Thank You, Nancy

For the next week, partisan forecasters will spar over the precise number of seats that will change hands in the midterms, but a few races here or there will not obscure the plain meaning of this election: it’s one and done for the Pelosi/Obama socialist agenda.

In one sense, we owe them both a debt of gratitude, for it was their legislative overreaching and transparent disdain for ordinary Americans that ignited the liberty movement and fueled the passion of the tea parties.

Creeping socialism is difficult to see plainly; it took comrade Nancy’s because-I-deemed-it-mister style to awaken the American public to the threat. 

It was her blithe dismissal of the Constitution - “are you serious?” - that united libertarians, conservatives, constitutionalists, and free-thinking independents in renewed opposition to the unchecked expansion of government power.      

“We have to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill” has moved ahead of “Let them eat cake!” as the #1 all-time fury-inciting utterance in the clueless female category.  It makes anything Christine O’Donnell ever said seem positively Socratic.

This midterm election has become more than a referendum on President Obama; it has become a referendum on government itself.  Every major race across the nation can be reduced to this essential question: do we want more government or less?  In the third year of a recession with no end in sight, and the ninth year in a foreign war without a clear victory strategy, few Americans have any appetite for more.  

The impotence of the BP spill response and the incompetence of the economic stimulus response clearly measured the distance between the swell government that is promised and the pathetic one that is practiced. Only the most rigid liberal ideologue still believes in tooth fairy government in the fourth year of Speaker Pelosi’s disastrous reign.

We have seen enough.  On November 2, the American people will not simply choose candidate A over candidate B; we will choose liberty over government, capitalism over socialism, the private sector over the public, the liberty movement over the arrogance of party establishments.

The only question to be decided in this last week of the campaign is the magnitude of the rout - will it be a tidal wave, an avalanche, or a tsunami?  And who cares?  The point will be made, and the sprint towards socialism will be stopped in its tracks, and the first step in reclaiming our liberty will be taken. 

And for the first time in four years, we will have one reason to say, “Thank You, Nancy”.  

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”

Attack Ads

One of the side benefits of international business travel is that it has mercifully taken me out of Wisconsin during this election home stretch when every other television advertisement is a slanderous attack against a political opponent.   

If you really, truly think that Scott Walker’s goal as Governor is to take health care away from children, or that Tom Barrett’s first priority would be to dump Milwaukee's raw sewage into the rest of the state’s waterways, then you should just sit this one out and hold on tight to that one marble you have left.

There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to vote for or against either Mr. Walker or Mr. Barrett, and for that matter, all of the candidates from all of the parties in all of the races iall over Wisconsin this year.  It’s not like we don’t know what’s at stake already, or don’t know the candidates and their positions.  

When a candidate promises more government and less liberty, he has already run the most effective negative ad against himself. When she disregards the Constitution, disrespects opposition, panders and preens and sells out to campaign donors’ provincial interests, the elevator has already reached the basement.   When we see Satan’s horns and tail in plain view, do we care if he double-claimed an energy tax credit for weatherproofing the gates of hell?  The dude is already Satan, quit piling on before I start to feel sorry the guy.   

Attack ads are like porn – designed to titillate, not educate.  There must be a handful of studios that crank these suckers out like an assembly line.  Queue up the scary music, close in on the regular-folk actors sitting around a table who turn to worry into the camera, then quote some headlines with newsprint graphics in background, and roll to the big finish: “Call Demi Democrat and tell her to stop eating children.”   

Paid for by Citizens Against All Bad Things.  Yawn.  And both establishment parties run these ads; I believe it is one of the principle reasons so many people have abandoned them to join third parties or vote as independents. 

Political operatives will tell you that attack ads are effective, but that is like asking a priest his opinion of confession.  The pols make their living marketing candidates and their idea of winning is coming in second in an ugly contest.  This election is all about dumping the status quo, and status quo political advertising should be on the hit list.   

We already have low expectations, and still they find new ways to disappoint.  When Jerry Brown’s campaign called Meg Whitman a whore, the only thing missing was the perfunctory, “and I approved this message.”   I gave him the benefit of the doubt until I saw his apology – my son used to fake it better than that to try to avoid the timeout. 

Personally, I find it all degrading, this televised orgy of bottom feeding.  Give me a candidate who can tell me what is wrong and what he/she would do to fix it.  Tell me what his principles are so I can compare them to mine.  Convince me that she deserves to represent me, that she would be a worthy tenant of my trust.  Show me that he understands and respects the Constitution.  Opponent is wrong – ok; opponent is evil – over the line.

Note to candidates:  this is a job interview and we are the boss. Would you dump a load of garbage into my office hoping to win the job?  Then don’t do it in my home every night. 

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”

Or Else

Apparently I caused a bit of a stir this week when I suggested at a Milwaukee health care forum that the default setting for employers should be to opt out of health benefit coverage once public exchanges are up and running. I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about.

I merely said out loud what many, perhaps most, employers are thinking.   When Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act on March 23, employers were given a do-this-or-else ultimatum: provide the health insurance benefits specified by the federal government (do this) or pay fines and penalties (or else).  They added 2,700 pages to confuse us, that’s why this column is entitled “Moment of Clarity”. 

For the moment, let’s just keep it that simple.  Many, perhaps most, of us will choose “or else”. 

“Or else” is a perfectly rational choice, and the business decision, while emotionally difficult, is not particularly complicated.   “Do this” has a cost of x and “or else” has a cost of y. Either x or y will be considerably less than the other depending on the circumstances of the firm once all the mandates, rules, regulations, fines, penalties, subsidies, vouchers, and reporting requirements are established.

Each employer will have a different circumstance based on the size, composition, and salary structure of their workforce; and each state will have its own public exchange rules, so the right answer will not be the same for everyone.  The national statistical means and medians the experts used during the debate are useless – on average, human beings have one breast and one testicle, so what?  Each firm and each family will act upon their own best interest.  There are 27 million employers; no one can know how we will all decide three years from now.

But here is the default setting: the cost of opting out is a $2,000 fine per employee, while the cost of providing government-spec insurance will be around $12,000 per employee.  That “or else” advantage of $10,000 closes as the rest of the 2,700 pages of the Bill factor in, but the business case for “do this” is an uphill slog.   

Within the next few months, all of us must begin to modify our plans to make them conform to the government’s plan specification, which also limits our liability if we decide to drop.  The President was not being truthful when he promised you the option of keeping your existing plan.  That was never possible.

How could it be? Both sides in the health care debate have described the Affordable Care Act of 2010 the most significant change to our nation’s health care system in 70 years.  It is as if they made us play baseball for 7 decades, then changed the game to soccer and promised your employer would continue to bring the bats and gloves.    

The law was passed; the game was changed.  That was that; this is this.      

So employers are putting on our shiny shorts and pulling up our white socks and running around kicking each other in the shins until that Mexican guy with three lungs starts screaming “GOAL”.  This, sadly, is the limit of my understanding of the most popular sport in the world, but I think you get the drift.  70 years of baseball is over; we are playing soccer now, so quit scratching yourself and dump the chew.

Now that we must all comply with a single template of coverage (or pay ridiculous fines for deviating), employers can’t create a competitive advantage through benefit designs. Since that was their only purpose, the default setting is opt out, unless and until there is some new and compelling reason to offer benefits in lieu of cash.  

In fact, opting out may just be the best strategy for recruiting top talent.  If you are married to a school teacher, you probably will prefer cash over insurance, since your family is already covered under your spouse’s generous plan. As I said, the game has been changed.

Now, some have suggested it is immoral for employers to drop employee health insurance even if it is a good business decision.  No, it is immoral to jack up fellow citizens with “do this or else” ultimatums. Not to mention it is unconstitutional, politically stupid, and arrogant beyond contempt.  But the laws of economics and the law of unintended consequences do not yield to fiat and puffery and the impact of the Act is no longer in the hands of politicians.

Over the next three years, 27 million businesses are going to choose between “do this” and “or else”.  It will be a business decision based upon the incentives, not the intentions, of the Act.  It will be made carefully, guided by the best interest of the firm and our employees, not by the ideological preferences of the Party temporarily in power in our nation’s capital.    

Americans who were promised by President Obama they could keep their current health insurance will discover it was not up to them, or him, to make that choice.  

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”

The Enemy of My Enemy

Libertarians are to conservatives what socialists are to liberals – ideological anchors that restrain drift to the unprincipled middle. Libertarian principles intensify the conservative message, and conservative political potency acquaints the public with libertarian themes. We need each other.

Just two short years ago, libertarian Ron Paul was ridiculed within his own Republican Party for demanding Constitutional limits on government, cutting government expenditures, calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve, opposing corporate bailouts, and warning against health care reform.  He demonstrated the power of grass roots organizing and mobilizing new voters through internet social networking. 

This is now the blueprint for success in GOP primaries; half of the candidates on the stump sound like Ron Paul this year and all of them have Facebook pages and e-mail lists. Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, Christie O’Connell, and Joe Miller all feature libertarian themes prominently in their anti-establishment campaigns.  Glenn Beck, Vicki McKenna, Jonah, Goldberg, Dennis Miller, Ann Coulter and George Will are just a few conservative opinion-shapers who acknowledge libertarian instincts.   

The distinctly un-libertarian George W. Bush’s presidency ultimately betrayed and alienated conservatives and libertarians alike, delivering control of government over to Pelosi and Obama.  While we are distinct political philosophies, libertarians and conservatives share a common framework for understanding civil society, the role of the individual, and the role of government.  We believe government is a necessary evil, something to be feared and caged and kept subservient to individual sovereignty.

Our libertarian/conservative worldview stands diametrically opposed to the socialist/liberal framework.  Liberty versus Government – this is the great divide in American politics, not Party or demographic identity.  

In electoral triage, divisions between libertarians and conservatives are cuts and bruises compared to the life-threatening wound that the socialist/liberal agenda is inflicting upon the nation.  This year is not the time to let ideological purity deny a victory that our common interest has placed within reach; it is safe to ignore our differences long enough to defeat our common ideological adversary in November.

Which is not to say that we should rally behind Republican candidates; libertarians and conservatives should rally behind candidates who share our commitment to liberty, be they Republicans, Libertarians, Constitution, independent, or by some miracle, Democrats. 

The predicted Republican rout in November will occur not because of intelligent design from GOP Party leadership, but rather from the spontaneous order and organic energy of the tea party movement.  That movement is not exclusively conservative; it includes many libertarian groups – Campaign 4 Liberty, Republican Liberty Caucus, Young Americans for Liberty, the 9/12 project, to name a few.     

Some Libertarians are uncomfortable with the tea party; I am not one of them.  For every one sign at a tea party advocating a position I disagree with, there are 20 which echo my sentiments.  Overtly religious appeals do not offend me, patriotic symbols do not intimidate me, and alternative Constitutional interpretations do not obscure an underlying shared reverence for our founding principles.   

Last weekend I was invited to speak at a tea party event in Merrillan, Wisconsin, population 587. The crowd was estimated at over 700; most of them, by show of hands, had never attended a political rally before.  As I looked out over the audience, I recalled Grover Norquist’s book title, “Leave Us Alone”.  That Merrillan crowd was the leave-us-alone coalition in the flesh. 

Whether their focus was education, taxes, debt, energy, guns, gold, religion, or any number of issues that matter most to them, most of those who gathered in Jackson County that day had a single non-negotiable demand of government, namely, to be left alone.  And “leave us alone” is the essence of libertarian political philosophy – an uncompromising belief in the right of each individual to live free of coercive force.

The event’s organizers knew I am a Libertarian.  I wore my Libertarian Party lapel pin, signed some copies of my Libertarian book, and gave the same “Tooth Fairy Government” speech that I have given at Libertarian events. I was warmly received, as was Wisconsin libertarian icon Ed Thompson, who is running for state senate as a Republican.  Those who view the tea party simply as a GOP subsidiary are badly mistaken.

This election year it is not difficult to determine friend and foe; what is difficult is trusting in the new coalition of Constitutionalists – including libertarians and conservatives - that has arisen in response to the clear and present danger that socialist/liberal statists pose to the nation. 

The old saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.  Welcome, friends.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”