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Newt Gingrich – Saviour of the Right?

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As I’ve been doing more and more lately, I was reading through the New York Times online the other day. On their site they have a link to their New York Times Magazine, which generally has much longer articles on specific topics. In the latest edition, they had an article that talked at great length about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The article, written by Matt Bai, was excellent in describing Speaker Gingrich, his rise and fall in Washington, and his prospects for leading the Republican Party in the future.

I’ve spent some time on this blog reviewing Speaker Gingrich’s books and I think that his stance on many major political issues are in line with what the vast majority of the country wants (likely because he takes stances that 80% of Americans agree with as per his think tank research). Speaker Gingrich may not have the cleanest personal record, but he has an excellent mind for Washington politics. Here’s a line from the article regarding his simple, yet powerful new political stance:

His goal is to turn the Republicans into what he calls a “party of the American people” by linking disparate solutions whose only real relationship to one another is that they demonstrate, in surveys, what he calls “tripartisan” appeal — the broad support of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Gingrich told me he has identified about 100 ideas and positions that command anywhere from 62 percent to 93 percent support among such a cross-section of voters: giving out tax credits for installing alternative heating sources in your home (90 percent); awarding cash prizes to anyone who invents a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon (77 percent); keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance (88 percent).

This strategy is brilliant, when you think about it. Take the concepts and ideas which form the base of “American Values” (and which most Americans agree with whole-heartedly) and use them as the base for a political platform. Seems like an easy way to victory, right?

Gingrich was fascinated and impressed by Obama’s [inaugural] address (“Those could have been our words,” he told the group), and he advised them to laminate it and keep it close by, so that they could hold the new president to his pragmatic rhetoric.

A few weeks after Speaker Gingrich made this suggestion, Republicans started carrying around laminated portions of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address. However, it is telling that Gingrich suggests that Obama’s words could have been Republican words. In many ways, I think he is correct since most inaugural addresses and State of the Union speeches are nothing more than rallying cries to core American values. Too many times the people on the far left and far right (and the political extremists) refuse to hear the simplicity of the words used during these addresses. Another piece of the article:

“He’s a total idea factory,” [Paul] Ryan said. “The man will have 10 ideas in an hour. Six of them will be brilliant, two of them are in the stratosphere and two of them I’ll just flat-out disagree with. And then you’ll get 10 more ideas in the next hour.”

This little bit refers to the fact that Speaker Gingrich is constantly putting new policy ideas out there to a select few in the Republican party. That’s what the party is missing right now – new ideas. If Gingrich can bring new ides to a stagnant, broken party, he might be able to rejuvenate the Republicans in time for the 2010 elections.

This article is a fascinating read for policy wonks and those who are highly interested in national politics. Bai does a commendable job telling Speaker Gingrich’s story and I highly recommend reading this article if you are so inclined and have the time to do so.

Lobbying for Smartphones in the Classroom

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You have to admire the lengths that certain industries will go through in order to make a buck during a recession – even if those lengths are laughable at best. Monday’s New York Times had a great article that talked about how the cell phone industry is funding research that proves smartphones help student perform better in the classroom.

Imagine that! The cellphone industry is publishing a report that suggests the education industry – one of the largest in the United States – should invest in smartphones for its students. Brilliant.

This reminds me of a situation that came up at my job last year. We were engaging in a contract with a lobbyist to advocate for more dollars to be spent on education facilities. One of the ideas that our boss at the time had was to generate an in-house report showing the need for more facility dollars and how our organization was well positioned to use those dollars most efficiently.

I almost jumped out of my skin.

Can you imagine being a legislator and having ABC Company come up to you and say, “We need more money for Project X. Here is a report showing the need for more money for Project X. Please note that ABC Company is the best organization to utilize extra dollars allocated to Project X.”

Talk about self-serving! Any legislator that is worth their skin would laugh off that report and – if they are really interested in whatever “Project X” happens to be – would commission an independent report. Luckily, through some arguments and some luck, my company partnered with a highly regarded university to create an independent report on the idea of more money for school facilities. It was a much better option than having us do a report in house that essentially says, “Give us money.”

Anyway, you can read the full text of the New York Times article, but trust me – it’s slightly ridiculous.

Send A Message to President Obama NOW!

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President Barack Obama has pledged to be one of the most open Presidents in American history. To show that he is both tech savvy and willing to hear the comments from all American citizens, he’s transformed WhiteHouse.gov into a blog-style website. The new style of the site comes complete with a contact form where you can send a message to the White House with the hope that President Obama will actually read it.

The link for that portion of the White House’s website may be found by clicking here. I hope that Americans really take this opportunity to send messages to the White House to talk about the things that are affecting them everyday. Personally, I’ve sent two messages to the White House so far – both of them dealing with a tax issue related to student loans.

For those of you who have student loans, you’ll know that you can deduct the interest paid on your loans on your taxes. The problem is that you can only deduct up to $2,500 per tax year. Well hey, if you have massive student loan debt, you may be paying upwards of $5,000 or $6,000 per year in interest alone!

If you’re out there in the world and making good money, but are saddled with gigantic student loan debt, you know that being able to deduct the entire amount of interest paid on student loans would be a great way to put more dollars back in the pockets of the working class…the very people who would not have been able to attend college if it were not for those loans. So this is what I’ve been sending Obama – that you can go ahead and fix the economy, but if people with massive student loan debt are still spending an exorbitant portion of their income on this interest, then fixing the economy won’t matter.

One way to mitigate this problem is allowing Borrowers to deduct the entire amount of their student loan interest. If you agree, here is a short message that you, too, can send to the White House on the contact page listed above:

Tax policies should be revised so that 100% of annual interest paid on student loans can be deducted on personal taxes. Many Borrowers with high student loan debts pay a high portion of their annual, post-tax income as interest on student loans. Currently, only $2,500 may be deducted annually. Borrowers with larger student loan debts routinely pay upwards of $5,000 each year in interest. Allowing the total amount of interest paid to be deducted will better position these citizens in the economy.

You’ll see that you can only submit 500 characters worth of a message to the White House (which makes sense). The italicized blurb above is 500 characters on the dot. So if this is something that you can agree with, please copy and paste the text above into the contact form on the White House website!

My God – ObamaMania Is Getting Out Of Control

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Conservatives have been saying this for about a year, but the sheer hysteria around everything-Obama is getting a bit out of control. Look, I like the guy and I’m glad that he’s the President of the United States. I think that he has the potential to do a lot of great things for America and that the country can be better place for his efforts, but some of the news stories and editorials about the President are getting out of control.

About two weeks ago, Vanity Fair published an article called, “Is Obama the Most Famous Living Person Ever?” Figuring that this was a joke or some type of play on words, I had to read the article to see what the author was going for…and it was disappointing. The writer is so delusional that she actually wrote this:

I’m not trying to induce an acid flashback to John Lennon’s infamous 1966 comment, “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus.” But whether you measure fame in terms of saturation or sheer numbers, it seems indisputable to me that more people know at least something about the new American president than anyone alive, at this point—or any—in the planet’s existence.

Who else could it be? One friend suggest Muhammad Ali, another Princess Diana, and a third said Bill Clinton. Surely all are global brands with enormous reach and broad appeal. But all fall short of the man-meets-the-moment frenzy unleashed by Obama.

Typical mass media liberal ideology. Over the last two decades, the most famous person on earth was obviously Pope John Paul II; a man who wasn’t even suggested in this article. I’m sure that the former Pope wasn’t brought up because he’s one of those Roman Catholics (GASP!). And as a proud Roman Catholic myself, I think it’s hilarious that the morons at Vanity Fair could publish an article wondering who the most famous living person ever was and not mention Pope John Paul II – who it is estimated was seen by more than half of the world’s population during his time in the Papacy alone.

And if we’re talking about the most famous living people ever, then how are Jesus Christ and the prophet Muhammad not on that list? What about Abraham or King David or King Solomon? Oh wait – the liberals don’t really believe that these people existed (or at least not in the form that more than 4 billion people believe in which they existed).

Obama could be a great man and worthy of such remembrance one day, but a month into his term as President I’m unsure how anyone who is of sane mind and body could make such a ridiculous statement. Yet another example of how the media has gone to shit in this country.

Why The Rest Of The World Should Be In Fear…

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According to one report in an international newspaper, now is the time for the rest of the world to start getting a little bit worried about a rise in American power. No, we’re not coming at you with preemptive wars and no, we’re not going to try nation building in new parts of the globe. No, we’ve got something much more positive in store…for us, at least.

Americans are saving their money again.

That’s right. Americans have finally begun to reverse their trend of spending more money than they earn, at least in some small part. The good folks north of the border at the Globe and Mail ran an article about this returning phenomenon the other day where they shared some historical stats:

Americans are suddenly spending less than they earn. While that might not sound heretical or surprising – how long can you go on spending more money than you earn? – it is an epochal moment for the free-spending United States. After saving an average of more than 7 per cent of disposable income until almost 1990, the United States went into a savings tailspin. Savings rates fell, in fits and starts, from 8 per cent, through 6 per cent in the early 1990s, to 2 per cent around 2000, to the ignominy of a negative savings rate by mid-2005.

Now, however, that is changing rapidly. November economic data showed U.S. savings spiked to 2.8 per cent of disposable income, up from zero at the beginning of 2008. Is it that Americans have suddenly figured out that saving is a good thing, or are they taking some sort of moral stand against profligate spending?

Look at that! At the beginning of 2008, Americans were saving zero percent of their disposable income, but towards the end of the year we were up around three percent. Alright! Go America! What does this mean for the world? The writer of this piece, Paul Kedrosky, gives us some idea…

To put it in context, a U.S. savings rate of minus 1 per cent meant roughly $2-million a minute was flowing out of U.S. consumer savings into other things, mostly consumption, like TVs and home renovations, and so on. Or, on an annual basis, that worked out to almost $1.3-trillion exiting the U.S. banking system for other places.

Turn that around, however, and things get very different, very quickly. At a 3-per-cent savings rate, the United States will see $3.8-trillion showing up next year in the banking system just from domestic savers. At 7 per cent, almost $9-trillion will come rushing in as part of the savings tsunami. It is a fire hose of money pointed at the banks, and it’s just beginning.

Ha! How about that, world? The market is up the creek right now, but America is going to get its value back and we’re going to get it from saving more of our own money. It’s simple cause and effect, right? If you want more money in the banking system without draining more taxpayer dollars, then you PUT IT there via savings accounts.

And that’s just what this country is fixing to do. Let’s go bigger and better than a 3% savings rate. All Americans should sit down and look at their personal annual budget and try to earmark 5% of their annual earnings for savings only. And why not go even bigger and better than that? Budget 5% of your income for savings and another 5% for donations to one or two United States-based charitable organizations of your choosing. Your first 5% helps provide for your future and your second 5% helps to build up another community within your own nation.

If you can afford to do it, then why not?