by Herman Cain
For Democrats, "issue leadership" is a deceptive two-step process. First, they take a poll or conduct a focus group to determine what issues are most important to the public. Second, they frame the core liberal ideology and policy agenda around the issues most important to the public. The goal of this strategy is to fool the public into believing that the Democratic Party stands with the majority opinion on the electorate's core issues. They attempt to mimic the language and values of the public but in reality offer policies that are counter to the public's morals and values.
The Democratic Party's view of morality and the morality agenda they will offer the public in the coming congressional sessions and election years is not a morality based on biblical principles and traditional notions of right versus wrong taught by our parents and grandparents. Democrats will once again try to fool the public. They will argue that their traditional issue positions are more moral than the Republicans' positions. The Democrats, though, will not really side with the majority of people who know the difference between traditional and secular morality.
Instead, Democrats will argue that it is moral to pass an increase in the minimum wage. They will argue that that it is moral to enact a socialistic national health care system, paid for by the federal government, small businesses, and large corporations. They will argue that it is moral to tolerate the lifestyles of all citizens, no matter how aberrant we think they are. They will argue that tax increases are moral because tax increases indicate sacrifice and a sense of fairness. Democrats will not change their core beliefs and liberal ideology. They will only repackage their message and agenda and attempt to sell it to the public with a slick new marketing campaign.
Another example of Democratic Party leaders taking their base constituency for granted is when they advocate conservative policies in their home states but vote against these policies in Washington, D.C., where they think their voters are not paying attention. Throughout South Dakota Democrat and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's 2004 reelection campaign, his opponent, Republican congressman John Thune, brought to light a number of examples of Daschle's long history of insincerity with South Dakota's voters. One example was Daschle's doublespeak on the issue of the global war on terrorism. Thune released a press statement that detailed Daschle's contradictory positions on the war:
Senator Daschle's contradictory behavior is particularly noteworthy on the first anniversary of the beginning of the fall of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Iraq. On the eve of military action beginning in Iraq, Senator Tom Daschle attacked President Bush: "I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war. Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country" (Senator Tom Daschle's remarks to AFSCME conference, 17 March 2003).
Slightly less than a year later, after continuing to attack President Bush on Iraq, he suddenly reversed himself during a speech in South Dakota: "Senator Tom Daschle praised the Bush administration's war and nation-building work in Iraq and said he has no serious concerns about the lack of weapons of mass destruction. Daschle told state chamber of commerce representatives meeting in the South Dakota capital that he is satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq. He said he is not upset about the debate over pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, an issue that has dogged President Bush as Democratic presidential contenders have slogged through the primary season" (Rapid City Journal, 20 February 2004).
On election day, South Dakota's voters sent Minority Leader Daschle and the Democratic Party a message that voters are not fools and their votes could no longer be taken for granted when they voted him out of office and replaced him with the more conservative and trustworthy Congressman Thune.
Fortunately, the statistics from the 2004 elections show that some of the politically homeless are willing to leave the Democrat plantation and support conservative social and economic policies. The statistics show that Blacks, Hispanics, Jewish voters, and Catholic voters are no longer a monolith, bound by tradition and the rhetoric of their political leaders to vote for the Democratic candidate. These voters, who have found at least temporary shelter in the Republican Party, demonstrated by their votes that we can no longer view people simply as members of groups. Individuals from any race, ethnic background, or religious denomination have individual political ideologies and interests that transcend their skin color or church affiliation. Democrats will continue to view people as members of racial, religious, or victimized groups, treat them as such, and in doing so take them for granted, at their own peril.
Facts Don't Lie--Liars Ignore Facts
The biggest social and economic issues are blind to race. The current federal tax code is bad for everyone. The Social Security structure is bad for everyone, and the state of the Medicare system is bad for everyone. The rates of abortion, out-of-wedlock childbirths, and illiteracy directly or indirectly affect all members of society. If a significant percentage of our nation's youth are trapped in failing schools, unable and uninspired to learn, the negative repercussions will impact our economy and society for generations. The problems that adversely affect our economic and moral foundations have a negative impact on all citizens, but common sense solutions to our problems will benefit all citizens.
Though we all face the war waged on our economic and moral foundations, those at the lowest strata of economic achievement are the most adversely affected. The federal tax code has a negative impact on everyone, but it has a greater impact on the poor, which includes a disproportionate percentage of the racial minority population. The tax code was engineered in 1913 to raise money needed to fund wars, foreign and domestic programs, and the operations of federal government. In the almost one hundred years since it was enacted, it has ballooned to an eight-million-word mess that no one has ever completely read.
Over the years, Congress has added loopholes and tax credits that reward all manner of specific groups, organizations, and businesses. In doing so, Congress also created disincentives to individuals to start their own businesses, pursue the American entrepreneurial spirit, grow the economy, and pass their businesses and wealth on to their heirs. The federal tax code disproportionately hurts those from the lowest economic levels by increasing their tax burden as they make more money.
Every time the president or congressional Republicans discuss lowering the marginal tax rates by even one or two percentage points, eliminating whole brackets altogether, or replacing the tax code with a fairer system, Democrats in Congress and the liberal-dominated news media respond on cue that changes to the tax code will only benefit the rich. They do not even bother to check the facts or give people the facts. The amount of control the liberals can exercise over our lives is largely determined by how much of our money they can take from individuals and businesses in the form of taxes.
Federal government control over your life is exerted by redistributing to the poor, through an inefficient government program, the tax monies the government receives from you. In so doing, the government controls you by limiting the amount of money you have to spend, save, and invest. The government also controls the recipient of its largess because if poor people or other government dependents improve themselves financially, they are no longer eligible to receive government assistance. Over time, the recipients often lose incentive to better their lives and get off the government dole.
At the same time, middle to upper class income earners who had their income taxed lose incentive to create more wealth through investments or grow businesses because their increased earnings could easily push them into an even higher marginal tax bracket. Only the very wealthy can take advantage of the special tax loopholes written into the tax code, such as making enough money from the dividends of tax-free municipal bonds or setting up corporations and paying themselves as employees.
Liberal congressional Democrats actually attempt to convince the public that this is a fair syst
em that benefits everyone but the rich. In reality, no one benefits from the federal tax code except liberals in Congress who feel they are smarter and better equipped than you to make the decisions that most affect your life. Unfortunately, liberals have been somewhat successful in maintaining their control through manipulation of the tax code. They have instilled in millions of U.S. citizens a sense of jealousy and class envy against those in the highest income brackets. They have created a mentality among the poor and those not educated in elementary economics, those who do not pay a significant percentage of income taxes anyway, that the best and fairest way to fund the activities of government is to punish those who work hard and achieve economic success. Instead of eliminating barriers so that all citizens have the opportunity to achieve, liberals seek to create more barriers to achievement and increase the number of people dependent upon their programs.
Democrats do not want the public to study history or become versed in the dynamics of elementary economics. When President Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal tax rate was 50 percent. He cut that rate to 28 percent, which provided the impetus for the historic economic growth that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. President Kennedy introduced a plan in 1963 to lower the highest marginal tax rate of 91 percent to 70 percent, which sparked similar economic growth. Democrats are not happy when Republicans laud President Kennedy's tax-cutting measures. They seem to be embarrassed that "one of their own" committed the sin of tax rate reduction.
The fact is, replacing the federal tax code will benefit all citizens and provide people from all income brackets with incentives to create wealth, save more money, and invest more money in their futures and the futures of their children and grandchildren. In the 1990s I became chairman of the Tax Leadership Council for an organization called Americans for Fair Taxation (AFFT). AFFT is the organization responsible for promoting replacement of the current federal tax code with a national retail sales tax, also known as the FairTax.
The idea of replacing the federal income tax with the FairTax is gaining grassroots support and momentum across the country. It was introduced in Congress by Georgia congressman John Linder and in the Senate by Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss. The FairTax legislation has more than fifty co-sponsors. The FairTax will replace the current federal tax code with a national retail sales tax on all new goods and services. Replacement of the federal tax code with the FairTax will result in an immediate increase in take-home pay for all wage earners and effectively "untax" the poor (see table on previous page). You can read more about the benefits of the FairTax at www.fairtax.org.
The Social Security structure is broken beyond repair, but Congress has never shown the political will necessary to fix it. The Social Security system will be unable to meet the demands of the baby-boomer retirees and, left in its current condition, will be fiscally insolvent before most of the baby boomers die. Subsequent generations can expect to receive zero return on their lifetime of contributions to the system.
A number of solutions have been offered to save Social Security, including President Bush's proposal to enact an optional system of personal retirement accounts. Instead of working on a solution to the looming Social Security crisis, however, Congress continues to shirk its responsibilities to the public by increasing the retirement age and decreasing benefits to future retirees.
The current Social Security structure adversely affects all citizens, but it has the greatest negative effect on racial minorities. For example, due to the disparity in average life expectancy for Black men--sixty-eight years versus seventy-five years for White males--Blacks can expect on average only a few years of low benefits from the Social Security system. If Congress continues to increase each year the retirement age to receive benefits, Blacks and others with lower average life expectancies could find themselves contributing all their lives to a system but virtually guaranteed to receive zero return on their investment.
The current Social Security structure also has a disproportionately adverse affect on the poor and those below the median income level, regardless of race, due to the increasing income limit used to determine who automatically pays Social Security taxes. The highly regressive Social Security payroll tax only taxes wages, the primary or singular source of income for most of the poor. Workers making more than $90,000 do not pay payroll taxes on their income over that limit. The entire salaries of workers making less than the limit are therefore subject to the Social Security payroll tax. If Congress raises the amount subject to payroll taxation, the salaries of millions of workers will forever be reduced to pay for the failed Social Security system.
Liberals do not want to face the reality that the Social Security structure is insolvent. Congressional liberals view the Social Security system as a mechanism to fund all their favorite social engineering programs, since the payroll taxes contributed to the system go straight to Congress's general fund. The Social Security payroll tax is another mechanism designed to relieve you of your money and provide you nothing in return. Millions of citizens should question why we keep in place a retirement system that is not funded at the necessary levels to meet the demand of the coming baby-boomer retirees, will require increasingly high and regressive payroll tax increases to sustain, and provides a zero percent return on your investment--if you live long enough to receive all the money you paid in.
To liberal Democrats, the nation's economy is never prosperous when Republicans control the presidency, Congress, or both, and it is only getting worse. According to Democratic candidates and most media sources during the 2004 election cycle, the U.S. economy was stagnant, struggling, and losing jobs. They argued that President Bush was responsible for an economy that produced more than two million job losses since his election. The Democrats and their accomplices in the media neglected, of course, to mention the reasons jobs were lost at the beginning of the first Bush administration--the "dot-com" burst of the late 1990s, numerous corporate scandals, and the terrorist attacks on New York City's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
In reality, the 2004 economy showed declining unemployment, increases in jobs in many sectors, and strong economic growth as measured by higher hourly earnings, increases in home purchases and construction, and increases in Gross Domestic Product. Media stories about job creation and unemployment have not been consistent. In 1996 during President Clinton's reelection campaign, stories were positive 85 percent of the time--more than four times as often as they were for President Bush--even though the unemployment rate measured at the same times of the year was lower in 2004 and the economy added two million jobs from 2003 to 2004 alone.
Moreover, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found in its 2004 National Opinion Poll that 60 percent of Blacks surveyed, and 70 percent overall, considered themselves financially the same or better off than in the previous year.
A key component to the Democrat policy agenda since the Clinton administration of the 1990s has been to enact a nationalized health care system that covers all the health care costs of all U.S. citizens. A nationalized health care system would destroy the free-market incentives to improve health care and develop new and better pharmaceutical drugs, and the quality and accessibility to health care services would plummet.
In 1994, as vice chairman of the National Restaurant Association, I was part of a nationwide initiative to help raise awareness that the Clinton Health Care Plan was an economic and social disaster. President Clinton stated on numerous occasions that the cost of his health care plan for service businesses like restaurants would only be about 2.5 percent of the cost of doing business and that he did not understand why the restaurant industry's opposition was so intense. My staff and I had been through the calculations many times, and we continued to find that for many restaurant businesses, the president's calculations were way off!
I was asked at that time to participate in a live town hall meeting the president would conduct in Kansas City, with hookups to audiences in Omaha, Nebraska; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and To
peka, Kansas. I jumped at the opportunity to address President Clinton about his health care plan and the fact that his administration had miscalculated its true cost.
I attended the April 1994 town hall meeting at a television studio in Omaha. When the second round of questions began, I was informed that I would be the next to ask President Clinton a question. I have to admit this was one of the few times in my life that I truly felt a little nervous. It was not nervousness because of Bill Clinton but because of my respect for the office of president of the United States of America, the highest office of the greatest nation on the face of the earth.
My turn soon came, and I rose to speak. Our conversation went as follows:
Herman Cain (HC): "Mister President, thank you very much for this opportunity, and I would like to commend you on making health care a national priority. [The president nodded politely.] In your State of the Union speech, you indicated that nine out of ten Americans currently have health care insurance, primarily through their employers. And tonight you indicated that out of those people who do not have insurance, eight out of ten of them work for someone. And your plan would force employers to pay this insurance for those people that they currently do not cover. I would contend that employers who do not cover employees do not for one simple reason, and it relates to cost."
