It Takes Us All To Fix What Ails Us

One of the most ridiculous themes that come from the political parties today is that if we just do it their way everything will come up roses. Republicans will tell you that strategic spending cuts can balance the budget, but it won't. Democrats will tell you that repealing specific tax cuts will close the deficit and balance the budget, but that isn't enough either.

It is readily apparent that everyone is positioning themselves for the next election (as they always do) instead of attempting to fix the crisis that faces us all. But, what faces America, and South Carolina, now doesn't fit into the soundbites or the political ideologies we've been accustomed to and have become comfortable with in the past.

We are in a place where what government spends (your programs) and the revenue it generates (your taxes) must be fundamentally and systematically revised. Both are required to fix this problem. Any leader who proposes a solution to our problems that doesn't incorporate both isn't going to fix anything at all.

The folks in the most high-profile positions just aren't ready to be honest with the people in the middle about what shared sacrifice, and shared success will mean to our state and nation in the future.

David Brooks had a great article this week called "Make Everybody Hurt" - read it HERE.

Mr. Budget in the Middle?

Congressman John Spratt was one of the few people who understood the Federal Budget inside and out. I first met him in 1996 and he is a fantastic human being and public servant. And, South Carolina lost a lot of clout - very valuable clout - when he lost his election this past November.

But, in the spirit of folks in the middle, I've taken a great interest in his successor. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis) was given the chairmanship of the powerful House Budget Committee when Republicans took control of the US House in November.

Ryan makes everybody nervous, Republicans and Democrats alike. He was a debt-hawk long before it became sexy to politicians - several years ago he published "A ROADMAP FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE" to fix the long-term national financial problems. He speaks his version of the truth. I like those characteristics in anyone who isn’t crazy, and he isn’t.

I cannot say I agree or disagree with his approaches (I just don't know enough about all of his proposals) but I like that he's trying to fix the problems we face.

HERE IS AN INTERVIEW WITH REP. PAUL RYAN from "Morning Joe" earlier this week.

Federal Budget Tales

I'm in meetings all day looking at cleaning up the South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 12 (property tax laws) with a number of Treasurers, Auditors and Tax Collectors from around the state. It is about as fun as it sounds - and, no, these meetings aren't dealing with how much people pay in property tax (sorry).

There were three stories I wanted to share about the coming federal budget battles, even though I don't have time to comment on them today.

-- Obama budget plans shows interest owed on the national debt quadrupling in the next decade (Washington Post)

-- Paul Ryan vows to target Medicaid and Medicare (Politico)

-- Austerity Lite (Economist)

How Close is America to a Fiscal Crisis?

Here is a story in THE ECONOMIST with comments from a bunch of economists on our national financial crisis:

"The Congressional Budget Office projects that America's 2011 deficit will be $1.5 trillion, or 9.8% of GDP, and debt held by the public in the 2011 fiscal year will approach 70% of GDP. How close is America to facing a bond market crisis? Should drastic cuts to the budget be made now? Over what horizon should they extend? And what balance between tax increases and spending cuts should be struck?

"Or is the entire underlying premise of the question mistaken? Can America count on a return to growth to solve most of its near-term budget problems? And how should other economies approach America's fiscal morass?"

Read the entire article HERE.

The Freedom Alliance by David Brooks

This editorial about the Fiscal Crisis that faces the federal government today is excellent. Below is an excerpt:

“Over the next few weeks, Republicans will try to cut discretionary spending to 2008 levels and tell their constituents they are boldly reducing the size of government. That is a mirage. Anybody who doesn’t take on entitlement spending is an enabler of big government. The supposedly rabid Republican freshmen are actually big government conservatives. They will cut programs that do measurable good while doing little to solve our long-range fiscal crisis.

“Meanwhile, the Obama administration theoretically opposes runaway debt while it operationally expands it. The president is unwilling to ask for shared sacrifice if the Republicans won’t ask with him. Fine. But he hasn’t even used his pulpit to prepare the ground. He announces unserious cuts with lavish fanfare.“

Read the entire article HERE.

Are You Ready to Be a Leader?

It takes the bravest person to place their name on a ballot for all of their community to scrutinize them. I know, I've done it three times. In politics there is the dirt, the lies, the endless hours of work, and the uncertainty that you will ever succeed. Public service is not a timid lifestyle. In fact, it is the most difficult and the most rewarding of professions, and I believe that you should step forward – now.

In the book An Unfinished Life, author Robert Dallek quotes John F. Kennedy’s zest for public service on page 120. “Everything now depends on what the government decides. Therefore if you are interested, if you want to participate, if you feel strongly about any public question … it seems to me that governmental service is the way to translate this interest into action.”

If you go into finance, those are the only issues you deal with. Go into education, and you are in that box. If you are in insurance, sales, real estate, etc., those are the only places that you have the opportunity to excel.

But, public service gives you the opportunity to not only test your mettle, but to see a wider world, and how interconnected we all truly are.

South Carolina more than ever needs our best and brightest – and youngest – to make public service one of the goals that they strive for. Why?

Now is the time for hard choices, for new leaders that can sometimes set aside ideology to work together for the greater good. We’re in a mess that was created by both Republicans and Democrats. Yet, we continue to get spoon-fed the same talking points that have failed us for almost two generations – lower taxes and new spending programs have been tried and failed. As a nation, we doubled our national debt from 2001-2009 (under a Republican) and that public debt is now increasing (under a Democrat). We are facing the greatest crisis in eighty years, and no one seems able to come up with any new solutions.

What’s missing? Young leaders. We need young leaders who still have the hope of surprising us – men and women who will put their name on the ballot, win, and then eschew the old party and media driven ideologues to work together to fix a system broken by years of playing favorites.

Are you ready? Do you have the courage to be a leader “in the middle” to help us fix this?

A Historic Shift in the South

This past Sunday, The State newspaper ran a story about South Carolina's vanishing white Democrats (read HERE). Today, I found a video history of the political shift in the South on The Economist website (see HERE).

The loss of the differing views within each political party is hurting us all. It leaves us with an inability to have a pragmatic, moderate government. When one party has too much power, the pendulum inevitably swings too far to the right or left - as we've endured for much of the last 11 years.

Maybe we have never had a moderate government, but it is a certainty that we do not have a government in the middle now.

Government Makes You Eat Vegetables

As often happens when the stakes are high, the threads of each argument get tugged on, and sometimes the argument falls apart. In the case of Health Care Coverage and Judge Roger Vinson (the Florida Judge who struck down the law) a lot of very smart people are parsing his every word. And, apparently at The Economist, they found where Judge Vinson made an unfortunate comparison.

Read "The Government Does In Fact Force You To Buy Vegetables," here.

Governor Moonbeam in the Middle?

I usually like to first read commentators who can write with some sarcasm and humor. Yesterday someone sent me a story from Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post – who doesn’t often fit in those categories. And, though it didn’t fit what I normally like, it did fit into what I like to read most about: leaders showing some backbone to address real problems by moving into the middle.

This story was also somewhat surprising in that it showed Governor Jerry Brown of California, a traditional liberal, making a State of the State address that challenged the parties to eschew some of their sacred cows to fix California’s problems. Of all of the Governors elected last November with the hope of adding new approaches to old problems, Gov. Brown was probably not on the list of bi-partisan problem-solvers. In this speech, it looks like he must have decided that reality trumped ideology.

Ruth Marcus also did a fantastic job of contrasting what the Governor of California charged his government to do with how the President handled the State of the Union. You can read the commentary HERE.

In South Carolina, we certainly could use some leadership from the middle that gives us real solutions instead of the same old campaign rhetoric.

Having Fun at the Expense of Partisans

One of the biggest gripes of the people caught between the right and the left - those of us in the middle - is that the partisans just refuse to work with one another to solve a problem. Someone has to win, and someone has to lose, and there can be no shared credit in this political climate.

But, you can have some fun with the way things are.

The Onion is one of the best-in-the-business at satirical swipes at the political establishment, and the current atmosphere in Washington is the perfect fodder. Will those folks up there ever see eye-to-eye on a common problem bearing down on us?

Not according to THIS article.

Clowney Puts Clemson in Mix, and USC Loses Sleep

Jadeveon Clowney set the radio shows in Columbia on fire today during an ESPN interview when he put Clemson in his top three of where he might play college football. He still spoke highly of the Gamecocks, but previously it had been a two team race between USC and Alabama for his services. When he added Clemson to the list, you could feel the Gamecock melt-down that their most-hated rival could have a shot at the consensus number one player in the country.

Though he's still likely to end up in Columbia when he makes his choice on February 14th, the Rock Hill Defensive End just added a lot of sleepless nights to Carolina fans and added a lot of fodder to the radio hotlines for the next two weeks.

See the 5 minute video HERE.