The Sanchez Report

Romney Won Iowa By 8 Votes... Now What?

The 2012 Iowa Caucus is now behind us. After a nail biter that lasted well into the night, Mitt Romney was declared the winner by just eight votes. Out of 122,000 votes cast, Romney won by just 8 votes. Just 8 votes? Seriously? I've never seen anything like this in the primary season. So now that Romney won Iowa and is expected to win big in New hampshire, does this mean the race is over? Take a look at this synopsis from Real Clear Politics.

From Real Clear Politics:

I see several key takeaways for your water cooler discussions in the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, the last of which has received far too little attention.

1. It really was a good night for Mitt Romney. Some people are trying to spin this as a bad night for him because he fell just short of his 2008 showing and failed to demolish a weak crop of Republican candidates. But he also invested less time and fewer resources in Iowa this time around; he didn't really become active until a few weeks ago, when it became clear he had a chance to win....

2. Romney is not the inevitable nominee. Regardless of what the pro-Romney camp insists, it wasn’t a greatnight for their man. He has weaknesses (as described above), even if they are, as my lawyer friends would say, “non-dis-positive.”

Though he’ll almost certainly win New Hampshire by a large margin, his semi-favorite-son status there renders it something of a nullity for every candidate not named Jon Huntsman (who has to finish a very strong second if he wants to continue in the race).....

3. Rick Santorum may well be the future of the Republican Party. While I find it highly unlikely that he’ll be the nominee this time out, there’s a good chance that the Republican coalition will fundamentally change in the next 20 years and move toward Santorum’s style of politics. Twice in a row now, the party has toyed with nominating a candidate who combined social conservatism with economic populism; Santorum’s speech last night was essentially a northern version of a speech Mike Huckabee could have delivered in 2008....

Read the entire article Here

Classic Newt Gingrich Slams Occupy Wall Street

No one, absolutely no one, is more capable of commanding a stage and articulating the sentiments of Americans who are fed up with Occupy Wall Street than Newt Gingrich. At the Iowa Family Forum debate this past Saturday, Newt took an opportunity to slap around the spoiled children who call themselves Occupy Wall Street.

The movement "starts with the premise that we all owe them everything," and the movement's sense of entitlement is a "symptom how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying, 'Go get a job right after you take a bath.'" the former speaker of the House concluded.

 

California... The Anti-Business State

For many years, California conservatives have railed against the anti-business, tax and spend liberals and their stranglehold on Sacramento. For the most part, their words have fallen on deaf ears with voters. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party has essentially controlled both chambers of the State Capital, statewide offices and the Governorship for most of the past forty years. I know, I know, there were a few Republican Governors throughout those years and its no coincidence that the state was in better fiscal shape during their administrations. Need I remind you of Gray Davis's doubling of the budget in less than eight years? These wreckless policies have brought the Golden State to its knees. We are in big trouble and rather than moving towards a more hospitable climate for business, the Democrats are doing the opposite.

The Los Angeles Times yesterday published a sobering op-ed on the current toxic business climate in the Golden State. I would encourage you to read the entire article to get a sense of why a heavy regulation and high tax combination make it nearly impossible to create jobs.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Unless Sacramento moves to improve the business climate, California's reputation as one of the country's most toxic business environments will make it hard for the Golden State to regain its luster.

California's suffocating regulations have a lot to do with this discontent. A 2009 study by two California State University finance professors, Sanjay Varshney and Dennis Tootelian, estimated that regulation cost the state's businesses $493 billion annually, or nearly $135,000 per company. Additionally, dense and complex land-use regulations have driven up housing construction costs in the state, giving residents a double whammy: a stagnant economy and unaffordable home prices, even since the real estate bubble burst.

Taxes are another burden. According to the Tax Foundation, California imposes the nation's second-heaviest tax burden on businesses, and finance officers of major companies recently rated the state's overall tax environment the worst in the country, according to a poll in CFO magazine.

On top of taxes and regulation, the state can also claim what may be America's most expensive litigation environment for firms. The American Tort Reform Foundation recently named California one of the country's five worst "judicial hellholes," in part because state law allows trial lawyers to sue firms for minor violations of California's complex labor and environmental regulations.

Rick Perry's Implosion... The "Oops" Heard Around The World

In case you missed the CNBC Republican Debate last night. Take a look at these 53 seconds of footage that probably ended Governor Rick Perry's bid for the nomination.

 

 

Another Example of Mainstream Media Double Standards

We're now in week two of the Herman Cain sexual harassment scandal and the media is not letting up on their quest to derail his campaign. I'm not sure what happened fifteen years ago during his tenure at the National Restaurant Association, but even if the allegations are true, should we even care? After all, weren't we led to believe after the Bill Clinton episodes that someones private life shouldn't have any bearing on their ability to govern? Not that I want to revisit the Clinton scandals, but he did settle for $850,000 with Paula Jones, one of his accusers. Not to mention the other claims of sexual assault while he was Governor of Arkansas. Need I mention the infamous Lewinsky scandal in which he preyed upon a young White House intern while he was a sitting President? He was protected by the media, the National Organization of Women and every other liberal organization. The tolerance bar was set so low after he left office that no other politician would ever have to live to such a high standard, unless he was a Republican. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the problem with Herman Cain. He is a Conservative Republican who happens to be an African American. That is a trifecta with the mainstream media and thus they are hellbent on destroying this man's quest for the White House. Just for the record, I continue to be a registered Independent and I have yet to decide who I will support in the primary or general elections.

 From the Boston Herald:

What is all the fuss about Herman Cain, possibly having sexually harassed a couple of women? He is not a sitting president, just one of the many contenders in the GOP primary. There isn’t even a blue dress.

Didn’t the mainstream media and liberals enlighten us during President Bill Clinton’s era of indiscretions that this is private behavior and doesn’t affect governing abilities? Even the National Organization for Women buried their collective heads in the sand and never said boo about the $850,000 Paula Jones settlement.

So haven’t we matured like the Europeans?

The problem is that Cain is a Republican. That’s why Politico has written 90 stories in one week about the pizza mogul. Twelve-plus stories per day seems excessive even for the left-leaning site, but it does prove the point that Republicans are held to a much higher ideal than Democrats by both the media and voters.

Read more here

The Wisconsin Vote Is A Game Changer

This afternoon the Wisconsin State Assembly passed the hotly contested anti-union bill which stripped the collective bargaining rights of state public employees. This vote captured the attention of the national media for very good reasons. This vote was akin to President Reagan taking action against the striking air traffic controllers union in 1981. The far left, pro-union forces and mainstream media allies knew that if this passed it would lead to a domino effect around the country. This is good news for all taxpayers. We now live in an era where local, state and federal governments are essentially bankrupt. Americans have had to tighten the purse strings and become more efficient. This sacrifice has been shared by all except for the powerful public employee unions. It's important to understand the significance of today's events by grasping the fundamental purpose of a Union. From The Foundry:

Government unions are inherently different from private-sector unions. The purpose of private-sector unions is to get workers a larger share of the profits they helped create. But government is a monopoly and earns no profits. All government unions do is redistribute more tax dollars from taxpayers to unions.

Answer this question... What do the Airline, Automobile and Government Industries have in common? They are all bankrupt, and either destroy competitiveness or redistribute wealth from taxpayers to public workers. They have failed miserably compared to other sectors of our economy. This may be a little harsh and I hope my mom doesn't read this post. I am the son of a 40+ year government worker who happens to be a member of the grandaddy union of them all, the SEIU. Ok, enough with the disclaimer and back to my rant.

The great Thomas Sowell put it best in a recent article on Real Clear Politics:

The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.[Private]Workers have also learned that there is no free lunch, which is why they have, over the years, increasingly voted against being represented by unions in secret ballot elections.One set of workers, however, remained largely immune to such repercussions. These are government workers represented by public sector unions.

While oil could replace coal, while U.S. Steel dropped from number one in the world to number ten, and Toyota could replace General Motors as the world's leading producer of cars, government is a monopoly. Nobody is likely to replace the federal or state bureaucracies, no matter how much money the unions drain from the taxpayers.

That is why government unions continue to thrive while private sector unions decline. Taxpayers provide their free lunch.

 

 

 

 

Real Healthcare Reform

It's no secret that I've been a staunch critic of President Obama's domestic policy agenda. His attempt to shove Obamacare down the throats of the American people tops my list of reasons to oppose him. I'm amazed that he and the Democrats have been successful in their attempts to fabricate a health care crisis. How can we have a crisis when most polls show that 85% of the American people are happy with their health care? There's no doubt that something should be done to control the cost of health care. The question is whether or not he should have made this his top priority when unemployment is at 9.7%.

The card has been dealt and so where do we go from here. I've often been asked why would the Democrats move forward in the face of strong public opposition to Obamacare? They see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to move closer to the liberal utopia of universal, single payer health care. They have longed for the day when the federal government would take over health care and move it from the private sector to government control.

The Democrats have combined the need for reform with their desire to provide universal coverage. These are two separate issues. This debate started in during the 2008 campaign and we were led to believe that there were 46 million Americans uninsured. According to Blue Cross, approximately 14 million qualify for an existing government program such as Medicare and Medicaid but have chosen not to enroll. Another 13 million have incomes above $50,000 and could probably afford some type of coverage on their own. In addition, there are 6 million who are considered "short term uninsured" or people who are in between jobs. That leaves around 6-8 million people who are chronically uninsured. That's a far cry from 46 million. Nevertheless, the question we need to answer as a nation is whether we should blow up our entire health care system in order to insure those who fall into the chronically uninsured category? The President's allies have accused their critics as obstructionists with no real ideas or alternatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm no expert in this public policy area, but even I have a plan that makes more sense.

Several of my friends have asked me to step up and give my vision of health care reform and so I’ve taken them up on the challenge.  Here you go:

1) Health insurance should be easy, flexible and accessible like purchasing your car insurance. There should be plenty of competition across state lines. Your employee should provide a credit that YOU can use to purchase your own plan online. We shouldn't be forced to choose from just a few plans through our HR department. You should be able to customize your own plan, just like car insurance based on your family's needs. This would drive efficiencies in the delivery supply chain, which would lower costs.

2) Tort Reform- We should reform the laws concerning frivolous lawsuits. One of the reasons costs are out of control is because of the cost of malpractice insurance. Your doctor pays tens of thousands of dollars each year for insurance. They need to make up the cost by charging inflated rates for some services. This reform would lead to the biggest reduction in costs.

3) Young people in their 20's, who are relatively healthy do not need a traditional managed care health plan. They should have access to cheap catastrophic plans that they can tap into in case of an emergency. This would immediately cover most of the 6 million short-term uninsured who are in school or between jobs.

4) We need to change the law as it pertains to pre-existing conditions. People should not be prevented from purchasing health insurance or have their policy canceled because of a change in their status. This would lead to higher premiums, but those are costs that I'm sure some families would pay if they were just given the opportunity.

5) You would be left with 3-5 million families that truly need the government to pay their way. If that's the case, it would be far cheaper for the govt to provide a debit card with $300-400 per month to temporarily pay for their plan. That would amount to no more than $25-30 billion per year. Much cheaper than what President Obama is trying to push through!

Unfortunately, it looks like the Democrats are hellbent on ramming through their plan. If they were to take a step back and truly seek compromise, they would find that it is much wiser to fix health care in incremental steps. We still have the best health care system in the world. Leave it in the hands of the private sector.

Obama Refuses To Change Course

So here we are, one day later, digesting the State of the Union and my opinion hasn't changed. The President has essentially told the American people that he's going to stay the course and try harder to ram through his policies. It's disheartening to listen to the President give a speech that is drowning in denial. The White House has caved in to the far left view that the Massachusetts Senate race was in some way an endorsement of their policies. The spending will continue and the attacks on the private sector will only intensify as the President tries to convince voters that he is a populist. Mr. President, please hire some adults who know a thing or two about the economy. You've surrounded yourself with academics and politicians who don't have a clue about how the real world operates. God help us!

From the Wall Street Journal:

So much for all of that Washington talk about a midcourse change of political direction. If President Obama took any lesson from his party's recent drubbing in Massachusetts, and its decline in the polls, it seems to be that he should keep doing what he's been doing, only with a little more humility, and a touch more bipartisanship.

Mr. Obama's economic pitch also differed little from last year, when the jobless rate was 7.2%. He offered a spirited defense of the stimulus, though the jobless rate is now 10%, and he promised more of the same this year, especially on "green jobs." He also offered some minor if welcome tax cuts for small business, and $30 billion in handouts for "community banks" to be able to lend more.

Yet at the same time, he couldn't resist more banker baiting, and he promised that he's determined to see tax rates rise for millions of Americans next year when the Bush rates are set to expire. He also pushed more exports while saying he'll raise taxes on some of our biggest exporters, otherwise known as multinationals that "ship our jobs overseas." Mr. Obama believes he can conjure jobs and a durable expansion from the private sector while waging political war on its animal spirits. It can't be done.

This reflects a larger problem, which is his belief that economic growth springs mainly from the genius of government. Thus Mr. Obama presented a vision of an economy soaring to new heights on "high-speed railroad" and "clean energy facilities" and 1,000 people making solar panels in California. He seems not to appreciate that what really drives growth are the millions of risks taken each day by millions of individuals, far from the politicking and earmarks of Congress or the Department of Energy.

The California GOP Rebirth?

Next year could prove to be a turning point for the California GOP. The 2010 statewide elections will include two prominent Republican women vying for high office. The Governor's race will feature former eBay CEO, Meg Whitman and the Senate race will more than likely include Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard. Both candidates are considered social moderates and fiscal conservatives. These candidates could help foster the rebirth of a party that has been on life support for the past thirteen years.

From the Wall Street Journal:

After Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced a Democrat in 2003 to become California's governor, fellow Republicans were hopeful the former movie hero's popularity would help arrest a long decline here.

But six years later, Republican voter registration continues to fall, and now many in the party are pegging their hopes on two former corporate chief executives: Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

Ms. Whitman, former president and CEO of San Jose-based online-auction company eBay Inc., in February threw her hat into the ring for the 2010 race to succeed Mr. Schwarzenegger when his second and final term as governor ends in January 2011.

Ms. Fiorina, former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., this month registered a campaign committee called "Carly for California" for a potential 2010 challenge against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

The star power of both CEOs is likely to give them some momentum. An August Daily Kos poll gave the 53-year-old Ms. Whitman 24% support among California Republicans ahead of the June 8 primary, topping support for her two main challengers, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell.

A July poll by Rasmussen Reports showed Ms. Boxer with a slim lead of 45% among likely voters to 41% for the 54-year-old Ms. Fiorina in a hypothetical match-up. Ms. Boxer cited that slim lead in a fund-raising letter she sent to potential donors July 29. "We've got our work cut out for us," Ms. Boxer said in the letter.

Shock Poll: Rasmussen Shows Obama and Romney Tied 45-45

From Drudge:

RASMUSSEN 2012 poll released at 10:30AM ET

Obama 45% Romney 45%
Obama 48% Palin 42%