Nearing war with Iran?

The president rightly rebuked the GOP presidential contenders for "casualness" in regard to a potential war with Iran, says Susan Barnes-Gelt in the March round of Head On TV debates. No, replies John Andrews, Obama merely hopes to distract from his own failed policy on Tehran's nuclear aspirations. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over Hickenlooper's leadership style, liberal antipathy to the automobile, a tourism tax giveaway, and the presidential race. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for March: 1. NEARING WAR WITH IRAN?

Susan: "When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I'm reminded of the costs involved in war. This is not a game. And there's nothing casual about it." That’s the President’s response to the recklessness of the GOP presidential wannabe’s urging war with Iran.

John: Steadily, steadily, the fanatical regime in Tehran moves closer to possessing the nuclear weapons with which it hopes to exterminate Israel and devastate America. Obama would rather scold the opposition party for sounding the alarm than forge an effective policy himself. He missed a chance to remove the regime years ago.

Susan: A nuclear holocaust is a zero sum game for Israel, Iran, the U.S. and the planet. Consider recent events in Afghanistan – a mentally deranged soldier killed kids, women, fathers – terminating any prospects of earning the trust of the people. The human cost of war is far too great.

John: I understand your feelings. But we don’t just need emotions, we need solutions. This weak, naïve, self-absorbed man who happens to be president is day by day increasing the risk of a big conflict by failing to confront and squeeze Iran in smaller ways. Israel must be protected. Obama must go.

2. HICK LEADS FROM BEHIND

John: Much like Barack Obama, John Hickenlooper is long on style and short on substance. Obama’s famous copout of “leading from behind” now has its Colorado counterpart in Hick’s statewide tour of townhall meetings, the TBD Project. He claims that stands for “To Be Determined.” I suspect it means “Taxed by Democrats.”

Susan: The person who thought up TBD as the brand for the Guv’s priority setting initiative, ought to be fired. Am I naïve to believe it’s the Governor’s role to set the state’s direction? Aren’t campaigns about taking the public’s temperature? TBD is a Totally Bad Decision.

John: Hickenlooper’s townhall tour aims to manufacture a consensus for raising taxes, but people won’t buy it. Neither the governor nor the legislature is getting any traction at present. The alpha dogs in Colorado right now are activist judges – blowing up school finance, slapping down vouchers, and snarling at TABOR.

Susan: No the problem is the lack of leadership and stewardship of this great but fragile western state. Shame on the legislature for funding wealthy developers instead of education, transportation and infrastructure. Shame on us for electing people we like instead of leaders who might make a difference.

3. OBAMA IN TROUBLE

Susan: Can it get any worse for the GOP? Mitt Romney’s failure to condemn Rush Limbaugh calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a slut was beyond the pale. Romney’s response, “It’s not the language I would have used” later saying it wasn’t his business? Shame on you, Willard Mitt.

John: Coarse language from left and right is as old as politics. It’s deplorable, but totally irrelevant to who should be the next president. Obama’s numbers are falling. His energy policy has doubled gas prices. His health care takeover is hugely unpopular. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul could all beat him.

Susan: John, no one’s approval ratings are lower than Willard Mitt’s. Even moderate Republicans – that endangered species – are looking for the not-Mitt option. It’s a long way to Tampa and this slugfest among wacked pundits and eager-to-please, candidates spells trouble for the R’s in November.

John: The one in trouble is Barack Obama. Presidents who don’t get the job done are shown the door. It’s the American way. Ask Jimmy Carter. They want a leader who is proud of America and believes in Americans as a free people. People have had it with Obama’s excuses and arrogance.

4. STOP THE TOURISM TAX GIVEAWAY

Susan: In 2009 Colorado Concern, a private business group, sponsored legislation creating a state sales tax subsidy, benefitting their members’ interest in building a NASCAR tract east of DIA - a victory of influence over intelligence. When the racetrack died, the giveaway should have been buried.

John: Aurora, Estes Park, Glendale, Pueblo, Douglas County, and Montrose County are pleading with a state board to subsidize tourism for two of them and not the other four. $50 million a year is the prize. Government playing favorites among competing localities and businesses this way is an awful idea.

Susan: Under any circumstance, the state has no business using tax increment financing to pay for assets that benefit a private developer and only a private developer. Urban renewal tools are just that – mechanisms to revitalize obsolete, dilapidated urban property. Not a way to reduce risk for influentials and campaign contributors.

John: I hate to agree, Susan, but amen. For me as a Republican and you as a Democrat to unite against this tourism tax giveaway, both believing in integrity in government, illustrates how the two-party system can sometimes let the people down when powerful inside players rig the game. It’s a shame.

5. LESS RAIL, MORE BUSES

John: Liberals will tell you they don’t like the automobile. They object to the personal freedom it confers. Yet they also object to high gas prices. What a delicious contradiction. A related contradiction is the money liberals continue throwing at light rail despite its negligible ridership. Bus rapid transit is far superior.

Susan: Wow! John, after 8 years of jousting with me, you’re beginning to sound like a progressive! Of course, bus-rapid-transit is the most efficient way to build mass transit. Dedicated lanes, mixed-use transit stops and cool-looking buses are the logical answer for regions as spread out as ours.

John: Progressive? No, I’m a regressive. I’d like to run the movie back to 2004 and let people vote again on the tax hike we now is far too small to build out the Fastracks fantasy train that few commuters use. Going forward, though, let’s agree – less rail, more buses.

Susan: The real problem is the lack of civic and political direction guiding RTD staff and directors. Mass transit needs to be part of a regional land use transportation network, connecting people with places, jobs and one another. Absent a comprehensive approach, we’ve all missed the bus.

Who needs a governor anyway?

(Denver Post, Feb. 26) “An empty taxi drove up to 10 Downing Street,” joked Winston Churchill about the man who defeated him for prime minister in 1946, “and out of it stepped Clement Attlee.” Droll, but Attlee laughed last. Nothing succeeds like success. Detractors who grumble that there is “no there, there” in John Hickenlooper’s remarkable political winning streak, have to admit the same thing about his long-running popularity as Mayor of Denver and now Governor of Colorado: voters just like the guy. The latest indication of Hick’s undiminished moxie was an odd little news item the other day, in which Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, hinted at a 2014 gubernatorial bid – but only if Hickenlooper, the Democratic incumbent, were to decline a second term as did his predecessor, Bill Ritter. To which the Gov’s office replied, in substance, fat chance.

The upcoming TBD Project, 120 townhall meetings around the state with private funding of $1.2 million, shows again how Hickenlooper has raised amiable vagueness to an art form. He says TBD stands for “To Be Determined,” an open invitation for citizens to help set the state’s priorities – and bristles at the GOP gibe that it’s really code for “Taxed by Democrats.” The very idea!

Cruising toward halftime in his four-year term, the canny Hick is still not ready to roll out an agenda. No hurry, we’ll just travel the counties and see what folks scribble on our whiteboard. If Christo can take till 2015 to drape the river, the administration’s big push on education, transportation, corrections, and fiscal reform needn’t start yet either. Get reelected, then get serious.

On what record, you ask, would the governor campaign, given his underwhelming accomplishments to date? That’s the interesting thing about being Colorado’s chief executive. Constitutionally the position is so weak – the executive branch being split among four elected offices, the legislative branch having dominance on spending, and the voters controlling taxes and debt under TABOR – that an incumbent can win again just by managing the atmospherics and avoiding blunders.

It worked exactly this way for all of the successful governors in the state’s modern era (since terms went from two years to four in 1962). The Republican John Love and the Democrats Dick Lamm and Roy Romer each won three terms. Republican Bill Owens was easily reelected once and then term-limited. Democrat Bill Ritter, dogged by scandal and done after one, is the exception who proves the rule.

Don’t misunderstand: Love, Lamm, Romer, and Owens were all surehanded leaders and formidably skilled politicians. (Gov. Romer, of course, trounced me in our 1990 contest.) I’m merely saying that if you look for their monumental legacies or enduring policy victories, there weren’t many.

Romer did get DIA built, though Mayor Federico Pena’s name is on the approach road, and he passed the CSAP legislation, though education is little the better for it. Owens pushed T-REX to completion, though congestion persists, and he signed voucher legislation, though judges then annulled it. Lamm ran off the Winter Olympics – though before he became governor – and now we may host them anyway.

Governing our state or any other state simply doesn’t lend itself to transformative Obama-style grandiosity – which from my conservative viewpoint is a good thing. The Hippocratic caution in public policy, “First do no harm,” is hard enough to uphold. Deliver that and we’re grateful, would be the sentiment of most Americans in what is still a center-right nation.

Today’s superstar governors elsewhere – Chris Christie in New Jersey, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana – became such by tackling Augean messes, not by peddling utopian dreams. Colorado, for all its problems, is in no such crisis, thank goodness. If the empty gimmickry of John “TBD” Hickenlooper has an upside, that’s it.

Obama declares war on people of faith

Republicans will suffer politically from their "overreach on family planning" in response to a minor mistake by HHS, says Susan Barnes-Gelt in the January round of Head On TV debates. Nothing minor here, replies John Andrews; Obama's mandate on religious institutions is a declaration of war. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the Komen Foundation vs. Planned Parenthood, Iran's threat to Israel, Colorado legislative ethics, and the presidential race. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for February: 1. HHS MANDATE ON RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

Susan: It took the Obama administration a week to acknowledge Secretary of HHS over-reached in requiring Catholic-owned hospitals and non-profits to include birth control in employee health plans. The compromise –already implemented by 24-states - calls on insurance companies to cover the cost. Good for Obama for addressing the problem.

John: Obama personally, not some cabinet secretary, broke his promise to Catholics about insurance regulations that would respect their religious objection to contraceptive drugs. Obama personally brutalized evangelicals with his mandate for their churches, charities, and schools, including the college where I work, to provide abortion drugs. He has declared war.

Susan: You’re at war on too many fronts – lacking the resources to battle Repub overreach on family planning. How is it that small government conservatives want to regulate individual choice and what happens in the bedroom. Keep it up. The R nominee is bound to get a couple thousand female votes.

John: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists – one thing we all have in common is cherishing America as the land of the free, a place where government won’t trample our religious beliefs. But Obama on his left-wing power trip obviously doesn’t care. People of faith won’t let this one stand.

2. KOMEN FOUNDATION BOWS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD

John: The issue of abortion raises two questions. Legally, when can a woman end a pregnancy? Culturally, how much do we value life at every stage? America has developed a culture of death since Roe v. Wade. The Komen Foundation knuckling under to Planned Parenthood proves it yet again. Really sad.

Susan: I’m puzzled when small government conservatives –adamantly opposed to government overreach, passionately support government’s role in the bedroom, free choice and a very blurred line between church and state. Shame on former Komen VP Karen Handel for politicizing a formerly worthy charity.

John: This was two private organizations, not government. Komen decided its work of saving lives by fighting breast cancer should not be entangled with Planned Parenthood’s work of taking lives by performing abortions. The liberal firestorm wasn’t about 1/1000 of Planned Parenthood’s budget, it was about perpetuating the culture of death.

Susan: No John. Komen’s disgraced VP – Karen Handel is an uber-conservative Georgia Republican who lost her bid for governor. Her single-issue platform? Anti-choice, targeting Planned Parenthood. Successful non-profits rely on political neutrality. Komen has done irreparable harm to its reputation and long-term viability.

3. ISRAEL AND IRAN

Susan: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons. And the string of recent attacks thought the region - is an escalation that threatens Israel. State Dept officials believe Israel could attack Iran this spring, in order to stop Tehran from building a nuke. Time for diplomacy – on steroids.

John: The worst weakness of this weak president has been his non-resistance to Iran’s goal of nuclear blackmail. Equally bad is Obama’s moral and strategic blindness in treating Israel as America’s adversary, instead of our ally. Israel has stopped two other neighbors from going nuclear. If they strike Iran, we must support them.

Susan: Pul-eeeze! The President took out bin Laden, his key operatives; brought the troops home from Iraq, toppled a Libyan dictator and has strong public approval for winding down the irresolvable mess in Afghanistan. None of his potential Repub opponents has the foreign policy chops to take him on.

John: Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, dominate the Middle East, neutralize Europe, destabilize Latin America, empower North Korea, and intimidate the United States. In the face of this threat, Barack Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of our time – indecisive, inept, timid, and weak. Thank goodness Netanyahu is strong.

4. PRESIDENTIAL RACE YET AGAIN

John: The roller coaster of Mitt Romney and his rivals, from Perry and Cain to Gingrich and Santorum, is like nothing I’ve seen in watching Republican politics since 1960. The weak leadership of Barack Obama is like nothing you Democrats have had in the White House since Jimmy Carter in 1980. This year is crazy.

Susan: Every month the R’s look for a candidate, President Obama gets stronger and stronger. Flavor of the month Santorum is forcing Mitt further to the right, making it tough for him to recapture the chameleon character he’s depending on in November. Can’t wait for Pawlenty to join the race.

John: Obama getting stronger? What planet is your pollster on? His numbers are poor, and the DNC trails the RNC in fundraising. Hence Obama’s sudden chumminess with the super PAC’s. Hence the vote-buying on foreclosures and student loans. Catholic and evangelical voters hate his mandate on abortion drugs. Even the black vote is soft.

Susan: With every Republican primary mudfest, Obama’s numbers get stronger. Right wing-nuts, forcing their potential nominees to debate birth control instead of job creation send key swing voters – center right independents – straight to Obama. Americans want to vote FOR the future. Not fight 19th Century social issues.

5. ETHICS CASE ROILS LEGISLATURE

John: Did state Rep. Laura Bradford have one too many that night? Did the Denver Police handle it badly? Those matters are soon forgotten. What we shouldn’t forget is how squeaky clean the Colorado General Assembly is, compared to legislatures in most other states. The ethics rules are uncomfortable, but they work.

Susan: Yes, Coloradans are lucky – our state legislators are cleaner than most, in spite of a toothless ethics code. I’d say it has to do with Colorado being a place where voters are uncomfortable with old-style backroom shenanigans. Sadly in the case of Rep. Bradford, Denver Cops were out of line.

John: Legislative ethics have teeth. I served there and saw members get bitten. Kudos to Speaker McNulty for invoking the process against his fellow Republican, Bradford, despite threats of a party switch. Democrats have done likewise. TABOR and term limits also help keep government clean. Corruption is less when power is limited.

Susan: Thank you John, for opening the garage-door of opportunity. Let’s talk Doug Bruce’s TABOR policy. The icon of the strangle-government movement is going to jail for cheating, lying and swindling. Doug Bruce’s story is a cautionary tale for lawmakers who operate outside the law.

How free are we really?

(Denver Post, Jan.29) So now we’ve heard the State of the Union according to Obama and the State of the State according to Hickenlooper. We’ve seen Gingrich’s debating prowess and Romney’s tax returns, Santorum’s sweaters and Ron Paul’s scowl. But how much does that really tell us about the shape America is in? If we’re not the land of the free, we’re nothing, right? Economists James Gwartney, Robert Lawson, and Joshua Hall, like a team of doctors taking your vitals before surgery – the operation in this case being the potential removal of elected officials across the land – bring grim news that Americans’ freedom to better ourselves economically has slid drastically in this decade. Hardly the change we hoped for. The authors’ “Economic Freedom of the World 2011,” a data-rich report from the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, BC, uses five indicators to rank 141 countries on how well they allow you and me to work toward affluence, keep what we earn, and use it as we choose, free from government interference. Since 2000, our country fell down the scale faster than almost any nation on earth.

Notice that this occurred under various combinations of unified and divided control in Washington. The unrelenting trend, with bipartisan culpability, has been “liberty yielding and government gaining ground,” as Thomas Jefferson warned. Notice too that the report’s data end in 2009. The humongous deficits and health-care takeover since then have only worsened our score.

America still ranks 10th in the Fraser global index (exactly where we place in another valuable economic-freedom scorecard just updated by the Heritage Foundation). But look who’s ahead of us: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, and tiny Mauritius.

Then blush to see the company we’re in among the getting-less-free-fastest club: only the Latin caudillo regimes of Venezuela and Argentina, and the North Atlantic basket cases of Iceland and Ireland, have regressed as badly as Uncle Sam did in recent years. No wonder big majorities are now telling pollsters they believe we’re in decline and will leave our kids a narrower horizon of opportunity.

But not all the tidings are bad. Colorado as a state, when ranked against our 49 sisters and the 10 Canadian provinces by another team of Fraser Institute scholars in “Economic Freedom of North America 2011,” trails only Alberta (the oil-rich neighbor whom Obama spurned with his Keystone pipeline veto), Delaware, Texas, and Nevada. We actually gained one place over the previous year, 2008 to 2009.

This result again, paralleling the experience in Washington, has been achieved even as party control seesawed at the state capitol. You can be sure that’s mostly because our Colorado constitution, unlike the federal constitution, has a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to restrain government growth.

And partisans on both sides shouldn’t forget that the North America scorecard (EFNA) has a two-year data lag exactly as the world rankings do. Hence it doesn’t reflect the Democrats’ “dirty dozen” tax increases in 2010, nor the Republicans’ sad 2011 performance with a state enabling bill for Obamacare and no effort to repeal Bill Ritter’s car tax – er, fee.

Fraser rates the 60 states and provinces on 10 criteria under the headings of size of government, takings and discriminatory taxation, and labor market freedom. If Colorado had passed Right to Work in 2008, we’d rank even higher. And that’s not just a bragging point. EFNA includes statistical proof that living standards rise in a state with almost 1:1 correlation to the rise of economic freedom.

Occupying the best cabin on a sinking ship counts for little, however. If the Canadians, Brits, and Aussies continue outdistancing the U.S. in that precious freedom Jeb Bush has called “the right to rise,” all of our red- and blue-state political cheering will be just so much white noise.

Candidates in stark contrast

Obama's goals and record will make a stark contrast with those of Mitt Romney or whoever the GOP nominates, says John Andrews in the January round of Head On TV debates. Hardly, scoffs Susan Barnes-Gelt: Romney's positions are vague and the overall Republican field is weak. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the upcoming legislative session, policing in Denver, the Lobato school case, and the National Western Stock Show. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for January: 1. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR: HERE GOES

Susan: The economy is beginning to recover and employment is finally going in the right direction.  Obama will have a tough race this November, but so far – the Republican looks weak.  If Romney is the strongest in a weak field, your party’s in trouble.

John: Romney believes in a bigger economy for all to share. Obama believes in a bigger government for all to support. Romney believes in a stronger America for the world to respect. Obama believes in a weaker America for the world to push around. It’s a very clear choice. Advantage Romney.

Susan: We don’t know what Romney believes in because – despite numerous debates – he’s failed to articulate a vision for America. Bashing the president and reciting America the Beautiful while he lies about the number of jobs he’s created and brags about firing people, is not going to win an election.

John: What you just heard, folks, is the whole Obama campaign. Throw mud, discredit the challenger. At all costs, distract the voters from the incumbent’s record of failure. It’s time again for the Reagan question: Are we better off than four years ago? We’re not, so we need a new president.

2. WHITHER THE NATIONAL WESTERN STOCK SHOW?

John: I’ve enjoyed the National Western Stock Show for over 50 years. My son and his son have enjoyed it. It’s a Colorado treasure and a Denver economic powerhouse. The Stock Show must go on, no matter what. If we can bid for the Winter Olympics, surely we can preserve the National Western.

Susan: Yes the stock show is a Denver institution. And that’s where it belongs – in Denver - central Denver. However, the 2-week event needs to become part of year-round job generating campus. 21st Century management and vision must refresh the 160 year-old institution.

John: Just so the whole thing is done with voluntary financial contributions and good old free enterprise. When you say “year-round job generating campus,” I hear boondoggles and subsidies, taxpayers on the hook and special interests at the trough. Horses and cows at the trough, fine. Special interests, no.

Susan: 95 acres in the middle of town, used less than 3 months a year – primarily for special events – is a boondoggle. The National Western notwithstanding – we’re not a cow town anymore. The site needs to generate jobs, revenue and enhanced property tax – no taxpayer bailout, buyout or bond.

3. DOES DENVER NEED AN INDEPENDENT POLICE MONITOR?

John: As the father of a police officer, I am not objective about law enforcement. It’s a good thing – hard work, dangerous work. The dedicated people who do it deserve the benefit of the doubt. Denver’s independent police monitor and oversight board are needlessly adversarial to law enforcement. Why have them at all?

Susan: A handful of rogue cops, an ineffective internal review process and a series of abusive conflicts mean citizens don’t trust the police department. That’s why Mayor Hancock took the unprecedented step of bringing in a police chief from outside the department. Accountability is key.

John: To protect public safety, we grant government a monopoly of force. To prevent tyranny and protect liberty, we have watchdogs to watch the watchers. It’s a balancing act. But the outgoing police monitor, Rosenthal, lost the balance. His call to bring in the feds, an Obama administration that’s anti-police, is wrong.

Susan: Agreed. The police dept doesn’t need a federal investigation. On the other hand, the department has been rogue since Paul Childs was murdered in 2003, I expect the new chief and manager will clean things up. But an independent monitor can give them cover and reassure the public.

4. PRIORITIES FOR LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Susan:  It’s an election year for the state legislature, so we can anticipate a lot of posturing and empty rhetoric. However, Colorado faces big challenges - K-12 & higher ed funding; job creation, transportation, human services and infrastructure – to name a few.

John: Friction between, and within, the political parties makes that big agenda all the tougher this year, Susan. The top Senate Democrat, and two leading House Democrats, hope to take away GOP congressional seats. Hard feelings remain from the reapportionment battle. And bitter primaries may split the Republicans.

Susan: You’re right, John. A serious lack of leadership and vision plagues Colorado and the same lack of civility in the US Congress, is trickling down to state and local government. The unintended consequence of legislative term limits has created a revolving door for career politicians.

John: Take it from a senator who left because of term limits. The limit is a helpful safeguard against legislators settling in forever and getting captured by the system, at the expense of our liberties and our pocketbooks. If this legislature just concentrates on economic growth through free markets, I’m happy.   5.  Lobato & the schools – now what?

Susan:  In December a Denver judge determined Colorado’s school funding system was “irrational and inadequate.”  The state Board of Ed and the governor are appealing. If the ruling holds, the cost to state taxpayers will be enormous.  Though it’s tough to argue resources are adequate or equitable.

John: It’s called the Lobato case, and everyone watching better hope the Colorado Supreme Court overturns it. The ruling by Judge Sheila Rappaport points the state toward bankruptcy, and in pursuit of the impossible. Her idea of adequate school funding envisions every child above average. The constitution doesn’t require that.

Susan: The constitution requires fair and equitable. Of course you can’t legislate – or fund – equality. However, crumbling schoolhouses, insufficient digital equipment, furniture and books impact low-income districts and schools. Well-to-do districts and schools raise money from parents. Schools serving low income kids don’t have that option.

John: All the constitution requires is, quote, “thorough and uniform.” By no stretch does that justify the $3 billion budgetary hit demanded by teacher unions and rubber-stamped by the judge. America has doubled real dollars per pupil in government schools since 1970 with no gain in test scores. More spending is not the answer.