The YouTube video was titled “Ted Cruz Bashes Obamacare and Talks ‘Single Biggest Lie in Politics.’” I expected the Senator’s 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).
I was refreshingly wrong. Yes, he bashed Obamacare and the DC elite, but it was not all “red meat” for the Tea Party set. Ted Cruz delivered a broad-gauged critique of Obamanomics as the second coming of Jimmy Carter-style stagflation. The solution, he argued, was to return to rapid economic growth, comparable to the Reagan years. After suffering through the campaign of pathetically inarticulate Mitt Romney–who literally never made a speech explaining his economic agenda—it was great to hear a coherent, incisive explanation of why America should reject Obama’s statist stagnation in favor of free market capitalism.
Here is part of the speech (largely verbatim but with a paraphrase here and there):
“We all know we are in extraordinary times. The challenges facing this country are not simple, and not ordinary…… Assault on constitutional rights, unlike anything this country has ever seen. So, how do we turn things around? …. If you remember one thing that I said tonight, let it be this—that I am profoundly optimistic that despite all the challenge of this country I am convinced we are going to turn this country around. Two things we need to do to do that. Number one, champion growth and opportunity. And number two, empower the people.
“ In the last four years our economy has grown on average 0.9% a year. You know there is only one other period since World War II of four consecutive years of less than 1% average growth. That was 1979 to 1982, that was coming out of the Jimmy Carter administration. It was the same failed economic policies—out of control spending, out of control taxes, out of control regulation, and it produced the exact same economic stagnation. 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. . . . .
“Our friends in the media wonder why Congress is held in such low regard. When you ask Texans, what is your top priority, the answer is overwhelmingly jobs and economic growth. Nothing else comes close. And that is true throughout the country. You get the same answer, jobs and economic growth is the top priority.
“In the ten months I have spent in the U.S. Senate, we have spent virtually zero time even talking about jobs and economic growth. It simply is not a priority in Harry Reed’s USA. 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. And growth is foundational to every other challenge, whether it is unemployment, whether it is national debt, whether it is maintaining the strongest military in the world to project our national security. With growth we can do all of it. Without growth, we can’t do any of it. The problems are insoluble without economic growth.
“…..When Reagan came into office in 1981, he implemented policies the exact opposite of Obama’s. He cut taxes and dramatically simplified the tax code. Instead of exploding spending and the national debt, Reagan restrained the growth of spending. Instead of unleashing regulators like locusts to devour small businesses, Reagan pulled back regulation. The result was some of the most incredible growth this country has ever seen.. ..[7.2% real GDP growth In 1984.]”
Senator Cruz went on to turn the “inequality” argument on Democrats. Wall Street and Big Corporations are doing just fine under Obama’s crony capitalism. It’s the little guy who is hurting – small businesses and community banks crushed by an avalanche of new regulations, and people in the “individual market” who lose healthcare coverage. The result: weak employment growth and fewer hours for low-wage workers because of Obamacare. 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.
Ted, Meet Jamie
The speech was compelling, but I do have one suggestion. It 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. Ironically enough, a good place to start would be these stirring comments by Jamie Dimon:
“This country not only has the best military on the planet, it has got the best universities, the best businesses, it’s got low corruption, the widest and deepest capital markets, it’s hugely innovative from Steve Jobs to the factory floor, it’s got a wonderful work ethic. We’ve got a royal straight flush. We don’t have a divine right to succeed but we have an unbelievable hand if we play it well. And now we have natural gas, shale oil. America is going to come back, and it’s going to blow people’s socks off when it does.”
NYT Agrees with Ted Cruz: Obamnomics Is a Disaster
That Obamanomics is a spectacular failure is no longer controversial. Even Charles M. Blow, Obama sycophant and New York Times columnist, labels the divergent fortunes of the rich and the rest in Obama’s America “obscene.” While the rich get richer, the middle class is shrinking and sinking—the “slowest post-recession jobs recovery since World War II;” 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 nor in a job.
Naturally Mr. Blow does not blame President Obama, whose name does not appear in the column; it’s America’s fault. A few pedigreed but clueless economists continue to blame abstract forces such as “financial deleveraging,” rather than the anti-capitalist policies of Barack “you didn’t build that” Obama. But most voters are not that dumb. They will reject Democratic socialism if offered a sensible, compelling alternative by an articulate leader such as Senator Cruz.
Copyright 2013 Thomas Doerflinger. All Rights Reserved.
