The Heritage Foundation didn't repudiate the individual mandate until long after the Tea Party did

Ramesh Ponnuru here in March 2012 in the wake of both Romney and Gingrich putting the finger on Heritage for the individual mandate in October 2011:

"So yes, conservative opinion on the mandate has changed. But I don’t think it’s right to suggest that most conservative voters or conservative policy thinkers ever supported it. I think what happened is that as soon as grassroots conservatives focused on the mandate, they hated it—and they were right to hate it, in my view–and both the politicians and that one outlier think tank responded to their sentiment."

Timothy Noah pointed out here in 2013 that it wasn't until 2011 that Heritage formally opposed its own idea, meaning it took Heritage two years to join the Tea Party in opposing ObamaCare:

'Heritage, in a 2011 amicus curiae brief submitted in support of the legal challenge to Obamacare, stated, “Heritage has stopped supporting any insurance mandate.” Heritage also said it had come to believe the individual mandate was unconstitutional—an interpretation later rejected, of course, by the Supreme Court.'

Flashback to October 2011: Romney and Gingrich agree ObamaCare's individual mandate idea came from the Heritage Foundation

From the Western Republican Leadership Conference Presidential Debate interchange in October 2011 between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich about the individual mandate (see it here starting at the 29:00 minute mark):

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

Flashback to Feb. 2012: Newt Gingrich was mocked and worse by Obama and company for saying $2.50 gas was possible, but it's happening right now

Newt, deservedly doin' The Mussolini

Obama called Gingrich's promise of $2.50/gallon gas a "phony election-year promise" in 2012 here. The White House spokesman lying shill Jay Carney chimed in calling it a lie, here. Pure projection syndrome.

Two and a half years later and everywhere across this country the price of gasoline is plummeting toward an average of $2.50 and lower because of the success of drill-baby-drill-fracking on private lands, and the Feds haven't had one damn thing to do with it.

The average price in Grand Rapids, Michigan, tonight is $2.539 with prices falling. Smart shoppers at Sam's Club here tonight can get gas for $2.469. Prices in many southern tier states of this great country are already paying well below $2.50, for example $2.20 in Texas City, TX, $2.25 in Memphis, TN, and $2.30 in West Monroe, LA. Go duck men, go.

Newt Gingrich was right. Obama and company are idiots.

Rush Limbaugh keeps trying to expunge Heritage Foundation's guilt for ObamaCare mandate

In the first hour today, after which the first caller of the day almost hit the third rail when he pointed out that Jonathan Gruber may have his "stupid voters" but Rush Limbaugh has his "low information voters".

Nevermind the two leading Republican candidates for president in October 2011 agreed they got the idea from Heritage (transcript here).

ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

GINGRICH: That’s not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: Yes, we got it from you, and you got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.

GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true. You did not get that from me. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: And you never supported them?

GINGRICH: I agree with them, but I’m just saying, what you said to this audience just now plain wasn’t true.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

Barack Obama's Unemployment Record Is Now Worse Than Reagan's

Having grown up in the 1960s and lived through the terrible employment situation which prevailed in this country off and on from 1975 arguably through 1996, Barack Obama now owns the dubious distinction of a worse unemployment record than even Ronald Reagan's, and that's saying something.

From the time of Reagan's election in November 1980 right on through December 1985, unemployment stayed at or above 7% for 61 straight months, with an average report of unemployment coming to 8.31%. The severity of it was highlighted in 1981 and 1982 by a string of ten months with unemployment in excess of 10%. It was a brutal time, especially for older workers with homes and families whose dreams for the future were arrested, and for young people who had to start their careers at the very bottom, just as many of their depression-era parents had had to do.

Hard as it may be to believe, unemployment under Barack Obama is now even worse than it was under Reagan. Obama's average report of unemployment over the last sixty months, none of which has been lower than 7%, the same as the case with Reagan but short of one month (we'll see if the 7% threshold is broken in the December figures come January), now stands at an incredible 8.67% even though there's been only one month, October 2009, at 10%. Combined with the housing, stock market and banking collapses, a bona fide if small depression with negative GDP in 2008 and 2009, and a much older, less adaptive population, the impact of unemployment on the psyche and fortunes of the nation this time around is understandably more acute.

From the long term perspective, unemployment took a systemic turn for the worse in America since the mid-1970s, shortly after we adopted the free trade mania which has done nothing except create a middle class abroad at the expense of the middle class at home. Our chief export has been the prosperity of the nation's vast middle, chiefly through housing which Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich helped Americans tap like an ATM to buy goods, mostly made abroad. Owner's equity in housing is half what it used to be in this country, squandered away by the squanderers, the Baby Boom.

If you want America to continue to exist, fix that by forcing people to save again, since no one seems to know how to do so for themselves, for the obvious reason. It doesn't really matter how we do it, but do it we must, or it's curtains.

(view the chart here at The Wall Street Journal)

Velocity of Money Soared Over 35% During the Housing Bubble

Velocity of M1 money soared to unprecedented heights during the housing bubble, dating from the housing provisions in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. Money changed hands at a rate over 35% faster at the peak reached in October 2007 at 10.367 than at the previous high levels around 7.4.

The burst bubble has seen velocity of M1 plunge to 6.5 today after all those years of new highs from 7.5. Velocity in the 6s was common for twenty years between the 1970s and 1990s, and looks to be again.

This is what happens when you convince Americans to unleash all the stored up capital in their homes, and squander it. Thanks Bill Clinton. Thanks Newt Gingrich.

Commentary Magazine Defends Reagan's Liberalism

Peter Wehner, here:

"[I]magine the Norquist and Shirley standard being applied to Reagan in the 1970s. If Jeb Bush’s comments unleashed heated attacks, even given his sterling anti-tax record, think about what Reagan’s support for unprecedented tax increases–including higher taxes on top rates, sales taxes, bank and corporate taxes, and the inheritance tax–would have elicited. The Gipper would have been accused of being a RINO, a pseudo-conservative, unprincipled, and a member of the loathsome Establishment. Fortunately for Reagan (and for America) the temptation to turn conservatism into a rigid ideology was not as strong then than it is now."

Let's face it.

Reagan was a Democrat in recovery who brought a substantial number of Democrats in recovery to the Republican Party, where they met fellow liberals with whom they could forge an alliance around the liberalism bequeathed to them by Wilson and FDR, without the communist fellow traveling. Conservatives got pushed to the side, or taken for a ride.

Reagan defended the welfare state but on a scaled back basis with emphasis on less reliance on government and lower income taxes. The New Deal was not scaled back, nor was The Great Society. Even the ramped up Cold War to defeat the Soviets was interventionist and therefore arguably anti-conservative in its basic impulse. The resulting glorification of the US military would horrify the founders who feared them as instruments of tyranny in the hands of an American Caesar.

And now here we are with an enlarged welfare state in OBAMACARE, and actually having a public kerfuffle about an administration which resisted abjuring the use of said military on American soil to snuff out people it and it alone decides are a threat. You know, like gun owners. Are we really supposed to be charmed by the likes of the Krauthammers of the world who insist what Obama has been doing is entirely consistent with the model of Abraham Lincoln who put fellow Americans Confederates to death based on a private interpretation of the constitution?

Nothing's changed, except for the worse. His truth keeps marching on.

The Greatest Economic Boom Of Our Time Coincided With The Cheapest Gasoline

Arguably the greatest economic boom period of the 20th Century, the period between 1986 and 2000, was fueled, quite literally, by the cheapest gasoline prices on an inflation-adjusted basis since the end of The Great War. Real gas prices during those years in today's dollars ran down from $2.00 a gallon in the mid 1980s to $1.50 by the late 1990s and up again.

Chart and discussion, here.

Say what you will about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's presidential run in 2011-2012, he's the only public figure who has had the vision to understand the imperative of getting the price of gasoline below $2.50 a gallon to gun the economy.

With four more years of a regime which is the enemy of all things fossil fuel, expect little more than idling in the driveway.

Why Did We Get Obama In 2008? Because A Republican Bailed.

Why did we get Obama in 2008?

Because a good conservative bailed in 2006.

Namely, conservative Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald from Illinois, who chose not to run for re-election in order to spend more time with his needy son in his formative years, according to statements he made on Tom Roeser's "Political Shoot-Out" radio program at the time on WLS, Chicago. I know. I was there. I listened in front of my fire.

One wonders, then, why he ran for the Senate in the first place.

In addition to that, Peter Fitzgerald was a real conservative in a state full of Republicans who were not. He famously rubbed them the wrong way. But I honestly don't know what he expected.

At any rate his voluntary departure after one term helped open the way for another Illinois State Senator like he had been, one Barack Obama, to run for the Senate seat in 2006, a seat by the way which Senator Carol Mostly Wrong had once held.

And the rest is history.

Now, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina is bailing out to head up the Heritage Foundation, having brought a few so-called conservative people into the Senate.

South Carolina was the state which quoted a Tea Party member as saying during the Republican primary election that she loathed Mitt Romney to the core of her being. The state ended up going big for Speaker Newt Gingrich. So I rather doubt we'll get a similarly dramatic turn in Senate representation, but it still is upsetting that conservatives bail just when we need them the most.

Since DeMint seems happy with the idea that a Republican governor will appoint his successor, isn't that an argument for doing it all the time?

Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Let's Face It, Republicans Helped Create "The Takers"

It's time for a reality check. Republicans bear heavy responsibility for creating "the takers", the infamous 47% of households who pay no taxes.

The real reason Mitt Romney lost the election is because he couldn't get Reagan Democrats to turn out for him enthusiastically, people for whom dissing the whole idea behind the tax credit programs expanded by Reagan and Bush 43 to subsidize working families just like them sounded foreign coming from the mouth of a Republican candidate for president. I refer to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

Reagan had made the former his answer to welfare dependency, and George W. Bush further expanded it and also doubled the latter, to the point that now, as the Tax Policy Center says here:

[T]he Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit . . . are the major reason many low-income working families avoid the income tax. About one-third of those who don’t pay are families with kids.

This New York Times graphic, using Tax Foundation data, shows how the percentage of non-taxpaying filers had grown by over 50% since 1986 through the end of the Bush presidency, and now under Obama has really ramped up another 50% so that since the time of the 1986 tax reform twice as many filers have no federal tax liability as did twenty-five years ago. If Obama has doubled down on anything, they were Republican ideas to begin with. To paraphrase an old saw, We sold them the rope they're hanging us with. 

What once seemed like benign Reagan era social props have grown into major federal welfare transfer payment programs for the lower and middle classes in America, which is why liberals like Tim Noah here deliberately don't focus on them in analyzing the takers, "the 47%". To do so mutes their point that these people still pay the regressive payroll tax, which the EITC offsets. But practiced long enough, these lower wage workers getting EITC payments every year until retirement will collect Social Security without having really contributed to it themselves, transforming it, for them, from a contribution based pension into pure welfare.

Democrats are more than happy to have Republicans do this dirty work for them in expanding the federal welfare state instead of just acting as they do in more somnolent times as mere tax collectors for it. During the next five years, these direct subsidies to families are projected to cost the Treasury over $90 billion each year. In 2011 alone there were over 26 million EITC claims costing the taxpayers nearly $59 billion. 

This issue goes to the heart of Mitt Romney's problem with the Republican Party: He had the temerity to point out the dependency practiced by too many Republicans. Unfortunately for Mitt Romney and the country, he had no constituency for this message, or at least not enough of one to get him over the top.

More than ever I suspect that this way of thinking is what was behind Mitt Romney's interest in "rectitude" in "equalizing" taxes when he was governor of Massachusetts, but also accounts for his statements distancing himself from the Reagan record in the 1990s when he ran against Sen. Ted Kennedy, just when Rep. Newt Gingrich was about to unleash The Contract With America. Reagan might have been an anti-communist conservative, but a fiscal conservative he was not, at least not in practice. That's what was really important to Romney at the time and obviously still animates him. But not his party which has made zero progress toward fiscal conservatism and has gone the other way.

Say what you will about Romney's social liberalism, it was his fiscal conservatism which alienated him not just from Democrats, but also from anyone receiving a big tax refund every spring.

A famous Democrat once said, "I didn't leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left me." But a fiscal conservative can't say the same of the Republican Party . . . in living memory it's never been there.

(graphic here)

Has Anybody Noticed Hillary Clinton Is A First Class F&%K Up?

At least it ain't KoolAid

The historical high water marks of her incompetence will include HillaryCare, which got Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in control of Congress in 1994, and Benghazi, which sure looks like she doesn't have the first clue about running anything foreign either, and looks to get her boss unelected right quick like, as they say down Arkansas way.

Missouri Republicans Finally Stand Up For Rep. Todd Akin

So Reuters, here:

But the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, David Cole, who had issued a statement soon after the rape remarks that questioned Akin's decision to remain in the race, said on Tuesday the state party supported Akin.

"We are confident that Todd will defeat McCaskill in November, and the Missouri Republican Party will do everything we can to assist in his efforts," he said.

Mike Huckabee has been there for Akin from the beginning. Newt has stepped up. Missouri Republicans are stepping up, following Newt's lead. Even Demented Jim's Senate Conservatives Fund is thinking about it.

What's to think about, Jim?

Meanwhile Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee is still running away from Akin as fast as he can. That guy is as clueless as was his predecessor, Michael Steele.

Establishment Republicans are hopelessly clueless.

Good Soldier Newt Gingrich Campaigns For Todd Akin In Missouri

USA Today has the story here:

"If verbal mistakes mattered, Joe Biden couldn't be vice president," Gingrich said in the radio interview, adding he is supporting Akin because the congressman "admitted he made a mistake and apologized for it."

Republicans have cut-off funds for Akin, which tells the electorate all it needs to know about the Republican Party.

Romney Is Blowing It On ObamaCare, And With It Blowing The Election

So should warn The Weekly Standard here, which thinks Romney still has time to fix this (hope springs eternal), but he doesn't:

[I]ndependents now oppose repeal by a margin of 9 percentage points (52 to 43 percent). By a 7-point margin they now think Obamacare is good, rather than bad, for the country. That's a 28-point swing on repeal, and a 34-point swing on whether Obamacare would be good or bad for the country, in just two months—among the voting block that will likely decide this election.

Rep. Michele Bachmann tried to warn Republicans during the primaries that repeal of ObamaCare was the sine qua non in this election, but the Republicans didn't listen. They picked the worst candidate on the issue, mostly because they didn't really have a convincing candidate on the most important issue, or on any issue.

The Republican Party is devoid of conservatives with gravitas on ObamaCare, or on anything else for that matter. In point of fact, the The Republican Party is devoid of conservatives.

Thanks Greatest Generation! Thanks Heritage Foundation! Thanks Ann Coulter! Thanks Sean Hannity! Thanks R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr! Thanks Fox! Thanks Savage Nation! Thanks RNC! Thanks Wall Street Journal! Thanks Drudge! Thanks Newt! Thanks Ronald Reagan!

Thanks to you all for whom Party comes before principle.

You've all done a wonderful job! How can we ever thank you enough for Thomas E. Dewey redivivus?

Moments later, as the discussion over Romneycare and Obamacare continued, Romney rebuked Santorum, saying, “First of all, it's not worth getting angry about.” 

Charles Gasparino Fingers Clinton For Housing Bubble But Misses Key Fact

Charles Gasparino fingers Pres. Bill Clinton for the housing bubble, here, pointing as many others have to the baleful influence of repealing Glass-Steagall and of expanding the Community Reinvestment Act and the role of the GSEs in housing. There is no question that these were enormously important contributing factors, except to ideologues.

What's still missing in the national discussion, however, is an appreciation of the important influence of the tax law changes in 1997 which effectively turned housing into money, the velocity of which shortly became a veritable storm rushing through the American economy when it became possible to sell every two years and pocket the capital gains tax-free. This goosed not just existing housing prices, but waves of new (over) construction, house-flipping, the home improvement mania and wide swaths of retail sector spending from giftware to landscaping to furnishings and durable goods, and especially the rapid expansion of financial products developed to exploit the trend. The housing bubble inflates just like a balloon in 1997 immediately after Clinton signed the provisions into law, passed by a Republican Congress still under the leadership of Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Tax law changes have always been potent instruments for altering financial behavior. In this instance the changes in behavior were not anticipated by the many, and consumers were sold only on the incremental benefits to them. Meanwhile the few who facilitated this financialization of the economy stood ready to profit handsomely, and they did. They have been reluctant to tell this story, and understandably resist doing so to this day. But the country desperately needs to hear it if we are ever going to think clearly about establishing our affairs on a sounder basis going forward.

Byron York Doesn't Get It: EVERY Toss Up State Matters If Romney Loses Florida

Mitt Romney can take a loss in a New Hampshire or an Iowa, give or take, but if he loses in Florida he cannot. Romney absolutely must win in every single other toss up state if he loses Florida, from Iowa to New Hampshire to Nevada to Ohio to Wisconsin to Virginia to Colorado to North Carolina, in order to win.

Iowa doesn't have a special meaning, especially now if it's really true that Michigan moves into the toss-up column as Real Clear Politics says today. Rick Santorum did especially well here in Michigan with pro-life Democrats, who also helped pick Todd Akin in Missouri, and Romney's throat cut to Todd Akin today isn't going to play well with Santorum's supporters, an incident which post-dates the poll taking Michigan out of the leaning-Obama category. The broader point is that 56 percent of Republican primary voters in Michigan picked someone other than Romney: either Santorum, Gingrich or Ron Paul. Romney might have capitalized on the new poll had he not flubbed on Todd Akin. It just shows Romney is still not a skilled politician.

Mitt Romney has emphasized protecting Medicare in Florida as a matter of first importance because he knows Florida is the key to his victory in November. If he can convince seniors there, he can convince them anywhere. Florida makes it easier to win in this bad environment, but without it, it's going to be very much more difficult.

Misguided story here.

Jeffrey Goldberg Likes One Thing About Newt Gingrich

He wants to go "out there":

All at once, the passengers contorted themselves to get a view out of the starboard windows.

And there it was. The actual shuttle, the space shuttle Discovery, piggybacking a ride atop a Boeing 747, on the way to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where it would be retired. A ripple of excitement -- boyish, unvarnished excitement -- moved through the cabin.

It was an entrancing sight, and completely improbable, especially to people like me, who still don’t quite understand how a 747 gets into the air, even without a space shuttle as carry-on luggage.

The 747 and the space shuttle made a pass over the Washington Monument and the capital’s other grand marble temples, all consecrated to the American idea. They gleamed in the sun as they received a salute from a spacecraft that represented the physical manifestation of American ingenuity and confidence.

Then the 747 left our view. We settled back into our seats, having been elevated for a moment by a magnificent and elegiac vision -- elegiac, because the end of the shuttle program marks the first time since the dawn of the Space Age that the U.S. government has no immediate plan to launch humans into space.

A few minutes later, while we were still parked on the tarmac, ... the plane’s steering seemed to be malfunctioning. ...

We returned to the terminal, and I watched on CNN as Discovery finished the journey to its nursing home in the Virginia countryside. Only then did the obvious thought cross my mind: Newt is right.

This isn’t a thought that has often crossed my mind, especially over the past several months, but on the matter of space exploration and the role it has played in teaching Americans that they are capable of performing exceptional acts of creativity and bravery, Newt Gingrich is exactly right.

Read the whole thing, here.

KIRK:  Ahead Warp One, Mr. Sulu.

DIFALCO: Heading, sir?

KIRK:    Out there. Thataway.

Seven Days After Wisconsin Primary Loss, Santorum Packs It In

See the primary results to date here.

The New York Times here suggests that pressure was mounting from evangelicals for Santorum to quit in order to unite the party.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the race but cannot muster enough delegates in the remaining contests to deprive Romney of the nomination.

Folding like this before the contest in his home state of Pennsylvania suggests that Santorum knew he would suffer an embarrassing loss there. One can imagine not wanting to have to explain why Pennsylvania voters decided to reject him like they did in 2006 and have to quit the race in the wake of that anyway.

Romney Again Defends TARP, Says Bush, Not Obama, Prevented Depression

Romney's complete and utter nonsense from yesterday, quoted here:

"There was a fear that the whole economic system of America would collapse -- that all of our banks, or virtually all, would go out of business."

"In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said we've got to do something to show we're not going to let the whole system go out of business. I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that."

"I keep hearing the president say that he's responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression."

"No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson that stepped in and kept that from happening."

Never mind the stock market nose-dived after TARP was passed, millions more lost their jobs, housing went into the toilet and stayed there, and 2008-2009 were back-to-back years of GDP declines. A small depression, but a depression nonetheless.

And never mind that George W. Bush himself characterized his own actions as abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market system. As senators, both John McCain and Barack Obama voted for the measures Bush signed.

This was liberalism in action, not conservatism. And Romney the corporate raider is just fine with it, as are over 4 million Republican primary voters to date.

But over 6 million Republican primary voters to date disagree, voting for Santorum, Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Still others have voted for candidates not named Romney who have dropped out of the race.

Romney seems bound and determined to subdue the base of the Republican Party, as John McCain before him.

Therefore he will lose to Barack Obama. 

In Case You Missed It, Noted Libertarian RC Whalen Endorsed Newt Gingrich

RC Whalen's expertise with all things banking frequently is on display at ZeroHedge, where his endorsement of Newt Gingrich appeared, no doubt to the chagrin of its many liberal readers.

Here is the concluding paragraph:

"To me Newt is the only credible conservative in the presidential race for 2012, but one who brings a mixture of core American values, real world experience and a pragmatic, compassionate approach to a range of issues.  Gingrich wants to facilitate real change in America, while Romney only wants to run the welfare state better.  And Newt Gingrich is not afraid to call Barack Obama a socialist in a national presidential debate.  That is why I support Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination for the presidency."