Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America (42 page)

But that’s not the deal. It never was the deal. “The people,” said Jefferson, “are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” He’s talking to you. You want it fixed? So fix it.

It won’t be easy, and it won’t always be fun. Senior management has circled the wagons. The board of directors has kicked you out of the company headquarters even though your investment helped build the building. The CEO refuses to even consider our shareholders resolution, a commonsense proposal that says government ought to clean up its books, eliminate money-sucking lines of business, and modernize lines of production for its core competencies. They need to get back to a business model—explicitly narrow in scope—that made the American enterprise great in the first place. But they won’t. They need to listen to their customers again. But they are certain that we are all wrong. They need to let the customer choose. But they’ve brought on the very best management consultants, and they say they already know what you want, what you need.

They still don’t think you matter, because they know that all those unanswered questions from the last annual meeting will fade with your interest in them. Sure, you elected new board members in a heroically successful challenge to the chairman, but the people’s seat at the table is a minority position. You could do it again, they know, but they are betting their privileged positions that you won’t.

However, if you don’t lose interest, if you continue to show up, if you push the matter, things will most certainly get hostile. They will call you names. Nasty names. They will respond to your request for equal treatment with a tax audit from the city of Richmond.

But you are not alone. Like the pamphleteers of the Spirit of ’76, a community of bloggers is there with you to get the story first and turn an infinite sea of facts into the knowledge required of citizens to hold their government accountable. You can connect almost instantly will millions more through a multitude of social media outlets. You can join together, based on a common set of values, toward a mutually agreed-upon purpose.

So, what are you going to do to take our country back?

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
RUE TO THE BOTTOM-UP, SPONTANEOUS NATURE OF THE GRASSROOTS
community known as the Tea Party, this book would have never been possible without the unplanned participation of millions of known and unknown partners across the nation. Our joint efforts are an historic venture in shareholder accountability; together, we are putting timeless principles into practice. Hopefully my work is a true reflection of, and a constructive contribution to, the work of the community.

Terry, my awesome wife of 25 years, served as an essential source of new ideas, and as a listener and a critic. She also let me work through the Christmas holiday to meet overly ambitious deadlines without sacrificing the demands of my day job. She’s my Honey Badger; more honey than badger.

Peter Hubbard, Senior Editor at HarperCollins, has been a great business partner, advocate, bullet-catcher and risk-taker on behalf of this project.

There are a number of colleagues at FreedomWorks whose hard work also made this book a reality. Adam Brandon, Agitator-in-Chief, got this project off the ground as he always does, by committing to the impossible. Dean Clancy, Wayne Brough, Julie Borowski, Laura Howd, Josh Withrow, and Ryan Hecker all contributed substantial research and thinking on the “policy” chapters, often putting in late hours to make good, better. Patrick Hedger, Michael Duncan and Max Pappas provided detailed copy edits to the final draft.

Since 2003, I have been the lucky beneficiary of the wisdom and mentoring of my colleague Dick Armey, a real life hero who has consistently put his principles and his commitments first, even when doing so was costly. There are few people who have accomplished what he has in Washington, D.C. for whom I can say the same. Similarly brave support has come from my Board of Directors, who have stood with the staff of FreedomWorks through thick and thin.

I have also benefited from the reactions, the insights and the fearlessness of Glenn Beck. He is inspiring. The same can be said of Judge Andrew Napolitano and Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

Chapter Thirteen and Fourteen would not have been possible without an open bar stool at Russian River Brewing Company and the insight-inducing nature of their best brew, Pliny the Elder. Other chapters drew unsanctioned inspiration from Bob Dylan, Ludwig von Mises, John Coltrane, F.A. Hayek, Jerry Garcia, Ayn Rand,
The King of Limbs
, and Roark the cat.

The crazy exaggerations, unhealthy obsession with Austrian economics, obtuse Big Lebowski references, and any and all errors are my responsibility alone.

N
OTES

Prologue: The Hostile Takeover

  1.
Walter Isaacson,
Steve Jobs
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), pp. 568–69.

  2.
Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, “A Tea Party Manifesto,”
Wall Street Journal,
Aug. 17, 2010.

Chapter 1: The Central Problem

  1.
United States Senate website, “The Kennedy Caucus Room.” Accessed Dec. 18, 2011. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Caucus_Room.htm#3.

  2.
FreedomWorksAction, “Senator Schumer Shuts Down Tea Party Debt Commission.” Last modified Nov. 18, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKCnz_RgIOE.

  3.
MichelleMalkin, “Who’s Afraid of a Tea Party Panel?, Part II: What the Fishwrap of Record Didn’t Tell You,” MichelleMalkin.com Nov. 18, 2011. http://michellemalkin.com/2011/11/18/whos-afraid-of-a-tea-party-panel-part-ii-what-the-fishwrap-of-record-didnt-tell-you/.

  4.
Global Security.org, “Forum on National Security Implications of Disclosing the Identity of a Covert Intelligence Officer—Committee Hearing,” July 22, 2005, CQ Transcriptions. http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2007_hr/070316-transcript.pdf.

  5.
“A Tea Party ‘Hearing’ in the Senate That Wasn’t,” The Caucus Blog, Nov. 17, 2011, first posted at 4:09 p.m. and “corrected” at 5:12 p.m. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/a-tea-party-hearing-is-blocked-in-the-senate/.

  6.
U.S. Capitol Police, e-mail to reporters, Nov. 17, 2011, as shared with the author by the
New York Times
.

  7.
Lynden Armstrong, e-mail to Spencer Stokes, Nov. 17, 2011, 1:03 p.m., quoted in Ben Howe, “Was the Tea Party Kicked Out of the Capitol By Former Bennett Staffers Mad at Mike Lee?”

  8.
Spencer Stokes, e-mail to Lynden Armstrong, Nov. 17, 2011, 1:05 p.m., quoted in ibid.

  9.
Ryan McCoy, e-mail to Lynden Armstrong, Nov. 17, 2011, 1:10 p.m., quoted in ibid.

10.
Lynden Armstrong, e-mail to Spencer Stokes, Nov. 17, 2011, 1:11 p.m., quoted in ibid.

11.
U.S. Capitol Police Command Center, e-mail to all Senate staff, Nov. 17, 2011, 1:31 p.m., quoted in ibid.

12.
Ibid.

13.
Jeff Zeleny, “Thousands Rally in Capital to Protest Big Government,”
New York Times
, Sep. 12, 2009.

14.
WINK News, “Cape ‘Tea Party’ Cancelled; City Fears Too Many Attendees,” Mar. 3, 2009.

15.
Meghan Barr and Ryan J. Foley, “Occupy Protests Cost Nation’s Cities at Least $13M,” Associated Press, Nov. 13, 2011.

16.
Perry Chiaramonte, “Tea Party Alleges Double Standard by Occupy-Friendly Mayor in Virginia,” FoxNews.com, Nov. 28, 2011. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/28/richmond-tea-party-claims-to-be-treated-unfairly-by-occupy-friendly-mayor/.

17.
Patrik Jonsson, “Tea Party Activists Audited by City. Would That Happen to Occupy Protesters?”
Christian Science Monitor,
Nov. 29, 2011.

18.
Annie Gowan, “As Occupy D.C. Movement Grows, So Does Tension,”
Washington Post,
Dec. 17, 2010.

19.
Darrell Issa, “Oversight Chairman Issa Asks Interior Secretary Salazar to Explain Illegal Camping in McPherson Square and Justify Destruction of Stimulus-Funded Upgrades” (U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform press release, Dec. 12, 2010).

20.
Paul Courson, “Occupy DC Demonstrators Bolstered by Migrating NYC Occupiers,” CNN.com, Jan. 2, 2012. http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-02/us/us_occupy-migration_1_protest-camps-tent-city-demonstrators?_s=PM:US.

21.
Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi, “Un-American Attacks Can’t Derail Health Care Debate,”
USA Today,
Aug. 10, 2009.

22.
Jacqueline Klingebiel, “Pelosi and the Tea Party ‘Share Views’,” ABC News, Feb. 28, 2010.

23.
Bryan Fung, “Pelosi Gets Behind Occupy Wall Street,”
TalkingPointsMemo.com
, Oct. 6, 2011. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/pelosi-gets-behind-occupy-wall-street.php.

24.
Kevin Bogardus, “Pelosi’s Wealth Grows by 62 percent,”
The Hill, On the Money blog
, June 15, 2011. http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/166599-pelosis-net-worth-rises-62-percent.

25.
John Wildermuth, “Pelosi’s Husband Prefers a Low Profile,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, Jan. 1, 2007.

26.
Carolyn C. Webber, “Development of Ideas About Balanced Budgets,” Appendix D in Aaron Wildavsky,
How to Limit Government Spending
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 172.

27.
“Time Series Chart of U.S. Government Spending.” Accessed Dec. 20, 2011. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1902_2015USp_F0xF0fF0sF0l.

28.
Ibid.

29.
Author’s calculation, based on data from
usgovernmentspending.com
.

30.
“Time Series Chart of Government Revenue,” USgovernmentspending.com.

31.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presentation at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, Detroit, Mich., Aug. 26, 2010. Accessed Dec. 20, 2011. http://www.econclub.org/Multimedia/Transcripts/Admiral%20Mullen%20Speech%20082610.pdf.

32.
“Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.” Accessed Dec. 7, 2011. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.

33.
“US National Debt and Deficit History,” chart 2,
usgovernmentspending.com
. Accessed Dec. 18, 2011. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_2016USp_13s1li011mcn_H0f.

34.
Ibid. For the amount of the Confederate portion of the Civil War debt, I have assumed it was comparable to or less than that of the USA, since the unrecognized Confederacy had trouble finding foreign buyers for its debt.

35.
Author’s calculations, based on data from “US National Debt and Deficit History,” chart 2, cited above.

36.
Joint Economic Committee, Republican staff, “What Is the Tipping Point?” Chart comparing debt at time of crisis or bailout, for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and USA. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://jec.senate.gov/republicans//files/22/79/91/f227991/public/?File_id=b35ec023-c803-4bc0-8540-d2cbe0868794&a=Files.Serve&typ.%20.%20.

37.
Alex Klein, “Fitch Threatens to Downgrade U.S. Credit Rating,”
NYmag.com
. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/fitch-threatens-to-downgrade-us-credit-rating.html; “Moody’s warns the US it could be downgraded again before 2013,”
Buenos Aires Herald,
Edition No. 3267, Aug. 8, 2011. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://buenosairesherald.com/article/75365/moodys-warns-the-us-it-could-be-downgraded-again-before-2013.

38.
Congressional Budget Office, “The Long-Term Budget Outlook,” alternative fiscal scenario, table 1-2, p. 6. http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10297/06-25-LTBO.pdf.

39.
Joint Economic Committee, Republican staff, “2015: Downgrade Day (Avoiding Europe’s Fate),” May 28, 2010. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://www.jec.senate.gov/republicans//files/22/79/91/f227991/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=3472468a-4acc-4db0-9bc9-3bfbde139ea5.

40.
“U.S. Federal Budget Analyst, Interest Analysis,”
usgovernmentspending.com
. Accessed Dec. 21, 2011. http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_budget_interest.

41.
Congressional Research Service, “The Congressional Budget Timetable,” updated Mar. 20, 2008, Order Code 98-472 GOV. Accessed Dec. 18, 2011. http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-472.pdf.

42.
2 U.S.C. 632, subsection (a), Annual Adoption of Concurrent Resolution on the Budget (emphasis added). Accessed Dec. 18, 2011. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sec_02_00000632–-000-.html.

43.
Author’s calculation of ten-year deficit effect of Obama FY 2012 budget, based on CBO, An Analysis of the President’s Budgetary Proposals for Fiscal Year 2012 (Apr. 2011), and CBO, Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update (Aug. 2011), summary tables 1, 2; tables 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8.

44.
Statement from Co-Chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Nov. 21, 2011. Accessed Dec. 18, 2011, emphasis added. http://www.cspan.org/uploadedFiles/Content/Special/Deficit_Committee/Reaction_to_SuperCommittee.pdf.

Chapter 2: What Czars Don’t Know

  1.
Adam Smith,
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
1776, IV.2.4-IV.2.9.

  2.
Don Lavoie,
Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 78–116.

  3.
Ludwig von Mises,
Socialism
(Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981 (1922)), p. 101.

  4.
Ludwig von Mises,
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,
reprinted in F.A. Hayek (ed.),
Collectivist Economic Planning
(London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1935).

  5.
Ibid.

  6.
President Obama, speech at the headquarters of Solyndra Inc., Fremont, California, May 26, 2010. Accessed Jan. 11, 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-economy-0.

  7.
Sean Higgins, “Van Jones, Other Liberals Defend Green Jobs Programs, Shift Focus From Jobs,” Capital Hill Blog,
Investor’s Business Daily
, Oct. 4, 2011, emphasis added. http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/3816-van-jones-liberals-green-jobs-solyndra-obama.

  8.
President Obama, remarks at Quincy, Ill., Apr. 28, 2010. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/presdocs/2010/DCPD-201000312.pdf.

  9.
Richard Reeves, “The Sayings of Chairman Barney,”
Real Clear Politics
, Dec. 2, 2011. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/12/02/the_sayings_of_chairman_barney_112253.html.

10.
“The Fannie Mae Dice Roll Continues,” Review & Outlook,
Wall Street Journal
, Nov. 11, 2009.

11.
Barney Frank, Fox News interview, July 14, 2008. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432173,00.html.

12.
President Bush, speech, Phoenix, Ariz., Mar. 26, 2004.

13.
Joseph Rago and Paul A. Gigot, “On Taxes, ‘Modeling,’ and the Vision Thing,”
Wall Street Journal
, Dec. 24, 2011.

14.
Ibid.

15.
Ibid.

16.
William Schambra, “Obama and the Policy Approach,”
National Affairs,
Fall 2009. http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/obama-and-the-policy-approach.

17.
Ibid.

18.
Peter J. Boettke, “Economics for Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,”
Journal of Private Enterprise,
Spring 2011.

19.
Glenn Beck on his Fox News Channel program, June 8, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,594265,00.html#ixzz1ibeDeFyS.

20.
“With Assist from Glenn Beck, University of Chicago Press Book Tops Amazon Rankings,”
Publishers Weekly,
June 10, 2010.

21.
Steven Rattner, “The 2012 Rivals Can Be Named: Hayek vs. Keynes,”
Financial Times
, Sept. 12, 2011.

22.
John Maynard Keynes,
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,
Book 3, chapter 10, part 6, p. 116.

23.
Exchange on “Global Public Square,” CNN, Aug. 12, 2011. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/12/gps-this-sunday-krugman-calls-for-space-aliens-to-fix-u-s-economy/.

24.
F. A. Hayek, Bruce Caldwell, ed.,
The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 9: Contra Keynes and Cambridge: Correspondence, Essays
(University of Chicago Press, 1995), 1996. p. 243.

25.
P.J. O’Rourke,
Parliament of Whores,
1991, p. xxiv.

26.
F. A. Hayek, Bruce Caldwell, ed.,
The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 9: Contra Keynes and Cambridge: Correspondence, Essays
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 249.