Political commentator, Kate Obenshain, speaks to College Republicans

The UNCG College Republicans brought a big name in conservative thought to UNCG last Wednesday night.  Kate Obenshain is the Vice President of Young America’s Foundation and a political commentator, regularly appearing on Fox News Channel.  As the first woman chairperson of the Republican Party of Virginia from 2003 to 2006 she made a name for herself for her vocal opposition to government expansion and tax increases.  Her work speaking on college campuses started 18 years ago, and she continues to lecture on topics ranging from anti-abortion, national security, education, the role of women in public office, and political correctness in university settings, while organizing for conservative thinkers such as Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, and Michele Bachmann to speak to college students through Young America’s Foundation (YAF).  YAF is a conservative youth organization, founded in 1969. The goal of the organization is to promote and communicate conservative ideas with students.  Sponsoring conferences, campus lectures, and conservative activism, the group aims to provide more representation of conservative ideology on campus.  “Students are exposed to liberalism all over most campuses,” said Obenshain, “We strive to provide balance and encourage political discussion.”

On Wednesday, Obenshain spoke to an intimate audience in the Kirkland Room of the EUC.  UNCG College Republicans, members of the community, as well as a few guests from nearby universities, like UNC Chapel Hill, attended to hear her talk about current events, the differences in President Barack Obama and President Ronald Reagan, and hear her advice for young conservative activists on campus.

Obenshain opened her discussion by acknowledging those in attendance, appreciating their commitment and commenting on what she perceives to be a precarious point in history, “I appreciate you all, and your continued efforts to promote conservatism on what arguably is an apathetic campus” she said. “At Young America’s Foundation we are forever sending speakers out to college campuses and it is a steady challenge that we have to confront, encouraging students to come out, get out of their comfort zone, and come to events where we’re talking about public policy because often you’re very focused on what’s going on just at your school and not beyond that,” she said, “If you’re not focused on it, it’s just going to be to our own peril.”

This peril she described as a result of current domestic and foreign policy under President Barack Obama’s administration.  Recognizing the sway President Obama is known to have with young people, she went on, “He truly gets that you all are the future,” she began, “The reason he gets that is because Barack Obama is a very ideological president, he is there to institutionalize an idea... The problem is the idea that he wants to institutionalize is Socialism.”  No one in the room commented, but some nodded their heads as she continued, “He is a smart man because he knows that in order to institutionalize an idea, you have to start with young people.”   The room, occupied mostly by college students, listened attentively.  Not to come across as what she called  “a conspiracy theorist”, accusing the President of manipulating the youth, she presented another person who she said was great about understanding the importance of young people, and instutionalizing an idea. That person, she said, was Ronald Reagan.  Obenshain asserted that he understood the importance of young people when it came to making an idea the prevalent thought in society.  “The difference was, Ronald Reagan’s idea was freedom.” She said.  Obenshain went on to explain the political climate in which Reagan took office and discuss low points in the presidency of Jimmy Carter.  This discourse included the Iranian hostage crisis, weak nuclear weapons policy, and long lines at the gas pump, which she observed may be a foreign concept to college kids.  She did not address sky-rocketing gas prices, that this college newspaper has reported on often, but instead pointed out that Carter’s global perception as weak further hurt the U.S. economy.

“We were in a tremendous recession at the end of his (Carter) administration, so President Reagan becomes president facing a very similar situation to what Barack Obama is facing now, what he faced when he became president,” in other words, the administration that preceded Obama left the country in financial ruin, as did Carter’s before Reagan.  Despite the similarities of their circumstance, Obenshain went on to point out their striking dissimilarity.  “The approaches that the two men have taken could not be more different,” she began, “In the face of a stark recession, on August 13, 1981 Reagan signed the largest tax cut in American history. When people are not having 70% of their income confiscated by the federal government to pay for a bigger bureaucracy, they work harder.”  Indeed, when the administration cut the tax rate on the highest-income tax bracket from 70% to 28% the eventual revenue drawn from that bracket did initially go up. Reagan also made history ten days before he signed the tax cut.  He fired 12,000 unionized air traffic controllers on strike, forever changing labor relations in America.  Obenshain approached the relationship between workers and factory owners differently than examining this connection, echoing  “Trickle Down” supply-side economics.

Emphasizing her view that cutting taxes for the industry leaders in the highest-income tax bracket results in greater economic recovery she said, “It is not like all the money goes back into the pockets of these mega-billionaires.  These billionaires who started off as entrepreneurs are brave and courageous and they want to build and build and build, and do you know what happens when they build and build, and when they put those billions of dollars back into their business or they start new businesses? They employ thousands, giving those people hope and opportunity…but these billionaires aren’t going to do it when 70% of their income is going to be confiscated by the federal government, it’s human nature.”  Obenshain contrasted this with Obama’s domestic policy, highlighting health care reform, the economic bailout, and what she called “The sharp left turn that he’s taken the country in.”  She called the bailout a “bad idea!” and insisted that America strives because its citizens have both the right to succeed, and the right to fail, leaving the idea of a company too big to fail nonsense.  “Let them fail, and let better companies come in, better managed companies,” she said. The George W. Bush administration started the bail out, but still called it a bad idea.  Of health care reform, Obenshain predicted the failure of the private insurance industry based on new legislation and subsequent regulation.  “Its a fact, folks. You can pretend that private insurance companies are going to be okay, but even liberals don’t believe it,” she said, “This is the first step in single payer and government provided healthcare.”  Examining the health care debate over the past year, it is true that Obama and many liberals wanted that from the very beginning.