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=Rand Paul: Less Government, More Sharing Economy= Debra J. Saunders | Jul 22, 2014 *Share on Facebook 4 Who will be the GOP nominee in 2016? I don't know, but I have a pretty good idea who the running mate will be: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Unless Paul is the nominee.
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A new NBC News/Marist poll found that Paul would be the top GOP vote-getter against Hillary Clinton in critically important Iowa and New Hampshire; political reporter Chuck Todd duly has proclaimed Paul the Republican front-runner.

So I had to see the libertarian-leaning darling Saturday. He delivered a keynote speech to the LincolnLabs' "Reboot 2014" confab of libertarian-leaning techies, also known as "conservatarians."

You'd expect the audience to be simpatico. Tech geeks and libertarians have so much in common. Both tend to be male, young and much impressed with their own intelligence.

Though libertarian thinking may seem sink-or-swim, Paul showed how less government is good for the hip and trendy sharing economy. He hailed companies such as Uber and Lyft as "so popular you can't stop them."

While other Republicans evoke the good old days of the Grand Old Party, Paul looks to the future. "Capitalism steams on," Paul argued. Don't trash capitalism; without free markets, others won't be able to succeed.

The Kentucky Republican didn't need to remind the crowd that in Democratic San Francisco, some politicians are mobilizing against Airbnb. Regulation is the enemy.

The tech crowd ate up Paul's jeremiads on another case of big government: National Security Agency overreach. And the techies didn't need to be reminded of Paul's 13-hour "talking filibuster" against the surveillance state, which pressured Attorney General Eric Holder to concede that President Barack Obama does not have the authority to order a drone strike against a U.S. citizen on American soil without a trial.

Under-40s also go for Paul's long-standing criticism of excesses in Washington's war on drugs. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Paul have introduced a measure to allow nonviolent offenders to seal their criminal records. John Dennis, a longtime supporter from San Francisco, believes that such measures could help Paul among African-American voters.

On foreign policy, Paul risks alienating traditional conservatives while drawing votes from the middle. In June, the senator refused to blame Obama for the inroads Islamist separatists have made in Iraq. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was so angry with Paul that he dismissed him as an "isolationist." I'm not comfortable with Paul's willingness to cede American leadership in an ugly world, but for most voters, Cheney's censure is practically an endorsement   -townhall news.

Headlines broke in April surrounding an investigative report that revealed 40 veterans had died waiting for appointments at the Pheonix Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Further examination affirmed that this was not a singular instance, but rather a widespread case of bureaucratic corruption.

Between the falsification of waiting lists, the retaliation against whistle blowers, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation, all eyes have been on the VA the past few months. Should it come as a surprise, then, that numerous commissions, GAO investigations, hearings, and IG reports previously spoke to the inefficiencies of the VA? Nothing was done about this deep, institutional problem until it was too late.

Peter Schuck, Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School, has written a book titled “Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better” which chronicles the deep structural flaws that undermine the vast majority of federal agencies. Though the VA is a perfect case study for what he describes in his book, Schuck analyzes a large number of domestic programs and develops criteria for assessing their effectiveness.

At last week’s “Fixing the US Department of Veterans Affairs” panel at the American Enterprise Institute, Schuck outlined several features that contribute to the defective nature of large government service programs:

1. Ever-increasing budgets: In the case of the VA, the budget has doubled in real terms over the past 10 years. Big government agency budget hikes are often driven by demographics and interest group politics.

2. Little to no evaluation of cost effectiveness: Less than one percent of the federal budget is devoted to evaluating the effectiveness of the other 99 percent of the federal budget.

3. Outdated information systems: The storage of information is often antiquated and is usually paper driven. Record keeping is chaotic and files are lost. Additionally, the data relied upon to formulate policy is almost invariably much poorer than the data private market actors use to inform their decisions.

4. Rigid conditions for workforce: Schuck describes these government programs as having “rules so rigid, they would make a strong union blush.” It is very difficult to discipline workers and nearly impossible to fire them. If a problem arises, employees are often simply relocated.

5. Workforce size: The number of employees in these programs are not commensurate with the demands that are placed on them. Demand for service increases as qualifications for benefits ease.

6. Benefits take the form of entitlements: This reduces the amount of discretion that policy makers can exercise when adjusting benefits to accommodate emerging needs and changing costs.

7. Growing resistance of private actors to participate as contractors or workers: The programs are poorly managed and the reimbursement formulae are too often outdated and inflexibly managed.

8. Strong resistance to change: Implementation of reform is impeded by systematic obstacles that are deeply embedded in our governmental system. In terms of the VA, it is almost impossible to relocate a hospital to an area where veteran needs are far more pressing.

9. Fraud, waste, and abuse: Corruption as an extreme form of fraud is endemic and occurs in all of these agencies to some considerable degree.

10. Incentives: The incentives that drive these agencies are often very perverse. The objective of officials is often not to serve the goals of the program, but rather to achieve “bureaucratic objectives that are congruent only on occasion with the public interest that they’re supposed to serve.”

These problems are structural and have little to do with which party is in charge in Washington. Schuck aims to identify the endemic pathologies at large government agencies in order to take appropriate steps toward reform.townhall news

Politico's latest public opinion survey of competitive 2014 states and districts is reminiscent of NPR's similarly-designed poll released a month ago. President Obama's job approval rating is underwater by double digits (43/57), while the GOP owns a two-point edge on the generic Congressional ballot (which typically favors Democrats), and a seven-point lead on foreign policy. A 45 percent plurality of battleground voters support repealing Obamacare, with an additional 38 percent backing changes to the law. Fewer than one in five favor leaving Democrats' signature healthcare experiment intact. For all of their "fix, don't nix" rhetoric, Congressional Democrats' 2015 budget proposed zero changes to Obamacare, as liberal Senators and pundits alike continue to blindly extol its implementation:



The Washington Post, meanwhile, adds yet another data point to the very long list of worrisome 2014 turnout indicators for Democrats:

What's perhaps most notable, though, is the partisan difference. Republican primary turnout overtook Democratic turnout for the first time in 2010, and that difference is even bigger this primary season. This is hardly the first warning sign when it comes to Democrats' turnout problem...But if it portends anything close to what's coming in the 2014 election, that's really, really troubling for Democrats. I'll leave you with one last tidbit from the poll:



town hall news

President Obama signed an executive order Monday barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity – ignoring the pleas of Christian and other faith leaders to include an exemption for religious organizations.

“Thanks to your passion and advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government – the government of the people, by the people and for the people – will become just a little bit fairer,” the president told a gathering in the White House.

The executive order would prevent Christian and other religious organizations with federal contracts from requiring workers to adhere to the tenets of their religious beliefs. And that includes religious Christian colleges and universities that provide financial aid to students.

“If religious organizations cannot require that their employees conduct themselves in ways consistent with the teachings of their faith – then, essentially, those organizations are unable to operate in accordance with their faith,” Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, told me.

He said the president’s order forces employers to put aside their principles in the name of political correctness. “This level of coercion is nothing less than viewpoint blackmail that bullies into silence every contractor and subcontractor who has moral objections to homosexual behavior,” Sprigg said.

“The mask is coming off of the homosexual movement’s agenda. They really do not believe in religious liberty. They want forced affirmation of homosexual and transgender conduct to trump every other consideration in the workplace – including religious liberty.”

A group of prominent religious leaders, including Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor at Saddleback Church, wrote aletter to President Obama urging him to include a religious exemption.

“In a concrete way, religious organizations will lose financial funding that allows them to serve others in the national interest due to their organizational identity,” they wrote. “When the capacity of religious organizations is limited, the common good suffers.”

Not surprising, the president’s executive order was warmly welcomed by left-wing organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State.