As an OB/GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Ron Paul knows firsthand how precious, fragile, and in need of protection life is.
Dr. Paul’s experience in science and medicine only reinforced his belief that life begins at conception, and he believes it would be inconsistent for him to champion personal liberty and a free society if he didn’t also advocate respecting the God-given right to life—for those born and unborn.
After being forced to witness an abortion being performed during his time in medical school, he knew from that moment on that his practice would focus on protecting life. And during his years in medicine, never once did he find an abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
As a physician, Ron Paul consistently put his beliefs into practice and saved lives by helping women seek options other than abortion, including adoption. And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:
* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”
* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”
Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.
The strength of love for liberty in our society can be judged by how we treat the most innocent among us. It’s time to elect a President with the courage and conviction to stand up for every American’s right to life.
The world will watch today as Mississippi votes on a “personhood” amendment that begins protection at fertilization. It, in short, gives the status of a human being to a zygote.
When does personhood begin?
Science Matters: Former supermodel Kathy Ireland tells Mike Huckabee about how she became pro-life after reading what the science books have to say.
My good friend Dr. Kevin R. Henke is a scientist and also an atheistic evolutionist. I had a lot of discussions with Kevin over religious views. I remember going over John 7:17 with him one day. It says:
John 7:17 (Amplified Bible)
17If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know (have the needed illumination to recognize, and can tell for himself) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority.
I challenged Kevin to read a chapter a day of the Book of John and pray to God and ask God, “Dear God, if you are there then reveal yourself to me, and I pledge to serve you the rest of my life.”
Kevin did that and he even wrote down the thoughts that came to his mind and sent it to me and these thoughts filled a notebook.
Kevin did not become a Christian, but I am still praying for him. I do respect Kevin because he is an honest man. Interestingly enough he told me that he was pro-life because the unborn baby has all the genetic code at the time of conception that they will have for the rest of their life. Below are some other comments by other scientists:
Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”
Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”
Back on April 27, 2009 Fox News ran a story by Hollie McKay(“Supermodel Kathy Ireland Lashes Out Against Pro Choice,”) on Jill Ireland.
It’s no secret that the majority of Hollywood stars are strong advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy, however former “Sports Illustrated” supermodel-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Kathy Ireland has gone against the grain of the glitterati and spoken out against abortion.
“My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science,” Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book “Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity.”
“What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there.”
However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.
“I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time,” Ireland argued. “I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue.”
Politico reports here that a group of celebrities, including former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee, shouted a four-letter obscenity for cameras in a promotion to speak up against famine. Bleeps and labels to cover mouths obscure the actual word.
In the PSA, our celebrity supporters shout out one four letter word that the majority of viewers will find offensive, in order to shine a light on something only a minority seems to be offended by. I know the tone is a bit rough for ONE — that’s no accident. If it feels like a punch in the face, then good — mission accomplished. It’s time for a wakeup call and here’s the alarm. Love it? Great. Hate it? OK. Just don’t ignore it.
I’m not sure I believe Huck did precisely as described.
Economic freedom and free trade need to be major pieces of the puzzle to solve this problem but President Obama and Bono do not get that.
Cato recently held a book launch for South African development expert Greg Mills (you can pre-order at Amazon). This is a very smart book by a man who has spent his professional life in the thick of the problem (bad governments making bad policy choices).
Economic growth does not require a secret formula. While countries from Asia to Latin America have emerged from poverty, Africa has failed to realize its potential in the 50 years since independence. Greg Mills, the former director of the South African Institute of International Affairs and one of South Africa’s most respected commentators, confronts the myths surrounding African development. He shows that African poverty was not caused by poor infrastructure, lack of market access or insufficient financial resources. Instead, the main reason Africans are poor is because their leaders have made bad policy choices. Please join us to hear why a growing number of African opinion makers and ordinary citizens believe that to emerge from poverty, Africa must embrace a far greater degree of political and economic freedom.
I recommend the podcast of the event (download MP3). Excellent comments by Marian L. Tupy, a policy analyst with the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.
One of my favorite development economists wrote the lead blurb
“Poverty is now optional” is Greg Mills’ invigorating message’, Paul Collier, Oxford University, Author of The Bottom Billion and The Plundered Planet
African poverty has been optional for fifty years — just keep in mind that the African elites do just fine under the status quo. And so do the NGOs, who effectively get a commission cut of the western aid budgets (as does the consulting industry housed around the DC beltway).
Good job Cato! Now, if we can just inject some sanity into the NGOs and OECD aid agencies. The billowing aid continues to insulate the African leaders from the consequences of their policies (and of course insulates them from their own populations).
On aid, I was pleased to hear Greg Mills respond to questions, with, paraphrasing:
Obama said his Africa policy was to “double the aid”. In fact that is a clear signal that there is no Africa policy. An effective, Africa policy is far more nuanced and complex than “double the aid”. What is the point of aid if you do not have tools for measuring the effectiveness of that aid?
While we are at it, let’s measure the effective of NGOs! I would be perfectly happy to have the organization that I run measured. Also, measure the effectiveness of consultants.
(…) The average age of African leaders is 75. The average age of Africans is 25. The numbers for Europe are about 55, 45. I am stupified by how passive African electorates are. How long would Robert Mugabe have lasted in Serbia?
Bono has the wrong answer for the poor of the world (Part 3)
Bono praises the election of President Obama!!!
I love Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose.” In that film series over and over it is shown that the ability to move from poor to rich is more abundant here than any other country in the world. This article below reminded me of that that.
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This is a series of posts that show that Bono (who I have been listening to since 1983) has the wrong solution to the problem of worldwide hunger.
Politico reports here that a group of celebrities, including former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee, shouted a four-letter obscenity for cameras in a promotion to speak up against famine. Bleeps and labels to cover mouths obscure the actual word.
In the PSA, our celebrity supporters shout out one four letter word that the majority of viewers will find offensive, in order to shine a light on something only a minority seems to be offended by. I know the tone is a bit rough for ONE — that’s no accident. If it feels like a punch in the face, then good — mission accomplished. It’s time for a wakeup call and here’s the alarm. Love it? Great. Hate it? OK. Just don’t ignore it.
I’m not sure I believe Huck did precisely as described.
_____________
One of the key parts of the solution is economic freedom, economic growth and free trade. It is not the bailout, welfare approach of President Obama who Bono supported in 2008.
Daniel Griswold is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.
Added to cato.org on October 30, 2004
This article appeared on cato.org on October 30, 2004.
I’m happy to talk about how to explain the benefits of free trade to the public. It took me until I was about 35 years old to figure out that that is my calling in life, explaining free trade, and doing it not just to the high and mighty in Washington, but to people around the country and hopefully around the world. I’ve spent two thirds of my adult life outside of Washington, D.C. Twelve of those years were in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as an editorial page editor, writing daily editorials for 100,000 different households in a community that’s very much a slice of Middle America.
How we explain the benefits of free trade is hugely important today. Trade and globalization are being debated on cable TV every night. The expansion of trade and foreign investment is determining the shape of our world. And it is controversial among the public if not in the economics profession. Surveys of economist show that a large majority free trade is the right policy. Study after study confirms what theory has long taught, that countries open to trade grow faster and achieve higher incomes than those that are closed.
The public does not share the view of the economics profession on trade. People have a general notion that trade is good for the country, but then they have all sorts of qualifications. Most people will accept trade as a general principle as long as we require minimum labor and environmental standards in poor countries and protect U.S. workers. So you see this gap between the economics profession and the public.
Daniel Griswold is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.
This gap persists despite 200 plus years of having “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. If you haven’t read “The Wealth of Nations,” I would highly recommend it, especially Book IV. Adam Smith’s writing is so lively and applicable to today. Then we have the French economist Frederic Bastiat. I’m not sure how anybody could explain free trade better than Bastiat. And yet, here we are, 150 years later, still debating and trying to explain free trade.
Trade Benefits for Producers
Another point is that companies and businesses are huge importers. Half of what we import to the United States each year is imported for businesses. They import raw materials, energy and lumber and cement and that sort of thing. They import intermediate components, parts, auto parts, computer parts, that go in for final assembly. And then of course they import re is capital machinery, machines that come in that make U.S. companies more competitive.
Here are some examples: A typical American computer has “Dell” or “Hewlett Packard” stamped on it, but most of it is made overseas. Maybe some of the most important parts are made in the United States, the brains of it, but the components, the hard drives, the flat panel display screens are made abroad. In fact, 60 percent of a typical American computer is made in the Far East. We are much better off because of that. We can afford computers in our homes, in our businesses. Our whole economy is more productive.
Consider steel. It was not one of President Bush’s finest moments when he imposed tariffs on steel in March of 2002. Yes, it probably kept one or two aging steel mills in business, but it raised the price of steel for a broad swath of U.S. industry–the automobile industry, the tool and die industry and other metal fabrication businesses, the construction industry. Those sectors use a lot of steel, and they paid a price for those tariffs.
One of the arguments the Cato Institute made that was quite effective in Congress in stopping steel protection was we pointed out that for every job in the steel industry, there are 40 jobs in the United States in industries that use steel as a component in its production. This was a perfectly legitimate free trade argument that also playing on this public desire to defend jobs. You want to protect jobs? There are more jobs in jeopardy from higher steel prices than are protected by higher steel prices.
Sugar is yet another example. Yes, sugar quotas cost costs U.S. consumers almost $2 billion a year, or $20 a year to a typical American household. But the quotas also cost jobs. Chicago used to be ringed by confectionery companies that would take sugar in as an important input and crank out Lifesavers and candy bars. In 2002 a Lifesaver factory in Holland, Michigan, announced it was moving to Canada because Canada allows sugar to be bought at the global price. We’re losing jobs because of sugar protection.
So again, you’re emphasizing the producer. You’re putting protectionists on the defensive. The sugar program is costing manufacturing jobs. The steel tariffs are costing manufacturing jobs.
When foreigners sell us something, they earn dollars, but then they have to do something with those dollars. They can’t pay their workers and suppliers back in Japan or China with dollars. They exchange the dollars they earn for their local currency, and then those dollars come back to the United States to buy our goods and services. They also come back to buy investment assets.
So what happens when we raise trade barriers? It’s harder for foreigners to earn those dollars to spend in our markets. So when you suppress imports into the United States through trade protection, you’re also going to see exports fall. You’re going to see foreign investment fall. And of course you invite retaliation, too. If we raise our trade barriers, other countries raise theirs. So import barriers put exports at risk. It’s a very important point to make.
Let me add a concluding word about production. We hear the charge that America is “de industrializing.” Here is where some simple facts can work so well. I just love to point out that, in the United States, we are manufacturing 50 percent more stuff than we were a decade ago. According to the Federal Reserve, manufacturing output in the United States is up 50 percent in the past ten year, double what it was in 1980, and triple what it was in the good old 1960s. We’re producing more stuff with fewer workers because they are so much more productive. Is that bad that our workers are more productive?
Trade and Jobs–The Real Story
This leads us to a third major battle ground–jobs. All right, you want to talk about jobs? Let’s talk about trade and jobs. Again, acknowledge the pain of workers laid off because of import competition, but we need to put those layoffs in the context of the tremendous job churn in a dynamic market economy. Our eye is always on the net jobs gained and jobs lost, but underneath that number are millions of jobs that are created and destroyed every year. This is the “creative destruction” Joseph Schumpeter talked about.
The U.S. Labor Department has actually tried to calculate total jobs lost and total jobs created, and what they found is that in a typical year, there are something like 30 million jobs in the U.S. economy that are eliminated, half of them permanently. Fifteen million jobs every year just disappear, never to come back again. The other 15 million are seasonal type jobs that disappear and then pop up again.
How many jobs do you think are lost from trade every year? It’s about 400,000. Those are jobs lost because of imports from China and other places that displacing U.S. production, from outsourcing, that sort of thing. To put that number in context, the U.S. economy employs 140 million workers. Of those, about 325,000 people every week are lining up for unemployment insurance. There is a story behind every one of them. So of the 15 million jobs that disappear permanently each year, trade and outsourcing accounts for 2 percent–2 percent–of the total jobs displaced in the U.S. economy.
What eliminates the other 98 percent? Changing consumer tastes, new technology, domestic competition. Let’s put some flesh and blood on that fact. Kodak, the good old camera company, has laid off 25, 000 workers in the past two years. Because of outsourcing? Because of trade? No. Because of those nifty digital cameras that I bet just about everybody in this room owns. You contributed to putting a Kodak worker out of work with that digital camera. Would we seriously think of banning digital cameras to save those jobs? It would be ludicrous. And yet, that’s what we’re talking about when we consider restricting outsourcing or raising tariffs. When we talk about people who have lost their jobs from trade, we should talk about everybody who has lost their jobs for whatever reason. There is nothing unique about trade when it comes to jobs.
Free Trade and the World’s Poor
Another area of positive terrain for us that we shouldn’t give up is the poor and the world’s children. The highest trade barriers remaining in the United States are aimed at products that are disproportionately consumed by poor people at home and produced by poor people abroad. Our highest trade barriers are on farm products, on textiles and apparel and shoes. And not just all shoes. We have our highest trade barriers on low end shoes, the kind you would buy in a Pay Less Shoe Store. But not on the kind you would buy in a Gucci store.
A moderate Democratic think tank in Washington called the Progressive Policy Institute issued a study in 2004 that documented that U.S. tariffs are much higher on low-end goods than high-end goods. For example, the tariff on imported silk underwear into the United States is virtually zero, but the tariff on imported synthetic or low grade cotton is higher. So if you wear silk underwear, you get a low tariff. If you wear the regular kind of underwear like the rest of us, you pay a high tariff. This study calculated that a single mother with two children earning $20,000 a year pays an effective tariff on the goods she consumes that’s three times higher than what a single executive earning $100,000 a year would pay.
Our existing trade barriers are biased against the poor at home. A trade representative in Washington likes to say that our goal should “to make sure that every discount store in America is a duty free shop for working families.”
How about the world’s poor? Here’s a headline you probably didn’t see in your local newspaper:” Global Poverty Down by Half Since 1981.” The Share of the world’s population living on dollar a day or less has dropped from 40 percent then to 20 percent today, and that share is expected to continue to fall. And by the way, virtually all that progress has happened in poor countries that have progressively globalized. Places like Sub Saharan Africa, there is very little progress. In fact, the number of poor is rising in those places.
The World Bank could not find a single example of a poor country that had kept its markets closed and chased away foreign investment, and at the same time made progress against poverty. In other words, all the poor countries that followed our example, most of them have made progress against poverty. Those that follow the teachings of the anti globalization people have made no progress.
The evidence on trade and poverty became so overwhelming that Oxfam International issue a study in 2002 that, while critical of a lot of things in the global economy, came down firmly on the side of trade being a friend of the poor. And they pointed out that by getting rid of these rich-country trade barriers, we could deliver twice as much income to poor countries as all the aid we give them.
More trade, more democracy
Let me end up with a few thoughts about war and peace and democracy, another area where we’re on solid terrain and where this does resonate with people more than the consumer issues. And this is especially effective in the post 9/11 world. September 11th made my job of promoting immigration more difficult. It made the job of promoting trade liberalization a little bit easier.
Bob Zoellick, the former U.S. Trade Representative, was fast out of the block. He had an op-ed in the Post about a month after September 11th, saying this is one more reason to progressively pursue global trade, because trade promotes higher living standards, human rights, democracy, and more cooperation among nations. And he was on solid ground. That was not an opportunistic argument; it was a factual argument.
I think this especially works with older audiences, people who can remember, or at least their parents can remember, the Great Depression. We had the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act in 1930. It was a disaster by all measures. Let’s remind people of that. It’s a good history lesson. Granted, Smoot Hawley did not cause the Great Depression, but it certainly didn’t end it. It didn’t create jobs. It deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. It launched a downward global spiral in trade, by encouraging trade barriers abroad that exacerbated international tensions and helped lay the groundwork for World War II.
One of the many good decisions made during and after World War II was, in the United States, to turn away from protectionism towards freer trade. We launched the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We encouraged the Europeans to trade more with each other through the common market. And you have to say, that’s been a spectacular success in terms of promoting the peace in Western Europe. And this was a bipartisan policy supported by JFK, Eisenhower, and Truman.
The world today is more democratic and politically free because of trade and globalization. A 2004 Cato study documented that countries that are open to trade are more likely to be democracies and respect human rights. We can point to examples of South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Mexico, Ghana–all are countries that embarked on economic liberalization, which laid the groundwork for political liberalization.
Free trade begets a growing middle class, which often forms the backbone of political pluralism. Freedom House, a New York-based think tank, has documented that a higher share of the world’s people are living under democracies today, where they enjoy political and civil liberties, than at any time in human history. That’s another headline you probably didn’t see in the New York Times recently, but it’s true.
More peace on Earth
Finally, free trade has spread peace around the world. By encouraging democracy, democracies are less likely to fight wars with each other. In fact, they virtually never do. But also globalization has given governments one more reason not to go to war because, among its evils, it disrupts trade, which raises the cost of war. Trade doesn’t prevent war, but it gives leaders one more reason to stop and think before they go to war.
Here’s another headline I bet you didn’t see in one of the major papers. This was actually an Associated Press headline from April 2004: “War declining worldwide, studies say.” And sure enough, according to a Swedish think tank, the number of people who die in international wars annually is down to about 20,000, the lowest figure in the postwar era. That compares to the 700,000 people who died in 1951. According to the World Bank, civil wars are declining in those less developed regions that are globalizing. All this dies into the war on terrorism, of course. The Middle East is one of the least globalized regions in the world. Their share of global trade and investment has been declining significantly. Outside of oil, they offer virtually nothing to the rest of the world.
Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks, was not poor. He had a master’s degree can came from a well-to-do Egyptian family. He just didn’t have a future. He came from a stagnant country, socially, politically, and economically. We need to encourage, among other things, for countries in the Middle East to trade more with each other.
We do not help the situation with cotton subsidies in the United States. They deliver subsidies to 25,000 U.S. cotton farmers, with an average per capita wealth of $800,000. That drives down the global price of cotton. Where are the cotton producers in poor countries? Well, among them are Sub Saharan African countries like Mali. Mali is one of the few Muslim majority countries in the world that is free, that has a democracy, where people enjoy full civil and political liberties. How do we encourage that sort of political and economic reform in the Muslim world? We drive down the global price of their chief commodity export through our cotton program, extracting $250 million a year from that part of the world, where that is no small change.
Free trade makes us freer as individuals. It makes us better off as consumers. It makes us more productive as workers and producers, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world and spreading democracy, human rights and peace around the world. That is the story we must tell.
U2 performs Pride: In the name of Love, a song about Martin Luther King, at President-elect Barack Obama’s Inaugural concert on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Bono told the estimated 600,000 there that on Tuesday “that dream comes to pass.” Jan. 18, 2009
Politico reports here that a group of celebrities, including former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee, shouted a four-letter obscenity for cameras in a promotion to speak up against famine. Bleeps and labels to cover mouths obscure the actual word.
In the PSA, our celebrity supporters shout out one four letter word that the majority of viewers will find offensive, in order to shine a light on something only a minority seems to be offended by. I know the tone is a bit rough for ONE — that’s no accident. If it feels like a punch in the face, then good — mission accomplished. It’s time for a wakeup call and here’s the alarm. Love it? Great. Hate it? OK. Just don’t ignore it.
I’m not sure I believe Huck did precisely as described.
_____________
One of the key parts of the solution is economic freedom. It is not the bailout, welfare approach of President Obama who Bono supported in 2008. Here is the second part of an excellent article from the Cato Institute:
Ending Mass Poverty
by Ian Vásquez
September 2001
Ian Vásquez is director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Global Economic Liberty. This essay originally appeared on the U.S. Department of State’s electronic journal, Economic Perspectives (September 2001).
Economic growth is the “only path to end mass poverty,” says economist Ian Vásquez, who argues that redistribution or traditional poverty reduction programs have done little to relieve poverty. Vásquez writes that the higher the degree of economic freedom — which consists of personal choice, protection of private property, and freedom of exchange — the greater the reduction in poverty. Extending the system of property rights protection to include the property of poor people would be one of the most important poverty reduction strategies a nation could take, he says.
The historical record is clear: the single, most effective way to reduce world poverty is economic growth. Western countries began discovering this around 1820 when they broke with the historical norm of low growth and initiated an era of dramatic advances in material well-being. Living standards tripled in Europe and quadrupled in the United States in that century, improving at an even faster pace in the next 100 years. Economic growth thus eliminated mass poverty in what is today considered the developed world. Taking the long view, growth has also reduced poverty in other parts of the world: in 1820, about 75 percent of humanity lived on less than a dollar per day; today about 20 percent live under that amount.
Even a short-term view confirms that the recent acceleration of growth in many developing countries has reduced poverty, measured the same way. In the past 10 years, the percentage of poor people in the developing world fell from 29 to 24 percent. Despite that progress, however, the number of poor people has remained stubbornly high at around 1,200 million. And geographically, reductions in poverty have been uneven.
This mixed performance has prompted many observers to ask what factors other than growth reduce poverty and if growth is enough to accomplish that goal. Market reforms themselves have been questioned as a way of helping the poor. After all, many developing countries have liberalized their economies to varying degrees in the past decade.
But it would be a colossal mistake to lose focus on market-based growth and concentrate instead on redistribution or traditional poverty reduction programs that have done little by comparison to relieve poverty. Keeping the right focus is important for three reasons — there is, in fact, a strong relationship between growth and poverty reduction, economic freedom causes growth, and most developing countries can still do much more in the way of policies and institutional reforms to help the poor…
The Importance of Economic Freedom
The West’s escape from poverty did not occur by chance. Sustained growth over long periods of time took place in an environment that generally encouraged free enterprise and the protection of private property. Today, developing countries have an advantage. By adopting liberal economic policies, poor countries can achieve within one generation the kind of economic progress that it took rich countries 100 years to achieve. High growth is possible because poor countries will be catching up to rich countries, rather than forging a new path. Studies by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund confirm that countries such as China and others that have chosen to open their economies are indeed converging with the industrialized world.
The most comprehensive empirical study on the relationship between economic policies and prosperity is the Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World” annual report. It looks at more than 20 components of economic freedom, ranging from size of government to monetary and trade policy, in 123 countries over a 25-year period. The study finds a strong relationship between economic freedom and prosperity. Divided by quintiles, the freest economies have an average per capita income of $19,800 compared with $2,210 in the least free quintile. Freer economies also grow faster than less free economies. Per capita growth in the 1990s was 2.27 percent in the most free quintile, while it was -1.45 percent in the least free countries.
The Fraser study also found that economic freedom is strongly related to poverty reduction and other indicators of progress. The United Nations’ Human Poverty Index is negatively correlated with the Fraser index of economic freedom. People living in the top 20 percent of countries in terms of economic freedom, moreover, tend to live about two decades longer than people in the bottom 20 percent. Lower infant mortality, higher literacy rates, lower corruption, and greater access to safe drinking water are also associated with increases in economic liberty. Indeed, the United Nations’ Human Development Index, which measures various aspects of standards of living, correlates positively with greater economic freedom.
The implications for the poor are impressive. Economists Steve Hanke and Stephen Walters examined the leading empirical studies on the relationship between economic freedom and prosperity and concluded that a 10 percent increase in economic freedom tends to increase per capita gross national product by 7.4 to 13.6 percent. Since developing countries can still increase their levels of economic freedom substantially, and some have by 100 percent or more in the past two decades, the payoff of enhanced liberty can be seen not only in terms of growth but also in terms of a range of human development indicators. Hanke and Walters found, for example, that an increase in per capita income from $500 to $1,000 produces a rise in life expectancy of about 6 percent. Indeed, high growth creates the wealth that makes it possible for countries to invest in health, education, and other human needs that are an essential part of continued growth. Nor are those benefits shared unequally. The Fraser study found that there is no correlation between economic freedom and inequality, while a World Bank study has found that the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of the population rise proportionately with the average rise in income.
Toward More Effective Poverty Reduction
Although the collapse of central planning forced many countries to abandon inward-looking economic policies in the 1990s, most of the developing world is still far from adopting a coherent set of policies consistent with economic freedom. Russia may have dumped communism, but in terms of economic freedom the Fraser Institute ranks the country 117 out of 123 nations. Even countries such as Argentina and Mexico that have done much to liberalize their economies have clung to policy remnants of the past, with devastating consequences for the poor. Mexico’s peso crisis of 1994-95, for example, resulted from monetary and fiscal policies during an election year that were thoroughly inconsistent with market economics.
Attention to market-oriented macroeconomic policies is well founded, particularly since they benefit the poor. That is especially so of two such policies — reducing inflation and the level of spending — which disproportionately favor the poor. Much less attention, however, has been paid to institutional reforms and the microeconomic environment. Three areas stand out: the rule of law, the level of bureaucratic regulation, and the private property rights of the poor.
A legal system capable of enforcing contracts and protecting persons and their property rights in an evenhanded manner is central to both economic freedom and progress. Indeed, the sustainability of a market economy — and of market reforms themselves — rests largely on the application of the rule of law. Yet the rule of law is conspicuously missing in much of the developing world. The 2001 “Economic Freedom of the World” report, which includes a more comprehensive index of economic freedom for 58 countries, takes this measure into account. It finds that Latin American countries rank especially low in this area. Also at the bottom of the list are transition countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Were reliable data available for African countries, they would no doubt receive low ratings as well.
The absence of the rule of law is especially unfortunate for the poor, not only because they have fewer private resources to protect their rights, but also because the rule of law in itself is related to economic growth. Robert Barro created an index that measured the rule of law on a scale of 0 to 6 and found that a country’s growth rate increases by half a percentage point with each increment in his index. Because the rule of law provides essential protections for the poor, sustains a market exchange system, and promotes growth, it may well be the most important ingredient of economic prosperity.
Another much neglected area in need of reform is regulation. Here again the Fraser Institute’s comprehensive index found that the freedom to operate a business and compete in the market is circumscribed in much of the developing world. The same countries that ranked low in the rule of law area ranked low in this area. To have an idea of the bureaucratic burden with which people in the developing world must contend, consider the cases of Canada, Bolivia, and Hungary. According to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, it takes two days, two bureaucratic procedures, and $280 to open a business in Canada. By contrast, an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the same. In Hungary the same operation takes 53 business days, 10 procedures, and $3,647. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created, and push a large proportion of the developing world’s population into the informal economy.
The informal economy in the developing world is large due to another major factor. The private property rights of the poor are not legally recognized. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has documented how poor people around the world have no security in their assets because they lack legal title to their property. In rural Peru, for example, 70 percent of poor people’s property is not recognized by the state. The lack of such legal protection severely limits the wealth-creating potential that the poor would otherwise have were they allowed to participate within the legal framework of the market. Without secure private property rights, the poor cannot use collateral to get a loan, cannot take out insurance, and find it difficult to plan in the long term.
Ending what amounts to legal discrimination would permit poor people to benefit fully from the market system and allow the poor to use their considerable assets to create wealth. Indeed, as de Soto has shown, the poor are already asset rich. According to him, the assets of the poor are worth 40 times the value of all foreign aid since 1945. The wealth of Haiti’s poor, for example, is more than 150 times greater than all foreign investment in that country since its independence in 1804. In the limited places that poor people’s property has been registered, the results have been impressive. Where registration was done in Peru, new businesses were created, production increased, asset values rose 200 percent, and credit became available.
Extending the system of property rights protection to include the property of poor people is the most important social reform that developing countries can undertake. It is a reform that has been almost completely ignored around the world, yet it would directly affect the poor and produce dramatic results for literally thousands of millions of people.
Keeping the Right Focus
Countries have ended mass poverty only by following policies that encourage economic growth. But that growth must be self-sustaining to translate into enduring increases in wealth. Policies of forced industrialization or state-led development may produce high growth for a time, but history has shown that such episodes are followed by economic contraction. Economic freedom, by contrast, shows a strong relationship with prosperity and growth over time. Fortunately, many developing countries are following that path, producing high and rapid growth and showing that it is good for the poor. Their experience may create a demonstration effect for the majority of nations that are in many ways still economically unfree.
All developing nations can do more to increase growth. Establishing the rule of law, reducing barriers that hamper entrepreneurship and competition, and recognizing the property rights of the poor are three reforms that go beyond the liberalization measures that many countries have already introduced. Those reforms not only contribute to economic growth; they increase the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. Policy-makers in rich and poor countries alike should not lose focus on the promise of growth. It remains the only path to end mass poverty.
U2 performs Pride: In the name of Love, a song about Martin Luther King, at President-elect Barack Obama’s Inaugural concert on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Bono told the estimated 600,000 there that on Tuesday “that dream comes to pass.” Jan. 18, 2009
On Saturday’s Huckabee Show (July 16, 2011) Mike Huckabee opened up the show with the following statement:
The Republicans ought to put forth their plan and advance it as far as it will go and then make clear where they stand. If they can’t get the “Cut, Cap and Balance” through the Senate and the White House, then at least they have made their stand. Then it is going to be up the the President and the Democrats to put a real plan on the table. Let them propose it and support and send it to the House.The House ought to pass it, not because they like it, but to give the Democrats full ownership of their plan.The government will then operate and we will not lose our credit rating, but then the constrast is set between two very clear directions for the next eletions. Spend and tax more or “Cut, Cap and Balance”. As a Republican I would glad to run on that platform instead of spend and tax anyday. What do you think? Well you can let me know at MikeHuckabee.com
I did take Mike Huckabee’s suggestion and email my thoughts on his statement. Below is the email.
Dear Governor Huckabee,
I have supported you since 1992 when you ran for Senator in Arkansas against Dale Bumpers. My close friends and relatives of mine have been on the street campaigning for you even to following you to Iowa in 2008 and going door to door for you.
Since 2008 we have been tuning in to see your show every week and have been telling our friends about that. I have especially enjoyed the first part of every program where you give your take on the current political talk of the day. Occasionally I do disagree with you on some things and today I find it is one of those days.
The problem with your suggestion that Republicans vote for the Democrat plan in the House is what I would consider an “epic cave in.” There are two reasons this would not be a good course of action.
First, Republican primary voters will hold Republicans accountable for voting to hand over our future to the Democrats. How can a Democrat or a Republican turn their back on their core beliefs just to allow the other side the opportunity to mess up?
Second, if Republicans hold firm then the Democrats will come to deal concerning serious budget cuts. I do admit that they may instead try McConnell’s alternative where President Obama becomes basically a dictator. If that does occur then it will truly become the election issue that you talk about. That is much different than caving into what they want by voting for it. Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute had an excellent article along these lines.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has offered the president a way to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion without having to cut spending. The WaPo reports that “McConnell’s strategy makes no provision for spending cuts to be enacted.”
House Republicans should obviously reject McConnell’s surrender, and they should do what they should have done months ago. They should put together a package of $2 trillion in real spending cuts taken straight from the Obama fiscal commission report and pass it through the House tied to a debt-limit increase of $2 trillion. Then they shouldn’t budge unless the White House and/or the Senate produce their own $2 trillion packages of real spending cuts, which could be the basis of negotiating a final spending-cut deal.
For those who say that House tea party members won’t vote for a debt increase, I’d say that $2 trillion in spending cuts looks a lot better than the alternative of having Democrats and liberal Republicans doing an end-run around them with McConnell’s no-cut plan.
For those who say that House members are scared of voting for specific spending cuts, I’d say that they’ve already done it by passing the Paul Ryan budget plan. I’d also say that you can’t claim to be the party of spending cuts without voting for spending cuts.
Obama’s Fiscal Commission handed Republicans ready-made spending cuts on a silver platter—Republicans will never get better political cover for insisting on spending cuts than now.
If you start ranking the great governors of Arkansas, you talk about Win Rockefeller on seminal reform and on brave advancements in race relations. You talk about Dale Bumpers on raising income taxes and reorganizing government and advancing free textbooks and child immunizations and two-year community colleges.
Mike Huckabee recently moved to Florida? Why? The answer is easy. Huckabee wants to avoid Arkansas’ high state income tax. Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times wants to call Huckabee a tax fugitive, but who can blame him.
Liberals like Brantley and Ernie Dumas want to praise former Arkansas governor Dale Bumpers for raising the state income tax to 7%, but that is the reason our state has the highest state income tax in the area (all bordering states have either lower state income taxes or no state income tax).
Is it any surprise that during the last census that the seven states that do not have an income tax grew in population?Arkansas has suffered from bracket creep and in 1929 you had to make 5 times the average wage to pay any state income tax at all, but now over 66% of tax payers in Arkansas pay at least some of their income at the 7% level.
Until Gov. Dale Bumpers raised income-tax rates and other taxes in 1971, Arkansas had by far the lowest per-capita state and local taxes in the United States. Afterward, we were still 50th but within shouting distance of 49th.
(June 2006) Democratic Gov. Dale Bumpers and the General Assembly raised Arkansas’ top income tax rate to “broaden the tax base” in 1971(1). Yet Arkansas’ per capita income, expressed as a percentage of the U.S. total, has barely improved, moving from 71 (1971) to 77.7 percent (2005) over the 34-year period, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The 1971 income tax increase reversed a decades-long strong growth trend and left Arkansas with the highest income tax rate among bordering states (Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas).
Income Stagnation: The 1930s
One has to turn to the 1930s-the decade of the Great Depression-to find weaker income growth than in recent years.
Arkansas per capita personal income was 44 percent of the U.S. in 1929, the first year data was compiled in the BEA time series. The Great Depression started that year, and by the time it ended in 1933 Arkansas per capita income had fallen to 41 percent of the U.S. By decade’s end (1939) it had returned to 44 percent.
Growth Decades: The 1940s, 1950s & 1960s
Arkansas per capita income increased as a percentage of the U.S. in the next three decades.
In 1941, at the onset of World War II, Arkansas per capita income was 47 percent of the U.S. It was 59 percent at war’s end in 1945 and again in 1949. It was 56 percent in 1950, 62 percent a decade later in 1960, and 68 percent in 1969. If this growth rate had continued Arkansas would have exceeded 100 percent of the U.S. average in the current decade (2000-2009).
To summarize, Arkansas per capita income increased from 44 to 71 percent of the U.S. total between 1939 and 1971.
Anemic Income Growth (1971-2005)
The trend in recent decades is anemic growth in Arkansas per capita personal income. Fiscal policy changes affect economic behavior with a time lag. Arkansas per capita income was 71 percent of the U.S. in 1971 and 76 percent in 1973. Income growth stagnated for the rest of the decade, reaching 77 percent of the U.S. in 1979. It fell to 75 percent in 1989, and was 76 percent in 1999. Today, Arkansas per capita income, at 77.7 percent of the U.S., is barely above its high point of the 1970s.
Since its introduction in 1929, Arkansas‘ statutory incometax structure has changed very little. However, due to changes in the economy and in inflation, the real effects of that tax structure have changed substantially. This report looks at the effects that rising incomes and inflation have had on the Arkansasincometax structure. In addition, the report looks at the changing profile of Arkansas taxpayers in recent years, and provides a brief comparison ofArkansas taxes in relation to other states and the federal tax system.
Arkansas‘ IncomeTax Structure: Original and Revised
In 1929 Arkansas became 12th among the states to adopt an individual incometax. The structure contained five rates and net income brackets with a top rate of five percent applying to net income over $25,000. That original structure remained in place until 1971 when a new middle-income bracket was added and the rate on net income over $25,000 was increased to 7.0 percent. The rates and brackets revised in 1971 remain in place today. The 1929 original and the revised current tax structure are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Arkansas Individual IncomeTax Structure
1929 Original Net Income Rate first $3,000 1.0% next$3,001 to $6,000 2.0% next$6,001 to $11,000 3.0% next $11,001 to $25,000 4.0% over $25,000 5.0% 1971 Revision (Current) Net Income Rate first $2,999 1.0% next$3,000 to $5,999 2.5% next$6,000 to $8,999 3.5% next$9,000 to $14,999 4.5% next $15,000 to $24,999 6.0% over $25,000 7.0%
Source: Arkansas Legislative Tax Handbook, 1992, Bureau of Legislative Research.
In 1975, the earliest year for which records on income tax collections by income group is available, only the top 4.0 percent of Arkansas taxpayers would have had any of their income subjected to the top 7.0 percent rate. By 1991, around 66.0 percent of the state’s taxpayers would have had some of their income subjected to this top rate–a rate once reserved for only the highest income earners.
The 1929 tax structure provided for exemptions of $1,500 for a single person and $2,500 for married individuals. In 1947 the state raised the exemption to $2,500 for singles and $3,500 for married persons. In 1957 the personal exemption was converted to a credit of $17.50 for singles and $35.00 for married persons. In 1987 the credits were increased to $20 per person. Finally, in 1991, low income Arkansans were exempted from paying incometax if their gross income did not exceed $5,500 for an individual or $10,000 for a married couple. For most taxpayers, the $20.00 credit remains in effect today.
The Value of Exemptions as a Share of Per Capita Income
Table 2 shows how the value of the personal tax exemption or credit has diminished over time. The figures shown represent the personal exemption or credit for a single individual as a ratio of the per capita personal income in the year in which the credit was first enacted. In 1929, for instance, an individual would have been exempted from any tax until their income reached a level which was equal to 490 percent of the Arkansas per capita income for that year. In 1947 with the first statutory change in the exemption, that individual would have still been exempted up to an amount equal to 340 percent of the per capita income level. By 1957 the value of the exemption (which was changed to a tax credit that year) had declined substantially, falling to 130 percent of per capita income. At the time of the next change in the personal credit (1987), the value of that credit was only 17 percent of the per capitaincome level. For most taxpayers (all those not officially classified as low income) in 1992, the value of the personal credit was only 13 percent of per capita income.
Table 2 Personal Exemptions and Credits As a Percent of Per Capita Income
Arkansas Year of Value of Per Capita Enactment ExemptionIncome Ratio 1929 $1,500 $ 308 490% 19472,500 737 340% 19571,6001,247 130% 19872,000 11,980 17% 19922,000 15,439 13%
Source: Arkansas Legislative Tax Handbook, 1992, Bureau of Legislative Research; Per capita personal income data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, unpublished data, April, 1993.
In other words, whereas in the first year of enactment of the incometax, the personal exemption would have allowed an Arkansan to earn almost five times the average per capita income before paying any tax.
The following is written by Rev Sherwood Haisty Jr. of Santa Monica, California. Sherwood has pastored churches in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and California and currently he is the process of finishing up his Masters degree at the Masters Seminary. I personally do differ with Sherwood on some of his points concerning Mitt Romney, but I agree with some too. Judge for yourself what you think. This was written during the Presidential Primary in 2008 and Sherwood posted this on http://pastors4huckabeeblog.com
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7 Questions Christians Must Ask Before Voting For A Mormon
I would answer no for several reasons beginning with his flip, flop, flip again inconsistency and political expediency.
However others may disagree with me and trust Romney and look to his money and say he is our man and is our best candidate. I think Christians can size those things up in different ways. I am thankful that many, many, Evangelicals are waking up to the idea that Huckabee can win and the poll numbers have shown a mega-shift to Huckabee in recent weeks.
I believe Mitt is not the best candidate and he is no more electable than Huckabee anymore.
However, I do not think the above questions are the only questions for me as an Evangelical that I should be asking. If I am asking myself, would Romney be an okay President?, then I might support him but there are real concerns and some risk. You know, the flip, flop, flip, again stuff really does concern me.
But there are several other questions that I think Evangelicals should ask before supporting Romney for President or any other Mormon for that high office.
This is the final reason:
#7 Do I believe that voting for a Mormon who prays to a false god and a counterfeit Christ, would have any access through prayer to the true God, and do I think prayer matters?
I do not believe that a Mormon praying to his god for help or wisdom has any hope for an answer to his prayer. I do think answered prayer matters. To say that answered prayer doesn’t matter is another way of saying that God Himself doesn’t matter. That a President by his own wisdom can make decisions and not be in need of Divine help. This idea is unacceptable to me as well. It is true that we have had Presidents who were lost and did not have their prayers for wisdom and help answered either. This is not to fail to acknowledge that the true God could answer the people’s prayers for their President. But it seems if we can choose between someone who prays to the right God and someone who prays to a false god that cannot hear, we would be wise to choose someone who can pray to the true God and get wisdom and help in time of need. We also must remember that not everyone who claims to be a Christian really is even if they go to a Baptist Church. But if we can see fruit in someone’s life who is a respectable Christian with a biblical worldview, I would think that he would be a far better choice than anyone else who has no hope of God hearing their prayers unless they themselves repent and get saved first. So I again could not vote for a Mormon.
These are the questions that I ask myself. They are not the same set of questions that many are asking. It is a different matter than asking if I think Romney would make an okay President.
I think that the questions that I have set forth are very, very, important and should be considered by all Christians before voting for a Mormon for President.
Non-Christians and others who do not share my views regarding the values of souls, the reality of heaven and hell, and that do not agree that Mormonism is a false and deceptive cult, will likely dismiss my questions as irrelevant.
There will be those in our post-modern era who will attempt to address my remarks as bigoted and intolerant because they reject absolute truth.
There will be some Christians I feel who will wilt under the peer pressure of the politically correct culture and dismiss my questions as well.
I can testify that as a guest writer on other blogs, that people will call you a bigot and say mean things if you take a stand and actually have the gall to say that you can’t vote for a Mormon for President because of his religion. Our tolerant society is not so tolerant of people with religious convictions.
But for Evangelical Christians who live thoughtfully by their convictions, I address these questions to you for your consideration.
Would you answer the seven questions that I have raised with the same answers as I have? If so, I think we have reached agreement. If not, at least we can understand each other.
For me, I cannot in good conscience vote for a Mormon for President. The implications and ramifications are just too high spiritually. Out of conviction, as a loyal Republican who wouldn’t vote for Hillary for anything, I still would not vote for Mitt Romney if he won the nomination and were running against Hillary. I would vote independent, third-party, or not cast a vote. That is how strong I feel about not voting for a Mormon for President.
There are even more reason based in their theology and the belief of some Mormons that Mitt could be the beginning of fulfilled prophecy and that the kingdom will be ruled from Missouri. I have had one Mormon respond to a blog I wrote and said that Mitt will become President according these ideas and that I and nobody else could stop it.
I hope all this at least sheds some light on why I don’t believe that Christians should vote for a Mormon. For more information about what Mormons believe go to the blog page on this site and read the article…
Huckabee Apologizes To Mitt Romney For Mormon Question
At Des Moines University, 12/12/2007
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The following is written by Rev Sherwood Haisty Jr. of Santa Monica, California. Sherwood has pastored churches in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and California and currently he is the process of finishing up his Masters degree at the Masters Seminary. I personally do differ with Sherwood on some of his points concerning Mitt Romney, but I agree with some too. Judge for yourself what you think. This was written during the Presidential Primary in 2008 and Sherwood posted this on http://pastors4huckabeeblog.com
7 Questions Christians Must Ask Before Voting For A Mormon
However others may disagree with me and trust Romney and look to his money and say he is our man and is our best candidate. I think Christians can size those things up in different ways. I am thankful that many, many, Evangelicals are waking up to the idea that Huckabee can win and the poll numbers have shown a mega-shift to Huckabee in recent weeks.
I believe Mitt is not the best candidate and he is no more electable than Huckabee anymore.
However, I do not think the above questions are the only questions for me as an Evangelical that I should be asking. If I am asking myself, would Romney be an okay President?, then I might support him but there are real concerns and some risk. You know, the flip, flop, flip, again stuff really does concern me.
But there are several other questions that I think Evangelicals should ask before supporting Romney for President or any other Mormon for that high office.
They are these…
#4 Would the election of Mitt Romney as President be likely used by Mormons in America and worldwide as a point of reference to ascert that Mormonism is a respectable Christian denomination and would Mormon missionaries use a Romney Presidency to advance their own evangelistic attempts at redifining Mormonism and representing their religion in a good light?
Answer yes! Absolutely, my experience with Mormon missionaries leads me expect them to seek to continue the rouge that Mormonism is really Christian. They would most definitely point to Mitt Romney -especially if he were a popular President with a good family life- and would use Romney as a lifestyle witness for their faith. They could say, “You can have what the President has, here is a book of Mormon, etc.”
#5 Do I believe that the growth of Mormonism worldwide is harmful?
Answer yes! Very, it leads people into spiritual darkness with a counterfeit gospel.
#6 Do I value the souls of men and women boys and girls worldwide over my political concerns?
Answer yes! I love my country very much and am a pashionate conservative, but my countries welfare is only temporal matter. People being deceived and going to Hell is an eternal matter. I believe we should put eternal matters over temporal ones. I cannot in good conscience do anything that I believe would advance a false gospel that would lead others to hell. Therefore I cannot under any conditions vote for a Mormon for President because I believe it would have that undesirable effect.
Romney’s Faith & Politics Speech (Part 2)
his is part 2 of 3 of Governor Mitt Romney’s speech on his Mormon Faith and Politics at the George HW Bush Presidential Library in Texas
Mitt Romney will officially launch his presidential candidacy next week in New Hampshire.
The Washington Post says: “Romney, who is regarded as the race’s (Republican) frontrunner, will formally announce his presidential campaign next Thursday, June 2 in New Hampshire, his campaign confirmed (Thursday) night. … Romney’s announcement will take place at the Scamman’s Bittersweet Farm in Stratham.”
By choosing to announce in New Hampshire, Romney’s campaign is indicating its intent to specifically target the Granite State — a decidedly different tactic from how Romney proceeded during his 2008 campaign.
“That tells you a great deal about the different strategic approach Team Romney is applying to the current battle for the Republican presidential nomination as compared to four years ago,” PBS News Hour reported on Friday. “Iowa became paramount for Romney in 2008, and he was never able to recover from his loss to Mike Huckabee there. Romney now needs to calibrate just how much time and money to invest in Iowa while keeping the spotlight on New Hampshire, where he holds a significant lead in the polls, owns a home and is well-known from his years governing next door in Massachusetts.”
Columnist Chris Cillizza, writing for the Washington Post, also rehashed Romney’s 2008 strategy: “Three years ago, Romney tried to run the table of early-voting states — spending millions of dollars in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina only to lose all three and, with them, the nomination. … In the 2008 race, Romney tried to run as a native son in New Hampshire, but after being edged by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses, he was ambushed by Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Granite State — finishing second, six points off the lead.”
Despite his newfound New Hampshire focus, Romney will spend all day Friday campaigning in Iowa.
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The following is written by Rev Sherwood Haisty Jr. of Santa Monica, California. Sherwood has pastored churches in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and California and currently he is the process of finishing up his Masters degree at the Masters Seminary. I personally do differ with Sherwood on some of his points concerning Mitt Romney, but I agree with some too. Judge for yourself what you think. This was written during the Presidential Primary in 2008 and Sherwood posted this on http://pastors4huckabeeblog.com
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7 Questions Christians Must Ask Before Voting For A Mormon
However others may disagree with me and trust Romney and look to his money and say he is our man and is our best candidate. I think Christians can size those things up in different ways. I am thankful that many, many, Evangelicals are waking up to the idea that Huckabee can win and the poll numbers have shown a mega-shift to Huckabee in recent weeks.
I believe Mitt is not the best candidate and he is no more electable than Huckabee anymore.
However, I do not think the above questions are the only questions for me as an Evangelical that I should be asking. If I am asking myself, would Romney be an okay President?, then I might support him but there are real concerns and some risk. You know, the flip, flop, flip, again stuff really does concern me.
But there are several other questions that I think Evangelicals should ask before supporting Romney for President or any other Mormon for that high office.
They are these…
#1 Is Mormonism a false cult that deceives people and leads many to hell?
Answer yes!
#2 Is Mormonism evangelistic in that it seeks to grow by making converts to its faith?
Answer yes! It is aggressively evangelistic and successfully as one of the fastest growing cults in our time.
#3 Does Mormonism seek to confuse people by representing itself as a genuine Christian group.
Answer yes! They have spent tons of money on ad campaigns for this purpose. I have met many times with Mormon missionaries and their initial talking point is that “we are Christian too”. I have heard at least once or twice Mitt Romney himself represent Mormonism in interviews as a Christian group.
Mormonism has a major agenda to deceive people by describing itself as a Christian denomination. They intentionally make less of their differences. For example, I will take a quote from the news this week regarding something that you have no doubt heard about. This is a response to a question Gov. Huckabee had asked if Mormonism teaches that Jesus and the Devil are brothers. Here is the response by the LDS spokeswoman that has run in almost every article I have read about the controversy over Huckabee’s question.
The two parts that I have underlined represent false teachings of Mormonism that are put in here as if all “other Christians and Paul” believe and taught these too. The phrase, “only begotten in the flesh” sounds fine but Mormonism has a completely different take on it than Christians. They actually teach that Elohim came down and had sex with Mary and that is why Jesus is the ”only begotten”. See my blog page at Pastors4Huckabeeblog.com to read more or find documentation for this.
The Daily Hatch 