In “Eric Deggans Confirms Own Bias in Race Baiter Part I“, I detailed the premise of Eric Deggans book, Race Baiter: How Media Wields Dangerous Word to Divide a Nation, noting how it was more a treatise on attacking Fox News and Conservatives than an examination on how media affects public discourse. The arguments in the book had holes the size of tunnels. In part II I detail the authors response to questions I had for him during a presentation he gave about his new book.

My first question to Deggans was how he could go after Fox, but leave out MSNBC or other news outlets. His response was MSNBC does not fall into that category because they hired people and focused on a strategy that had helped increase their black viewership 60% in 2012; the implication being that MSNBC was targeting inclusion of blacks and therefore exempt from racism or divisive based journalism. This is a bit of jump in logic, considering most industry insiders know MSNBC has made a decision to be the Liberal network. Therefore, its increase in black viewership is a natural consequence of blacks being Democrats, not a secret plan to target black viewers.

I also challenged his assertion that Gingrich’s comment about President Obama being the “Food Stamp” president was racial code for blacks. Considering that Deggans is well aware that more whites are receiving food stamps and welfare than blacks, any conclusions that Gingrich meant blacks were only a sign of Deggans’ own bias, not Gingrich’s. His response was typical of liberals. He cited a scientific study by Princeton professor Tali Mendelberg that concluded whites more easily associated blacks with welfare than whites. This is a frequent tactic of left leaning writers and commentators. When in doubt, say it has been proved scientifically and therefore cannot be refuted. Ignoring the old adage statistics can be used to prove anything. Yet, if we accept the comments as coded language, what does Deggans call the statement by Obama, “They cling to their guns or religion.” Does he mean Americans who believe in God and have a gun to protect their family? Or does he mean those nasty, mean and bigoted white people?

The back and forth debate between myself and Deggans culminated in his final point of the day. The concept of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you have a conclusion you believe, but ignore facts that contradict your conclusions. It was an ironic point to end the presentation, considering that all 288 pages of Deggans’ book and the bulk of his presentation was an exercise in confirmation bias.

Absent from his book is any detailed discussion of liberal news sites or other cable networks. Deggans can talk ad nausea about what he considers racist commentary and segments from O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, but where is the discussion about MSNBC’s Perry asking four white guests to tell their favorite racial joke? Can anyone not imagine the hue and cry from the main stream media, starting with Deggans himself, if Hannity had four white males on his show tell racial jokes? How is O’Reilly calling Deggans a race baiter for obsessing over race all the time any different from Deggans, Chris Matthews, or Rachel Maddow calling someone a sexist, and hater of women, because they believe a woman with a job can afford to and should be responsible for paying her own $10, $20, or $30 dollar co-payment for birth control?

Deggans even ignores that the blog post on Fox Nation he was complaining about was actually written by Politico.com, a left leaning news site.

If Deggans wants to write a book attacking Fox news and conservatives he is entitled to that right. He is not, however, entitled to selective outrage. If it is bad or destructive for Fox News, or talk radio to report in a certain way, then it is also wrong for CNN, ABC, MSNBC, etc., to do the same things. Deggans has a journalistic obligation to hold them to the same standard.

This brings us to the crux of the problem with Deggans’ book and liberals generally. They suffer from chronic bouts of intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy. In their world, calling George W. Bush stupid is a statement of fact, but calling Obama stupid is racist. Expecting a man engaging in sexual activity to use his own money to buy condoms as birth control is obvious, but expecting the same responsibility from an adult woman is sexist. Targeting a specific demographic is racist and destructive if the demographic is white men, but targeting the black demographic (if you believe Deggans’ assertion that MSNBC is purposely doing that) is enlightened. And creating a website dedicated to the Hispanic community who may one day be spun out into a dedicated cable news site like Fox News Latino, is to be ignored, because, as you know, Fox only caters to middle, aged white men.

If you are a critic of Fox news then Race Baiter will allow you to confirm your own thoughts about the network. If you were looking for a tome that examines the way media helps to contribute to the hyper partisan divide America is experiencing, then the book is a waste of time. You would be better suited looking for other books, or evening writing one of your own. That is how useful this book by Deggans is on the subject. The problem is not his campaign against Fox or conservatives. It is that Deggans purports his book as something else. A critique on how media is dividing the country, but he does not talk about the media. He talks about what he sees as racial demons at Fox and on the Conservative right, but ignores all-over media and the liberal left.

If that is subject matter you wish to engage in you do not have to fork out thirty bucks for it. You can catch it for free on MSNBC, CNN, the Huffington Post, or any number of other media outlets.

Image credit: Eric Deggans via Facebook

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When the Central Florida Association of Black Journalists (CFABJ) invited author and journalist Eric Deggans to discuss his new book, Race Baiter: How the News Media Wield Dangerous Power to Divide a Nation, at their monthly meeting, there was little doubt I had to attend. Deggans is a media critic for the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and commenter for NPR and the Huffington Post. He is a frequent critic of Fox News and all things conservative.

In preparation for his visit I read through his book and viewed a seventy-minute presentation of Deggans recorded by CSPAN. The title is a backward handed homage to Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly that labeled Deggans “one of the biggest race baiters in the country;” hence, the title. The book can be summed up simply: Fox News, talk radio and conservatives generally use racism and racist rhetoric to appeal to racist white males to make money, and it is dividing (read: destroying) America.

A few chapter titles in his book include: “Fox News Channel vs. MSNBC: Downgrading all Journalism in a Race to Win a Political Fight,” “Fox News Focus on Scary Black People” and “Hate Radio Why Talk Radio May Not Be a Haven for Middle Aged White Guy for Much Longer.” Within his presentation Deggans used examples like the story about a White House barbecue posted on the Fox News Nation blog page titled “Obama’s Hip-Hop Barbecue Didn’t Create Jobs.” The story was accompanied with pictures of President Obama, Chris Rock, Charles Barkley and Jay-Z, prompting Deggans to complain there was only one rapper pictured, so it is not a hip-hop barbecue. In Deggans’ mind, this is a clear case of “racial code,” because, you know, only black people go to barbecues.

Other examples Deggans used to illustrate his point were the controversial remarks Rush Limbaugh made about birth control activist Sandra Fluke, Newt Gingrich’s charge of Obama being the food stamp President, and a Brookings Institute study that found Fox viewers believe whites are as discriminated against as blacks.

So his message is clear. Fox news is racist. Conservatives are racist. Fox commentators are mostly racist, and Fox News viewers are racist. Everyone else, however…wait Deggans does not really discuss anyone else. His book is a detailed diatribe against Fox news and Conservatives, but virtually ignores other news organizations, liberals or Democrats. This is quite odd given that the tag line of Deggans book is “How Media Wields Dangerous…” At what point did Fox become the media? It is true, their ratings are higher than CNN and MSNBC combined, but that’s hardly big enough to classify them as “the media.” Where was the discussion about ABC, CBS, or NBC? Deggans thinks Hannity and O’Reilly are dangerous; okay, what about Ed Schultz or Keith Olbermann? It is no stretch to assert that either are choirboys when it comes to divisiveness. If Deggans wants to attack Fox news and conservatives, and it is clear from the content he does, then why not call the book, “How Fox News Wields Dangerous Words…”

I questioned Deggans during his presentation on this and other points. Want to know how he responded? Be sure to read part II.

Image credit: Eric Deggans via Facebook

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On the day that Paul Ryan was to give his acceptance speech for the nomination of Vice-President, Ryan knew he had to bring it. Not just because needed to excite the base. Nor was it because he needed to set the narrative in a way that combated the attacks he has already received since Mitt Romney selected him as his running mate. No, he needed to hit it out the park, because a day and half of the same message from different people had grown, if not tedious, certainly stale.

We Built It and We Can Do better may be the rallying cry, but it needed to be told in a fresh way something fierce. If there were any worries about Ryan’s ability to get the job done, they were unfounded.

Simply put, Ryan knocked the ball out of the park.

In a speech that interwove his personal story and beliefs with the plans of a Romney-Ryan ticket, Ryan effectively made the case for the plans and policies they are fighting to implement. Many have commented on Ryan’s likeability and personable manner. Both traits came through in both tone and demeanor. Stories about his family and calling his mother, “his role model” are flatly stock in trade items in politics, but there was an earnestness that permeated through Ryan. He is not just saying these things, they are true for him. This will go a long way for him in the campaign, and made the strong medicine he threw at Obama non offensive.

In a speech that had plenty of zingers in it, Ryan nonetheless never made the attacks personal. They were, in fact, not attacks, so much as critiques. What was different in his speech, in contrast to the attacks thus far from President Obama, is that Ryan focused on the results of the last three years. He zeroed in on facts, and figures, but personalized their consequences.

He made it personal as he talked about the GM factory in his hometown of Jamesville, Wisconsin, the people that he knew who used to work there, and the Obama administrations broken promise to keep it open. This was in contrast to the half a billion the President used in Solyndra. 

Ryan is known as a policy guy. For him its about the numbers, the policy and the results that follow. Ryan, however, was able to explain, keep the speech flowing, serve red meat, and do it with in a humorous way. His best zinger perhaps being the vivid image he conjured with this line: “Americans in their 20′s should not have to move home with their parents house, living in their old rooms, looking up at fading Obama posters and waiting for life to begin.”

A comment meant to target younger voters, but still managed to convey an important message to adults as well. Its a tactic that he used more than once. Throw a funny zinger like, “The President has said he has not communicated enough. That is his job to tell a story. In the last four years we have not suffered from a lack of words from the White House. What we are missing is leadership in the white house.”

Never in the speech did it become about Obama personally or about ideology. Just the results and what needs to be done to get better results. This is why the speech was a home run. Not because he could get applause lines, or get a standing ovation from the people in attendance. They are all going vote for Romney and him anyway. No the brilliance was delivering a speech that moderates, independents, and apathetic voters can understand. The message came through because it was a truthful one delivered at partisan event that did not sound at all partisan. Not in tone. And that is what Romney will need from Ryan during the campaign.

Image Courtesy of  PBS News Hour

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The big night is here. Mitt Romney takes to the stage at 11pm to accept the Republican Presidential Nomination and deliver the biggest speech of his life. It has been a long road for Romney. He has never been fully embraced by the party base, and there is still speculation by many on whether he will be tonight or on election day.

One of the things he will have to deal with in this election, which may appear small but is part of the larger narrative is the liberals that try to paint conservatives as a racist party. There have been more than a few stories from the liberal networks about the number of blacks at the national convention. Even though the Republican National Convention had several African-American speakers the story is that no blacks are here. The truth is that there are plenty, and they all have to deal with the question of how they can support Romney.

If you were to put aside the difference in success for blacks under Democrats versus Republicans and just focus on Mitt Romney, here is what we find: Romney’s life has been one of competency. It is a life filled with success at running things. He has turned around companies. He ran the Winter Olympics, a job offered to him because of his turnaround experience, and saved them. He has been Governor of Massachusetts and done a good job. He did not get everything he wanted, but he did leave the state of Massachusetts with a rainy day fund, something the federal government could use right now.

What do we have on the other side?

President Obama’s life is a life of personal success. He went to a good school. He went to an excellent graduate school. He managed to get elected to public office, and managed to get elected President of the United States. All of that is nice personally. But where is the record of success running things?

He has never run a business or worked in one, nor has he run a city or state. Since he never has run anything, we are left with what he has done thus far. I do not find that record a strong one. Unemployment is 8.3% – 15% in black communities – and has been as high as 10%. He promised to lower the deficit, but increased it. He did not lower the debt, he spent more than any President before. Has that spending lead to a robust economy? No. He bailed out GM, which went bankrupt anyway, and still owes the country billions.

The only thing he can really point to is a healthcare plan that is still unconstitutional—the Supreme Court notwithstanding– and will break the financial back of the country. He can point to foreign policy when it comes to Bin Laden and drone attacks, but many will argue that all of that is on the back of President Bush.

Yet, African-Americans are supposed to support him. Worst, if you support Romney, then somehow you are a racist if you are white, and self-hating if you are black.

Both are wrong. What matters in life is success. What matters is doing something and it working. Not how you feel about it, not how it sounds, and not something that is said by a black man. If a black man is in charge, and he screws up, how does that help anyone, black or white? If a white man is in charge and screws up, how does that help anyone, black or white? It does not. You need to be competent at what you are doing. You need someone in charge that can do the job.

Here is a thought. Ask any black democrat this question: “If you are a manager for a company, would you hire someone that was incompetent? Would you keep someone in a job they were failing at just because they were black?”

The answer would be no. So the real question is, why is that acceptable for the most important job in the country?

Image Courtesy of   NewsHour

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The big gun of Republican party, Chris Christie, may have been scheduled for 10:30 the first night of the convention, but that did not stop the day’s first speakers from starting the fire fight early. Congressional candidates from across the country took to the stage and laid down the foundation for this season’s election campaign.

Each speaker incorporated the basic tenets of the conservative movement; smaller government, low taxes, and protection of life, all consistent themes in the conservative movement. Nothing new there. The real shots were measured in words about the results President Obama has gotten in the last three years. Congressional candidate John Archer of Iowa summed up the theme best,

“We’ve had three years of hope and change. Where has it gotten us?”

The strategy is clear, hammer away at the economic results the President has in his first term. President Obama’s record was target rich environment that each speaker took advantage to full effect. With two debt clocks clicking away overhead, each speaker made the case against the spending that has occurred under the President. Each ridiculed the idea of government creating success with a money giveaway. The consistent applause line was any statement proclaiming that, in fact, business owners did build their success, not government.

The die has has been cast and all republicans, at all levels will make this about the Obama record, unemployment, fighting tax hikes, and repealing Obamacare. The themes of the Romney campaign, “We Built It,” and “We Can Do Better,” are not just displayed in large placards around the hall, but found their way into each speech. Congressman, Tim Scott, summed up the feeling in the room succinctly by singing out, “Hit the road jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more.”

At the end of his rendition the crowd exploded in applause.

Convention speeches, especially the early afternoon ones, are staged affairs with every candidate attempting to get their 15 minutes of time. Circulated talking and speech points are passed and shared like candy bar freebies. No matter what the primary was like, everyone supports (in their speeches) the presumptive nominee. This true of all political conventions. The Republican convention is no different in that way, but there is a difference this year. There is a palpable air of urgency in each candidate.

This is expressed in the believe that the fiscal cliff the country is heading for could remake the country in a way the founders never wanted, envisioned, or would have agreed too. This is the election that could determine the future for not just the next decade, but for a generation. It is not just empty speeches, there is belief and fear as well. Stronger than either was a determination in each speaker’s voice that they were committed to winning the election and supporting Mitt Romney.

And this was just the warm up acts. The main act tonight of Ann Romney and Chris Christie will truly set this convention off.

Image Courtesy of  NewsHour

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In the streets of downtown Tampa, dual preparations continue as the city braces for tropical Storm Issac and the Republican National Convention. Convention officials delayed the start of the events from Monday afternoon to Tuesday as a safety precaution. Issac is not projected to hit landfall in Tampa, but that will not stop massive amounts of rain and strong winds from shutting everything down for a day.

There is one thing, however, that will continue to work inside the Forum center and serves as a loud remainder of what this election is about. That item is a large clock keeping track of the amount of financial debt, added each second. Tampa may be worried about the impending storm of Issac, but the entire country is facing a debt storm that is bearing down on everyone like a category 5 hurricane.

The optic of the clock is a perfect anchor for one of the foundational fights that will be played out this presidential election. President Obama will fight to make this election about Romney’s taxes, women’s rights, and Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. The President’s surrogates and spokespeople will attempt to distract voters away from the economy.

Thus far, they have done an excellent job of doing so. But, the fiscal cliff that the spending of the Obama administration has enacted is a problem that Romney must keep front and center in the campaign. Nothing does that better than the backdrop of a debt calculator displaying the massive bill the country is racking up.

This is a message that the republicans must take to heart as well. The last two weeks have seen the Romney camp get bogged down over Medicare and the comments of Senate candidate Todd Akin regarding rape and abortion. The economy and the debt are problems one and two. They cannot afford to get caught in the Obama trap of defending themselves and talking about things that have nothing to do with those issues.

Many in the media will play along with President Obama and will be all too willing to cover other issues. Optics is one way around this obstacle. Do not just talk, show. Judging by the large and ominous clock clicking up every second of the convention speakers’ speeches, the Romney campaign may be on their way to making this election about what it needs to be about.

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In parts one through four of our series on the Affordable Care Act, we have examined a few of the benefits that are seen as the most desirable provisions of the law, things like no pre-existing condition, no-cost birth control, and the ability for children to remain on their parents’ plans. There are other benefits, like cash subsidies to assist in the purchase of the ACA health care plans that will be examined later in the series. For part five, we will skip ahead and discuss the law as it relates to small business and corporate America.

Who Must Comply with Obamacare?

Under the ACA law, any business with more than 50 full-time employees must offer health insurance to its employees. This health insurance plan must be compliant, meaning the benefits of the plan must meet or exceed the minimum benefit thresholds in the ACA law. If a company does not offer a plan or has a plan that does not meet the minimum standards, then the employer will be assessed a tax fine of $2,000 per employee. This provision is not quite as straightforward, however, because technically the company is only supposed to pay the fine for employees who are eligible to receive subsidized health care costs.

Since everyone is mandated to have coverage, that means the fine would apply to all employees, not just the ones receiving government subsidies. In addition, the first 30 employees are exempted from the fine. For example, a company of 51 workers would pay a $2,000 fine on 21 workers (51-30=21) or $42,000. A good guide for explaining different scenarios can be found at the National Federation of Independent Business website.

If you have fewer than 50 employees, you are not required to provide health insurance. However, if you have up to 25 employees, the government will provide a tax credit if you have employees earning at least $50,000 per year and offer health insurance. In 2013, the tax credit amount is 35% of your annual cost for health insurance premiums and goes up to 50% after 2014.

However, that is only if your average employee salary is $20,000 or less. If the average salary is higher than $20,000, then the tax credit will be reduced by a factor determined by how much the average salary is above $20,000. In addition, if the company has more than 10 employees, regardless of salary average, the tax credit will be reduced. Lastly, there are no tax credits allowed for employees considered “highly compensated.”

For the ACA law, highly compensated is considered anyone making over $80,000 a year. If you noticed how the first sentence in this paragraph contradicts with the numbers in the third sentence, that is not a typo. It is contradictory, but that is what is written in the ACA law. You can find this information at the healthcare.gov and on page 319 of the ACA law.

Implications

The number one implication of the small business and employer provision is the flooding of potential ACA recipients into the system, resulting from employers dropping coverage. Most proponents of the ACA law have dismissed this idea as conservative scaremongering at best and corporate greed at worst. That, however, is because they are not the ones writing the checks. This is a simple math equation. The increase in required ACA benefits increases the costs of the health insurance premiums, because more items are covered.

At current levels, the Kaiser Family Foundation puts the average cost of employee health insurance at $15,073. Only $4,129 of that is paid by the employee, meaning close to 11,000 of the costs is paid by the employer. The ACA coverage mandates will increase those premiums, but even at current levels, paying a $2,000 per person fine is better than $11,000. This is simple math, and as you move into companies that have 5,000 or more employees, you are now talking about saving hundreds of millions of annual costs. Make no mistake, many companies will take this option.

For the companies that bite the bullet and provide health insurance, their costs will increase. This will be because of higher premiums charged by the insurance companies for having to cover more health care benefits and for costs related to keeping up with the regulations that come with the law. There is no definitive way to determine the costs accurately ahead of time, but the Congressional Budget Office projects the costs of ACA to be double what they originally projected.

To be fair, the CBO estimates were for the first 10 years. New projections that go out 11 years have the cost down 0.64%. Why the CBO would go out just one year on their projections is a little strange, especially given the paltry reduction in costs it would show. More telling is that the projection is based on additional revenue provisions that would pay for the law. This is always the problem with the CBO; it only answers questions based on the paper and assumptions put in front of them.

If any of those figures are wrong, if something is left out (like payments to doctors left out by Democrats when the bill was originally submitted), or the revenue gathered is less then projected, then the whole analysis is thrown off. Garbage in, garbage out is the old saying. The primary common sense question to this is simple: When has any government program ever cost less than promised? The answer is never.

The other implication is that the country may see an increase in temporary agency usage. Companies on the cusp of going past 50 employees and either wish to expand or have no choice to can avoid that employee threshold by going through temp agencies. This will alleviate some added costs to them, but only marginally as the temp agencies will also be charging a higher fee per employee supplied.

Lastly, small businesses will not get near the benefit from the tax credit. As discussed above, employers cannot have more than a $20,000 in average salary to receive the full tax credit. If you have higher salaries, the tax credit percentage goes down. Any company that can only afford to pay an average salary of $20,000 or less, in all likelihood, cannot afford to pay for health insurance regardless. Look at the numbers: With an average employer cost of $11,000, an employer could get a $5,500 tax credit, and they pay the other half.

However, $5,500 dollars is a quarter of a $20,000 salaried employee’s pay. A business that small cannot afford to pay that. They cannot afford to risk going under just to satisfy some politician’s belief that paying for health insurance is the right thing to do–no matter the cost. Also, this tax credit does nothing for large employers because they are not eligible. If you have 51 or more employees, you cannot get a tax credit at all. Because of this, there is no incentive.

The primary problem is political and social philosophy intruding on policy and business. Things like health care, time off, vacations, etc., used to be called fringe benefits. They were there to create greater employee loyalty and a way to compete for better employees. They were, in short, extra benefits. Today, they are seen as items that are owed to employees.

The President and the Democrats have determined that health insurance is a right, and if the government cannot get a bill through for single payer, then employers are responsible for paying for that right. Whether this is true (health insurance as a right) is an argument for a different day. The point here is when you approach policy that way, then you end up with bills that have consequences far beyond what is written or intended. Businesses exist to provide a product or service, and make a profit. That is all. They are not smaller surrogates for government to be enlisted in the care and feeding of the population.

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Imagine a married man with two kids, and a great executive position in a multi-national company. Because of his position he makes excellent money that allows his wife to shop at her pleasure, but also makes his family a target for threats and kidnapping. He uses his money to hire security guards to protect his family, and to pay for a high-end alarm system for his home.

Now imagine that this man loses his job, but the threats to his family persist. He cannot afford both the shopping of his wife and the security guards for his family. To reduce expenses, he gets rid of the guards, and the alarm system, but keeps giving his wife money to shop for shoes as she wishes.

Doesn’t that scenario seem a bit odd? Wouldn’t it be more responsible to cut the shopping and continue to pay for the needed security of the man’s family?

The scenario painted above is the exact one facing the U.S. regarding the security and defense of the country. In the real world, President Obama is the man, and his family is the United States population. His decision last month to reduce the size and scope of the military is just like the man’s decision to get rid of security guards that are protecting his family from kidnapping, to save money.

The United States is facing a fiscal crisis that has the potential to send the country into an economic tailspin. With a national debt of 16 trillion dollars, and yearly spending at a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit, President Obama knows that cuts need to be made in spending.  Following in the grand tradition of liberal Democrats before him, he is trying to solve the problem by raising tax rates, and of course going after defense spending. This is wrong-headed, dangerous, and short sighted.

In his defense, President Obama, is not doing anything that other politicians have not done. Long before Obama stepped onto the scene, President Herbert Walker Bush began cutting troop levels. Clinton followed suit with the closing of numerous bases and offering what he termed, a “peace dividend.” Truth be told, politicians have been cutting the military first, ever since the time of Rome and Carthage.  It is an easy foil, but always has consequences that are bad.

The problem is that no one, politicians or generals, are any good at predicting the future of military conflicts. During the Korean War, it was determined that since we had long-range missiles on our fighter jets, we didn’t need guns on them or needed to bother teaching dog fighting (aerial combat) skills. The result? U.S. planes were getting shot out of the sky left and right. Forcing the air force to spend money to retro fit the planes with guns, and bringing fighter pilots out of retirement to teach dog fighting.

At the start of the Iraq war, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld determined that the U.S. would use a lean and mean war effort. The result was huge casualties, because troops were spread thin, and fatigued from multiple tours that came because of the troop reductions that Bush and Clinton made in the 1990’s.

Now, President Obama is doing the same thing. Cutting troops, reducing spending on hardware like fighters and aircraft carriers. Instead, they will use more drones, and a focus on elite forces like the Seals, and Special Forces. The rationale being that there will be no large-scale wars in the future.

Aside from the fact they cannot know that, even current conditions could point to that view being totally wrong. Drone air attacks have been very successful, but that’s partly due to the desert environment of the Middle East. Drones are practically useless in the jungles of Southeast Asia, or South America. Drones will not be able to see through the canopy of jungle trees, so they cannot be fully utilized as though they are in Afghanistan, or Iraq.

China is continuing to build up its military—new fighters, ships, drones– Russia is a sleeping bear that reared its ugly head two years ago in Georgia, and who knows what will happen in the middle east between the Muslim world and Israel. All around the globe there are warm spots of conflict, a spark away from flaring into hot spots of war and strife.

Lastly, relying on elite forces ignores the fact that the people in them take a long time to train, and do need breaks in deployment. Have we not learned that lesson from the wars of the last ten years? By reducing the force numbers,—already too low—we hamper our ability to handle conflict in different locations.

It’s not a stretch to see us mired in the Middle East again, while simultaneously dealing with terrorists in African, Asia, and problems in South America. Of course, it’s easy to say, “We just don’t need to get involved so much.’ But who says we have a choice? We were not in some protracted war before 9/11, but they attacked us anyway.

The reality is that we increase our troops, and spend money on military hardware, not for what happens three years from now, but what happens 10, 15, or 20 years from now. The hardware we used in the first Iraq war was developed during the Reagan years. President Obama, and our military leaders have no clue about what will happen in the next 10 years. They can guess, but every time they decisions like this in the past, they have been wrong. So it is better to over prepare, and under utilize, rather than be under prepared and have to scramble to catch up.

The world is a complicated and dangerous place. A weak America makes it more dangerous, not less. Especially for American citizens that may live or die based on the decisions our leaders are making today. If we cut the military, the country, and indeed some places in the world, shall end up paying the price. A price far higher in blood and tears than the price of what we’re spending on the military now.

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Tonight President Obama gave his third State of the Union speech and he had allowed drips and drabs of the speech to leak in advance, clueing the media in on the theme of the speech; economic fairness. At the speech’s opening, however, President Obama used a very different, yet very clever rhetorical device.

He opened with a reminder of the work necessary to track down and kill Osama bin Laden last year. By doing so, he not only reminded America that he managed this fiend on his watch, but also used the operation to illuminate the thrust of his speech. Everyone knows that in a military operation, soldiers must work together for the mission to succeed. If they don’t, the mission will fail, and someone is likely to be killed. As a debate tool, it was brilliant tactic.

He followed up with cleverly avoiding any mention of the phrases “fair share” and ”fair shot,” contrary to what he has in his campaign speeches for the last two months. This time he used the word “everyone” as a substitute. The concept of everyone doing this or that for a common cause is something people can agree with superficially, but that’s where the speech ultimately falls flat. The State of the Union (SOTU) was all surface, no substance. High rhetorical skill, but low on reality.

SOTU speeches by nature are always low on details. No matter who’s in office, the speeches are always too long and boring for most people. Yet, President Obama has shown a habit of making grand promises and pronouncements on one matter or another, only to let them never materialize, and blame the Republicans, though most often he cannot even get his own party to agree with him.

In order for anyone to agree with the basic thrust of his speech last night, you have to buy into the idea that America is an unfair place; that the rich were born that way, that they stay that way at your expense, and that the only way for your government to help you is to tax them. You have to buy into the concept that to lift up the people at the bottom, you first have to pull the ones at the top down. It is equal to saying the only way a football team can win is by deliberately trying to injure the members of the opposite team. Under the President’s notion of ‘a fair share,’ you take from one entity, and give what you took to someone else. This means, the companies that leave the country due to high corporate tax rates, excessive regulations, or to avoid unions, these are the ones you tax, and give the money to companies who say nothing about those three issues, companies who are in the President’s pet industries; like Sylandra.

When explained this way, most Americans will not buy into it. Here is a question to those who do: If only the rich are born rich, and stay rich, how did the Queen of Nice, Oprah Winfrey, go from dirt poor to a billionaire? How did Michael Dell go from broke college student to a multi-billionaire? How did Jorge Perez who arrived here with no money, and unable to speak the language, end up a billionaire? Questions like these destroy the phony idea that you don’t have a fair opportunity in this country. If America were the country that the President tries to portray, we would not know who any of those three people are. Everyone in America has a fair opportunity to succeed, but you’ll never have the same results. Not everyone will work as hard, open a business, save money, or invest. Any one of us could have given up the keg and frat house parties in college to build computers in our dorm room. We did not, so we don’t have what Mr. Dell has accomplished.

So the question is, if you do become affluent and rich, should you pay more in taxes? The answer is yes, and the rich already do. When Mitt Romney pays 15% on 23 million dollars that is higher than 30% of $100,000; the amount Warren Buffet’s often-mentioned secretary, presumably makes. Of course, the types of income are different. One is a salary and the other from long-term investments, hence, the percentage difference. But, what is the President’s focus, the bottom line dollar amount of three million paid by Romney, or the percentage?

Tonight the President proposed that at minimum, the capital gains rate should be 30%, but only for those above a 250,000 in earnings. He really doesn’t think that everyone should get a fair shake. No, if you are successful he wants to shake you down, using a vague morality play as a shield. Question: If everyone should “sacrifice” for the good of the country, then what about the 56 percent of people that do not pay any taxes at all? Where’s their skin in the game? Where’s the call to have them pay their fair share?

The problem in this country is not that the rich do not pay enough. The top five percent in wage earners pay 60 percent of the tax bill.  Instead, the problem is that the government under President Obama wishes to continue spending more money and have the rich pay for it. In the SOTU speech alone, the President called for the creation of five new government entities. That’s five new departments on top of the over two million that we have now.

The problem is not that the rich pay 15% on investments made from money that has already been taxed at 34 or 39 percent, it’s the pure math that if you confiscated 100 percent of the income from the rich, it still would not pay for the Obamacare law, let alone Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid.

In the history of this country, when you raise rates, tax revenues go down. It happens because people stop investing, or invests in tax-free muni bonds. They stop expanding their business. They simply do what all humans do, which is find ways to avoid paying more for something, no different from anyone going to one gas station over another, because one has lower priced gas.

The SOTU speech is the first salvo in a class war that may tear the United States apart, and one that may lead to its collapse, IF the President wins that war. In the end, considering that the poor never created a job, and the middle-class is employed and maintained by rich people, hurting them, by taking money out of their pocket, only hurts the people the President purports to be fighting to help.

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