Friday, June 11, 2004
REAGAN’S FUNERAL
All in all, it was a wondrous ceremony. There were so many things that went right, it’s hard to know where to begin.
The Reagan family—Nancy, Patty, Ron, and Michael—handled themselves with a quiet dignity. Nothing more needs be said about that.
Margaret Thatcher’s words were marvelous. President Reagan, she said, wanted to “free the slaves of communism.” Not “citizens of” or “those living under,” but “slaves.” Exactly. She also stated that Reagan left the world “one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited.” Thank you, Lady Thatcher.
Canadian PM Brain Mulroney also had some strong words. Reagan believed that communism’s “sordid underpinnings would yield swiftly to freedom.” Nice.
The most heartfelt words came, obviously, from President George H.W. Bush. He relayed anecdotes while getting choked up. His talk was one of those mystical moments that often happen at funerals, where joy and sadness commingle to remind us how wonderful the deceased’s life was and that is why we now mourn.
I thought President George W. Bush had a nice sermon. My favorite line was, “as an actor he was the All-American good guy, which required knowing his lines and being himself.” My one complaint is that President Bush’s delivery seemed mediocre. Granted, Bush is not a great speaker, but from time to time he rises to the moment and gives a great speech. This time, though, he talked as though he was reading from notes (which he was.) But it was a fitting tribute nonetheless.
Ronan Tynan did a stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace.” It is hard to find words for how well the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra and Choir performed. Their rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was sublime. In every way, the music befitted a man of President Reagan’s stature.
Was there anything that I really disliked? Well, let’s leave that for another day.
Right now is the time to celebrate a wonderful life.
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Thursday, June 10, 2004
CIVICS LESSONS—DES MOINES REGISTER STYLE
In a recent editorial the Des Moines Register took issue with Representative Steve King’s suggestion that Congress should consider taking some issues like same-sex marriage and abortion away from the jurisdiction of federal courts:
One of these days, King might wander over to the National Archives in Washington and spend a few moments in that grandly restored building and commune with the original copy of the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps the experience will bring to mind his basic high school civics lessons on the wisdom of the founders in creating a government where the powers are delicately balanced between the three branches.
The principle is that none of the three branches should gain supremacy over the others.
And perhaps the Register editorialists should sit down and actually read the Constitution some time. In particular, they should take a look at Article 1, Section 8 which reads “Congress shall have the power…to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.” Since the Constitution gives Congress the power to create lower courts, presumably Congress also has the power to set their jurisdictions. In fact, that’s exactly what this U.S. Government guide to the federal courts states:
[A] case must present a category of dispute that the law in question was designed to address, and it must be a complaint that the court has the power to remedy. In other words, the court must be authorized, under the Constitution or a federal law, to hear the case and grant appropriate relief to the plaintiff. Finally, the case cannot be "moot," that is, it must present an ongoing problem for the court to resolve. The federal courts, thus, are courts of "limited" jurisdiction because they may only decide certain types of cases as provided by Congress or as identified in the Constitution.
This is not the first time that the Register editorialists’ understanding of the Constitution was a bit hazy.
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IRONIC OR AUDACIOUS?
One more things on that editorial. On the possibility of one branch having supremacy over the others, the Register concludes:
That is precisely what would happen with King's notion of putting certain topics off limits to judicial review. Then Congress could do whatever it wanted, whether it is constitutional or not. King might like to have absolute congressional power, but he surely would not want the other party to have it.
That’s ironic to the point of being audacious since the courts have ruled so that legislatures in this nation can have little to say over the issue of abortion, and are in the process of doing the same thing on same-sex marriage.
What was that about supremacy?
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KUMBAYAH!
Hold hands, hug some trees…
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Wednesday, June 09, 2004
FOR KRUGMAN IT’S ABOUT POWER, NOT FAIRNESS
To what should be the surprise of no one, yesterday Paul Krugman tried to turn the legacy of Ronald Reagan into the “Responsible Tax Hiker.”
I’m not going to go into the way Krugman distorts the CBO statistics on tax rates as Don Luskin and John Henke have already done that effectively. Rather, attention should be focused on this key paragraph:
But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people. This is not a criticism: the tale of those increases tells you a lot about what was right with President Reagan's leadership, and what's wrong with the leadership of George W. Bush.
That passage should tell you a lot about not only Krugman but the current liberal mindset. Despite the fact that tax increases usually lead not to deficit reduction but new spending sprees, it is always responsible and pragmatic to raise taxes. Indeed, responsibility and pragmatism are code words for tax increases.
It should also cause us to cast a wary eye when Krugman and others on the left gripe about income inequality, economic justice and other synonyms for so-called “fairness.” Recall that he recently skewered the Bush tax cuts because:
Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any gains from lower taxes … The end result of current policies will be a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent.
(Heads up: See Luskin’s great analysis of that column.)
Now, compare that quote with the column from yesterday. After he notes that Reagan raised taxes on the middle class, he states “That is no criticism.” Hello! If Krugman is worried about cuts in government programs for the middle class, why does raising their taxes cause him no concern? After all, one could argue, in both instances the middle class is worse off.
The best explanation is that Krugman and others like him only care about the middle class being better off when it is made so by government-run programs they approve of. If a tax cut leaves a middle-class person with more money in his pocket, well, he might go out and spend it on Lord-knows-what! But if it goes to the government, it gets spent on Social Security, education, Medicare, welfare, etc.—all the programs that Krugman and all the other smart-folk-who-know-how-to-spend-your-money-better-than-you view as essential to creating a “fair” society. Thus, for Krugman it’s not important that the middle-class is made better off, as it is how they are made better off. Fundamentally, it’s not about fairness; it’s about power and control.
And, indeed, that is why Krugman approves of Reagan’s tax increase:
Nonetheless, there was broad bipartisan support for the payroll tax increase because it was part of a deal. The public was told that the extra revenue would be used to build up a trust fund dedicated to the preservation of Social Security benefits, securing the system's future. Thanks to the 1983 act, current projections show that under current rules, Social Security is good for at least 38 more years.
In other words, what’s important isn’t that the middle class had less after the payroll tax hike. It’s that it secured a government program that Krugman believes in.
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AND…
Krugman also overlooks an important bit of history with regard to the first Reagan tax increase. According to Dinesh D’Souza’s biography, Reagan resisted the first tax increase and only agreed because Democratic leaders in Congress agreed to three dollars in spending cuts for every one dollar in tax increases. According to Ed Meese, “We are still waiting for the spending reductions.”
What Krugman calls responsible and pragmatic was actually Reagan getting snookered. But, then, what do you expect? After all, in Krugman’s world it is tax cuts, and never spending, that causes deficits.
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THE REVISIONISM BEGINS!
My latest at the Spectator.
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Tuesday, June 08, 2004
MISSING REAGAN
In reality this nation has been missing Ronald Reagan for ten years, since he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Yet his death has made it seem like he was with us all along and has suddenly been taken from us.
Even though I was barely ten, I recall how bad things were in 1980. The hostage crisis in Iran and the invasion of Afghanistan were some of my first political memories. I even had some sense of what inflation was—the price of my comic books kept rising.
Ronald Reagan’s great strength was his optimism. His optimism was so strong that he not only believed that America’s best days were still ahead, but that we could defeat the Soviet Union. Despite what revisionists now argue, it was widely believed in elite circles that communism would be a permanent feature of our world. That communism now only exists in a few oppressed places like Cuba and North Korea shows Reagan’s prescience.
Reagan was the smiling face of conservatism. Too often, conservative leaders—think Newt Gingrich or Bob Dole—are dour. Part of Reagan’s legacy is that for conservatives to succeed, they must put forward a positive face.
To America as a whole, his legacy is that our best days are always ahead of us. I doubt we will see another leader like him in our lifetime.
R.I.P.
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