President Obama’s allies have rushed to claim a “mandate”, as have all previous presidential winners before him. If by “mandate”, they mean that officeholders in the Congress—also democratically elected in their own right—have some obligation to roll over for whatever the president desires, than I disagree.

We might recall the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill refused to grant any vague “mandate” privilege to Ronald Reagan after the latter was re-elected in 1984—an election Reagan won with 59 percent of the vote and carrying 49 states. Even less does current GOP speaker John Boehner owe a mandate to a president re-elected by only two percentage points in the popular vote.

But Boehner’s claims of a mandate of his own are equally silly, and as the debt skyrockets,  with China buying it up and gaining increasing leverage on the United States, both the Speaker and the President are going to have to come to some kind of deal and then sell their parties on it.

President Obama & Speaker Boehner have no choice but learn to work with each other--and they better do it fast.

The reality is that a $16 trillion debt doesn’t get solved without unpopular solutions, including solutions all of us aren’t going to like. Solving the debt is more important than the pet agendas a lot of us would like to see enacted—for me it’s the up-front costs of transitioning Social Security and Medicare to private accounts and vouchers. For others it might be a sweeping tax cut or an expansive new federal program. Those are the goodies, but the prerequisite to doing anything is a real plan to contain the national debt, as politically unromantic as that might be.

Neither side has been honest with the American public. Obama has pretended raising taxes a few percentage points on a few extremely rich people will enable him to cut the deficit  and still invest more in education and job training. Republicans, still living in the world Ronald Reagan inherited in 1981 can’t get beyond tax-cutting. Both agendas are going to have to be shelved.

A starting point for negotiation might be this—give Obama what we wants regarding the modest tax hike on the upper brackets. The rates going from 35 to 39 percent are not the difference between capitalism and socialism. But Boehner, and his strengthened Republican majority have a right to significant concessions of their own.

It’s long past time the left wing of the Democratic Party recognize that the wealthiest of the elderly don’t need to keep collecting Social Security, or get Medicare benefits. Republicans tried to broach this topic in the early 1980s and again in 1986, were demonized for it, lost big in congressional elections and learned their lesson—that the Democrats couldn’t be trusted to deal honestly with them on Social Security and Medicare

But these two programs are where the money is at. So perhaps Boehner should take Obama up on his offer—start the debt reduction by asking their wealthiest to pay a little more—but insist that the president himself get out front of taking the richest off Social Security, make it clear to the Left that the time has come for this change and stop the charade of one party playing ‘gotcha’ with the other.

Boehner wouldn’t be popular in his own party if he sold a modest tax hike on the upper brackets as part of a debt deal. Obama would lose the “cool kid” status he covets so much with his own base if he pushed for this type of Social Security reform. But in the loss of popularity and coolness, both could gain a new title—leader. It’s time for both men to start acting like one.

Dan Flaherty is the author of Fulcrum, an Irish Catholic novel set in postwar Boston with a traditional Democratic mayoral campaign at its heart, and he is the editor-in-chief of TheSportsNotebook.com

From an interview with Peter Dans, a medical doctor, who wrote a book on Christians in the movies in his spare time:

How does your Catholic education at Transfiguration School in New York’s Chinatown influence the way you take in and interact with popular culture?

As you know, the term “catholic” means “universal.” Our Catholic school textbooks, which affirmed God and country (Pro Deo, Pro Patria) and were inclusive, not hyphenated. The teachers taught us about the world; this was especially so at Transfiguration where they were Maryknoll missionaries.

I am especially indebted to Sister Mary Berchmans Flynn, who taught a combined fifth and sixth grade. She skipped me a grade by moving me over a row and counseled my parents to send me to a school that could better meet my needs.

At great expense, my mother, a court interpreter, and my stepfather, a merchant seaman, sent me to military school, which set me on the right path.

I got a chance to see Sister Berchmans during a stop in Hong Kong on my way to take care of cholera patients in Calcutta in 1963, and later in the 1970s at the Motherhouse in Ossining [N.Y.]. I must also mention that the neighborhood I grew up in, and which [urban planner Robert] Moses destroyed, was truly diverse, not in the phony way the term is used today. It was made up of Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese, Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese, Puerto Ricans, and blacks.

I grew up understanding the motto “E pluribus unum,” out of many, one. Some invert that today to “out of one, many.”

And today with thriller writer Brad Thor (who recently announced he is Team Santorum):

LOPEZ: If I am not mistaken, you went to an all-boys Sacred Heart Catholic elementary school in Chicago called Hardey Prep. Does that make a long-term impact? On your writing? On your civic life? As you view issues of character?

THOR: Yes it does. So much of who I am as a man, a husband, a father, a member of my community, and a citizen comes from what I learned at Hardey Prep. If I forget everything I learned there, I will never forget the one phrase we were challenged with daily, “If not you, then who?”

This is the phrase I would challenge all of America with. Our nation is fighting for its very survival. Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their Republic. If not you, then who?

Not every child can attend one, but so many Catholic schools are dedicated to being a life-changer and even -saver. Something John Boehner is well aware of. Something the Manhattan Institute’s Sol Stern has made plenty clear. And I am sure many who read this site can testify to in one way or another.

Some of you are creating your own Catholic school at home, the family being the first and primary educator. Not everyone can or does do that.

Some of you are coming to Catholic education later. Fr. Barron’s Catholicism certainly helps with that. And with continuing education.

But many need the support. Some need their lives saved, and early. And sometimes the school can make every difference.

There is little room for dissent with Kathleen Sebelius in charge, says WSJ columnist Bill McGurn. He gives a shout out to the new CatholicVote ad in his column. (Subscription might be required). http://is.gd/gzNO77

Too soon to call it a comeback, but Rick Perry climbs up to 13% in the latest Iowa poll.

Perry’s also starting a month-long bus tour of Iowa. http://is.gd/01oIhI

Michele Bachmann will one-up him, by hitting all 99 counties of Iowa in her bus tour. http://is.gd/rwIaYw

A brokered GOP convention? Don’t bet on it, says Sean Trende. http://is.gd/Z8Krl8

Speaker Boehner says the House will pass a bill extending the payroll tax cut. The bill also contains a provision on the Keystone Pipeline which Obama opposes. http://is.gd/uO9gqW

NBC calls the ad with Tim Tebow and his mother a “controversial anti-abortion ad.” http://is.gd/btr2aQ

The Supreme Court is an ‘enormous issue’ for 2012. http://is.gd/aX0Q7T

Obamacare could obliterate most health care conscience protections, experts say. http://is.gd/DbjGro

Fr. Robert Sirico from Acton tells me:

There are three important things any legislator must base his decisions on: First, our responsibility to future generations requires that we keep our fiscal house in order. Second, the dignity of individual citizens must be protected by allowing wealth-creating institutions to flourish and respecting the importance of voluntary charitable associations. Third, he should remember the limits of the federal government as set forth in the Constitution.

Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. This needs to be remedied, or we’ll face the sort of fiscal meltdown that has caused so much havoc lately in the European Union. Are America’s problems like those of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland? Not exactly. But we can cause severe economic problems with misguided policies that will suffocate growth, further depress job creation, and push millions farther away from any hope of rising out of poverty. Another more subtle consideration is to reflect on the impact such policies have on the culture — on individual initiative and the work ethic. It is not a bad thing for a society to have a cultural and moral bias in favor of productive work and to sanction the easy acceptance of charity and welfare payment when these are not necessary and when one can provide for oneself. That old-fashioned notion about the American Dream is what’s at stake today.

A prudent and discerning legislator will look down the road into the future and will vote in a way that allows America’s opportunity society to continue to flourish. Both a short-term and a long-term fix are needed in order to deal with the problem of our national debt.

Fr. Sirico also takes on the latest Jim Wallis effort here.

At NR, we are corporately encouraging the still-being-improved-on Boehner plan.

I am curious what you all think about this contentious, confusing debate, and how it connects to the coming elections …

To recap, John Boehner ventured to Catholic University to provide the commencement address. In response, a group of over 70 Catholic professors expressed their disapproval of Boehner’s policies. They wrote:

It is good for Catholic universities to host and engage the thoughts of powerful public figures, even Catholics such as yourself who fail to recognize (whether out of a lack of awareness or dissent) important aspects of Catholic teaching. We write in the hope that this visit will reawaken your familiarity with the teachings of your Church on matters of faith and morals as they relate to governance.

Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress.

The professors criticized Boehner for the 2012 budget that he “shepherded,” which, they argued, “guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society,” is “particularly cruel to pregnant women and children,” “radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare,” and “invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable.”

They were confident that Boehner had not given “fullest consideration to the teachings of your Church.” And so, to “assist you,” they offered “a copy of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Published by the Vatican, this is the ‘catechism’ for the Church’s ancient and growing teaching on a just society and Catholic obligations in public life.”

The professors wrapped up by invoking Pope Benedict’s words on charity. This was an interesting touch, as Benedict’s words were the only charity expressed in this letter.

In truth, the message from the Catholic professors demonstrated an all-too-typical self-righteousness among liberal Christians when it comes to poverty and public policy. Yes, that’s a strong charge, so let me explain, in the hopes I’m not likewise lacking charity.

Here is the fundamental reality: Liberal and conservative Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, split over how to best deal with poverty. Conservatives prefer locally based private-sector solutions, whereas liberals prefer federally based public-sector efforts. Biblically speaking, conservative Christians interpret parables such as the Good Samaritan and the “rich young man” as exhortations for private action, not as calls for collectivism and wealth redistribution by a coercive state centralized in Washington.

Conservatives believe the public sector does too much. More than that, they believe that government programs are wasteful and can place the poor on what Ronald Reagan described as a “treadmill of dependency” that leads to despair rather than liberation. (That conviction was instrumental in Reagan’s conversion from a liberal Christian to a conservative Christian.) Conservatives believe that the federal government has subsumed far too many roles better left not merely to the private sector but to local public authorities—the essence, really, of the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. In fact, without doing an exhaustive analysis of John Boehner’s votes in the House and overall belief system, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s closer to the Church on this teaching—subsidiarity—than most signers of this letter.

Readers can pick at what I’ve said, agreeing here, disagreeing there. We can agree, as Catholics, that the state has a role in aiding the poor, especially when the private sector fails. But what’s definitely wrong is the unceasing accusation by liberal Christians that conservatives don’t care about the poor. Quite the contrary, numerous studies and even books—Arthur Brooks’ Who Really Cares; Peter Schweizer’s Makers and Takers—show that conservatives tend to give more than liberals.

When these liberal Catholic professors lecture Boehner for being “particularly cruel” and for failing to recognize “Church teaching,” what they’re really showing is a classic liberal failure to recognize basic differences over the best means to help the poor—and to do so with charity to those they disagree with. Rarely in my life, as a Catholic and former Protestant, do I encounter liberal Christians who display this crucial understanding. Instead, way too often, they call conservatives names. It’s very un-thoughtful.

On a separate but related point, consider another area where the professors are lacking in fairness to John Boehner, which I touched upon in my previous post:

Boehner inherited the largest budget deficit and debt in the history of America. He didn’t create the mess. His predecessors, and especially the liberal Democratic trio of President Obama, Senator Harry Reid, and Catholic ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were not good stewards. They left Boehner an astonishing $1.6-trillion deficit, which, unless reduced, is a far greater obstacle to helping the poor.

The best poverty program is a growing economy. The worst poverty program is an economy mired in recession that will only get worse when buried by astronomical debt fueled by inflationary money-printing and uncontrolled spending habits. By the same logic, conservatives like Boehner could accuse liberal Christians of not caring about the poor because of their failure to reduce utterly immoral rates of unprecedented spending.

Boehner knows what any of us who have worked in public policy knows: there is tremendous waste in the federal government. An enormous amount of tax dollars directed to the poor are consumed by a bloated bureaucracy that rarely polices itself—in total contrast to any household, company, church, or charitable organization.

The letter by these liberal academics demonstrates these fatal disconnects. Worse than that, it questions a man’s commitment as a Catholic.

And worse still, the letter is mild compared to what I’m hearing from other liberal Catholics. One member of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, who responded to my previous post on this subject, wrote: “John Boehner sadly has one of the worst records in Congress regarding legislation that is fair. His record … includes opposition to virtually every initiative aimed at helping working American families…. During the health care debate, Boehner kept repeating the mantra that America has the best health care in the world. This is an out and out lie and he knew it.”

Can you imagine being called a liar for believing that America has the world’s best healthcare, or for opposing a “healthcare reform” bill that the USCCB had said “must be opposed” because of its massive expansion of abortion?

My liberal colleagues in the academy will not agree with everything I’ve written here. That’s fine. But it’s my hope that they will try to be more charitable not merely to Speaker John Boehner but to other Catholics who disagree with them not on ends—that is, helping the poor—but on means. God’s work here on Earth is difficult enough. Let’s try to do it without accusing one another of cruelty.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

Unfortunately, there are at least three serious flaws with the letter:

First, the tone is seriously lacking in charity to Speaker Boehner, and even borders on the rude. I was surprised that the writers, from a PR perspective alone, didn’t tone down their emotions. Worse, the letter ends somewhat sanctimoniously by telling Boehner that he can rest assured that the professors will be praying for him and his vocation in public life. Their sincerity falls flat in light of their earlier language.

Second, and more significant, the letters fails to demonstrate even a remote awareness of the utterly disastrous fiscal situation that America faces. We have a $1.6 trillion deficit—numbers absent from this letter. For a sense of perspective, George W. Bush, going into the final year of his presidency, had a record—repeat, record—deficit of $400 billion. That was awful enough, but the current deficit quadruples that record, blowing the previous astronomical figure to smithereens. The Obama presidency and Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress that preceded Boehner dug that hole.

Our national debt is far higher still. America’s debt-to-GNP ratio is at Greece standards.

The effect of all this on our currency, economic growth, credit rating, and much more, is catastrophic. And critically important, this crisis is not the result of a lack of tax dollars. It has been generated by a federal government that spends money it doesn’t have at an obscene and flatly immoral rate, in ways that would be literally criminal if done by the private sector. The single greatest culprit for the current deficit was the incredibly wasteful and damaging $800-billion “stimulus package” passed by President Obama and the Democratic Congress in 2009.

Sadly, the letter from the liberal Catholics to Speaker Boehner mentions nothing of the responsibility of these players in this mess, nor does it offer any appreciation to Boehner for the thankless, difficult task he faces in trying to begin to fix their disaster. It’s like calling the parent “cruel”—a word the letter directs at Boehner—for trying to clean up the house and discipline the children after they’ve practically set it on fire.

Predictably, the only spending reduction specified in the letter is “military” cuts. That’s not serious.

In truth, nothing will more undermine public and private attempts to help America’s poor than an economy that continues to flounder, or, worse, collapses. The deficit/debt levels—and insane printing of money—threaten to make a recession into a depression. We face a very real possibility of unprecedented hyperinflation that would be infinitely more deleterious to the poor than any spending reduction.

Finally, the professors’ lecturing of Boehner for a “fail[ure] to recognize … important aspects of Church teaching” would have more credibility if they had written just one letter to previous Catholic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her indisputably misguided attempts to fund everything from domestic contraception to Planned Parenthood International.

In January 2009, Pelosi informed a stunned George Stephanopoulos of her intention to include hundreds of millions of dollars for Planned Parenthood and contraceptives in the economic “stimulus bill.” Later, Pelosi publicly invoked the intercession of Saint Joseph—before a group of reporters and approving liberal nuns—on behalf of a healthcare bill that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops insisted “must be opposed” because of its blatant unwillingness to guard the unborn.

Talk about protecting “the least of these.” How about the unborn? Where were the letters from the professors on this concern?

Last month, it was reported that President Obama rejected Boehner’s budget by drawing a line in the sand over taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. As Boehner pushed the president to defund Planned Parenthood, Obama finally snapped: “Nope. Zero. John, this is it.”

How’s that for a deal breaker? And where’s the letter by these same Catholics to President Obama? Or, if not that, couldn’t these champions of social justice at least pause to express gratitude to Speaker Boehner for taking this stand, which clearly is in line with Church teaching? Or do they themselves “fail to recognize” Church teaching when it comes to unborn human life?

These are major flaws that will prompt many of us to dismiss this letter, even as we agree that the state has a responsibility to help the poor.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press) and the newly released Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

As a student there points out, he is a “get” and one to be proud to welcome.

But before Boehner gets to campus, he has been greeted by an insulting letter from some professors there and at other Catholic schools (currently prominently highlighted by the New York Times). It says, in part:

It is good for Catholic universities to host and engage the thoughts of powerful public figures, even Catholics such as yourself who fail to recognize (whether out of a lack of awareness or dissent) important aspects of Catholic teaching. We write in the hope that this visit will reawaken your familiarity with the teachings of your Church on matters of faith and morals as they relate to governance.

One gets the sense this is supposed to look to be on par with conservatives (among others) criticizing Notre Dame for honoring Barack Obama and the Cardinal Newman Society’s longtime campaigns against supporters of legal abortion speaking on Catholic campuses. But it’s a false comparison.

The letter goes to lecture the Speaker:

Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.

Of course, the needs of the poor are not always best served by an overreaching, hydra of a bureaucracy. Certainly not at a time when that hydra is unsustainable. Many of John Boehner’s and Republican attempts to reign in government spending and encourage job growth might be considered morally responsible.

I have some knowledge of both the Speaker and the letter’s chief signer. I’d like to think they have more in common that I suspect either knows.

As we move beyond an era that has largely dictated the prudential calls of many Catholics in public policy, the folks who have predominantly run the Catholic bureaucracies could afford to be a lot more welcoming to their politically conservative brethren. The reverse is true, too. But when so many of those who have aligned themselves with the Democratic party have — as an essential component of that alliance — made such grave concessions on the issue of the most innocent human life, am I wrong to expect more humility than that letter demonstrates?

I welcome prudential political debates among Catholics. I just worry they can frequently be scandalously disingenuous.

UPDATE: Fr. Sirico weighs in here.

My action item, via Twitter.

(P.S. It gets better.)

You may see baby feet. Some in our government keep their eyes closed, it seems.

An abortion ends a human life. I don’t think even the most willfully ignorant supporters of [a woman's right to choose] denies that these days.

Ends.

a human life.

We’re not talking hardened criminals who have killed children, raped grannies, and violated election laws. We’re talking humans who haven’t even been allowed the opportunity to spill some milk. Abortion kills them.

It’s the sort of thing that a somewhat healthy society might tolerate if it didn’t interfere with the regular operation of the other organs of society, but would rightly and quickly jettison when it became messy and a major roadblock.

It’s the “peculiar institution” of our day. It’s the sort of thing that the professional politicians try to ignore as long as possible for the sake of pats on the back, comity, and getting other things done, until the day comes when the respective parties’ bases and the national condition will not allow it to be ignored.

That day, apparently, nearly came. And those beholden to Big Abortion could not bear to jettison today’s peculiar institution. They nearly forced a government shutdown rather than agree that government-funded abortion is in some way inappropriate. “Government-funded,” of course, means funded by you and by me and by millions of others who morally, deeply, viscerally oppose abortion with every ounce of our being, or at least find abortion unpleasant and wrong enough that it is not the sort of thing the government ought to be spending our tax dollars on. But that doesn’t matter; today’s abolitionists should just get over it, apparently.

But no, our president, the Senate majority leader, and many others in our government think it okay to regard an entire class of human persons as unfit for basic rights, and they seemed to think it is more important to preserve the right license to summarily kill those persons in utero than to keep the federal government operating. A late-hour deal that mostly defers the question to a guaranteed later vote seemed to be all that brought about a deal.

Then you add in the irony that the president most supportive of and beholden to the modern “peculiar institution” would have been in a very different life situation in this country had he lived during the reign of the previous “peculiar institution,” and this just become amazing.

We live in interesting times, indeed.

February 24, 2011

The Honorable John Boehner
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Boehner,

Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion organization, must be held accountable for abusing innocent young victims while receiving hundreds of millions in federal dollars each year.

They must be defunded of federal tax dollars, and now is the time to do it. The House vote in support of Rep. Mike Pence’s Amendment No. 11 to the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (H.R. 1) to prevent government funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, is an excellent start.

However, the House vote on the Pence Amendment is nothing more than symbolic unless it remains intact through the legislative process. Defunding Planned Parenthood must be a non-negotiable in the Continuing Resolution and we urge you to accept nothing less than this outcome.

The fact that Planned Parenthood was caught aiding and abetting sex traffickers proves that it is not safe for women and young girls. What goes on in offices and clinics of Planned Parenthood, as Live Action’s videos show, is both saddening and shocking. That it has often been done using taxpayer dollars is indefensible.

As the largest abortion company in the United States, Planned Parenthood repeatedly refuses to comply with state statutory rape reporting laws, and often ignores parental consent laws.

Just this week, Phill Kline, former Attorney General of Kansas, testified under oath that Planned Parenthood of Overland Park and the late abortionist George Tiller performed abortions on a combined 166 girls, age fourteen or younger. Out of the 166 cases of statutory rape, just two were reported to authorities, Kline testified.

As debate over the Continuing Resolution continues we urge you to do everything you can to ensure that the Pence Amendment remains intact in the final version of the Continuing Resolution. Planned Parenthood is not safe for women, it is not safe for young girls, and it must be defunded now.

For Life,

Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List

Lila Rose
President, Live Action

Tom McClusky
Vice President for Government Affairs, FRC

Penny Nance
CEO, Concerned Women for America

Dr. John Willke
President, International Right to Life Federation

Brian Burch
President, CatholicVote.org

David Bereit
National Director, 40 Days for Life

Phyllis Schlafly
Founder and President, Eagle Forum

Phil Burress
President, Citizens for Community Values

Steven Ertelt
Editor, LifeNews.com

Kristan Hawkins
Executive Director, Students for Life of America

Jill Stanek, RN
JillStanek.com

Bradley Mattes
Executive Director, Life Issues Institute

Gary Bauer

President, American Values

Frank Cannon
President, American Principles Project

Colin A. Hanna
President, Let Freedom Ring

Steven W. Mosher
President, Population Research Institute

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

John J. Jakubczyk
Former President, Arizona Right to Life

Mario H. Lopez
President, Hispanic Leadership Fund

Michael Gonidakis
Executive Director, Ohio Right to Life Society

Marie Tasy
Executive Director, New Jersey Right to Life

Tim Broderick
President, People for Life of Erie, Pennsylvania

Jenifer Bowen
Executive Director, Iowa Right to Life

Kevin H. Smith
Executive Director, Cornerstone Action

Matt Smith
Vice President, Catholic Advocate

Rev. Jason J. McGuire
Executive Director, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms