Paul Mero

Not many people envy House Speaker Paul Ryan’s life these days. You might recall that he was begged to take over as Speaker of the House after conservatives were tired of John Boehner. Ryan was very reluctant. He knew the toll that role would take on his family and his own sanity. Yet he accepted. And, even still, amidst all of the Trump era chaos, I don’t think he regrets it. Ryan is a policy wonk. He might hate the politics but he loves the deep dive into fixing problems.

Let me take you into his world for a moment based on my own experience working on Capitol Hill years ago. Given that today is the seventh anniversary of Obamacare, let’s just focus on its repeal and replacement. Again, you might recall that not long ago I predicted Obamacare would NOT be repealed – a prediction I stand by still. So here is why I say that and the heavy lift faced by Speaker Ryan. Let’s piece together all of the forces in play. read more

There is a controversy over the new Beauty and the Beast movie. Evidently, Disney wrote a gay character into the script. No, not “gay” as in happy, as in every Disney movie prior to the 1980s. “Gay” as in sexual orientation. Evangelical leader Franklin Graham has called for people of faith to boycott the movie as a show of force for traditional values. But is that a good idea?

If we you born well before 1988, you might remember another movie controversy over The Last Temptation of Christ, a more progressive retelling of the life and death of Jesus Christ. The movie depicted Jesus, played by the creepy Willem Defoe, as more mortal than God. In the movie, Jesus was a sinner, had sex with a prostitute and struggled with his inner demons. It was an awful movie and it would have received very little attention outside of Sundance and other progressive movie festivals if it were not for the effort of the American Family Association to tell people how scandalous it was. read more

Another interesting article about poverty from American Enterprise Institute scholar Arthur Brooks falls on the heels of Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz lecturing the poor about making choices between cell phones and health insurance. You might recall that Chaffetz said during a CNN interview, “rather than ‘getting that new iPhone that they just love,’ low-income Americans should take the money they would have spent on it and ‘invest it in their own health care.’”

While our worse selves understand what Chaffetz was saying – in that ignorant, discriminatory kind of way – it’s hard to pass on the lack of logic involved. There is no way in hell that an iPhone costs as much as health insurance, especially for low-income, high-risk families. But, more so, it’s his attitude about the poor I find appalling. Acting personally, I only can assume he would be generous with his neighbors. Acting as a politician, all he did was reinforce the idea that he and his affluent neighbors are uncaring and unintelligent. But some of us are neither. read more

In 1975, then-amateur boxer Michael Dokes told Sports Illustrated that his hand speed was so fast that you couldn’t catch them on camera. And then the 17 year old proffered this warning to boxing legend Muhammad Ali, “I’m going to get you old man, so you better get out while you can.” Two years later, now pro-boxer Michael Dokes faced off against the aging Champ (Ali was then 35 years old, overweight and on the down side of his career). It was a three-round exhibition fight.

Ali was up to his old tricks – taunting, teasing and cajoling the young opponent – and then, at the moment the Champ could tell how frustrated Dokes became, Ali leaned back on the corner ropes, dropped his hands, planted his feet and dared the challenger to hit him. Dokes threw 21 punches in 10 seconds – and never touched the Champ. You have to see to believe it. read more

Utah is a liquor control state. In other words, the state heavily regulates the sale and consumption of liquor. Some states have more stringent regulations in place, including complete prohibitions in some counties within those states, but Utah remains a state that will tell residents and visitors when and where and how they can drink liquor.

Every legislative session there seems to be talk of new bills designed to either loosen these regulations or tighten them. Several years ago, the Legislature created what is now called the Zion Curtain requiring restaurants to separate where drinks are made from where they are served – the central idea being restaurants are not bars and a culture of alcohol should be contained to bar settings only. read more

A very smart article was posted on the website, The Imaginative Conservative, defending opponents of Muslim immigration. The article was prompted by Donald Trump’s executive order requiring a higher-than-usual standard for vetting immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, presumably to ward off the hoards of refugees fleeing that region – hoards that might include terrorists.

As you have heard, Trump issued an executive order on January 27 titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The order includes numerous paragraphs of procedures for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement to ostensibly keep us safe from the “bad guys.” Invoking the horrific memory of 9/11, the order states, read more

As I listened to Donald Trump’s inaugural address my mind’s eye drifted back to the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996. Full of spit and vinegar at the time, I was a big supporter of Buchanan. He was the Donald Trump of the 1990’s except that he had manners, he was gracious, he was intelligent and a real conservative.

Pat Buchanan was a newspaperman turned political operative who went from writing editorials for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat to writing speeches for Richard Nixon and then on to the Reagan White House. He was a conservative’s conservative – a no-nonsense voice in a sea of Establishment nonsense. He was not afraid to recall the conservatism of the past and condemn the neo-conservatism that began to assume power under the presidency of George H.W. Bush. read more

Should we raise taxes to provide more money for our public school system? Utah has one of the lowest per pupil spending rates in the nation, if not the lowest at times, and yet we seem to do pretty well with what we have. In fact, we seem to do rather exceptionally with what resources we invest. Our per-pupil spending might be low but the overall investment in education is the largest part of our state budget, by far.

But would more money make a difference? The backers of the new funding initiative, Our Schools Now, say more money would make a huge difference and have proposed an increase to the state income tax – in Utah, all income tax goes to education. The Our Schools Now plan “calls for a 7/8 of 1 percent (.008) increase to the personal income tax, which [they predict] would total $750 million; [it would] provide each Utah school with roughly $1000 [more] per enrolled student; and, [it would] require all funding to be spent in ways that increase student learning.” read more