Has the time come for a real maverick?

A few election cycles ago Republicans ended up nominating a real, honest-to-goodness old warhorse for their presidential candidate, putting him up against a scandal-plagued incumbent Democrat. With the off-year elections two years before bringing a resounding GOP victory, Republican regulars shrugged off the 23-year age gap between the two nominees and presumed that the contrast between the incumbent’s lacking character and their nominee’s homespun charm could still score them an upset victory.

But thanks to a lackluster campaign and just enough of a third-party effort to deny the incumbent a majority of the vote, Republican stalwart Bob Dole lost the 1996 election to Bill Clinton. It was an era which placed the term “triangulation” into the political lexicon and Clinton executed that strategy masterfully in winning a second term.

In fact, recent history suggests Washington insiders don’t do well as Republican candidates. George W. Bush won because he cut his political teeth in Texas, far from the nation’s capital. Similarly, Ronald Reagan governed California before winning the White House on his second try and America expected more of the same when they elected a Beltway insider to succeed him in Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Conversely, Dole and John McCain were longtime Republican fixtures in Washington, perhaps alienating them from the party grassroots.

To that end, a number of names being bandied about for the GOP nod in 2012 come from the ranks of state governors. While Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared last week he was not in the running, there’s still several current or former state chief executives in the mix – Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Texas’s Rick Perry, 2008 candidates Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and of course former second banana Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Yet there is a Beltway insider who has enough appeal among the conservatives who attend events like CPAC or last week’s Southern Republican Leadership Conference to beat most of the above-mentioned names in their straw polls – he won the CPAC vote handily and just missed winning the SRLC balloting by one vote. If nominated, he would be 26 years older than the current incumbent Democratic president.

Somehow Ron Paul has escaped the wrath of being perceived as a Washington insider despite serving three stints in Congress totaling 20 years. Obviously he didn’t do particularly well in a crowded primary field in 2008 as far as gathering votes goes, but he proved a potent fundraiser and has become a darling among the portion of the Republican Party which preaches fiscal conservatism and limited government through his Campaign for Liberty organization. More importantly, he has an appeal among young conservatives which belies his age.

And with economic issues in the forefront this time around, one Achilles heel of Paul’s 2008 bid – his strident opposition to the war in Iraq – is off the table. His domestic policies generally follow a line which straddles conservatism and libertarianism, making him a definite friend of the TEA Party set.

It’s doubtful that many of the Presidential players for the 2012 cycle are going to make their intentions known before the 2010 election because of November’s potential for upending the Democrats’ stranglehold on our legislative branch. This wait-and-see approach serves to gauge the strength of TEA Party politics and the general anti-incumbent mood.

But don’t be surprised if the gentleman from Texas doesn’t toss his hat back into the presidential ring next year and is more successful this time around. Unlike Bob Dole, it’s not likely this elderly Washington insider will be uninspiring on the campaign trail.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This happened to be posted on April 12.

The TEA Party test

It was at this time last year that the TEA Party movement was still in its infancy and doubters were rampant. The conventional wisdom predicted little chance of success for the rash of TEA Parties slated around the April 15th tax filing deadline – perhaps a few dozen cranks would show up, they argued, but real Americans truly didn’t mind the policies put forth by the fledgling Obama administration.

We all know what really happened, though – thousands of angry Americans of all races, religions, and political stripes showed up during that April week. Some came despite weather conditions which could be best described as raw, while others basked in sunshine. To a person, they were sickened by the direction our government had taken over the previous few months as they saw Wall Street banks and auto companies bailed out yet also saw jobs being lost and economic conditions slow to improve despite billions of stimulus dollars spent.

One year later, the job market is somewhat better but nowhere near the halcyon days of sub-5 percent unemployment just a few short years ago. And despite the best efforts of many TEA Party supporters to fight it, Obamacare became the law of the land last month. In the final days of debate, arrogant Democratic leaders baited the protesting crowd hoping to catch an embarrassing incident on video but TEA Partiers refused to swallow the bait. They weren’t exactly civil but no proof of any of the claimed racial slurs or spitting on members of Congress has come to light despite the media’s best efforts.

In fact, recently it was leftist protesters who were caught literally egging on the TEA Partiers – a bus for the “TEA Party Express 3” was pelted with eggs on its way to their initial tour stop in Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada. So far that bus tour, which will conclude at an April 15th TEA Party in Washington, has drawn significant crowds at most stops.

However, the TEA Party Express tour does have the advantage of national press coverage and an all-star speaking lineup which at various points has included major media personalities and its most famous backer, Sarah Palin. A truer test of the staying power of this movement will come when hundreds of communities around the country host their own local events. Most of these won’t have the star power of the TEA Party Express to boost their numbers.

It’s these local events which have served as the backbone of the movement, and although many have been adopted by larger organizations like the TEA Party Patriots, the bulk of the leadership remains local. Their focus, though, is shifting from fighting the Democrats’ socialist agenda with phone calls, e-mails, and marches on the Capitol to one of cultivating conservative political candidates and getting them elected to office come November.

Certainly a huge turnout for the events next week will bode well for their November hopes, then again, a day is an eternity in the political world and 6½ months could see any number of developments. Still, there are a number of issues for TEA Partiers to fight (cap and trade and amnesty for illegal immigrants being the two chief ones) and it’s doubtful the socialist agenda is going to grind to a halt just because a majority of Americans aren’t behind it. For the most part, these protesters have keep their noses clean and to the grindstone thus far but there’s still a vast amount of work to do before they achieve their goals.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This cleared the LFS wire just last Tuesday, making this release timely!

The Potemkin candidate

At first glance, Murray Hill wouldn’t be a name to jump out at a political observer. In an era of political newcomers thanks to the effect of TEA Party activism, Murray Hill would seem to be just another Republican entering Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District fray, seeking the GOP nomination to face entrenched Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Beating Van Hollen, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, would seem like a tall order and an incredible accomplishment in a district which arguably may be the most liberal-leaning in America.

The campaign has drawn a significant amount of attention, though, something that first-time political candidates would drool over – Murray Hill’s campaign Facebook page has over 10,000 fans and the bid’s YouTube advertisement has drawn over 200,000 views. Obviously their local Congressional campaign has taken on a national scope.

But Murray Hill isn’t just one who would be derided as a RINO (Republican In Name Only.) In fact, Murray Hill isn’t a person at all.

Call it the intersection of a fortunate choice of names and slick packaging, but the nascent Murray Hill campaign was a brainchild of the marketing and public relations firm which bears the name. Its Congressional bid was their logical extension of the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling which threw out several campaign finance prohibitions on corporate campaign expenditures. In their view, to give corporations free speech rights also gives their company the right to run for Congress. Murray Hill chose to run as a Republican “because we feel the Republican Party is more receptive to our basic message that corporations are people, too.”

Yet the creative minds backing Murray Hill’s bid think in a manner quite differently than the GOP mantra of lower taxes, less government, and increased freedom – in fact, they have seen the Republicans as their opposition. William Klein, Murray Hill’s campaign manager, has worked on numerous Democratic campaigns and firm founders and partners Eric Hensal and Patrick Mancino cut their political teeth by promoting the interests of organized labor groups, particularly in the construction industry. Their client base has primarily come from labor and environmental groups wishing to promote a softer image.

So far Maryland’s state board of elections has taken a dim view of Murray Hill’s ballot bid, denying them in part because the five-year old company technically doesn’t meet the age requirement for running for Congress. But that hasn’t stopped the company from pressing on with its ersatz campaign, even asking RNC Chairman Michael Steele to intercede on their behalf in the effort to convince the elections board to allow them registration and candidacy.

Of course, their campaign isn’t so much about running for Congress as it is being upset that the Supreme Court leveled the political playing field between corporations and unions – in fact, the changes made by the Supreme Court also helped labor interests by overturning precedent disallowing their participation, too. But the previous rules did give Big Labor an advantage, and the Citizens United ruling eroded that edge. Murray Hill would have never considered a political run had it not been for this particular Supreme Court decision.

But over twenty states – including Maryland – already allow corporate funding of elections, and one need only look at the Democratic dominance of the Free State to see that corporate funding alone hasn’t helped the GOP there. In that respect, Murray Hill is acting like the five-year-old it is by putting up this petulant bid for a Congressional seat.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This article cleared back on March 29th.

Fighting the good fight

It was a battle which began last spring and it took the side of right nearly a year to fall despite the odds against it. As I write this, the nationalization of one-sixth of the nation’s economy and the ability for government to pry further into all aspects of your personal life – indeed, control the fate of your very being – is essentially one House vote and one Presidential signature away from happening.

Here’s yet another lesson to show elections mean things. Despite the turnover which played a vital role in the outcome, most of the main players were elected in 2008, the year America believed in hope and change. What we hoped for and what we’d change into were simply taken at the face value of that which was promised by most, but a few thinkers foresaw this entire drama coming and, like Paul Revere, attempted to sound the alarm.

And there were hopeful moments even after the 2008 elections played out. The dreaded 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate didn’t occur right away – while Al Franken and Norm Coleman battled out a protracted election recount, Saxby Chambliss easily won re-election to his Georgia Senate seat. This denied the Democrats their 60th vote for a time, although that possibility was reborn last April when Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter switched parties from the GOP to the Democrats. A few weeks later, Coleman conceded, Franken was sworn in, and the Democrats had their precious 60-vote majority.

That Democrat victory was short-lived, though. On August 25th Ted Kennedy died, and it took a few weeks for Paul Kirk to be named his replacement. Yet even after Kirk was sworn in, Senate Democrats still needed until Christmas Eve to hammer out their health care bill. Most importantly, there were significant differences in the bills approved by the Senate and House – changes put in place to mollify particular Senators. The term “Louisiana Purchase” gained a new meaning and we learned more than we ever wanted to know about the “Cornhusker Kickback.”

Conventional wisdom held that Congress would come back from their holiday break and figure out the details. But Scott Brown’s election on January 19 ended the prospect of a conventional conference process and bill opponents were buoyed by the presence of “Mister 41” when he was sworn in on February 4th.

However, Obamacare was resurrected from the dead once again as the House employed a number of questionable tactics to allow their membership to swallow a Senate bill few liked. That’s where we are today.

All of the drama came about despite TEA Parties, acrimonious town hall meetings, a number of Capitol rallies (including two in the last week,) and the ominous threat that those who voted for Obamacare would be committing political suicide. Perhaps it will turn out that some did, as most national polls reveal the people are against Obamacare and a poll commissioned last week by Independent Women’s Voice showed 60% of respondents would vote for a candidate who opposes “the current version of healthcare reform and wants to start over.”

While it’s likely that the courts will be deciding on key aspects of the bill for months to come, it may not matter. Obamacare wasn’t slated to take effect until 2013 anyway.

The problem is that history has shown that once a new entitlement program is created, it’s impossible to kill. For all the brave talk of repeal it’s likely that we are stuck with Obamacare because of those who placed power before people. The people fought, but unfortunately they lost. We all did.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This cleared the LFS wire on March 23rd.

Ambition or safety for Congress?

While we can never assume the contentious issue of health care reform will be completely solved by this edition of Congress, indications are that it will be off the table by the time they go on spring break later this month. President Obama even held up departure on his Asian trip in expectation of having a health care bill on his desk by then.

Yet when Congress moved with lightning speed in the early months of 2009 it looked like the Democrats’ ambitious agenda would be wrapped up, tied with a bow, and presented to the President as a gift to the American people in time for last Christmas. Truth is, the agonizingly slow debate over Obamacare threw a wrench into the plans Democrats in Congress had for cap-and-trade, which in turn halted progress on the immigration fix promised by President Obama during his campaign.

Last year Democrats had their hopes up for a quick resolution to these issues as the second session of Congress traditionally is a time for members, particularly in the House, to play it a little more safe and avoid controversial issues which could spell trouble for their re-election chances. Instead, the question then becomes whether Congress will try and take the safe route when they return in mid-April.

Because Democratic leadership in Congress is already wildly unpopular thanks to their aggressive tactics of dubious legality in trying to get Obamacare passed, they likely will put the pedal to the metal and attempt to ramrod their agenda through before November. We could even get a Christmas surprise from the lame duck Democrats when they come back to wrap up their affairs after the fall recess, especially if the elections spell the end of their majority in the House.

House Democrats are already frustrated because they’ve done the hard work on some of President Obama’s pet projects like cap-and-trade only to see their efforts fizzle in the Senate. Senators now face a backlog of over 300 bills passed by the House which haven’t cleared the Senate, and the process is always fraught with the potential of requiring a conference committee to hammer out differences between legislation passed by the separate bodies. We already see what damage has been done to Congress’s reputation by not going to a conference on health care reform.

In having large majorities in both the House and Senate allied by party with the President, the last thing one would have expected would be a tag of a “do-nothing Congress.” But perhaps the most memorable thing about the Pelosi-Reid led 111th Congress was just how quickly it lost support among the people because it focused on the wrong things – in an economic situation which cried out for common-sense measures to create more private-sector jobs and stabilize the financial situation, Congress instead focused on changing a health care delivery system looked on favorably by a large percentage of the people.

This antagonistic attitude has spawned the largest protest movement in forty years, with millions taking to the streets demanding a smaller, more fiscally responsible government. But in a time where the best option would be doing more than just providing temporary fixes to the economic situation – such as the one-month unemployment extension which got Senator Jim Bunning up in arms because it wasn’t being paid for – it appears Congress is going to continue with an agenda the American people have soured on.

It’s an agenda which could spell doom for vulnerable Democrats in November, and April may be the last chance to change course.

Missing the podium

Sunday brought a merciful end to the 21st Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and concluded our quadrennial reminder of just why most of these sports languish in obscurity.

It was an Olympics bookended by the continuing tragedy in Haiti and an new one in Chile while suffering one of its own when Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in practice for the luge event. That accident forced last-minute changes to the track and an overall shortening of the course as men began competition from the women’s starting post and the women moved down to the juniors’ position.

While NBC is getting better viewership ratings for the Vancouver Olympics than they did in the 2006 event held in Turin, Italy, there is serious discussion around the television world that the peacock network may relinquish the grip it’s had on the games since 2000 after their coverage contract expires with the London Summer Olympics in 2012. It’s estimated that NBC will lose $200 million on this year’s coverage, with the main gripe from viewers being the network’s usual practice of tape-delaying popular events for showing during prime time – in the Pacific time zone where Vancouver lies it could mean the results are known up to 12 hours before they’re actually broadcast.

Meanwhile, while the United States led the pack in total medals won, there seemed to be a shortage of the sportsmanship for which the Olympics is known. A long-running feud between American speed skater Apolo Ohno and his South Korean opponents boiled over with accusations and counter-charges of cheating and blocking in a sport which is supposed to exhibit speed and grace, not resemble an all-out last-lap scrum at a NASCAR race.

Topping that was the wild celebration of the Canadian women’s hockey team after they dispatched the United States in the final. Although they waited until after the medal ceremony and the arena was cleared, the beer-swilling, cigar-smoking on-ice party lasted nearly an hour as the Canadian ladies savored the victory in a sport they consider their own. The Canadian men were more subdued in victory.

Nor could the specter of politics escape this edition of the Olympics. No doubt it paled in comparison with the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, but American figure skater Johnny Weir became the target of radical animal rights groups and had his safety threatened because his skating outfit featured natural fur. He relented this time but still “loves wearing dead animals” as part of his on-ice costumes.

Believers in anthropogenic global warming also had a field day with this Olympics, pointing out with glee that snow had to be trucked in before the events began because a month-long warm spell had melted the bounty of a snowy December. Meanwhile, regions like the mid-Atlantic only lacked the hills for good skiing competition since they had the several feet of fresh powder required for a base.

All in all, Vancouver was the red-headed stepchild of Olympic Games, combining tragedy, a huge gaffe in its opening ceremony, and a lack of truly compelling storylines into a bland stew of overly hyped events which dragged on for two weeks before coming to an end just in time for the ratings period to expire.

In 2014 it will be Sochi’s turn as the city along the Black Sea has its turn in the Winter Games spotlight, and the Russians are happily spending upwards of $60 billion (at current exchange rates) over an eight-year period to play host. Good thing it’s their money.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This cleared right after my last LFS article was published here on March 1st. It was featured (among other places) in the Epoch Times, which also ran my “Green Police” op-ed a few days earlier.

Count on a nosy government

Since 1790, every 10 years the federal government has come around to count every American in an effort to determine proportional representation. This is dictated by Article I, Section 2 of our Constitution and it’s one of the rare instances the Constitution has been rigidly followed throughout our 230-plus year history.

In March, most households will receive a fairly short form intended to provide the information the government needs to determine these Congressional districts. (Others get a longer form which asks a number of questions about living situation, income, and other personal items.) In either case, though, respondents are asked about much more than the number of people living in their dwelling.

Consider the 10-question short form most Americans will receive. While Question 1 seeks the essential information about how many occupy the subject’s residence, other questions on the short form ask about home ownership, gender, and race.

More importantly, the government database being created also has name, age, date of birth, and telephone number. While the Census Bureau vows that the information collected will be kept secure, one has to wonder just how private this information will remain in an age of hackers and identity theft. Remember, none of this information is truly necessary to achieve the mandated purpose of determining population numbers for proportional representation.

In truth, the Census facts and figures have grown to meet purposes far beyond the intentions of the Founding Fathers, just as the size and scope of the government they created has. According to the Census Bureau, the status of living arrangements is asked because the answers are, “used to administer housing programs and to inform planning decisions.” Similarly, the age and date of birth are used for, “forecasting the number of people eligible for Social Security or Medicare services,” and the gender question is asked because, “many federal programs must differentiate between males and females for funding, implementing, and evaluating their programs.”

But even the obvious reason for the decennial count has fallen prey to overt discrimination on the part of bureaucrats in Washington, for it’s not Question 1 which determines the proper number of representatives to Congress per state, but Question 9.

And what is Question 9? It asks the race of each person in the household, yet,”state governments use the data to determine congressional, state, and local voting districts.” So much for the colorblind society those in power claim they wish to create. Instead, these numbers are used to create monolithic voting districts which forever doom minorities to second-class status.

The Census Bureau website claims that the count is necessary because, “(e)ach question helps to determine how more than $400 billion will be allocated to communities across the country.” Their radio spots talk about the need to respond because otherwise we’d not know if a school grew enough for new classrooms or if a town needed a traffic signal. They conveniently forget, though, that there’s other less intrusive measures to come up with the appropriate figures. As always, it becomes a question of following the money.

It’s been said many times in several variants that, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” We see the results of pitting groups against one another – a weakening of freedom and an erosion of liberty.

In response, we should call on our leaders to return the Census to the noble purpose for which it was intended and not continue using it as the wedge it’s become. While it’s not advisable to ignore the Census, we should think twice about just what information we share with Washington.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Yes, I’m serious – when the form comes I’m only answering Question 1 (and Lord help the person responsible if they send me the American Community Survey.) This cleared LFS back on February 18 and was featured in at least one small paper up in Minnesota.

Republicans divided

At a time when the political winds should be at their back the Republican Party may be ill-poised to make the electoral gains conventional wisdom and history dictate they should at this fall’s midterm elections.

Nowhere was this more evident than at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference, better known by the acronym CPAC. One case in point: Rep. Ron Paul, who showed outstanding fund raising ability but few votes in the 2008 Presidential campaign, won 31% of the vote in a straw poll of preference for the 2012 Presidential nomination. The 76 year old Texas Congressman beat out such luminaries and former candidates as Mitt Romney (who had won the previous three CPAC straw polls), Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee was also critical of CPAC, an event he skipped for the first time in several years, noting that the gathering had taken a more libertarian turn and focused less on conservative social issues. He also pointed out that the numerous TEA Parties had taken some of the luster off CPAC – however, over 10,000 participants registered for the event, making its 37th edition the largest ever.

There’s no question the TEA Party movement, which began with rallies about a year ago and became popularized by a nationally televised rant from CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, has affected the GOP over the last year. While these newly-minted political advocates helped secure Chris Christie’s and Bob McDonnell’s victories in their respective New Jersey and Virginia races for governor and financially put Scott Brown in a position to be elected to the Senate, they also created a rift in the New York 23rd Congressional District race, allowing a Democrat to win there for the first time in over a century. Certainly this movement has caused GOP Chair Michael Steele no shortage of headaches during the first half of his two-year tenure.

Of course, Democrats have taken notice and are attempting to use this rift to their advantage. In Nevada, embattled Senator Harry Reid received some help as a group billing itself as the Tea Party placed a candidate on the November ballot. Organizers of the actual TEA Party movement in Nevada claim they know nothing about candidate Jon Ashjian or the ten people who are listed as the Tea Party’s slate of officers. Yet the group obtained the required 250 signatures and filed the requisite paperwork under the Tea Party moniker. Reid needs the third-party assistance as recent polls show he trails two of the leading GOP contenders, Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian, by double-digits.

With a mindset of fiscal conservatism and dislike of President Obama’s agenda, those who comprise the TEA Party movement seem like the Holy Grail of supporters for the Republican Party. But many in the GOP establishment dislike the libertarian streak present among TEA Party participants while social conservatives like Huckabee fret their pet issues will continue to get short shrift. And TEA Party protesters themselves dislike many Congressional Republicans who supported unpopular Bush-era policies and entitlements, dismissing them as “Democrat-lite.”

Perhaps herding cats would be an easier task, but to win in November the Republicans will have to walk the tightrope of appeasing their existing base while integrating the TEA Partiers by appealing to their fiscal side. But TEA Partiers don’t mind the Republicans being the “party of no” because they fear the effect of President Obama’s statist policies, so standing firm in opposition and not heeding the siren song of “bipartisanship” with the unpopular Obama agenda may be the key to turning over Congress this fall.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

With a personnel change at LFS, apparently they are holding on to these for far less time. This cleared on Tuesday – tomorrow you get last week’s op-ed.

Art imitating life – or vice versa?

When a company devotes millions of dollars to the production and airing of a Super Bowl ad, they are at the mercy of several factors – one of those being an exciting game if you happen to have a spot airing in the fourth quarter.

We all know that the game itself came down to a late interception returned for a touchdown to secure the New Orleans Saints’ victory; fortunately for Audi this occurred after their commercial aired. For all the pregame talk about the pro-life ad sponsored by Focus on the Family and featuring the mother of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, the “green police” commercial sponsored by Audi may have the most lasting impact.

The ad opens with an innocuous transaction at a grocery store where the cashier cheerfully asks, “Will that be paper or plastic?” When the hapless customer answers “plastic” he’s rudely greeted by an officer from the “green police” who advises the customer, “you picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy!” From there, numerous people run afoul of the law for having batteries in the trash, throwing away an orange rind (a “compost infraction”), possession of incandescent light bulbs and plastic water bottles, and having the temperature of their hot tub too high. The only escapee is the one driving the sponsor’s diesel-powered car at the “eco checkpoint.” Even the classic rock band Cheap Trick redid their 1970’s song “Dream Police” into “Green Police” for the spot.

Great humor works because it has an element of truth in it, and this commercial reflects a number of moves already made by government. Indeed, traditional incandescent light bulbs will be going away after next year due to government edict and several regions of the globe ban the use of plastic grocery bags. Nanny staters constantly proclaim society needs to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

So far, though, America hasn’t gotten to the point where we have the government snooping through our garbage for contraband non-recyclable material or uniformed officers breaking into our backyards to check the temperature of the hot tub. But the spot is believable because we now can’t dismiss the possibility given the cap and trade legislation slowly seeping its way through Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency’s willingness to take advantage of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling allowing them to regulate carbon dioxide to promulgate new restrictions on commerce and daily life, all in the name of combating so-called manmade climate change.

It’s this climate fear that Audi plays to with their ad, on both sides. For those who believe they should do more to save the planet, the car is sold as an eco-friendly mode of transportation. On the other hand, those who are skeptical about our impact on the climate but believe the way of the future may well be reflected in the commercial might be persuaded to buy one simply to be left alone.

Obviously Audi is attempting to sell cars with this Super Bowl ad just as other sponsors pushed online services, beer, or snack food. While the vast majority of these ads were written and produced to be humorous in some sly way or another, the Audi spot will have a longer-lasting impact for its product because this humor made the consumer think.

Many found it funny only because it stretched what we believe into something of a tall tale. It’s when the tall tale becomes reality that the spot loses its humor, and in the coming decade we may see the Audi ad as prophetic of how society evolved.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

My latest LFS column to be released cleared on February 12.

An annual ritual we can do without

This is the time of year most Americans receive their W-2 and 1099 forms, putting into motion the annual process of calculating the maximum amount they can get back from Uncle Sam.

Before April 15, many Americans will devote hours attempting to make sense of the tax laws for that elusive refund while others simply throw up their hands and hire a tax professional to handle their returns. It’s an industry which fetchingly promises their customers the largest tax refund they can get – if only Americans got an actual return on investment when that check arrived from the Department of the Treasury. Few people who receive tax refunds realize they’re simply being paid back the interest-free loan they gave to the federal bureaucracy the previous year.

Over the last decade or so, a few thinkers have attempted to convince Americans there’s a better way. Steve Forbes based two unsuccessful Presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000 on the concept of a single-rate flat tax with few deductions, while Rep. John Linder of Georgia has spent the past decade introducing a consumption-based solution dubbed the FairTax to each new session of Congress.

While both methods are long on merits and could easily be adjusted to rates assuring sufficient funds for necessary government programs, there’s one element missing from these alternatives which prevents them from getting traction inside the Beltway or in any state capital.

America’s complex tax code allows Washington to control behavior through reward or punishment. In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama noted, “We cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families…We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college.”

Most readers would nod their head in agreement because these are behaviors which tend to lead to productive lives. But if you become too productive by earning too much money, suddenly you’re a target. And a favorite weapon of Washington insiders is pegging these tax breaks to income, phasing them out if your family’s take-home pay starts to creep over a certain threshold considered “fair” by those in charge. President Obama campaigned on “sharing the wealth,” and if you happen to be someone who makes over $250,000 he considers your wealth his to share.

Yet figures compiled by the Heritage Foundation tell a different tale, noting that the top fifth of income earners saw their share of taxation increase from 81.2% in 2000 to 86.3% in 2006 – on only 55.7% of total income. Even under the Bush tax cuts panned by Democrats as “tax cuts for the rich” the high income earners as a whole shared far more than they made. While either of the proposed alternative methods of taxation would still come down harder on those who make large salaries, they wouldn’t tend to single producers out for punishment.

This fairer, flatter approach to taxation, though, flies in the face of a governmental philosophy that exists to redistribute wealth and thousands of lobbyists who make their living pitching new regulations and tax code designed to benefit those who stroke their checks at the expense of business competitors or political opponents. These are the people who are perfectly happy to maintain a complicated, unfair system where its sheer complexity bullies taxpayers into not taking every allowable deduction and where errant filers are guilty until proven innocent.

It’s a system long overdue for fundamental change, and soon we’ll have the opportunity to elect politicians with the spine to undertake it.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This effort for Liberty Features cleared February 4th.

How one man killed Obamacare

As most of America has presumably learned, Republican Scott Brown was elected to take over the “Kennedy seat” in the Senate, dispatching Democrat opponent Martha Coakley handily in Massachusetts’ recent special election. Thus ended Democrats’ filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate and prospects for ramming Obamacare through on a strictly party-line vote.

Yet had the House and Senate concurred earlier on a health care reform bill agreeable to both Brown’s election wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much. Instead, each body designed legislation to pass their own side and in the end the differences were irreconcilable. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally threw in the towel, saying the one chance Obamacare had – passing the Senate bill as it was in the House – couldn’t draw the required 218 votes. A main sticking point was that the Senate bill lacked the prohibition on the federal government paying directly for abortions. That provision allowed the House to pass their bill with just two votes to spare and gave it the barest bipartisan fig leaf as GOP Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana was the lone Republican in favor.

Undeniably, part of Brown’s appeal was the prospect of killing Obamacare by being the 41st Republican vote and denying Democrats their supermajority. In the election’s aftermath, petulant Democrats threw losing candidate Martha Coakley under the bus for running a terrible, gaffe-prone campaign and openly spoke about changing the filibuster rules to allow Democrats to maintain their hammerlock, perhaps needing just 55 votes instead of 60. Decades ago, a compromise measure lowered the limit from a 2/3 majority of 67 Senators to the current 3/5 majority.

Cooler heads prevailed, though, and now the consensus on health care reform is to deliver it in a piecemeal fashion by removing some of the most objectionable portions and focusing on areas where broad agreement exists, such as eliminating the right to deny coverage for preexisting conditions. But gone will be the ability for Democrats to fashion closed-door deals such as the one exempting union workers from a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans.

While Republicans were pleased about picking up a Massachusetts seat for the first time in nearly 40 years, the prospects of becoming the majority party in the Senate this fall are fairly slim. Of the 36 Senate seats up for consideration (there are special elections to fill unexpired terms in Delaware and New York), 18 of the seats are Republican and 18 are held by Democrats. To even things out, the GOP would have to sweep the seats they’re defending and win half the available Democratic seats – a tall order to be sure. The prevailing conventional wisdom at the moment pegs GOP gains of 2 to 4 seats, which would leave them still significantly in the minority.

But an enhanced Republican presence in the Senate would curb the radically statist agenda thus far presented by President Obama, creating a similar effect to the 1994 midterm election which tempered President Clinton’s ambitious plans for health care reform. In order to win his own reelection, President Clinton tacked to the center and the strategy paid off in 1996.

Given what Obama has proposed and already enacted, though, moving to the center may be a little much to expect out of him. The 2012 Presidential election will likely see Obama run for a second term against two opponents: the Republican nominee and a “do-nothing” Congress which thwarted much of his ambitious agenda to remake America.

For that, we can thank Scott Brown and Massachusetts voters who hoped for a better change.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This latest effort for LFS cleared back on January 27th.

Look for the union payoff

A final step in the closed-door negotiations among Democrats trying to pull together a health-care bill from the versions which passed the House and Senate was the disposition of a tax on Cadillac health plans. Employers generally provide these high-dollar health benefits to two classes of help: corporate executives and union workers.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average cost for a health insurance plan covering a family is $13,375. The 40 percent tax on Cadillac benefits is slated for adoption once premiums reach about $8,900 for individuals or $24,000 for families – but union negotiators managed to get a carve-out on the tax for an additional five years after the 2013 effective date, purportedly to allow benefits negotiated in current contracts to expire. Others benefiting from exceptions will be residents of certain states where premiums are highest and those in some high-risk occupations. A large percentage of these beneficiaries are union workers as well.

One part of the equation gets little explanation, however. Few seem to be asking what it is that makes a Cadillac plan so costly? To have a plan be significantly more expensive than average it usually requires one or both of two factors to be in play.

In the case of union labor, some of the additional cost comes from the overall group skewing towards older and sicker workers or, more precisely, the coverage of retirees in these plans. With union-dominated heavy industries losing workers as a percentage of the overall labor force, fewer younger laborers are picking up the slack for their more elderly counterparts.

But a larger share of the insurance cost comes from the much more generous benefits afforded to the workers who are enrolled in union-sponsored plans. Employers in union shops haven’t succeeded nearly as well in passing their health care costs on to workers, so they bear a disproportionate burden compared to their nonunion competition. The automotive industry is a prime example, with the toll of providing health care for workers and retirees placing Detroit at a disadvantage of up to $2,000 against automakers not saddled with this sort of overhead cost.

Conversely, with the health care carve-out union workers win twice – once by maintaining these gold-plated plans for several more years at little cost to them and again by skirting the taxes other workers with similar health insurance plans (mostly in the ranks of management) will have to pay for their coverage once collection starts in 2013.

Over the last decade or so unions have eschewed large wage increases, trading them away in order to keep their generous health benefits. With the advent of Obamacare and the prospect of the 40 percent surtax on Cadillac health care plans, those labor leaders who invested heavily in making an Obama presidency a reality threatened to withhold support for the compromise bill if their concerns weren’t addressed. Their millions in political contributions indeed gave them a seat at the table.

But taking away from one corner means a cut on another side if negotiators want to maintain the prospect of reform being budget-neutral, so there has to be some other compromise on costs to make up for the loss of up to $150 billion in revenue over the first decade the bill is enacted. Look for that shortfall to be made up by some group not invited to the confab considering the final health care bill deep within the bowels of the White House. That would be the American people.

Michael Swartz, an architect and editor of Monoblogue, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This op-ed for LFS cleared on January 22nd. Little did I know when I wrote it that health care would soon be dead.