Demonizing the rich may be politically correct, but it’s not who we are as Americans.

From S.E. Cupp's Closing Argument column in the March 2012 issue of Townhall Magazine:

This election cycle, with homeowners facing record foreclosures and joblessness still the problem that won’t go away, it’s to no one’s real surprise that the economy is at the top of most voters’ minds.

But hasn’t this always been the case? Two decades ago, in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush was counting on an easy win for his success in the Persian Gulf, James Carville hung a sign up in Bill Clinton’s Little Rock campaign office that read “The economy, stupid,” forever coining a reminder to all would-be presidents that whatever else is going on, Americans care most about their bottom lines.

Even in 2004, when everyone assumed the election between George W. Bush and John Kerry was going to be about Bush’s unpopular war in Iraq, exit polls proved that voters were still focused primarily on the economy.

And then, as it is now, John Kerry had to deal with questions of wealth, means, entitlement and elitism, thanks to windsurfing and skiing vacations and his well-heeled wife.

Well, to quote another Clinton-era aphorism, Mitt Romney feels your pain, Sen. Kerry.

The issue of wealth is center stage once again, but this time it’s even more visceral. The Occupy Wall Street movement takes occasional breaks from vandalizing government buildings to demonize the so-called 1 percent, and the Obama administration stokes the fire, pitting the haves against the have-nots.

Romney has had to defend his own wealth, his success as a businessman—even capitalism itself!—from attacks not just from the Left, but even more frighteningly from the Right. Who would have predicted that the self-proclaimed author of the conservative revolution, Newt Gingrich, would have such a problem with prosperity?

When did the rich become the enemy, the go-to villains of the political establishment, the target of ire from every corner of American society?

It used to be that championing prosperity, promising a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage was a winning campaign slogan; that being successful was a mark of character; that the American dream—owning a home and raising children to live a life that was better than yours—was a good thing and not a source of shame or a cause for apology.

Yet if you listen to his detractors, Mitt Romney should be excluded from an opportunity to serve in the highest office in the land for being wealthy, smart and successful.

In January, Forbes magazine was kind enough to point out that our first and best president was in fact the richest we’ve ever had, even if Romney were elected today. And why? He paid minimal taxes, worked hard, inherited some money and married well. The scoundrel!

“For our money, George Washington wins hands down. In the largely tax-free environment that characterized colonial America, the Father of His Country was considered one of its richest residents, a product of his shrewd business sense, a marriage to a wealthy widow and several inheritances. He benefited from an older brother’s marriage into a powerful family, while early work as a surveyor helped give him a keen understanding of land.”

By today’s standards, this evil, greedy, elitist, entitled, capitalist pig wouldn’t have a chance at the White House. Imagine what the country would look like if Washington were never president.

The truth is, the “evil rich” are in large part responsible for building this great nation. Whether it was through their investment in public service, like Washington, when our country was just being forged, their philanthropic endeavors like building hospitals and museums and colleges, giving billions to science and medical research, or running the manufacturing plants, banks and private enterprises that put most of our non-government employees to work, we all owe the rich a small debt of gratitude.

And don’t we all aspire to be rich one day? If not, then why am I working so hard? Why did my parents, and their parents, work so hard?

Demonizing the rich may be politically useful right now. But it’s not who we are. And long after this election is over, America will remain a country that strives for prosperity. Washington never envisioned a country that was hostile to wealth or dependent on the government. And we shouldn’t either.

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Alumni from radical 1960s groups are now teaching your children, influencing legislation and trying to re-elect Obama.

From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE March feature, "Still Radical, Now Influential," by Kathy Jessup:

Buildings were bombed, bras burned and raising two fingers in a “V” became a symbol for peace, not a signal for ordering two. Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” won the Grammy in 1961, but the Fifth Dimension’s win for “Aquarius” in 1969 was symbolic of the decade of tumult that birthed Students for a Democratic Society and its offshoot Weathermen.

But unlike tie-dye shirts and platform shoes, the Marxist or Maoist or socialist SDS politics never went dormant. Former leaders of the original SDS and also its splinter Weatherman group—labeled “a domestic terrorist group” by the FBI—are installed in academia, organized labor, advocacy organizations and in the highest levels of the Obama administration.

In fact, the '60s college-campus political phenomenon seeded today’s new Left. Now the “repackaged” people and policies of the original SDS/Weathermen have been quietly injected into the mainstream by academia, labor unions, advocacy organizations and private enterprise, waiting for a political host. Have they found it under the Obama administration?

President Barack Obama may characterize 1960s Weatherman radical Bill Ayres as just a man he knows from Chicago’s Hyde Park. But what about Rev. Jim Wallis, Obama’s spiritual advisor and a SDS alumni? Surely Obama knew Wade Rathke, head of ACORN where Obama was employed, was an SDSer. How about SDS founder Tom Hayden, once married to Vietnam War opponent Jane Fonda? Obama must have known Hayden had been a big SDS name when Hayden founded Progressives for Obama in 2008. Was Obama unaware of Michael Klonsky’s radical SDS allegiance when Klonsky’s education blog was featured on Obama’s 2008 campaign website? Someone eventually did. Klonsky’s posts were later “scrubbed” from the website, as reported on the blog Gateway Pundit. Or take Marilyn Katz, a SDSer who once touted using “guerrilla nails” to attack police and also helped organize a 2002 anti-war rally where she takes credit for Obama “coming out … as a public speaker,” reports In These Times. Katz, a 30-year friend of Obama strategist David Axelrod, was on Obama’s 2008 national finance committee and was a fundraising “bundler,” according to Obama’s campaign website.

And the moneyman for much of the complicated network is George Soros. There’s no evidence that the wealthy financial speculator was himself an SDS member. But Soros’ espoused Marxist, one-world vision fits the SDS theology that’s aged with the 20-something radicals now portrayed as 60-something mainstream figures.

Beginnings in the Heartland

Students for a Democratic Society was born in Michigan, the offspring of the League for Industrial Democracy, a socialist educational organization. In 1960, a handful of University of Michigan students bonded over views of war, the nuclear threat, racial discrimination and economic inequality; they rejected mainstream opposition to communism. In 1962, the group’s Port Huron Statement advocated national defense based on deterrence and arms control rather than “peace through strength.” It demanded the Democratic Party embrace the issues of “disinherited” groups and universities advance social change by inserting social issues into the curriculum. SDS supported North Vietnam, the Palestinians and Colombians. It opposed “male supremacy,” calling for no legal or financial restrictions on abortion and birth control and demanding “day-care centers, public and free laundries, food centers and other facilities necessary to free women from their status as household drudges.”

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” lyrics from a song that came to be associated with the Weathermen, signaled that a more radical splinter group was forming out of the SDS with Weather Underground members, Maoists, Marxists, the Worker Student Alliance and some Black Panthers. Mainline SDS faded in the 1970s and the Weathermen went underground as members sought to avoid prosecution for acts of terrorism. But their acceptance of communism or socialism economic redistribution and the use of academia to prime the social, economic and political pumps were nurtured in the intervening decades.

Many names from the golden age of SDS never disappeared. Instead, in the Obama administration, it seems everything old is new again.

Where Are They Today?

Here’s a rundown on some original SDS/Weathermen and their ties to Obama. ...

Read more of Kathy Jessup's piece in the March isssue of Townhall Magazine.
 

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The Department of Agriculture fosters economic waste, hurts the environment and provides little productive assistance in return. Here’s why the U.S. would be better out without it.

From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE March feature, "Is the Department of Agriculture Necessary?," by Erika Johnsen:

"It's three agencies of government when I get [to the presidency] that are gone—Commerce, Education and the um, what’s the third one there? Let’s see. … The third agency of government I would do away with—the Education, the uh, the Commerce, and let’s see. I can’t, the third one. I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”

The awkward moment during a GOP debate last November in which Rick Perry forgot the Department of Energy as a prime federal candidate for elimination is widely regarded as the worst fumble of his presidential campaign; but it is, perhaps, easy to sympathize with the Texas governor’s brief memory lapse. In an election cycle in which the fate of America hangs in the balance between two futures—a future of bureaucratic inefficiencies, deficits and high unemployment, or a future of smaller government and stalwart prosperity— there are numerous government departments and agencies that have been singled out as choice options for severe downsizing and even total liquidation. In addition to Commerce, Education, and Energy, GOP candidates have bandied about criticisms of the Interior Department, the Federal Reserve, the Transportation Security Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency as government bodies that restrict the freedom and prosperity of all Americans.

There is at least one well-deserving federal department, however, that has escaped the various candidates’ zealous scrutiny—the Department of Agriculture (USDA). No sector of the American economy has been so consistently and unnecessarily coddled by the federal government as agriculture. The USDA’s many poorly-conceived policies result in not merely the direct waste of American taxpayers’ money but also immeasurable opportunity costs and unintended consequences that encumber the entire global economy.

In the federal fiscal year 2011 alone, the USDA spent approximately $152 billion. According to the Cato Institute, that amounts to more than $1,200 for every U.S. household. Although well over half of the USDA’s budget goes towards food assistance programs (food stamps, school lunches), which are not the focus of this article, the department’s other farm and rural programs can directly cost taxpayers up to $45 billion in a single year. With a long-standing history and plenty of available excuses for their existence, the USDA enjoys an entrenched position in American politics, even though their many “services” often inflict economic damage rather than the benefits they are ostensibly designed to provide. ...

A Bipartisan Addiction to Handouts

The case of New Zealand’s agricultural sector presents a perfect example of why all of the excuses defending the federal government’s supposedly necessary role in agriculture are false. In the 1980s, New Zealand made the decision to abolish almost all farm subsidies and regulations, especially momentous in their agriculture-heavy economy. There was a short adjustment period, but New Zealand’s farmers have been thriving ever since. According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the agriculture, food and forestry sectors generate 64 percent of the country’s merchandise export earnings and comprise approximately 12 percent of gross domestic product. Their agriculture sector’s total productivity has increased by an annual compound growth rate of 3.3 percent between 1984 and 2007, compared with their wider economy’s growth rate of one percent. Clearly, their agriculture industry is doing very well without excessive government interference.

In March of 2011, Kentucky Republican and tea-party freshman Sen. Rand Paul introduced a federal budget for fiscal year 2012 proposing major cuts to the USDA such as means-testing commodity payments and eliminating the Agriculture Research Service. He pointed out that while there are less than 1 million farmers in the U.S., the USDA has 110,000 employees—or about one federal employee for every nine farmers. Unfortunately, Paul is one of the precious few congressmen to make such bold proposals—and the blame does not belong to the Democrats.

Between 1995 and 2009, 23 members of the 112th Congress, or their family members, signed up for farm subsidy payments, according to the Environmental Working Group. A little less than half a million dollars went to Democrats personally or their families in that time period, while over five million dollars went to Republicans. Rural areas tend toward electing Republicans, but it’s disturbing that voters from conservative areas demand spending cuts while simultaneously electing people to office who will not touch upon the topic of eliminating farm subsidies. Everybody wants to reduce federal spending, just not federal spending that benefits them. ...

Read more of Erika Johnsen's piece in the March isssue of Townhall Magazine, including:

• -- the abuse of taxpayer money through disaster aid
• -- how USDA subsidies actually encourage environmental degredation
• -- how USDA policies primarily benefit large and wealthy agribusiness growers of the ‘big five’—corn, cotton, rice, wheat, and soybeans—not small family farmers
  
   

Order Townhall Magazine today to read the full report in the March issue.

Alumni from radical 1960s groups are now teaching your children, influencing legislation and trying to re-elect Obama ... read more by ordering Townhall's March 2012 issue!

It also includes:

•  an EXCLUSIVE interview with presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and how he made the 'Final Four' of the GOP presidential primary
• Voter ID Laws: Racist or Reasonable?
• The Department of Agriculture is unnecessary, and we'll show you why.
   

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Both the Left and Right have expressed concern over potential abuse in America’s current voting process. But as the rhetoric flies, what are the facts? And is the Department of Justice heeding all concerns?

From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE March feature, "Voter ID Laws: Racist or Reasonable?," by Brandon Darby:

There’s been much said lately about election integrity and voter identification laws. Both sides of the American political spectrum have raised concerns over polls and potential abuses in the American voting process. In fact, due to the serious voter registration irregularities identified by groups like True the Vote in Texas, along with the numerous voter fraud convictions across the nation involving workers from politically motivated groups like the failed organization ACORN, many states are pursuing photo identification as a means of addressing such assaults on election integrity. Texas, South Carolina and Florida have all taken steps to mandate photo identification as a requirement for voting. ...

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Take, for example, Harris County, the county encompassing Houston, Texas. The irregularities in voter registration in this jurisdiction have raised serious concerns over election integrity through the investigative efforts of nonprofits and Harris County agencies alike.

True the Vote, a nonpartisan, Houston-based nonprofit focusing on electoral integrity has revealed some startling information. Their effort, which started out of a small tea party group, focused on volunteering as poll workers in their local 2009 elections. According to the group’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, what started as a simple effort to exercise civic duty and get involved brought them face to face with what she referred to as frightening and gross incompetence on the part of some election and county workers at the polls. Engelbrecht pointed out in her interview with Townhall that even though Texas law allowed 11 different forms of identification to be used at that time to verify identity, which was required to vote, she and her 70 election volunteers noticed that many voters were being allowed to vote without any identification at all. Texas has since passed voter identification laws which require the use of a photo identification card.

Engelbrecht’s volunteers ultimately submitted 800 signed affidavits outlining problems they encountered, including having overheard some election judges telling people who they should and should not vote for. After these experiences, the group decided to form True the Vote and to investigate how citizens could help ensure voter integrity and what processes existed to report abuses or irregularities. Engelbrecht says these efforts revealed even more frightening examples of degradation to the election process.

...

Engelbrecht’s True the Vote organization then decided to look at the actual registry and not just the new registrations. The group obtained the nearly 2,000,000-person Harris County Voter Registry Role. The group subdivided the registry by congressional district due to the size of the data.

After the registry was divided into the seven congressional districts which Harris County encompasses, True the Vote needed a starting point to isolate red flags for possible irregularities. They decided to start looking at registrations that had addresses six or more people were registered to.

The group found the seven congressional districts had four that were predominantly Republican and three that were predominantly Democratic. The four predominantly Republican districts had a range from 1,973 to 3,300 addresses with six or more people registered to them. The three predominantly Democratic districts had much higher numbers. Though this could possibly be attributed to variations in socioeconomic factors between the predominantly Republican and predominantly Democratic districts, what the group found next was alarming. The predominantly Democratic districts themselves had large variations between them in the number of addresses with six or more registered voters. The first had 7,560, the second 8,981, and the third—the district of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the prominent, outspoken Democratic congresswoman—had 19,596 instances with six or more voters registered at one address.

True the Vote then compared the socio-economic demographics of the three predominantly Democratic congressional districts in an effort to explain why Jackson Lee’s district could have such a high number in comparison. Engelbrecht told Townhall the group had found no significant difference to explain such a drastic variation in the numbers.

The group began doing research into the abnormalities in Jackson Lee’s district. They took the first 3,800 registrations of the flagged 19,596 homes with six or more registrants and began to investigate further. The group visited addresses and scoured property tax records. The group found many of the addresses were vacant lots or business addresses. Thirty-nine were registered at businesses and 97 of the addresses were nonexistent. One hundred six of the registrations revealed the same registrant registered more than once, and 207 of the addresses turned out to be vacant lots. Meanwhile, 595 registrations had registrants with driver’s license addresses not matching the registration, and many were voting in a district they did not live in. Of the random 3,800 registrations from Jackson Lee’s predominantly Democratic district, 25 percent had critical errors which Engelbrecht believes could result in an erosion of election integrity.

The media began to focus on the findings from the Harris County tax assessor’s office and True the Vote. Shortly after the August 24 press conference announcing the results of the office’s investigation, a fire of unknown origins burned down the warehouse containing all of Harris County’s voting equipment. In total, the fire claimed 10,000 voting machines, which was approximately $30,000,000 worth of equipment.  ...

Read more of Brandon Darby's piece in the March isssue of Townhall Magazine.

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When the GOP presidential primary field narrowed to the final four late in January, among them stood Sen. Rick Santorum, largely underreported on and often ignored by debate moderators. Santorum spoke with Townhall about why his voice was needed in the race and dealing with those early campaign trail obstacles.

From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE March feature, "The Final Four: How Santorum Got There," by Tina Korbe:

Why Santorum’s Voice Was Needed

Those two issues—health care and the bailouts—are two of Obama’s greatest weaknesses, two areas of extreme vulnerability for an already unpopular president.

If the GOP nominates a candidate who is also vulnerable to attack on those topics, the contours of the general election change considerably. If those issues aren’t prominent in the race against Obama, “it makes the argument for us weaker,” Santorum told Townhall. “We don’t have the contrast. We don’t align with the vast majority of people across America who don’t want government to bail out greedy folks on Wall Street. [It] just shows a disconnection.”

As the fast flameout of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann proves, though, it’s also not enough to just be against the president’s positions. The GOP faithful and the general electorate alike want solutions— especially to the persistent problem of high unemployment, which continues to rate as the top issue of concern for voters in most polls. Romney and Gingrich had ample opportunity in the spotlight to present their ideas; Santorum, not so much. ....

Like Santorum himself, Santorum’s views on the economy are lesser-known than the opinions of either Gingrich or Romney. His niche has always been “social issues”—and plenty of voters fail to see that his grasp of those issues translates into a trenchant understanding of the root causes of the country’s economic problems and a unique set of ideas with which to tackle those problems.

At the heart of his plan for the economy is a concern for human flourishing through an open embrace of life—and a desire to see individuals take three simple steps to escape poverty: (1) work, (2) graduate high school, and (3) marry before having children.
In a Jan. 14 profile of Santorum, The Wall Street Journal called him a “supply-sider for the working man,” and the moniker makes sense.

“I’ve always said I’m from a blue-collar town, the grandson of a coal miner who works on small-town and small-business issues, and I’ve got an economic plan that reflects that,” Santorum said to Townhall. “[Romney’s and Gingrich’s plans] don’t.”

Like Romney and Gingrich, Santorum proposes to reduce the corporate tax rate, to reduce spending and regulation, and to reform entitlements—but the specifics of his plan are different enough to appeal to the middle-class workers Democrats have abandoned in a way neither Romney’s nor Gingrich’s would. Most notably, Santorum wants to completely eliminate the corporate tax on manufacturers. For all other businesses, the rate would be cut in half, from 35 percent to 17.5 percent.

“I’m someone who believes that making things creates wealth,” Santorum explained to The Wall Street Journal.

He also wants to triple the per-child tax credit—because, he says, it’s very difficult to grow an economy or fund entitlements with a shrinking population.

On the Radar

For much of the primary season, Santorum polled at less than 5 percent nationally. Consequently, he was relegated to the outposts of early debates and rarely had the chance to go head-to-head with the campaign’s foremost figures. As a conservative who’s unafraid to distance himself from libertarianism, he often sparred with Ron Paul, but rarely with Romney or Gingrich.

In fact, when, at the Charleston debate, he finally attacked Romney for Romneycare and both Romney and Gingrich for their support of the Wall Street bailouts, many prospective supporters asked Santorum, “What took you so long?”

As it turns out, Santorum was as frustrated as his would-be fans by the lack of opportunities he’d received to do that earlier.

“It’s hard to answer a health care question and go after somebody in the middle of answering about something else,” Santorum said. “It was very difficult for me, who didn’t get a lot of time in the early debates, to really get a clean shot where I could spend some time to walk through it, and this was our first opportunity.”

Read more of Tina Korbe's piece in the March isssue of Townhall Magazine.
 

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I posted an extensive analysis of recent polling trends yesterday, so I'll keep this one relatively short.  A new NBC/Marist poll shows Mitt Romney leading comfortably in Arizona ahead of tonight's debate ("the Ash Clash?"), while Michigan remains a jump ball:
 

In Michigan – which has turned into a make-or-break contest for Romney – the former Massachusetts governor gets the support of 37 percent of likely GOP primary voters, including those who are leaning toward a particular candidate. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, gets 35 percent, and he’s followed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 13 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent.  But in Arizona, Romney is on safer ground: He receives the support of 43 percent of likely GOP primary voters, Santorum gets 27 percent, Gingrich 16 percent and Paul 11 percent.

Michigan remains very rocky general election territory for the GOP, as Obama holds wide leads over all possible challengers:
 

Turning to the general-election race in November, Obama leads Romney in Michigan by nearly 20 points among registered voters, 51 to 33 percent, with 15 percent undecided. Against Paul, the president’s lead is 22 points (53 to 31 percent); against Santorum, it’s 26 points (55 to 29 percent); and against Gingrich, it’s 28 points (56 to 28 percent)...But Arizona is tougher territory for the president, whose approval rating among registered voters in the state is just 38 percent.

Marist's numbers show every GOP candidate leading Obama in the Grand Canyon State, except for Newt Gingrich.  A similar dynamic applies to down-ticket Senate races.  In Michigan, incumbent Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow holds a big advantage over Republican Pete Hoekstra, who is still recovering from a Super Bowl ad that some described as racially insensitive.  Michigan voters weren't impressed.  Out in the desert, likely Republican Senate nominee Rep. Jeff Flake bests his closest Democrat opponent by double-digits. 

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told a group of college students today that unemployment stimulates the economy.

Sound familiar? Nancy Pelosi feels the same way.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday strongly defended her party's support of the federal food stamp program - a day after former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich argued that GOP candidates should use the growing number of people on food stamps against Democrats on the campaign trail.

At a press conference in her home town of San Francisco, Pelosi explained that the program's multiplier effect –the amount of money generated in the local economy as the result of the subsidy– far exceeds the nearly $60 billion spent this year by the federal government and is a sure-fire way to stimulate the economy. For every dollar a person receives in food stamps, Pelosi said that $1.79 is put back into the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites an even higher figure of $1.84.

"It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance. The biggest bang for the buck," she said.

Despite Pelosi's and Jarrett's claims, unemployment doesn't stimulate the economy, but unemployment does stimulate voters.