HALF-FULL REPORT 10/03/08

Sofia, Bulgaria. Dr. Joel Wade couldn't write his column yesterday (10/02) because he was so nervous waiting for the Palin-Biden debate.  He's feeling a lot better this morning.  So are we all.  You betcha.

There is so much to celebrate over Sarah's kicking Slow Joe's butt last night, as there were so many favorite moments, from the wink to the "There you go again looking backward again."

For me, however, it was when she skewered him on the power and role of vice-president.

Earlier this month in Saracuda Vs. The PIAPS, we discussed how much power the VP has as President of the Senate.  Biden showed he hasn't a clue about this after being a Senator for three decades:

The role of the vice-president, he said in the debate, is to preside over the Senate "only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit."

He has it astoundingly wrong.  The Constitution is explicit that the vice-president is always the president of the Senate and can preside over it – thus controlling its agenda – at any time.

Sarah showed how aware she is of this when she contradicted Biden and said:

"I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are."

As TTP predicted, she plans to preside over the Senate.  Sarah will be in charge, not Hillary when she becomes Majority Leader replacing Lost Harry Reid.

So let's lift a pint of Kamenitza beer in honor of Sarah Palin and the hope she has reignited the McCain-Palin ticket. 

***

Kamenitza is my selection out of a large number of excellent Bulgarian beers because of its advertising motto:  Success in your hands (there's a picture of a hand holding a bottle), followed by the ad copy:  Because you are successful, we present to you a Bulgarian beer with character.

You would never, ever see such an ad in any country in Western Europe.  In France or Germany, young people sneer at entrepreneurial capitalism as their purpose in life is to sponge off the state.

In Bulgaria, you meet so many young (that means under 40) successful entrepreneurs in so many different businesses:  restaurant chains, dairy products, packaged meat products, hotels, cable companies, infotech, it goes on and on.

Bulgaria is a very ancient country, pre-Roman, pre-Greek, thousands of years old.  Yet, after emerging from the nightmare of Soviet-imposed Communism, it is young.  Donald Rumsfeld's famous comparison between Old (Western) Europe and New (Eastern) Europe was good, but it would be more accurate to describe the latter as Young Europe.

In 2003, a group of nine young economists (average age 26) at the recently-formed Institute for Market Economics here in Sofia decided to do something about high taxes.  With a personal income tax of 29%, corporate tax of 19.5%, and payroll tax of 42% (on the first $12K of income – talk about regressive!), they decided to push for 10-10-10, 10% for all three.

Richard Rahn, who is here in Sofia with me, will be describing how they did it in a subsequent column, but by January, 2008 these young acolytes of Ludwig Von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman (the great economist gurus of laissez faire capitalism) had persuaded the Bulgarian government to have a 10% flat income and corporate tax.

In little over three years – and with a Socialist government in power!  (They're still at work on reducing the payroll tax, which they've got down to 32%)

And here's the kicker:  with these drastically lower tax rates, the government is running an 8% surplus!

This is what has unleashed the young entrepreneurial capitalist spirit that is creating so much young and new prosperity here.

In the meantime, over in old and dying European countries like Germany, the term for "entrepreneurs" is blutsauger – "bloodsuckers" like a mosquito.

***

Thus the garish irony of our election in November.  Palin and Obama are contemporaries, about the same youthful age, while McCain and Biden are also age contemporaries.

Yet McCain-Palin represent the path of Young Europe, while Obama-Biden represent the path of Old Europe.  This is why America's future is literally at stake in this election, for there is no future in the latter.  Old Europe is dying, and if American voters choose that path, America will start to die as well.

The HFR will have another pint of Kamenitza, please, and pray that they will follow Sarah Palin down the right path.