Show some backbone

(Denver Post, Nov. 27) “Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011, now those were tough times. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on raising taxes. Denver and Aurora couldn’t agree on the Stock Show. Democrats couldn’t get excited about Obama. Republicans couldn’t get excited about anyone. It was grim, I tell you. Worse than 1933, with unemployment over 20%, Hitler and Stalin menacing Europe. “Worse than 1942, with the world in flames, the Allies beset by Germany and Japan. Worse than 1968, with assassinations, race riots, failed presidencies, antiwar marches.

“No, youngsters, none of those dark days compared with the year we lost Steve Jobs. Elway was dissing Tebow. Big Air was cancelled. Black December, we called it. Be grateful you weren’t born yet.”

Will Grandpa be narrating such melodrama by a Colorado fireside decades from now? Hardly. So why the long face? We’ve survived worse than this. Purpose and grit will get us through. Coloradans have backbone. Our best days are ahead, there’s no doubt of it.

Yet four out of five Americans in a recent poll said the country is now in decline. Maybe we are beginning to see ourselves as a people that things happen to, rather than what we’ve historically been since Pilgrim times – a people who make things happen. It’s a huge difference; and fortunately, it’s still our choice.

Local reaction to failure of the congressional “supercommittee” to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, as reported last week by the Denver Post, portrayed Colorado as an almost helpless dependent of the federal budget. The state will be a less desirable place to live in dozens of ways, one gathered, if spending growth slows down to keep America from a Greek-style fiscal collapse. Woe is us.

The obvious rejoinder is twofold, it seems to me. First, let’s have some perspective here. Spending growth HAS to slow. Barreling along on the current unsustainable path is not an option. It would make all 50 of the states a worse place to live.

Second, since the budget binge is clearly ending, deal or no deal, let’s make a virtue of necessity and get busy positioning Colorado for greater economic self-sufficiency. The time should come when we’re NOT a groveling client of the Beltway. How about both parties in the legislature and the Hickenlooper administration vying to outdo each other on reforms toward that goal, come January?

New Year’s confetti will hardly be swept up, of course, when presidential politics goes white-hot with caucuses and primaries, Colorado included. Some say that movement on policy will then halt because of election-year posturing. But considering our state’s particular leverage in the 2012 race, why do we have to accept that?

We’ll not only be a battleground state again as we were in 2008. This time, Colorado could play the decisive role that Florida played in 2000. Strategists on both sides have spun out scenarios in which our nine electoral votes tip the balance of 269 to elect the incumbent or the challenger. (Lucky we stayed off the National Popular Vote bandwagon.)

So we will have, to put it mildly, the respectful attention of both Obama and his opponent – Romney, Gingrich, or whoever – all the way to November. As individual voters and especially through our organized groups, we should be thinking about what we want from them. I don’t mean our selfish wants, but our agenda for the civic good, for America’s renewal.

Our state is being paid yet another compliment, if you can call it that, as pundits left and right predict that the “fear and loathing” attack campaign Obama used to rescue Sen. Michael Bennet’s reelection here in 2010 will become his own national theme against the GOP in 2012. If true, too bad. Such scaremongering demeans our intelligence and our backbone. Will Coloradans stand for it? Stay tuned.

Disgusted with the Occupiers

The Occupy movement is a childish tantrum that is taking on Brownshirt overtones, says John Andrews in the November round of Head On TV debates. Wrong, replies Susan Barnes-Gelt: it's an authentic protest widely echoing that famous movie line, "Mad as hell." John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the off-year election results, the presidential race, and the decline of newspapers. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for November: 1. THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT

Susan: In Paddy Chayefsky’s movie, Network, Peter Finch’s character yells, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” galvanizing the nation. That’s the Occupy Movement, a diverse group fed up with the narcissism and double-speak of the status quo. Elites ignore this message at their own risk.

John: America offers more freedom, more opportunity, more generosity, more openness, more participation, more creativity, more tolerance, and more upward mobility than any other nation on earth, and it offers those things to everyone, excluding no one. The Occupy protesters aren’t making a political statement, they’re throwing a childish tantrum.

Susan: The Constitutional government of the United States includes lofty principles and practices. On the other hand, when a handful of influence peddlers, plutocrats and special interests combine with mean-spirited, jingoistic extremists to create public policy, the people should speak out and leadership better listen.

John: The extremists in this picture are not our democratically-elected policymakers. They are the radical leftists and street thugs of Occupy Wall Street and all its copycats. This growing menace is similar to the Brownshirts who destabilized Germany in the early ‘30s, and equally purposeful. ACORN organized it to help Obama.

2. ON & ON IN RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

John: In starting the presidential campaign way, way early, Republicans are bleeding their finances and bruising each other in a way that can only delight the Democrats. At least the eventual nominee will be battle-hardened -- and our side is going to need that, because Obama will have to go negative to win.

Susan: Battle hardened is one way to assess the current melee among Repub’s. I’d say the nominee will be in intensive care, on life support. $20+Mil in flip/flop ads against Romney will deplete his oxygen. And the rest of the field? Even IV miracle infusions won’t work.

John: After such a four disappointing years, Obama can’t run again on hope and change. His only chance this time is fear and loathing. Democrats will try to scare us away from Republican policies and disgust us with dirt on the GOP nominee. 2012 will be ugly, but I predict Barack is done.

Susan: Nothing can’t beat an incumbent. The only Republican with a shot at beating Obama is John Huntsman. He’s a smart, reasonable and moderate guy. Good for Dems that your party is lost in la la land, and will nominate a wing nut or flip flopper instead.

3. DOES NEWSPAPERS’ DECLINE DAMAGE DEMOCRACY?

John: Thomas Jefferson said a free society could get along better without government than without newspapers. The lifeblood of liberty is open debate, unfettered information, not politicians and laws and spending. These days the latter are madly increasing while newspapers are dying. Can democratic institutions survive in a Facebook nation?

Susan: A more pointed question is whether local and state government will survive without quality local coverage? Daily oversight of city halls, school boards and the state capitol are critical to public awareness. Spin machines and biased blogs have picked up where journalism’s failed. That’s a problem.

John: The Rocky is gone and the Denver Post gets thinner all the time. CU closed its journalism school. Commercial TV does some hard reporting, but a lot of frothy infotainment. Public channels like CPT provide good analysis but little firsthand coverage. What becomes of the media’s watchdog function to restrain government?

Susan: Sadly the local daily newspaper is going the way of the pay phone. Until the industry figures out how to attract and monetize the web, every interest from greedy corporations, K-Street lobbyists and corrupt elected’s will further inflame public distrust.

4. WHAT VOTERS SAID ON TAXES

Susan: With the exception of a couple local open space and public amenity approvals, tax proposals tanked this November. Even liberal Denver said NO! to statewide proposal to fund public education. Voters don’t trust government and won’t pay higher taxes unless they’re 100% sure the money is well spent. BIG trouble ahead for the Regional Transportation District.

John: Thank goodness for TABOR with its requirement for the spending lobby to ask permission before digging deeper into our pockets. So many families with paychecks gone or shrinking in this endless Obama recession are not about to approve a price increase from government. Raise taxes next year for light rail? No way.

Susan: RTD will need a complete overhaul – from senior management on down and out. Voters might support a transit initiative if they believed RTD’s board, leadership and consultants were credible. Taxpayers have lost faith in their institutions. Political and civic leaders better pay attention.

John: Voters sent a message that the political class in Denver and Washington should pay attention to. “Do it for the children,” a tax-increase pitch that seldom fails, fell flat. In defeating Prop 103 by almost 2 to 1, Coloradans told the legislature and Congress, “It’s the spending, stupid.”

5. WHAT VOTERS SAID ON SCHOOL BOARDS

Susan: In Denver, only school board incumbent Arturo Jiminez eked out a win over a slate of three reform candidates. Backed by big dollars from a few individuals, the election was more heat than light. Replacing Teresa Peña with Happy Haynes is a trade up and a new board chair could hold promise.

John: Teachers are great, but teacher unions are a negative force, and voters are realizing that. The union in Denver failed to recall Nate Easley earlier and now failed to take over the school board. In Douglas County they lost a referendum on vouchers. Only in Jeffco did the union diehards prevail.

Susan: Ah that it were so simple. Fixing public ed will take more than demonizing unions and deifying vouchers. Accountability from top to bottom is part of the answer. Longer school years and days, better-trained teachers, engaged families and improved instructional materials are important too.

John: Eighty percent of the people tell pollsters America is in decline. One symptom is the generation-long slump in learning performance while dollars per student were doubling. Selfish unions, distant bureaucrats, and leftist ideology have ruined our public schools. If you want proof, see the documentary film, “Waiting for Superman.”

The Road to 2020

(Denver Post, Oct. 30) In a year and a week, we’ll know who Americans want for president. Anybody who claims much certainty about it until then is howling at the moon. I have no prescience about the race, other than to implore my fellow Republicans against over-confidence in the face of Obama’s potent incumbency and billion-dollar war chest. Unsure as I am about 2012, however, I’ve just been through an experience that encourages me for America’s prospects in this decade, the road to 2020. Strange as it sounds amid our economic woes and the dire predictions of decline, there are signs of a strong rebound like that of the 1980s soon to come.

What makes me say so? The impressions gathered on a book tour. Almost daily since August, when I brought out “Responsibility Reborn: A Citizen’s Guide to the Next American Century” from MT6 Media, they’ve had me talking about it across the country in radio interviews, TV appearances, and speeches. It’s like campaigning again, only the exchange of ideas is far richer.

And my take-away is that Middle America’s “remnant” – as the unbowed faithful were called in ancient Israel – has not yet begun to fight. The fiscal follies, the Great Recession, and the Occupy Wall Street tantrum haven’t deadened the core of character that makes us exceptional. The American spirit, though battered, remains resilient. A hundred days on the author circuit have convinced me.

Personal responsibility as the indispensable condition of freedom and the price of sustained success, a theme in my Denver Post column since 2007, is also the theme of my book. The responsibility deficit as causative to our budgetary and educational and national security deficits – and as fatal to our country, if things don’t change – is my uncheerful warning to every audience. What’s remarkable is that they get it.

The talk shows that have me on, the groups I’m speaking to, are mostly political and conservative, Republican, and in many cases Christian. If they bridled at being told the GOP is part of the responsibility deficit, an entitlement enabler, and that our urgent challenge now is more moral and cultural than partisan or political, I’d worry. But because they own up, instead of pushing back, I am heartened. Therein are the makings of a turnaround.

America has seen this movie before, remember. After the stormy 1960s gave way to the stagnant ‘70s, elite opinion clucked over the nation’s impending decline, the need for lowered expectations, the likelihood we’d seen our best days. Elections weren’t what refuted that. Rebirth of a responsibility ethic from the bottom up refuted it. Reagan’s rise was a consequence, not a cause.

This is why I’m bullish on USA 2020, regardless of the 2012 electoral outcome. Win or lose next year, Barack Obama is indisputably Jimmy Carter redux – and having to endure another term of the man, with an opposition Congress restraining his leftward lurch, won’t ruin us. Do I want that? No. Nor do I expect it. But my confidence rests outside politics, with the already-dawning return of Element R, the responsible remnant.

Politicians fade so fast. By the time we vote in 2020, whoever next wins the presidency will be done in Washington. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock will be done in my state, as will most of today's big names in your state. Fixing on the 2020 horizon, and prioritizing a responsibility agenda that puts cultural renewal ahead of governmental goals, will best harness the Tea Party energy for lasting change.

On tour, I have talked of ten steps for this decade. The first five aren’t even political: families strengthened, learning honored, charities expanded, churches energized, multiculturalism outgrown. Upon that foundation we then aim for citizenship revived, defenses rebuilt, government relimited, sovereignty reasserted, freedom of conscience upheld. Personalities come and go. Principles endure. What are yours?

Vote no on Proposition 103

I'm a no-vote on Prop 103, and so should you be. The ballot issue raising Colorado's income tax rate and sales tax rate for the next five years (ostensibly to fund education, but with no guarantee of doing so), is but the latest effort by the spending lobby to avoid hard choices about reining in the growth of government and disciplining the education "blob" toward greater productivity from its already-lavish resources. Barry Poulson and Penn Pfiffner lay out the economic and fiscal case against Prop 103 very ably at the Independence Institute website, www.i2i.org.

The Too Taxing for Colorado folks and former state Rep. Victor Mitchell add their facts and logic at these sites.

http://savecoloradojobs.org/

http://www.tootaxing.org/

To see what the other side is saying, look here http://voteyeson103.com/

Finally, painting with a very broad brush and not looking at the specific alleged case for 103 as a school-supporting measure, I had this exchange with the ever-liberal Susan Barnes-Gelt on Colorado Public Televsion last month, part of our regular "Head On" debate feature.

Susan: DU’s Center for Colorado’s Economic Future predicts that structural flaws in the state government combined with two recessions, mean the long-term fiscal stability of state government’s at stake. I know you think government ought to drown in a bathtub – but a bi-partisan group of leaders disagree.

John: Governments at every level are in danger of drowning themselves in debt. Colorado is no exception, and just like the federal government in Washington, our state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Raising taxes right now would hurt job creation and postpone needed reforms. Vote no on Proposition 103!

Susan: We’re drowning alright – in our own excesses – waging two wars while we cut taxes, failing to keep up with China in infrastructure and educational investments, coddling Wall Street while we ignore Main Street. The deficit is mounting – leadership, vision, courage and vision.

John: As a free and open society with Judeo-Christian roots, I like our chances against communistic China, decadent Europe, or barbaric Islam. But we do have a responsibility deficit, and the result could be fiscal collapse. Feeding the beast with more taxes is not the answer. Vote no on 103!

Vote Republican in local races on Nov. 1

Despite the wrong-headed Colorado statute barring party affiliations from the ballot in local elections, we all know it matters a lot whether any office in the land, high or low, is held by a Democrat or a Republican. Democrats generally favor government solutions, unions, collectivist approaches, taxes and spending. Republicans are more generally skeptical of those things. This can end up making a huge difference.

This year's election that closes on Nov. 1, earlier than usual, will present voters with numerous "Who's that?" moments as no-name candidates parade across the nonpartisan ballot in a season of minimal publicity and low turnouts.

Here's a rundown of the GOP (or school reform) candidates just a few metro-Denver localities. In Aurora, Republicans running for Mayor include businessman Jude Sandvall, Councilman Ryan Frazier, and former councilman Steve Hogan. Sandvall is the only one who opposes the massive taxpayer subsidy to Gaylord Entertainment Corporation. He has my strong support.

In Centennial, where I live, Republicans seeking city council seats include Sharon West in District 1, Craig Klosterman in District 2, Ken Lucas in District 3, and Stephanie Piko in District 4.

In Cherry Creek Schools, my local district, the board election was cancelled for lack of any challengers to the incumbents running again. Pathetic, and evidence of a clever game the insiders play; but that's a discussion for another day.

School board races that are being contested, and with very high stakes for choice, charters, high standards, and pushback against the unions include these: Douglas County - The Republican slate is Justin Williams, Craig Richardson, and Kevin Larsen.

Jefferson County - The Republican slate is Preston Branaugh and Jim Powers.

Denver County - The sole GOP contender is John Daniel, running at large. The reform slate consists of Happy Haynes in the at-large race along with Anne Rowe and Jennifer Draper Carson in the two district races.

Elizabeth - Chip Swan is running against two Democrat-backed candidates.

Adams County, District 12 - Republicans committed to reform include Norm Jennings and Mark Clark. In a third race it's complicated because Richard Ezo, the U candidate, is more of a reformer than Max Willsey, an R who is union-funded. So vote carefully there. Everyone in Adams 12 can vote in all three races.

If your community is not covered in the above listing, it only takes a few quick inquiries by phone, email, or web search to find out who the local Republican candidates are.

Don't vote by guesswork or hearsay. Take the time to find out which team jersey is which, under the generic shirts they're all forced to wear. You will be glad you did!

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