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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, April 24, 2015
Corinth, Miss.
Campaign expected to embrace debate of income inequality STARKVILLE — If you aren’t accustomed to hearing the term “income inequality” as part of your political lexicon, then perhaps you should begin to get used to the phrase because you’re going to hear a lot more about it. In formally launching her bid for the Democratic nomination for president, Clinton said cast herself as the champion of “everyday Americans” and declared her alarm over circumstances “when the average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.” Sid Salter Republican Marco Rubio Columnist is also addressing income inequality in his opening presidential campaign salvo. Rubio said that he was running, in part, “because equality of opportunity has always defined us as a people and as a nation. And the fact that there are millions of people now in America that are starting to have significant doubts about whether we’re still that kind of country should be deeply concerning to us.” So with Democrats and Republicans talking about income inequality, what does that phrase mean? Journalist John D. Sutter defined the term as follows: “Income inequality refers to how evenly or unevenly income is distributed in a society. The U.S. has a relatively high level of income inequality because the very richest people take home a large share of the economic pie — and there is a relatively large gap between them and some of the poorest people in America.” Consider these numbers from the Census: The average per capita money income in America in 2013 was $28,155. In Mississippi for that same period, the average per capita money income was $20,618. But even that measure of Mississippi’s poverty compared to the rest of the country doesn’t tell the whole story. In Madison County, Mississippi, the average per capita money income in 2013 was $33, 170. In DeSoto County, Mississippi, the average was $26,897. Then consider Jefferson County, Mississippi’s average income for the same period of just $12,723 or Noxubee County’s average of $12,780. Income inequality is at once an international concept when comparing the U.S. standard of living with that of Third World counties. It contributes to contempt for the U.S. and stokes the fires of terrorism when used as illustrations of religious and social conflicts. It is also a national debate that divides political parties in America. And even within states with predictable political behavior in national politics – like Mississippi – the issue invades state and local politics. So income inequality – and the impact that income inequality has on the political process — harkens back to the late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s observation that all politics is local. The split between Democrats and Republicans on these issues are as obvious as the political differences between the majority of voters in Madison and Rankin counties and those of the majority of voters in Jefferson and Noxubee counties in Mississippi. Income inequality as a political issue has the potential to change the American political landscape in the ways that civil rights issues have already accomplished. That’s why Democrats and Republicans alike are at least paying lip service to the income inequality issue in the run up to the 2016 elections. But for Democrats, there is an argument between centrists and the more liberal wing of the party over how large a role government has or should have in attempting to reduce the income inequality divide. Strangely enough, that same debate exists between young “establishment” Republicans and more conservative “Tea Party” forces in the GOP. Can government really “fix” income inequality? Should government do that? Or is that a function of the markets in a capitalistic system in which there are winners and losers? Voters can expect to hear a lot of debate on those questions and others like them between now and the time they go into the voting booth to choose President Barack Obama’s successor. (Daily Corinthian columnist Sid Salter is syndicated across the state. Contact him at 601-507-8004 or sidsalter@sidsalter.com.)
Prayer for today Loving Father, grant that I may not barter love with formalities, nor sacrifice love for customs. But, may I have a fellowship that is true and sincere, and that may be counted on, though all and for all. Amen.
A verse to share “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.” — Psalms 122:6
Hillary Clinton: Out of sync with the times Presidents are inevitably shaped by the circumstances in which they campaign for – and come into – office. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt called for “bold, persistent experimentation” and followed through once in office. Had Roosevelt run in another year, or had there been no Great Depression, he would have campaigned and governed differently. The same can be said, to varying degrees, of the presidents who won openseat contests since, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, the two George Bushes and Barack Obama, and of those who unseated incumbents, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. The Republicans who have announced their candidacies so far – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio – have similarly framed their appeals in contemporary context. That’s made easier by the fact that none was in Congress when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008. We can expect something similar from other Republicans. The lesson from history is that winning candidates and successful presidents show they are in step with the times. The rationale for their candidacies, while sometimes drawing on historical precedent, is rooted
in what is contemporary. This is obviously a problem for Hillary Michael Clinton, just Barone as it would have been Columnist for Eleanor Roosevelt if, somehow, she had run for president in 1952 (when she was younger than Clinton will be in 2016). She would have been defined in large part by her husband’s record, which was specific to its time. Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 as a different kind of Democrat, more moderate on some issues than previous nominees, vastly interested in alternative public policies that he had advanced as head of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. His party was prepared to accept him because Democrats were uncomfortably aware that their candidates had lost five of the six previous elections and had won the other one only by a narrow margin. Political scientists proclaimed that Republicans had a lock on the White House. Liberal Democrats were willing to settle for half a loaf to break that lock – which they did.
Democrats have won four of the last six presidential elections and won a popular-vote plurality in another. Liberals no longer feel they need to compromise to win. Moreover, in the second term of a party’s presidency, its wingers tend to get restless. They take their president’s achievements for granted and are full of regret at what he didn’t accomplish. Thus, conservatives with complaints against George W. Bush fueled the tea party movement. The energy and enthusiasm in the Democratic Party today is clearly on the Left. In their view Hillary Clinton’s appeal is, as Robert Merry characterized it in The National Interest, “Vote for me because I will tinker with the problems facing our nation far better than anyone else possibly could.” The Democrats of 1992 accepted a somewhat hawkish Clinton in order to win. The Democrats of 2015 feel no need to do so. No wonder the two-minute video announcing Clinton’s candidacy didn’t mention foreign policy, even though she served as secretary of state for four years. The Clinton video was obviously designed to depict her as a candidate of the moment. Clinton tried to iden-
tify with liberal Democrats’ concern with economic inequality. “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times,” she said, “but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” But the solutions she has mentioned – equal pay for women, mandatory pre-kindergarten, increased minimum wages — are either already law or would have only a de minimis redistributive effect. Following the video announcement, Clinton headed to Iowa in a Secret Service van dubbed ScoobyDoo – after a cartoon program that debuted in 1969, before Cruz or Rubio were born. Behind closed doors, she mingled with a small group at an Iowa junior college while other students and reporters were barred from the hallway. Hillary Clinton may still be elected president. But she seems out of sync with her party and out of sync with the times. (Daily Corinthian columnist Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics.)
President outlines where he is taking us At the Summit of the Americas where he met with Raul Castro, the 83-yearold younger brother of Fidel, President Obama provided an insight into where he is taking us, and why: “The United States will not be imprisoned by the past – we’re looking to the future. I’m not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born.” Obama was not yet born when Fidel rolled into Havana, Jan. 1, 1959. He was 1 year old during the missile crisis. His mother belonged to a 1960s generation that welcomed the Cuban Revolution. His father came from an African generation that won independence from the European empires. Churchill’s bust may have resided in the Oval Office of George Bush. Obama sent it back to the British Embassy. His hero is Nelson Mandela, who overthrew centuries of white rule in South Africa. Obama is as rooted in the Third World as in the West, and his goal is to sweep out the clutter of a Cold War that “has been over a long time.” He lifted sanctions on Burma, is recognizing Castro’s Cuba, and hopes to seal a nuclear deal with Iran and normalize relations. Uninhibited by old friendships, untethered to old al-
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
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Willie Walker
Roger Delgado
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lies, Barack Obama is grounding his Middle East policy on what he sees as the Pat new realities. Buchanan And the policy shifts Columnist he is making are unlikely to be reversed, for the discarding of old friends in altered circumstances is an American tradition. In 1954, Eisenhower refused to intervene to save our French allies going down to defeat in Indochina. In 1956, he ordered the British and French out of Suez. That was the end of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Ike’s wartime friend, and of the British Empire, alongside which we had fought two world wars. In 1963, JFK sanctioned a coup against our ally President Diem. In 1972, Richard Nixon went to Peking to toast Chairman Mao, who was responsible for tens of thousands of U.S. war dead in Korea. Nixon thus began the severing of relations and of treaty ties with our World War II ally, Chiang Kai-shek, and his Republic of China on Taiwan. What Ike was conceding at Suez was that the British and French empires were
history and Arab nationalism was the future in the Middle East. What Nixon was conceding was that Mao’s revolution was irreversible, and America must deal with the new reality. Obama is in that tradition of ruthless American pragmatism. What is the new reality Obama sees across the Middle East? It is that America’s most dangerous enemies are alQaida and its progeny, and ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And in the war against al-Qaida and ISIS, the Ayatollah’s Iran and its allies – Hezbollah, Syria’s Bashar Assad and Iraq’s Shiite militias – are on our side. However, in this same war, some of our oldest allies appear to be conscientious objectors or collaborators with the enemy. Where ISIS has made Syria’s provincial capital of Raqqa the capital of its caliphate, the Nusra Front has seized Idlib, a second provincial capital. And the Assad regime accuses our NATO ally Turkey of aiding and abetting the terrorist takeover of Idlib. The Israelis, too, do not share our view of who is the mortal enemy. “Hezbollah and Iran are the major threat to Israel, much more than the radical Sunni Islamists,” says Amos Yadlin,
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ex-head of Israel’s military intelligence. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren agrees: “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” But if Assad falls, then the Nusra Front or ISIS comes to power, a strategic disaster for the United States, followed by a slaughter of Christians that could drag America back into yet another land war. Obama is not wrong here. If NATO’s Turkey, Israel, and the Gulf Arabs prefer Sunni Islamists in Damascus to an Alawite regime with which we have coexisted for 40 years, then President Obama is right to move us away from our old allies. U.S. national interests come first. Yet, a choice between Hezbollah and the Nusra Front, ISIS and the Shiite militias, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi rebels, is a Hobbesian trap that is a conclusive argument for keeping U.S. troops out of this war of all against all in the Middle East. (Daily Corinthian columnist Pat Buchanan is an American conservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster.)
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