Only one-third, 33%, said they were satisfied. This down from 53% at the conclusion of Donald Trump's presidency.

It's a wonder that even a third of Americans are comfortable with President Joe Biden's disastrous leadership. Many scholars now liken the world today to the 1930s, the years preceding World War II.

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Latest is Biden's new proposal to resolve the conflict in Gaza.

The proposal ignores Israel's main objective, final removal of the presence and influence of the terrorist organization Hamas from leadership and control in Gaza.

Of the 120 hostages that remain from the 251 originally abducted Oct. 7, 2023, it is not even clear how many are alive. Yet, in exchange for release of an unspecified number of hostages, Israel is asked to pull its troops out of all populated areas of Gaza.

I pray that, for the sake of Israel but also for the sake of all remnants of decency in today's crazy world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resists pressure to accept this horrible arrangement.

Why is the United States negotiating with terrorists and giving legitimacy to those who commit atrocities beyond the pale of minimally decent human behavior?

The widespread backlash against Israel's campaign in Gaza is supposedly because of the large number of civilian casualties.

But those criticizing Israel should look in the mirror to see who has led to these casualties.

If Hamas, who hides their fighters and equipment among civilians, whose priority is the death of Israelis and not saving lives of their own people, was immediately condemned and isolated by global leadership, Israel would not be left to take unilateral military action as its only option for its national security.

Let's recall that immediately following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, rather than condemning Hamas, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Israel.

The attack "did not happen in a vacuum," said Guterres. And he then justified it, saying, "The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. ... Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing."

Guterres chose to ignore that it was the organization that he leads, the U.N., that endorsed partition in 1947 to create a Jewish state and a Palestinian state – an arrangement accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs, who chose, instead, war.

Hillary Clinton appeared on "The View" last December and reminded viewers that her husband tried to broker a peace deal in 2000, inviting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for talks in Camp David. Barak accepted the Clinton plan, and Arafat rejected it and, per Hillary Clinton, returned home and launched an intifada that would claim the lives of 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.

But why, when the U.N. secretary-general started with his distortions of truth, did the United States U.N. representative sit by in silence?

We saw nothing like this when Nikki Haley was the U.N. representative during the Trump presidency.

When Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the U.N. voted 128-9 criticizing the U.S. Nikki Haley stood before the U.N. General Assembly and said, "To its shame, the United Nations has long been a hostile place for the state of Israel. ... It's a wrong that undermines the credibility of this institution, and that in turn is harmful for the entire world."

The United States is one of 193 nations in the U.N. yet provides some 22% of its budget – $18 billion in 2022. The U.N. gives a vote and a say in world peace to unfree countries, countries led by dictators and despots.

How about redirecting that $18 billion into our own sagging defense budget?

It's time for a new era of principled American leadership. This is the only path to peace.

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We would like to believe this comes from deep ideals about human liberty lodged within our president.

But more accurate is that Biden, a politician all his adult life, is defined by just that – politics. No word, no act emanates from our president that does not emerge from some political calculation.

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In the case of the ongoing reminders about the importance of democracy, the subliminal message Biden wishes to convey is to always remind of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and to brand Donald Trump as an anti-democratic autocrat.

But let's go beyond this and examine Biden's premise about democracy itself.

In Biden's latest speech, on Memorial Day, he said, "Our democracy is more than just a system of government. It is the very soul of America."

Hanging on a wall in my offices in Washington, D.C., is a picture of Booker T. Washington, with his quote saying, "A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good just because it is accepted by the majority."

An important reminder from Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee University, is that there is good and evil in this world, and they are transmitted to us through the Bible and our faith.

Democracy can only be the means through which a nation accepts or does not accept these eternal truths. But Democracy does not invent them.

We should recall, again, the words of President George Washington in his farewell speech in 1796.

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. ... Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

In the 1850s, Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed to use democracy to solve the problem of whether slavery would be permitted in new states entering the union.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act provided that new states would determine by the vote whether it would be a slave state.

Abraham Lincoln rejected this proposition.

Per Lincoln, "Judge Douglas interrupted me to say that the principle of the Nebraska bill was very old, that it originated when God made man and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose for himself, being responsible for the choice he should make."

"The facts of this proposition are not true as stated," said Lincoln. "God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him that there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death."

What really interests Biden is growing government to advance his left-wing agenda, thereby diminishing individual freedom.

In 1950, shortly after World War II, federal government spending accounted for 14.1% of GDP.

Per the Congressional Budget Office, in 2024 federal government spending will consume 23.1% of GDP; in 2034, 24.1%; in 2044, 25.7%; and in 2054, 27.3%.

Social Security trustees now project bankruptcy of the system by 2033. Revenues will fall short by 21%. Why doesn't Biden support letting every American choose to opt out and instead invest in their own private retirement account?

Why doesn't Biden support the right of parents to send their child to whatever K-12 school they choose?

The only place where Biden wants more choice is to hide behind his religion and give women the right to destroy their unborn child until the final moments of her pregnancy.

The founders of our country conceived of a nation rooted in core truths, which, by limiting government, would enable individual liberty.

They would not recognize our politicized nation today under Joe Biden.

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Because the country is becoming increasingly polarized, which party controls will lead in dramatically different directions. This has profound implications for the country's future.

Consider the judicial branch.

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The conservative majority on the Supreme Court has changed the course of the nation's history. Overturning Roe v. Wade was a major game changer.

But not so many years earlier, in a court less conservative, same-sex marriage became law of the land. The chances that that decision would have occurred in the current court are minimal.

But now the two oldest justices are part of the conservative majority – Clarence Thomas is almost 76, and Samuel Alito is 74.

That their replacements will be conservative will depend more on which party controls rather than which particular Republican sits in the White House.

Regarding the appointment of judges, the values defining the two parties are worlds apart.

Republicans want faithfulness to the Constitution. Democrats want diversity.

Of the 197 judges appointed by President Joe Biden, as reported by The Washington Post, 125 are not white, and 72 are white. Regarding gender, 63% of Biden appointees are women and 37% men.

Per The Washington Post, "Just 13% of Biden's Senate-confirmed appointments so far are white men."

Regarding this record, Biden noted, "I'm particularly proud that these judges reflect the diversity that is our country's strength."

In contrast, of 237 judges appointed by Trump, 200 were white and 37 not white. Seventy-six percent of Trump appointments were men and 24% women.

Inevitably, those on the left will say Trump's appointment criterion was white male supremacy.

But the difference between Trump and Biden appointments is putting the Constitution front and center as opposed to ethnicity.

Of course, there is more to the picture than the judiciary.

The fiscal situation of the nation is frightening and dangerous.

Our only hope for turning this around is Republican control on Capitol Hill.

For the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, expenditures of interest payments on our massive national debt exceeded both spending on Defense and on Medicare.

The Senate is on a razor's edge, with Democrats controlling 51-49. Estimates are that retiring Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin will be replaced by a Republican. In a 50-50 Senate, with a Republican in the White House, a Republican vice president will cast the deciding vote.

Of the 34 Senate seats up this year, estimates are the most vulnerable are Manchin and four other Democrats.

Certainly, on the social issues of great concern to the country – abortion, our dangerously declining birth rates and marriage rates – Republicans bring a pro-life, pro-family agenda to Washington.

And then, of course, is the position of our nation in an increasingly dangerous world.

Per the American Enterprise Institute, "China also now boasts the largest navy in the world, alongside the biggest coast guard and maritime militia."

This while U.S. Defense spending flirts with a historic low, at half as a percentage of GDP where it stood in the 1980s.

Hudson Institute scholar Walter Russell Mead writes in The Wall Street Journal, speaking about the aggressive advancement globally of Iran, Russia and China, "Many Americans still don't fully grasp how serious the international situation has become. ... Team Biden, unfortunately, would rather starve the military and embrace the diplomacy of retreat."

So, yes, every presidential contest is a battle of personalities. But let's not lose perspective that party is what draws the dividing line in Washington. And perhaps there has never been a time where the gap between the worldviews of Republicans and Democrats has been this gaping.

So, the mindset going into this election season should be about policy as well as about individual candidates.

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According to this latest report, the Social Security system will not be able to meet its obligations to retirees by 2035. In 2035, the system will be adequate to meet just 83% of its obligations.

This is supposedly good news because the projected shortfall occurs one year later than reported last year.

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But the change simply reflects the fact that the system is so massive – it's the single largest government program, with annual expenditure of $1.2 trillion – that small changes in assumptions in the planning model produce big changes in the projected results.

Young people today start working and immediately have 6.2% of their paycheck deducted in payroll tax for Social Security, with their employer matching this with another 6.2% – all paid into a system that is bankrupt.

Our political leaders, to the extent they choose to speak about this issue, reiterate their commitment to "save the system."

But "saving the system" means just taking a bad situation and making it worse. Who wants to "save the system" by raising taxes, raising the retirement age or cutting benefits?

Many still believe that Social Security is some kind of retirement investment program, but it's not. It is a government tax and spending program.

Individuals are forced to pay the payroll tax. And those payroll taxes are used to pay retirement benefits for those currently retired.

Even if you think this is a good idea, it no longer works. When the system began in the 1930s, there were over 40 working Americans per retiree. Today, because of longer life spans and declining birthrates, there are just a little over three working for each retiree. Workers' taxes soon won't be enough.

I have been writing for years that the system should not and cannot be saved, and I make this same declaration now.

It is quite reasonable for the government to insist that individuals take steps to secure their future in retirement. But it is not reasonable for government to step in and take away an individual's freedom on how to take care of themselves.

Individuals should be allowed to take ownership of the payroll tax they are forced to pay and use these funds to invest in their own personal retirement account.

The benefits of giving individuals freedom to take ownership of their own earnings and invest are huge.

For one thing, putting funds into the equity markets over a 45-year working life yields far higher returns than Social Security provides.

In one study, done a number of years ago at the Cato Institute, they looked at a theoretical average-income couple that retired in 2009, one year after a huge crash in the stock market. Despite a 37% market decline in 2008, the cumulative returns they received since they started investing when they were 21, in 1965, yielded savings of $855,175. This is based on the actual market returns over those years, not theory. This is 75% more than what they would have gotten from Social Security, per the study.

Lack of ownership in stocks greatly accounts for the huge difference in household wealth between Black households and White households. Whereas, per the Federal Reserve, 65.6% of White households own stocks, only 39.2% of Black households do.

As a result, average household wealth in assets among White households is approximately $1.5 million compared to $297,000 among Black households.

Plus, investing gives everyone "skin in the game" to limit government and keep our American system of capitalism alive and healthy.

No move could do more to restoring economic vitality and individual freedom in our country than transforming our broken Social Security system into a nationwide personal investment program.

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These individuals, some of whom I know, indeed have serious qualifications and experience and are appropriate to be considered for the No. 2 position in the executive branch of the nation's government.

This vetting process is, as they say, par for the course. It's exactly what we expect the presidential candidate to be doing.

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However, in my view, these are not "par for the course" times. The domestic and international challenges we face are without precedent.

Trump will not be running for reelection in 2028, and so whoever holds the vice presidency will almost certainly be on the shortlist to be the Republican candidate for the presidency then.

Given all of this, there is one name I have not seen among those that Trump is considering that I think would be a superb addition.

It is Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Cotton is young, 46 years old, but with a resume packed with experience, all on target and relevant to the kind of leadership our country needs to restore our national vitality and international leadership.

At home, we are fiscally and culturally bankrupt.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting federal spending to continue to wastefully gush, mostly financed by borrowing. CBO shows debt held by the public reaching 116% of GDP by 2034, 139% by 2044 and 166% by 2054.

For this entire period, CBO shows real GDP growth less than 2%.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics shows that our fertility rate – the rate at which we are bringing babies into the world – is at an all-time low.

The state of marriage, family, children – the pillars of a healthy society – are dismal.

Globally, the forces of evil – Iran, Russia, China – move forward with impunity.

Our country needs leadership that can change all this. We need leadership that has the strength and courage to turn our pathetic fiscal situation around and that can restore the USA to its appropriate role as leader of the free world.

With undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard, Cotton was elected to the Senate at age 37, already having had a distinguished military career.

Cotton served as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning a Bronze Star medal.

He is a fiscal and social conservative, ready to hold the line on our massive wasteful spending while bolstering our faltering defense budget, which is now dangerously hovering at a historical low as a percent of GDP.

Cotton has earned an A+ score from the pro-life Susan B. Anthony organization.

He pushed back on the Defense Department initiative to pay for women soldiers to travel to other states to get an abortion when they are stationed where abortion is not available.

Most timely now is Cotton's bold, courageous and correct aggressive stand against the chaos that has taken over so many of our universities.

Cotton called for the immediate use of police force to stop the disruptions and has challenged the pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic rhetoric and tone of these demonstrations.

Cotton has been courageously clear that the First Amendment is there to protect freedom, not to protect anti-Semitism or the disruption of education and interference with the lives of those at universities to learn.

His zero tolerance for the prevailing moral chaos is the kind of leadership our country badly needs.

The unwavering stance of Cotton for American values – commitment to limited government, protection of property, recognizing the sanctity of life and clarity that national defense includes being engaged around the world – is exactly on target.

The vice presidency, a heartbeat from the presidency, is where this outstanding American belongs.

Cotton would be a great addition to the outstanding list Trump is already considering.

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The unrest of the 1960s was defined by the war in Vietnam and by the Civil Rights Movement. Both had practical, personal impact on young Americans in their own country.

American soldiers were fighting and dying in Vietnam. There was real, life-and-death impact on all Americans, and certainly on young Americans. The military draft was still operative then. Despite various deferments, including deferment for university attendance, the draft was still a reality and was a looming presence for all college-age Americans. They knew they could be drafted and had friends and friends of friends who were.

The official number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam stands at 58,220. Although there were legitimate moral concerns about American involvement in this war, the moral concerns were accompanied by young Americans having real skin in this game.

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The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s also had real personal moral impact on all Americans. And youth are always highly sensitive to the moral failings around them.

The reality of segregation and Jim Crow started getting national attention with the Civil Rights Movement, the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other more violent groups in the movement.

In contrast to the woke activism of today, which is totally political in character, the Civil Rights Movement was led by a charismatic and articulate Black pastor and had a religious, moral tone rooted in the Christian church. Anyone that questions this should read, or reread, King's "I Have a Dream" speech from 1963.

But King's moral appeal was to an America very different than today. In 1965, per Gallup, 70% of Americans said religion was personally "very important" to them. In 2023, by contrast, only 45% of Americans say religion is "very important." In 1962, per Gallup, 46% of Americans said they attended religious services over the last seven days. In 2023, this was down to 32%.

During this period there were two major wars involving Israel and the surrounding Arab states.

In 1967, Israel prevailed in the Six-Day War, which began with preemptive action by Israel against the Egyptian army mobilized for attack, and subsequent aggression by Syria in the North and Jordan in the East. In 1973, Israel again prevailed against attacks on these same fronts.

In 1967, per Gallup, 45% of Americans supported Israel against 4% who supported the Arab states, with 26% with no opinion. In 1973, 48% of Americans expressed support for Israel versus 6% expressing support for the Arab states and 24% with no opinion. Support for Israel among Americans during this period was one-sided and clear.

But, again, America today is very, very different.

Our young people in the 1960s understood what personal responsibility is about. On a national level, in the 1960s, all young Americans faced the reality of military conscription. Today, regarding national obligation and service, there are virtually no demands on our youth. Now President Joe Biden is even erasing their student loan obligations.

On a religious, moral level, religion then held a much stronger hold on the nation. Religion teaches and inspires a culture where individuals have a sense they belong to and have obligation to something beyond their own egotistical inclinations.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and as religion has weakened and disappeared from our culture, it has been replaced by politics and the welfare state.

The end of it all is we now have a generation of youth insulated from all sense of national and religious and moral personal responsibility.

So now they demonstrate in support of terrorists and against the only free country in the Middle East that shares the very values that made our own country great.

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"Heroes are not supermen; they are good men who embody – by the cast of destiny – the virtue of their whole people in a great hour," observed Wouk.

We have today an American hero in the name of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

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Anyone with eyes open knows the world today is a very dangerous place.

Johnson, a conservative Republican and a devout Christian, knows that the way for it to become even more dangerous is for the leader of the free world to withdraw from its responsibilities as such.

In the face of threats from some within his own party, in the face of the possibility of a purge like that which happened to his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, Johnson stepped up, rounded up 101 Republican votes in the House and, together with Democrats, passed a $95 billion military aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

As a Christian, Johnson understands that there is no understanding of what freedom is without appreciation that there is good and evil in this world.

Our tendency in our country is to emphasize individual rights when we think about freedom.

But the equal and opposite side of rights is responsibilities. Without responsibility, whether as individuals or as a nation, freedom is gone.

As President Ronald Reagan famously observed, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Speaking to reporters after the vote, Johnson noted that this is a "critical time" and that "Xi (China) and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil."

This is not a matter of our nation aspiring to be the world's policeman.

It is matter of knowing that the force of evil cannot be ignored and the price of believing that it can be ignored only grows and becomes increasingly more dangerous.

Is this a matter of focusing abroad at the expense of what is happening at home?

Certainly not.

If a hero, in the words of Herman Wouk, embodies the "virtue" of his or her people, how do we define the virtue of the American people?

It's about the principles of a free nation under God.

We also face great danger at home as we have departed from these principles.

The $95 billion that will go in aid abroad is peanuts compared to what we waste at home in spending programs that do nothing.

The Biden administration has appropriated $80 billion to the IRS to bolster tax collection. But at the same time, Biden has submitted a 2025 budget to Congress increasing federal spending by some $800 billion.

We are now trillions of dollars in the red as result of bankrupt entitlement programs that are basically socialism. These programs are gushing red ink because they are not about, and never have been about, American principles of freedom and personal responsibility.

We, of course, need to assure that those that immigrate to our country come to embrace the principles that make our country great.

But Republicans need to contend with a president and his party who have long abandoned those principles.

Enough Democrats do seem to understand the importance of defending our principles abroad, and here Republicans and Democrats must work together.

So it's not a matter of either/or.

Freedom is about knowing that we have choices, that there is good and evil, and we must fight evil everywhere by choosing the good.

Johnson has done us all a favor through his principles and courage. We have great challenges at home, but we cannot ignore what's happening around us.

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Bolton called the remark "delusional," saying that Trump "has no idea what to do in the Middle East in this situation."

If Trump is delusional, Bolton has amnesia regarding what happened on his watch and after.

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In less than four years under Biden, we have witnessed the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan and subsequently the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Hamas attack on Israel and now the unprecedented massive attack by Iran on Israel.

During the four Trump years, there were, for practical purposes, no violent, aggressive international incidents.

This cannot be attributed to Trump not doing anything provocative.

In May of 2018, shortly after Bolton became national security adviser, Trump took the historic initiative of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Reports were that the move would provoke significant unrest among Palestinians – possibly a new intifada.

I had the privilege of attending the dedication of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and can confirm it occurred in quiet and serenity. No unrest, no uprising, no intifada.

In another major step that same month, the Trump administration announced withdrawal from the nuclear deal made with Iran by President Barack Obama and five other nations.

Thus, sanctions on Iranian oil sales were reinstated. Thanks to Trump, multiple billions in cash flow to Iran, funds they use to fund and advance terror, were cut off.

In August of 2018, the Trump administration announced cut off of $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, citing as one reason activities and influence of the terrorist group Hamas.

In September 2018, Trump ordered the closing of the office in Washington, D.C., of the PLO – the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

And then, in January 2020, Trump directed the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, deemed responsible for attacks resulting in the death of an American contractor.

In September 2020, Trump presided over the signing of the historic Abraham Accords, which I also had the privilege to attend, achieving peace between Israel and three Arab nations – United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

Reports are that cooperation with these Arab states provided vital intelligence that helped defer the massive Iranian attack on Israel.

In less than four years, Trump changed the face of the Middle East – the most challenging diplomatic terrain in the world – for the better.

All without violence or aggression.

In 2021, Joe Biden took over the presidency.

Soon, the $200 million in Palestinian aid was restored. Then Biden allowed waivers on the sanctions on Iran, releasing multibillions in cash flow to them.

And here we are now, amid of new flood of instability and violence, wondering how far this dangerous situation will deteriorate.

It seems clear that Trump is totally justified in his claim that we would not have today's turmoil if he still held office.

The lesson from the Trump regime teaches that the best policy for stability is strength, engagement and clarity about right and wrong – exactly the opposite of we are getting from Biden.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson is now trying to advance a package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The version passed in Senate totals $95 billion. Let's note that the price of oil is up $30 per barrel since Biden took office. This costs U.S. consumers annually some $200 billion.

What's the price of peace? Is it worth $95 billion?

Johnson should provide the same leadership as Trump provided over his four years by guiding through this aid package. The world is small, and evil forces are clearly aggressive. The lesson of the Biden administration is that there is no escape from passivity in the face of evil.

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No Labels defined its mission "to support centrism and bipartisanship."

Romney defines this effort as seeking out the "sensible middle voices" in American politics.

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My view is that No Labels failed because of its very incorrect assumption that what Americans seek is a so-called middle ground, or even that a middle ground exists, on issues that most trouble the nation today.

No Labels was wrong in its assessment of what the nation wants and needs, and Romney is wrong.

Former President Richard Nixon once observed that many make the mistake of thinking that conflict is the result of misunderstanding rather than difference of belief.

When America split and descended into civil war in the 1850s and 1860s, it was not because of the failure of sensible middle voices to emerge.

It was because there were many in the country who believed that slavery was not only OK but desirable. It was because some believed that Black Africans who were enslaved were not even human beings.

Where is the middle ground, the "sensible middle voices," on slavery?

Slavery was not about misunderstanding or lack of communication. It was about conflict between very different sets of beliefs.

This is what is happening in our country today.

Over the years, the country has become increasingly polarized, with very different views about what is true and not true and even what the country is about.

In the most recent Gallup polling on patriotism, only 39% say they are "extremely proud" to be an American. Only 67% say that are "extremely/very proud" to be an American.

Twenty years ago, 90% said they were "extremely/very proud" to be an American.

On issues of great concern to and impact on the country, opinions are deeply divided.

Gallup reports that the divide between Republicans and Democrats on how much power the federal government should have has increased by 50 points over the last 20 years.

The divide between Republicans and Democrats on the nature and cause of global warming has increased by 33 points, on satisfaction with K-12 education has increased by 30 points, on whether abortion should be legal under any circumstances by 30 points, on the importance of foreign trade by 29 points, and about immigration by 29 points.

Where is the "sensible middle" on these issues? The answer is there is none.

The different points of view emerge from very different views of the world, very different views of what is or is not true.

The great struggle in our nation today is about whether the founders' vision of a free nation under God, with limited power of the national government, will be restored and harnessed to today's challenges. Or if we will continue in the direction of secular humanism, godlessness and socialism.

Abraham Lincoln captured today's reality, as neither No Labels nor Mitt Romney could do.

Lincoln said in 1858: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

There is a reason why Donald Trump came out of nowhere in 2016 to win the presidency, running on the theme "Make America Great Again."

The struggle today is between those who want to recapture our founding values and principles, and those who want to destroy them.

The house will not fall. We will become all one thing, or all the other.

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Last November, a month after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians, 55% approved of the military action Israel initiated.

What has happened over the last few months that now barely more than a third of Americans support the clear case of the right of Israel to defend its country? We might also ask why only 55% last November supported Israel's military action to defend itself.

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Let's again recall that Americans were strongly united to condemn and retaliate against the horror of the terrorist attack against our own country on Sept. 11, 2001, that took the lives of almost 3,000 American citizens.

The 1,200 Israeli victims of terror, in that tiny country of some 9.5 million, equates to more than 40,000 in our country of over 330 million.

Why is it not equally clear that Israel must defend itself as we must defend our homeland?

Per Brown University's Costs of War project, total casualties in Afghanistan and subsequently in Iraq as a result of U.S. retaliatory military action in the war against terror, amounted to 177,000, some six times greater than casualties reported in Gaza.

We must also note, again, that we're not just talking about murder, regarding the 1,200 Israelis that were killed.

We're talking about subhuman brutality, documented in video, in which rape, beheadings and desecration of bodies occurred. The Hamas terrorists celebrated with joy every Israeli murder and atrocity.

Hamas has long been recognized by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

Why are Americans not united in condemning the sickening murder and brutality of the Hamas terrorists, demanding the release of the now estimated 130 hostages they still hold, which include six U.S. citizens?

How could our country abstain in the recent United Nations Security Council vote demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, with no condemnation of Hamas terrorism and with no demand of unilateral release by Hamas of the hostages they hold?

What is the disconnect that can explain the absence of uniform support among Americans for clear-cut action by Israel to defend itself against brutal terrorists, committed to the destruction of its state and homeland?

Freedom House is a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that issues an annual report of the state of freedom around the world.

Freedom House, in this annual report, grades countries worldwide regarding the extent to which they are free. Per Freedom House's methodology, each country is graded on a scale of 1-100, based on political rights and civil liberties in that country.

In the Middle East region, there is only one country that Freedom House scores as free – Israel.

Out of a possible 100, Israel scores 74. For perspective, the United States has a score of 83.

Looking at the Middle East neighborhood where Israel exists, we see it standing alone as free in a sea of unfree countries.

Freedom House scores for Israel's neighbors: Jordan 33, Egypt 18, Lebanon 42, Syria 1, Iraq 30, Saudi Arabia 8.

Why does the clear lack of freedom across the Middle East not seem to bother anyone while the only free country in the region elicits protests and condemnation?

Why, 76 years after Israel's founding, and its miraculous emergence as a modern thriving nation – a world center of innovation and technology, boasting 13 Nobel prize winners – do many still reject its right to exist?

Amid this craziness, let's recall, again, that Israel is the only Jewish country in the world.

There are 49 countries with majority Muslim populations.

There are 15 million Jews in the world and 1.8 billion Muslims.

Yet, worldwide, there remains antipathy to this lone, tiny yet successful-way-beyond-its-size Jewish country.

Something is wrong.

Very wrong.

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But according to the latest Gallup World Happiness Report, Americans' success in the "pursuit of happiness" is diminishing.

For the first time since the annual report was first compiled in 2012, the United States is not among the top 20 happiest countries in the world.

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In this latest 2024 report, the United States ranks 23 in the world, down from No. 15 in 2023.

A large factor influencing the drop in happiness in the United States is particularly bad results among young Americans. For those age 30 and below, the United States ranks 62 in the world. This compared to those age 60 and above, for whom the United States ranks No. 10.

What's going on with our youth?

A recent Wall Street Journal article about so-called Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, identifies members of Gen Z who are 18 and up as "America's Most Disillusioned Voters."

The headline continues, "Young adults are now more skeptical of government and pessimistic about the future than any other living generation before them."

Per Wall Street Journal polling reported in the article, "More than three-quarters of voters under 30 think the country is moving in the wrong direction – a greater share than any other age group. Nearly one-third of voters under 30 have an unfavorable view of both Biden and Trump, a higher number than all older voters. Sixty-three percent of young voters think neither party adequately represents them."

In the 18-25 age group, 28% say they have "hardly any confidence" in the Supreme Court, 34% in Congress, 37% in the executive branch and 52% in the press.

A young USA Today columnist named Sara Pequeno shared her views about what's going on and why.

The explanations she ticks off are a generation coming of age during the COVID pandemic, an explosion of the worst inflation in years and, she adds, the impact of the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade, which she calls "the loss of a right that our parents had – the right to an abortion nationwide."

She sites Gallup showing that 89% of those 18-29 years old support legal abortion under any or certain circumstances.

We're talking here about our nation's future, and this dismal picture should trouble us all.

Let me suggest a different perspective on this problem.

This youngest generation is also coming of age during a time of unprecedented expansion of government, meaning an unprecedented incursion into the individual freedom of every American.

The federal government is now taking one-quarter of the American economy.

Federal debt, equal to our entire GDP, is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to keep growing. This is all on the shoulders of these young Americans.

Regarding the impact of the COVID pandemic, a new study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, authored by scholars from the Hoover Institution, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, shows the costs of the shutdowns in the way of added deaths, massive economic costs and damage caused by school shutdowns overwhelm any benefits that were gained.

Regarding abortion, we must note that these young Americans are growing up in an environment of the collapse of the American family, traditional marriage and birth rates.

Let's be aware, as we enter the season of Easter for Christians and Passover for Jews, that the growth of government tracks the diminishing of faith.

To go back to the Declaration of Independence, the rights the founders noted were sourced in our Creator. The founders who signed the Declaration did so "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence."

This was meant to be a free nation under God. As we destroy these conditions, we are losing our young people.

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When America's vice president visits and pays homage to the nation's largest abortion provider, it's news. And what she said there is also news.

Harris predictably distorted truth and reality, pitching the boilerplate left-wing headline calling the destruction of our unborn "health care."

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However, the vice president did everyone a favor by stepping into the limelight and removing any doubt about how far on the left side of the political spectrum she stands.

All this, of course, is political calculation by Democrats to headline abortion as an election year issue, thinking this is a loser for Republicans.

But here, Harris and her party are wrong.

A good place to start is the truth. Indifference to the sanctity of life is not health care. And, the Supreme Court, in the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, did not take "a constitutional right ... from the people of America, from the women of America," as the VP said.

Harris is a lawyer, so she must understand that Supreme Court justices don't issue rights or take them away. They interpret the U.S. Constitution. In Dobbs, the court found that Roe's understanding of the Constitution, perceiving a right justifying abortion on demand, was incorrect.

Let's look at the latest Gallup polling, published July 2023.

Per that polling, 34% say abortion should be legal under any circumstances, 51% say it should be legal under certain circumstances, and 13% say it should be illegal in all circumstances.

But when Gallup breaks out the 51%, 13% say "certain circumstances" means "most" circumstances, and 36% say "certain circumstances" means "few" circumstances.

So, per Gallup, "the result is 47% of U.S. adults favoring expansive abortion rights (legal in all or most cases) and 49% favoring more restrictive rights (legal in only a few or no cases.)"

American attitudes about abortion do not reflect the simple-minded message of our vice president. The Gallup data shows sentiments of most Americans leaning against abortion.

Let's also consider where abortion stands in the pecking order of what voters feel are the most critical issues now facing the nation.

Per a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released in January asking Americans about their top issue concerns, No. 1, 35%, said immigration; No. 2, 32%, inflation; and No. 3, 25%, economy and jobs. Only 7% listed abortion as their top issue of concern.

Not only is net American sentiment about abortion far different from what Democrats want to portray, despite the importance of the issue, it is far from what voters list among their top concerns.

These issues that most concern voters define the agenda on which Republicans should focus.

And how should Republicans handle the abortion issue?

I turn again to the words of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president.

"In this age, and in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail. Against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions."

Abortion is not among the issues that voters note are the highest concern to them. But it is far too important not to address.

In the spirit of Lincoln, Republicans should work to mold public opinion and help push sentiment, already favorable to an abortion-free country, more solidly in this direction.

In contrast to the vice president's distortions, abortion is a social issue, not an individual issue. There is mother, there is father, and there is a child.

And there is a country badly in need that the integrity of marriage and the American family, in an aging country with dangerously diminishing birth rates, be restored.

In brief, America's future depends on a culture of life. This should be the Republican message.

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It marked the end of an experiment that lasted almost a century testing the premise that godless secularization, turning control of people's lives over to other people to rule them, who decide what others need and how they should live and conduct their lives, is the answer for mankind.

In the free world, the collapse of the Soviet Union was cause for celebration. In the USA, it was widely viewed as a victory of the American way of life – a free nation under God.

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But let's not get confused between things and the names we give them.

Our own country – despite the words in our founding documents about freedom and God – has been on a path adopting the same premises about human reality that led to the collapse of the communist world.

This was evident in President Joe Biden's message to the nation in his State of the Union address.

Biden, in so many words, delivered a message that the path for a better, wealthier, fairer America is more government.

Despite the reality that the country is being crushed with staggering debt, the result of runaway government, Biden and his party celebrate this and want even more.

The words find their way into numbers in the budget for the next 10 years that the president has just submitted to Congress.

Federal spending in this budget will stand in fiscal year 2025 at $7.3 trillion. One-quarter of our national economy consumed by the federal government.

This amounts to a 14% increase from where federal spending stood in the last quarter of 2023 – $6.4 trillion.

Per the president's spokesperson in the White House, this budget "invests in all of America to make sure everyone has a fair shot, we leave no one behind."

Translation: Government will accumulate more power and decide what is fair and achieve its aims with more government paid for with other people's money.

The beautiful language of leaving "no one behind" means government expansion into every area of our lives, including subsidized child care for families earning $200,000 and below.

The bill for the massive new spending, per the president's budget, will be paid for with a total of $4.9 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy and on corporations.

I say "supposedly paid for" because expansion of government under the premises of raising taxes on the most successful sectors of our economy never works.

Renown economist Arthur Laffer and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore just published data showing that when President Donald Trump cut the highest individual tax rate and cut the corporate tax rate in 2017, the percentage of overall taxes paid by the wealthiest 1% of the population increased.

Before the Trump tax cuts, the top 1% paid "a little more than 40% of the income taxes collected," per Laffer and Moore.

After the tax cuts, that percentage increased to almost 46%.

This was not something new. Laffer and Moore show data going back to 1980 showing general correlation of lower top tax rates with a larger percentage of overall taxes paid by the top 1%.

Freedom means unleashing productivity and creativity. Absence of freedom means punishing both and therefore getting less of both.

It's why the Soviet Union collapsed. Godless secularism doesn't work.

The latest edition of CURE's "The State of Black Progress" shows the uniform failure of expansion of government into health care, education, housing and retirement, all in the name of "fairness" and no one being "left behind."

The truth really is it's more than this. It's about politicians who love power buying it with gifts given with other people's money. Harsh to say, but this is reality.

Only 19% of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, per Gallup.

Most Americans feel something is wrong. We need leadership to take us back to freedom and God.

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Biden got pushback on this, but he captured a pretty common view among liberals.

That is, that liberalism is genetically emblazoned in Black DNA.

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They see Blacks who are not liberal as not normal, not really Black.

As a Black woman and a conservative for many years, I can testify to the prevalence of this view.

Now the liberal media are getting into a new version of this. Same story, but slightly different version.

The big scoop is that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has hired as one of his clerks a young woman who has been accused of racism.

Crystal Clanton, a magna cum laude graduate of Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, most recently a clerk for highly respected conservative Judge William Pryor on the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, was just hired by Thomas. Clanton, according to liberal accusers, posted remarks, back in 2015, while working at Turning Point USA, saying "I hate Black people" with some profanity accompanying the statement.

Far-left journalists, such as Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, have been on the story for years – Mayer first reporting about it in 2017.

This despite no definitive evidence that the racist post was the work of Clanton.

Now that Thomas has hired Clanton, liberals have shifted into high gear.

With all the supposed concerns of the Left about racism, none seem troubled or confused by the allegation that a Black judge – no less the most prominent Black jurist in the nation – would hire a racist.

How does that compute?

The answer is that in liberal eyes, Black conservatives "ain't Black."

Certainly, a Black conservative as sophisticated as Thomas could in no way be Black.

And therefore, he could even be a racist and sympathetic to racists.

Absurd? Of course. Is it demeaning and insulting to Thomas? Of course.

Liberals are not only very tolerant of sloppy thinking. They are also tolerant of sloppy journalism.

Mayer's latest coverage, which she first reported in the New Yorker in 2017, appears under the headline "The Scandal of Clarence Thomas's New Clerk."

What is the scandal? Thomas has hired Clanton "who became notorious in 2015 for apparently sending texts that said, 'I hate Black people ... '"

"Apparently" is enough for Mayer and her liberal compatriots to convict.

When Pryor hired Clanton, who had a previous clerkship with Judge Corey Maze in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, seven congressional Democrats called for an investigation. An investigation was conducted by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the 2nd Circuit.

The end of Livingston's investigation of the incident was a green light for Clanton.

Livingston pointed out that both Maze and Pryor knew of the allegations when they hired her, rejected their validity and found her to be highly competent.

As part of the 2nd Circuit investigation, Thomas sent a letter saying, "I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry. ... Bigotry is antithetical to her nature."

Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have known Clanton for years, and Clanton actually lived with them for almost a year.

If she were a racist, how could Thomas not know it?

Yet despite this, liberal journalists continue on about him hiring a racist as his clerk.

When will we realize that the real racism belongs to liberals who see every Black American as a liberal mannequin, denying their uniqueness, integrity and individuality? When will we realize the disservice to Black Americans and all Americans in denying the humanity of Black Americans who are conservative?

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This is a follow-up to "The State of Black America," published by CURE in 2022.

The objective of these tomes is to showcase first-class scholarship to paint a comprehensive picture for thinking much differently about the reality facing Black Americans than what has been the norm for many years.

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By "thinking much differently," I mean to say that our case shows that Blacks may have some unique problems and challenges, but the principles for dealing with these challenges are not about race. The truths that govern human reality, the truths that enable human success, are not different between races but are the same for all.

Different ethnic groups or races may have unique problems, just as every individual human being has his or her own unique problems.

But the truths to which every human being must turn to solve their unique problems are the same for all.

In this spirit, we were very honored to be hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., to do a joint event to publicize this tome.

Three of the 12 scholars who contributed essays for the book are American Enterprise Institute scholars.

AEI, whose stated mission is "expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise," is the oldest Washington policy institute promoting these values, with a legacy reaching back to the 1930s.

Our excitement to be hosted by and work with AEI is based on the fact AEI is about the key principles that define America as a free country with a free economy.

At CURE, we focus on race and poverty exclusively – but we share the same American values with AEI regarding the principles needed for solving our problems.

Two issues we deal with in this work are federal retirement policy – Social Security – and federal housing policy.

Both these areas saw major changes through expansion of government going back to the 1930s.

AEI's roots go back to that time; the institute stepped up and opposed significant expansion of the role of government in the lives of Americans.

Our work in "The State of Black Progress" covers that gamut of where government has become majorly involved in the lives of Americans, particularly Black Americans.

Beyond Social Security and federal housing policy, we're talking about education policy, health care, local community economic policies and the changing ways federal judges read and apply our constitution to justify expansion of government.

Our scholars show in all these areas that government activism and expansion designed to help low-income Americans has hurt rather than helped.

Sadly, thinking about race in America has widely meant government activism and expansion.

It not only has hurt the individuals these policies were meant to help, but it has hurt the whole country.

As our nation now is being crushed by spending and debt, all should consider that, compared to the 25% of the American economy that government now consumes, in the mid-1960s, when the Civil Rights Act passed, this stood at 17%. Back in the late 1930s, when key elements of this began, federal spending consumed less than 10% of the U.S. economy.

AEI's Ian Rowe shows that when the data for race is corrected for family structure, when we look at Black households with intact families, with a married husband and wife heading the household, Black Americans are as healthy as any healthy part of our nation.

It is unfortunate that the success of the Civil Rights Movement was parlayed into a new birth of government rather than into a new birth of freedom.

CURE is working to change that, in the interest of Black Americans and all Americans.

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In a recent panel discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Institute, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, the nation's largest bank, rang the alarm about the nation's debt.

He noted what is already widely known – that federal debt now equals 100% of GDP, on its way to 130% of GDP by 2035.

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We're headed for a cliff at "60 miles an hour," said Dimon.

But this is not new.

In 2018, for instance, an opinion piece in The Washington Post authored by four distinguished economists from the Hoover Institution – Michael Boskin, John Cochrane, John Cogan and John B. Taylor, along with former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz – announced "A debt crisis is on the horizon."

They pointed to the enormous burden and risk to our budget of the then debt burden, which stood at $15 trillion, 76% of GDP. Now we're at $34 trillion and 100% of GDP.

At the end of 2008, debt stood at 43% of GDP.

It is good that the chairman of the largest bank in the country is waking up. But where has he been and is he really waking up?

Per OpenSecrets, which tracks and reports political spending, in the most recent political cycle, 2023/2024, 65% of JPMorgan's political contributions went to Democrats, and their contributions to "liberal groups" were greater than contributions to "conservative groups" by a margin of 10-to-1.

The Business Roundtable is a Washington, D.C.-based association of "more than 200 chief executive officers of America's leading companies ... that support one in four American jobs and almost a quarter of U.S. GDP."

In 2019, Jamie Dimon served as their chairman, and under his leadership, they made a significant change.

It has always been understood that the responsibility of any corporation is to serve the interests of its shareholders – the owners of the company.

Economist Milton Friedman wrote in his famous book "Capitalism and Freedom," first published in 1962, that corporations have one responsibility – to maximize profitability for its shareholders.

"Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible," wrote Friedman.

But in 2019 the Business Roundtable did exactly this: They announced that they were abandoning primacy of serving shareholders as the core corporate responsibility and that shareholders would now be viewed as just one group of "stakeholders," alongside "customers, employees, suppliers" and "communities."

What happened to private property? Corporate CEOs work for the owners, the shareholders.

Private property is what sets a free society apart from socialism.

Dimon noted, "The American dream is alive but fraying. ... These modernized principles reflect the business community's unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans."

If the American dream is "fraying," it is because of departure from the principles that define a free society, upon which our great country emerged. Economic freedom, private property, personal responsibility and creativity are the source of our success, not of our failures.

Blurring the lines between the private and the public, no one knows what their job is – government, corporations, universities.

Government has exploded by trying to do what individuals should be doing for themselves.

The result of all the efficiencies is slowdown of growth. The victims are the poor, not high-earning CEOs.

As our country sinks under a tsunami of spending and debt, hopefully the CEO of the nation's largest bank, and CEOs of all our corporations, will wake up that loss of freedom, not too much freedom, is what is hurting our nation.

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In volatile times like now, predictions can be made with only the greatest caution.

However, it seems clear that something is going on, and Black voters are breaking with past voting patterns.

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The New York Times reported last November that, per its polling with Siena College, 22% of Black voters in six key battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – indicated they would support Republican Donald Trump.

In 2020, Trump gained ground with Blacks, picking up 12% of the Black vote, up from 8% in 2016. But any suggestion that any Republican candidate might pick up 20-plus percent of the Black vote is revolutionary.

The last time the Black vote went beyond the teens for a Republican was in 1960, when Richard Nixon got 32% of the Black vote, in a close election he lost to John Kennedy.

The next election in 1964 was, for Blacks, about the Civil Rights Movement. The Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, opposed passage of the Civil Rights Act and got 4% of the Black vote. Republicans have not recovered since.

Nixon returned and won the presidency in 1968 and1972. However, Blacks supported him at a fraction of what he received in 1960 – Nixon getting 10% of the Black vote in 1968 and 13% in 1972.

In a USA Today/Suffolk University Poll reported in January, only 63% of Black voters indicated support for President Joe Biden, compared to 87% who voted for him in 2020.

The USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows a less compelling picture of Blacks moving toward Trump. That poll shows 12% support for Trump, exactly where he was in 2020.

However, the poll shows Black sentiment moving away from Democrats with almost 20% of Black voters indicating they would support a third-party candidate.

Now we have new data from Gallup reporting that, "The Democratic Party's wide lead over Republicans in Black Americans' party preferences has shrunk by nearly 20 points over the past three years."

Among Black Americans surveyed, 66% said they identify as Democrat/lean Democrat and 19% Republican/lean Republican, for a differential of 47 points.

A little over three years ago, in 2020, in the same survey, 77% of Black Americans identified as Democrat/lean Democrat, compared to 11% identifying as Republican/lean Republican, for a differential of 66 points. In just three years, the differential between Black support for Democrats and for Republicans has shrunk 19 points.

Overall, the 47-point differential in this latest survey is the smallest since Gallup first started doing the survey in 1999, when the differential was 72 points.

With recent elections decided by tiny margins in battleground states, a fundamental change in voting behavior by one key demographic – Blacks – can be a game changer.

The implications over the long haul are profound given the demographic changes taking place, with the percentage of the White vote, which accounts for the majority of Republican votes, shrinking in each election. In 2020, Whites accounted for 67% of the vote. This compared to 1980 when the White vote stood at 88%.

Per the Census Bureau, the percentage of the U.S. population that is White will be down to 45% by 2060. So, any movement of Blacks, and Hispanics, away from Democrats means a lot.

Why is this apparent movement of Blacks from Democrats happening?

Here's one hypothesis I propose from the New York Times/Siena College Poll.

That poll shows that, relative to Whites, Blacks care more about economic issues than social issues. Sixty-five percent of Blacks say economic issues are most important compared to 53% of Whites. Twenty-one percent of Blacks say social issues are most important compared to 33% of Whites.

Perhaps we are entering new times when fewer Blacks look to government for social justice and more want economic growth and opportunity.

This means Republicans.

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According to one pastor, the war "has evoked the kind of deep-seated angst among Black people that I have not seen since the civil rights movement."

And per another, regarding the Palestinians, "we see them as a part of us. … They are oppressed people. We are oppressed people."

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Indeed, in a Gallup poll at the end of November, 61% of White adults expressed approval for the Israeli military action taken in Gaza, whereas only 30% of "people of color" expressed approval.

Unfortunately, much of what is driving opinion on this issue among many Black Americans is very bad, confused information.

The Hamas attack in Israel, resulting in some 1,200 deaths, was targeted to Israeli Jews. On Sept. 11, 2001, our country was attacked, resulting in almost 3,000 deaths. However, in tiny Israel, with a population of 9.8 million, 1,200 deaths equate to over 40,000 in our country.

Nevertheless, despite a far lower relative casualty rate on 9/11, our country was in shock and outrage, and we went to war in Afghanistan to attack the source. That war resulted in 176,000 deaths, 46,319 of which were civilians.

The death toll in Gaza is now a little over 27,000. Israelis take no joy in this. But there is no choice. Hamas shields their bodies and infrastructure among civilians – even in hospitals.

Just as no one questioned our country going after those who attacked our homeland in 2001, why should anyone question the justification of Israel going after those who threaten daily their lives and existence?

How many of these Black pastors identifying with the Palestinians saying "They are oppressed, we are oppressed" have any idea of the history of the region and of the conflict?

Oppression means having no choice. Choosing to live in squalor because of refusal to take responsibility for one's life is not oppression.

These pastors might consider doing some homework and learning that Israel was founded by Jewish immigrants, motivated to return to their historic homeland after many, many years of oppression and persecution.

This came to a peak in the Holocaust when 6 million Jews – 40% of all the Jews in the world – were murdered by the German Nazis.

Jews returned to their historic homeland, worked and built, despite ongoing Arab hostility to their settlements.

The situation was resolved by the United Nations in 1947. The U.N. voted to partition the area into two states – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said "yes." The Arabs said "no." And then they attacked.

Despite endless attacks and war, Israelis have shown what taking responsibility for one's life means. They built from nothing a modern country that today has per capita GDP higher than most European nations.

Saying no and choosing war, as the Palestinians have done, is not oppression. It is stupidity and irresponsibility.

I would remind readers again that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians then could have started to build. They were free to do it.

Instead, they elected Hamas and started more rounds of endless attacks against Israel, the latest and most horrible being what happened on Oct. 7.

We see now the more than 300 miles of high-tech tunnels in Gaza that have been constructed since Hamas took leadership, at a cost of hundreds of millions, with the sole objective to attack Israel. Despite billions in aid, resources in Gaza have been focused on eliminating Israel, not on improving quality of life and building a future for Palestinians.

I would remind these progressive Black clergy of the sad but accurate observation of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, that "Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."

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Two things jump out.

First, the lowest over the 70-year period was in 1999, at the end of the Clinton administration, when it stood at 2.7%. This is a little more than half the previous low, which stood at 4.5% 20 years earlier, in 1979.

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A little over year after this historic low point in defense spending, our nation experienced the worst attack on its homeland in its history on Sept. 11, 2001.

The second thing I notice is that the forecast for 2024 shows that Defense spending as a percentage of GDP will be 2.7%, matching the 1999 low point.

However, the 2.7% in 2024 implies a far lower national priority for Defense spending than the 2.7% in 1999, because in 1999, overall federal spending as a percent of GDP stood at 17.7% compared to 23.4% in 2024, according to the CBO forecast.

So as a percent of the federal budget, in 1999 Defense spending stood at 15.3% compared to 11.5% in 2024.

The 2024 Index of Military Strength published by the Heritage Foundation rates the state of military power by branches of service from "very weak" to "very strong."

The results: Army, "marginal"; Navy, "weak"; Air Force, "very weak"; Marine Corps, "strong."

The report summarizes saying, "In the aggregate, the United States' military posture must be rated as 'weak.' ... As currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America's vital national interests with assurance."

We look to the Middle East now and see increased aggression from proxies of Iran.

Three U.S. Army reserve soldiers were killed in Jordan by a drone attributed to an Iran-backed militia in Iraq. As the daughter of an Air Force retiree, I find this particularly emotionally painful.

Ships are being attacked in the Gulf of Aden area by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

And there was the horrible, savage attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 by Iran-supported Hamas.

A backdrop to all of this is the conflict raging in Ukraine, the result of aggression by Russia.

The headline is that we have enemies, and these enemies are energized when they perceive the United States as weak and confused.

There is a lot of rhetoric now about so-called "globalization" and "endless wars."

Some call for a retreat inward by our nation and want to label international engagement as not "conservative."

But it is just the opposite.

A conservative worldview recognizes there is truth and that for every right we claim there is a corresponding responsibility. The universal rights the founders of our nation claimed in our Declaration of Independence have corresponding universal responsibilities.

We must remember the quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, "America is great because America is good. If America ever stops being good, it will stop being great."

This does not mean that our nation should take on the impossible task of being the world's policeman.

But as we saw, and too soon have forgotten, on the horrible day on Sept. 11, 2001, there are evil people in this world hostile to us who celebrate death to advance their own power.

Israelis saw it in the vicious Hamas attack last Oct. 7.

When those who love to kill to advance their own power see Americans retreat, when they see demonstrations at America's leading universities celebrating terrorism, who condemn those in our country and abroad who live free and responsible lives, so we encourage and empower evil.

As good retreats, evil advances. It is a natural truth.

Let's not forget what is written at the memorial to the Korean War in Washington, D.C.

"Freedom is not free."

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It seems many still harbor, or want to perpetuate, the illusion that our Social Security system is not in trouble.

Let me quote here from a press release from the Social Security Administration released March 31, 2023: "The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds. The combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds are projected to become depleted in 2034, one year earlier than projected last year, with 80% of benefits payable at that time."

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In 2034, per the report, "if Congress does not act before then ... there would be sufficient income coming in to pay 80% of scheduled benefits."

It couldn't be clearer. In 10 years, with no action from Congress, everyone will begin receiving 80% of what they are currently receiving, or promised, under the existing Social Security system.

Can anyone imagine getting a notice from a private retirement provider saying that in 10 years all beneficiaries will begin receiving 80% of what they were promised?

How did we get into this situation? It's the wonders of government planning, of socialism.

Social Security is not a pension program based on investments. It is a government tax-and-spend program. The stipends of current retirees are paid with the payroll tax of those currently working.

Because life spans have increased and population growth has decreased, there are far fewer working now to support each retiree than was the case years ago. Socialism is always mugged by reality.

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimates that over the last 40 years, the annual real return of Social Security for "the typical middle-class worker" has been about 1% per year.

Today, 30-year government bonds yield over 4%. The historic long-term return on stocks is 6%. Inflation adjusted.

The paltry returns on Social Security are going to turn out much worse. To close the 20% deficit between revenues and outlays 10 years from now, some combination of tax increases and benefit cuts will be necessary. This will make bad returns even worse.

Aside from the terrible economics of Social Security, how about the terrible politics?

Every young person entering the workforce today has no choice but pay the payroll tax into this bankrupt system.

With all our rhetoric about freedom, democracy and social justice, shouldn't young people entering the workforce be given a choice whether they want to participate in this system? Why shouldn't they be given the option – the freedom – to join a private retirement plan rather than a socialist government system?

How about the injustice this causes low-income Americans under the guise that government socialism is good for them?

For a low-income earner, the Social Security payroll tax takes the only funds that they have available to invest.

Per the Federal Reserve Consumer Finance Survey, median wealth of Black families is 15% of the median wealth of white families. Wealth comes from investment, not income. The percentage of Black families owning stock is about 60% of white families.

Shouldn't low-income families be given the option of getting out of the government system and investing privately over a 40-year working life and have the option to build wealth? Why should government be telling these free, private individuals how to manage their retirement savings?

Beyond what this broken system does to individuals, it also hurts the nation in the larger fiscal scheme of things. Social Security accounts for 19% of federal spending.

Social Security not only points to fiscal and economic bankruptcy, but also to political bankruptcy, as politicians unwilling to tell the hard truths to citizens tell them everything is OK.

It's time for leadership and truth. And it is time to give American citizens freedom to control their own property and their own lives in our free country.

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But is democracy "sacred"?

Is the process by which we make choices "sacred," or is what we choose "sacred"?

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This is the time of year we think about sanctity of life. Although Roe v. Wade is no longer law of the land, the abortion issue is still very much before us as the U.S. Congress and as states across the nation work to crystallize what the next chapter will look like regarding abortion policy in our country.

March for Life events will take place across the nation, as every year, noting the Jan. 22, 1973, Roe v. Wade decision that opened the door for more than 63 million unborn children destroyed in the womb.

The abortion policy debate is defined by those who call themselves "pro-choice" and those who define their view as "pro-life."

"Pro-choice" basically says that what is most important is the process – that women are free to choose whether to abort. What is most important, in this view, is not what is chosen, but that there is choice.

Those who are "pro-life" focus on what is chosen as the key. The issue is sanctity of life. Life is what is sacred.

I often note the parallel to slavery.

U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, in the 1850s, championed democracy as the answer to how the nation would deal with the issue of slavery for new states entering the union. New states would decide whether slavery would be permitted in their state by voting.

Again, the importance was given to process – how the choice is made – and not to what is chosen.

Abraham Lincoln's response to Douglas' proposition was: "God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death. I should scarcely wish so strong a prohibition against slavery in Nebraska."

For Lincoln, the focus of importance was on what is chosen – that good be chosen over evil. And, for Lincoln, slavery was clearly evil.

Democracy was not the answer. Making the correct moral choice was the answer.

In Biden's remarks on Jan. 6, he cited Gen. George Washington's leadership during the American war of independence, and Washington's calling the values for which they were struggling "sacred."

Was Washington talking about a struggle for a political process or a struggle for sacred truths?

We can answer this by noting Washington's famous remarks in his Farewell Address to the nation in 1796.

"It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government," said Washington. "Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."

Latest Gallup polling says 28% are satisfied with the way democracy is working in our country – an all-time low. Only 22% are satisfied with the direction of the country.

I think what is really bothering Americans is not about the state of our political processes but that we have lost touch with the core principles and truths that define our country.

Slow economic growth, inflation, breakdown of the American family, massive government spending and debt – all point to a breakdown of sacred truths, not political processes.

It's not about how we choose but what we choose.

And to return to the abortion issue, I don't see how a nation can see itself as free, with control over its destiny, without appreciation for the sanctity of life.

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This year, 2024, marks the 60th anniversary of the signing into law of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Soon we observe the national day set aside to note and honor the leader of the movement that led to that act becoming law: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We must ask how, after 60 years, with vast changes in the world, with developments in technology unimaginable 60 years ago, that we remain obsessed with race. How is it that claims of racism, injustice and unfairness persist like nothing happened?

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Indeed, data suggest that Black Americans, on average, still lag behind economically.

The Federal Reserve recently published its Survey of Consumer Finances showing that average Black family income is 43% that of White families. In 1989, it was 42%.

Average Black household net worth now is 15.6% that of White households. In 1989, it was 17.8%.

The deterioration of traditional religious values in the country has taken a toll on all American families, but proportionally more on Black families.

Per the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in 2022, 43% of Black children lived in a two-parent home – down 26.5% from 1970. Among White children, 75.6% lived in a two-parent home, down 15.5% from 1970.

America today is a far different country than the one where King led the Civil Rights Movement.

The language King used to lead and animate his movement was the language of the Bible. He spoke as a pastor.

But in 1965, according to Gallup, 70% of Americans said religion is "very important" in their life.

In 2023, 45% of Americans say religion is "very important" in their life.

In the last speech of his life, in 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, King spoke about "injustice," that "we are God's children."

He spoke about not being afraid of death, that "I just want to do God's will," and then spoke those famous words that he'd been "to the mountain top" and that he'd seen "the promised land."

"I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Can anyone imagine a leader of a major political or social movement today speaking this way?

Over these 60 years since the Civil Rights Act became law, courts took the Bible and prayer out of public schools, legalized abortion and changed our legal understanding of what defines marriage.

The godless socialism of DEI – diversity, equity, inclusion – has replaced good and evil as our perspective on social justice.

As we have purged religion and replaced it with politics, we have lost the core of a religious worldview. There is good and evil, and the Creator gave to each individual free choice and personal responsibility to choose.

Without this, the freedom we allegedly care so much about has little meaning.

Government has become our new religion. In 1964, federal spending took 17.3% of our GDP. Today it takes 24.4%. In 1964, gross federal debt equaled 46.2% of our GDP. Today it equals 119.8%.

It is an unfortunate quirk of history that the Civil Rights Movement, led by a Black Christian pastor, reached its peak at the moment when Americans decided to start banishing the Bible from our culture.

A movement informed by good and evil and personal responsibility has been replaced by politics, interest groups and victimhood.

The community most hurt by the purge of personal responsibility that defines individual freedom is the one that started out the weakest and the greatest victim of our moral failures.

Without a new birth of faith, we for sure will not have a new birth of freedom in America.

The whole nation and our future are in danger. And the weakest, those whom the socialists claim to care the most about, will suffer the most.

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Republicans insist that $74 billion in funds that the Biden administration is asking in aid for Ukraine and Israel be part of a larger package that deals with border security and comprehensive immigration policy.

Agreement on such a package will benefit the whole nation.

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At first glance, linking U.S. immigration policy and border control to aid to Ukraine and Israel may seem like a politically motivated version of linking apples and oranges. But that's not the case. The issues are related.

We are dealing with the issue of national territorial integrity. The current conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are the results of such violations – in Ukraine, aggression from Russia; in the case of Israel, the crossing of the Gaza border into Israel by Hamas operatives who murdered and committed atrocities against more than 1,200 Israeli citizens in one day.

Nations are physical entities that are based on principles that define what their existence is about. Borders define the area where this unique national reality exists.

Whether borders are violated by an army, by terrorists or by undocumented migrants amounts to the same thing: a violation of national integrity.

Those who have violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Israel – Russia and Hamas, backed by Iran – are also our enemies and look to hurt our country as they have hurt the nations they have violated.

Let's recall that the pilots who flew planes into the World Trade Center and crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, resulting in the death of almost 3,000 Americans, trained on American soil.

The price of being lax in a dangerous world is high.

Israelis are paying a dear price for some moments of laxness toward an evil and lethal enemy.

Every day that we allow hordes of migrants into our country without knowing with clarity who these individuals are threatens our national security in two significant ways.

First, the most obvious, is the horrible damage that can be done by one terrorist among the hordes we are letting in.

Second, demonstrating laxness, humanitarian inclinations devoid of the values that define our national integrity, broadcasts to our enemies that we are confused and weak. Perceived confusion and weakness encourage evil forces to act.

For sure the hasty exit of America from Afghanistan broadcast this message to an evil and ambitious Vladimir Putin, who then took aggressive action in Ukraine he might not otherwise have done.

Iran and their Hamas operatives are for sure very happy to see American leftists celebrating the atrocities that were committed against Israelis.

Last June, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Latin America in a visit that included Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. Iran is doing business with the most corrupt and mismanaged countries in Latin America to solidify its anti-American and anti-Israel base there.

In 1994, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was blown up and 85 were killed. Investigations in Argentina concluded it was the work of Iran.

Republicans are right to push for raising the bar for defining asylum, setting up a border extradition authority and exercising greater care in allowing anyone into our country without a visa.

Regarding the many already here undefined and undocumented, I propose reopening some of our closed military bases to house these individuals until their status is clarified. They would have status as refugees but without constitutional rights that would include 14th Amendment coverage granting automatic citizenship to the newly born.

We can't forget that the eternal principles that define freedom in our country are relevant everywhere. We must defend them at home and abroad to the interest of all who want to live in a better world.

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Republicans have picked a uniquely exciting candidate to run for this now open seat in Mazi Melesa Pilip.

Pilip is a Black Orthodox Jew and a mother of seven children who arrived to Israel at age 12 from Ethiopia, grew up there, served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces and continued on to earn a degree in occupational therapy at Haifa University, where she met her husband, and then earned a master's in diplomacy and security at Tel Aviv University.

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Her husband immigrated to Israel from Ukraine, and subsequently they moved to the U.S. where he continued his medical studies and now works as a cardiologist.

With five children and pregnant with twins, she ran two years ago for a seat in the Nassau County Legislature, won the seat – defeating a Democratic incumbent – and then was reelected, winning 60% of the vote.

Pilip effervesces her belief in the "American dream" and the importance to keep government limited, keep taxes low and fight crime. As an immigrant, she is particularly passionate about this issue and the importance of controling our border.

She will run against Democrat Tom Suozzi, who held the seat for three terms before leaving in 2022 to enter the race for New York governor.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Today, Pilip explained that she became motivated to enter American politics when flare-ups with Hamas produced antisemitism endangering her children's ability to walk freely and openly as Jews in their neighborhood in New York.

"My story is the story of America and Israel together. Israel is a diverse state, there is not just one color, and in the U.S., any dream can become reality. ... This is my second immigration. I had to learn culture and a new language twice. It wasn't easy for me."

Pilip is a poster child who speaks forcefully, disabusing distortions and ignorance about Israel being spread, particularly on university campuses.

Recently, for instance, a program was held at UCLA labeled as an "Emergency Teach-In on the Crisis in Palestine." One of the UCLA professors depicted Israel as a "colonial power driven by an exclusionary racial ideology."

Just looking at this impressive Black Ethiopian Jewish woman, who grew up in Israel, who speaks warmly about her love for and the beauty of the country where she grew up, says everything about the absurdity of such outrageous allegations.

I recall on my own first trip to Israel noting the full spectrum of color in the population – white, brown, black.

Israel literally was founded as an ingathering of Jews dispersed in the four corners of the globe.

The parents and grandparents of today's Israelis came from Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, North America, Latin America, North Africa and Asia.

Pilip arrived to Israel as part of Operation Solomon in 1991 in which, over the course of 36 hours, Israel airlifted over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel out of concern for their safety as result of political instability in Ethiopia.

There is now an estimated more than 160,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel.

Around the same time, 1990-91, after considerable pressure, the Soviet Union released over 300,000 Jews to leave for Israel.

How Jews who returned to their historic homeland from all over the globe, after so many years of oppression, persecution and murder, could be accused of either racism or colonialism should give everyone great pause regarding what is happening on our college campuses.

Meanwhile, Mazi Melesa Pilip is a presence Republicans and all Americans need in the U.S. Congress.

Let's hope and pray that in February she will be adding her important voice to those on Capitol Hill.

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A free country will always have debate and differences of opinion. But that debate becomes dangerous and destructive when the differences strike at the core premises that define the very existence of the nation. When we can no longer agree about who we are, what we stand for and why we exist, our very existence comes into question.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Then the basic premises of our free country were challenged by the existence of slavery.

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The country is divided today by those who see injustice as a problem to be defined and solved by politics and those who continue to see injustice as evil defined by Scripture and dealt with through repentance and self-correction.

When the issue of slavery tore apart our nation, most Americans were churchgoing citizens. The dividing line then was between those who saw slavery as a sin and those who did not.

As Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, delivered as the Civil War raged, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other."

But today the division is between those for whom religion is relevant and those for whom it is not. The latter, overwhelmingly, are on the political left.

The recent Wall Street Journal/NORC polling on national values shows the picture clearly.

Of those who say religion is personally "very important," 27% of Democrats say yes and 53% of Republicans say yes.

Of those who say patriotism is "very important," 23% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans say yes.

Of those who agree that schools and universities have gone "too far ... taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity," 6% of Democrats agree and 55% of Republicans agree.

Of those who agree that "Businesses taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity" have gone "too far," 7% of Democrats agree and 52% of Republicans agree.

Many are now shocked to see how politicized our universities have become. But the data shows that this is not a problem limited to our universities; it reflects broader, deep changes in our society.

Injustice has become a problem relegated to politics as religion has increasingly been purged from our society.

DEI – diversity, equity, inclusion – is a tool designed by secularists, who produce their own definition of injustice and then design their own quantitative tool to solve the problem they have themselves defined.

This is one slice of ideology that is a subset of broader godless movements in social engineering – communism and socialism.

President Ronald Reagan gave one the nation's great speeches in March 1983 to the National Association of Evangelicals in which he called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

Reagan said then, "But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man. We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin."

Speaking about the then-Soviet Union, Reagan said, "Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man ... they are the focus of evil in the modern world."

With the surge to the left in our country, and the purge of the influence of religion, we have produced our own "government schemes," pretending they will "perfect man" and solve our social challenges.

The result is the ongoing expansion of government and a burden of national debt and government spending that is crushing us.

Reagan quoted William Penn saying, "If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants."

This is where we are today.

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Tuberville stalled Senate confirmation for military promotions in order to pressure the Defense Department to back off its newly hatched policy on abortion in which DOD – i.e., U.S. taxpayers – will foot the bill for women in the military to travel out of the state where they are residing to get an abortion.

The policy was set forth after the Supreme Court ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade decision.

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Per Tuberville, the Defense Department acted outside of its authority with this measure. It goes against long-standing rules under which the Defense Department provides coverage for abortion: rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother. We also have the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funded abortion – although there are different opinions whether DOD falls under its purview.

Tuberville argues that the Defense Department using taxpayer funds for unrestricted abortion requires new law.

President Joe Biden called Tuberville's efforts "pointless," saying he, along with those who supported his efforts, "needlessly hurt hundreds of service members and military families and threatened our national security – all to push a partisan agenda. I hope no one forgets what he did."

I echo the president's sentiments. I hope no one forgets the courageous efforts of Tuberville to stand alone in a high-profile effort that, rather than being narrowly partisan, has profound implications on our national culture and hence on our national security.

Much attention has been directed recently to our universities. Many Americans have been shocked to see the cultural rot that has taken hold at our elite institutions of learning.

Presidents of these universities mouth mindless, antiliberal, woke slogans while students speak out and demonstrate in support of atrocities committed by terrorists.

We would be mistaken to think this is a phenomenon and problem limited to our universities. Students are already arriving to our universities indoctrinated in our public schools and culture at large with distorted, destructive values.

In a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll from March this year, only 38% said patriotism is "very important," compared to 70% who in 1998 said it's very important.

Among those under the age of 30, only 23% said patriotism is very important.

Regarding religion, 39% said it is very important, compared to 62% in 1998.

Of those under 30, only 23% said having children is "very important."

Does the major decline in the values of religion, patriotism, family and children point to something happening in our culture we should worry about? I think yes.

Does it have implications on our national security? I think yes.

Military recruiting officers testified last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee on personnel. The Army fell short of its recruiting goal by 25% in 2022, and the Army, Navy and Air Force all failed to meet recruiting goals in the fiscal year that ended in September.

Per Gallup polling earlier this year, 60% expressed "a great deal/quite a lot" of confidence in the military, compared to 82% 20 years ago, in 2003.

War is about life and death. Abortion is about life and death. War is about values that go beyond self. Abortion is about values that go beyond self.

Tuberville may have caused inconvenience to hundreds of officers in line for promotion.

But if those officers do not see or understand the importance to our nation of the pro-life values to which Tuberville has drawn national attention, this is a sign of a major problem in national security.

I cannot imagine a healthy military guided by officers who do not appreciate the sanctity of life.

Tuberville may have lost this battle, but he shined light where light must be shined.

Our future depends on the values Tuberville has championed.

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In 2022, the percentage of the U.S., per the report, that was non-Hispanic white was 59%. In 1980, the U.S. population was 80% white.

The report projects the percentage of the nation that is white continuing to shrink, dropping to 45% by 2060, 37 years from now.

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Aside from concluding that, over time, the American population will be increasingly culturally diverse and colorful, there are profound political implications to this ongoing ethnic shift.

The Republican vote is disproportionately white. The Democratic vote is disproportionately not white. An ongoing shift of the population toward non-white demographics means that, assuming no change in voting behavior of these various groups, electing Republicans will become harder and harder.

Consider that in 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected president, 88% of voters were white. Reagan captured 56% of the white vote, and Jimmy Carter got 36% (there was a third-party candidate in that election, John Anderson, who got 8%).

In the last presidential election, in 2020, 67% of voters were white.

Donald Trump captured 58% of the white vote, and President Joe Biden 41%. Biden won majorities in all other ethnic categories: Black, Hispanic, Asian, other.

If the electorate in 2020 was 88% white, as it was in 1980 when Reagan was elected, it is most reasonable to assume that Trump would now be serving his second term.

It is also reasonable to assume that the ongoing shrinking of the white vote was one relevant factor in Trump's loss in 2020. When he won in 2016, flipping five battleground states by razor-thin margins, the white vote nationally totaled 70%. This dropped 3 percentage points in 2020 to 67%.

It's clear that if Republicans, and those who care about the Republican agenda, want a future, they are going to have to pick up more support among non-white Americans. Is this possible?

One core factor separating Democrats and Republicans is belief in government.

In a recent Gallup poll, 64% of Democrats, compared to 20% of Republicans, expressed "a great deal or a fair amount of trust" in the federal government to solve domestic problems.

We may conclude that non-white Americans, compared to white Americans, choose more rather than less government to solve their problems.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation recently compiled comparative household median income data for the nation.

In 2022, median national household income was $74,580.

Median white household income was $81,060. Median Hispanic household income was $62,800. Median black household income was $52,860. Lagging income is clearly a major problem in America's communities of color.

Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane calls "sclerotic growth ... America's overriding economic problem" and points out that it's economic growth that drives income.

The U.S. economy grew at an average rate of 3.5% annually from 1950 to 2000, per Cochrane. If it grew over those 50 years at 2% per year, around where it has been for the last 15 years, income would have been 54% lower.

What causes "sclerotic growth"? Too much government.

We need major reeducation in the nation's communities of color that big government is not their friend.

The federal government is now sucking up 25% of the U.S. economy. The Congressional Budget Office now projects average growth over the next 30 years at 1.6% per year.

Not a pretty picture, and lower-income Americans will suffer the most.

The title of one of my books is "Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It."

The Civil Rights Movement was a fight for freedom. Unfortunately, too many black Americans have used their freedom to choose the government plantation.

Now this is a challenge not just for blacks but for the whole nation.

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Recently published projections for the U.S. population from the U.S. Census Bureau present a picture that should concern every American.

It's a snapshot of a dying society. It's surprising and shocking that it's not getting more attention.

The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will stop growing toward the end of the century. After peaking at 370 million in 2080, it will drop to 366 million in 2100, less than 10% higher than where it stood in 2022.

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By 2029, the percentage of Americans over the age of 65 will exceed the percentage under 18, and by 2038, the number of deaths in the nation will exceed the number of births.

Thinking about this in the most basic terms, at any point in time a given percentage of the population is working and net producing and a given percentage is not working and net consuming. As a population ages, the percentage working and producing shrinks and the percentage consuming grows.

Our health care expenditures, for instance, consume almost 20% of our GDP. In 2019, 30% of our population was age 55 and above but consumed 56% of our health care expenditures.

As the population ages, an increasing percentage of GDP will be required for health care.

There's discussion now about the viability of Social Security. At the core of this discussion is the economics of the system, in which the funds retirees receive come from the payroll taxes that those working pay.

A diminishing number of those working per each retiree strains the financial viability of the system.

Per the most recent report of the Social Security Trustees: In 1950, there were 16.5 working and paying for every retiree. By 1960, this was down to 5.1. Now it's 2.7. The trustees project that by 2040, it will be down to 2.3; and by 2065, 2.1.

So, we see the claim that, from a political perspective, there is a so-called social agenda – marriage, family, children, abortion – and an economic agenda – spending and taxes – and that these have nothing to do with each other is false.

Abortion, the collapse of marriage and family, and dropping fertility rates have everything to do with the overall health of our society.

As we look at this data from the Census Bureau projecting an aging country and a shrinking population, we need to look at the changing values prevailing in our culture as the No. 1 culprit driving our problems.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal released polling done jointly with NORC (National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago under the headline "America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It."

Regarding religion, 39% said it's "very important to them," compared to 62% who said in 1998 that religion is "very important." Regarding having children, 30% said it's "very important" compared to 60% who said it was "very important" in 1998.

Among those under the age of 30, only 23% said having children is "very important."

Behavior reflects prevailing values. Americans are bringing fewer children into the world. The current U.S. fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman, well below the 2.1 needed to maintain the current population size.

What has driven the collapse of our culture? One major culprit is misguided court decisions that pulled prayer and religion out of our public schools.

Recently, Harvard economist Roland Fryer wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the need for "real school choice."

He appeals for the original vision of economist Milton Friedman for "parents to have the autonomy to select the optimal educational environment for their children, unbounded by geography or income brackets, and to take their full allotment of education funds with them."

Giving parents control of their child's education would be a major step in combating the widespread collapse in values that has so badly damaged our nation.

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Ramaswamy ignored the question and chose instead to attack Republican National Committee Chairperson Ronna McDaniel, calling for her resignation, calling his party "a party of losers" and placing the responsibility for this accusation on her shoulders.

McDaniel may hold a high-ranking position in the structure of her party; she is chairperson.

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But elections are not about party operatives. Elections are about candidates.

The best party machine in the world, with all the money in the world, will not elect a candidate that voters don't want.

Politics is about candidates, and candidates are about leadership, and leadership is about truth and character.

That Ramaswamy ignored what he was asked, to explain why Republican voters should prefer him to former President Donald Trump, is far more relevant than issues about party bureaucracy.

Reasonable scrutiny shows that the Republican candidate selection process is working well.

Candidates are presenting themselves in the political marketplace, and the marketplace is evaluating and choosing.

In the first debate there were eight candidates. In the last, there were five. In the next, three, maybe four.

I wrote in this column that when Trump decided not to participate in the debates that it wouldn't be a bad thing. It would give the others a chance to present themselves to the public.

The greatest beneficiary of this has been Nikki Haley, who, at the time of the first debate, was polling, per the RealClearPolitics average, 3.2% nationally. Now she stands at 10.7%.

Perhaps this is really what is bothering Ramaswamy, who was polling 7.2% at the time of the first debate and now stands at 4.9%. I don't think he can blame McDaniel for this.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose polling imploded over the course of the year, dropping from 28.8% at the beginning of January to 14.3% at the time of the first debate, has not succeeded to capture hearts and minds through the debates and now stands with little change at 14.8%.

Trump, of course, has been hovering at 50 points beyond the rest over the whole period.

And maybe this is where things will remain.

But we need an open and free market for political ideas and, to the extent that the Republican National Committee can influence this, I think McDaniel has performed reasonably well.

Does the Republican Party have challenges?

Yes, of course. But this is not because of the RNC.

The chaos that prevailed in the House in picking a speaker shows a party that is divided on important issues, and this is not a good thing. If there is disappointment regarding Republican performance in recent elections, this is the reason, not party bureaucracy.

It is clear what is wrong with the Democrats. The American people are looking for alternative answers on our big problems, and Republicans must provide a clear other voice.

How will the massive expansion of government, which translates into huge debt, huge spending and slow growth, be fixed? How will our broken entitlement systems – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid – that consume some two-thirds of our federal spending, be fixed?

What is our nation's place as leader in the free world? And how will we revitalize our deteriorated defense and military capability?

How will we restore our lost moral clarity and deal with abortion, marriage, family and children? The latest Census Bureau projection showing a shrinking and aging country does not portray a nation with a future.

The Republican candidate that chooses to courageously and honestly answer these questions can capture hearts and minds of American voters.

Meanwhile, civility will help. It is worth remembering Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican."

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I hope it's the case. Although Scott's presidential campaign never ignited, his presence and campaign contributed immeasurably to our national politics, and perhaps this first experience of his in the national spotlight will make him that much more effective the next time around.

I would summarize Scott's unique and critically important message as follows:

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Race matters. But not for the reasons that those on the left say.

For Scott, race matters to the extent his personal life story matters.

Born in poverty, raised by a single mother, Scott's turning point came when the light of faith ignited in his soul at age 18.

Beginning at that point, his life was defined by faith, meaning, work and personal responsibility. These are the values that led him from poverty to the U.S. Senate and to a presidential campaign. And these are the values, per Scott, that define what America and freedom are about.

During the last Republican debate, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker questioned the most basic premise of Scott's campaign in her online debate commentary: "Sen. Tim Scott must recognize that America is not exclusively a Christian nation. How can he sell himself to a diverse country if he's only willing to address Christians?"

The answer to Parker is that Tim Scott is not trying to make every American a Christian, any more than Ronald Reagan was, whose message Scott used as the model for his message that America is a land of hope and opportunity.

Freedom, per Scott and Reagan, is about every citizen taking personal responsibility for the outcome of their own life. This, Scott would say, is impossible without faith to get you through the hard times, to give you assurance that your struggles have meaning, and eternal values that respect life and property.

The center of responsibility in a free country lies with each individual citizen.

Reagan's global battle was with the Soviet Union and communism.

It's not so different from the battle today of those, like Scott, who wish to preserve America as a free country, and the left who carry the message of "wokeism."

The core characteristic of "wokeism" is no different than the core characteristic of communism.

It puts its faith in government and politics and not in individual freedom and God.

The massive fiscal and economic problems we have today are the direct result of increasing faith and reliance in government and politics.

More debt, more spending, more government translate into less growth and less wealth.

Just as communism was a failed model that ultimately collapsed, so we are heading down the same path with big government wokeism in our own country.

This is why Scott's place in national politics is so important.

Our political future increasingly depends on Americans of color.

When Reagan first ran for president in 1980, 88% of voters were white.

In the last presidential election in 2020, 67% of voters were white.

Disproportionately, non-white voters have placed more faith in government than in themselves. It is killing these communities and the country.

It is of critical importance that a successful black man like Scott stand before the nation and argue against big government and for the eternal values that sustain individual freedom, a free society and that he showcases his own life as proof that these values work.

Recently, the Census Bureau, for the first time, projected that the American population will shrink. As we approach midcentury, deaths will exceed births, as the population ages and we produce fewer children.

Kathleen Parker may question Tim Scott's message of Christian values.

But it is those values that enable America as a free country and lead us into the future.

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Forty Christian pastors – White, Black, Hispanic – attended to speak out in support of Israel.

We brought these Christian spokespersons into the backyard of one of the most aggressive voices in the U.S. Congress speaking out against Israel and supporting the terrorism and aggression against the Jewish state.

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But a crucial element in our message is that the policy turf being staked out in this debate has implications far beyond providing moral and material support to Israel.

We're talking about values that are as central and crucial to the future of our own country as they are for Israel.

Regarding Tlaib, per Census Reporter, her district is 43% Black; the poverty rate is 21% (150% the national average); and 61% of adults are unmarried – a rate 25% higher than the national average.

Tlaib's voting record is hardcore left. She gets a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, reflecting her support of abortion. She gets a 100% rating from teachers unions, reflecting support of failing government schools and opposition to parental choice in education. And she gets a 0% rating from organizations supporting lower taxes and spending, such as Americans for Prosperity, Campaign for Working Families and National Federation of Independent Business.

Tlaib consistently supports, along with her colleagues of "the Squad" – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – the left-wing agenda expanding the welfare state, tilting at climate change windmills and supporting values like abortion that contribute to the breakdown of the traditional family.

In other words, Tlaib aggressively supports the very policies that keep her district poor.

These are also the values that are bankrupting our country, as government spending now sucks up 25% of our GDP and we drown in debt.

In 2020, when the country was torn apart with riots after the death of George Floyd, my organization did a campaign posting billboards in low-income neighborhoods promoting the "success sequence."

The "success sequence," based on policy research in Washington, points to the personal behavior that leads to the best chances of avoiding poverty and moving from low-income status to middle class. That is, finish high school, get married, and take any job.

When we posted billboards with this message that this is the way to avoid poverty, Black Lives Matter went to the billboard company and demanded they take them down.

What about our message so offended Black Lives Matter?

They reject, along with all those on the left, values that rest on personal responsibility. They embrace only a culture of victimhood and blame.

In this worldview, the only explanation for achievement is exploitation.

This is their explanation for the success of Israelis, who built, from nothing, a modern country with per capita GDP higher than most European countries. And this is their explanation for those who have achieved success and wealth in our own country.

This year, for the first time ever, in the Gallup annual survey asking about sympathy for Israelis compared to sympathy for Palestinians, those identifying as Democrats expressed sympathy for Palestinians 11 points higher than Israelis. Our youth, those born between 1980 and 2000, expressed sympathy for Palestinians 2 points higher than for Israelis.

The culture of blame and victimhood has captured the left and our youth.

These values are incompatible with the values of a free country, which can only exist when individuals take personal responsibility.

It should be clear that those expressing opposition to Israel are also voices antipathetic to America's future as a free country.

Our shared values with Israel go beyond democracy. They are about the most basic ingredient of a free society. Personal responsibility. This is the value the left so deeply hates.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence, a consistent and unwavering Christian and constitutional conservative, announced the termination of his presidential campaign, saying, "It's become clear to me; this is not my time."

A few days earlier, another consistent and deeply rooted Christian and constitutional conservative, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., emerged from seemingly hopeless and interminable Republican chaos, to be chosen, on one decisive ballot, as the new House speaker.

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Regarding the former vice president, The Wall Street Journal summed it up well. He would be "a good president," their editorial board said, but "MAGA voters wouldn't forgive him" for not cooperating to overturn the 2020 election and "anti-Trump voters wouldn't forgive his four years as Mr. Trump's loyal number two."

About Johnson, some say Democrats are celebrating, convinced that his Christian conservatism will drive voters into their camp.

But it well could be exactly the opposite. These days are not "business as usual" days.

The horrors committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians has shocked and appalled decent Americans. Suddenly, we are reminded that indeed there is good and evil.

Decent Americans recognize conflict. But we see this is not conflict. This is depravity.

There has always been rhetoric about the bond between our country and Israel. Usually this is framed as Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East.

But we see now it is much more.

Both Israel and America go to war when there is no other option. American soldiers and Israeli soldiers fight and kill enemy soldiers because all other options have failed. But Americans and Israelis do not celebrate death and do not take joy in killing.

And for sure, American soldiers and Israeli soldiers do not commit atrocities.

Perhaps most shocking and appalling for decent Americans nationwide -- beyond the reports of rape, desecration of bodies, beheadings -- is to see students at our elite universities supporting this depravity and accusing the Israeli victims to be the cause.

We are further appalled at the reticence of the administrations at these elite universities to condemn these activities.

Only now is the president of Harvard speaking out against antisemitism after initial woke-framed remarks about free speech and bringing all sides together.

The encouraging news is alumni at these schools are reacting and pulling their funds.

In a recent Pew Research survey, 9% of Americans ages 18-29 agreed that "U.S. stands above all other countries in the world" and 43% agreed that "Other countries are better than the U.S."

The generation leading our future, raised in a culture of meaninglessness and materialism, now hates its own country, founded and built on the very values it rejects.

So now we have a major wake-up call in front of us.

For those who think restoring awareness about good and evil is not a viable political platform, we have history to prove otherwise.

"But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man. ... There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might."

President Ronald Reagan spoke these words in March 1983 in the speech in which he called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

Fifty-two American hostages were held prisoner in Iran for 444 days during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. They were released days after Reagan captured the presidency from Carter and took office in January 1981.

Then the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall was torn down as a result of Reagan's leadership.

Reagan was reelected president in 1984, winning 49 of 50 states. Something we can hardly imagine today.

Truth, and the courage to stand by it, works. Our nation badly needs it today.

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According to a survey done by the Harvard Crimson in 2022, 80% of the faculty at Harvard University self-identified as "liberal." Thirty-seven percent self-identified as "very liberal."

Only 1% self-identified as conservative.

This snapshot of the politics of the faculty at the nation's oldest and leading university is not exceptional. Surveys of most university faculties show them overwhelmingly on the left.

If we think about it, it can help us understand why the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, had such a hard time making a clear statement condemning the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians.

And it can help us understand demonstrations by students at Harvard, and other universities, accusing Israel, the victim of these atrocities, as their cause.

As one Wall Street Journal columnist put it, one can hardly imagine demonstrations at Harvard against human brutality in China, Iran, North Korea, Russia or Syria.

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But somehow atrocities against Israelis are not only justified in the eyes of these left-wing university elite but caused by their Israeli victims.

What is the sickness of the soul that has captured America's elite of higher education?

To start our inquiry, we must look at Harvard's founding. John Harvard, who provided the college's first endowment, was a clergyman.

Read the language on Harvard's seal.

"Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae."

"Truth for Christ and Church."

How many of Harvard's administration today, of those teaching at Harvard today, of those learning at Harvard today can identify with these words from the earliest days of their university?

I don't know the exact number, but I think if we guess zero, we'll be close to the truth.

America was founded and built by Christians who sought truth and worked to make a better world.

Were there flaws, mistakes? Of course. They were men.

But the way to improve is to get closer to the truth, not to throw it in the trash.

Those administering, teaching and learning at Harvard and our other leading universities are not consumed by scholarship and truth-seeking, but by ideology.

Ideology is strikingly similar to another word: idol. Something man builds for himself and worships.

It is the product of egotism and pride and not the product of humility, which comes only from knowing there is a truth bigger than you, of which you are part.

Claudine Gay condemned hate and said her university is about bringing people with differences together.

This is a university president who does not see "veritas," truth, and good and evil in the world, as embodied and conveyed in the message on her university seal and its history.

The job of universities is to pursue truth. But this is impossible when they do not believe truth exists. Thinking that the point is bringing together people rather than pursing truth is an exercise in ideology, not scholarship, and leads only to the social, cultural and spiritual degeneration we are experiencing.

If we want to save our country, let's save our places of learning. Let's purge the sea of ethnic, political and ideological clubs that dominate social and intellectual life at what are supposed to be our institutions of learning.

The terrorists are financed by the sale of oil. That oil was found, developed and is worth mega-billions because of Western technology. A disproportionate contribution to the development of that science and technology has come from the very people whose homeland is Israel, against whom the terrorists commit atrocities.

The United States grew and became great with the values that brought forth the miracle that is the modern State of Israel.

The moral relativism and hedonism of America's left is now obliterating these truths.

A new birth of freedom in America means a new birth of truth and learning at our universities.

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Haley is capturing hearts and minds, and this warrants attention.

Per Haley's campaign, in the most recent quarter, 40,000 new donors were added and $11 million was raised.

Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, who withdrew from the presidential race, endorsed Haley in a column in The Wall Street Journal. "Our nation deserves a leader who can unite us and navigate the complex challenges we face, particularly on national security. Ms. Haley is the best person in this race to do that," per Hurd.

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The last time I wrote about Gaza and Hamas was 13 years ago, in 2010.

The point of the column was the striking contrast between how Israelis deal with life's challenges and how Hamas leads its Palestinian constituents in Gaza.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and turned it over to the Palestinian Authority. Within two years, with local elections, Hamas was in charge.

Hamas claims their wish is to build an independent Palestinian state. They could have started the process then 15 years ago. But they did not because although they say the words, their priority is not a state for their people but the destruction of their Israeli neighbors to the north.

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In that column in 2010, I related the story of Israeli settlers who were uprooted from their homes in the Gaza region when Israel pulled out. There was resistance and protests from these families that they should be forced to abandon their homes, but they had no choice.

I quoted the late television personality Art Linkletter, who observed, "Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out."

This defines the Israeli mindset. It is a culture of life, of faith, of going on and building despite life's often devastating challenges.

Most know how Israel emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust, with Jews returning from the four corners of the globe to build a state in their ancient homeland.

Starting from nothing except their own human capital and commitment to build anew, a modern state was built, which now has a per capita GDP higher than most European countries.

Regarding the Israeli families that were moved from Gaza, I related how they moved inland to a barren patch of desert and built a new agricultural settlement. They piped in desalinated water from the Mediterranean, irrigated the desert and started planting.

Within five years they were exporting $50 million a year of organic potatoes, carrots and peppers.

Now this community, Halutza, boasts a medical center and dental clinic and grows 75 different varieties of fruits of vegetable, with exports worldwide.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, under Hamas leadership, zero has been accomplished. Things are exactly as they were 20 years ago.

Their only accomplishments have been the casualties, Palestinian and Israeli, as a result of the never-ending state of war, totally the result of Hamas refusing to recognize Israel and vowing its destruction.

They have wasted their sovereignty growing hate rather than a state and an economy.

When I wrote the column back in 2010, Israel's per capita GDP was $31,267. By 2022, it was up to $54,660.

Per Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, the Palestinians living under the Hamas totalitarian regime are not happy, but expressing opposition amounts to a death sentence.

Polls, per Pipes, show that the local population supports the statement: "Palestinians should push harder to replace their own political leaders with more effective and less corrupt ones."

He notes that since Hamas took over, "an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 young adults" have left Gaza.

The horrors and atrocities committed by these purveyors of death have been captured on video for all to see. Women, children and elderly civilians murdered in cold blood. Corpses desecrated.

Unfortunately, now, young Israelis are pulled out of universities and places of work and mobilized once again to fight. More parents will lose their children; more young wives will become widows.

Israelis fight in order to survive. Hamas fights because they want to kill.

For the sake of Israel, for the sake of the Palestinian people, for the sake of the world, we must pray that this time is the last time that Israeli and Palestinian lives are lost because of this evil regime.

The status quo is no longer an option. Hamas must be removed for good, once and for all.

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Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley got to the heart of the government shutdown fireworks in her appearance on Fox News Sunday.

"Let's be clear what the Freedom Caucus is really trying to do; they are trying to cut spending."

That's of course correct. One would be hard-pressed to find any Republican, Freedom Caucus member or not, who does not understand the gravity of the state of our federal budget and spending.

Unfortunately, now we have a small group of Republicans doing what liberals do -- looking for whom to blame. You would think that [former]House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is personally responsible for $33 trillion in national debt and a $2.2 trillion deficit.

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McCarthy is sent to do budget battles with his hands tied behind his back. The marching order regarding spending cuts is and has been that only on the table is discretionary spending.

Discretionary spending accounts for 27% of the federal budget.

Discretionary spending is funds that Congress has authority to appropriate annually. About half of it is the Defense budget. Given that our Defense spending is currently at a dangerously low level as a percent of GDP, it is, for practical purposes, also off the table.

So, what is left to target for spending cuts is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. The allegation that McCarthy betrayed his party and colleagues by not seriously going to budget war and shutting down the government is a grand distortion.

If we want to turn to reality, the real issue is what no one wants to talk about -- the approximately 70% of the federal budget that is non-discretionary, which happens automatically.

The major non-discretionary items are interest on the federal debt and entitlement programs -- the two largest being Social Security and Medicare.

Interest is a symptom rather than a cause. Interest rates, and hence interest expenditures, have been going up because of all the spending and the inflation that has resulted from this.

So, we wind up staring into the eyes of the elephants in the room.

Social Security and Medicare.

Even our champion of Make America Great Again, former President Donald Trump, has insisted that reform of Social Security and Medicare is off the table.

Federal spending is now around 25% of GDP. CBO projects it reaching 30% in 30 years. The average from 1962 to 2022 was 20.5%.

Most of the growth in that spending comes from interest, Social Security and Medicare.

We are a far different country today compared to when these programs were enacted -- Social Security in 1936, Medicare in 1965.

The costs of Social Security, a retirement system, and Medicare, a health care payment system for the elderly, are driven by the percentage of elderly in the population. Lower birth rates, hence fewer children, and longer life spans means a higher percent of elderly and increasingly costly programs.

The median age in the U.S. in 1930 was 26.5. In 1960, it was 29.6. In 2021, it was 38.8.

Per a Cato Institute report, "unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security are equivalent to $650,000 for every U.S. household."

Must our citizens take a beating with benefit cuts and retirement age increases? No.

We need to transform from tax-based government systems to market-based systems of ownership. Markets and ownership are what built our country. Our problems began when we start turning to government.

But major change takes courage and leadership. And in this we seem to be sorely lacking.

I invite those Republican members of Congress, so bent on dumping on Speaker McCarthy, who has done his job keeping the nation functioning and moving forward, to step out and speak to the nation regarding how they propose to reform Social Security and Medicare.

And I invite our Republican presidential candidates, including the one currently leading in the polls, to do the same.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Believe it or not, today's high priests of climate-change apocalypse are correct in predicting that in just a few short years, the earth will become miserable, wretched and almost uninhabitable by human beings. But the grim future they envision won't come about because of "catastrophic climate change," but rather, because of the implementation of their completely insane and truly catastrophic agenda.

As Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore recently admitted, "If they actually achieve Net Zero, at least 50% of the population would die of hunger and disease." Likewise, writes energy expert and author Alex Epstein: "Today's proposed policies to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use would, if fully implemented, have truly apocalyptic consequences – making the world an impoverished, dangerous, and miserable place for most people."
Question: When the scientific case for global warming apocalypse consists primarily of a 1-degree Celsius rise in temperature over more than 130 years, what explains the obsession with an imminent, climate-caused end of the world?
Although many groups have been drawn into the Climate Change Cult – from the news media (which has warned of climate catastrophe, either global warming or a "new ice age," for over a century!), to innocent school kids indoctrinated by hysterical leftist teachers, to liberal Democrats who claim "climate change" will destroy the earth in a few years – the REAL villains are the national and global elites who KNOW the apocalyptic global warming religion is just a cruel hoax, but promote and exploit it as a means of accomplishing their ultimate goal: Transforming and ruling the world.
The heart and soul of today's bizarre, pagan climate-change religion, and the global elites' strategies for using it to rule all of mankind, is powerfully exposed and illuminated in the September issue of WND's critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, an issue titled "CULT OF THE CLIMATE APOCALYPSE: The elites' breathtaking strategy for ruling the world." WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.

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Mainor specifically noted her frustration with the Democratic Party in its opposition to improving education through parental choice and ongoing Democratic weakness in building strong law enforcement.

I cannot claim a new wave of Black Democrats like Mainor becoming Republicans. But there is certainly a trend.

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This is done under the rubric of the left that "government knows best."

Day by day, we are becoming what the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia described as "a country I do not recognize."

In a new paper published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Casey Mulligan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and former chief economist of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, estimates the current and future costs of new regulations imposed so far by the Biden administration as close to $10,000 per household.

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Per Mulligan, although the largest single area of new regulatory costs come from fuel economy and emission standards, they still only account for one-third of the total costs. The rest come from "health, labor, telecommunications and consumer finance regulations."

In a paper published last year by Mulligan with Stephen Moore, they estimated that Biden administration policies, driven by climate change dogma, to shut down the oil and gas industry have resulted in 2 to 3 million barrels per day less of oil production and 20 to 25 billion cubic feet of less natural gas production had these policies not been in place.

Mulligan and Moore estimate the cost of this foregone energy production to the U.S. economy is on the order of $100 billion per year.

Now we have the latest move by the Biden administration to remove millions of acres of land in Alaska from oil and gas drilling and development.

This includes blocking nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the largest expanse of public land in the country, and canceling seven leases issued during the Trump administration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

These moves may leave President Joe Biden's climate change dogmatists happy, but less so Americans who care what they pay for energy.

Alaska's Sen. Dan Sullivan and Wyoming's Rep. Harriet Hageman have introduced the Energy Poverty Prevention and Accountability Act that requires cost-benefit evaluation from federal agencies on energy-related policies that assesses the impact of policies on affordability of energy on Americans, particularly at-risk communities.

There is no question about the impact on the cost of living of all Americans as the Biden administration tilts at climate change windmills.

Oil prices and gasoline prices are now at 12-month highs.

Biden climate/energy policies have also found their way into the current auto strike.

Despite the United Auto Workers being a traditional stalwart supporter of the Democratic Party, so far UAW president Shawn Fain has not endorsed Biden.

One of the issues is government mandates on automakers to move to electric vehicles. Estimates are that production of EVs requires about 30% less labor. Therefore, these mandates threaten long-term economic security of auto workers.

The likely solution will not be backing off these mandates but subsidies and mandates to support union jobs in EV production.

This means even more government. More government controlling our economy, more government controlling our lives.

It is all a kind of backdoor socialism. But rather than increasing government control coming from some abstract ideology, we get the same result from belief that "government knows best." The result is armies of government bureaucrat micromanagers controlling our lives.

Let's recall our own Declaration of Independence, which states our founding based on individual rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and "that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men ... that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."

It is time for Americans to act to restore our free nation while we have a few breaths of freedom left.

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He went to the National Cathedral and spoke to the nation, casting the horrible event in theological light, saying that the United States must "answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."

Bush said we live in a world "of moral design" and he appealed to "Almighty God to watch over our nation."

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Three months later, he addressed Congress in his State of the Union message and defined nations supporting terror as an "axis of evil."

Others also cast the attack in theological light but were denounced rather than supported by Bush.

Evangelists Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson discussed what happened on Robertson's television show and cast the event as divine retribution for what they defined as evil occurring inside our country.

As reported by The New York Times, "The Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson set off a minor explosion of their own when they asserted ... that an angry God had allowed the terrorists to succeed in their deadly mission because the United States had become a nation of abortion, homosexuality, secular schools and courts, and the American Civil Liberties Union."

Per Bush's spokesman, the president "does not share those views and believes that those remarks are inappropriate."

What is certainly clear is the activities that Falwell and Robertson talked about and condemned are defined in the Bible as sin, and therefore evil.

As a born-again Christian, we do indeed live in a world, as Bush said, "of moral design," and the idea of good and evil has meaning only if there are consequences.

Certainly, it is true, as other evangelicals pointed out then, that we cannot claim to explain specific acts of God. But we certainly know that evil has inescapable consequences. If not, it has no meaning.

What we might ask now is: If the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, had anything to do with good and evil, where do we stand today compared to then?

The data shows that today the country is decidedly less religious than it was Sept. 11, 2001. Despite the trauma of 9/11, it did not cause Americans as a whole to do soul searching to take inventory of our own moral behavior.

Per Gallup, in 1950, the percentage of Americans who said they have no religion was close to 0. In 2001, it was 8%. Today, that figure has increased to 21%.

In 1996, 27% supported the idea of legalized same-sex marriage. Today, that figure stands at 71%.

In 2000, 8%, per Gallup, said abortion should be legal in the third trimester of pregnancy. Today that percentage has almost tripled to 22%.

The transgender issue was not even part of the national discussion in 2001. Today, it receives major attention.

Per a new study released by my organization, CURE, "The Trans Youth Phenomenon: Critiques and Hard Questions," the incidence of youth identifying as transgender "has substantially increased."

As traditional morals decline, we adopt a new religion of government. In 2001, federal government spending as percent of GDP was 17.6%. In 2022, it was up to 24.6%.

Bloated government slows our growth. GDP grew from 2000 to today, on average, 2% per year. From 1950 to 1999, the average was 3.6%.

Regarding national security, all the spending makes us less secure because it puts pressure on the defense budget.

I think Falwell and Robertson did the nation a favor in 2001 to say we must look inside as well as outside. If we did, and we made corrections where, according to biblical standards, we were headed in the wrong direction, we would be a stronger nation today.

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The speech is without question a historic landmark, both in terms of recalling the unique stress of the time and in terms of King's eloquence in capturing the situation.

But beyond being interesting, why do we bother at all with history?

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It brings to mind Albert Einstein's famous definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Einstein essentially touched the question about why we study history. Our track record of success and failure is spotted. Looking back, we get a sense of what works and what doesn't. Regarding our failures, Einstein was conveying we should be honest about them, learn from them and have the courage to change.

Given that King spoke that day to all Americans – not just Black Americans or White Americans – we should assess where we are today given how King defined then what was wrong. What have we learned, and what remains for us to learn?

We need to ask why, 60 years later, race still occupies such a large part of our public consciousness.

King's complaint was not about our national charter. He referred to the "magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

His complaint and indictment were that the nation was not living up to that charter.

In the grand scheme of things, King, in that speech, defined the movement he led as about leading America to its full potential, as defined by the ideals and principles in its founding documents.

He implored that the struggle to realize the American charter of freedom and protection of the rights of all citizens take place "on the high plane of dignity and discipline." He urged Black Americans to not "satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."

And King's final appeal was to see our nation as a nation under God.

It is a critical point.

King's vision, as expressed that day, was that the American ideal of freedom would be made possible when "all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'"

Although our realities today are far different from August 1963 – certainly the material state of Black Americans is far, far better – there is a prevailing sense that things are not good.

If we take King's words at face value, then it is questionable we have learned much since then.

When he spoke about failing to live up to the "magnificent words" of our founding documents, he got applause from the crowd.

It is questionable that would be the case today. Many on the left see our nation as fundamentally flawed. They see government and politics as the answer, not individual freedom.

The nation's deplorable fiscal situation today reflects this change in attitude. Government spending now takes two-thirds more from our national economy than when King spoke in 1963.

King's appeal that the struggle take place "on the high plane of dignity" is also, sadly, lost. The divisions and hate between citizens today are an unfortunate and troubling reality.

And, what should trouble us most, is we have moved in the opposite direction from King's vision that ultimately our freedom will be realized as children of God.

The political left sees our future in socialism and secularism.

If, over the 60 years since King spoke, we pursued freedom in terms of personal responsibility, limited government and faith, we would be far, far better off today.

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And now it's official. He's not showing up.

Now we can have a debate about issues and not about Trump.

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Let's also keep in mind, regarding the debate, Republican voters must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

That is, although the most immediate focus is who will be the Republican nominee, the point of the whole exercise is winning the presidency. It doesn't much matter if Republicans nominate a candidate who makes them happy but who is unlikely to win the big prize – the presidency.

Although Trump maintains a massive lead in polling among Republicans, the debate presents an opportunity for the other candidates to establish their credibility and viability of their candidacy in the general election.

Let's recall that Trump's final approval rating at the conclusion of his presidency was 34%. This is an approval rating that essentially guarantees a victory for the challenging party in the election to follow.

Most recent RealClearPolitics polling shows Biden marginally ahead of Trump, but not in a statistically significant way.

RealClearPolitics betting odds shows Biden at 35.1% and Trump at 26.9%.

It is not without reason that Democrats are doing everything possible to increase the likelihood that Trump is the Republican candidate.

The good news for Republicans is that there remains general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country; only 18% are satisfied, per most recent Gallup polling.

President Joe Biden's approval, measured by Gallup, hovers at 40% and disapproval at 55%.

So, fundamentals look positive for a change in party.

Additional fundamentals that point positive for Republicans is that on issues that are of most concern to Americans, generally Republicans are viewed more positively regarding their handling of these issues.

In recent polling from Pew, Republicans are favored by 12 points on the economy, by 10 points on crime, by 10 points on immigration, by 8 points on the deficit and by 4 points on foreign policy.

Democrats are favored by 14 points on climate change, by 12 points on abortion, by 12 points on health care policy, by 10 points on race, by 8 points on LGBTQ and by 4 points on education.

Of these issues, of the top 10 that poll as "very important," Republicans are favored in 8 of the 10.

The top issue rated "very important" is inflation, which might be understood as the economy in general, and Republicans say this is very important by a margin of 25 over Democrats.

What should these Republican candidates who will be taking the stage in this debate be thinking about?

My advice to candidates is to speak directly to the American people and not be obsessed with how they look relative to other candidates.

Jean Monnet, the founder of the European Common Market, which evolved to become the European Union, observed that there are two kinds of people: those who want to be someone and those who want to do something.

Aspirants to the nation's highest office should be asking themselves why they want it. Do they want to be someone? Or do they want to do something?

The American people are looking for a leader whose motivation is the mission of country, its operation and the quality of life of American citizens. They are looking for a leader dedicated to fixing and improving our country and not someone who really, deep down, is trying to solve some kind of personal need for fame and recognition.

The problems of the nation are great. Voters can sense those who genuinely care about the country and about them and who have the right ideas.

This is what candidates should have in mind. Those with an honest and sincere heart and a right-thinking mind will connect positively with voters.

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The initiative, which would have raised the threshold vote for amending the state constitution, was understood to be about abortion, because a ballot measure is expected in November to amend the state constitution to secure abortion "rights."

The measure was defeated 57% to 43% in a state in which Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in 2020, 53.3% to 45.2%.

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One year ago, voters in Kansas, a state in which Trump defeated Biden 56.1% to 41.5%, voted down a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to ban abortion, 59% to 41%.

Unpopularity of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade, was one of the explanations given for the underwhelming performance by Republicans in the congressional elections in 2022.

Currently, abortion is legal in 26 states and banned at various levels in the other states.

Per a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, of those who say their view on abortion has changed over the last year, 23% say they have become more supportive of legal abortion and 6% less.

And pro-abortion activists plan more initiatives in states with abortion bans.

The Dobbs decision wasn't about the moral acceptability of abortion. It was about the Constitution. The decision, written by Samuel Alito, rejected the premise of Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a right to abortion.

"The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any Constitutional provision," wrote Alito.

Unless action is taken in Congress to enact federal abortion legislation, the issue is turned over to the states.

Pro-abortion forces, post-Dobbs, seem to have been more energized than pro-life forces.

In response to the question, per Gallup, "Will you only vote for a candidate who shares your views on abortion?" 17% of pro-abortion supporters said "yes," while 10% of pro-life supporters said "yes."

Overall, per Gallup polling, public sentiment over time has become more tolerant of abortion.

Thirty-four percent, compared to 21% in 1975, say abortion should be legal under any circumstances.

Broken down by trimester, 69% now say abortion should be legal in the first trimester, compared to 64% in 1996. In second trimester, 37% say abortion should be legal, compared to 26% in 1996. And in the third trimester, 22% now say abortion should be legal, compared to 13% in 1996.

What I find particularly alarming is that among Democrats, 44% say abortion should be legal in the third trimester.

We may have differences of opinion about the key abortion issue: When does life begin?

But in the final trimester, the situation is crystal-clear.

With proper care, estimates are that survival chances of a prematurely born child at 25-26 weeks are 80%. At 32 weeks, it is 95%.

Yet, 44% of Democrats believe abortion in this period should be legal. This means that, for them, destroying a living, feeling baby is OK. I think it is called murder.

For sure, these same Democrats, citizens of the left, that see no problem with abortion are outraged that slavery was once permitted in our country.

But just as slavery showed something sick in our national soul, the same is the case with legal abortion.

And just as slavery damaged the nation, so does abortion.

It shows decline of individual grasp of good and evil and hence personal responsibility.

The result is more and more turning to government to pay for the damage caused by broken families, decline of marriage and advancement of a culture of selfishness.

I think our Republican candidates should be more focused and aggressive in discussing abortion as a symptom of a broader cultural crisis in the country.

Our fiscal bankruptcy and our moral bankruptcy go hand in hand.

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However, one of those eight is former President Donald Trump, who suggests that he is not inclined to show up.

"When you have a big lead, you don't do it," noted Trump.

"Am I going to stand up there by guys with zero, one, two, three percent – maybe four – and have them ask me hostile questions?"

He now says he'll poll supporters.

Fox News, the network carrying the event, RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel and some of the other candidates are urging Trump to debate.

But I think there is a strong case to be made that if what we want this election to be about is navigating toward the best interests of the country and its citizens, it may be best for Donald Trump not to show up in Milwaukee.

Consider, for instance, that within the last week, bond rating service Fitch downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+.

This is the result of U.S. debt and deficits skyrocketing into outer space.

But this critical development is barely getting news oxygen when the really big story is Trump's latest indictment and now his deliberations about whether to participate in the Republican debate.

When only 19% of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country, and considering that that percentage has been over 40% only once in the last 15 years, it is reasonable to assume that Americans, justifiably, are not pleased with the current state of affairs.

Downgrading by a major credit rating agency its estimate of the ability of the United States to pay its creditors is just the latest piece of information blaring that we have a problem.

The country is bogged down by growth less than half its historic average, inflation, entitlement programs dealing with retirement and health care that were designed 60 to 90 years ago that no longer work, and a shrinking and aging population directly the result of the collapse of the American family.

Only 60% of Americans say they have a great deal/quite a lot of confidence in our military, and the U.S. Army cannot meet its recruiting goals.

We need to fix our nation. The beginning of solving any problem is identifying and defining it properly and then soberly, step by courageous step, coming up with solutions.

This is what the 2024 election should be about. We have two parties with very different views of the world. The pathologies I described above are readily attributed to the party that now controls the White House.

President Joe Biden, whose lifetime has been spent in the political swamp, is now getting deserved attention for corrupt influence peddling, generating wealth for his wayward son.

Biden wants a campaign about personalities, not about issues. And no personality now attracts more attention, diverting from the issues we should be debating, than our former president.

Trump on the stage in Milwaukee means the debates will be about him when they should be about our national agenda and solutions the other seven candidates propose.

Getting press and attention is not a challenge for Trump. So, he doesn't need the stage.

Although Trump does indeed have a commanding lead in the polls, showing he's got support from around half of Republicans, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll says 46% of those Republicans are open to other candidates.

Our country is not in good shape. The answers for sure are not going to come from the party of the left. Republicans must be the party of getting our nation back on track.

Let's start the discussion with the upcoming Republican debate, giving new candidates the opportunity to speak to Republicans and all Americans about how to fix our nation's many problems.

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Mainor, an African American who has been serving in the Georgia Legislature since January 2021, announced two weeks ago that she is leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a Republican.

This is a decision of notable courage in that District 56 that she represents, located in the area around Atlanta, is deep blue.

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Writing an open letter to the nation in the New York Post, she talks about leaving a Democratic Party that very much defined her roots growing up around Atlanta, remarks that ironically strike a note similar to the famous quote of Ronald Reagan, who began his political life as a Democrat.

Reagan's famous line: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me."

Mainor talks about her concerns principally about education, her support for school choice that Democrats oppose, but in addition her disillusionment with a Democratic Party soft on crime and soft on law enforcement.

Poll after poll shows overwhelming support from African Americans for school choice.

Most recently from EdChoice, 78% of African Americans said they view education savings accounts favorably, 79% vouchers favorably, 74% charter schools favorably and 78% open enrollment favorably.

According to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, less than a third of fourth and eighth grade students in Georgia are proficient or better in reading.

It's also clear that Black Americans are not on the same page with the Democratic Party on the woke issue.

On the question of whether a child's sex is genetically "determined" at birth, per Pew polling, 68% of Black Americans say "yes," compared to 38% of those identified as Democrat or "leaning Democrat."

Mainor's honesty and courage are worthy of admiration and respect.

But what will Republicans do with this?

Georgia is a key swing state, won by Donald Trump in 2016 and then recaptured by Joe Biden in 2020, winning by a margin of three-tenths of one percentage point.

The Black vote constitutes some 30% of the overall vote in Georgia and is critical.

Commentator Karl Rove recently observed that a 1% drop in Black voter turnout will flip Georgia back to Republicans.

But Republicans should not be trying to figure out how to get Black voters to stay home. They should be working to support the courageous and principled Mainor and should work to get other Black legislators and voters, in Georgia and nationwide, to see and appreciate the truths that she now articulates.

It is instructive to view polling over time regarding Americans' trust in government.

In October 1964, per Pew, 77% of Americans said they trust the government to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time." By April 2022, this was down to 20%.

Of the 20%, 16% were White and 24% Black. Back in 1964, both 77% of Whites and Blacks expressed trust in government.

In 1964, federal government spending took 17% of GDP. By 2022, it was up to 24%. In other words, as government has expanded, trust in government has diminished. And this is true for all races.

In the latest Gallup polling, only 18% express satisfaction with the direction of the country, half the historic average.

When asked, "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?" the highest response was "government."

Mesha Mainor is a heroine who sees that too long Black Americans have bought into the distortion that government is the answer rather than the problem.

Republicans and all Americans who care about the state of our free nation under God must help get her message out.

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The explanation for this seems clear. The media loves his sharp and aggressive animosity to and criticism of former President Donald Trump.

But the American people are looking for a leader. Could Chris Christie be that man?

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If Christie wants to be that man, he is going to have to do a better job showing how America gets back in the race and focus less on what's wrong with other candidates.

The Cato Institute publishes a biannual fiscal policy report on the nation's governors. It rates each governor according to success in cutting taxes and spending. Governors are scored and ranked A, B, C, D or F.

Christie was rated three times during his two terms as governor of New Jersey. Each time he came in with a solid B.

But Americans are looking for, Americans need, an A leader.

When asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" about the new black history curriculum in Florida, which teaches "how slaves developed some skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit," Christie replied as a politician and not as a leader.

With little knowledge of the full thrust of this curriculum, Christie immediately attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, including calling the Stop Woke Act as "micromanaging curricula in schools."

Regarding black history in particular, the passage quoted above is taken totally out of context and in no way can be construed as justifying slavery. The point is to show that despite the evil and oppression, the spirit of those enslaved prevailed.

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Moreover, included in the curriculum is the directive to "analyze the contribution of founding principles of liberty, justice and equality in the quest to end slavery."

Of course, the real answer is competition, and DeSantis has been superlative in making school choice available throughout the State of Florida.

But as long as many kids are still in public schools, responsible leadership means pushing back against woke content and making sure truth about American history and culture are taught. The Stop Woke Act signed by DeSantis accomplishes this important objective.

Christie deserves credit for saying we need to reform our entitlements – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

In this regard, he distinguishes himself from Trump, who somehow does not think he needs to address this huge problem facing the nation.

What does Christie say? "We need to make sure we preserve the systems, but we have to do it honestly."

But this itself is not honest, because we cannot preserve the systems as they are.

Regarding Social Security, he wants to means test so that higher-earning Americans do not get benefits and he wants to raise the retirement age for younger Americans.

However, if we remove Social Security benefits for high earners, Christie surely doesn't mean they also stop paying payroll taxes. So, he proposes to transform Social Security into a welfare program, where higher earners pay in and only lower earners get benefits.

Regarding raising the retirement age, can we tell someone 40 years old that has been paying taxes for 20 years, under the assumption of a certain benefit structure, that suddenly we are changing the rules?

If Christie means only raising the retirement age for those who will be entering the workforce after the change is made, this won't work because the current projection from Social Security trustees shows insufficient funds beginning in 2034, just 11 years from now.

Chris Christie is energetic and provocative. But he needs to move from grade B ideas to grade A ideas – or soon the Sunday morning talk shows will no longer have him around.

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This statement tells us how those managing one of the nation's most prestigious universities understand justice, knowledge and learning.

First, let's consider what Harvard's president does not say, which is to recognize the importance of "equal protection."

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The unconstitutionality of affirmative action, per the court, follows from the 14th Amendment requiring "equal protection of the laws."

Where does this idea of "equal protection" come from?

If we look in our Bible, in the book of Exodus, judges are directed to apply the law equally to all, and not give special treatment to the poor.

We know this is not because the Bible, which emphasizes the importance of charity and sensitivity to others, is indifferent to the unfortunate.

It is because it is not the job of the judge to determine outcomes – that the world reflect his personal preferences – but to apply the law.

But at Harvard, everyone is so smart that they feel they know what the world should look like. Good and evil are defined in the president's office at Harvard.

So, there is less interest in "equal protection" than achieving social outcomes that reflect how the president of Harvard thinks the world should be.

Per the president, "diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence." And "Harvard must be a place of opportunity."

But "diversity and difference," per Harvard's president, is about race and ethnicity, not about differences among unique individual human beings.

Back to the Bible, standing before the judge is a unique human being with personal responsibility to follow the law. The person's color, gender or bank account is not the issue. Personal behavior is.

Let's consider two areas of ethnic differences.

The Brookings Institution looked at math scores of high school students in the SAT.

The average score in 2020 was 523 out of 800.

Average scores by race/ethnicity were: Black, 454; Hispanic, 478; White, 547; and Asian, 632.

Around each average score is a distribution of individuals above and below that score. There may be Black students with a score way above the 454 average. However, for Harvard, most important is a student's "blackness" rather than his or her individuality.

Pew Research reports that the percentage of 40-year-old Americans that have never been married is now 25%, an all-time high. In 1980, this stood at 6%.

Clearly, marriage is breaking down. But here are the ethnic/racial differences among the percentage of never-married 40-year-olds: White, 20%; Black, 46%; Hispanic, 27%; and Asian, 17%.

Is there meaning in the fact that the order of the percentages of never married 40-year-olds by race/ethnicity is the same as the order of the math scores? Does it say anything that Asians, where marriage is most intact, have the highest math scores? And that Blacks, where marriage is least intact, have the worst?

Marriage, family and children flow out of a worldview that everything is not about me – that there is right and wrong, that there is a future, that there are eternal values, that there is personal responsibility, that there is love.

As these values have broken down in America, marriage has broken down.

It is these same values that establish a legal system that demands "equal treatment" under the law – that judges do not decide what the world should look like, but instead apply equally God's law.

In other words, knowledge, truth, learning and justice emerge from a world of unique individuals that recognize there is truth and personal responsibility.

The Harvard take on things – politics and moral relativism – has hurt Black Americans, not helped. It is the problem rather than the solution.

The court's decision is a victory for American individual freedom and achievement and a defeat for the plantation managers at Harvard.

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When Biden took office in January 2021, the average hourly wage adjusted for inflation was $11.39. Now, 29 months later, it stands at $11.03, a 3.16% decline.

Stephen Moore of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity reports that the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in the month of June, the largest growth in employment in the U.S. economy came from government.

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Government net increase in employment in June was 60,000 workers, almost 20,000 more than the second-highest increase, in the health-care sector.

The economic legacy of the Biden administration, which they call Bidenomics, is expansion of government at the expense of the private sector along with massive spending, which has produced the worst inflation in 40 years, resulting in erosion of the pay of American workers.

But what should really be worrying every American is that the Biden administration experience is not a departure from an otherwise healthy trend that can be quickly turned around with a Republican victory in 2024.

Biden is taking the nation down a dangerous path that began years ago and is in a long-term destructive trend that will take the boldest kind of leadership to turn around.

Economist John Cochrane of Stanford University's Hoover Institution notes that "creeping stagnation is the central economic issue of our time."

"Economic growth since 2000 has fallen by half compared with the last half of the 20th century," continues Cochrane.

From 1950 to 2000, the U.S. economy grew on average 3.56% annually. Since 2000, the annual growth rate averages 1.96% per year.

What does this mean? "The average American's income is already a quarter less than under the previous trend," notes Cochrane.

The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office takes this bleak picture and projects into territory that is even bleaker.

More government, more debt, less growth.

First, a little perspective. In 1950, federal government spending as a percent of GDP stood at 15.3%. In 2000 it stood at 17.7%.

CBO projects that in 2024 federal government spending will be 23.6% of GDP; by 2035 it will reach 24.9%, rising to 26% by 2040 and 28.3% by 2050.

Corresponding CBO projections for the federal debt held by the public as a percent of GDP: 2024, 100%; 2035, 120%; 2040, 134%; 2050, 181%.

And the projected real growth rates for the U.S economy: 2022-2033,1.8%; 2034-2043, 1.6%; 2044-2054, 1.5%.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has returned from a trip to China out of concern for China's aggressiveness on the world stage.

China does indeed pose a threat to us. But the first order of business in dealing with threats from abroad is making our own country as strong as possible. And this is where our failure is taking place.

Biden's approval rating has actually increased over recent weeks. And polling shows a presidential contest with Biden running against the leading Republican candidates basically too close to call.

This should not be the case.

The decline of our nation is crystal-clear for any clear-thinking and honest observer.

We need Republicans who are ready to deliver a clear message to the American people about how we will shrink the massive growth of government that is destroying our national vitality.

Our entitlement programs – Social Security and Medicare – drive some two-thirds of our federal expenditures. These are systems that are dinosaurs, with Social Security going back to 1936 and Medicare to 1965.

Reform needs to take place, not in the form of cosmetic changes, but deep and real change in the way of personalization.

Republican primary voters must demand a clear and bold vision from candidates about how they plan to restore an America that will once again grow at 3.5% per year.

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The series of decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its latest session are so consequential that I would call it "a new birth of freedom."

These are, of course, the words of Abraham Lincoln at the bloody battlefield at Gettysburg.

There is a deep and meaningful connection between Lincoln's words then, in 1863, and the words of our Supreme Court now, in 2023.

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The 14th Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights after the Civil War to assure that all citizens receive equal protection under the law. This after the horrible history of slavery and the earlier Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott, which denied exactly that equal protection to African Americans.

The 14th Amendment was ratified to fix the blemish on this nation regarding its treatment of one large segment of humanity. And it is the 14th Amendment to which Chief Justice John Roberts turned, in writing the decision on Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, to negate the use of race in college admissions.

The use of race in admissions "cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment, wrote Roberts.

The decision also captures the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous words in 1963 that "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Those words, and King's "I Have a Dream" speech in general, captured the spirit of what the Civil Rights Movement was supposedly about.

The complaint was not about American ideals but the failure to live up to the American ideal of a free nation under God.

King famously concluded that great speech, dreaming of the day "when all of God's children, Black men and White men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last."

But soon, the inspiration of God Almighty and freedom floated into the sky to be displaced on the ground with the cynicism and ambition of politics and political power.

The ideal of individual freedom and equal treatment under the law was displaced by the idea that justice is achieved through government power and social engineering.

A federal bureaucracy grew out of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – the Civil Rights Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, etc. – all empowered with understanding that discrimination in favor of certain racial groups was lawful and constitutional.

Then, in the early 1970s, it went beyond correcting the historic evil of slavery and the legacy of racism against African Americans to become in general about race and ethnicity.

In 1973, the Federal Interagency Committee on Education was directed to produce rules classifying Americans by race and ethnicity, and it responded with five racial/ethnic categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, White and Hispanic.

In polling done by Pew several months ago, 50% said they disapprove of colleges using race and ethnicity in their admission policy, and 33% said they approve. However, among blacks, 29% said they disapprove, and 47% said they approve.

Unfortunately, King's great dream of freedom, which inspired the Civil Rights Movement, has been lost in the hearts and minds of many black Americans and eclipsed by social engineering.

What the Supreme Court has done is show that our Constitution embodies and codifies that dream.

We'll all be better off for the court's courageous decision against social engineering and for a nation of free citizens, treated equally under the law.

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Commentary in the press is conveying that Dobbs was an unpopular decision and that it has strengthened sentiment in the country for legal abortion.

Per Gallup, 61% say overturning Roe v. Wade was a "bad thing," and 38% say it was a "good thing."

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In the latest abortion polling from Gallup, percentages saying abortion should be legal has climbed to high points for each trimester – 69% in the first three months, 37% in the second three months and 22% in the last three months.

Conventional wisdom reported after the last congressional elections is that the anticipated strong gains for Republicans did not materialize because of Dobbs.

And that Democrats certainly plan to build on this sentiment and focus on abortion in the 2024 elections.

Republican candidates are jockeying to define themselves regarding protection of life.

Greatest clarity has come from Mike Pence, who has challenged Republicans to support a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks.

Former President Donald Trump, speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, finally noted that the federal government has a role in protecting life, but did not spell out details regarding how.

My advice to Republican candidates is to look to the wisdom of the very first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

"In this age, in this country," observed Lincoln, "public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions."

Certainly, there is no issue more relevant for applying Lincoln's wisdom than abortion.

Well known, for instance, is how responses in polls can vary depending on how questions are asked.

Despite what appears to be polling showing strong sentiment for legal abortion, there is plenty other polling showing that Americans are not at all happy with the moral and social state of affairs in the country.

According to recent Gallup polling, 54% say the state of "moral values" in the country is "poor." This is 20 points higher than where this stood 20 years ago. Only 11% say the state of moral values is "excellent/good." This is half where this stood 20 years ago.

We expect businesses to have great expertise regarding public sentiment in markets where they sell. But we just saw the marketing disasters of Bud Light and Target in assessing incorrectly openness of the public to accept LGBTQ values as mainstream.

In Gallup's recent annual poll asking about "moral acceptability" regarding a list of morally sensitive issues, 11 of the 19 show a lower percentage now saying they are morally acceptable compared to last year. The biggest drop was in "gay and lesbian relations," with a 7-point drop in 2023 saying this is morally acceptable compared to 2022.

The percentage of Americans now self-identifying as socially conservative, per Gallup, is at 38%, up from 30% two years ago, and highest in 10 years. This compared to 29% who self-identify as socially liberal.

Let's also note the new report from the Census Bureau about the aging of the country. The median age now, the oldest ever, is 38.9. In 2000, it was 35. In 1980, it was 30.

The breakdown in values in which marriage, family and children flourish does not bode well for our future.

Republican candidates need to provide clarity to primary voters on where they stand on the full range of social issues – not just specifics on abortion. All these issues together comprise the culture of life.

The upcoming Republican debates, to be hosted by Fox, should be used as a platform to get clarity from candidates on all these issues, and all candidates, including Trump, should participate.

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It's no great revelation that the former vice president needs some major breakthroughs to be considered a serious and viable candidate for 2024.

But all is possible, and here is one approach. I call it the Pence Black Plan.

Each presidential cycle, we see Republican presidential candidates making efforts to reach out to black voters.

Arguably, Republicans are seeing some gains. In 2020, Trump picked up 12% of the black vote, compared to 9% in 2016.

The number worth focusing on is 67%. That is the percentage of all voters in 2020 who were white.

If we look back to November 1980, when President Ronald Reagan was elected, 88% of voters were white.

A defining reality of today's American elections is that the American electorate is becoming less and less white and non-white voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

In 2020, of the 67% of voters that were white, 58% voted for Trump and 41% for Joe Biden. Biden won all other racial/ethnic categories.

As the percentage of the electorate that is white continues to decline – as it will – unless there is some change in the inclination of non-white voters to vote Republican, it will be increasingly difficult each election to elect a Republican.

This is where Mike Pence can impact prevailing reality.

Mike Pence's strong point is his clear definition not just as a conservative, but as a conservative Evangelical Christian.

He is pro-biblical values – meaning pro-life and pro-family. And as a conservative, he supports limited government.

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The data show that the higher probability that voters attend church frequently, the higher probability that those voters will vote Republican.

With one glaring exception: Black voters.

Black Americans have among the highest church attendance in the nation, yet they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

In recent data from Pew Research, 40% of Americans said that they attended religious services in some way in the previous month. Highest, at 72%, were white Evangelical Protestants. Next were black Protestants, at 69%.

Why do white frequent churchgoers vote Republican and non-white not?

White churchgoers understand, as America's founders understood, that putting your faith in God means taking responsibility for your own life and not putting faith in government.

It always has been harder for black churchgoers to make this connection because of the country's complicated racial history.

But, regardless, it's still true. I have always argued that blacks need to be consistent in what they do on Sunday and what they do on Tuesday.

Big government has hurt low-income black Americans, and blacks have paid a great price in collapse of family.

The same black Americans are likely to pay an even greater price. Just as we saw in the recent debt ceiling debate, the addition of work requirements in welfare programs, this will continue. The massive debt and fiscal problems of the country will put welfare payments in increasing jeopardy.

Pence has indicated his support of reforming Social Security for younger workers with individual investment accounts in place of the payroll tax.

This would be a boon for black Americans, only 34% of whom own stocks, compared to 61% of white Americans. It would be a major contribution to closing the racial wealth gap.

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Furthermore, a more responsible fiscal stance in the country – less debt, less spending – would produce faster growth, clearly in the interest of low-income Americans.

And, of course, school choice is a big issue that black Americans already support.

Mike Pence should use his impeccable evangelical credentials to reach out aggressively to leading black pastors, with a message of family and freedom.

Such an effort could not just be a game changer for Pence's campaign, but for the whole country and its future.

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Former President Donald Trump retains a strong lead in the polls, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a strong second.

But it is still very early in the game, and even the most casual observer of politics knows that the situation is fluid, and what will be remains to be seen.

What is clear is that in the big picture of things, Americans are not at all happy with the situation in their country.

In most recent Gallup polling, only 18% say they are satisfied with the direction of the country.

This is not new.

Over the last 15 years, there was only one month in which more than 40% expressed satisfaction with how things are going.

Looking at the breakdown by party ID, Gallup shows, as of April, only 4% of Republicans satisfied with the country's direction, 16% of independents and 29% of Democrats.

This tells me there is a big opportunity for change to a Republican presidency.

But the question remains: Who and what will it take?

More importantly, will the presidential campaign be another exercise in bumper cars, where the one who makes noise the best wins? Or will we hear and choose a vision for the nation and its future?

Recently, in a Wall Street Journal column, former Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker offered good advice.

Walker was an enormously successful governor and conservative reformer in Wisconsin.

This made him a star, and he entered the 2016 presidential race. But he failed.

He attributes his failure to running on his record rather than laying out a vision of "big, bold ideas" for the country.

Rather than listening to consultants and running on his record, Walker says he wishes he laid out an aggressive program like "a national flat tax, sending the responsibility for education back to the states and schools, work requirements for public assistance, and term limits for public service."

I think it's good advice. But I would take it one step further.

We need to restore discussion about what the country is about.

Regarding issues, I know what I would like to hear. I have been writing about it for years.

On the economic front, we must get our fiscal house in order. Republicans had success in the recent debt ceiling debate. But relatively speaking, it was a tiny victory. The country is still staggering under massive government and debt, which is retarding productivity and growth.

A major part of the government burden is tied to our bankrupt Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs that no candidate has shown the courage to take on.

On the social front, the country is dangerously aging because of the collapse of family and children and, for years, a free abortion regime.

I want to see candidates take these things on.

But more, we need candidates to talk about what our country is about. Who are we?

Are we a free nation under God? If yes, what does this mean? What principles does this translate into regarding how we live and how we understand our government, our Constitution and how we are governed? And what policies follow from these principles?

If we are not a free nation under God, what does that mean, and where does it take us?

I return to the words in our Constitution's preamble that say it is about securing "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

What does this mean?

It is very nice talking about wokeness and the border and debt. But it has been too long since the American people were drawn into a discussion about the nation's principles and ideals and what these mean for our lives and future.

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This is a free country, the Court proclaimed, and individuals can engage in whatever private consensual sexual activity that they wish.

But freedom is not the value that LGBTQ activists seek. They will not rest until their values and lifestyle are imposed on and accepted by every American.

Which gets to the heart of the current dispute between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Walt Disney Co.

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Florida passed into law, in 2022, the Parental Rights in Education Act that bars instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3, and 4-12 unless there is conflict with other state standards in reproductive health education.

This law quickly was labeled by LGBTQ advocates the "Don't Say Gay" law. But the law prohibits instruction of any sort in these categories, under assumption that conveying this sensitive material to young children is the responsibility of parents and not public school bureaucrats.

A biblical point of view on these matters is also off the table in public schools, but Christians are not screaming about it. Christians see education differently. It's not about indulging developing, rudimentary instincts in children, but rather conveying to children the knowledge and skills to become responsible adults.

As DeSantis has pointed out, the LGBTQ community interest is in indoctrination, not education. And one is never too young to be indoctrinated.

Disney, which operates Disney World in Orlando, opposes the Parental Rights in Education law.

The governor, in return, has removed the special tax and regulatory treatment Disney enjoys in Florida, and now Disney has sued.

Disney then-CEO Bob Chapek wrote to Disney employees pledging opposition to the law, saying, "It is clear that this is not just an issue about a bill in Florida, but instead yet another challenge to basic human rights."

It is a "basic human right" to indoctrinate 6-year-olds in public school about sexual orientation and gender, even if their parents oppose such instruction?

The Disney company was built on entertainment for children.

The panorama of the firm's history appears on its website: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pinocchio, "Fantasia," etc., and Disney's entry into television in 1954 with the "Disneyland" series and in 1955 with "The Mickey Mouse Club," which, according to the history, was "one of television's most popular children's series."

It was an America, then, where more than two-thirds of American adults were married, compared to less than half today.

And it was an America where the Bible was read aloud in public schools. It was not until 1963 that the Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional.

Does Disney's current CEO see banning the Bible, and Christian values in general, from our public schools as a "challenge to basic human rights"?

The concept of the Disney theme parks – first Disneyland in California and then Disney World in Florida – emerged from Walt Disney's inspiration that "there should be a park where parents and children could go and have a good time together."

Disney brings in some $4 billion income annually for their stockholders but now is on a campaign, which unfortunately mirrors much of what is happening in general in the country, to destroy the truths and traditional family values that built the wealth it now enjoys.

It also must be noted that no state in the USA enjoys more education freedom than Florida. As result of legislation signed into law by DeSantis, every family can apply for a voucher, estimated to be worth $8,700, to send their child to any private school they want.

So those who want to indoctrinate little children with sexual indulgences they see as truth are free to do so.

But, as noted at the outset, the priority of those who call Ron DeSantis fascist is not seeking freedom, but indoctrination of their agenda.

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He's running for president.

I caught DeSantis' remarks in Orlando at the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters the day before he formally announced.

It was immediately clear that this is no ordinary politician.

It has been said that there are two types of people. Those who want to be someone and those who want to do something.

DeSantis is clearly the latter. And at age 44, he has already done a lot.

Yale baseball captain, Harvard Law School, Navy veteran – including serving in the war in Iraq –three-term U.S. congressman and two-term governor of Florida, the nation's third largest state in population and fourth largest in economy.

What immediately spoke to me, and probably most of the 4,000 Christian broadcasters in the room, was DeSantis started right off talking about bringing water from the Sea of Galilee in Israel to Florida to baptize his three children.

This is a man who stands firmly in cement regarding his view of the world in terms of right and wrong, and man's ability and responsibility to make the right choices.

His battle against woke culture is really a battle for freedom and against indoctrination.

And hence DeSantis' remarkable achievement of making school choice available practically throughout the whole state of Florida.

This puts parents in charge of their children's education – not politicians, bureaucrats or unions.

This defines real conservativism. You start with clarity about right and wrong and then give people freedom to live their life as they choose.

DeSantis' list of accomplishments as governor in many important areas is long. But the headliner is his bold and courageous move in opening his state's economy and schools during the pandemic, when most other states were still closed.

He has made the point that Disney, which has fought him in his battle against sexual indoctrination among youngsters in school, profited handsomely because they were able to operate their business in Florida during the pandemic while being forced to close in California.

It speaks much about the widespread unfortunate realities of many corporations today, which on the one hand profit from freedom and capitalism and at the same time promote policies that undermine that very freedom.

One line of criticism that has been aimed at DeSantis is that he is not charismatic and that, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, "He's a cultural brawler more than a likeable unifier." The Journal suggests he adopt a little of "Ronald Reagan's self-deprecating humor."

But DeSantis is a soldier, not a socialite, motivated, as was Reagan, to do what is right for the country. He is not going to reinvent himself based on alleged wisdom from political consultants about what voters want to see and hear.

More importantly, the leadership challenges today are even greater than those faced by Reagan. Our fiscal and cultural challenges are daunting.

Our national debt today is about 100% of GDP. When Reagan ran in 1980 it was less than 25%. Federal spending today is almost 25% of GDP. When Reagan ran it was 20.6%. The federal budget deficit now is 5.4% of GDP. In 1980 it was 2.6%.

As result of dramatic expansion of government, our economy today is growing around 2% per year, well below the historic rate over 3%.

As a result of the breakdown in traditional values and family, the country is aging. The percentage of Americans over 65 stood at 16.9 % in 2020, compared to 11.3% in 1980.

The birth rate of babies to unwed mothers is now 40%, compared to 18% in 1980.

If there is any hope in turning it all around, it's more important that our leadership is tough than jovial.

From what I have seen so far, Ron DeSantis has exactly what America needs in 2024.

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"In the agency's updated projections, annual deficits nearly double over the next decade, reaching $2.7 trillion in 2033. … As a result of those deficits, debt held by the public also increases in CBO's projections, from 98% of GDP at the end of this year to 119% at the end of 2033."

The picture keeps getting worse.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans on the issue: Republicans say let's do something; Democrats say let's do nothing.

House Republicans have put forward the Limit, Save, Grow Act as condition for increasing the debt limit, which imposes limits on growth of spending over the next 10 years and achieves reductions in expenditures.

Democrats are beside themselves because Republicans propose to achieve efficiencies in spending in Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families by imposing more stringent work requirements.

The idea that those getting welfare should have some skin in the game regarding humanitarian assistance they receive from U.S. taxpayers is an idea that is bonkers to our president and his party.

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But, for me, Democrats screaming about cruelty and heartlessness regarding work requirements for welfare is nothing new.

I started my public career working on welfare reform passed in 1996.

It was my personal experience with the horrifying and destructive realities of welfare that opened my eyes to how badly reform was needed.

I was in the system as a young woman and collected welfare in the pre-welfare reform world of AFDC, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children. I saw from the inside the destructiveness, inhumanity and cruelty of government support pretending to be assistance and charity.

Welfare funds were available to women who were poor, not working and not married. Those were the conditions that had to be met to get the money.

Instead of being charitable and humanitarian, the government assistance was really a heartless subsidy that encouraged poverty, unemployment and sexual promiscuity out of marriage.

Welfare reform in 1996 showed how a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, could productively work with a Republican House, under the leadership of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Bill Clinton had promised to "end welfare as we know it," and House Republicans stepped up to work with him.

When Temporary Assistance for Needy Families was put forward by Republicans, reforming welfare with work requirements and time limits, Democrats started screaming, as they are screaming now.

Poor women would be thrown into the streets. It is amazing how those who supposedly care about people have such little respect for the humanity, creativity and resiliency of those same people.

When suddenly poor women on welfare were faced with time limits for welfare and work requirements, the world changed for the better, for everyone.

In 2006, 10 years after welfare reform was passed, Ron Haskins, Brookings Institution scholar, testified before Congress summarizing the results.

From 1994 to 2005, welfare caseloads declined 60%. From 1993 to 2000, employment among single mothers increased from 58.9% to 75%. Employment among never married mothers increased from 44% to 66%.

For female-headed households in the bottom 40% of the income distribution, income attributable to earnings increased from 30% to 55% from 1993 to 2000, and income attributed to welfare declined from 60% to 23%.

Theologians and philosophers over the ages have noted that the highest charitable act is to help someone become self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, the many forms of welfare distributed by our government take recipients in the opposite direction.

Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans are doing the nation a great favor with the Limit, Save, Grow Act.

Let's hope they get somewhere with a president and a Democratic Party whose vision for our future is a nation bloated with spending, debt and dependence.

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President John F. Kennedy signed the proclamation, in 1962, designating May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day, and establishing the week in which this occurs as National Police Week.

It seems another strange and discomforting irony that the president who moved to establish a national day and week to memorialize police officers who have fallen in the line of duty is a president who himself was murdered.

Scripture always speaks loudest to me, so the inscription on the memorial taken from the opening verses from Proverbs 28 immediately jumped out and captured me.

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth. But the righteous are as bold as a lion."

The verses that immediately follow, which don't appear, are equally worth noting.

"When the land is sinful, its princes are numerous: but when there is a judicious man, knowing what is right, he shall endure."

King Solomon, the author of the book of Proverbs, the wisest of kings, shows the timelessness of wisdom. His words of thousands of years ago ring true to us today.

Indeed, in our nation today, our "princes are numerous." That is, government grows and grows.

Our debt ceiling debates reflect government that has grown far beyond our resources. And this is happening, and getting worse each day, because we look to government to solve problems for which individual citizens should be taking personal responsibility.

As I write, news is reported of yet another pointless, meaningless, gratuitous act of violence and murder. Three civilians killed and two police officers in New Mexico shot by a berserk individual with a gun. The report includes the now all-too-familiar words: "A motive is also unknown at this time."

The Hill, which reported the story, conveys that "According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, the country has logged more than 200 mass shootings since the start of the year."

A just and peaceful society must have an outside and an inside.

On the outside, we have government, laws and peace officers, patrolling out streets, whom we choose to recognize and honor during National Police Week.

Those incidents, which are really the exception to the rule, when policemen act wrongly, get disproportionate attention.

Because we have become a society with no inside, just an outside, we're always looking for whom to blame. The last place we want to look is inside ourselves.

But a society must have an inside as well as an outside.

As The Wall Street Journal recently reported in its new poll with NORC at the University of Chicago, only 39% today say religion is "very important" to them, compared to 62% in 1998 who said religion is "very important."

Only 31% of those under 30 say religion is "very important."

Unfortunately, these polls do not ask individuals who say religion is not important how they discern right and wrong, or even if there is such a thing.

The "inside" rules, which shine the light for self-governance, are flickering or gone altogether.

The result is the chaos we are now experiencing.

Fortunately, we still have brave and principled men and women who are willing to put on a uniform, patrol our cities at personal risk and help maintain the law, order and peace without which no society can function.

But as part of honoring them, let's step up and let them know that we're in the game with them.

Restoring an "inside," the recognition of right and wrong and personal responsibility, in a society in which these are becoming lost, is not easy.

One way to start is, when we hear politicians saying our answers are in more government, more spending, more politics, know it's time to change the channel.

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In remarks Biden made the other day, he noted that the national debt has "accumulated over 200 years." And he also noted the debt increased under President Donald Trump.

But the president's selective memory chooses to overlook that when the Obama-Biden administration took office in 2009, national debt stood at 60% of GDP. When they left eight years later, it was at 100% of GDP.

We also must note that from 1965 to 2008, the annual average growth of the U.S. economy was 3.1% per year. From 2009, when the Obama-Biden administration started piling on the debt, to today, average GDP growth has been 2.1% year.

But let's forget, for now, the "who did what" of the past. Let's focus on today.

What is clear is that we have entered uncharted, and dangerous, territory. The Congressional Budget Office forecast of national debt reaching 118% of GDP is a historic high. And then CBO goes on to project that the debt will reach almost twice GDP over the 20 years after.

Why doesn't this bother our president?

If House Republicans, under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, had not passed a bill to set conditions for spending cuts as a quid pro quo for authorizing an increase in the debt ceiling, most Americans would not even know the critical situation we are in. Our president would have been just fine authorizing the debt ceiling increase, taking us further into unchartered debt territory, with little fanfare.

Biden has released a video defining his upcoming reelection campaign.

The theme that he is championing is freedom.

"Freedom, personal freedom, is fundamental to who we are as Americans," is how he opens the video.

But what can our president be thinking about?

The vision of America's founders was freedom. It's why the focus of our Constitution, as originally crafted, was to limit government.

Not so complicated. More government, less freedom.

Today's clear direction of the country, particularly under the leadership of Biden, is toward much more government and much less freedom.

We've got staggering national debt because politicians choose not to be honest with citizens by raising their taxes every time they increase spending. Instead, they spend and borrow.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, federal expenditures accounted for 25% of our GDP in 2022. In 2015, they accounted for 20%.

One not-so-subtle hint where Biden stands is his calling the $4.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years proposed by Republicans "draconian." The total spending in the budget recently submitted by Biden calls for $82.2 trillion in spending over 10 years. $4.5 trillion cuts out of $82.2 in spending is anything but draconian.

What does all this mean for minority Americans Biden claims to care so much about?

The median age of the nation's white population is 43.7; of blacks, 34.6; and Hispanics, 29.7.

The growing debt burden over time will fall disproportionately on these younger black and Hispanic Americans. A legacy of massive debt, bloated government, sclerotic economic growth, and life on an ever-expanding government plantation is the future Biden is laying out for the minority Americans he allegedly cares about.

A just-issued report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office bears the title "The Nation's Fiscal Health: Road Map Needed to Address Projected Unsustainable Debt Levels."

Everyone seems to understand that national debt larger than our entire national economy is a crisis needing attention.

Everyone, that is, except Biden.

If America's future is to be free, the work needed today is to get government back in line, the point of the Republican Limit, Save, Grow Act. Otherwise, we can continue the current ride to socialism and a future as a country that once was great.

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But let's take a quick look at history before Republicans start celebrating.

Gallup shows Biden's approval rating average for the latest quarter of his presidency, his ninth, at 39.7%. Gallup also shows where each president post-World War II stood in approval at the same time in their presidency.

The highest was President George H.W. Bush, whose ninth-quarter average stood at 82.7%. The lowest was President Ronald Reagan, whose ninth-quarter average stood at 38.8%.

But despite President George H.W. Bush soaring in the polls in his ninth quarter, a year and half later, he was defeated in his reelection bid by challenger Bill Clinton. And Reagan, despite tanking in approval ratings in his ninth quarter, went on a year and half later to recapture the presidency, defeating challenger Walter Mondale, in a massive landslide victory in which Reagan captured 49 of 50 states.

What lessons might be learned?

One, of course, is that political life is highly volatile and predicting what will be from one moment to the next is almost impossible. So, the lesson regarding predicting what will be in 2024 is that it is far too early to know – regardless of what polls say.

A second lesson might be the importance that candidates are honest and true to their stated convictions. Don't tell voters what you think they want to hear. Tell them what you believe is true.

Bush pledged in 1988 at the Republican nominating convention "no new taxes." Then, early into his presidency, he agreed to a budget deal with Democrats that included tax increases. Many believe his failure to get reelected stemmed from his betrayal of this pledge to his party.

Reagan, on the other hand, never budged an inch off his plans, promises and principles.

He was elected in 1980 during terrible economic conditions of so-called stagflation – high inflation and low economic growth. Reagan knew tough medicine had to be delivered to turn things around. His Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, clamped down on money to get inflation under control, despite this plunging the economy into recession.

Meanwhile, Reagan shepherded through major legislation to cut spending and taxes.

The recession resulting from the bitter monetary medicine clobbered Reagan in the polls. But he weathered the storm, refusing to budge on principles. And it paid off. The medicine worked, the economy bounced back in a major way, and Reagan won a landslide reelection victory.

The Republican field of candidates for 2024 is growing.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans today is that among Democrats, there is unity. There are, of course, legitimate concerns among Democrats about Biden's age. But there is no question regarding support for what he stands for. Even socialist Bernie Sanders, who opposed him the 2020 primaries, has endorsed him.

Democrats don't care about fiscal and moral profligacy. They like it and are not afraid to say it. This is who they are.

But Republicans continue to be all over the place despite the very deep, clear and, yes, dangerous problems confronting the nation.

We are drowning in government spending and debt, with sluggish economic growth. Our big entitlement programs – Social Security and Medicare – are broken. Making them bigger with more government is not the answer. Real reform is. Our public education system is broken. We need parental choice. And our families are broken. We need real love, personal responsibility, traditional values and reverence for the sanctity of life.

The biggest favor that can be done for American voters is to offer them a clear choice between liberal and conservative visions in 2024. Democrats are doing their part. It's time for Republicans to step up.

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"It's a sad irony that Mr. McCarthy and many of the same congressional Republicans seemingly intent on sabotaging America's global leadership by refusing to pay our debts are also positioning themselves as tougher-than-thou China hawks."

Clinton is right that our enemies, Russia and China, see America today as weak and are using the opportunity to strengthen their influence around the world.

But the reason they see the supposed leader of the free world as weak is not because America refuses to "pay our debts."

Russia and China see our nation as fiscally and morally corrupt, and they are right.

Whether we're speaking about a nation, or an individual, absence of self-discipline is a sign of weakness.

The only words that capture fiscal reality in our country today are "profligate" and "undisciplined."

The Congressional Budget Office projects $2 trillion deficits over the next decade. It projects national debt, today equal to 100% of our GDP, to reach a record 118% of GDP in 2033 and, by 2053, almost twice the size of GDP.

Average federal spending, per CBO, over the last 30 years, from 1972 to 2022, was 20.9% of GDP. In 2023, it is projected to reach 23.7% of GDP and by 2033, 25.3%.

Yet, this does not seem to bother President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats at all.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and fellow Republicans are putting on the table a plan to at least start getting our fiscal house in order, but Biden has noted he has zero interest in any conversation. He wants unconditional agreement to raise, once again, the nation's debt ceiling.

Why does it even matter that we should get things under control? Many important reasons.

One, the more that fruits of our hard work are diverted to government rather than productive and creative use in the private marketplace, national productivity suffers. We're already seeing the results of this.

As economist and blogger Scott Grannis has pointed out, the U.S. economy grew annually 3.1% per year from 1950 to 2007. Since then, average growth has been 2.2% per year. Economist Steve Moore at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimates that this one percentage point drop in annual GDP growth, due to more and bigger government, has lopped off about $15,000 in median family income. If we had continued the 3.1% growth, the average American would have some 22% higher income, per Moore.

Second, we've just gone through a period experiencing the ravages of inflation, the direct result of government spending and pouring increasing amounts of money into the marketplace that are not backed up by productive resources.

Third, higher interest costs. A byproduct of inflationary pressure is increasing interest rates. Higher rates translate into ever-increasing interest costs on our debt burden in the federal budget. The CBO projects that in 10 years, in 2033, interest costs in the federal budget will reach 3.6% of GDP. If defense spending remains around where it is today, interest costs in the federal budget will exceed defense spending.

Which takes us back to Clinton's laughable claim that the Republican push for some fiscal responsibility threatens national security.

Republicans want to reset the federal budget baseline to 2022 and limit increases over the next 10 years to 1% per year. Total savings would be $4 trillion over 10 years.

This can be described as a dose of prudence. It certainly can't be called draconian.

But prudence is the last thing our irresponsible president wants to hear about. He and his party want a blank check on the earning power of the American people.

But, as Margaret Thatcher once said, sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

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You may have noticed that Scott is Black. We may ask, in this woke age of ours, the extent to which this matters in his candidacy.

I think it does matter, which requires some explanation given that I am adamantly opposed to identity politics in all its shapes and forms.

Should Scott run and win, he will not be America's first Black president. When America's first Black president, Barack Obama, did run and win, it was widely viewed as a turning point in American history.

Many thought that, at last, the era of racial politics had come to an end. Now, the thinking went, that Americans showed that a Black man could run for and win the presidency, we would move on from our national obsession with race and move on to dealing with issues confronting the nation as they impact every citizen, regardless of race.

But that didn't happen.

The American people twice chose Obama as their president, and today, perhaps more than ever, racial awareness and politics permeate our day-to-day realities.

They permeate practically all political institutions, corporate boardrooms, athletics, universities, K-12 schools and our day-to-day marketplace.

And it's why Scott's candidacy is so important and why his race matters.

Early in Obama's first term he traveled to Europe for a NATO meeting, and in the press conference afterward, he was asked by a reporter from the Financial Times if he believes in "American exceptionalism."

For Obama to say "yes" would have been for him to state in this international forum that there is something unique and special about his country that sets it apart from and above others.

By standards of political correctness, a "yes" answer would have been most incorrect. Obama's finely tuned political skills immediately kicked in, and he answered in a most politically correct way.

"I believe in American exceptionalism," he said, "just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism."

America's first Black president is a very politically correct man. And it's why his presidency changed nothing regarding racial realities in America.

Tim Scott is not a politically correct man, and it is why his potential presidency can change everything.

He does believe America is exceptional, and he is not afraid to say it. His recent book, "America, A Redemption Story: Choosing Hope, Creating Unity," recounts what he has learned growing up poor, becoming a successful businessman and making his way to the U.S. Senate – and now, maybe, the presidency.

His personal success story is not about government programs, but about "perseverance and grit," only possible with faith and freedom.

Scott is pro-freedom, pro-private property, pro-personal responsibility and initiative and pro-life.

We must understand that the collapse of these core issues and principles, so vital to a genuinely free society, is threatening our nation both domestically and internationally.

As David McCormick and James Cunningham show in their new book, "Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America," our collapsing culture is endangering national security, as the Army falls short of recruitment goals with more and more young Americans unwilling or unable to serve.

Tim Scott is a Black man in America who knows that this is an exceptional country and that the exceptionalism is rooted in faith and freedom.

Scott understands that out future starts in the hearts and minds of every American citizen of every background and that our future does not start in Washington.

This vital message was lost in the presidency of our first Black president, and great damage was done.

So, Scott's race matters not for woke reasons but for anti-woke reasons.

This is a candidacy that can make all the difference where Barack Obama failed.

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We're talking billions around the world. So, although in our time there has been a retreat in various circles from religion, it still remains a major force and presence in our world.

In our own USA, as I have touched on in columns past, the number identifying with religion and attending religious services has dropped.

Per Pew Research, now about 40% of Americans monthly attend religious services either in person or viewing online or on TV. If we consider 40% of the U.S. adult population – the number over 18 – we're talking about over 100 million Americans engaged in an active way with religion.

So, although on a percentage basis, engagement with religion has dropped, it still remains a major factor among the American population.

Why should we care?

Looking at the three major religions – all engaged today in major holidays – we see on the surface different narratives and traditions.

But regarding the rules for living that emerge out of these different traditions, there is remarkable common ground.

They all view as sacrosanct life, family and property. That is, the basic rules conveyed to each individual regarding how to live a meaningful, responsible and successful life, and how to engage and relate to one's neighbors, are remarkably similar.

Which raises an important point that gets too little attention.

Certainly, in our country and in the Western world, few words get more use than the word "freedom."

But the freedom we hear so much about is freedom in the political sense. Is this or that country, or society, "free"?

According to the words composed by Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence, we are all born with rights and "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."

And, in the stirring conclusion of the Declaration, the signers declared the American colonies, "free and independent states."

The focus was government and politics. But outside of government protecting freedom, where does each individual find their personal freedom they want protected?

It was George Washington, whom I often quote, that pointed out that no beautifully designed government will work if, at the individual level, we do not have morality and religion. We see every day that beautifully designed political systems and governments fail if, at the individual level, there is wanton and irresponsible behavior.

So the core of a free society is free choice at the individual level, and the core of free choice at the individual level is right and wrong. If there is no right and wrong, what does it matter what individuals choose?

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has pointed out that "woke" culture is a form of religion. And he is right. Individuals may reject the truths of religion as we know them, but it remains for them to choose what they will accept, on faith, to be true. If they reject religion, they must invent one.

Once we believe that traditional truths, good and evil passed down through the generations, interfere with our personal freedom rather than enable it, and that we can make everything up, so meaning and personal responsibility are lost. We then see more and more horrible incidents like the most recent murders in a Christian school in Franklin, Tennessee, by a very lost and confused individual.

It's no accident that socialist societies are godless societies. They think they can make everything up.

During this special season, when so many continue to appreciate that there is meaning and truth in this world, let our prayers be directed that this continues and that more and more will begin to understand that the source of our personal freedom is our Creator and not government.

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It's hard not to think about this reading the results of the latest Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, appearing under the headline "America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It."

Only 38% of Americans now say patriotism is "very important," compared to 70% in 1998. Thirty-nine percent say religion is "very important," compared to 62% in 1998. And 30% say having children is "very important" compared to 59% in 1998.

The results that follow from these attitudes are not surprising.

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Marriage rates are way down. Birthrates are way down. In 1990, 67% of American adults between the ages of 25-54 were married. This was down to 51% in 2021. In 2020, there were 56 births in the U.S. for every 1,000 women ages 15-44. In 1990, there were 70.9.

And, among the births we do have, in 2021, 40% of our babies were born to unmarried mothers.

Not surprisingly, our population is hardly growing. In 2022, the U.S. population increased 0.4%, a modest increase from the 0.1% increase in 2021, the lowest annual population growth since the founding of the nation.

Looking at the same polling data results among the youngest sector of our population, the picture looks even more dismal.

Among those under 30, just 23% say patriotism is "very important" to them, 31% say religion is "very important," and 23% say having children is "very important."

What is important to Americans today?

Although 70% say marriage is either "very important" or "somewhat important," 65% say belief in God is "very important" or "somewhat important," 73% say patriotism is "very important" or "somewhat important," 91% say self-fulfillment is "very important" or "somewhat important," and 90% say money is "very important" or "somewhat important."

The devaluing of marriage, children and patriotism, and the focus on "self-fulfillment" and money are, of course, signs of a culture sunk into egotism and materialism, with a loss of a sense of being part of something larger than oneself.

It is not an encouraging picture for a country that hopes to have a future.

Our health care and retirement systems depend on a growing population. Stagnant population growth means more and more retirees per each individual in the workforce. It's why our Social Security system is bankrupt.

Zero population growth means an aging population and increasing health care costs. In 2019, 56% of all health care costs were in age groups 55 and above. The overall burden of health care costs will continue to increase as the percentage of the population over 55 increases.

There are also implications on national security of attitudes that devalue patriotism and national service.

We now have a volunteer military. This can't work with a population of young people who feel no sense of identity and obligation to their nation.

Again, the results are predictable. In 2022, the Army fell 15,000 short of its recruiting goal.

National defense spending is 3% of GDP, very low by historical standards.

The Wall Street Journal reports our Navy's fleet of ships will shrink to 291 by 2028 from 297 today. And the number of aircraft in the Air Force is diminishing.

Only 21% of those surveyed say that our country "stands above all countries in the world."

But our country is only the product of its citizenry. A free nation under God becomes less free, and less great, as the Creator is traded in for materialism and egotism.

We have elections coming in 2024. President Joe Biden, assuming he runs, will run on more of what is destroying our nation. It is up to Republicans to run on principles and ideals, in hope that we can mend our rapidly sinking ship of state.

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We must wonder why Biden, who demonstrably cannot run our own country, feels behooved to tell others – particularly one as successful as Israel – how to run theirs.

Looking into Biden's own backyard, per latest Gallup polling, a paltry 20% of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of their country.

The White House reported that Biden told the Israeli prime minister that "democratic values" are "a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship, that democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support."

But Israel is governed under a parliamentary system that ties the government, on a day-to-day basis, to popular sentiment more closely than our own system.

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On any given day, in Israel's parliamentary system, a vote of no-confidence can bring down the government.

And, indeed, as a result of a deeply divided electorate, Israel has had five elections within four years. As the only democracy in their part of the world, it doesn't seem like democracy and elections are subjects on which Israel needs tutorials from Biden.

Really what is going on is not a problem with democracy but a problem with those who are unhappy with the results that democracy produces. It happens that Israelis, in their last election, returned to power Netanyahu, who has put together a right-of-center government that does not please Israel's left or America's left-wing president, who has been recruited to put in his two cents.

Biden touting the importance of democracy and checks and balances is more than a little ironic as he waits for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of his unilateral move to wipe out $400 billion of student loans. Most assessments point to the likelihood that Biden's move will be found unconstitutional.

Regarding the importance of the "broadest base of popular support," the U.S. banking system is now teetering, already with several bank failures, with others looking for support. Banks have been ravaged by interest rate increases, the direct result of inflation caused by trillions spent by Biden's administration.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $735 billion Inflation Reduction Act both passed the House and Senate without a single Republican vote and were signed into law by Biden.

We might recall that the U.S. health care system was overhauled when Biden was vice president. The Affordable Health Care Act – "Obamacare" – was passed in the House and the Senate without a single Republican vote and signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Despite the love affair with political systems, we must appreciate that human beings ultimately produce the realities under which we live, not any system. Well-designed systems are important, but the outcome of words on a page is the result of how humans read, interpret and carry out those words.

The founders of our country, and the drafters of our Constitution, would never believe that the beautiful system they designed – conceived to limit government and protect individual liberty – would someday see government at all levels taking almost half our gross national product, generating massive deficits and national debt larger than our nation's entire economy.

Nor would they believe that the courts have been used to remove all vestige of religion from public life or that Supreme Court justices felt it was their job to redefine marriage.

The percentage of Americans that have a "great deal/quite a lot" of confidence in their major institutions, reported by Gallup last July, are as follows: the presidency 23%; U.S. Supreme Court 25%; Congress 7%; public schools 28%; newspapers 16%; criminal justice system 14%; television news 11%.

Please, Mr. Biden, do your own job and let Israelis run their own country.

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Shock waves are rippling through the country after the announcement of the second largest bank failure in the country's history last week – Silicon Valley Bank.

This just 15 years after the largest bank failure in the country's history – Washington Mutual.

Research shows that the great collapse in 2008, one casualty of which was Washington Mutual, was one more example of the damage done by excessive government.

Then, standards for issuing mortgages deteriorated as a result of pressure from government entities Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on lenders to meet affordable housing goals. More and more substandard loans were issued, all taking place under the illusion of government protection, until the house of cards came down.

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After the total collapse, originating in government policy designed to allegedly make our lives better, the Dodd-Frank Act was passed, now with some 8,000 pages of regulations to supposedly strengthen America's financial system.

Time and again, a crisis caused by government is supposedly solved by creating even more government.

So now, with the Dodd-Frank Act in place, passed under the pretense of "solving" the problems of instability in our financial system, here we are again.

I make no claims as any kind of expert in finance. But reading through articles by those who are, the amazing story that emerges behind SVB is its violation of principles that any undergraduate student in business learns. That is, banks make a profit by lending, investing at higher rates of interest than they pay on deposits.

So, managing interest rate risk is Finance 101. Yet mismanagement of risk – the bank ignoring huge problems they would have if interest rates increased – is what brought it down.

How can it be that people who are allegedly smart do things that are incredibly stupid?

I attribute it to a detachment from reality. Detachment from reality is a direct symptom of a lot of government and politicization of our lives.

After the 2008 crisis, there were major government bailouts. This builds into the mentality of a culture that if you are big enough, government will not let you fail. And if you believe government will not let you fail, that government is your friend, you tend to do stupid, irresponsible things.

On top of this, when government passes laws like Dodd-Frank, it builds an attitude in the culture that the problem has been solved. In this case, that the regulatory system was put in place under which banks won't fail.

As our culture becomes more deeply mired in a sense that our lives get better with more government and politics, more and more business people become detached from reality.

In this case, over recent years, "woke" culture has become rooted more and more deeply in business, particularly high-tech companies, a major customer base of Silicon Valley Bank.

Woke and ESG investment guidelines – environmental, social and governance – seems to have captured more attention at Silicon Valley Bank than the risk management essential to running their business.

The proxy statement of the bank, writes Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler, notes that the board is "45% women" and there is "1 Black ... 1 LGBTQ+ ... and 2 Veterans."

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy notes that SVB announced in 2022 committing $5 billion in "sustainable finance and carbon neutral operations to support a healthier planet."

Worth adding to the picture is that the interest rate increases that SVB did not anticipate resulted from the inflation generated by trillions of dollars of government spending during COVID.

Now, fellow citizens, hold on to your wallets as our government bails out SVB, despite Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying it won't happen.

The only good news is it increases prospects for a Republican victory in 2024.

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The district is under federal jurisdiction, so Congress can overturn D.C. legislation. But this is the first time in 30 years that it has happened.

Now a shell-shocked chair of the left-wing D.C. city council says he's pulling the bill, which reduces sentencing on many felonies, including carjackings and burglaries, as it heads for defeat in a Senate vote still scheduled to occur.

You are justified in rubbing your eyes in disbelief that Biden has sided with Republicans. Even more so that this goes against the grain of Democrats who support home rule, freeing D.C. from federal jurisdiction.

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The liberal online journal Slate ran a headline saying the president "stabbed D.C.in the back."

But Biden remains in touch with political reality.

NBC news reported in early January that the new year started off with a notable spike in crime in D.C. compared to the same period the year before. Thefts from cars were reported up 30%, car thefts up 113%, robberies up 57% and overall property crime up 42%.

Per The Washington Post, police records show that in the first two months of 2023, D.C. homicides were up 34% compared to the same period in 2022.

Just a few weeks ago, Democratic Rep. Angie Craig was attacked inside an elevator in the D.C. building where she resides. She succeeded in escaping the assailant, who physically assaulted her, by throwing her hot morning coffee on him.

Per Craig, "I got attacked by someone who the District of Columbia has not prosecuted fully over the course of almost a decade, over the course of 12 assaults before mine that morning."

Biden's fine-tuned political nose detects the fragrance of an upcoming election year, and he has plenty to worry about.

He enjoyed a 57% percent approval rating per Gallup in the early months of his presidency. But by the end of 2021, he was down to 42% and has hovered around there since.

Particularly bad news for the president is that, per Gallup, his latest approval rating on dealing with economy is 34%.

Per polling in February from Pew Research, the issue of most concern to Americans is the economy, with 75% saying "strengthening the economy" should be the number one priority of the president and congress.

And per Gallup, only 25% of those polled are satisfied with the state of the economy.

Crime is also a priority issue and here also Americans are not pleased. Only 27% say they are satisfied with "the nation's policies to reduce or control crime."

Surely, Biden also had an eye on the mayoral election in Chicago.

There incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot was decisively ousted by voters, getting just 17% of the vote in a field of nine candidates. This was the first time in 40 years that an incumbent mayor in Chicago failed in a reelection bid.

And a hot issue in Chicago is the dismal state of affairs regarding crime. Per the Wall Street Journal, "There were more than 800 murders in Chicago in 2021, the most in a quarter-century. The homicide rate dropped 14% in 2022, but remained nearly 40% higher than in 2019."

So why did Biden play ball with Republicans on the D.C. crime bill? Political instincts conquer all. Biden and his party are weak on the two issues voters give highest priority to – the economy and crime.

Our president is trying to survive. His refusal to veto the Republican-led resolution on the D.C. crime bill was his way of saying that things are looking good for Republicans in 2024.

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Now 37-year-old entrepreneur businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has entered the race as the newest Republican candidate.

Whether this political novice has a chance at winning the highest elective office in the land remains to be seen. But for sure he has something to say and contribute.

And worth noting is now the first two candidates to announce following former President Donald Trump's entering the race, Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley, are children of Indian immigrants.

I requote the statistic I cited last week that "more than half of America's start-up companies valued at $1 billion or more" were founded by immigrants.

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Inside our country, a vast left-wing culture has risen to power, peddling a message that ours is an evil, racist country that can only be fixed by seizing power and force-feeding "woke" values onto all our institutions.

But these successful first-generation offspring of immigrants raise the important question: If our county is so horrible, why is there no place on earth where more want to come and gain the privilege of citizenship?

And when they come, they know what to do. They study, work and follow the path to great success, which is only possible in a country that is free.

At age 37, Ramaswamy's resume includes degrees from Harvard and Yale, founding and leading a successful biotechnology start-up firm, founding an investment firm that focuses on traditional goals of profitability and merit, and disavowing the politically correct ESG agenda, which has captured so many of the largest investment firms. And authoring two hard-hitting books, "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," and "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence."

Ramaswamy is showcasing his own life as proof that the American dream is alive and that the real threat we face is the "woke" culture that wants to turn our free nation over to left-wing politicians to force their agenda on everyone and have taxpayers pick up the bill for the trillions spent doing it.

There is a reason why the nation is now staggering under massive debt and growing at a rate one-third more slowly than the average for a half-century after World War II.

Growth comes from productivity; productivity comes from efficient use of capital; and capital is used efficiently only when businessmen and entrepreneurs can invest as they wish, according to their best economic judgement.

The takeover of American business by politically correct ESG standards – environmental, social, and corporate governance – is destroying our efficient use of capital, per Ramaswamy.

If a business causes clear environmental damage, it should be responsible. But climate change science is not at all clear, and forcing firms to make decisions based on what is ideology rather than science hurts all of us. We must stop, he says.

Similarly, businesses must be free to make their own decisions who they hire and the values they choose to support. We cannot have business hamstrung by an agenda set by left-wing politics.

The way to help more minorities succeed is not government-mandated affirmative action, but demanding excellence from them as from everyone else. This is the social agenda – classic American freedom – that will work for everyone.

But I wonder what Ramaswamy means when he writes, "We must restore merit for who gets to come to America" and, "we must embrace merit in who gets to succeed in America."

If we have freedom, merit will arise on its own because it is what a free society demands. We certainly don't need merit itself being defined by those with political power.

Vivek Ramaswamy is for sure a model success story, and every American will benefit by knowing about it and hearing what he has to say.

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Haley's family, originally from India, immigrated to the United States in 1969 and settled in a small, segregated town, Bamberg, South Carolina, where she was born three years later.

One can glean two reasons why Haley is spotlighting her background and presenting her candidacy as a successful minority woman.

First, one doesn't need to be "woke" to recognize the value of an Asian-American woman running for president with an agenda of less government and more freedom.

Second, showcasing her story and success qualifies her to say, as she does in her introduction video, "Take it from me, America is not a racist country."

The strategy has opened her to attacks and criticism from the right and from the left.

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Ann Coulter, who still seethes at Haley for taking down the Confederate flag which flew on South Carolina's state Capitol grounds in Columbia, called her a "preposterous creature" and suggested she "go back to your own country and reconsider that history."

But, of course, this is Haley's "own country." If it weren't, she wouldn't be able to run for president. But Coulter's business is not facts but provoking an audience that buys her books.

More temperate advice came from The Wall Street Journal, which suggested Haley must do a better job distinguishing herself from other Republicans. No Republican, says the Journal, would disagree that "America is not a racist country."

This is, of course, true. But I believe Haley is correct that it achieves particular resonance coming from an Indian American woman with a stellar resume of public service and achievement.

The left's answer to Ann Coulter, Whoopi Goldberg, told her audience, regarding Haley, that "there are things about our country that are not perfect and to pretend that it is and to pretend that nothing happened is ridiculous."

But, of course, Haley did not say that our country is "perfect" or that "nothing happened."

Perfection is not what defines our country or any place or anything in this world. What defines and makes our country unique is freedom. This is Haley's point when she says, "Even on our worst day we are blessed to live in America."

It is here in our free country that Ann Coulter and Whoopi Goldberg get to speak their minds and not worry that they will disappear in the night, as they might in China or Iran.

More serious criticism comes from the left from Asian American author Wajahat Ali, who accuses Haley of brandishing the "model minority myth," which he calls a tool of white supremacists. That is, per Ali, they use the success stories "of some Asian Americans" as "a cudgel against black people" who are "told by GOP politicians to stop blaming racism for their problems."

Haley has only showcased her own story. But the picture regarding the phenomenal business success stories of American immigrants is not a "cudgel" but powerful testimony to the opportunities for success and achievement in America.

According to a 2022 study by the National Foundation for American Policy, "more than half (319 of 582) of America's start-up companies valued at $1 billion or more" were founded by immigrants. Nearly "two-thirds of (billion-dollar) companies were founded or co-founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant." And "almost 80%" of billion-dollar companies "have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role."

These include immigrants from India, Israel, U.K., Canada, China, France, Germany, Russia, Iran, Nigeria and many others.

My organization, CURE, covered Haley's rollout event in Charleston. The palpable energy and excitement at the rally could be a sign that this campaign will pick up steam as more candidates enter the field, each pitching their own persona. Welcome to election 2024.

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They predict, with little surprise, that this should provide red meat for attacks from former President Donald Trump and from Democrats, should DeSantis announce a presidential run.

If indeed this is the case, it adds credence to Nikki Haley's slogan for her new campaign that we need a new generation of leaders.

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The president who brought us Social Security, Franklin D Roosevelt, told the nation in his first inauguration in 1933, in the dark days of the Depression, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt gets high marks for courage and leadership. The problem was not that he was bold. The problem was what he did.

Today, again, the nation badly needs bold leadership. And what needs to be done is undo the damage that Roosevelt did back then. Most of the profound fiscal and social problems that we face today trace back to Roosevelt's actions in the 1930s, most specifically his signing Social Security into law in 1935.

The constitutionality of Social Security was challenged in 1937 in Helvering v. Davis. The argument was that Social Security violated the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which prohibits action by the federal government not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court found Social Security constitutional by offering a new, sweeping understanding of the Constitution's "general welfare" clause in Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power to Lay and collect Taxes ... (to) provide for the common Defence and general welfare."

General welfare had always been understood to be about implementation of explicit authorities enumerated in the Constitution. Now general welfare could be just about anything the congress wanted to do.

Helvering v. Davis and Social Security opened the door to today's modern welfare state.

Social Security was the nation's first "transfer payment" program, in which one set of taxpayers could be taxed and that revenue used to transfer to others for purposes that congress deemed in the "general welfare."

Per economist/blogger Scott Grannis, transfer payments now tally up to about $4 trillion annually, almost two-thirds of the federal budget. They now constitute over 20% of Americans' disposable income, compared to 5% in the 1950s.

In case some still think Social Security is an investment retirement program, please think again.

It is a welfare state transfer program, in which taxes those working now pay are used to make payments to those currently retired.

Shortly after Social Security became law, there were more than 40 working and paying taxes for every retiree. Today, because of increasing life spans and decreasing birth rates, there are three. The Congressional Budget Office says that Social Security revenues will fall short by 23% of obligations by 2034.

The welfare state idea does not even have an American pedigree. It has its roots in 19th-century European socialism.

Our fiscal problems today are not about accounting but about principles. We need to restore American principles of ownership and freedom.

This would be a great boon, particularly to low-income Americans that social welfare programs are supposedly helping.

Per the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, if a single person earning 45% of national median income could invest 10% of their income in a diversified stock/bond portfolio over a 40-year working life, rather than paying Social Security taxes, they could purchase an annuity at retirement worth $37,784, compared to $11,923 that they would get from Social Security.

With all the cries about the wealth gap in the country, per the Federal Reserve, only 34% of black households, and 24% of Hispanic house, own stocks, compared to 61% of white households.

By restoring American principles of ownership and freedom, we can fix our fiscal problems and make every American healthier and wealthier.

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I salute Republicans for leadership, beneficial for the country and beneficial for black Americans whose interests Omar pretends to represent.

Omar pushed back from the House floor, playing, of course, the race card. She accused Republicans of questioning her as an American because she is of a "certain skin color."

No. To quote one well-known black American, this is about the content of her character, not about the color of her skin.

Anyone following the story has read the long series of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel diatribes from Omar since she has been in Congress.

But she is not just anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. She is anti-American.

Last year, she lumped Israel and the U.S. together in comparing both to the Taliban. "We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban," she observed.

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A number of years ago, George Gilder wrote a book called "The Israel Test."

The test, per Gilder, is summarized by a few questions: "What is your attitude toward people who excel you in the creation of wealth or in other accomplishment? Do you aspire to their excellence, or do you seethe at it? Do you admire and celebrate exceptional achievement, or do you impugn it and seek to tear it down?"

Those who admire success and seek to emulate it pass Gilder's Israel Test.

Of course, the test is about a state of mind, an attitude toward life. Israel is just one focal point.

You must have self-inflicted blindness not to appreciate that no country in the world has ever achieved what the United States has achieved and contributed. The creativity and innovation on every front of science, technology and entrepreneurship is mindboggling.

Americans have won 403 Nobel prizes, 43% of all since the award began 122 years ago.

But Omar and her lefty friends are more interested in focusing on what was and what is not perfect in our nation so they can trash everything and advance their left-wing agenda.

Israel's story is miraculous beyond words. Out of nothing, in just 75 years, a booming modern economy has been created, despite having to fight at least three major wars along the way against enemies that far outnumbered them.

Omar and her crowd hate this. They hate a story in which individuals take personal responsibility for their lives, fight, struggle against great odds and achieve.

Omar deserves to be booted because of her anti-Semitism. But more deeply, she deserves to be booted because she fails Gilder's Israel Test.

She loves to talk about her childhood in Somalia. Somalia has a national per capita income of around $500. Why doesn't she spend time trying to inspire change in her beleaguered home country?

Omar and her colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prefer making allegations about institutional racism rather than looking at what really drives poverty and underachievement in our poor communities. As a start, it is perpetuated by the Omar-AOC mindset looking for whom to blame, looking for whom to hate, rather than starting with freedom and personal responsibility.

We're in the middle of Black History Month.

Let's not let Omar and her lefty crowd hijack our great American story.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, the problem is not our great American values, but failures to live up to them.

The struggles, and achievements, of black Americans to participate fully in the American saga and dream have made this country greater.

We are getting closer. But we must turn from the naysayers and move in the direction of life, family and freedom.

As for Omar, she ought to spend less time accusing others of denying that she is an American and more time learning and embracing the values that define, and make great, our free country under God.

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But the rule seems to be the victims are Black.

Everyone sees there is a problem. Everyone wants to fix it. But how?

The first question in the pursuit of a solution invariably is, "What is wrong with the system?"

How about we start this time by asking a different question. What is wrong with the men who did it?

The shocking video certainly doesn't give us the whole story. What were the circumstances that led to the police apprehending this man, forcing him defenseless on the ground and beating him to death? Can we imagine any circumstance that would justify this behavior?

Suppose somehow all this occurred under the radar, that these policemen beat this man to death, but no one found out about it.

Could they live with themselves? Could they just go home to their families after doing a day's work without a second thought that their law enforcement work left a man dead with little justification why this happened?

We in the pro-life movement ask how women can destroy the child in their womb and live with themselves. Those who rationalize it say they don't see this unborn child as life.

But can we say these police did not see Tyre Nichols as a living man?

When these incidents get spun as racial, the answer comes forth that racists do not see those whom they hate as human. There was a historic data point in this regard in our nation's history in the Dred Scott decision.

But in this case, the police officers were Black.

How about if we ask if each of those policemen felt they live in a world with a Creator and that every human being is a creation made in that Creator's image? If they believed this, could they have done what they did?

Rep. Jim Jordan summed it up well saying, "I don't know there is anything you can do to stop the kind of evil we saw in that video."

Something very bad has happened in our country.

This nation was founded as a free country under God, not as a "system." The Constitution is an operating manual creating the basic structure of government and to assure that it would be kept limited and not interfere with citizens taking personal responsibility and living free.

Yes, it began with the horrible reality of slavery. But this reflected the sin of man and not a systematic flaw in the country.

George Washington said it, and I quote him all the time, that there is no freedom without religion.

But today we are going in the opposite direction. We want to use courts and legislatures to produce systematic answers to our lives rather than turning to our parents and our pastors for eternal principles. The answer is not in the system; it is in ourselves.

Regarding the police, they need more personal responsibility for their behavior.

One path to this is getting rid of qualified immunity, which shields them from exposure to lawsuits. Qualified immunity allows police to violate constitutional rights of others without concern they will be sued. Per this judge-created doctrine, as long as there is not another identical precedent, with all the same facts, police are immune from being sued.

Unions protect policemen with a track record of infractions, and then qualified immunity protection allows them to go out and do it again.

This is the most important technical reform that can improve police behavior.

But we must remember, good men will produce good results even in a bad system.

But bad men, even in the most perfectly designed system, will produce bad results.

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Nothing is going to get fixed – really fixed – until we come clean about this basic, sad and distressing fact.

How can it be that our national publicly held debt is equal to our entire $25.5 trillion economy? And where were we all when this happened? As recently as 2008, debt was 39.2%, rather than 100%, of our GDP.

One of the outcries that fueled the American revolution was taxation without representation. But this is exactly what is going on today. Who is on the line for these tens of trillions of debt? You and me.

There are two ways that federal spending can be financed. Taxes or debt. Politicians don't like taxation because they have to be honest with citizens that they are taking their money. Borrowing achieves the same end without asking.

The last thing Congress did before shutting down in the last session was pass another $1.7 trillion in spending. There were no taxes to pay for this. It gets layered onto the huge debt, which is on you and on me.

As economist Milton Friedman once said, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." We pay for everything.

Instead of paying our bills honestly through taxes, we bear the burden of debt through inflation and slow growth.

We must appreciate that the discussion about debt and spending is not about accounting. It is about principles.

Our national crisis stems from straying from the basic principles upon which a free nation under God was founded.

Dishonesty, irresponsibility and big government do not define a free nation under God.

Let's consider the issue of so-called entitlements – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

About two-thirds of our annual spending consist of mandatory spending – entitlements. The rest is discretionary spending and interest paid on the debt.

Whenever I write that Social Security is an entitlement, I get letters saying, "Don't call this an entitlement! I paid for it!"

But the label "entitlement" is a government label for payments that are mandatory for the government to make, as opposed to discretionary spending, like, for instance, defense spending.

Those who think this a personal right should ask if they are entitled to get out from the system. And the answer is, of course, no. The government remains entitled to make you pay payroll taxes and then make payments to you when you retire. Government decides what those taxes and payments will be.

And here we have more dishonesty.

Social Security is broke. According to the system's trustees, there are insufficient funds to meet obligations beginning 2034, 11 years from now. Every young American entering the workforce now must pay taxes into a system that does not have the resources to pay promised benefits.

There is a lot of rhetoric whether entitlements should be part of the debt ceiling negotiations. And I agree, no. Not because these programs aren't broken. But it is too complicated to fix in overnight negotiations.

Fixing Social Security should not be about cuts but about reform and changing the whole system.

The system is broken because it is not based on American principles of ownership and personal responsibility. It is based on government dependence.

Every American could earn far more, without taking on unnecessary risks, if they could take ownership of their payroll taxes and invest in a personal retirement account.

We have dishonesty and irresponsibility rampant because we have allowed government to take over so much of our lives in a country where individuals are supposed to be free and responsible only to their Creator in Heaven.

It's time for big changes in America. The only choice is whether we want to have a future or not.

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Hundreds of thousands will march, as they have marched since 1973.

But this year, it is different.

This year, the march will take place, for the first time, in an America where Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land.

This is what pro-life Americans have been working toward and praying for all these years. And now we show that our nation is still a nation where dreams come true. And a nation where, despite often losing our way, sooner or later truth returns.

Reading how the Supreme Court's decision in June of 2022, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, is widely reported, we see that many still do not understand what happened in that decision, which ended the Roe v. Wade regime.

Pew Research reports that, in Dobbs, the Supreme Court ruled to "end the constitutional right to abortion."

National Public Radio reported last June that the court reversed Roe v. Wade, "declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists."

The Dobbs decision was not just about abortion. It was about restoring the way the court should be doing its job.

The court cannot, despite what many in the media seem to think, create or end rights. The court's job, judicial review, is to apply, not create, reality. That reality is the U.S. Constitution.

The complaint all these years about Roe v. Wade has been that only someone with either a very active imagination or a very active conviction that their personal opinion is more important than what the Constitution actually says could find a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution.

The conservative judges who ruled to overturn that decision did not rule as they did to "end" rights. They did it because nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there anything written that can be understood to be a right to abortion.

Consider that the preamble of the Constitution explains its purpose "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Can anyone believe that the drafter of that passage felt that among those blessings of liberty is a right for a woman to abort her child?

Or consider further that our Constitution, the operating manual for our free nation, had to be amended to make slavery illegal. Is it in any way conceivable that the original language of our Constitution did not prohibit slavery but somehow protected a right to abortion?

With legitimacy to claims that there is a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution gone, now the battleground is in the states.

A major battle has been won, but the war rages on. At this writing, abortion is prohibited in only 13 states.

Pew Research shows that after years of decline in the number of abortions, it ticked back up in 2020 to 930,160.

And, despite all the claims about caring about racial justice in our nation, my organization CURE reports in a new policy briefing, "The Impact of Abortion on the Black Community," that in 2020, 39.2% of abortions were on Black women, who represent just 14% of the childbearing population.

The data also shows that 86% of abortions are done on unmarried women, which points to the critical link between this destructive behavior and the collapse of marriage and family, the pillars of a healthy society.

I believe that all the many problems our nation faces begin with absence of awe for the miracle of life. The other side of the coin of the right to life is the responsibility to protect life and responsibility in the behavior that creates life. Reverence is the beginning of responsibility, and responsibility is the beginning point for what freedom is all about.

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I thought then that that captured our reality, and I think the process that followed confirmed it.

It is human nature to want things neat and clear. But life never cooperates.

Which is why freedom is so important. And why we need a speaker who can keep focus and move the ship forward despite heavy gale winds blowing in many different directions.

McCarthy emerges from the ordeal with plenty of criticism.

And the House Freedom Caucus cabal, some 20 strong, that held McCarthy along with 201 of their Republican colleagues captive also emerges with plenty of criticism.

McCarthy is accused of conceding too much because, per his critics, it's all about personal ambition.

Regarding the obstructionists, they're accused of exploiting unique circumstances to gain personal power and attention.

In my column, I noted that polling shows that indeed Democrats are more unified than Republicans.

But I don't see Democrat woke uniformity as any strength. Democrats' cookie-cutter mentality regarding human reality is why they love big government so much.

But freedom is so important because there is no cookie cutter for human reality.

In November 2016, newly elected Vice President Mike Pence attended a showing in New York of the hit play "Hamilton."

When he entered the theater with his daughters, finding their way to their seats, they were met with boos.

At the end of the play, a spokesman for the cast directed critical remarks toward Pence.

When asked about the incident, Pence said he was not offended. He said, "I nudged my kids and reminded them, that's what freedom sounds like."

In May 1856, as Congress debated the future of slavery in America, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks entered the Senate Chamber and accosted abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner with his cane, beating him until he was unconscious.

So regarding chaos and absence of civility, the U.S. Congress has seen days much worse than what we have just been through.

Having built my own organization and worked with many others, my rule of thumb is that good people will accomplish things and get things done despite a poorly designed organization. And bad people will cause damage even in the most perfectly designed organization.

Organization charts and job descriptions matter.

But what matters most is individual character.

Certainly, the rules how the House operates and the job description of the speaker are of great importance.

But of greatest importance are courageous leaders who are committed to the principles of a free nation under God.

Leaders, for instance, who have the courage to take on our broken entitlement programs that suck up to 80% of our $6 trillion federal budget. These bankrupt programs, going back to 1936, don't need to be tweaked but reinvented.

Every young American now entering the workforce is paying Social Security payroll taxes into a bankrupt system that will not be able to pay them their benefits.

The answer is not raising taxes or the retirement age. The answer is a new system based on real ownership and investment.

But taking on Social Security and other entitlements requires real courage and commitment to principles. Do these Republicans have the courage to lead where Americans need leadership?

Polls show the American people are not happy with how things are going. This is a good sign.

The Republican oppositionists should be given benefit of the doubt that their obstructionism was rooted in genuine concern about principles and ideals.

And Kevin McCarthy should be given benefit of the doubt that he is indeed a Republican leader for complex times who knows he can't win every battle but has wisdom to know which to fight.

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