The presidential debates are looking more like symptoms of our problems than they do like part of the solution. Maximum style, minimum substance. Focus on sizzle, forget about the steak.

These events are supposed to be about quality information, raising the bar, and producing a thoughtful, informed electorate. But they are being produced to provide entertainment, and we are barely getting that.

Technology doesn't take the place of substance. YouTube and real-time polling are not substitutes for thoughtful, provocative questioning.

Can it really be, after all the heat he has taken on Social Security, that Rick Perry was not pushed on how specifically how he would reform it?  Can it be, as expert after expert has laid out the long list of failures of Romneycare in Massachusetts and its unquestionable similarities to Obamacare, that Mitt Romney was not called out on his sidestepping and denials?

Can it be that, on a day (9/20) where the stock market in our country dropped 3.5 percent and in China by 5 percent, that candidates were not asked what they think is wrong with the global economy?

We begin with an important announcement:

The dates of the Vegas Rendezvous are Friday, May 6 to Sunday, May 8.

Miko is nailing down the best hotel - although he says he'd like to know if you prefer one Downtown (less expensive) or on/near The Strip.  Let him know at miko@tothepointnews.com.

We'll have details soon.  But we wanted you to know the dates so you could begin planning.  See you in Vegas!

*  *  *  *  *
There's little doubt about who is the HFR Hero of the Week, right?  Who else but Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, along with all 174 members of the Republican Study Committee, "the caucus of conservatives" in the House, proposing budget cuts of $2.5 trillion.

They are going to teach Americans a civics lesson that will be the most memorable in modern history.

This is the lesson of the great legislative asymmetricality enshrined in the Constitution only rarely taught.  Finally, this supreme example of the genius of the Founders will be learned, to the enormous benefit of America and to the utter anguish of the Left.

Last week, it was reported that the sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico seem to have weathered the oil spill without much problem. But they are still unnecessarily endangered.  In fact, they always will be, because of people behaving like juveniles who have a hard time understanding the consequences of their actions.

During the past several months, we have seen much of the political class in Washington increasingly act like juveniles, making the rest of us suffer. But first, let's go back to the turtle.

Why are sea turtles endangered, while chickens and cows are not? The answer, quite simply, is that chickens and cows are privately owned and turtles are not - thus they suffer from "the tragedy of the commons."

When things are owned in common - socialism - no person takes responsibility for protecting the property, and thus it most often ends up being neglected or even destroyed - hence the fate of the sea turtle.

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Guns of August," Barbara Tuchman chronicles how a cascading series of seemingly minor developments led inexorably to World War I and the worst carnage known to man up to that time. In the future, historians may point to the present "Diplomacy of September" as the catalyst for the next horrific conflict now in the offing in the Middle East, and potentially beyond.

Specifically, this means three agenda items slated to take place in the United Nations or on the margins of its meetings in coming days.  Combined, their synergy could lead to a horrific war.

Whoa.  Let's hope the rest of 2011's weeks aren't as intense as this one.  Here's one key focus.  Remember two weeks ago (12/31/10), the HFR predicted that 2011 would see Black Swans of the Right?

That "black swan" game-changing events out of the blue precipitating a crisis, which the left specializes in using to expand government power, would now turn in our favor instead?

That's what happened when the Loughner Left jumped the shark with the Arizona Massacre.  The very term "Loughner Left" has gone viral on the Web.  The label I gave the Enemedia on Tuesday (01/11) has stuck and quickly. 

What didn't stick is the Enemedia's grotesque attempt to blame the Arizona Massacre on Sarah Palin, the Tea Parties, and all conservatives in general.  The great majority of Americans laughed at the accusation - and so did John Boehner and the Republicans in Congress.

Thus Boehner & Cantor are proceeding with the straight up-and-down vote on HR 2, to take place next Tuesday (1/18).  They even shrugged at the Dems' demand they change the bill's name due to it's "violent" rhetoric.  It remains entitled: Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.

Note the word:  repealing.  As we saw in Making Boehner's Bones, Boehner intends to repeal ObamaCare outright, not just defund it piecemeal.

Where is the historical evidence to show that big increases in government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) lead to faster economic growth and more job creation? Answer: There isn't any.

Compare the first four quarters after the bottom of the recession in 1982 that resulted in an average quarterly growth rate of 7.8 percent, versus an average quarterly growth rate of just 3.2 percent in the first four quarters after the bottom of the 2009 recession.

In addition, unemployment fell sharply - 2 percent under the Reagan tax-rate-cut solution in 1982-83 versus no drop under President Obama's greatly increased government spending "solution" - in the first four quarters of the recovery from the bottom of each recession. Tax rate cuts trump government spending increases.

Tell this to those who want even more spending, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and you'll get Krugman's silly rebuttal:

Why have conservatives become such captives of fear? Before 9/11, conservatism stood for stalwart courage and confidence in the United States of America. Across the past decade, however, we succumbed to a weird mania that wildly exaggerates threats and revels in our purported strategic vulnerability to furtive religious perverts sinking along with their doomed civilization.

The enthusiasm with which many of my fellow conservatives paint militant Islam as a mighty movement capable of a takeover of Europe and America is a grotesque wallow in political masochism.

Islam is on the ropes of history, battered, bleeding and disfigured. And it's never going to be a contender again. Yet, many Americans appear determined to cower in our corner of the ring. It's baffling:  We're winning in every possible respect, but tell ourselves we're losing.

Hasn't this been quite a first week of 2011?  It started bizarrely for me with a flood of emails and calls Monday morning (1/03) asking if I was still alive or dead in a dumpster.  The Drudge Report was carrying this headline in red letters:

Reagan Aide Jack Wheeler Murdered, Body Found in Landfill

I had to reassure everyone that: 

It's not me.  I'm not in a dumpster in a landfill -- I'm home in my easy chair  writing this. John Wheeler was always getting confused with me in Washington as he liked to be called by his nickname Jack (like John/Jack Kennedy). I ran into him several times at different DC functions and found him to be a very nice fellow. But I'm no John, just Jack.

This is a terrible tragedy and a mysterious one. But for all those who've emailed their concern, it's not me, I'm fine.

Do you think more government spending helps economic growth or harms it?

Last Friday (7/23), the White House again increased its federal budget deficit forecast and reduced its economic growth forecast for 2011. It is abundantly clear that the economic program the Democrat Administration and Democrat Congress instituted 18 months ago - primarily massive increases in government spending - is not working as advertised.

Surprise, surprise.  Isn't it interesting how Democrats are always surprised by their ignorance?

US election season is clearly upon us as President Barack Obama has moved into full campaign mode. Part and parcel of that mode is a new bid to woo Jewish voters and donors upset by Obama's hostility to Israel back in the Democrat Party's fold.

Trying to portray Obama as pro-Israel is not a simple task.  From the outset of his tenure in office, Obama has distinguished himself as the most anti-Israel president ever.

It is an open question whether American Jews will be willing to buy the bill of goods the administration is trying to sell them through their media proxies in next year's presidential elections.

But if next Tuesday's (8/13) special election for New York's Ninth Congressional District is any indication - remember Weinergate with Anthony Weiner resigning his seat? - the answer is apparently that an unprecedented number of American Jews are unwilling to ignore reality and continue supporting this anti-Israel president.

Finally, finally,  finally... 2010 is over.  At last we can get on with 2011, the year America's Rescue begins.  I can hardly wait.

So can the TTP Forum's "Mae" - Lynda Mae Calhoun, who thanks in no small part to your prayers had a successful surgery and is well on the road to recovery.  Congratulations, Mae!

Paul Ryan can't wait for 2011 either.  You learned about what he's up to in Barry’s Dream yesterday (12/30).  Now there's an Update.  House Dems got the vapors last night when they learned that Ryan, as Chairman of the Budget Committee, will have the power to set spending ceilings without a vote of the full House.

This is a big deal.  Any budget that comes out of Congress now cannot exceed Ryan's limits, which will force really serious spending cuts. 

Add this to Boehner's replacing the Dems' "pay-go" fraud (they exempted all their giant spending bills from it), with the Pubs' "cut-go" rule.  This requires that any increase in one government program (including entitlements!!) mandates a concomitant decrease in another.  Cut-go forbids any entitlement spending increase be made up with tax increases.

All next year, it's going to be like witnesses to Dante's Inferno to sit in the House Gallery and gaze down upon Dems writhing in agony on the House Floor like it's the bottom rung of Hell.  When they realize the torture is likely to be eternal - i.e., for the rest of their political lives - expect a lot of them to call it quits.

Did you know there are nine states that have no state income tax? The non-income-tax states (see chart below) are geographically and economically diverse, ranging from the state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest, to Texas and Florida in the South, and up to New Hampshire in the Northeast.

Why is it that some of the states with the biggest fiscal problems have the highest individual state income tax rates, such as New York and California, while some of the states with the least fiscal problems have no state income tax at all?  Further, on average, schools, health and safety, roads, etc. are no better in states with income taxes than those without income taxes.

Where is all the extra money from these state income taxes going? It is going primarily to service debt, and to pay for inflated salaries and employee benefits.  Thus, as two recent studies by my colleagues at the Cato Institute show, the keys to state solvency are no state income taxes and no public worker unions.