thing that everyone agrees or should agree, that it is not in our interest to involved American troops in Ukraine. The problem has been that the Biden Administration has failed to garner bipartisan support among the American people for aiding Ukraine nor have there been an endgame defined for what is considered a victory or acceptable to our side and Ukrainians.  There are many who will not view this in our national interest, but others could argue that if Russia succeed in Ukraine, this could encourage China to move against Taiwan.  Using the ideas behind Weinberger doctrine, policy makers need to make case if this is in our interest and that our long term interest are being served.  If China is our number rival, does this enhance or disrupt our objectives against China?

It is the responsibility for Biden to explain to the American people why Ukraine matters and what support for Ukraine need to prevail.  For many Americans, there is no real national interest in aiding Ukraine when our own borders are open and wondering when the billions flowing to Ukraine will end?

An Americas First policy begins identifying what is in our national interest and what is not. Americans no longer want to be involved in endless wars without any end game, but they will follow defined goals that are attainable and convinced in our national interest.  Reagan exercised a modest foreign policy with the objective of winning the Cold War. After the cold war, we found ourselves in unique position as the World leading superpower after the Soviet Empire collapsed and China has yet to be the power they are now.  George W Bush ran on a modest foreign policy and even questioned nation building in Haiti but after 9/11, things change and the strategy as Bush administration decided on nation building to reverse future Islamist terrorist states. Just as Bush criticized Clinton administration for his nation building efforts in Haiti, his national building efforts to build more stable nations in the Middle East failed, certainly in Afghanistan and Biden withdrawal proved to be disastrous in allowing the Taliban back in power to set up a possible terrorist base plus Putin took this as a sign of weakness and license to begin the invasion

For Americas First policy advocates is the following. First, if China is the main threat, then what strategy needs to be followed?  How do decoupling ourselves from China and tariffs fit in the strategy?  What alliances need to be set up and the condition of those alliances increase our own national interest?  What would the role of Europe and NATO as part of this as what about our relations with India fit into our national interest?  What should our position be in Europe, and do we allow the Europeans handle the bulk of the defense of Europe against future Russian incursion?  How do we deal with Central and South America?  I could go on, but Weinberger principle gives Americas firsters a framework to build from. 

We are now in the final battle as a movement to identify what conservatism will be in the 21^st century and be able to turn this nation around.  As I detailed in my book, America at the Abyss, Will America Survive, the future of conservatism is to combine Trump populism with Reagan conservatism.  The battle is between the populist conservatives and more traditional conservatives.   Dominic Pino detailed this recently, “For decades, tax cuts have been at the center of the conservative economic agenda. But some on the right want to deprioritize them in favor of other economic goals. Senators Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, J. D. Vance, and others talk of the need for a new Republican economic agenda focused on things such as industrial policy or social policy. The Trump administration sought to increase tariffs, and conservative defenders of protectionism are being more vocal…Tax cuts seem to irk some right-wing commentators. In May 2020, writing for the American Conservative, Michael Cuenco bemoaned the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the 2017 tax-cut law that Donald Trump signed, and called for a “reformulation of fiscal policy along populist economic nationalist lines.” He wrote, “The reformist right should ask: is there any way to stand athwart the supply-side swamp yelling Stop?”

I made the case that the importance of supply side economy and that its definition must be expanded.  Government spending must be controlled, regulations burden reduced, and supply side had to move beyond just tax cuts. Trump did two of three, reduce regulation and tax reduction which benefited most Americans. The result was continuation of the recovery and more importantly the middle class and lower income saw their income increase.  Economic growth matters but Trump failure to get government under control hurt his overall economic plan and the massive spending during the Covid pandemic combined with the anti-growth lockdown hurt the economy in 2020 and hurt Trump chances to win re-election. 

Pino noted that GOP governors are pursuing tax reductions and yet, they are conscious of making sure that they keep spending under control as not repeat what Brownback did in Kansas, cut taxes but failed to cut spending accordingly.  The new generation of governors are doing both while not just cutting taxes but trying to flatten taxes.  It is as much of reforming the tax system as it is about cutting them.The United States is in the middle of the tax-reduction revolution on a state level and as Jared Walczak of Tax Foundation, observed, “The past three years have seen the largest wave of state-tax cuts in the modern era, certainly since income taxes were created over a century ago at the state level. We have seen more than half of the states with income taxes cut their top rates. We have seen trimming of rates in other taxes, including thirteen states with corporate-income-tax cuts, a couple of states with sales-tax cuts, and trimming other taxes as well.”

There are seven states that do not tax individual income including Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.  New Hampshire taxes only interest and dividends but are phasing them out so there will be eight states with no taxes on income. Governor Burgum of North Dakota noted recent legislation in reducing taxes will move North Dakota toward a goal of no state income tax and Iowa Kim Reynolds is following a similar path.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves attempted to be rid of the income tax, but the legislature chose a flat tax with reduction of rates.  Tax Foundation Walczak favored the legislature caution as he noted, “Some proposals have overreached, but lawmakers have either defeated those proposals or substantially curtailed them before enacting them,”

When Kim Reynolds did her tax reforms, these principles were considered as government spending were slowed while lowering the tax rates. Iowa house speaker pro tempore John Wills observed about the Reynolds reform “We were looking at being very cautious and being very conservative, I guess you could say, in our approach, so that if at any point the revenues weren’t coming in as projected, we could back it off. That is why the cuts are designed to step up over several years.”   The state replaced its top rates 8.53% and nine brackets to 6% and four brackets and the different brackets will be eliminated each year until the 3.9% flat tax is reached subject to revenue triggers. For many Midwestern Republicans do not want to copy is first Illinois and for many Iowan Republicans, they realized their top rates were higher than Illinois and that was a wake-up call to reform Iowa tax system. The second is to not copy the Kanas model for when Brownback signed huge tax cuts with the idea of boosting economic activity, but budgetary shortfalls occurred as tax revenues increases didn’t materialize, and budget shortfall occurs. This led to Democrat Laura Kelly to be elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Republican politicians are taking a more caution approach and controlling government spending.

Which leads us to the future of the GOP as Republican governors are looking to control their budget and return money back to the taxpayers.  As I mentioned in a previous piece, Florida has been providing essential services for one half the cost as Democratic states like New York and do not have a state income tax.  For the GOP, the key will be combined the best of Reagan with the Trump populism which Trump did with his tax and regulatory plans.  A modest foreign policy combined with tax and regulation reduction were the hall mark of the Trump years and the Republican candidate who can combine these two principles and add spending restriction can win the White House.

References

Where Tax Cuts Are Hot | National Review

Florida vs California – by Tom Donelson/ F of F (substack.com)

Substack Home – Frontier of Freedom notes and research

Substack Home – Frontier of Freedom notes and research

I have detailed how Florida and other GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterparts. A good piece in Brownstone Institute detailed how Florida outperformed California in all aspects from education, economics, and overall health care during the Pandemic.  Josh Stevenson observed that having a job not only impact a person economic outlook but also their health as he observed, “The cost of destroying livelihoods has impacts on health and life expectancy.. This was well-established in Public Health yet was constantly ignored by lockdowners. Knowing that the lockdowns completely failed to prevent or even reduce Covid spread and mortality, it was clear by mid-2020 that there could only be net harm by adding economic hardship onto the already existing burden of the virus itself.”

Galvin Newsome views himself as the best governor when it comes to leading California through the pandemic and defended the Fauci’s narrative but the reality, the economic outlook of his state declined and many of his state citizens now live in Texas and Florida.  There is a wealth of data showing the complete failure of the lockdowns. Josh Stevenson reported in his research that while Florida increased their overall employment from January 2020 by 3.2 percent, California,  remained 11.5 percent below their pre-pandemic levels. This is verified by other data as we found Florida along with GOP and southern states did a better job replacing their workforce from the lockdowns. (Substack Home – frontier of Freedom notes and research and Latest on why People are moving to GOP states, there are economic opportunities. (substack.com))

In a paper by Casey Mulligan, Phil Kerpen and Steven Moore reviewing the metrics dealing with Health care, economic, and education found Florida came in at 6^th place compared to California ranking only 47.  Regardless of what Metrics you use, Florida outperformed California and Florida also outperformed New York.

Florida has 13 percent more population, so New York spends 2.24 times higher on a per capita basis and as Francis Menton of Manhattan contrarian observed, “The theory here must be that the extra spending improves the health outcomes of New York’s poor and other low-income residents. How can we measure that? Healthcare outcomes are subjective and often not subject to definitive metrics. But one thing that can be measured and directly compared is life expectancy. Surely, for almost 4.5 times the per capita state Medicaid spending as Florida, and with almost 40% of the population participating in the Medicaid program, New Yorkers must have demonstrably longer life expectancy than Floridians…In January 2023 the online pharmacy Nice RX came out with a study of life expectancy by state, using CDC data for the year 2020. And the results are New York 77.7 years; Florida 77.5 years. It is an almost imperceptible difference. This is beyond embarrassing.”

He also compared education spending and results as New York state pays out nearly 14,000 dollars per student compared to $8543 per student in Florida.  Menton observed that “The summary is that Florida students did substantially better in two categories, New York students better in one category, and the fourth category was essentially a tie. For this, does New York pay double and more what Florida pays? Again, it is shocking…And dare I mention that, with the far lower spending, Florida gets along just fine without any income tax at all? All I can say is, it is no wonder that Florida continues to grow its population rapidly, while New York shrinks.”

I live in Iowa, and I hear the ads, but Ron DeSantis is not talking about this impressive record.  He is trying to run the right of Trump and not yet working to his strength, his stewardship of the economy during the Pandemic and getting children educated when the prevailing policy was to keep the school closed.  He was an island of sanity and competence when others failed on both. The biggest weakness of Trump years was Trump’s handling of the pandemic as he allowed Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birks hijacked the management of the virus while undermining Trump administration with promoting the lockdown that ensured Trump political demise in the 2020 election.  The one thing that Trump did right was to go the federalist approach and because of this, many of those Republican states who opened the economy earlier provided the brunt of the economic growth that occurred in the second half of the 2020.

From May 2020 to December 2020, 1.5 million jobs per month were returned to the economy and this represented more than half of the jobs lost in the pandemic. It took Biden administration about two years to capture the rest of the jobs.   These Red States including Florida kept the economy afloat and led what economic recovery moving into 2021.  This is the story that we do not hear how Florida and other states including Iowa led the economic recovery while many Democratic states like California and New York preferred to close their economy and allow their people suffer to defeat Trump. DeSantis showed both competence and the wiliness to challenge the political establishment when they were obviously wrong and kept the economy going. DeSantis was right, the Democrats, the Deep State and even Trump proven wrong.  Iowa followed his lead and Iowa also outperformed many Democratic states.  That is one story that needs to be told. Competence in crisis.

Additional references

Leaving blue paradise – by Tom Donelson/ F of F (substack.com)

Once Again, State Budget Time in New York And Florida — Manhattan Contrarian

How does Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and California compare to Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio when it comes to job production and growth? These are the eight most populous states and four have Democratic governors and four have Republican governors. These states were similar in demographics and if group states have an advantage, it might be blue states slightly has they slightly more Asians and Whites citizens, who have traditionally higher income and their population was slightly younger.

What we found was that these GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterparts, and this matched national trend.

In December 2022, these GOP states had an average unemployment 3.4 percent versus 4.2 percent for Democrats states and in May of 2023, GOP states had an unemployment number 3.4 percent to Democrats 4.1 percent. One reason that GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterpart was that they opened earlier, and, in the winter of 2020, three of the four GOP states did not re-lockdown their economy and kept their schools open.

Another aspect is that all the GOP states by May 2023 replaced those jobs lost from the pandemic’s lockdown for an average of 104.94 percent jobs returned and only two of the four Democratic states recovered all those jobs and the average for those Democratic states was 100.23 percent. This simply demonstrated what we saw on a national average that GOP states outperformed their Democratic counterparts with lower unemployment and returned jobs quicker from the pandemic losses.

In 2022, these Republican states had 2.9 percent GDP growth compared to 2 percent for Democratic states. And in the first quarter of 2023, these four Republican states averaged GDP was 2.55 percent versus Democratic states at 1.15 percent.

Since 2020, these GOP states consistently outperformed their Democratic counterparts. Two of the four GOP states had lower unemployment than the national average, but all the Democratic states were above the national average. All the GOP states also were able to recover all their jobs from the pandemics whereas only two of the four Democratic states were able to do this. The lower unemployment simply supports why GOP states did recover all their jobs quicker.

Finally, these four GOP states had GDP growth more than double than their Democrats counterparts and this is also reflective in the better jobs report. And this continued a trend from the previous four quarters in which the Republican states outperformed their Democrat counterpart by a third more in economic growth.