The Conservative Soldier

The unrelenting campaign to dismiss a growing tide of Tea Party patriots as angry, misguided white mobs is not limited to national mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times and MSNBC. There are diligent efforts to defend Barack Obama’s Socialist agenda – and silence its critics – turning up in pulpits, classrooms and local newspapers in communities across America.

As evidence I give you Jerry Moore of Suburban Life newspapers, which are delivered to homes in bedroom communities around Chicago. A few weeks ago, Moore wrote a column critical of Tea Party supporters who draw inspiration from the Founding Fathers and, thus, the intent of the Constitution. Parts of it, he concluded, are “vague and open to interpretation.”

Last week, in a new column, he scolded “people of all political persuasions” who are “being misled by ideologues who want to spin messages rather than convey facts”.

Moore contends that uninformed Tea Partiers would calm down if only they looked back at history. There, they’ll find that beloved conservative President Ronald Reagan advocated or went along with a lot of things Obama Liberals have done or threaten to do. He presented a bullet-point list of “factual information”. Naturally, I smelled something.

Distortion has a distinct aroma.

Moore’s Reagan revisionism appears to be nothing more than a flimsy re-hash of a voluminous 2003 piece by a writer named Joshua Green in the progressive Washington Monthly, a free magazine. In the twilight of Reagan’s life, Green accused him of failing to deliver on a Conservative Revolution. It was a truly distasteful journalistic assault on an American patriot.

Like every President since George Washington, President Reagan certainly did not walk away from his time in the Oval Office without regret. Congressional Democrats – the same Democrats who controlled the House and pushed for many of the tax hikes Moore assigns to Reagan’s legacy — thwarted some of his goals.

The column overlooks Reagan’s embrace of the noble ideal of bi-partisanship in an era when that was still possible. In 2010, Obama and his disciples spend their waking hours vilifying, rebuking, literally mocking, the right, condemning Conservatives and the Tea Party movement, and even trampling protocol by lecturing members of the Supreme Court in public. By shutting out Republicans at every turn, Obama owns his reckless policies 100% and will be 100% accountable for their devastating consequences.

By contrast, some of the legislation and tax increases pinned on President Reagan are not Reagan’s alone, not by a long shot. They were passed with bi-partisan support, including those that came about through “reconciliation”. Again, in the 1980s, bi-partisan governance still was considered a worthy objective. As the outgoing President said in 1989, knowing he’d endured eight years of a Democrat controlled House while losing the Senate to a Democrat majority in his final two years, “Not bad, not bad at all.”

His assessment is correct because outcomes matter. Reaganomics delivered tangible results: Lower unemployment (from 10% in 1982 down to just above 5% in 1989, according to the 1996 Employment Report of the President); a shrinking budget deficit (from 6.3% of Gross Domestic Product in 1983 down to 2.9% of GDP in 1989); and real economic growth (by an average of 3.2% annually; CATO Institute).

During the Reagan era, unemployment rates were cut nearly in half, the budget deficit shrunk by half, and the economy grew by an average of 3.2% annually

What breaks Americans’ hearts about the Obama Socialist hijacking of our nation is that no such outcomes are possible under an Obama presidency. Not only are favorable economic outcomes off the table, the possible outcomes tied to Obama’s reckless indifference toward foreign policy and national security are likely to be catastrophic. The Reagan legacy here is beyond dispute. His leadership changed the world for the better by rejecting Communism and hastening its demise. Obama travels the world reciting an agenda that is rooted in diminishing America’s longstanding pre-eminence.

“(When) Reagan came to the White House … he said, ‘I have an agenda, and there are certain things I want to get done’,” wrote Alfred Regnery in his 2008 book Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism. “And basically those things are to cut taxes and reestablish a sound economy, which is certainly one of the principles of the conservative movement; to win the Cold War, which was another very, very big piece of it; and to reestablish peoples’ faith in the rule of law and government, and in knowing that the government’s working for the people rather than against it.”

It is not difficult to locate “un-spun” counterpoints (facts) to ridiculous attempts at painting Reagan as a closet liberal whose agenda mirrored Obama’s:

> The Reagan income tax cuts that spawned a quarter century of prosperity were phased in across three years, beginning in 1981. That is an indisputable fact. Moore writes that Reagan cut taxes in year one of his first term, then started raising taxes. Not accurate. Meanwhile, the increased taxes he mentions (as if to say, “Ah hah, got ya!”) that came about “the next three years” are unrelated to federal income tax. Under the opening round of historic Reagan income tax cuts, he pushed for and won a reduction in the effective top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28%, which ultimately increased federal tax revenues and spawned a tsunami of economic growth.

“Looking at the cumulative effects of the (1981 Kemp-Roth Tax Cut) in terms of tax (calendar) years,” wrote noted economist Arthur Laffer in June 2004, “the tax cut reduced tax rates by 1.25 percent through the entirety of 1981, 10 percent through 1982, 20 percent through 1983, and the full 25 percent through 1984.”

Respected financial analyst Bruce Bartlett addresses the other tax increases, which Moore recounts in an effort to imply parallels between Obama and Reagan. Bartlett adds historical context (National Review Online, Oct. 29, 2003): “Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.”

Bartlett adds that Reagan did not initiate these tax increases but was compelled by the politics of the era to sign the legislation that enacted them. And, the bills carried specific objectives. In the case of the gas tax bill, the goal was road and transportation upgrades. Writing for Tax Analyst in September 2008, contributing editor Martin Sullivan notes, “Eighty percent of the revenue from the new tax went to the highway program, and in a new twist, the remaining 20 percent went to mass transit. … The (Democrat controlled) House passed the legislation by a vote of 180 to 87.” In other words, this was not some open-ended “stimulus” bill.

“All seven reconciliation bills enacted on President Reagan’s watch … required the cooperation of a Democratic-controlled House.”    Michael Franc, The Heritage Foundation

> Moore’s other “ah hah” attempt regards Congressional reconciliation, which was triggered as never before by Congressional Democrats to bring ObamaCare into law. The columnist implies that complaining about reconciliation in the Obama Era overlooks its prevalence in the Reagan Era. This is not the case, as Michael Franc explains in his March 2010 post at the Heritage Foundation web site Heritage.org.

“Reconciliation has been used for virtually all imaginable scenarios (since it was first used in the Carter Administration in 1980) – save one,” writes Franc. “There is no precedent for using it to enact a once-in-a-generation rewrite of the relationship between Americans and their government (ObamaCare) that appeals exclusively to one side of the aisle.

“All seven reconciliation bills enacted on President Reagan’s watch … required the cooperation of a Democratic-controlled House.”

> Finally, Moore goes after Reagan’s record on amnesty for illegals.

The major blunder by Republicans during the Reagan Era was their failure to combat a misguided policy goal among Democrats to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Republican leaders also failed to convince Reagan of the legislation’s pitfalls and after a compromise bill gained bi-partisan backing he joined the chorus of support. The bill passed in 1986.

In 2010 we can only hope that the Reagan legacy regarding immigration reform will be to serve as a jarring reminder that amnesty does not achieve its theoretical goals.

“The impact of granting amnesty undermined the deterrent effect of subsequent efforts to enforce immigration law,” wrote James J. Carafano in a 2007 analysis for The Heritage Foundation. “But today illegal immigration is more prevalent (though it began declining in 2009), and so the stakes are higher. About 2.5 million individuals applied for legalization under the 1986 law. Now the unlawfully present population in the United States is estimated at five times that number.”

Ronald Reagan loved America and cherished it as “a shining city on a hill.” Barack Obama has waited a lifetime to shut the lights off and erode its towering stature. He might insist that he, too, loves this country, but only as he envisions it – as a diminished, declining America, drowning in debt and vulnerable to its enemies.

As Americans continue awakening to this reality, Tea Party crowds of today will seem small by comparison in the future, and the legacy of Reagan will be acknowledged anew with proper respect, gratitude and fact-based admiration.

On this date 235 years ago, what we so often refer to as “the American spirit” surged across battlefields in Concord and Lexington, Mass., as farmers, physicians, businessmen and laborers spilled their blood and sacrificed their lives to turn the tide of the American Revolution.

Scholar T.H. Breen, writing today in The Wall Street Journal, recalls that thousands of farmers rushed toward the impending conflict, including one named Isaac Davis, who was shot dead by British troops in Concord. ”He knew well his danger,” Davis’ wife would say later in an interview (cited by Breen), “but was a stranger to fear.”

On April 19, 1775, writes Breen, “ordinary people … became central figures in the overthrow of imperial rule.”

Another such person was Dr. Joseph Warren, who was among the remarkable patriots referenced by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann during her stirring speech last February at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Your Conservative Soldier was in the ballroom when the steel-willed Bachmann expressed her concern that Barack Obama has chosen decline as America’s future path, a view shared by increasing multitudes of elected leaders, pundits and citizens alike.

Warren, a Boston surgeon who would lose his life in the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, is perhaps best known for proclaiming his hope that “I shall die up to my knees in blood” in order that he would not yield to the Brits. Bachmann recalled another example of Warren’s steadfastness, during her CPAC speech, as she challenged today’s patriots, in the face of renewed threats to American exceptionalism and our personal liberties, to summon their courage as never before.

Bachmann celebrated Warren’s wish for citizen soldiers: “Act worthy of yourselves.”

It was a line from what amounted to a pep talk Warren had given only months before he would die in battle.

Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.

The liberty those men bestowed has been a precious gift indeed. And here we stand, 235 years later, our country in danger, our enemies numerous and powerful. They taunt us not with muskets and bayonets, but through the calm deception of an enemy within, dwelling among us, methodically denouncing what makes us a unified nation.

Led by a President who has prepared for a lifetime to seize his Socialist destiny, the radical lawmakers in Washington have taken control of health insurance (1/6th of the economy) and recklessly seek control of our financial institutions, automakers, energy production and, ultimately, our freedom of speech and religion. The emergence of this agenda has enraged and awakened the citizens, who are now rushing to the battle lines in Concord and Lexington and town squares across the nation.

This ensuing battle of liberty against tyranny is the result, Rep. Bachmann has said publicly, of a “gangster government” mentality, brazenly displayed by the Obamatrons since his January 2009 inauguration. They will do as they please, take what they want, and without regard for the will of the people or the direction of the polls.

At a small breakfast gathering last Saturday keynoted by Rep. Bachmann in Oak Brook, IL, and attended by your note-taking Conservative Soldier, the Congresswoman’s vigor indicated that her resolve clearly is only strengthening. The day before, former President Clinton accused her of using phrases like “gangster government” to rally the masses toward the boiling point of violence.

“The Democrats are very serious about taking me out (in 2010),” she told the breakfast group.

But Bachmann is up for the fight. And, so too, must we be up for it. It’s not just the rise of the Tea Party movement, an awakening of citizens that recently saw 11,000 pack an arena in Minnesota to see Bachmann and her special guest, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The battle is intensifying toward November, she said, because the gangsters are beginning to trouble independents and even registered Democrats.

“We are more unified than we have ever been,” Bachmann said of Conservatives. “We’re in a unique position — finally — where we can begin to pull Democrats our way.”

To shrink from the challenge now would dishonor the brave founders who took up arms in 1775, ready to wade through currents of tyrannical blood.

The message rings out again, 235 years later: Act worthy of yourselves.

Writing from Chicago

Your loyal Conservative Soldier ventured out of the bunker Thursday to attend his third Tea Party Rally, and second in as many weeks. It was a beautiful day in the city of Chicago, the cesspool from which Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and White House “advisors” Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod slithered into prominence.

But the Belly of the Beast does not intimidate American Patriots. In fact, the Thursday crowd numbered into the thousands. I estimate 2,000 and provide photographic evidence below. (MSNBC, no doubt, will come up with a number around 50).

While several anti-war groups and other crashers tried but failed to make their presence felt, the focus was on the Tea Party mission of rejecting Socialist policies, runaway spending and free market oppression. (Below, you will find a sampling of slogans witnessed by your correspondent). As this was a Tea Party rally organized by the esteemed Illinois Policy Institute and the state chapter of Americans For Prosperity, local Republican political candidates were on hand. We recited the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance, and live music filled the air ahead of the speeches.

As for the Obamas, Nancy Pelosis and (IL Rep.) Jan Schakowskys who mock Tea Party rallyers, and suggest we are motivated by hatred and bigotry, I can report without qualification that your physical safety will feel much more threatened while attending almost any collegiate or professional sports event than it will among these concerned Americans.

An articulate David Ratowitz, GOP candidate for Illinois’ Fifth District U.S. House seat — held previously by shamed ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and “Rahmbo” Emanuel — opened by quoting the stirring words of Founding Father Thomas Paine. The sentiment perfectly captures the raw emotion that draws men and women of all races and ages to the Tea Party movement.

Ratowitz reminded us of Paine’s expression of courage as a founder: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

My contemporary Patriots are not necessarily as well spoken as Mr. Paine, but their many homemade signs reflect the fear and determination of the times. These best of the best were noted Thursday:

“Who Will You Rob When All of The Wealth Has Been Spread?” … ”American Dream R.I.P.” … ”B.O. Stinks” … ”You Can’t Buy My Vote With My Children’s Future” … ”Axis of Evil - Obama Pelosi Reid” … ”Free People. Free Markets. NO Free Handouts!” … ”My 84-Year-Old Dad Says ‘Up Yours’ ” … ”God Only Asks for 10%” … ”Quit Spending Our Grandkids’ Money” … ”Barry Hussein Obama - Stop Institutionalizing Poverty” … ”Say NO To Thugs: Repeal Obamacare”.