News Flash! Positive Change Coming

News Flash! Positive Change Coming
Steve Forbes

The other day Starbucks' CEO, Howard Schultz, called for a boycott of political contributions to Washington politicians until they reach agreement on major issues. That's putting things backward. The U.S. political system is working positively. The intense battling and bickering reflects a process of profound reform in the making. The nation is facing up to tackling the fundamentally important issue of how powerful government should be, as well as the corollaries: How do we stay solvent? How do we revive our backward-looking, moribund economy? And what should we do about entitlements?

Voters last November made it clear they are deeply disaffected by President Obama's binge spending and unprecedented power-grabbing, particularly his de facto takeover of health care. People don't want the U.S. to become another Greece or even France.

Our founders designed our government in such a way as to avoid wild swings in policy. Given the divided government we have in Washington today, it's preposterous to believe we could reach agreement on how to reform the tax code, restructure the country's big entitlement programs, end the wild spending and undo the elephantine growth in regulations in one fell swoop. Such big changes will begin to come to pass only through a mandate in next year's elections. Contrary to Howard Schultz's thinking, people should be giving more time and money to candidates, because the upcoming contests will profoundly influence what kind of country America will be.

The current Administration will inflict much damage during its remaining time in office, but the atmosphere in early 2013 will be ripe for making needed reforms.

Portents are encouraging. Who, a year ago, could have conceived that New York State would elect a supposedly liberal Democrat as governor who would enact a budget with less spending than that of the year before? And don't forget the pension and spending changes enacted by New Jersey's Republican governor and Democratic legislature. Obama's binge spending is having the unintended consequence of generating broad support for cutbacks.

A growing number of states are confronting the unsustainable costs of lavish health care coverage and pensions for public employees. The epicenter of this is Wisconsin, where a new Republican governor and legislature have made cutbacks and structural reforms. In retaliation public-sector unions declared a jihad, yet despite the expenditure of $30 million--an absolutely astounding sum for state legislative and judicial races--the Wisconsin Supreme Court remained conservative and the Republicans maintained their majority in the state senate.
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Mr Forbes, some independents like me like about 75% of what you and others on the right are saying, but you're losing us on the far right environmental stuff.

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Nationally, the tea leaves are reading better and better. President Obama's deficit commission last December had Democrats entertaining the idea of simplifying the tax code and sharply reducing tax rates--this in direct conflict with our politically oblivious President's passion for hiking levies on the so-called rich. The new GOP frontrunner, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, has rightly blasted the Federal Reserve for its disastrous weak-dollar policies. The once seemingly preposterous notion of relinking the dollar to gold is becoming an ever more likely reality.

ObamaCare? Likely to be repealed in 2013.

The American people understand that drastic measures are needed. Regarding issues large and small our federal and state governments have become ever more intrusive. We tend to think of tyranny as people being marched around in chains. But tyranny actually creeps up in less dramatic steps. Thanks to Washington, next year we'll start having to buy more expensive lightbulbs that are inferior to and more dangerous than today's incandescent bulbs. We are now forced to buy refrigerators, dishwashers and washing machines that are less effective and more expensive than their predecessors. When free markets are allowed to operate without such interference, products become better and cheaper.

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