In yesterday’s Granite Status, Dan Tuohy advertised the NO LABELS Problem Solver Convention. (Someone is still paying their freight, what a joke).
NO LABELS will be giving its “Problem Solver Seal of Approval” to presidential candidates who commit to a set criteria: 1.) Embrace a “National Strategic Agenda” 2.) If elected, agree to begin work on at least one of the four agenda goals within 30 days and work in a bipartisan process to achieve the goal(s). The goals are: create 25 million jobs over 10 years, balance the federal budget by 2030, secure Medicare and Social Security for the next 75 years, and make America energy secure by 2024. And 4.) Go on the record to affirm the commitments in public remarks and on their campaign websites.
Expect to hear more about this push as the No Labels Problem Solver Convention is Oct. 12 at the Radisson in Manchester.
Two former presidential hopefuls, Republican Jon Huntsman and Democrat Joe Lieberman, are leading the effort to unite undeclared voters for the first-of-its kind gathering
Let us assume I want the NO LABELS Problem Solver Seal of Approval (bark-bark). Can my idea require that the other half of the “bi” in bipartisan embrace my solution for a change?
In my experience, every call for bipartisan “support” comes with the expectation that I am the one required to abandon my values. I must ignore my ideas and ideals and move closer to my political opponent’s agenda. They then claim to have worked across the aisle to ‘solve’ a problem when milquetoast Republicans caved to moderate pressure to toe a socialist big-government agenda and have less than nothing to show for it.
What? My accomplishments? I voted as if I were a Democrat, but only on most of the issues that matter. Donate to my re-election campaign?
Groups like NO LABELS are slick ‘store-fronts’ paid for by Overton Window re-installers in the political class who use the divisiveness created by their apparatchik’s politicization of nearly everything to push the rhetorical middle further to the left. So when they ask for bipartisan solutions to jobs, the budget, Medicare, and Social Security, their champion must believe that more government is what we need to solve these problems.
My solution to these challenges is bipartisan, but not in a political sense. It is bipartisan in who benefits. Regular people, regardless of political ideology, are the winners.
What is my singular solution to the Four Jon Hunstman of the NO LABELS policy apocalypse and then some? I believe we need an open, American, free market, all-of-the-above-pay-your-own-way energy economy because it can solve most if not all of these problems as well as a few others.
Face facts. America operates the cleanest and most environmentally friendly energy extraction, production, and delivery on earth. We’ve got tons of coal, and oil, and gas and the world will keep using it. You want it clean? Let the U.S. energy economy dominate these markets. It’s good for America and the environment if we lead on extraction and production.
We’ve even got the room for some sun and wind for the few places that can use it and don’t mind paying more for that sort of thing themselves; as in, not mandated by the political class or banked or backed by taxpayers.
We win the war on energy by opening up the industry. More production, More capacity. More refineries. That will lower prices and save Americans billions.
An all-of-the-above energy economy will create more than 25 million jobs without any government bailouts required. Energy jobs pay well, are funded by private industry, and that money makes its way through the whole economy when those workers spend or invest those wages.
A rise in the state, local, and even federal revenue from increased employment and commerce (taxes, leases, spending, investment) will aid in paying down debt, and will fund necessary but limited entitlements for those truly in need.
Energy wealth creation is an incentive to energy companies (private investors, etc.) to spend their money researching the energy solutions of the future; cleaner fossils fuel technology, renewable technology, better batteries, more efficient solar, more effective storage and delivery systems. That frees up hundreds of billions of tax dollars annually that was being spent by the political class to prop up industries or to feed rent-seekers, donors, and power-brokers.
Instead, this growth in private sector R & D creates more private sector jobs, which fuels income growth and economic stability without taxpayer bailouts.
Not that part of this energy economy solution requires that we end all Federal government bailouts, tax breaks, or incentives to these industries, and terminates and federally mandated renewable portfolios that strangle competition and drive up costs.
No more subsidies for ethanol, or wood chips, switch-grass, or algae. Let entrepreneurs and venture capitalists find the minds and fund the solutions that make those “resources” viable and affordable. And let them donate their private wealth to universities who present convincing opportunities on these and other research projects.
Ending energy bailouts will get food out of motor fuel and lower food and gas prices, including staples life cereals, beef, and chicken. Feed prices have soared making ground beef nearly un-affordable for anyone who disconnected from the political class; whose Rube-Goldbergian regulatory-policy octopus has made a ruin of the American economy.
Reduced gas and energy prices leave money in the pockets of consumers, business owners, and even municipalities.
A dominant all-of-the-above American energy footprint will remove billions from the pockets of hostile nations who will be less able to finance terrorism and war around the globe (saving us money), and leave those dollars for investment in American priorities.
A booming American energy economy lifts all boats. It creates jobs in every sector of the economy and lowers debt (yes, we need to reduce regulations and cut federal spending as well for that to mean even more). It pays for necessary welfare spending, provides revenue to save Medicare and Social Security, boosts economic activity, (even pays for women’s health care if that’s your verb), funds roads and bridges, and helps with national security.
All the government has to do is get out of the way, give power back to the states and the people, and maintain a skeleton crew in DC the purpose of interacting with local and international authorities, experts, and regulators when state or national boundaries are crossed, or a third party is needed to mediate.
And it’s bipartisan. Everyone raped at the pump or the meter stand to benefit regardless of ideological proclivities. The job surge that comes from economic growth knows no political boundaries.
One solution to dozens of problems.
But is that the sort of solution NO LABELS would give its “Problem Solver Seal of Approval”?
I don’t think it is.
And that is why NO LABELS is still a joke, funded by the political class, to glad-hand insiders whose ideas keep the money and power inside the beltway by convincing sheep that more government at their expense is a bipartisan solution.
By the way. NO LABELS says it has a 50 point strategic plan, fifty no-brainer solutions a president could implement right away to fix a bunch of what ails us. If anyone has a copy, feel free to send it to me.[I’m not inclined to sign up for free with them to get it.]
