By John Seiler

Sometimes I wonder if people can think anymore.

Today the L.A. Times ran an op-ed piece, “Why the poor favor Democrats.” Subheadline: “Data show unequivocally that minorities do better under Democratic administrations than under Republican ones.” It’s by Zoltan Hajnal, a poli sci prof at UC San Diego, and Jeremy D. Horowitz, a doctoral student at the school. They write:

“The data we analyzed show unequivocally that minorities fare better under Democratic administrations than under Republican ones. Census data tracking annual changes in income, poverty and unemployment over the last five decades tell a striking story about the relationship between the president’s party and minority well-being.

“Under Democratic presidents, the incomes of black families grew by an average of $895 a year, but only by $142 a year under Republicans. Across 26 years of Democratic leadership, unemployment among blacks declined by 7.9%; under 28 years of Republican presidencies, the rate increased by a net of 13.7%. Similarly, the black poverty rate fell by 23.6% under Democratic presidents and rose by 3% under Republicans.”

But they overlook two crucial things: First, it’s Congress, not the president, that passes budgets and other legislation. The president proposes, the Congress disposes, as the old line has it.

In the past 50 years, here’s what happened: In the early 1960s, Congress was controlled by Southern Democrats — the “Solid South.” After shedding segregationism, they later switched and became today’s Republican-controlled South.

Anyway, in the early 1960s, the most powerful Democrat on finances was Harry F. Bird, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. As Robert Caro recounts in the latest volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power,” in early 1964, just after President Kennedy was assassinated, new president LBJ was pushing for the Kennedy tax cuts, which dropped the top income tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent.

“Old Harry,” as Byrd was called, balked until LBJ cut $5 billion in spending to effectively balance the budget. LBJ, who later became a massive spendthrift, agreed. The tax and spending cuts were passed — and the massive 1960s economic boom zoomed upward.

Caro’s book ends in early 1964. But in 1968, with his Great Society welfare waste and the Vietnam War costs escalating, LBJ pushed through a 10 percent income surtax. It slammed the economy in 1969 — when Richard Nixon was president. LBJ even forced Nixon to pledge not to end the surtax. Nixon also increased taxes on his own in 1969, at the behest of Sen. Teddy Kennedy. And in 1971, Nixon took America off the gold standard, raised taxes and imposed protectionism with his Nixon Shock.

The economy crashed in 1974 into the 1970s “malaise” economy of “stagflation” — stagnation plus inflation.

Then there was Bill Clinton, who increased taxes in 1993 — but not by much, and with bare majorities in each house of Congress, In 1994, Congress went Republican. It was this Congress that passed three capital gains tax cuts between 1996 and 2000, as well as welfare reform. To his credit, Clinton signed those bills. But the key, again, was Congress.

Only one good GOP prez

The second thing the poli sci experts failed to note was that, on growth economics, the Democrats have had two-and-a-half presidents who were pretty good: Kennedy, Johnson (until 1968) and Clinton. And they had two who were bad: Carter and Obama.

But Republicans had only one who was good: Reagan. His tax cuts and stable money boosted the economy for everybody. As our colleague Joseph Perkins detailed:

“But the reality is, the 1980s, with a conservative, free-market Republican in the White House, were a boom time for black America.

“Indeed, Andrew Brimmer, the Harvard-trained black economist, the former Federal Reserve Board member, estimated that total black business receipts increased from $12.4 billion in 1982 to $18.1 billion in 1987, translating into an annual average growth rate of 7.9 percent (compared to 5 percent for all U.S. businesses.

“The success of the black entrepreneurial class during the Reagan era was rivaled only by the gains of the black middle class.

“In fact, black social scientist Bart Landry estimated that that upwardly mobile cohort grew by a third under Reagan’s watch, from 3.6 million in 1980 to 4.8 million in 1988. His definition was based on employment in white-collar jobs as well as on income levels.

“All told, the middle class constituted more than 40 percent of black households by the end of Reagan’s presidency, which was larger than the size of black working class, or the black poor.

“The impressive growth of the black middle class during the 1980s was attributable in no small part to the explosive growth of jobs under Reagan, which benefited blacks disproportionately.

“Indeed, between 1982 and 1988, total black employment increased by 2 million, a staggering sum. That meant that blacks gained 15 percent of the new jobs created during that span, while accounting for only 11 percent of the working-age population.

“Meanwhile, the black jobless rate was cut by almost half between 1982 and 1988. Over the same span, the black employment rate – the percentage of working-age persons holding jobs – increased to record levels, from 49 percent to 56 percent.”

GOP duds

The other Republican presidents all were terrible. We’ve discussed Nixon. Ford continued Nixon’s high-tax, high-spending, anti-gold standard policies. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush broke his 1988 “Read my lips! No new taxes!” pledge, increased taxes, tanked the economy, and was replaced by Clinton.

George W. Bush was a complete disaster economically. Inheriting budget surpluses from Clinton, he went on a massive spending binge and bankrupted the country. His tax cuts, foolishly, were temporary — hence the battles over “extending the Bush tax cuts” that have brought contention and economic uncertainty to the economy. And Bush allowed Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke to inflate the currency, while keeping interest rates close to zero — effectively destroying the savings of the middle class.

Meanwhile, after Republicans took over the U.S. House in 2011, they refused to insist on permanent tax cuts and an end to Obama’s own deficits, which have topped $1 trillion each of his four years in office.

Obviously the poor — and everyone else — are helped by sensible economic policies, and hurt by foolish ones. But the context is crucial.

As Bill Clinton said at this year’s Democratic National Convention: Do the math.

By John Seiler

An enjoyable part of the entertainment politicians give us is the barrage of explanations of why someone lost an election. We’re still getting that. Tony Quinn blames it on Republicans playing the “race card.” Charlie Cook says Republicans are too conservative. David Horsey insists Obama’s “data geeks” plotted victory.

But there there are two simple reasons for the Republican disaster:

1. Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate.

2. Barack Obama was a popular president who ran a disciplined, efficient campaign.

Let’s look at them.

First, Mitt Romney. His worst aspect was that he’s a flip-flopper. Nobody knew what he would have done in office because he had taken every position on every issue.

I knew many conservative Republicans who strongly opposed Romney in the primaries, then gradually came to endorse him in the general election as a way to stop Obama. That wasn’t enough.

Contrast that to Ronald Reagan, who had strong, deep support in 1976, when he narrowly lost to Gerald Ford, a sitting president, for the GOP nomination; then built on that support to be elected president in a landslide in 1980, defeating an incumbent president.

Barack Obama was a flip-flopper, too. For example, he promised to curb the abuses of the Bill of Rights perpetrated by the Bush administration. Instead, he expanded the abuses by signing the tyrannical National Defense Authorization Act (something that “Me Too” Romney, typically, also endorsed, losing an opportunity to score points against the president).

Yet a president doesn’t run on his promises but on his record. Although Obama failed to increase employment as much as he had promised, he successfully shifted the blame back to Bush. Romney never successfully countered that.

Tax plan disaster

Second, with economics the focus of his campaign, Romney’s tax plan was a disaster, as I wrote on this Web site. It supposedly “balanced” tax cuts with ending deductions. I never could figure out if my own taxes would go up or down. Romney should have just proposed cutting taxes, period, as Reagan did in 1980. Then he could have looked the middle class in the eye and said, “Elect me, Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class Americano, and your taxes will be slashed by one third. No gimmicks. Nothing else. One third.”

But Romney’s Harvard education, where he learned Keynesian whim-wham economics, got in the way, as it has for Obama on the president’s economic policies.

Romney’s failure on taxes let Obama refocus the campaign as one of “fairness,” with tax increases on the “millionaires” — people and small businesses with $250,000 income — hit for more.

Republicans blab a lot about attracting more Latino voters. And there are millions of Latinos who own small businesses; they also have millions more relatives. But what more did Republicans have to offer than, “I’m Mitt Romney. I’m a businessman worth $250 million and you’re not.” And: “I’m Mitt Romney, and I might get rid of your tax deductions as part of my tax-cut scheme that nobody understands.”

Pathetic.

Meanwhile, Obama played on his likable persona. He ran a tight, focused campaign that broke down only once, when he blew the first debate. But even Reagan blew his first re-election debate in 1984, then went on to win 49 states. So Obama, staying cool, got back on message and recovered on the road to victory.

Grand old Party of losers

Since 1988, Democrats have put up a couple of dud candidates: John Kerry and Al Gore. But they also ran two candidates who, whatever you think of their policies, knew how to be politicians: Obama and Bill Clinton.

By contrast, the GOP has offered up nothing but duds.

In 1988, Bush Uno won only because he was seen as the heir to President Reagan. After breaking his “Read my lips! No new taxes!” pledge of 1988, Bush Uno was wiped out in 1992, getting just 38 percent of the vote. And that was a year when Latinos comprised just 2 percent of voters, instead of 10 percent today.

In 1996, Bob Dole was eager to lose so he could cash in doing Viagra commercials.

In 2000, Bush Dos lost the popular vote, but was elected in the electoral college and the Supreme Court after the chad flap.

In 2004, Bush almost lost to Kerry, despite a booming economy and the aftermath of 9/11.

In 2008, after vaunting to the lead when he picked Sarah Palin for veep, John McCain canceled his campaign for a week during the financial panic, then backed Bush Dos’s TARP bailout of Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

Speaking of Republican candidates in 1960, Jack Kennedy quipped, “Where do they get those guys?”

By John Seiler

BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN BURBANK — My drive up from Huntington Beach to Burbank to attend the California Republican Convention displayed much of what is wrong with the state. A 51-mile trip took two hours.

Beach Boulevard, HB’s main thoroughfare, is crumbling, even though median home values are around $500,000. Either the lights aren’t coordinated, as they ought to be, or the coordination doesn’t work. So it was stop-and-go traffic on Saturday morning.

The 405 freeway was clogged, but the traffic flowed at about 40 mph. The road was mildly crumbling. North on the 605 was a breeze. Then I took the 5 “freeway,” and it was bumper-to-bumper until a few miles from Burbank. The 5, the main freeway running North to South in California, is falling apart. In some places, it’s only two lanes.

The Burbank Marriott is only a few miles from the freeway. The drive was easy across decaying roads.

The whole trip reminded me of visiting Tijuana back around 1990, the last time I was there. California has become a Third World country, regardless of Gov. Jerry Brown’s claims that it’s “silly” to compare us to Greece, which used to be a First World country but also has collapsed into Third World status due to excessive power by government-worker unions, wild government spending and ruinous debt.

Despite the rough roads, traffic snarls and shredding 104-degree humid weather, the trip was comfortable inside my air-conditioned 2010 Camry, which is designed in Japan and built in Kentucky. Toyota used to make cars here, most recently the Matrix, but pulled out in 2010 due to the state’s anti-business climate.

The roads are crumbling because, back in the 1970s during his first stint as governor, Brown proclaimed that as an “era of limits.” It wasn’t. California boomed as it always had. But he sharply cut back on road construction for a population he thought never would be here.

Today we really do live in an “era of limits.” Yet Brown still can’t get it right, attacking as “declinists” those who criticize his empire-building boondoggles, such as the high-speed choo-choo and the tunnel under the Delta. Meanwhile, the state keeps falling apart.

Republicans dismayed

Twenty years ago, Republican state conventions were tumultuous, sometimes involving shoving matches and expulsions. Conservatives had a lot of beefs with “moderates” like then-Gov. Pete Wilson, especially on such “social issues” as abortion.

Those wars seem to be over with, perhaps because the party’s last two nominees for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman, were pro-abortion. That battle is long over with. But also gone, perhaps, is the passion that makes parties live.

At the convention, Republicans generally were dismayed at the condition of their party in California, where they have had a lot of problems. The pall of the Schwarzenegger disaster still hangs over the party. I talked with numerous convention delegates. There’s a split within the party between the party bigshots who want to keep courting rich candidates, such as Meg Whitman and Schwarzenegger; and the party regulars who either are Tea Party members, or look to grassroots organizing as the way to bring the GOP back into competition statewide.

History is on the side of the grassroots. In America, political movements begin from the bottom up, not the other way. The Goldwater Movement in the 1960s was led by grassroots Republicans and conservatives across the country. It nominated Barry Goldwater for president in 1964. Even though he lost, the Goldwater Movement kept growing, and became the Reagan Movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1980, the party bigshots favored the patrician George H.W. Bush for president. The Republican grassroots favored Reagan, who won and remains the touchstone for the party. I heard his name mentioned often at the convention. But contrast, both Bushes, George H.W. and his son, George W.,  were non-persons. I never heard their names mentioned, even though just four years ago W. still was president.

GOP enthused about Paul Ryan

The bright note for the GOPers was Paul Ryan, who earlier that Saturday morning had been named Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate. People liked his enthusiasm, and his insistence on budget cuts.

Actually, Ryan’s plan doesn’t go near far enough. But at least Republicans are talking about making cuts, and about the immense burden the $16 trillion debt imposes on the country. Democrats hardly talk about this at all. And when they do, it’s in the context of raising taxes on “the rich” — that is, those making more than $250,000 a year, which in expensive, high-tax California makes you well off, but not “rich.”

And President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago seems to be the last Democrat who understood that the way to “get the economy moving again,” as he put it, is to cut taxes, not raise them. Here’s JFK:

It took another year, until 1964, to pass the tax cuts under President Johnson. But when it was enacted, it boomed the economy throughout the 1960s. Unfortunately, Johnson then started spending wildly on his Great Society giveaway programs and the Vietnam War, far exceeding even the massive extra revenues from the growing economy, and the country quickly went bankrupt.

Anyway, Republicans at least have a little understanding on what’s going on.

The delegates at the convention also were handily against Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s $8.5 billion tax increase to fund his high-speed choo-choo and the gigantic pensions for retired government workers.

John Fund on strategy

John Fund, a FoxNews commentator and senior editor at The American Spectator, talked about California Republican strategy. In the picture above, he’s speaking at the party’s evening dinner.

A California native, he said two things are imperative to get the party rolling again. First, pass Proposition 32, which would prevent unions from automatically deducting dues for political agitation from worker paychecks. If it passes, it would loosen the unions’ death-grip on the state.

Second, he said, in the future a Voter ID initiative should be passed to prevent voter fraud. Such laws are controversial around the country, sparking charges of racism against minorities. But Fund pointed out that polls show Voter ID is supported by all groups, including minorities. Almost everybody wants honest elections. Only politicians who benefit from crooked elections don’t want people checked to make sure, on election day, they are who they say they are.

Fund just published a new book, “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.” It details instances of massive voter fraud around the country.

By coincidence, I just finished the recent fourth volume of Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson.” It details the voter fraud LBJ used to get elected in Texas. And it has the goods on how he rigged the 1960 presidential election vote count in Texas so the Kennedy-Johnson ticket won. Caro also writes how the Kennedy machine and the Daley machine in Chicago rigged Illinois for JFK-LBJ. So the evidence is in: Republican Richard Nixon, a Californian, actually won the 1960 election.

And Caro describes the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut and the politics behind it. It’s worth reading in the context of today’s debate, almost 50 years later. Caro himself is a liberal Democrat.

CA GOP 2014

The fall convention before a general election usually is not well attended. I counted only about 160 at the Saturday evening dinner. Many Republicans are looking instead to the national convention at the end of the month.

Although dismayed and their number frayed, California Republicans could have a place in state politics for one reason: the state still is falling apart. If they’re smart, they’ll position themselves as the party that is ready to pick up the pieces when the state budget effectively goes bankrupt.

Instead of nominating a Schwarzenegger or a Whitman, rich people with no experience in elective office, they need to nominate more “nuts and bolts” candidates at the state level. Again, I don’t think  Paul Ryan wants to cut near enough to make a difference with the federal budget. But at least he’s familiar with the problem, and the numbers.

At the state level, the party needs to look to guys like Tom McClintock, the former state legislator now exiled to the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman; or Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, a former history teacher who also understands budgets.

As with George Deukmejian in 1992, running for governor after Jerry Brown’s first bout of wrecking the state, a party that’s ready could win office.

“Now, a return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.”

— President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, Jan. 24, 2012

This speech was the latest reminder of the shockingly low state of political discourse in America. I’m not singling out Obama for special condemnation, given that these addresses always are a potpourri of banalities, regardless of which president is offering them. Yet, Tuesday’s speech was a vivid reminder of the shoddy thinking so common at the highest level of the federal and state governments and why we are — in the more precise, but less-lofty words of a former president — in deep doo-doo.

Criminologists have remarked on “the banality of crime,” the reality that most criminals are not dark geniuses, but ordinary dolts driven by the basest motives. The State of the Union is the ultimate example for the banality of American politics, of the reality that the people who want to reform us haven’t the slightest clue about anything. They are predictable and bland, traders in base ideas and driven mainly by ego and the desire to help those groups that assure their re-elections.

California is the starkest example. A friend of mine called the other day and told me that it finally dawned on him that Gov. Jerry Brown, despite his clever wordplay, is really not so brilliant. Here’s a man who actually believes that raising taxes and “investing” in green jobs will save California.

‘City on a Hill’

Politicians from Obama to Brown to Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich want so desperately to build a legacy, save our state or nation, and create some “shining city on the hill,” but they want it all on the cheap.

Democratic pols want to sound like John F. Kennedy while Republicans sing hosannas to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, but such legacies don’t come from cheap banalities and the retreading of empty words. They come from tackling real issues and fixing real problems. The courage needed to do the latter is in short supply, given that most politicians crave adulation but don’t realize that putting that goal first almost assures that they won’t receive it.

Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had a historic opportunity to bring the state back from the brink, yet changed course dramatically after his first defeat at the ballot box. He chose to be loved above all else and has ended up a scorned figure.

Many of us had hoped that Brown, who decades ago persistently pursued the presidency but no longer seeks higher office, would embrace the tough work of real governance and take on his own allies — i.e., the public sector unions — who are the key obstacle to reviving California. Instead, he has embraced one foolish answer, higher taxes, and has governed in a way that’s not too different from the two failed governors before him.

Spending Problem

If Brown were a serious man, he would acknowledge that the problem isn’t a lack of revenue, it’s the way the state spends money. But he has taken the easy, banal course and will, in time, be forgotten. And so, too, will Obama, who continues to believe that government is the font of all wisdom and energy in this nation and that populist attacks on evil-doing mortgage companies, for example, are more crucial than serious policy.

“Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same,” he intoned. “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom. No bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.”

Banality is one thing, but this veers into dishonestly. No president — not even the terrible one that preceded Obama — has embraced the culture of bailouts, handouts and cop-outs more than Obama. His administration epitomizes the term “crony capitalism,” whereby friends and backers of the leaders get large infusions of taxpayer cash (e.g., Solyndra) and then cop out about why the money disappeared. In his speech, Obama sung the praises of the automobile bailout and called for more bailouts and government investments.

Instead of dealing seriously with the financial crisis, he embraced a kindergartner’s view of what happened (greedy banks foisted bad mortgages on decent people!), called for a special investment-crimes unit to crack down on financial wrongdoers and then pledged a new bailout for homeowners who are underwater in their mortgages, many of whom acted irresponsibly as they bought houses they knew they couldn’t afford and/or tapped their home’s equity and spent it.

Said Obama, “And while government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief. And that’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low rates.”

Just what we need — yet another irresponsible subsidy underwritten by U.S. taxpayers. In reality, the real estate market needs to hit bottom before it can rebound, and Obama’s plan will only delay the day of reckoning. This is more pabulum and more false hope for people who think the government is going to save them.

Soaring rhetoric and promised bailouts won’t fix what’s wrong in California or in the United States. It’s time for a little reality and some tough choices. It’s time for leaders with less banal rhetoric and more courage.

— Steven Greenhut