I want to talk economics with you.  In the annals of the American Economy there was a golden age where we did not face a choice between Big Government and Big Business.

Back before FDR, there was a real economic theory that has died and we need to resurrect it, pat it on the back, and cheer for it like we cheer for Rick Perry.

It was called Distributism.  Yes, yes, I know it sounds like something a commie would cough up while we were waterboarding him.  It is an “ISM.”

Fear not.  It really is an old fashioned good idea.  And it is old.  Any given spell checker says, “distributism,”  it isn’t even a word.

Defintion:  ”According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton’s statement: “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”

This looks exactly like a progression to our Modern Internet.

In my last post I argued that what matters is that we cut the taxes of the Tea Party.  Tea Partiers tend to be Small Business Owners.  Small businesses create all the new jobs.  So, when the GOP negotiates Tax Reform, what we should really mean is:

1. The bottom half of America must pay at least as much as they pay now.
2. The Wall Street investor class and the Fortune 1000 management can pay more.
3. The owners of small businesses across the US, the savers, the scrimpers, the Tea Party faithful pay MUCH LESS.

There is a real economic thought behind this approach.

The Catholics invented it.  Who knew, right?  Maybe we should forgive them some of their more eggregious sins.  According to the Catholics, we shouldn’t treat the Fortune 1000 as well as we treat Small Business owners.

If you call yourself a Tea Partier, please go give it a quick read.

Please tell me in the comments if this stuff rings true.

Job #1 of the Super-Congress is Tax Reform.  This is our best chance to simplify American tax policy so a second grader can explain it.

Grover must pledge: Cutting the Tea Party's taxes matters most!

Crucial point: Grover Norquist is a good guy, but my main concern is not do taxes go up overall?

What I care about is: Do the Tea Party’s taxes go down a lot?

If we see overall tax revenues increase because GE is not getting green dollars, while all the small business owners are paying MUCH MUCH less – we have a winner.   You hear that Pelosi?  I just gave you some solace; render unto the patriots their due, and at least you can show your team some Fortune 1000 scalps.  Of course they won’t donate to your team any longer, but you should only get donations from the lower classes anyway.

Let’s be straight forward about what we want to see in a new tax policy:

1. The bottom half of America must pay at least as much as they pay now.
2. The Wall Street investor class and the Fortune 1000 management can pay more.
3. The owners of small businesses across the US, the savers, the scrimpers, the Tea Party faithful pay MUCH LESS.

Because when we say “broaden the base, end the loopholes, and lower the tax rates” – the above is exactly what we really mean.    And we can’t let Grover Norquist’s Tax Pledge screw us up.

Example: The idea of a special rate for capital gains sounds good, but it is ridiculous.  Ask Grover and he’ll say it is, “double taxation.”

But, a small business owner is actually AN INVESTOR.   He just invests in himself.   And every dollar he makes that he re-invests in his own companies is no different than a Wall Street or Real Estate investor who takes profits and buys more stock or a new building.

You might not know this, but under current tax law (rule 1031) when a Real Estate investor sells a building for a profit, he pays NO taxes if he buys another building in 90 days.

But if a small business owner earns $250K in profit, he pays income tax on that before he can re-invest it in another business idea he has.

Let’s say Tom and his partner Steve have a string of frozen yogurt shops in their local market.  Why should Tom have to treat his profts as income, if he wants to partner up and put money into an Internet startup with his nephew?  Why should the IRS encourage Tom to keep building yogurt shops  just so he doesn’t have to declare those profits as income?   Why isn’t Tom as free to decide what to do with his profits as as any other  investor?

Treating small business owners better than we treat real estate and Wall Street investors is an idea whose time has come. The Super-Congress should concern itself with cutting the Tea Party’s taxes and forget about everybody else.

If the Super Congress doesn’t dump truck loads of money at the feet of small businessmen, the Tea Party should RIOT.  Even if it means just that the automatic cuts go into effect, every GOP congressman should speak on the house floor, not against corporate taxes, but against taxes on small business.

It is time for the GOP to dance with the ones who brung them.  If it means the owners of main street get to pay less, Warren Buffett and the founders of Google should pay more.

And if Grover Norquist (and his donors) aren’t on board with “Tea Party first” thinking, then he’s really not for the right kind of Tax Reform.

It is time for Grover to take our pledge.

I’ll keep this short.

No one understands “what” is going to be cut.  Saying discretionary spending is going to be cut over ten years sounds like a Nigerian email scam.

So please Boehner, for the love of god, listen to your buddy Morgan…. Just cut federal employee pay.

Give Obama three choices:

1. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $30B per year (off baseline) starting 2012:  Ten year savings $300B

2. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $60B per year (off baseline) starting in 2012: Ten year savings $600B+

3. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $90B per year (off baseline) starting in 2012: Ten year savings $1T+.

Make Obama choose.  He can’t win.

Tell him that if he chooses low, when the credit card is maxed out again, he is getting the same deal next time.   Suddenly, ALL  Federal public employees are with our program.

Overnight, the entire Federal workforce will be desperate to help Republicans make real cuts.   Overnight, our “servants” will be finally pushing out the deadwood, over the howls of their union bosses.   Let’s get public employee interests aligned with the public.

To give you an idea of how easy these cuts would be, if we cut the full $90B off baseline, Federal Employees would be earning what they last received in 2008.   A $30B cut is just paying them what they received this year.

Mr. Speaker, put Federal Employee pay on the chopping block, Americans will be grateful to know where it is coming from… and that is not coming from them.   And the Tea Party Freshman will see you know which hostage to take.

The hero takes the bad guy as a “hostage,” and he chooses the bad guy who can actually DIFFUSE THE BOMB.

If we can’t trust Federal Employees to really help Republicans cut spending, they are the bad guys.

The bigger issue with McConnell is that he didn’t run his plan past the Tea Party, Boehner, and Cantor first.   Since we run the House, that means the Senate should take its cues from our riotous freshmen, whether they like it or not.

Right now, Republican Senators are the weaker sex.

What is truly awesome is that there is an easy way for Rep. Cantor to prove his Tea Party bonafides and smack Obama right back after the challenge he received:

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor used colored-coded spreadsheets to detail $2 trillion in spending cuts he asserts were agreed to by the Biden group. The President asked Cantor “if he wasn’t missing a page”, meaning the revenue aspect of the Biden talks. Cantor also proposed $350 billion in additional mandatory health care spending cuts. Obama pointed out that this $350 billion still isn’t enough to get the $2.4 trillion in savings necessary to solve the debt ceiling crisis through 2012.

OMB disputed Cantor’s numbers, citing, at most, only $1.7 trillion in potential spending cuts tentatively agreed to by the Biden group. By either side’s arithmetic, negotiators are left with a $400 – $700 billion gap – a huge amount by any standard.

Then, on July 13th, Obama sent Cantor back to  the drawing board again, by actually walking out on the debt ceiling meeting.

Obama told Cantor that he would either have to agree to tax increases or give up on his demand that the debt hike be matched dollar-to-dollar to the cuts — that is, $2.5 trillion in deficit-reduction over 10 years in exchange for a $2.5 trillion hike in the debt ceiling.

He said that the negotiators should return to the White House Thursday to discuss savings from health care programs, budget caps and options for raising revenue.

Cantor needs to show up now with $700B in new savings taken directly out of the hides of Federal Employees.

That’s only $70B in cuts per year for ten years and simply treats public employees as they’d be treated in the private market.

The problem is that those kind of cuts would have a real effect on Cantor’s home state of Virginia.  He’d be killing the fat pension plans for Federal Employees, making them all use an HMO, and basically gutting their union to the bone.

And if Eric Cantor wants to lead the Tea Party, that is exactly what he should do.

Now is not the time for making politically hard choices about Social Security and Medicare; now is the time for making the easiest one possible: KILL public employee unions and end their $ support of Democrats.

As I have been arguing since Big Gov’s beginning, the most obvious strategy to winning the future is to put 100% of the economic blame on public employees and refuse to discuss other major cuts to entitlements until Democrats have been choked off from Public Employee Union support.

When Obama throws Grandma under the bus, the GOP should throw DC under the bus and let voters choose.

Obama challenged Cantor to find the last $700B in cuts, and the best way to put the debate back on the Democrats is to make the next three weeks about Public Employees.

Obama’s team has decided to “raffle off” dinner with IMPOTUS.  That’s right… you can sit and tell the President directly to his face what you think about his agenda for America.

Here’s the fun part :  To make sure it doesn’t  run afoul of gambling regulations it is established essentially as a sweepstakes, which means “No purchase, payment, or contribution necessary to enter or win. Contributing will not improve chances of winning.”

The more Tea Partiers who enter, the more Tea Partiers are sitting at the table.  I’m sure we can push for open data on how many have entered in each; so we can make sure they haven’t juked the stats.  Once you run a sweepstakes you are required by law to give no favor to any entry.

Here are the rules.

What’s a tad unusual is that it doesn’t lay out the method of selection, how the names will be randomly drawn to ensure they can’t favor donors / supporters.  I imagine if we push them, this could get explained, maybe Carney could stammer over it in  the Press Room.

This just reeks of political theater.  My god, I hope my grandma wins.

Mitt’s not my first choice.

If Perry (c’mon Governor!) doesn’t run, I prefer(ed) Daniels and Christie because they are heroic public employee  union slayers.  And I love Drew’s dream Tea Party ticket of Cain and West to confront Obama’s cheap thinking: Black = Socialist.   That’s a winner, too.

Make no mistake; there are lots and lots and lots of ways to beat Obama.

But the issue at hand is Romney, and far too many who claim the mantle of the Tea Party are not being honest about blue state Republicans. We have to grow up.  Romney can wipe the floor with Obama.

Does ANYONE think that if Mitt were Governor of South Carolina, he’d have overseen the creation of the Massachusetts healthcare law?

Of course not.  Romney did what a Republican in MA had to do to be the Governor of Harvard Intellectuals:  He gave them the most conservative market-driven universal healthcare plan he could.   If Mitt Romney were President, he’d be far more conservative than he was as Governor of Baby Blue Massachusetts.

And folks screaming RINO need to stop.   Now.

“States’ Rights” is both the best policy and the best political strategy for Republicans in this day and age.    It is easy to explain and it works.

However, a thinking person cannot argue for states’ rights AND call for a national definition of Republican Governor.   A thinking person understands that as DC withers, states and their Governors will take on more power and Senators will become less national in their stature.  We will inevitably have more diversity of opinions in GOP politicians.

A thinking person knows that politicians reflect the demands of their constituents.  They play the ball as it lies.   A thinking person knows a President Barbour would be far more liberal then Governor Barbour.   This is to be celebrated, precisely because we are sure that when any of these GOP leaders become President, they will change.

As in MA, states have the right to force their citizens to buy health insurance.   And the only state where what YOU think matters is your state.

This means no real Tea Partier uses the word RINO.   You can’t have it both ways.   A Tea Partier who hollers “Don’t Tread on Me” and insists every other state live like theirs is an idiot.  Do not be an idiot.  Idiots have no place at this table.

Here’s the personal question:  If Romney were President, do you think he’d support Universal Healthcare?   No friggin way.   He’s a 100% completely safe bet on signing whatever bill he is handed to end Obamacare.   And we all know it.   We all know Obamacare is dead no matter what Republican wins.

And speaking of safe bets…. the only safe bet for Romney now is states’ rights.

Romney needs to say out loud – and often – that arguing about the health insurance he delivered for Massachusetts is a terrible way for Republicans to preach the Tea Party Gospel to Independents and Conservative Democrats.

Undecideds in Iowa, Ohio, and Nevada need to know that Republicans from South Carolina and Georgia have no designs on making laws for their states.

Being a states’ rights guy intellectually means celebrating Utah Mormonism, cheering Arizona’s demand of a controlled border, understanding the women in California will be having abortions; in short, it means letting other states do what they want, so they leave your own state alone.

As governor, Chris Christie kicking the teachers in the butt is great.  I love him for it.   But if as President, he’d force every state to fire public employees, he’d be part of the problem.

And this should be Mitt’s message.  At every Tea Party event,  discuss an important local issue, that he’ll leave for their state to handle in their own way.   Mitt should force the Tea Party to act like Patrick Henry.   “Corn Subsidies?  Sure!  If the state of Iowa wants to give them!  Now, the Federal Government can’t pick winners.  But, we can let states keep more of their taxes, and if Iowa wants to spend theirs on ethanol subsidies, live and let live.”

Instead, we get this.

As a business pro, Romney could use states rights to attack the Fortune 100 in a way that no other populist can.    The argument against saving GM isn’t just about how bad government is at business; it is that aiding GM is an affront to states’ rights.  If we bail out Michigan we might have to bail out California.

The Tea Party will respect it.

And while I’m at it, the Wall Street Journal is wrong and much of their readership has a low opinion of Tea Partiers.

If he wanted, Mitt could quickly show Main Street what Wall Street has to learn about liberty.  He could say TARP was really a bail out of New York City.  Tea Partiers readily favor a tax on stock transactions to end high-speed-trading.  They readily support letting Wall Street fail.  They want to see Goldman’s management go to jail as much as the readers of Rolling Stone.  Does Mitt?  That’s what matters in the primaries.

In the US, you get to choose where you live.  You get to try and politically change your own state.   We do not live in America, we live in united states.  And being united happens when we all live and let live at the Federal level – just like in 1787.

We’re at each others throats because EVERY DAMN ISSUE is now a national issue; we’ve reached a point where every Congressman can change any part of our lives with every vote.  That’s not how it is supposed to be.  If you are worried about Congressional races other than your own, it means the Federal Government has too much power.

And personally, when I hear conservatives from states other than MA acting like Romney is not one of us – I distrust that person, not Mitt Romney.

Note: if Perry doesn’t run (c’mon Governor!), I hope whoever wins the nomination asks him to be VP and focus exclusively on returning Federal power to  the states. Essentially, turn the Vice Presidency into a more powerful version of the Republican Governor’s Association he currently runs.  How great would it be it the VP never went on foreign trips  and never went to funerals?  What if instead, he was given a single Herculean task of delivering anti-federalism?

A real Tea Partier knows the greatest issue facing us is “States’ Rights.”   It is, in fact, a bigger issue than public employee unions.  Because states’ rights is the correct answer to almost every single domestic issue troubling us.

States’ rights is the free market version of Democracy.

And Romney, like all other GOP leaders, should not be judged by his state’s healthcare, but whether he’ll leave it up to your state. Make him prove it, make all of them prove it.   The more things a pol will leave up to the states, the better a Republican she/he is…

That’s the adult conversation.