From a Gallup poll:
> [President Obama] earns his lowest issue ratings on the economic issue areas tested in the survey, with approval on the federal budget deficit the lowest at 30%, and his approval on the economy not much higher, at 36%.
People are not fans of 8.3% unemployment?
> President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.
But wait, it gets better:
> It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.
Well, at least it was not the American people’s tax dollars that got wasted in that deal. Think of how bad that would look.
> Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pressed by her husband and a top Obama aide to consider replacing Vice President Joe Biden just a couple of weeks ago …
> But Clinton, exhausted from four years of international travel and diplomacy, shrugged off the suggestion to lay the groundwork for her own 2016 bid with her husband at her side, according to author Ed Klein.
The Weekly Standard says that [the State Department has denied this](http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/state-dept-uses-childrens-rhyme-deny-report-hillary-clinton-said-no_650142.html). Still, it seems to make sense that she would want to run herself in 2016 instead of being second fiddle to President Obama if he manages to win[^hilary].
[^hilary]: I am torn as to whether or not she would help or hinder President Obama’s election chances. I know people who are currently leaning toward voting for Governor Romney but would probably switch if Secretary Clinton was on the ballot. On the other hand, Secretary Clinton has notoriously high negative recognition that could detract from President Obama’s reelection changes..
> Mitt Romney and Paul [Ryan] get it. They believe we shouldn’t raise taxes on small business. They believe we need to reduce red tape and repeal Obamacare, which is making it harder for businesses to grow. They believe we need to develop our domestic energy resources, especially off the coast of Virginia. They believe we need to prevent the devastating defense cuts that will threaten our national security and jobs. With their help, we can finally do these things.
You have to think having someone like Paul Ryan on the ticket excites conservatives like Eric Cantor a lot more than Mitt Romney alone. I know that is how it worked for me.
One of the comments I normally hear from people opposed to voter identification requirements is “are there really any cases of voter fraud?” John Fund breaks things down over at National Review:
> Last month, [Philadelphia] City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, issued a 27-page report on irregularities he found in a sample of Philadelphia precincts during this year’s primary. The report, which looked at only 1 percent of the city’s 1,687 districts, found cases of double voting, voter impersonation, and voting by non-citizens, as well as 23 people who were not registered to vote but nonetheless voted. Schmidt also found reports of people who were counted as voting in the wrong party’s primary.
He also counters the idea that there is a large percentage of people without identification who would be blocked from voting:
> The number of people without proper ID in Pennsylvania is also not nearly as large as voter-ID critics claim. State officials testified that it was under 1 percent. That’s in line with court findings in recent ID cases and an American University analysis of three states, which found that fewer than one-half of 1 percent of people lacked ID. Critics claim that the state of Pennsylvania found that 758,000 registered voters lacked a Department of Motor Vehicles ID, but those numbers do not tell the whole story. Over l67,000 were inactive voters who hadn’t seen a polling place in at least five years. Many others may have other forms of acceptable identification ranging from passports to military IDs to government-employee IDs to cards issued by nursing homes or assisted-living facilities.
It seems strange to that, as Mr. Fund points out, we cannot buy cold medicine without some form of identification, but there are no ID requirements for voting at all. The contention over voter ID shows why it will be a long, long time before any type of “online” voting is used in general elections. Even ignoring the security risks, the ability to vote online could easily be seen as a way to tilt elections to more affluent voters who have no problem finding online access.
> Closing out his fourth year in office, President Obama has an 8.3 percent unemployment rate. He also boasts the lowest rate of participation in the labor force in 30 years (63.7 percent). More Americans are out of work than at any time in the preceding 30 years. There are 7 million more persons in poverty than when he took office, a jump from 39.8 million to 47 million. When pressed to explain these figures, the president points his finger at the state of the economy when he took office. That’s his excuse.
Another 4 years, and he’ll totally get things in order, right? Why even bother giving someone else a shot?
> Amid all this arcana, we must not lose sight of two main functions of Ryanism, now the core of Republicanism after being endorsed by the GOP’s congressional caucus and presidential nominee. First, Ryanism reminds the American people that a long-term trend is not the same thing as a law of nature. That the welfare state always has grown does not mean it always must grow. Indeed, a well-designed and well-administered welfare state can, in a welcome sense, grow and shrink at the same time. Second, Ryanism challenges the Democrats to finally come clean, 80 years after launching the New Deal, about the cost and consequences of their ambitions.
Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan will have to figure out a way to communicate this over the shouting coming from the left. Congressman Ryan is said to be an excellent communicator and we are about to find out how good he is.
As Victor Davis Hanson points out:
> Expect the Ryan selection in the next few days to spawn a new flurry of “wealthy white man” invective in a manner that two Clinton-Gore tickets, a Gore-Lieberman ticket, and a Kerry-Edwards ticket never did.
These next few months are going to be interesting.
Excellent piece from Yuval Levin explaining the horrible financial shape that Medicare is in and Paul Ryan’s proposal to fix it:
> The Ryan-Wyden idea solves that problem through a clever combination of defined-contribution and defined-benefit insurance. The federal government would still define a package of required benefits that would constitute comprehensive insurance coverage — the same benefits that Medicare covers today. But each year, private insurers as well as a federal fee-for-service insurance provider (akin to today’s Medicare program) would submit bids to the government to provide that comprehensive coverage at the lowest cost they could manage. The government would then provide seniors in each region of the country with a premium-support payment equal to the second-lowest bid in that region or to the bid of the federal fee-for-service option, whichever was lower. That way, every senior would be guaranteed to have at least one comprehensive coverage option that cost no more than the premium-support payment he received (and thus involved no more out-of-pocket costs than Medicare does today), and would also have other options that cost more (whether because the offering companies could not manage to be as efficient in working with their provider networks or because they offered more benefits than the required minimum and thus charged a higher premium).
> The market itself, rather than Medicare’s administrators, would set the level of each year’s premium-support payment, which would ensure that the payment was sufficient to pay for comprehensive coverage. A senior who chose a plan that cost less than the premium-support payment would get to keep the difference (deposited into a tax-free health savings account to use for future out-of-pocket health costs), and a senior who chose a plan that cost more than the premium-support payment would pay the difference out of his pocket. Poorer, older, and sicker seniors would get somewhat higher premium-support amounts than the rest.
Of course, the media and the rest of the left will say this means that the evil Republicans are trying to “take away senior’s Medicare.” Maybe they’ll even update their [Paul Ryan-look-alike throws seniors of a cliff ad](http://www.examiner.com/article/grandma-thrown-off-cliff-liberal-anti-gop-medicare-ad).
> Freedom is lost by degrees, and the deepest erosions usually take place during times of economic hardship, when those who favor expanding the sphere of government abuse a crisis to persuade free citizens that they should trade in a little of their liberty for empty promises of greater economic security.
> …
> We can strengthen our defense of liberty if we remember to keep in mind those who are struggling to make ends meet. What makes our Constitution such an extraordinary document is that, in making the United States the freest civilization in history, the Founders guaranteed that it would become the most prosperous as well. The American system of limited government, low taxes, sound money, and the rule of law *has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.*
> …
> If we succumb to this view that our problems are bigger than we are — if we surrender more control over our economy to the governing class — then life in America will become defined by a new kind of class warfare: A class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society at the expense of working Americans, entrepreneurs, and the small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.
> …
> By respecting the rule of law, reclaiming the prominence of our Constitution, and reforming our government, I have no doubt that we the people, working together, can help ensure that the next generation of citizens inherits a stronger, freer, more prosperous America, and a more perfect union.
Well said.
Dan Mitchell points out that the vice presidential selection rarely matters in elections. He also gives some of the positives and negatives of Paul Ryan from a libertarian perspective:
> *Here are the reasons why I’m happy.*
> I think Ryan genuinely believes in small government, low tax rates, and free markets. Heck, he’s even read Ayn Rand, and is willing to admit that he likes her writings.
> …
> He understands that not all entitlement reform is created equal. Instead of supporting means-testing (which produces implicit higher marginal tax rates) and unsustainable price controls, Ryan got his colleagues to support Medicaid block grants and premium support (or vouchers) for Medicare.
> …
> *Here are … reasons why I’m worried.*
> Both Romney and Ryan are somewhat sympathetic to a value-added tax. My worst-case scenario is they win the election, but then can’t get a good budget approved because of some squishy Republican senators who put self interest above national interest. Romney and Ryan then decide that this European-style national sales tax is the only way – on paper – of making the budget balance. In reality, of course, we’ll suffer the same fate as Europe since the VAT revenues will be used to finance ever-larger government.
That is just a sampling, but I think Congressman Ryan’s positives far outweigh his negatives.
> Governor Romney has made an inspired choice. Paul Ryan will make an excellent running mate and, if elected, vice president. What is most gratifying about the decision is, however, what it says about Romney himself.
> Romney could have decided to run a vague and vacuous campaign based on the idea that the public would default to the out party in a bad economy. By selecting Ryan, he has ensured that the campaign will instead to a significant degree be about a conservative governing agenda.
I agree with National Review. This is the choice I was hoping Governor Romney would make.
Probably not much:
> Over the last several months, roughly 43% of Americans report that they have never heard of Paul Ryan. In mid-July, 52% could not even make a guess as to whether Ryan was a member of the House, the Senate, was Secretary of State, or was a Governor (32% got it right). Republicans are more likely to know that Ryan was a member of the House—42% of Republicans knew this, compared to 29% of Democrats and 34% of independents.
This means it will be up to the Romney-Ryan ticket to define him before the media and the rest of the left do.
This morning I spend some time debating whether or not to link to this article by Robert VerBruggen. It is an excellent step-by-step breakdown of the problems found within Fareed Zakaria’s argument in favor of gun control. I ultimately decided the piece stood well on its own and and chose not to link to it. Since then, things have changed.
Earlier today Newsbusters [accused Mr. Zakaria of plagarising the column](http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/08/10/talk-about-concealed-carry-fareed-zakaria-plagiarized-paragraph-history-). First, TIME magazine announced they were investigatng the charges, and then Mr. Zakaria came clean:
> “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right, I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.”
As a result of his conduct, Mr. Zakaria has been suspended from both TIME and CNN.
The coverage of this column will now be about Mr. Zakaria’s plagarism and not his flawed argument. Though it is important to properly reprimand Mr. Zakaria for attempting to pass off another’s work as his own, it is equally important to remember the original flaws in his argument. As Mr. VerBruggen said:
> Zakaria shows nothing but condescension toward those who doubt the “case for gun control”: “Confronted with this blindingly obvious causal connection, otherwise intelligent people close their eyes.” But there is nothing obvious about it, and it is Zakaria who needs to open his mind to information that doesn’t support his conclusions.
Hopefully some time away from the media will give Mr. Zakaria the opportunity to do just that.
The National Review editors:
> Better for Romney to acknowledge that we have had some long-building problems in addition to ones of more recent creation, and to pledge to fix them. Our dysfunctional health, tax, and immigration systems long predate Obama even if he has made them worse. All need conservative reforms if they are to serve the country’s interests. So do our entitlement programs. Romney need not (and should not) repudiate Bush. He needs instead to make a case that transcends the Obama-vs.-Bush debate that the president is obviously desperate to have.
I agree with that strategy. It is similar to [what Laura Ingraham](http://www.LauraIngraham.com/b/Romney-is-not-winning.–Heres-how-he-can./612990269443758992.html) outlined earlier today. I know there are some out there that suggests Governor Romney can just run against how bad things are under President Obama without proposing plans to fix it. I prefer the idea of giving the American people plans of how we are going to get out of this mess. I think that is a path that is much more likely to lead to victory in Novemeber.
A description of Paul Ryan from [Rich Lowry over at National Review](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313564/don-t-fear-ryan-rich-lowry):
> Ryan is an ideologue in the best sense of the term. He is motivated by ideas and knows what he believes and why. But he’s not blinkered. He is an explainer and a persuader.
The media and the rest of the left will attack any selection[^fn1] of Congressman Ryan as Mitt Romney simply “catering to the far right.” Such criticism is usually code for “damn it, that was a good move.”
[^fn1]: For an explanation of how a running mate is selected, see [today’s National Review article from John Fund](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313571/great-vp-fake-out-john-fund)
> According to Romney insiders, Romney deeply appreciated Ryan’s willingness to privately share his critique of the campaign during the heated Republican primary, where Romney often struggled to make his case. As he watched from afar, long before he endorsed, Ryan drafted a series of detailed strategy and policy advisories, and discussed them with Romney over the phone. For Romney, those corporate-style memos made a lasting impression — and catapulted Ryan into Romney’s circle, where he has remained since.
Someone who can help Mitt Romney better explain conservative principles? That sounds like VP material to me.
> Romney is a low-key, non-ideological nominee who has found Ryan’s support invaluable in maintaining friendly relations with the base. If he were tapped, Ryan would continue to generate conservative enthusiasm for the ticket, and he’d further reinforce Romney’s aura of number-crunching competency.
Works for me.
The abstract of [John W. Diamond’s](http://www.bakerinstitute.org/personnel/fellows-scholars/jdiamond)[^note] paper [on the Romney Tax plan](http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/Diamond-RomneyTaxReformPlan-080312.pdf):
> There is widespread recognition that the U.S. income tax is a complex, highly inefficient, and costly way of raising revenues to finance government expenditures. In this paper, I analyze a rough sketch of the Romney Tax Plan — a rate-reducing, base-broadening tax reform. The simulations show that such a base-broadening, rate-reducing reform would have significant positive economic effects on the U.S. economy, including increases in investment, the capital stock, employment, and real wages. These gains are in addition to increases in GDP, investment, consumption, and employment that will occur as the U.S. economy continues to recover from the recent recession and as the population grows. Specifically, I find that the reform would, if passed immediately, increase GDP relative to baseline by 5.4 percentage points over the next decade, while creating 6.8 million jobs.
Sounds good to me.
(via [The Right Coast](http://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightcoast/2012/08/romney-tax-plan-would-increase-gdp-by-54-add-68-million-jobs.html))
[^note]: Edward A. and Hermena Hancock Kelly Fellow in Public Finance at Rice University
> Keynesian spending policies and class-warfare tax policies have produced dismal economic performance, with unemployment stuck above 8 percent – even though the White House promised the joblessness rate by this point would be about 5.5 percent if we squandered $800 billion-plus on the so-called stimulus.
*Spoiler:* He is not a fan.