CPAC 2010: Day 2 (part one)

I got off to a little bit of a late start on CPAC day two.  I had assumed that the conference would start at the same time every day.  I was wrong.  While Thursday began at 9:45, Friday and Saturday started at 8:30.  I don’t really understand those starting times, but I suppose they had to fit all the speakers in somehow.

Luckily, all I missed was Herman Cain, a radio personality out of Georgia that I got to hear at the Young America’s Foundation Student Conference in the Summer.  He has the voice of a southern black preacher and he uses that style to his full abilities.  He gives a pretty good speech, but it is more energy than substance, at least in my experience.

Rep. Eric Cantor – Virginia

During a panel discussion on the economy, the big point of emphasis for Rep. Eric Cantor was the healthcare bill.  He shared some of his ideas on the subject, which highlighted the difference between Democratic and Republican plans.  (Yes, Republicans have their own ideas despite the Democratic talking points…)

• Open up choices to people in healthcare
• Open up state lines
• Reduce frivolous lawsuits

Perhaps the most interesting point of his conversation, though, was his solution for the pre-existing conditions problem.  He suggested that states take a path where they form high risk pools from which insurance companies can draw money when they insure someone with pre-existing conditions.

It’s certainly one option and it beats simply paying for everything with tax dollars, but I still don’t like it.  As it is, premiums for everybody would still go up to pay for it, they would just go up through increased taxes or debt.

Ken Cuccinelli – Virginia

The newly-elected Attorney General spoke briefly about the EPA and how it was usurping unintended power through the miscellaneous clause in the Clean Air Act.  This, he said, could easily be amended and in fact has already seen a resolution presented in the Senate to do just that by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Cuccinelli also suggested that people would be well served to also put pressure on Attorneys General in their states to challenge the EPA endangerment finding and put a halt to its enforcement in their own states.

In case you are lost, the EPA in its “Endangerment Finding” ruled that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.  The regulations in place would have put literally a million small businesses under new regulation and the EPA didn’t have the finances or the manpower to do it.  They knew they couldn’t, so they came out with yet another finding, the “Tailoring Rule,” which tailored the application of the Clean Air Act to apply to different levels of greenhouse gases.  The problems with this are many and it has actually been the focus of much of my work at the Natural Resources Task Force at ALEC.  The “Tailoring Rule,” as it turns out, does not go into effect in states which operate their own PSD and Title V regulatory agencies which is true of around 40 states.  This means that these states have to pass separate legislation raising the standards in their own states or they will be forced to take on the burden of enforcing the crippling regulations set forth prior to the “Tailoring Rule.”  Add to all of this the fact that EPA administrators have hinted that they could implement their own market system like Cap-and-Trade without any new legislation from Congress, supposedly operating under the parameters of the Clean Air Act, and the executive branch all of a sudden, under President Obama, has complete control over this nation’s policy regarding Greenhouse Gases.

This is the loophole that Cuccinelli suggested could be closed up with one simple amendment to the Clean Air Act, removing the miscellaneous clause.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty – Minnesota

Pawlenty got off to a very light-hearted start, picking on his home state of Minnesota as an historically liberal bastion of spending and taxes.  He used this to set up the accomplishments of his own fiscally conservative agenda.

I felt his comedy may have stretched the limits a little, though, when he brought up Tiger Woods.  He said that people could take a lesson from Tiger’s wife.  Drawing a parallel to the incident that of course made headlines across the globe, he said that the people had enough of spending and that it was time for us to take a 9 iron to big government.

He made a point to say that we should be wary of all Republicans though and hold them accountable.  “This time,” he said, “we need to do what we say we’re gonna do.”

He mentioned that he had formed a PAC called the Freedom First PAC.  He clarified that the name was created purposefully to reflect his priorities.  Freedom, he believes, should be the first priority of governments.

He mentioned 4 ideas that are the focal points of what he believes:

1. God’s in charge – we are endowed by our Creator, not governments.
2. We can’t spend more than we have.
• Federal government currently has an annual revenue of around $2.2 trillion
• Federal government currently has total unfunded liabilities of around $65 trillion.
• This crippling debt forces us to submit to places like China but he said that we are “not a beggar nation.”
3. People spend money differently when it’s their money.
4. Bullies prey on weakness, not strength.
1. “No more apology tours, no more giving Miranda rights to terrorists in our country.”

Overall, it was a very strong speech and certainly kept his momentum going for 2012.

Rep. Steve King – Iowa

King chose to spend much of his time highlighting the faults within President Obama, or as he said, the “Master Mesmerizer’s” agenda.

“President Obama,” he said, “has lost his mojo.” Touting a line that seems to have caught on among some Republican circles recently though I don’t know that I like it very much, he said that we are a “constitutional republic, not a democracy.”

He noted that, in the first year of President Obama’s Presidency, approximately one third of the private sector has already been nationalized.  He said that a quick glance at the Democratic Socialists of America playbook.  If you don’t believe him, check out this from the DSA’s web site.  It actually sounds mainstream compared to some of the ideas floated out by Democrats today.

He then went on to suggest what he believed would be the right way to go about solving healthcare.  He called on Democrats to abandon their monstrocities known as comprehensive healthcare reform and instead go with stand alone legislation and let the merits of each individual proposal be decided on its own.

He also said that, if they are serious about reducing the cost of healthcare, then they have to start with lawsuit abuse reform.

While certainly a significant portion of King’s speech was the same ole rhetoric, there was certainly some meat to the bones. 

Mike Williams – Texas

Introduced as the next Senator from the state of Texas, Mike Williams kind of sticks out.  You just don’t see royal blue bow-ties very often.

A railroad commissioner, he talked about how he got his start in politics with George W. Bush who was his first campaign manager.  Interestingly enough, he lost that race.

He noted, “As government grows, freedom contracts.” This is why he made it his mission to make government operate more efficiently and to scale back its size.  While he has been railroad commissioner, which he said had absolutely nothing to do with railroads and everything to do with oil, the number of employees at the railroad commission in Texas has dropped from 950 to 750.

Particularly interesting was his ability to put his money where his mouth was.  Even though the salary of railroad commissioners had been increased while he was in office, he has refused to take any of the pay raise.  He said, “It’s easier to cut spending when your hand isn’t in the cookie jar.”

He then went into his area of expertise which, obviously, is environmental policy.  He talked about Climategate and how Democrats like to talk about pre-emptive war, but it was they who seem to engage in the “policy of pre-emptive warming.” He noted that his state of Texas was suing the EPA in a challenge of the “Endangerment Finding” previously discussed.

He made sure to clarify that he does believe that we should promote a healthy environment, but that he felt it was possible to have a healthy economy at the same time.

Noting that energy is the lifeblood of the country, he laid out 4 basic steps to a sound energy policy:

1. Go and drill for American energy wherever it is (got a large standing ovation for that one).
2. Bring the nukes back.
• He noted that 75% of France’s energy supplies are nuclear-fired.
3. Mimic what the state of Texas has done, issuing a tax credit for oil companies that will capture their own CO2 emissions and use them to push oil up out of the Earth.  Apparently this is a new innovation that has had significant success.
4. Foster wind energy.
• He said that we are getting incredibly close to building the storage capacity to hold the energy created from wind turbines so that we can preserve it for when we need it.  Wind, it seems, doesn’t like to blow when we need energy the most.

Rep. Mike Pence – Indiana

One of the most impressive speeches of the entire conference, in my opinion, belonged to Pence.  Although I can’t help but think of George W. Bush every time he laughs, moves his hands, or bobs his head, he is a very eloquent speaker.

He began by quoting Thomas Jefferson. “The people,” he said, “are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty.”  This had been proven to be true by the strong political backlash against the Democratic agenda.

“Republicans in Congress are back in the fight and they’re back in the fight in the right!” Scoffing at being called the party of no, he said that “Washington could use more ‘no'.”

He then got the crowd going by listing several Democratic initiatives followed by saying, “The answer is ‘no!’” Every time, the crowd shouted “No!” along with him.

Speaking of the 9/12 march on D.C., he mentioned how amazed he was to see so many thousands of people.  “These people looked like the cavalry to me.”

Borrowing a line from Ronald Reagan, with a slight alteration, he said, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose your job, and a recovery is when Nancy Pelosi loses her job!” Of course, that line was met with a large standing ovation.

He said that a partisan backlash was not enough, though.  “We don’t need a Republican majority, we need a conservative majority.”

Pence said that the job of the American President was not to manage decline but to reverse it, speaking of a phrase that he had heard around Washington in reference to what President Obama was doing with the economy.

He said that we should do whatever is necessary to get the job done and come home safe in Afghanistan and Iraq.  This means that terrorists should be subject to military tribunals and that they should stay at Guantanamo Bay.  (standing ovation)

He then made a clear point that “America stands with Israel.” (standing ovation)

Our relationship with China should be exemplified by one arm stretching forward in trade while the other rests on the holster.

Freedom to succeed must include the freedom to fail and we must return incentives to the American people.  We need across-the-board tax relief.  If we get government out of the way, America will come roaring back.

We must defend marriage and, if need be, in the constitution.  He went further to say that we must protect life which was followed by yet another standing ovation.

He said that funding for embryonic stem-cell research should end along with all funding for Planned Parenthood which was followed by yet another standing ovation.

He closed with very powerful lines.

“This is our moment, now is the time.”

“Do whatever you can.”

Summary

All of that was before lunch time.  I think if I write any more tonight my fingers will fall off and I’m sure your eyes would appreciate a rest.  I will pick back up with the second half of Day 2 of CPAC 2010 next time.