by Herman Cain
Natural resources are there for a reason. Use them! That’s why they are natural. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) oil reserves off our own continental coasts, oil-shale areas in the western United States, and nuclear-power development can create a path to energy independence.
The area proposed for ANWR production comprises less than one percent of the refuge’s 19 million acres and could yield billions and billions of barrels of recoverable oil. The technology is in place to safely extract natural gas from our enormous reserves of shale-oil deposits.
It’s as if the answer to energy independence is close at hand but excessive regulations and environmental extremists who influence timid legislators are holding America hostage to foreign oil.
Our nation cannot continue to spend billions of dollars to buy something we can produce right here at home. It is time for us to stop making other countries rich at our expense. It is time for us to reject President Obama’s reasoning when he gave Brazil $2 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for oil exploration and promised that country that we would be its best customer.
When I become president, America will become its own best customer! We will adopt a Drill Here, Drill Now strategy. We will set this as our bold goal: zero dependence on foreign oil.
Entitlements
In America, social programs were originally designed to provide a financial safety net. But as the years passed dependency on the government for the most vulnerable in society became an entitlement. Today, too many Americans have shifted their expectations from government assistance to entitlement.
That has resulted in sociological and economic damage. Simply put, ever-expanding social programs are compromising our current and future financial stability. Current projections indicate that Medicare will go bankrupt by 2017, while Social Security will bottom out by 2037. Some experts believe these programs’ demise will arrive even sooner.
For the generations who have paid into Medicare and Social Security, the federal government’s inevitable failure to pay them as they retire is tantamount to stealing. The federal government’s out-of-control fiscal behavior has frightened these people, causing them to wonder what kind of country they will leave for their children and grandchildren. It is my contention that we must revamp our social and welfare programs, so that our nation’s less fortunate can be offered a “hands-up” instead of a “handout.” To accomplish this goal we must return to free-market-based solutions that empower our fellow Americans to take control of their professional and retirement futures.
It is essential that we modernize our Medicare and Social Security programs, which began in 1965 and 1935, respectively. What worked then will not work today. It will be my responsibility as president to work together with Congress to empower, in a new and productive manner, America’s golden age population.
Excessive Governmental Regulation
The federal government has amassed incredible amounts of control over our lives through its ability to regulate everything from emissions to food to businesses. While some regulation is needed to protect American consumers and taxpayers, excessive regulation has driven up the price of the goods and services we need and want.
What’s more, burdensome regulations are increasing at an alarming rate. In 2010 alone, Washington forced forty-three more major new regulations on us. It is estimated that complying with regulations costs around $1.75 trillion annually, which is twice as much as the revenue the federal government received in 2010 from individual income taxes.
Alleviating the burdens of cumbersome regulations would provide an immediate boost for our weakened economy. It would send a signal to businesses that the government intends to maintain conditions that allow them to thrive, rather than bogging them down with costs that inevitably are passed on to their customers.
I will work to create reasonable regulations that cut down on bureaucracy while helping businesses succeed.
Government Spending
I and my cabinet officers will make a determined effort to cut the out-of-control spending by the federal government. We simply cannot pass on to our children and grandchildren the massive debt caused by liberal policies. We cannot allow them to be stuck with the tab for the government takeover of health care, industry bailouts, and failed stimulus packages. Each generation of Americans should seek to leave behind a better and more prosperous nation for the next, not saddle them with debt from reckless spending.
Nothing should be off the table. My associates will be prepared to wield red pens, to make tough choices, and to learn to say “no.” Every federal agency, every government program, and every single expenditure must be reviewed and, if necessary, revised. I will expect nothing less. Budgets will be shrunk by target percentages. The days when the American taxpayer was viewed by politicians and bureaucrats as a bottomless piggybank will be ended.
When I served in the corporate world and money was tight, I asked our employees to drastically cut back spending and they did. Serious but responsible belt-tightening can save businesses and save our country. But this can only occur when we change the current leaders for ones who have had to make and keep to a budget, who have been tested day in and day out in the crucible of the business world.
I am the one candidate with the experience and knowhow to bring the United States back from the economic abyss that lurks on the near horizon.
Health Care
You’ve seen that commercial where they have demagogued the issue with medi-scare and grandma is tossed off the bridge. If we don’t fix this problem, it’s going to be our grandkids in that wheelchair that they’ll be throwing off the bridge.
President Obama and the liberals in Congress have dismantled the free-market health care system and replaced it with health care “deform.” They have extended the tentacles of government and diminished patients’ rights, all in the guise of making health care a “right” for all. They’ve also made it more difficult and expensive for doctors to practice medicine, including specialized practitioners who are desperately needed to save lives.
I have no doubt that the great majority of Americans agree that it is time to replace Obamacare with a patient-centered, free-market approach. They understand that it is imperative that we institute sweeping tort reform that will allow physicians to practice medicine without fear of frivolous lawsuits.
Looser pay laws would be a great start! And loosening the restrictions on health care savings accounts would help to empower Americans to save and invest their own money to expand their options for care.
I believe that we need to level the playing field by allowing the deductibility of health insurance premiums, regardless of whether they are purchased by the employer or the employee. That would shift ownership of one’s health care back to where it belongs, with the individual. As your president, I will lead the charge to accomplish these goals.
Labor Unions
Early in 2011, I was in California for a private conference hosted by two very successful and prominent businessmen. As the attendees heard presentations and participated in discussions on issues of national interest, about one thousand union members, many of them from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), gathered across the street from the conference site.
They chanted slogans expressing their objections to the idea that a group of fellow Americans would have the audacity to meet and talk about shared beliefs in limited government, the free-market system, and constitutional liberties. My fellow conferees and I wondered: Why would anyone object to a group of citizens meeting peacefully to discuss common concerns?
The obvious answer is that labor union leaders, and the left in general, are not interested in a free society where people can think and make decisions for themselves. These people want a country dominated by big government, with union domination of businesses and our workforce. We’ve already seen that as conservatives continue to make electoral gains, the liberals and unions are resorting to demonstrations and, in some instances, to violence to shut us up, to i
ntimidate us from daring to think and have a different view of the world than they do.
Likewise, union members went ballistic when Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin proposed a solution to his state’s fiscal problems—one that did not involve the raising of taxes, an initiative that the unions had forced the then-Democratic-controlled legislature to do for many years.
The desire of unions to make unsustainable demands on local, state, and federal government, irrespective of the devastating impact, is totally illogical, not to mention showing a collective disregard for the taxpayer. The courage displayed by Governor Walker in representing the people paying his state’s bill is being replicated elsewhere. For too long taxpayers have looked on as all the chairs at the negotiating table were arrayed at one side. Now the taxpayers are being represented on the other side of the table.
This type of “Big Brother” government thinking inherent in union aims is becoming increasingly outdated. That dog won’t hunt. Liberal lunacy is not in our national DNA.
The Length of Legislation
One of Jon Stewart’s laugh lines concerned my comment that I would not sign a bill that was longer than three pages. I would have expected that, as a comedian, Stewart would have recognized that I was telling a joke—a joke with a meaning.
My comment was an exaggeration, of course, to drive home a point. But there will be no more twenty-seven-hundred-page bills in the Cain administration. I want short, clean bills addressing the specific topic of the proposed legislation. I want to end the Washington habit of throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a bill. I’m also going to insist that for the sake of transparency, every piece of proposed legislation must come with an executive summary for the public to read, so that everyday Americans will be able to understand what is up for congressional consideration.
Muslims in the Cain Administration
When you interview people for a job, you look at their work record; you look at their résumé; and then you have a one-on-one personal interview. During that interview you are able to get a feeling for how committed they will be to the organization’s mission.
In the case of my interviewing a potential senior official who is of the Muslim faith, I will want to know how committed that person is to the Constitution of the United States. I will want to make sure that anyone, of any religion, serving in my administration—who is, of course, serving the people of our nation—is committed to our Constitution.
National Security
As president, my primary duty will be to protect the American people. I must ensure that our military and our security agencies are strong, capable, and well managed. I must also end the politicization of our national security. This vital area of American government isn’t about politics, it’s about defending America.
While diplomacy is a critical tool in solving the complex security issues we face, it must never compromise military might. We must also recognize the real and present danger to our country’s future posed by terrorist nations and organizations. We should never be deceived by terrorists, nor should we ever negotiate with them. And we must be firm in dealing with nations that sponsor terrorism.
My presidency shall support our military with the best training, equipment, technology, and infrastructure to keep them in a position to win. We must also provide our men and women in uniform—the treasure of our nation—our veterans, and their families with the benefits they deserve for their sacrifices on our behalf. These heroes have served us. We must never forget to serve them.
Social Security
We must fix the problem by restructuring Social Security. I do not believe that raising the retirement age, by itself, will solve the problem. I support a personal retirement account option in order to phase out the current system. We know that this works; it worked in Chile when it was done thirty years ago.
Another example of how this works is what happened in Galveston, Texas, which opted out of the Social Security system back in the 1970s. As a result of having an account with their money in it, people retire with a whole lot more money. I am certain that personal retirement accounts will eventually make the system solvent and will help us go from an entitlement society to an empowerment society. For when you allow people to have a personal retirement account—with safeguards to prevent abuse—you empower them. When you force them to stay on Social Security and don’t fix the problem, you are forcing people to stay hooked on an entitlement program.
Tax Cuts
Liberals do not want taxpayers to discover that the right kind of tax cuts will actually help the economy and help put people back to work. Dr. Daniel Mitchell, an expert on tax reform and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, has documented the positive impact of lower tax rates. Tax cuts increase tax revenues. This is contrary to liberal beliefs, because the facts do not support their distribution-of-income ideology.
I offer you two examples of Dr. Mitchell’s analysis. When John F. Kennedy got taxes lowered during his short tenure as president, tax revenues increased by more than 60 percent during the 1960s. Then President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts generated more than a 50 percent increase in tax revenues during the 1980s.
I realize that Big Government advocates will scream that my tax proposals are “crimes against humanity.” But, in reality, these cuts will prove to be an effective means of truly stimulating the economy.
In Obama’s world, taxpayers are not looked on as customers; we are viewed as “sheeple” and we the sheeple are starving for leadership. As a man named John who attended one of my New Hampshire in-home meetings commented, “November 2012 will be the end of an error.”
The Obama administration and the congressional Democrats have been focused on making government larger, more bureaucratic, and more intrusive in our lives. They did not listen to the American people, believing in a terrible, mistaken way that their agenda would revive the economy.
In 2012, Americans will demonstrate with their votes that this is the time for genuine change, for the adoption of new and productive measures that will truly stimulate the economy.
The Tea Party
The liberals have called Tea Partyers all kinds of names. For instance, Nancy Pelosi said that we are “Astroturf.” Harry Reid said that we are “unpatriotic.” Janeane Garofalo said that we are “red-necked tea baggers.” And some of the other Democratic leaders in Congress call us “crazy.”
I’m reminded of my grandfather, who, we thought, would go crazy when we would upset him during the summers we spent on his farm. When we said, “Pa, you’re going crazy,” he would reply, “I’m gonna show you some crazy.”
And that’s one of the messages I sent to the Democratic leaders in the House when they controlled it: “Yes, we’re crazy—we’re crazy about the Declaration of Independence; we’re crazy about the Constitution; and we’re crazy about the greatest country in the world, and we want to keep it that way.”
So that’s why I keep reminding like-minded Americans: Stay connected; stay involved; stay informed. One way to accomplish this is for people to actually read the nation’s founding documents, and to read them carefully.
PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
Barack Obama: A President in Denial
I was saddened, but not surprised, by the mainstream media’s swooning over President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address. I was not surprised by the reaction of an appliance repair man who visited our home the next day to install some new equipment. He told me, “I had a hard time sleeping after listening to the president’s speech.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t hear anything in the speech that made me feel that America is safer as a nation. And I didn’t hear anything that suggested that Mr. Obama has any idea how to grow the economy.”
I’m certain that millions of Americans share that repair man’s views.
One could not be comforted by the fact that under this administration, the total amount of U.S. Treasury Securities held by foreign countries increased by 18.5 per
cent in 2010. Or that in the same year, total bankruptcy filings were up 14 percent, while the unemployment rate remained between 9.4 and 9.8 percent, with new jobless claims averaging about four hundred thousand per week.
Add to that the fact that in his 2010 State of the Union address, the president said that creating jobs would be a top priority. Well, the mainstream media notwithstanding, we know the fate of so many of Obama’s promises. Like the appliance man, we will continue to have restless nights because of this administration’s broken pledges and failed policies.
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in February 2011, the president urged business leaders to “get in the game” in support of their country by spending more cash. He wants businesses to ignore the real state of the economy by following the government’s lead in spending irresponsibly.
That would not be good for the country! The last thing we need is more bankrupt companies on top of the three-million-plus businesses that filed for bankruptcy during the Obama administration. That would only add to the already staggering level of unemployment.
I am convinced that businesspeople are not going to follow the president off the proverbial cliff when doing what he asks makes no sense. At the same time that he was trying to seduce corporate America into spending money in a stalled economy, his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2012 increased the amount on which payroll tax insurance is paid by businesses, from $7,000 to $15,000 per employee. That’s a sneak-a-tax! We were not supposed to notice it since the increase will not be effective until 2014. Well, we noticed.
