We need representatives who will hold their ground against spending and increased government interventions into the economy. To compromise means that more spending and regulation will take place now with promises of frugality and economic liberty in the future when things get better. We've seen this shell game before -- the frugality and relaxation of interventions never come. Whenever there's a crisis that calls for government intervention, the power grabbed by politicians is never given back.

Democrats pretend they are blocked from passing infrastructure spending and support to states and such because the extremist rightwingers will filibuster, but Democrats know that much of what their general base wants will not play well for individual representatives in their home states. The Left's base is small and loud, and if Democrats push through the progressive agenda, or even try to, many of them will be punished by their constituents. It's the people who want to cut spending and stop government meddling, because if a majority wanted more spending and taxing, Republican representatives would be on board.

The Leftist view, though, was still presented, and one of the questions was whether Obama can do anything to help deal with the debt problem. Paul Ryan said that if we enter a debt crisis, it will be too late and no one can be helped. This has been my position all along. If we don't get government under control, welfare and social justice are moot points. In the future, we are going to need private sector solutions to social problems rather than Leviathan.

Scarborough asked one of his guests what Obama has to do to change the perception that he's a Spend and Tax Liberal. First off, this is the problem with programs like Morning Joe and with the pundits who populate the shows. They still believe in the old strategy of managing perceptions to win elections, then when elected returning to the agenda that's the real priority. Obama can't change the perception unless he changes his political philosophy and understanding of economics.

Democrats are in a bind. They think they can position themselves as Centrists who are blocked by radicals from the Right, but Democrats are in power maintenance mode. Unions, minorities, women, young people, the poor, the elderly, environmentalists, the LBGT community, are all dependent on the Democrat Party because they've been promised one thing or another. The problem is that we are going so far into debt, spending on these groups is restricted, But, it's not only spending, it's regulations that favor certain groups. Between the regulations and the spending, however, economic stagnation has developed and money just sits on the sidelines because investors are afraid to take a chance when they don't know what changes will come about tomorrow. Democrats want to take the money sitting on the sidelines, but there's backlash to more taxes, and taxing the producers more just adds to the uncertainty and the stagnation. Producers will operate overseas and keep their money overseas if they are threatened in the US.

Obama attempted early on to create the perception that he was with the Big Corporations, and Obama did help the Jamie Dimon types and the Goldman Sachs executives and GM and Big Unions, but it was a set-up. Now, the real agenda is unfolding, and it is written into the tens of thousands of regulations that are building the healthcare, energy and finance structures. When government controls finance and healthcare and enegry, it controls everything. How does Obama change the perception in order to get re-elected? The question is ludicrous. How does Obama reign over government control of the entire economy, yet fool voters into thinking he supports free markets and less government intervention? He can't. Not in the Information Age. Maybe Obama could have pulled it off when there were three main news outlets and they gave their versions of the news for about an hour a day, but not now.

I will write another post about the current pleas for compromise in DC. We don't need compromise that expands government power -- we need political unity that works to limit government power.

Coburn believes Obama when he says he will do something meaningful to reform entitlements if he has a second term. Coburn sounds like he's pulling for an Obama win. Coburn knows the presssure of complete control by the GOP means they would have to make radical changes or face the public's wrath and distrust for decades. I don't think status quo Republicans want to limit government power, so they will settle for pretending they can work with Obama if they gain some seats in congress. The statist Republicans don't want a Romney win.

I have news for Coburn. If he and his statist buddies in the GOP work to maintain the status quo, they will not last much longer in congress. It will be their careers that suffer from mistrust, as the Republican Party transforms to limited government advocates and free market champions.

It will be interesting. If the Coburns and Cantors and McConnells win, then we can look forward to a third party. Something will change, one way or the other.

Because state governments would be rejected if they go to citizens of the states and ask for higher taxes to pay for the spending, the states hide the increased spending within the federal spending on state. This can't last, and the end result will be that the very poor who state politicians pretend to protect are made more and more vulnerable each day. When the day comes that the consequences can no longer be avoided, the poor will suffer while the politicians who set them up will blame the rich and scream for social justice. If federal and state governments didn't waste so much on spending that ensures they maintain power, there would be enough to help the truly needy. Until we get welfare out of the hands of government, the system will continue to unravel until it falls apart completely.

Those who accuse libertarians of being naive when we criticize government regulation miss the operative word -- government. Banks have become so big, and risk is so prevalent, that most banks want regulation -- they want effective feed-back regarding their ability to survive stress in the market. Unfortunately, government regulators can't seem to get the job done. Banks would pay private companies to give them a seal of approval, because this seal of approval is valuable to a bank that wants to assure investors they are solid. With a private system there would be enough flexibility to find the best way to make investors and bankers more comfortable. The private system, wanting to expand business, would also find a way to not block out the small players so that competition can flourish and Big Banks that can't cut it can fall by the wayside and allow competitors to take up the slack and improve the overall finance industry.

We are so government-focused that no one can imagine regulation efforts outside government control.

Obama's regulatory madness has crippled small businesses and this prevents hiring on the scale we need to reduce unemployment to a more acceptable level. Small business promotion is good for minorities, the poor, young people and women.

What pundits are either ignoring or missing is that in 2008 Americans were suffering from the effects of government interventions brought on by the Republicans and Democrats, but Bush was President, and Bush didn't do anything to fight against the interventions, and, in fact, he promoted some of the interventions, so the public turned on him. The public turned on Bush, though, only because the interventions didn't work. The public did not yet understand that the problem is the interventions, per se, and that practically all economic interventions have unintended consequences. 

In 2008, Americans had not yet thought deeply enough about politics and economics, but that changed when they realized how deep and dangerous this recession had become. This is the first time I've seen a national conversation so broadly considering the appropriate role of government in the economy and in our lives, including the Reagan years. The Information Age has allowed the conversation more depth and breadth, and the seriousness of our debt and financial problems, plus the crisis in the EU, have all caused Americans to think about statism and it's consequences. But, in 2008, as Obama was voted in, it was a combination of anti-Bush and pro-historical President who offered hope that created the fervor for Obama. At that time Americans still did not fully understand the problems with government interventions.

Now, after over three years of government interventions on steroids and debt that we couldn't imagine in 2008, Americans are rejecting technocrats who only offer government solutions. The guests on Morning Joe, Sam Stein, Mark Halperin, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Eugene Washington, and the other statists who populate the show on a frequent basis are trying to figure out why the polls are up and down. Who knows why they are up and down, but polls won't determine who wins, and polls don't change reality. There's a good probability the polls are being manipulated, because the political class will do anything to save the present statist system.

Interventionists on both the Left and Right are convinced that government actions -- investments, tax hikes, regulations -- are necessary to pull the country out of economic stagnation, but the country is ready to give someone like Mitt Romney a chance, if he will actually help get government out of the way and stop the expensive and wasteful government interventions.

I think the pundits, like the ones who frequent Morning Joe, overestimated the strength of the support for Obama in 2008, and, now, they underestimate the public's desire to empower the private sector. I'm not completely convinced that enough people are promoting private sector empowerment to overcome the statists, but there's a good chance it can happen if things get worse. Recently, Republicans in congress have drifted back to their statist ways, so it will be interesting how Romney reacts -- will Romney lead the GOP to economic freedom and limited government, or will he be just one more status quo politician enamored with expanding State power?

Americans have difficulty imagining anything outside the political realm. The Morning Joe crew discussed Obama's new ad showing Romney at Bain Capital and how some of the companies he bought went out of business and jobs were lost. The implication of the ad was even when steel manufacturing is no longer viable in certain areras of America, Romney should have taken Bain's assets and kept the jobs intact although the company was losing money. So, eventually, under this scenario, Bain would have gone bankrupt, and that would have reduced the overall effort in the capitalist system to save companies that do have a chance to survive, which would contribute to more lost jobs, not less.

But, obviously, not many people can any longer think through these situations, or at least the Obama administration is betting people can't think through these scenarios and will hate Romney for firing people and profittng off their joblessness. Joe Scarborough championed the capitalist perspective, but then he said something that placed him right back into the center of political ugliness which has a corrosive effect on the nation. Scarborough said the trick is to champion capitalism but show that Romney has no compassion for the people who had to be fired. At first, Scarborough jokingly ribbed the administration for not highlighting their accomplishments and why they deserve a second term, but obvioulsy he was only joking, because his conclusion was that the administration should smear Romney as an uncaring person who has no conception of what it's like to be unemployed. So, Scarborough didn't have a problem with the ad because it treated capitalism unfairly, so much, but because it didn't focus mainly on Romney as an uncaring, rich, capitalist pig.

The political class can't see outside politics and the Machiavellian practices which move further and further from integrity and honorable actions. I would love to see Romney's charitable givings compared to Joe and Mika, Obama, the Morning Joe Panel or any other Democrat operatives or partisan hacks who constantly smear Romney as uncaring and out of touch. These critics of Romney talk about compassion, but I would love to see what they give -- what they actually do to help anyone in poverty. I have criticized Romney, but only on his reluctance to promote my economic positions, not because I have looked into his heart to divine cold emptiness.

The political class is judging who will control the most powerful government in world by what the Ruler will do for them, and because Romney is more associated with the private sector, the political class wants him defeated any way possible, and they will destroy him by any methods. This is the discussion Morning Joe should have delved in, because this direction is what will destroy America. And, if a truly vicious political machine eventually gains complete control, the soft pundits doing their snark routines on Morning Joe will be among the first to be dismissed as used-up idiots.

It's the same old bipartisan game that has brought us to the brink of disaster. It's the same mindset that has brought ruin to Greece and threatens the financial security of other European countries. It's the same economically-ignorant desire for the State to use tax-payer money to support corporations in order to compete with other State-capitalist countries, as if State and Corporations should be partners competing in the global market against the other teams made up of States and corporations, not companies competing against one another based on what they have to offer.

Republicans, for the most part, have learned nothing. Romney is not showing any desire to break this bipartisan power-grip the two-party statist system has on our government. The media simply praises any joint effort to expand the scope and power of government. Every arm of the State is working overtime to expand government power, and to stop any movement that might want to limit government power.

The few new Republicans elected in 2010 who helped put a stop to Obama's march to complete a progressive agenda are now made irrelevant along with all of congress as Obama and his EPA henchman write regulation after regulation in order to secure government's control over the economy.

The entire political class manufactures diversions so that the focus on economic ruin is shifted. Talk about women's issues, gay issues, accuse each other of mendacity, complain about non-existent austerity, find sob stories to tell so the hearstrings are pulled and no one asks any tough questions regarding how this will all be paid for. Paul Krugman and the highest financial experts in government say spend more money and worry about paying it back later -- this is the expert advice.

The one man who calls for radical change and sensible policies to avoid economic allopse, Ron Paul, is ignored, and when he is noticed is ridiculed as a crank. The experts say America will never be like Greece. We already are like Greece. We just have more to waste. I thought there was hope somewhere in the Republican Party, but now I don't believe there is hope in either party -- there's no hope in the political realm, period.

US drug demand is not the entire cause of this insanity and barbarity, but it plays a large role. It's time to stop the government interventionist approach to drug dealing and use and let the market deal with it. Obviously, those who want to use drugs will do so, one way or the other, and the illegal nature of the drug dealing feeds vicious gangs that are controlling entire countries and causing more deaths than terrorism. It makes no sense to maintain the illegal status of drugs.