Volume 9, Number 8 • October 2017
WE HAVE THE CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE. NOW LET’S GET THINGS DONE. By Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
Publisher, Dr. Donald W. Sweeting
S: NG’S N, U I TO 8 IN EET ING V. 1 JO SWASH NO N O W T— . D AL EN R D NU . EV N A D.C
Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute
Editor, Jeff Hunt
There are significant problems with the underpinnings of ObamaCare. It is time for the U.S. Senate to put aside our differences and make progress in repealing and replacing Obamacare and setting American’s free to make their own choices about their healthcare. We cannot fail the American people in this area. Frankly, our spending is out of control. Let’s take a journey down memory lane. When I first got to Congress in 2011, we were spending about $273 billion dollars on Medicaid, $519 billion on Medicare, $692 billion on Social Security, $700 billion on Defense, $200 billion in interest-only on our national debt.
Tim Scott is a U.S. Senator from South Carolina and was a featured speaker at the 2017 Western Conservative Summit in Denver.
Are we not excited to live in a land that delivered to the Republican Party the Congress, the Senate, and the White House?
About that national debt, we were not paying down the principle on our debt. The principle in 2011 was $14.3 trillion dollars. The principle today is $20 trillion dollars. Imagine if you will, since we’ve had this artificially low interest rate environment, what will happen when interest rates head back up. If we were at the historical average, that $200 billion dollar interest payment in 2011 would have been $700 billion dollars. This is unsustainable! We have to start working not on finding ways to increase our revenues, but on decreasing our spending.
Let’s look at Medicaid. We ought to honor the core mission of Medicaid. The core mission of Medicaid was to help the poor, the disabled, the elderly who are poor, and U.S. Senate, put children. Medicaid was never aside differences poor intended to help young, healthy folks and make progress. who just need to get a job.
We’ve campaigned for a long time on getting some big things done. Now, in order for us to get things done, we have to make sure that we don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Let’s take Obamacare. Obamacare needs to hit the road, and we have the perfect opportunity to get beyond Obamacare, but it’s going to take a collective effort to do that.
Think about where we were in 2009. Obamacare was going to cost $900 billion dollars. In 2011, just two years later, they said they made a mistake. It’s only going to cost $1.8 trillion dollars (only?!) By 2013, for a number of reasons that they never could explain, well…they don’t know what it’s going to cost, but we can all bet it’s even more than $1.8 trillion.
If we look at where the current spending trajectory takes us, in 2026, less than ten years from now, with no changes, we would take the $273 billion dollars in 2011 Medicaid spending and we’ll The Hon. Tim Scott is a member of the U.S. Senate from South Carolina. Formerly a businessman in insurance and real estate, Scott chairs the Economic Development Committee. Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation. By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom, teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.
be around $952 billion dollars for Medicaid only. It’s not sustainable. We have an opportunity to preserve Medicaid for those who desperately need it and not cut a single penny out of it, but we need courage to do it.
go to work and do everything that she possibly could do on her own. She thought it was her responsibility to give her sons a living example, because there’s integrity in all work.
For a while, I was not doing very well. I was drifting. My I’ve watched the news, and then I stopped watching the parents divorced, we moved in with my grandparents, and news. It can be depressing when you hear it reported that they had a small house. I had to share a room with my we’re going to cut $800 billion out of Medicaid. The Left mother and my brother for a few years, and I started taking cries, “Say it ain’t so!” Well, it ain’t so! We’re going to slow the wrong direction. My mother woke up one morning the growth of Medicaid. We’re spending $390 billion and looked at my report card and said, “You’re not doing today, and we’ll be spending in the $400 billion range in very well.” She got on her hands and her eight years. That is not a cut! Only in knees and started praying for me. When I Washington is slow growth a cut. I’m not flunked out of high school as a freshman, sure where you live but that is not a cut in Only in she got motivated. She got off of her South Carolina. hands and knees and she took me outside, Washington is We also need to focus our attention walked me over to a tree and she pulled on the core mission of the federal slow growth a cut. off a branch. She dragged the branch government. We ought to push back to back into the house and introduced me the states the decisions that should be to a new form of love. made on the state level. That is the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution. If we did that, we would be in a position to have a serious debate about the things that should be debated on the national level. As an example, states should be having a major conversation about school choice, not a federal school choice program but state school choice programs.
Many of you have heard my story. I grew up in a singleparent home, mired in poverty during the Jimmy Carter era. Interest rates to buy a home? Over 10%. Can you imagine a poor kid starving in poverty with a single mom trying to buy a home at 10, 12, 15, and 17% interest? Remember lines at the gas station because of the gas shortage in those days? The highest income tax rate in those years was 70 percent. Thankfully, conservative solutions rescued us from the failed policies of the Carter years. I was blessed to have two major victories given to me by the grace of God. One was a powerful momma. Every Sunday when I’m home to South Carolina, it’s Mother’s Day. I like to take mom to lunch and she likes going to the movies. I celebrate my mother because I remember when she was working 16 hours a day and refused to put us on welfare. She believed if she could go to work, she should
I learned quickly that a switch is a southern apparatus of encouragement, and she applied it to me from my belt to my ankles. I was thoroughly and completely encouraged. I went to summer school immediately and caught up with my class as a sophomore. Then the good Lord sent me a conservative mentor. I was just 15 years old when I met John Moniz. He was a part of the Chick-Fil-A family, and he started teaching me these concepts: no matter where you start, no matter who you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, if you apply yourself, something good will happen. If you educate yourself, better things will happen. If you become employed, greater things will happen. And if you learn the difference between profit and income, you will be able to change your world. He started sowing these seeds. Galatians 6:7 reminds us, “As the man soweth, that shall he also reap.” It also says in verse 9 that you have to be patient. It takes a little time. But it says, if you don’t give up, the harvest will come. When I was 19, attending a Presbyterian college on a small football scholarship, I got the call telling me that my mentor, John Moniz, had died suddenly. He was 38
CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors’ views are not necessarily those of CCU. Designer, Justin Jones. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at centennial.ccu.edu. Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore America’s moral core and prepare tomorrow’s leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support. - Jeff Hunt, Director Scan this code with your smartphone to read this and previous issues online. Centennial Review ▪ October 2017 ▪ 2
years young. I set my mission statement the day before his funeral. My mission was to positively impact the lives of a billion people with a message of hope and my faith in Christ Jesus. John had spent four years teaching me about opportunity, financial independence, and financial literacy, creating the first four years of my new life. Since then, the good Lord has been so good to me and my family. I was a dejected, disillusioned young man who had the opportunity to learn about the American dream and to be able to experience a second chance that this country and my state have given me. After the blessing of the power and love of a strong mother and a great mentor, to blow the chance to do something great as a U.S. Senator, that is something I simply cannot do. I understand that our greatest as a nation doesn’t come from Washington and it doesn’t come from state capitals. It comes from a great Savior and from people dedicated to the cause of making America great again. I’m convinced, thoroughly and completely convinced, that we can get it right in this nation, but it’s going take us working together to get things Positively done in Washington.
impact the lives of a billion people with a message of hope and faith in Christ Jesus.
So, back to the healthcare debate. We can’t afford to fail on the healthcare debate. Last week, I was invited to a meeting at the White House with President Trump. When the doors closed and cameras went away, he was amazingly presidential. I’ll never forget, he opened by saying, “This is not about the party, this is about country first. This is about doing the right thing for the United States of America. This is about restoring healthcare opportunities and options in the marketplace.” Then he shared his 20 or 25 points of positive things that would happen with our replacement bill. It is not a perfect bill. If I were writing it, it would be different. Infinitely more conservative. I like Senator Ted Cruz’s Freedom Amendment that actually opens up markets. It’s a simple concept. When you combine entitlement reform, slowing the growth of Medicaid, and opening the markets so people can buy whatever level of health insurance works best for them, it finally works. Then you have a market that can cover preexisting conditions because everyone is paying into the system at a level that works for them. We
Growing up poor in a single-parent household, Scott learned the importance of faith, hard work, and living within your means. By understanding these basic economic principles and with determination to advance conservative principles, Scott grew from his humble beginnings to build one of the most successful Allstate agencies in South Carolina and to becoming a respected member of the U.S. Senate.
eliminate the individual mandate, the employer mandate, save $400 billion, and create a path to freedom. These are the conservative ideas I support, and when we get health care replaced, then we can move on to tax reform. America has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrial world. We are uncompetitive globally. We have to fix that. First, we have to make sure you get more of your money by taking the seven tax brackets on the individual side and getting as close to a flat tax as possible. Now in Congress, that means three brackets, but that is better than seven brackets. If we can get the seven brackets down to three and allow for permanent repatriation to bring home $2.5 trillion currently sitting overseas, we will create American jobs and move in the right direction. We are the only high-income nation that taxes the money twice. If you make it in another country, we tax it there and we tax it when it comes home. That’s called global taxation. All of our competitors use a territorial system where they only tax it one time where it is. If we are going to create more American jobs, we are going to have to start looking where we are anti- or uncompetitive. Right now, the tax rate is 39.6 percent, the highest tax bracket on the individual side. We need to get that into the 20 percent range. If we can do those two things, only tax once and at a lower rate, we have an opportunity to move away from a global tax system and have a territorial tax system. When that happens, pass through entities, smaller businesses, will see their taxes come down as well. We have an opportunity to bring $2.5 trillion home to create millions of jobs if we lower that tax rate from 39 percent to at least 25 percent. President Trump wants to Centennial Review ▪ October 2017 ▪ 3
WE HAVE THE CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE. NOW LET'S GET THINGS DONE. Tim Scott is the junior U.S. Senator for South Carolina. A Republican, he joined the Senate in 2013 when Governor Nikki Haley appointed him to fill the seat vacated by Jim DeMint. He won a special election in 2014 and election to a full term in 2016.
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Scott began his political career serving on the Charleston County Council in 1998. In 2010, with the endorsement of the Tea Party, he was elected to the U.S. House where he served until 2013. Scott is one of three African Americans serving in the U.S. Senate and the first African-American Senator from South Carolina. Prior to starting his political career, Scott was the owner of Tim Scott Allstate and partner of Pathway Real Estate Group. Scott has launched his Opportunity Agenda to empower Americans through tax reform, school choice, and alternatives for single parents. He is working to find ways to help redevelop our poorest areas, bring down energy costs for the poor, help young offenders and those aging out of foster care, and ensure our kids who want to attend college can do so without incurring debilitating debt. He has worked with colleagues to introduce a Balanced Budget Amendment and cosponsored a bill to permanently ban the wasteful earmarking process.
have it at 15 percent. That will mean millions of jobs. And then, we must have confidence—not in the 535 members of Congress, but in our business owners who sign the front of the paycheck, not just the back of the paycheck. They will create economic growth we have not seen in at least a decade.
I come from a world where good things happen all the time, and no one in the media covers any of it.
We the people of the United States of America, we are a special people blessed by God with a citizenship that is advanced in its inception. It requires us to hold Washington accountable. This can be done, if we honor our It requires us to engage in this debate. promises to the American people. We It requires us to be encouraged, to be We serve the great have to do that. It is really important for vigilant, and to be optimistic even people of the United us to remember just two things. First, when we are frustrated. Because we are we are all frustrated with Washington. not just survivors, we are thrivers. We States of America. I’m frustrated with Washington have gone through a civil war, we have because you guys gave us what we led in two world wars, we have endured asked for and we ought to deliver. the civil rights debates and battles, we Second, I am incredibly hopeful. I’m hopeful because I survived the Oklahoma bombing, and we came together came from the real world. I come from a world where hard through 9/11. Don’t tell me what this country cannot do work is admired and where strong core values are essential. with God as our savior, our people in charge, and servants I come from a world where people help their neighbors not in public office realizing we don’t lead, we serve the great because they are paid to do so but because they want to. people of the United States of America. n Centennial Review ▪ October 2017 ▪ 4