The South Gibson Star-Times serves the towns of Haubstadt, Owensville and Fort Branch.
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South Gibson Star-Times D-8 Tuesday, October 5, 2022 OPINION Time for a commitment to America Republicans are gearing up for elections in November by drawing a clear line in the sand between their party and Democrats. Republicans have rolled out what they call Commitment to America. And this is exactly what it's about. Our country embodies a world view, and it is that world view, and the principles that capture that world view, that made and makes Ameri- ca a great nation. The deep tear in our national fabric today is about a large part of the nation — those who support and vote for Democrats — that does not buy into the American dream. The stark differences are evident in new polling from The Wall Street Journal. When asked if you agree that America is the greatest country in the world, 91% of Republicans agree, and 6 % of Republicans disagree. In contrast, only 61% of Democrats agree that we live in the greatest country in the world, and 34% dis- agree with this proposition. What are the driving factors be- hind this deep contrast between the take of Republicans and Democrats on our nation? I would call this a deep difference in belief in freedom. The new Wall Street Journal poll shows a stark dif- ference between Republicans and Democrats regarding whether free- dom works. Regarding the proposition, "If people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in America," 85% of Re- publicans agree, and 13% disagree. However, only 53% of Democrats agree with this proposition, and 46 % disagree. If you don't believe that an in- dividual holds his or her own fate in his or her own hands, then you cannot believe that freedom works. If you cannot believe that freedom works, you don't buy into the Amer- ican ideal. This is where we are as an elec- torate. The nation's founders were clear in the Declaration of Independence. All men are endowed with the right "to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and "Governments are instituted among men" in order to "secure these rights." That's it. That's the vision of America toward which the founders aspired. Individual freedom is the core pil- lar of American reality. Government is there to protect individuals and enable them to live free lives. If you don't believe hard work will get you anywhere, the American dream collapses. This is the great divide today in our nation. We might look at the just pub- lished 2022 Economic Freedom of the World Report by the Fraser In- stitute in Vancouver, Canada, to get a sense of human reality and free- dom. The Fraser Institute measures economic freedom in 165 countries around the world. Free countries have limited government and low taxes, less regulation, a legal sys- tem that protects life and property, a stable currency, and free trade. The top 25% of countries in econom- ic freedom have per capita income seven times higher than the bottom 25% , have life expectancy 14 years longer, and income earned by the poorest 10 % that is eight times high- er. Our country is moving further and further away from individuals being able to live freely and control their own lives. The result is the in- flation we're now experiencing and slow economic growth. Individuals sit by the sidelines, convinced they have no control over their own lives, and want to turn it all over to gov- ernment. It is destroying our nation. This is what the Republican Com- mitment to America is about. Re- storing the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness that once was the American dream. For most of our history, Ameri- cans celebrated freedom. The civil rights movement in the 1960s was about Black Americans protesting their inability to participate fully in this freedom. But once they got it, many chose to not embrace it and turn their lives over to government. But freedom is not something we can live without successfully. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break By John Stossel Heritage Viewpoint By EJ Antoni Nobody can evade recession data Just in time for the heat of the elec- tion season, a federal agency called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced it will no longer allow betting on political and election outcomes. These online wagering plat- forms, most notably PredictIt, allow betting on all sorts of political out- comes: the odds that Republicans win the Senate in November, the odds that Joe Biden will be the next Democratic nominee for president (right now 33%) or the odds that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wins the GOP nomination in 2024 (right now 38 %). You can also bet on whether a piece of legislation will pass. These betting markets don't always predict the right election outcomes. (Donald Trump was far from a favorite in 2016 when he beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.) But they tend to be more accurate than polls or the prog- nostications of Washington talking heads. Betting markets are often efficient because they price in real time the most accurate polling data, as well as day-to-day events and in- formation (public and private) that can influence who is going to win on Election Day. Why should anyone care about whether these markets are allowed to continue? Because they provide valuable information that can influ- ence investment decisions. We wish it weren't so, but given that we now have a $ 6 trillion annual federal budget and hyperactive federal reg- ulators, such as Federal Trade Com- mission Chair Lina Khan, investors can make more informed decisions by knowing the prob- abilities of certain election outcomes. The CF TC seems to discount the social benefit to these mar- kets. The hundreds of thousands of bettors who are making the wagers and collective- ly "moving the line," like a point spread on a football game, pro- vide free information to investors, business owners, builders and so on about the future policy environment. It's similar to using the stock market to determine the future earnings of a company. Suppose, for example, a company is considering a major investment in an oil and gas operation. A big factor in the future profitability of that expenditure is whether Repub- licans will win control of Congress. If they do win, the oil and gas leases could be very valuable. If the Dem- ocrats retain control of Congress, their value could fall to zero. We are also worried that federal regulators may want to shut down other prediction markets related to public policy outcomes. If you want to know what the odds are of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by 75 basis points at its next meeting, a betting market (which requires people to put actual money where their mouths are) is far more predictive than what Jim Cramer of CNBC thinks. Betting markets can also inform pol- icymakers on the wisdom of new laws and regulations. Con- gress just "invested" $ 300 billion of taxpay- er money in climate change legislation, which supporters say will lower global tem- peratures. Will it? A betting market on what the global tem- perature will be in, say, 10 years, might be far more informative than garbage-in, garbage-out computer models. If there is truly a "scientif- ic consensus," then all the money would flow to one side of the mar- ket. We suspect betting markets would reveal that the "consensus" isn't so reliable. Experts are often wrong. One of the great comparative ad- vantages America has over nearly every other nation is highly sophis- ticated capital markets that allocate investment dollars to the high- est-return companies and projects. Our capital markets don't always get it right, which is why financially speculative bubbles can burst (e.g., Bitcoin). But mostly, investors collectively make smart decisions — which has contributed mightily to the more than $100 trillion of new wealth cre- Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore America needs political prediction markets Newly released data from the Commerce Department show what some people have been saying for months: The nation is in recession. Furthermore, the Biden admin- istration's cherry-picking of data has come back to bite it, with even its selected data points now being revised to indicate a recession. And while these numbers confirm the economy shrank in the first half of the year, the rest of this year holds little promise of recovery. The economy, as measured by gross domestic product—the total value of all goods and services pro- duced within the nation's borders— shrank in the first two quarters of the year, but, in Orwellian fashion, the White House was quick to roll out its latest newspeak and declare that this no longer meant a reces- sion. The Biden administration cited seemingly robust growth in gross domestic income to counter the decline in GDP. Yet for some reason, it is silent about today's re- vised data. That is probably because gross national income—the total amount of money earned by the nation's people and businesses—was re- vised heavily downward from 1.4% to just 0.1% in the second quarter. The average of gross domestic product and gross domestic income is considered a supplemental mea- sure of economic activity, and Trea- sury Secretary Janet Yellen, among others, used this as proof the nation was not in recession, since the pre- vious average was 0.4% growth in the second quarter. Now, that figure is -0.3% . For the first quarter, that same figure was also revised down into negative territory. Simply put, the Biden ad- ministration has no data points left behind which it can hide—the re- cession is confirmed. Manipulation of data is no sub - stitute for sound economic policy. T he Biden administration hung its hat on a single datum point that has now turned against it. Hoisted on its own petard, it is reminiscent of Jesus' admonition to St. Peter, "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword." But there are still more distress- ing signs in the latest Commerce Depart- ment report. Real (ad- justed for inflation) disposable income in the second quarter de- creased 1.5%; 0.9 per- centage points worse than previously esti- mated. The savings rate for both quarters was also worse than the prior estimates. In other words, people are demonstrably worse off as inflation erases all their wage increases, and then some. The common man can afford to buy and save less than be- fore. The measures of inflation were also revised and were even worse than previously estimated. This includes "core" inflation, which ex- cludes food and energy and is the Federal Reserve's preferred infla- tion indicator. That means the Fed will likely continue its belated rate hikes, increasing the pain that ac- companies higher interest rates. But what does the future hold for the average American? Is the econ- omy turning around? In a word, no. The latest data indicate that the third quarter of this year may barely eke out positive economic growth, but things are looking bleak after that; the country is in the middle of a double-dip recession—a reces- sion followed by a brief recovery and then another recession. Two key contributors to growth are van- ishing before our eyes, yet few peo- ple see them. Many businesses are still work- ing through backlogs from the pandemic, called unfilled orders. Despite new orders for goods and services declining, businesses have been sustaining themselves on their unfilled orders, which are rapidly decreasing. Once those are gone, there are not enough new orders to sustain current economic output. That means layoffs, unemployment, and further recession. Additionally, the only major pos- itive contributor to GDP current- ly is net exports, which is simply how much the nation exports minus how much it imports, com- monly called the trade deficit. The shrinking trade deficit has been boosting GDP, but this effect, too, is evaporat- ing. The U.S. dollar has been strengthening at a record pace relative to most other major currencies. That does not mean that the dollar itself is strong; our currency is merely win- ning a beauty contest of ugly peo- ple. Instead, it means that other cur- rencies are losing value even faster than the dollar. A relatively stronger dollar makes our exports more expensive, while making it cheaper for us to import. That exacerbates the trade deficit and reduces net exports, in turn, reducing GDP. As with the collapse of new orders for businesses, the decline of net ex- ports is signaling further economic contraction. For the common man, this means higher unemployment and a lower standard of living. A fter being squeezed by inflation during the boom, the middle class will get hit with unemployment during the bust. For the Washington elites whose anti-energy, anti-growth, and pro-inflation policies caused this mess, recession represents buying opportunities. Prices for things like real estate and stocks tend to fall during contractions, as many peo- ple must liquidate their holdings. The "plebeian" concerns of unem- ployment fall disproportionately on lower- and middle-income families, not the wealthy. As Victor Davis Hanson often points out, "The ruling class is ex- empt from the ramifications of their own actions." EJ Antoni is a research fellow for Regional Economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foun- dation. School choice winning Finally! Now more states will let parents use their tax money to educate their kids at a school they choose. In Arizona, families can get $ 6,500 to spend on private school, tutoring or even home schooling. The education establishment is horrified — especially teachers unions. They don't want competi- tion. But competition makes us all bet- ter. The Ford Model T was a break- through. But it's lousy compared to what we have today. That's because carmakers compete to make better cars. But American education has barely changed since the days of Henry Ford. Kids still sit in a room, watching a teacher at a blackboard. For my video this week, I debate a union leader. He's David Walrod, president of the Fairfax, Virginia, chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. The AF T has been controlled by union boss Randi Weingarten for 14 years. I once provoked her by saying, "Unionized monopolies like yours fail! " "We are not a unionized monop- oly! " she replied. "Folks who want to say this ... don't really care about kids." Weingarten won't talk to me any- more, so I'm glad Walrod would. "What's wrong with giving par- ents a choice? " I ask. A fter all, com- petition makes us try harder. "If I compete directly against you, I have a vested interest in doing bet- ter than you," he said. Isn't that good? "Not in education," he replies. Pa- rental choice would just "duplicate bureaucracy." But his schools are already drowning in bureaucracy. They spend $16,505 per student! That's more than $ 300,000 per classroom. $ 300,000 would fund several good teachers, but the bureaucracy pre- vents that money from going to ac- tual teaching. "Any ideas you have for lowering bureaucracy — you're not gonna hear any disagreement from the teachers union," says Walrod. But his union supports the com- plex rules that protect every teach- er's job. "Teachers that aren't up to snuff should be let go," says Walrod. But the school's human resources handbook makes that nearly impos- sible. Fairfax schools spent more than $70,000 on lawyers trying to fire a teacher they considered in- competent. They failed. Another reason some parents want to escape government-run schools is because during the pan- demic, many stayed closed while private schools reopened. "There are definitely valid ar- guments to say that some districts played it too cautious," Walrod ad- mits, "but we were dealing with an ongoing health crisis ... CDC guide- lines." I push back. "Seems like you were eager to embrace the CDC's message...so you didn't have to go to work! " "Online teaching was harder than in-person teaching," Walrod re- sponds. Really. Attitudes like that are a reason 5,000 students left Fairfax public schools during the pandemic. Another reason was: hard-left in- doctrination. Fairfax paid Ibram Kendi $20,000 for a one-hour Zoom presentation on racism. Maybe Fairfax parents want their tax money spent this way. But I bet not all do. If parents want their kids to study critical race theory, wear masks or learn that America constantly oppresses people, they should be able to choose a school that offers that. But they should have a choice. Choice would allow families to "take their children to institutions that best align with their values," says education researcher Corey DeAngelis. Walrod had told me, "Public schools have consistently outper- formed charter schools." When I asked for evidence, he said, "Look in educational policy journals." Some studies have found that school choice hasn't raised test scores. See COMMITMENT on page 9 See CHOICE on page 9 See MARKETS on page 9