college republicans

As college students, people always assume we're Democrats. You’ve probably heard the old political saw (often misattributed to Winston Churchill), “”If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.” There are numerous theories as to why. Democrats have a more optimistic, open-hearted vision for America. Young adults tend to be socially liberal. They saw a lot of themselves in Barack Obama. Liberal indoctrination by college professors. The list could stretch for miles. But today’s young adults may not be pigeonholed the same way. This year Democrats’ cannot take their votes for granted.

That doesn’t mean Democrats aren’t trying. President Obama is kicking off a series of rallies on college campuses, designed to reinvigorate the young adults who carried him into the White House two years earlier.

But the message has drastically changed. Rather than ignite young adults with his hopeful brand of politics, the President is reduced to groveling. As the Washington Post reported today,

When Obama steps onto a grass quad at the University of Wisconsin on Tuesday, he will deliver a newly tailored, more personalized campaign appeal aimed at ginning up enthusiasm, according to White House and senior Democratic officials. Plouffe said Obama will remind students of the work they put into his 2008 campaign and warn them that if they don’t reengage now, “all that could be jeopardized.”

In 2008 he advocated for change. In 2010 he’s advocating for things to stay the same? Not exactly a winning message.

But it is made even more unpalatable given the general lack of change we have actually seen from Obama. It is easy to promise change, it is much more difficult to actually deliver it. And this has been Obama’s failing. As one previous Obama supporter said in a town hall recently,

“I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. And deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I have been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting sir.

Substitute “middle class” for “young adults” and you’ll understand the frustration that is being seen on many college campuses. We wanted something different. We were promised something different. We got more of the same.

More politics. More backdoor dealings. More big government. More spending. More wars. For young adults there really wasn’t much difference between the Obama administration and the Bush administration from which they were so disenchanted.

All told, Democrats have a much tougher sell this time around if they want to recapture magic with young people. Meanwhile, Republicans are beginning to find traction on college campuses. Take college sophomore Edward Dooley, who told ABC News that just two years ago he was a “Kennedy-worshipping, stereotypical Massachusetts liberal.” But now Dooley, like so many other young adults, finds that his political ideology has shifted to the right after being turned off by Obama’s “glossy ideals” and “lack of concrete policies.”

Beyond a failure to live up to promises, Obama’s support among the youth vote has been eroded by his failed attempts to jump start the economy. The recession has been especially hard on young people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics youth unemployment was at 19.1 percent in July – the highest July rate since statistics were first kept in 1948.

Unfortunately for the unemployed the Democrats’ stimulus policies have done little to budge the unemployment needle. In fact, the only thing they have really accomplished is trillions of dollars of additional government debt, money that younger generations will be responsible for paying back.

As College Republican Chair Bob Kosek told ABC News for their story Republicans Rising on College Campuses,

“Hope and change doesn’t put money in your bank account to buy textbooks or pay off your student loans. It doesn’t help you get a job after you graduate either, and I think a lot of students are realizing that now.”

The rampant unemployment and dismal economy that is the Democrats’ legacy of the past two years is perhaps no clearer than on the University of Wisconsin campus where Obama is beginning his college tour. As the Washington Post reports,

The students on this leafy, generally liberal campus once constituted one of the strongest battalions in Obama’s grass-roots army. Two years later, the political dynamic has changed. Across campus, stickers, signs or chalkings for any politician are scarce. The laundromat where Obama’s young volunteers once staged late-night phone banks and planned bus trips to neighboring Iowa has gone out of business.”

A one-time hub for pro-Obama students now out of business. What a fitting, if sad metaphor for this administration.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/09/27/obamas-campus-tour-finding-college-conservatism-on-the-rise/

We’re heading into the home stretch. We’ve rounded the final corner and are now speeding towards the November finish line. If you haven’t figured it out I’m talking about the upcoming elections where Democrats are trying their best to stay ahead of the Republicans in the race for Congressional control. But Democrats appear to be running out of fuel, the result of a failed “Recovery Summer” and the consistent lack of results from their tax-and-spend policies. Republican’s on the other hand have filled up their gas tank, fueled by voter response to their vision of change.

Voter’s desire for a new perspective in Washington is most clear when there is money on the line. In this cash-strapped, job-hunting society, the only thing we care about more than money is what diet Kim and Khloe Kardashian are on this week (or, if you’re a guy, the fact that the NFL starts next week). But still, money is king. It is what gives us the roof over our heads, puts food on the table, and puts the kids through college. Without Mr. Franklin and Mr. Grant backing up our country (for me its more like Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln) it will be impossible for us to remain an economic superpower.

This importance is evidence in the polls. According to Gallup, 93 percent of those polled believe that the economy is at least “very important” in determining their vote in the fall. That is trailed only slightly by job (92 percent) and federal spending (81 percent). That means three of the top four voting cues all have one thing in common – money – either the ability to earn it or the concern that Congress is mishandling it.

Saying an issue is important doesn’t necessarily tell you very much, so let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. Now that we know everyone is anxious to have a few more greenback’s in their pockets, the key question is which party do you believe can help you do that?

Of those polled by Gallup, 49 percent believe that Republicans would do a better job at fixing the economy while 38 percent believed Democrats would do a better job. That’s a +11 for the GOP. Americans also said they trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue of jobs, albeit by a slimmer 5 percent margin. But rather than analyze issue by issue, there is a greater trend at play here. Of the nine issues asked about in the polls Americans trusted Republicans more than Democrats on seven of them (and healthcare was essentially a tie).

Democrats have squandered our trust. In October of 2006, just prior to Democrats’ making major gains following George Bush’s reelection, Democrats led on all eight issues polled at the time. Americans reward trust and punish any breach of it. We were given reason to hope that the “Washington way “would be changed. Promise after promise was thrown at us. Everything from a promise to “drain the swamp,” to a promise to pay for “every dime” of their plans, to a promise that if the stimulus passed unemployment would fall below 8 percent. But none of it came true. Promises of change were dashed against the rocks of the same old Washington. Nothing is different, except for now things are worse.

The economy is comatose, largely the result of uncertainty caused by overregulation and the necessity of tax hikes to pay off our crushing debts. Unemployment remains high because no companies are willing to make the commitment to hire unless the government makes a commitment to back off. And federal spending has soared with years of historic deficits still ahead. For better or worse Americans care a lot about money, and the government hasn’t given us much reason to trust what they are doing with it. Their seeming addiction to the “spend, spend, and spend some more” mindset is leading us into serious trouble. They spend on stimulus, they spend on bailouts, they spend for healthcare reform. I can’t even list all their spending bills because I just don’t have the room.

Americans live within a budget. We are forced to balance our checkbooks, keep our accounts in the positive, and make regular payments on any debts we have. Why should we trust a Democratic Party who thinks they play by different rules? We shouldn’t. Or given the recent poll results perhaps it would be more appropriate to say – we don’t. Fortunately, with November right around the corner we’ll soon have an opportunity to show them just how much we appreciate their breach of trust.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Commitee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/09/02/democrats-breach-of-trust-could-lead-to-big-november-losses/

I try to read all of Princeton economist and New York Times’ contributor Paul Krugman’s columns. Call it a nerdy form of masochism. By the end of each article I’m often left ripping at my hair and gouging at my eyes, screaming madly, “how did this guy win a Nobel?!?” Then I’m reminded that Yasser Arafat and Al Gore are also Nobel laureates and that maybe I shouldn’t make such a big deal out of the award.

Regardless of my disdain for his ideology I simply cannot stop reading. His seemingly religious belief that spending for the sake of spending is the solution to any economic crisis is admirable in its consistency.

Then again, it’s also fun to watch him run in rhetorical circles when he’s wrong. Remember this gem?

“[Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issues to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.”

Oops, got that one wrong. Must’ve missed the $4.3 trillion in subprime mortgages.

Well in his latest column he gets it wrong again. But in all his economic vanity he can’t admit it. Quite the contrary, he predicts the future for us, the conservative fools, who seek to deter the government from spending us into bankruptcy. In true doom and gloom fashion he argues “[F]uture historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression.”

Fortunately, we, the conservative fools, have good company. The G-20 Summit, composed of leaders from the world’s largest economies, have decided that trimming deficits is the best way to achieve long term stability in the world economy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been one of the most vocal advocates of putting government spending on a sustainable path. In a response to President Obama’s call for more stimulus, her government said,

“Nobody can seriously dispute that excessive public debts, not only in Europe, are one of the main causes of this crisis. That’s why they have to be reduced.”

Nobody? Is that a challenge? Apparently Paul Krugman took it as one. In his latest column Krguman explains why the silly know-nothings at the G-20 summit, with their commitment to fiscal sanity rather than spiraling deficits, will inevitably lead to the “Third Depression.” He writes:

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

Gasp! Inadequate spending. Only in the wonderland that exists inside Krugman’s head could trillions of dollars in new government debt be considered “inadequate spending.” If the United States escaped the Great Depression by building tanks for World War II, Krugman wants us to escape this recession by building presses to print all the money we’ll need for his “stimulus.”

The problem is that Paul Krugman thinks myopically. We must spend, spend, spend and do it now, now, now. Forget the fact that we have no plan to solve these deficits in the long term, beyond inflating our currency to the point where deficits won’t matter. The rest of us have a more nuanced understanding. We actually possess the ability to assess the long-term. Moreover, the ability to think in future terms necessarily colors the way we act in the present.

As Shawn Tully of Forbes explains,

“[I]f investors are convinced that Washington has a plan to restore fiscal balance, they’ll be content with lower returns on their stocks, bonds and buildings for a simple reason: those returns will prove more stable and predictable. That comfort level, in turn, lowers risk premiums and raises the prices of equities, corporate bonds, houses, and office towers.

Right now, many investors and managers are simply terrified by the absence of a roadmap to avoid ruinous debt. “We need to know that Washington can make tough choices, that our leaders are willing to do things that are unpopular,” says Paul Willen, an economics professor at MIT. “More than anything, people need to feel that this is not out of control.”

Frankly we’re scared, not just of today’s economic downturn, but because of a future made cloudy by insurmountable government deficits. In the face of a frightening future, Americans are saving rather than spending, companies are shunning risk and entrepreneurialism, and foreign lenders may soon ask for higher interest rates to hedge against inflation.

Keynes once said, “in the end we are all dead.” Krugman seems to base his entire economic philosophy on this one sentence. There is little other explanation for why he puts so much emphasis on spending now regardless of whether we can pay for it later. Our generation deserves better than that. Solving today’s crisis should not come with the caveat that we have doomed ourselves to another one.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/06/28/krugmans-keynesiasm-dooms-us-to-future-downturns/

I’ll try not to be as “doom and gloom” as I want to be. But I’ll allow myself one uber-pessimistic sentence to vent. Here we go: The shortsighted dummies in Washington now seem dead-set on sticking their dirty little hands into my wallet once again, this time to nationalize 401(k) plans as a quick cash grab to fund their agenda, and we’ll all suffer because of it. Ok. Technically it was a run-on sentence, but I had a lot to say and only one sentence to say it!

Our generation has witnessed an unprecedented growth in the size of government. It’s tentacles now touch every part of our lives. From regulation of traditionally private enterprises to administering and funding health care, we’re left to wonder where will the growth stop. Well apparently the Democrats in Washington want to keep pushing the envelope. Their latest grab is 401(k) retirement plans.

For all you young adults out there – just because I said retirement doesn’t mean you get to stop reading. This affects us now.

First, some explanation. In February the White House released its “Annual Report on the Middle Class” in Obama’s new Middle Class Task Force laid out ways to improve retirement security. Currently most workers join a 401(k) in which they pay a certain amount of their salary into a tax deferred investment vehicle that allows them to save for retirement. Advantages include: the employee gets to choose the type of investment and risk level, the money is contributed before it is taxed so you save on taxes, and many employers will match what you put in.

Enter the Democrats governing mantra: “Anything the private sector can do we can do better. We can do anything better than you.” To that end the Middle Class Task Force recommended:

“The creation of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs), which would give workers a simple way to invest a portion of their retirement savings in an account that was free of inflation and market risk, and in some versions under discussion, would guarantee a specified real return above the rate of inflation.”

Sounds wonderfully benign when you describe it like that. It’s kind of like saying, the public option would have provided patients with more health care choices. Unfortunately, the reality is much different.

Supporters of the GRA have already testified before Congress with proposals to eliminate the favorable tax treatment afforded to 401(k) plans. Government run GRAs would be there to pick up the slack. How they would do that is explained in another government document – a “Request for Information” regarding the “annuitization” of 401(k) plans issued by the Department of the Treasury.

The problem with Americans, as suggested by the Treasury document, is that they aren’t good at saving. They complain that the vast majority of people take their 401(k) earnings in a lump sum once they reach retirement age. Democrats don’t like this idea. Apparently they disapprove of how people spend their money. They say that the only way to make sure people spend wisely is to convince/force them into an annuity providing monthly payments rather than a lump sum. Paternalism at its worst.

All this is bad, but why should young adults be concerned? The answer…just take a look at Social Security. Social Security is a government run retirement plan which everyone pays into. Just take a look at your last paycheck (if you’re lucky enough to have one in this economy) and you’ll notice that you were forced to contribute a substantial amount to Social Security. You’d like to think that this money would be going to a trust fund saved up for when you retire. You’d be wrong. In actuality the Social Security trust fund is a drawer full of IOUs from the federal government.

In a slick budgetary move, designed to make their bottom line look better, the government takes the money paid into Social Security, spends the funds on government programs, while not counting the borrowed money against the deficit. Brilliant! Until you realize that our generation is going to be on the hook for all of this mismanagement.

If GRAs are passed we should expect to see the same thing. The government is seriously hard up for cash. If they were a college student they would be living off ramen and Busch Light. To alleviate this money problem in the short term the government could spend the money currently sitting in retirement accounts, toss out some more IOUs, and defer payment for the GRA annuities for a few decades.

This is the culture that young adults must fight against. The idea that anything goes in the effort to boost today’s bottom line – even if it may cost the next generation trillions. Such short-sightedness must come to an end. Politicians must be made to understand that what matters is what benefits us in the long term not them in the short term. And frankly, our generation already has enough on its plate. Trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. A national debt that doubles in five years and triples in ten. $76 trillion in unfunded government entitlement liabilities. We simply cannot afford to pay for the nation’s retirement as well.

Alright I know I promised I wouldn’t be “doom and gloom.” There really wasn’t a way around it. We’re faced with problems that Washington is refusing to acknowledge even exist. It’s enough to make me want to move, to try and run away from our government’s profligacy. I’ve always wanted to spend some time in Europe!…oh wait.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

For those who work in the private sector, the dream of enjoying a comfortable retirement has become just that — a dream.

The impact of the recession continues to be brutal, especially on younger workers whose career earnings may never recover. Of course life isn’t too pleasant older generations who will be forced to spend their golden years making up for lost earnings. A recent survey by CareerBuilder found that  “[m]ore than seven-in-ten (72 percent) workers over the age of 60 who said they are putting off their retirement are doing so because they can’t afford to retire.”

The government may be adding insult to injury. In addition to fears about affording their own retirement, private sector workers may be on the hook for funding the enormous shortfalls in public sector pension plans. The hidden bailout. The secret unfunded liability. Just how big a bill are we talking? Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s Investment Council, reports it could be as large as $2 trillion. Some would say even this is too small. Joshua Rauh, professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, says pension funds use exaggerated assumptions to puff up their bottom lines. Rauh says that, “[o]ur calculation is that it’s more like $3 trillion underfunded.”

There are many nefarious reasons for the problem. The primary one is described by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who writes,

One reason for the unfunded liabilities is the increase in the financial power of public sector unions, such as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union. They contribute to the election campaigns of state legislators and governors and encourage them to raise public pensions.

This is easy to do because payouts come decades later, when the elected officials voting now also will be retired. Public sector unions gave $7 million in New York and $38 million in California in 2008.

In a slick game of hidden patronage, politicians are lining their campaign coffers by promising taxpayer money to pay public sector pensions. Since the fiscal red ink doesn’t show up on the budget books for a few decades, private sector voters don’t notice, and the union members fill the ballot box. Apparently nobody seemed to care about the long term.

California provides us with a prime example of how letting the public sector have control over their pensions can lead to fiscal implosion.

In a recently published article by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the extent of this disparity was emphasized:

“Even though the cost to taxpayers for public employee retirement benefits has increased by 2000 percent from $150 million per year to over $3 billion over the last ten years, most in Sacramento (the state’s capitol) remain with their heads firmly planted in the sand. And if a $3 billion dollar shortfall does not seem like so much today, the future is revealed by a report released by Stanford University that shows California’s public retirement plans are underfunded by $535 billion. That is an estimated liability of about $36,000 per household.”

California is only one of the most egregious problems in a nation that is filled with them. Forinstance, four in five public sector workers have lifetime pensions, compared to only one in five in the private sector. Their average pension is also significantly more generous than the private sector. On average the public sector receives $13.65 worth of benefits per each hour they worked compared to $8.02 dollars for private sector workers. That means public sector workers receive 70% more in benefits. While public pensions promise more, it has led many of them to be underfunded – meaning that they do not have enough assets to pay off all the promises they have made. One significant cause of the problem is that public sector workers can generally retire earlier than in the private sector – usually age 55 – and still receive up to 90% of their income in pension. It is little wonder then that the average pension plan is 35%underfunded.

Taken out of the abstract and into the personal consider a recent Forbes story on Glenn Goss, a retired Florida police commander. Goss retired at age 42, after 21 years on the force. In his final year he earned $90,000. Using the typical formula, which factors in length of service and an average of his last several years worth of pay, Goss will draw $65,0000 annually in pensions. Again, he’s 42. As Forbes explains, “Given that the average man his age will live to 78, Goss is already worth nearly $2 million, based on the present value of his vested retirement benefits. Looked at another way, he is a $2 million liability to Florida taxpayers.”

This is an unsustainable system that should seem anger young adults. States are promising benefits to workers that they cannot possibly pay. Normally we would shout “reform!” But in the case of pensions this becomes tricky. Underfunded pensions are the legal obligations of the state and they must be paid. Many courts have already refused to allow states to reduce promised benefits or force increased contributions to current workers. In other words, state will have to look to future taxpayers to foot the bill. Young adults, who are having trouble even finding a job themselves, are unwittingly subsidizing public workers early retirements.

What can we do? Well first we must break the self-reinforcing cycle of political patronage between public sector unions and government. We must begin to elect conservatives committed to reducing the size of the public workforce and paying them a wage that is competitive with the private sector. Young adults must also begin to pressure legislators to make the pension crisis an issue. Government’s must stop thinking about what benefits them in the short term and start worrying about what hurts us in the long term. From this macro perspective lawmakers should begin to reduce benefit plans for new public employees. This does not mean undercutting their ability to retire comfortably, however, the retirement age as well as their benefit level should be brought in line with the private sector.

For too long the next generation has been the government’s reelection meal ticket. Public officials must be made to understand that if the next generation can’t afford it – then the government can’t afford it.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

read more: www.collegerepublicans.org

College students know better than anyone the importance of listening to your professor. OK, given that most of us have laptops and iPhones, maybe we’re the last people you should ask. But still, what the professor says can sometimes be the difference between an A and a C. Recently some academics got together to grade the Democrats’s financial reform legislation. Their final marks? Well, let’s just say, it looks like the bill could be another low grade on an already poor report card.

Whereas a low grade for a college student may mean taking some easier courses to pull up the GPA, for the Democrats’ reform legislation, it could mean that the nation could lapse into another major crisis. As the New York Times reports,

As Democrats close in on their goal of overhauling the nation’s financial regulations, several prominent experts say that the legislation does not even address the right problems, leaving the financial system vulnerable to another major crisis.

Some point to specific issues left largely untouched, like the instability of capital markets that provide money for lenders, or the government’s role in the housing market, including the future of the housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Others simply argue that it is premature to pass sweeping legislation while so much about the crisis remains unclear and so many inquiries are in progress.

“Until we understand what the causes were, we may be implementing ineffective and even counterproductive reforms,” said Andrew W. Lo, a finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I understand the need for action. I understand the need for something to be done. But what I expect from political leaders is for them to demonstrate leadership in telling the public that we need to proceed about this in a much more deliberate and rational and thoughtful way.”

The problem is that patience has gone out the window. Democrats have taken a kamikaze approach to passing their agenda – introduce an idea, pump out a few positive sounding (if ultimately misleading) talking points, rush it through Congress using their big majorities, and then run an election strategy around “look how much we accomplished.”

Health care is the primary example. Democrats sensed a winning political issue that would appeal to everyone incensed by ever increasing health care premiums. They then trumped up their bill’s ability to bend the cost curve downwards, preserve Medicare, and change the way medicine is delivered. The bill zoomed through the House before anyone knew what happened and then faced a hard fought battle in the Senate before ultimately being passed using reconciliation. But as Nancy Pelosi now (in)famously said “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” She turned out to be exactly right. After passage we found out that companies were going to have to pay billions to comply with the new laws provisions, we found out from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that the bill was actually going to increase the cost of health care more than if we had done nothing, and we found out from the CBO that many hospitals would stop treating Medicare patients if the planned cuts were imposed.

Unwilling to learn from their mistakes, Democrats are now taking the same pedal-to-the-metal approach to passing financial regulatory reform. The results will be just as flawed. For instance, consider the concerns of these professors, as compiled by the New York Times:

• Andrew W. Lo, a finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that “until we understand what the causes were, we may be implementing ineffectiveand even counterproductive reforms.”
• Gary B. Gorton, a finance professor at Yale, said the financial system would remain vulnerable to panics because the legislation would not improve the reliability of the markets where lenders get money . . . “It is unfortunate if we end up repeating history,” Professor Gorton said. “It’s basically tragic that we can’t understand the importance of this issue.”
• David A. Skeel Jr., a corporate law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said it would be a mistake for Congress to leave the drafting of these standards to the discretion of regulators.
• Lawrence J. White, a finance professor at New York University, said it made no sense to overhaul financial regulation without addressing the future of federal housing policy. He said he was trying to find the strongest possible words to describe the omission of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the legislation.“It’s outrageous,” he finally said.

It is important to get something done, but it is more important to get it right. Democrats want to claim that they are “the party of results,” but if those results don’t lower health care costs or prevent another financial collapse, what do they really have to show? The problem is that they see the trouble that lies ahead in November. Facing down the barrel of a brutal election season has led Democrats to make some bad decisions in the name of trying to find something (anything) to run on. The public wants real reform. They don’t want a slapdash mixture of provisions that fails to address the underlying problems that led to the reform conversations in the first place.

Democrats seem determined to push this flawed financial reform bill despite its failing marks from professors. If the reforms wouldn’t pass in college, Democrats shouldn’t let it pass through Congress.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

I hate to say we told you so. Really…we hate it. The first comprehensive report of the recently passed health care law was unveiled today. The study, done by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), shows that many Republican criticisms of the health care law are likely to become reality.

We told you so. Representative Paul Ryan said

“Cost containment underpins the entire argument for reform. You’ve all been assuring us: ‘This plan will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.’ Here again – the substance falls short of the rhetoric.”

The public agreed with Ryan. A Rasmussen poll taken directly before the health care reform vote found that 57% of voters believed that the costs of health care would go up while only 17% believe costs would go down if Democrats’ reform passed.

The CMS report showed these fears were not unfounded. The economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department found that the new reforms will do little to curb the runaway health care costs. In fact, they argue that it will bend the cost curve up, raising baseline spending by 1% over 10 years. The report states that,

“In aggregate, we estimate that for calendar years 2010 through 2019, [national health expenditures] would increase by $311 billion, or 0.9 percent, over the updates baselines projection that was released on June 29, 2009.”

CMS admits that even this figure may be more generous than the reality due to some unrealistic cuts being made to Medicare. Again, we told ya so. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell repeatedly said that

“Medicare is already in trouble. The program needs to be fixed, not raided to create another new government program.”

According to the new report we were right. CMS says that cuts to Medicare could drive 15% of hospitals into the red and thus possibly lower the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries.

“Over time, a sustained reduction in payment updates…would cause Medicare payment rates to grow more slowly than…the provides cost of furnishing services to beneficiaries. Thus, providers…could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries.”

Cutting access to Medicare would be political suicide. The government will be unwilling to accept this reality and will be forced to act to restore Medicare payment rates. But by doing so the Democrats’ claim that the reforms actually reduce the deficit would fall by the wayside.

The question everyone should be asking is why we are only hearing about this now. Before the bill was passed Democrats knew that the CMS was going to release a report analyzing the costs of the bill. At the time the CMS lamented that under the “very tight time frame” and due to the “complexity” of the reform legislation they would not be able to analyze the costs before the House voted on the legislation.

Instead, Democrats touted the score by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as showing everything they needed to know before a vote was taken. Unfortunately for democracy, the CBO score was gamed. Unlike the CMS report the CBO is not a neutral calculator of costs. The CBO was forced to use unrealistic assumptions in determining the cost of the legislation, a constraint not shared by the CMS. It is little wonder then that today’s report provides a much less flattering picture; one that actually increases health care costs and decreases the quality of care.

We told you so. But we take no satisfaction in saying it. The sad reality is that this bill was sold to America based on faulty numbers. It was forced upon taxpayers without a full understanding of what it would truly cost. Democrats could have delayed the vote. With trillions of dollars in taxpayer money at stake they should have delayed the vote. Whether they didn’t do so because they wanted the debate to be over, or worse, because they expected the CMS report would show their savings claims were false, the victim is the American people. Regardless of whether Democrats’ motivations were naïve or insidious they must pay the price in November. We may be stuck with an overpriced health care reform package, but we aren’t stuck with Democratic majorities.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Commitee

Read more: www.collegerepublicans.org

The tax system has become another emblem of the government’s seemingly insatiable desire to make things complicated. In the culture of Washington never use one word when ten will do the trick, never hire one bureaucrat when five can do the same amount of work. It is little wonder then that the income tax code stretches to 3.4 million words, filling more than 7,500 letter size pages. A taxpayers nightmare and H&R Block’s dream. But as Tax Day approaches the whispers to simplify the bureaucratic behemoth turn into shouts. Hopefully the government will listen.

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith famously noted that complexity makes taxes “more burdensome to the people than they are beneficial to the sovereign.” To this end the government has traditionally done some Spring cleaning on the code every 15 years. The government initiated major tax reform efforts in 1954, 1969, 1976, and 1986. But in the intervening 24 years we have done nothing.

The result has been a steady build up of loopholes, deductions, alternate tax schemes, and ways to game the system. The ever-multiplying deductions will mean that 47% of Americans will not pay a dime in federal income tax this year. Congratulations if you’re in that half, terribly sorry if you’re part of the remaining 53% left holding the bill.

The tax code has grown unwieldy in other ways as well. As Ezra Klein writes in the Washington Post,

We’ve begun running more of our social policy through the tax code. Rather than creating programs, we create tax credits. “It’s easier politically,” says Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, “because it’s easier for a congressman to say that I cut your taxes rather than that I started a new program to spend your money.”

We’re left with an outdated mess that is costing taxpayers a fortune. A 2006 report by the Tax Foundation found that taxpayers spend an estimated $265.1 billion to comply with the tax code. That means for every one dollar paid in taxes, 22 cents goes toward compliance costs. Eliminate, or reduce, the complexity of the tax code and we could cut taxes and give the government the same amount of money. The definition of a win-win.

The problem is not unique to the tax code. It is merely a reflection of the larger federal government which has seen its ranks steadily grow to just over 2 million federal workers. Since 2008, while the private sector was contracting due to the recession, the government has hired an additional 25,000 employees. Turns out Ronald Reagan was correct when he said,

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs – once launched – never disappear. Actually a government bureaucrat is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.”

The problem is that the government rarely cleans house. Obviously it is much harder than the tax code. Fixing the code takes cutting out some words. Fixing the bureaucracy takes cutting out some cushy government jobs. People fight harder for their position than words. Nevertheless, our current path is simply unsustainable.

A recent editorial to the Chicago Tribune lamented the growth of the Illinois bureaucracy,

“Our governance infrastructure has become overgrown and overpriced. We have 7,000 often redundant governments, far more than any other state. We populate those governments with armies of employees, and give them duties — some essential, some make-work. Many politicians of both parties enlist these workers as their allies in a cozy paradigm: If you help us win re-election, we will reward you with adequate salaries today — and fabulous retirement benefits tomorrow.”

This is not merely Illinois’ problem, this is the United States’ problem. Our bureaucracy is swelling beyond the point of private citizens to pay for it. Public sector jobs do not create a profitable product and thus must be paid for on the backs of a private citizen. Any growth in the government’s ranks, especially during a time of a contracting private sector work force, requires a greater burden to be placed on fewer people.

We speak of tax code reform but we must also speak of federal bureaucracy reform. The same waste, fraud, and redundancy can be found in both. It is costing taxpayers a fortune. We should be working to identify and eliminate the overlaps. Simplify and streamline the remaining system. And pass the savings along to the taxpayers. With careful decisions the federal government could accomplish the same workload but using up far fewer tax dollars.

It’s time for some Spring cleaning but the tax code shouldn’t be the only place we scrub.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

Read more: www.collegerepublicans.org

5.7 trillion.  It’s an almost unimaginably huge number.  It’s about six times the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.  It’s more than five times the amount that federal, state and local governments combined spend on educating our children every year.  It is almost half as large as America’s entire GDP.  And yet, that is what America will spend on interest on the national debt over the next decade—not principal—interest.  And things are quickly getting worse.  President Obama’s budgets will add more than $10 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and America’s debt to GDP ratio will jump from an already alarming 63% today to 90% by the end of the decade.

America is clearly on a fiscal crash course.  Fortunately, some politicians have shown courage and put forward solid ideas to put America back on a sustainable path.  However these solutions are said to lack compassion; the left spreads doomsday scenarios about Americans cancelling retirements, going without medical care and even spending their waning years eating dog food.  No bombast, hyperbole or imagination is spared in the left’s attempt to convince Americans that any action to control the growth of entitlement spending is a heartless sop to rich voters.

The problem with these supposedly compassion based arguments from the left is that entitlement reform is no longer optional—it is an absolute existential imperative.  No amount of willful ignorance can erase tens of trillions in debt or prevent an implosion of America’s social safety net when the money finally runs out.

Given the need for entitlement reform it’s worth asking: which side in American politics is truly compassionate?  The left has long claimed to be the advocates of society’s downtrodden and abused.  And rather than challenge the left’s false assumption of the meaning of compassion, the American right has all too often fallen into the trap of trying to outspend the other side rather than promoting its core philosophy which is inherently compassionate and empowering.

I ask the left: what is compassionate about spending $5.7 trillion on interest alone every ten years when that money could be better spent on education, or left to America’s families?  What is compassionate about hoovering up an ever larger portion of America’s wealth to send to overseas creditors?  What could possibly be compassionate about trying to convince Americans that the programs they have paid into their whole lives are safe and dependable when the exact opposite is true?

The debate over entitlement reform is not a dichotomy between the heartless right and the compassionate left.  It is between a realistic, compassionate and forward thinking right and a woefully ignorant, irresponsible left.  With so much at stake, nothing could be more compassionate than putting America back on a responsible, sustainable path to secure a bright future for America’s children.

Zach Howell is the National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee

They said we were going to be the foundation of a new Democratic movement. They labeled us as a generation upon which Democrats could build a political dynasty. They thought we bled blue.  They were wrong.

A little more than a year after Barack Obama won 18-29 year olds by a 2-to-1 margin, young adults are changing course. We were wooed by the promise of “change”, only to find a year later that things have changed for the worse. Washington is different, but only because it is bigger. Government’s spending has transformed, but only in the sense that they are more profligate. The reach of government into our lives has been altered, but only because their arm is longer. This is not the change we voted for and we’re taking note.

A new poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics is the latest evidence of the growing shift of young adults towards the Republican Party. The reason? The poll suggests there is a growing lack of trust in governmental institutions to do the right thing and a concomitant desire to reduce its scope.

As President Obama and Democratic leaders continue to try and expand the role of government, young adults are beginning to push back. This is becoming most palpable in the growing enthusiasm gap found among Millennials. As Harvard’s Institute of Politics explains,

“A warning sign for Democrats in Congress – young Republicans under 30 are statistically more likely than young Democrats to say that they will ‘definitely be voting in November”

Other key takeaways showing the Republican momentum among young adults:

• Among Millennials, more than 2-in-5 (41%) Republicans will definitely be voting, compared to 35% of Democrats
• Of voters 18-29, those who voted for McCain are more likely to say they will definitely vote than those who voted for Obama (53%-to-44%)
• Young adults who disapprove of President Obama’s job performance are more likely to vote than those who approve by a 35%-to-30% margin

This represents the perfect time for Republicans to become the brand of change that young adults are looking for. Our lifetimes have been filled with examples of government failure. Whether it be an education system that has seen no statistical improvement despite ever-increasing federal funds, or a entitlement system that looks more financially untenable by the day, we have been given little reason to trust that the government is the answer to our problems. As the party of limited government, Republicans can capture the hearts and minds of young conservatives.

But we must be active in our approach. As the voice of young conservatives, College Republicans stand are in the perfect position to educate and activate a new generation of Republicans. We can succeed where Obama and Democrats failed.  The Harvard poll asked,

The question at this moment is: Will our political leadership in Washington and around the country heed this new call – a call for Millennials to make government work and follow through on the bright promise that a generation dedicated to public service has come to passionately believe in?

It is clear that Millennials are looking for answers somewhere. Democrats in Washington have given all the wrong responses. Republicans now stand in the wings, waiting for their chance to heed the call in November 2010. But they cannot win without the support of young adults. College Republicans stand prepared to fill the void – to channel the energies of a generation who is ready for real change and looking for a party willing to give it to them. The enthusiasm is on our side and College Republicans will be there to capture it.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

Read more: www.collegerepublicans.org