The YouTube video was titled \u201cTed Cruz Bashes Obamacare and Talks \u2018Single Biggest Lie in Politics.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I expected the Senator\u2019s Iowa speech to be another acrid diatribe, cogent but predictable, against Obamacare and an out-of-touch Congress that foisted this absurd and unworkable law on American citizens (but not on themselves).<\/p>\n
I was refreshingly wrong.\u00a0 Yes, he bashed Obamacare and the DC elite, but it was not all \u201cred meat\u201d for the Tea Party set.\u00a0 Ted Cruz delivered a broad-gauged critique of Obamanomics as the second coming of Jimmy Carter-style stagflation. \u00a0The solution, he argued,\u00a0was to return to rapid economic growth, comparable to the Reagan years.\u00a0 After suffering through the campaign of pathetically inarticulate Mitt Romney–who literally never made a speech explaining his economic agenda\u2014it was great to hear a coherent, incisive explanation of why America should reject Obama\u2019s statist stagnation in favor of free market capitalism.<\/p>\n
Here is part of the speech (largely verbatim but with a paraphrase here and there):<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know we are in extraordinary times.\u00a0 The challenges facing this country are not simple, and not ordinary\u2026\u2026 Assault on constitutional rights, unlike anything this country has ever seen.\u00a0 So, how do we turn things around?\u00a0 \u00a0\u2026.\u00a0 If you remember one thing that I said tonight, let it be this\u2014that I am profoundly optimistic<\/b> that despite all the challenge of this country I am convinced we are going to turn this country around.\u00a0 Two things we need to do to do that.\u00a0 Number one, champion growth and opportunity.\u00a0 And number two, empower the people.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201c In the last four years our economy has grown on average 0.9% a year<\/b>.\u00a0 You know there is only one other period since World War II of four consecutive years of less than 1% average growth.\u00a0 That was 1979 to 1982, that was coming out of the Jimmy Carter administration.\u00a0 It was the same failed economic policies\u2014out of control spending, out of control taxes, out of control regulation, and it produced the exact same economic stagnation.\u00a0 I can tell you every day I have been in the U.S. Senate, my number one priority has been focused on one thing, restoring economic growth. . . . .<\/p>\n
\u201cOur friends in the media wonder why Congress is held in such low regard.\u00a0 When you ask Texans, what is your top priority, the answer is overwhelmingly jobs and economic growth.<\/b> Nothing else comes close.\u00a0 \u00a0And that is true throughout the country.\u00a0 You get the same answer, jobs and economic growth is the top priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the ten months I have spent in the U.S. Senate, we have spent virtually zero time even talking about jobs and economic growth<\/b>.\u00a0 It simply is not a priority in Harry Reed\u2019s USA.\u00a0 We spent six weeks talking about guns and taking away your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, and no time talking about fundamental tax reform, about regulatory reform, about stopping the burdens of Washington that are strangling small businesses and killing jobs.\u00a0 And growth is foundational to every other challenge<\/b>, whether it is unemployment, whether it is national debt, whether it is maintaining the strongest military in the world to project our national security.\u00a0 With growth we can do all of it.\u00a0 Without growth, we can\u2019t do any of it.\u00a0 The problems are insoluble without economic growth.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026..When Reagan came into office in 1981, he implemented policies the exact opposite of Obama\u2019s<\/b>.\u00a0 He cut taxes and dramatically simplified the tax code.\u00a0 Instead of exploding spending and the national debt, Reagan restrained the growth of spending.\u00a0 Instead of unleashing regulators like locusts to devour small businesses, Reagan pulled back regulation.\u00a0 The result was some of the most incredible growth this country has ever seen.. ..[7.2% real GDP growth In 1984.]\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Senator Cruz went on to turn the \u201cinequality\u201d argument on Democrats.\u00a0 Wall Street and Big Corporations are doing just fine under Obama\u2019s crony capitalism.\u00a0 It\u2019s the little guy who is hurting \u2013 small businesses and community banks crushed by an avalanche of new regulations, and people in the “individual market” who lose healthcare coverage.\u00a0 The result:\u00a0 weak employment growth and fewer hours for low-wage workers because of Obamacare.\u00a0 So it is no surprise that income inequality is at an all-time high, the poverty rate is at recessionary levels and median household incomes are sliding. The biggest losers from Obamanomiics have been young people, Hispanics, and African Americans.<\/p>\n
Ted, Meet Jamie<\/b><\/p>\n
The speech was compelling, but I do have one suggestion. \u00a0It needs some poetic, optimistic, Reaganesque paeans to the intrinsic greatness of America, to the extraordinary growth and prosperity that awaits the nation if it breaks the statist shackles of the coastal elites.\u00a0 Ironically enough, a good place to start would be these stirring comments by Jamie Dimon:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis country not only has the best military on the planet, it has got the best universities, the best businesses, it\u2019s got low corruption, the widest and deepest capital markets, it\u2019s hugely innovative from Steve Jobs to the factory floor, it\u2019s got a wonderful work ethic.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a royal straight flush.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a divine right to succeed but we have an unbelievable hand if we play it well.\u00a0 And now we have natural gas, shale oil.\u00a0 America is going to come back, and it\u2019s going to blow people\u2019s socks off when it does.”<\/p>\n
NYT Agrees with Ted Cruz: Obamnomics Is a Disaster<\/b><\/p>\n
That Obamanomics is a spectacular failure is no longer controversial.\u00a0 Even Charles M. Blow, Obama sycophant and New York Times<\/i> columnist, labels the divergent fortunes of the rich and the rest in Obama\u2019s America \u201cobscene.\u201d\u00a0 While the rich get richer, the middle class is shrinking and sinking\u2014the \u201cslowest post-recession jobs recovery since World War II;\u201d the lowest labor force participation rate in 35 years; median household income 8.3% lower than in 2007; one in seven young adults neither in school\u00a0 nor in a job.<\/p>\n
Naturally Mr. Blow does not blame President Obama, whose name does not appear in the column; it\u2019s America\u2019s fault.\u00a0 A few pedigreed\u00a0 but clueless economists continue to blame abstract forces such as \u201cfinancial deleveraging,\u201d rather than the anti-capitalist policies of Barack \u201cyou didn\u2019t build that\u201d Obama.\u00a0 But most voters are not that dumb.\u00a0 They will reject Democratic socialism if offered a sensible, compelling alternative by an articulate leader such as Senator Cruz.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2013 Thomas Doerflinger.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The YouTube video was titled \u201cTed Cruz Bashes Obamacare and Talks \u2018Single Biggest Lie in Politics.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I expected the Senator\u2019s Iowa speech to be another acrid diatribe, cogent but predictable, against Obamacare and an out-of-touch Congress that foisted this absurd … Continue reading