Let’s say you have a knack for cutting hair.  If you live in Florida, guess how many hours of government-mandated instruction you’d be forced to sit through before you can become a barber?

1,200.

That’s right, well over a thousand hours.  Plus, you’d have to pay thousands of dollars to cover the cost of your classes and pass a written exam.  Only then will the government give you a license—that is, permission to cut hair.

Now what happens if you’re already a successful barber but didn’t have a chance to stop working and jump through all the hoops needed to get that license?

Armed government agents could raid your business and handcuff you in front of your clients. Indeed, this is already happening.  Institute for Justice economic-liberty expert Paul Sherman explains:

According to the Orlando Sentinel:

As many as 14 armed Orange County deputies, including narcotics agents, stormed Strictly Skillz barbershop during business hours on a Saturday in August, handcuffing barbers in front of customers during a busy back-to-school weekend.

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Blessedly, the cacophony of political attack ads on every television station is over.  Democrats and Republicans will all agree that the peace and quiet is welcome.  As to the result, we all know the numbers:  The GOP takes over the House; the Democrats hold the Senate.  Most major highly watched races went to the Republicans, but Democrats hung on in California and Harry Reid survived in Nevada.

Before discussing what this portends, let’s consider what history will say about the 2010 mid-term elections:

Independents did a complete swivel.  After embracing candidate Obama in ’08 largely due to unhappiness with Bush policies, both domestic and foreign, and seeing a looming economic and banking disaster, they turned to then Senator Obama in whom they saw extraordinary intelligence, charm and a message of unity … as he put it … “only one America.”

So why the complete reversal in 2010?  There are numerous reasons, but one towers over all the rest: the president squandered his popularity by misreading the 2008 mandate.  He saw it as an opportunity to put a radical new stamp on the country and solve our problems, social and economic, as if he were the second coming of FDR.

But this was not the 1930s and he forgot that America is essentially a centrist country, sometimes veering a few degrees to the left and more often a few degrees to the right.  President Obama veered hard left and jammed through a health care bill when it was obvious there was no consensus for it, and he did so using tactics that, from his campaign rhetoric, he disdained.  Similarly, his cap and trade legislation had no public appeal, but he went forward anyway and got it through the House without a single Republican vote.

In pursuing his legislative agenda, he lost focus on the three issues most pressing to the electorate:  jobs, jobs and jobs.

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Today, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

From the Associated Press:

A former supervisor for the defunct political advocacy group ACORN has agreed to a plea deal in a case alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register Nevada voters during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Amy Busefink, 28, of Seminole, Fla., pleaded the equivalent of a no-contest in state court to two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. Her Alford plea acknowledged the state had evidence for a conviction at trial.

The plea agreement could get Busefink a year of probation, a $1,000 fine and 100 hours of community service.

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I have to say, I never thought I’d read a blogger on NRO endorse the notion that all of the money you earn belongs to the state. I certainly never thought that read it twice in a year. But here we are, again . . . and I feel compelled to engage in an excruciating debate with Robert VerBruggen of Phi Beta Con.

Question: Is there any substantive difference between the government cutting you a check and cutting your taxes?

VerBruggen agrees with the Progressives on the Supreme Court I wrote about recently: Nope, all your money is the government’s!

But his odd insistence that government checks and tax cuts are the same began months ago, when he expounded more extensively if not coherently on this same subject.

I attempted to illustrate where he had gone wrong in his thinking by taking his positions to an extreme. To my surprise, VerBruggen agreed with my modest proposal to eliminate all charitable tax deductions and credits and capitulate comprehensively to the welfare state

More specifically: “The feds should eliminate the charitable tax deduction and send out the average (tax-forgiven) amount donated per adult to every citizen in the country to donate as they wish!”

VerBruggen supports a “charity entitlement” over charitable tax deductions. He favors a “social security” model for “kind of a ‘forced charity’” over tax deductions.

I’m not sure if he’s thought his rather radical and odd argument through to the end point.

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Phase one for restoring the republic is over: the House is now in Republican hands, thereby assuring nothing radical will sail through the Congress in the next two years (although it would be wise to be on the alert for unconstitutional executive orders intended to accomplish that purpose). If the electorate remains informed and stays on task, 2012 will see the Senate flip as well since the majority of seats up for reelection are currently in Democrat hands.

Phase two may be more difficult. How likely is it that an incumbent president will be stripped of his position? What will it take? Some say it’s a very difficult task, yet it has occurred rather often. Under what circumstances? A short survey of twentieth-century presidential politics may offer some clues as to the feasibility that Barack Obama will be a one-termer.

We can begin with William Howard Taft, Republican winner of the 1908 election as the handpicked successor to Theodore Roosevelt.

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Now that the election is over and we’ve seen in stark light the rebuke that Obama has received, many are wondering if he’ll moderate his far left agenda. But a few movements in the Labor Dept. will disabuse anyone of the notion that Obama intends to drop his left-wing agenda.

Leave it to an Obama appointee to the National Labor Rights Board (NLRB) to want to push votes to install unions in the workplace on an accelerated schedule. I guess all the payoffs and special favors that Obama and his cohorts have given to labor unions in these two of the longest years any president ever had have not been enough.

On Oct. 21, NLRB Member Mark Gaston Pearce said that the time period between filing and the holding of elections for new union representation in a company should be “as brief as possible.”

Of course, this shortened election period is nothing but a sop to Big Labor and intended to hurt businesses that might try to put up a fight against the encroachment of unions.

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As some may recall, the filibuster-proof Senate did not move on cap-and-trade. In the past four years of Senate control, they did not try to ratify the US-signed, never unsigned Kyoto Protocol. Even after the filibuster-proof majority was lost by just a vote, the Senate failed to lift a finger to consider cap-n-trade. There just weren’t enough Democrats willing to buy in, or risk their jobs on this folly.

As my colleague Myron Ebell put it in Politico:

“The American people figured out that cap-and-trade was code for higher energy prices and reacted with righteous fury when House Members [passed the bill before going] home after the vote for the Fourth of July recess. After hearing the outcry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to postpone Senate debate on cap-and-trade and instead take up health care reform, which enjoyed much more public support.”

Funny ’cause it’s true.

So, naturally, over the weekend the Washington Post op-ed pages spilled forth the ritual line: It’s those mean Republicans wot done it. And boy are they blowing it.

So goes today’s argle bargle from Team Soros, acting out in response to the election and seeing their incremental progress toward energy rationing about to be swept aside. Now, after failing in a Left-wing cram-down, they wag their fingers and lecture us that the global warming agenda really should be a conservative priority but, hey, if we’re willing to cede the ground to them they’re more than happy to take credit! Don’t know what you’re missing! Although this will continue for two years, it is already tiresome.

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Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY.) told host Christiane Amanpour he would push for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This is an idea whose time has come. In 1994, Republicans campaigned– and won — on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the Contract with America). Back then; the deficit was just $203 billion. Today, the national deficit is at $1.4 trillion (that’s roughly $3,500 for each American, and some $14,000 for each family of four in deficit spending just this year alone).

Most states require their elected officials to balance their budget each year, but no such requirement impedes the reckless spending of the United States federal government. A constitutional amendment would bar the federal government from spending more money than it brings in each year — and require a supermajority in order to raise taxes. This is not a radical idea, but the consequences of failing to enact such a measure cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, as evidenced by the Tea Party movement, there appears to finally be the political will required to get this done. Newly elected Republicans simply must realize they weren’t elected to merely “trim” spending or “slow down” the rate of government growth, but rather, to cut, de-authorize and balance the budget. (If they fail to grasp this fact, it will be a short and depressing two years).

It is also worth noting that the conservative movement is united behind this cause.

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The White House recently released a video, narrated by Austan Goolsbee of the Council of Economic Advisers, asserting that higher tax rates on the so-called rich would be a good idea.

Since Goolsbee’s video made so many unsubstantiated assertions and was guilty of so many sins of omission, here’s a rebuttal video, narrated by yours truly.

This new Center for Freedom and Prosperity video includes the full footage of the White House production, so viewers can decide for themselves which side is correct.

This rebuttal video, incidentally, only scratches the surface. There was not enough time to cite the wealth of data and research showing how higher taxes undermine economic performance. There was not enough time to address some of the additional flaws of class-warfare tax policy. And there was not enough time to show how simple it is to balance the budget without higher taxes.

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Network Neutrality (NN) is now decidedly, demonstrably unpopular – and unnecessary.

If this were high school (and politics really sort of is), Net Neutrality would be sitting alone at lunch – shunned even by the members of the marching band and the audio-visual club.  Having had its lunch money taken, it would have only enough for milk (and would sadly be unable to open the container).  It would be planning to take its aunt to prom.

But it’s Mom – Free Press and the rest of the Media Marxists – is always there, telling NN how handsome it really is.  And that the other kids just don’t understand it.

In short, almost NO ONE likes Net Neutrality.  Let us look at the debilitating, devastating facts.

The rapid unraveling of the pro-NN movement began almost immediately after the movement itself did.

…(T)he original 2006 coalition It’s Our Net … boasted 148 partners.  Just one year later, they’d “reconstituted in a different form” with a broader focus and were rechristened the Open Internet Coalition (OIC).  But that entity had just 74 members – a huge loss of support in but one year.  This despite the broader focus – which you would think would lead to more participants, not less.

The already-diminishing pro-NN push began – rightly – in the House, Congress being the only proper venue for this sort of thing.  But it repeatedly went NOWHERE.

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Ben Domenech and Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the the latest Fed actions, Wall Street numbers, earnings report expectations, whether the Democrats are wise to keep Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama’s declaration of the “New Normal.”

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. You can find our iTunes feed at CoffeeandMarkets.com. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

WSJ: Obama Warns of New Normal
Zerohedge: Zoellick Talks Gold Standard
WSJ: Ford and GM Rise, Chrysler Sinks
Cianfrocca: Bernanke Treats the Fever, Not the Infection

For nearly two years, the tea parties have warned the Ruling Class there would be serious consequences to ignoring the will of the people, and that day finally arrived this past Tuesday, Nov. 2. The tsunami was felt at all levels of government as a majority of House, Senate and Governor races were won by candidates who had substantial support from tea party voters. Previously the tsunami had been felt within the GOP when tea party voters ousted many incumbent and “establishment-preferred” Republicans in primaries.

Now it is important that Republicans read the right message in the tea leaves: “You are on probation!”

It seems paradoxical that a political party could win such commanding victories, yet be held in such low regard by voters. A recent NYT/CBS poll (10/26) found the favorable rating for the Republican Party was 41% and a recent AP poll (10/18) pegged the job performance approval rating for Congressional Republicans at 28%. As my parents always used to say, “trust must be earned” – and it is earned with actions, not pledges.

Republicans have failed us miserably in the recent past by failing, among other things, to curb spending and debt, reform entitlements, or tackle illegal immigration.  In fact, they have bloated spending, increased debt and expanded entitlement programs.

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A bit less than a year ago, I posted piece entitled Is Barack Obama a One-Trick Pony? I raised this question with an eye to three thumbsuckers that had recently appeared – one on Politico by veteran commentator Elizabeth Drew; another, entitled Amateur Hour at the White House, written by Leslie Gelb for The Daily Beast; and a third, drawing on the remarks of these two well-known Democratic scribes, published in The Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan.

Noonan had two things to say – first, that no one among her liberal acquaintances really loved Barack Obama the way so many Democrats had loved Bill Clinton; and, second, that the Democrats were wrong to think that passing his healthcare reform would help him. In her view, the passage of “such a poor piece of legislation” would, in fact, do him almost irreparable harm. Moreover, she added, “There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Obama’s rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demand baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.”

To this, I added, “The Democrats are getting what they asked for.”

In 2004, they tried a trick. If we nominate a man who won the Purple Heart in Vietnam, they thought, we will win. Never mind that John Kerry disgraced himself in the aftermath of his service in Vietnam, making unjust charges against his brothers-in-arms and resolutely thereafter refusing to apologize to those whom he had slandered. Never mind that he had no executive experience. Never mind that, as a US Senator, he was – to say the least – undistinguished. They wanted to win; and they gave not a thought to what sort of President he might be.

In 2008, the Democrats did the same thing. They had on their hands an inexperienced, recently minted US Senator from Illinois who was – as Joe Biden put it in a candid remark that typifies his propensity for speaking his mind without first thinking about the consequences – “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Never mind, they thought, Obama’s long-standing connections with William Ayers, the unrepentant mastermind of a domestic terrorist bombing campaign in the 1970s. Never mind Obama’s close association with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright. Never mind his lack of executive experience, his unfamiliarity with the private sector, and his ignorance of the ways of Washington. With the help of the pliable press, he could be sold – and the Americans would congratulate themselves on their lack of racial prejudice if they voted for him.

“Now,” I then wrote, “comes the reckoning. That is one problem. The other is that Obama’s one trick cannot often be played. As we have seen over the last few months, as he has tried to play this trick over and over and over again, the more we see of him, the less we are impressed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt never held his fireside chats more than three times a year. How many times has Obama demanded airtime from the networks in the last ten months? I shudder to think.” And to this, I added,

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Just days after receiving a drubbing in the Midterm Elections, President Obama escaped to India. Better relations with India was one of the great legacies of the Bush Administration. Hopefully, those relations will withstand Obama’s apology tour.

My campaign for U.S. Congress ended with a smile–not because of the results, which were disappointing, but because of what it achieved. We ran a tough, issue-oriented, well-organized campaign. We out-raised incumbent Democrat Jan Schakowsky 2-to-1 in the third quarter. We raised the Republican vote by nearly 40 percent over 2006, and helped Republicans nearby and statewide by forcing our opponent to defend her seat.

We also sent a powerful message to the Obama administration about the need for stronger U.S. support for Israel. While Israel was never the focus of the campaign, it was an important priority. We led a nationwide push-back against the far-left J Street organization, which supported Schakowsky lavishly. In so doing, we helped Republicans defeat J Street Democrats in races across the country, further marginalizing the group.

Still, losing by a 66-31 margin is tough. Part of the reason we lost was that our opponent ran a relentlessly negative campaign, spending massive amounts of money on mailings falsely accusing me of wanting to “dismantle” Medicare and the like. She also made full use of the advantages of incumbency–dominating media coverage, promising federal dollars to key voting areas, and (corruptly, I believe) intervening in local foreclosures.

Yet even those deplorable tactics cannot, by themselves, explain the result. The reason 9th district voters chose to retain the biggest spender in the U.S. House, in a year when much of the rest of the country rose up in revolt against excessive spending, was that Chicago and its immediate surrounding areas are heavily dependent on that spending. Cities like Chicago are no longer engines of industry, but wards of the government.

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When you’re a Democrat and you’ve lost the UK’s Guardian…:

Okay, today is the day I’m officially getting old. Moving toward the mushy middle. At least on this one question. Nancy Pelosi is going to run to keep her job as leader of the Democrats, and I am not down with this at all.

I think she was a good to very good speaker. In interviews and other occasions I had to speak with her, she’s not what you’d call an intellectual, and I dislike this habit she has of interrupting her own sentences and changing direction like a pinball that’s just hit a bumper. But she’s a sharpie, believe me. Maybe not up there with Schumer, but good political instincts.

But simple question: How can you preside over the biggest ass-whupping since 1938 and keep your job? You can’t. Simple.

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