One year into your rule, you’ve accomplished little while losing the love of much of your populace. I recommend to you my work The Prince. Within this little book, I’ve summarized many useful rules for governing a newly acquired republic. These rules and warnings could save you significant grief in your endeavor to rule.

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The author of this article, pictured ca. 1575.

On your rise to power:

And since the very fact that from being a private citizen he has become a prince presupposes either ability or good fortune … the less a man has relied on fortune the stronger he has made his position.

You displayed great ability in rising in the ranks of your party. Your usurpation of the Clinton dynasty was very impressive indeed. You also inherited great fortune by running against a party that had lost much of its popular support under the previous ruler.

I would caution you against relying too much on good fortune and the good will of the populace in the future. This will prove difficult, as you have proven little ability beyond that of being elected. You had never governed, written legislation, or had any military experience, and this will be to your detriment as a ruler.

On unconstitutional rule:

It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state’s constitution …  men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.

In your attempts to change the constitution of your republic towards socialism, you have alienated the majority of the population. As a democratically elected leader, you have exposed yourself to impending removal from office in the next election cycle. It would be prudent then to govern the people under the constitution to which they are accustomed.

On social programs:

There is nothing so self-defeating as generosity: in the act of practicing it, you lose the ability to do so, and you become either poor and despised or, seeking to escape poverty, rapacious and hated. A prince must try to avoid, above all else, being despised and hated; and generosity results in your being both.

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Mr. Obama, your commitment to social programs makes you despised and your country poor. You are despised by those you loot in order to fund these lavish and wasteful institutions. As a ruler of a democracy, it would be wise not to garner the hatred of the wealthy in order to gain favor with the poor. By destroying the wealth of the rich, the entire country suffers as a result.

Therefore it is wiser to incur the reputation of being a miser, which brings forth ignominy but not hatred, than to be forced by seeking a name for generosity to incur a reputation for rapacity, which brings you hatred as well as ignominy

It is clear that lavish spending only alienates and harms the citizens of the state. Instead, a ruler should be frugal and only experience the shame of having to be so. This is preferable to the combined shame of destroying your state and hatred from the people who will subsequently vote you out of office.

On your advisers:

The first opinion that is formed of a ruler’s intelligence is based on the quality of the men he has around him. When they are competent and loyal he can always be considered wise, because he has been able to recognize their competence and to keep them loyal.

You have assembled many experts in the field of socialism, but few in knowledge of fiscal responsibility. Your appointees have been fraudulent in their payment of taxes, and it is unwise to put them in charge of financial concerns. This will result in unwise fiscal policy, and incur the distrust and hatred of the citizens over which you rule.

As mentioned above, the aim of changing the constitution is unwise and will result in hatred for you and your staff. Likewise, your appointing of czars is antidemocratic and will garner the hatred of the people. Men, being accustomed to rule by elected officials, will view the power held by these unelected officials as abusive and unjust.

Furthermore, you must maintain the loyalty of your advisers:

When you see a minister thinking more of himself than of you, and seeking his own profit in everything he does, such a one will never be a good minister, you will never be able to trust him.

It should be very disconcerting to you that your Secretary of State, and former opponent, Hillary Clinton did not attend your State of the Union address. This shows disloyalty, a distancing of herself from the ruler, and her possible ambitions toward taking power. It would be wise to respond with one of these two options. Be considerate toward Clinton. Increase her power and wealth to the point that she becomes dependent on your good will. Otherwise, remove her from her post for her disloyal actions.

In conclusion, you should consider reading my work as a guide towards a longer rule. The above examples are only a few that apply to your situation. If I were not dead, I would surely be requesting a position in your cabinet. Alas, I must retire back to the spirit realm and continue my discussions with Plato and Aristotle.

Yours in spirit,

Niccolò Machiavelli

Constructed by conservative think tanks and repeated ad nauseam by Republicans in Congress and their allies in the media, the basic supply-side argument against the bill generally goes like this:

1. We need to cut taxes.
2. Democrats are out to explode the deficit.
3. We need to cut taxes.
4. Democrats favor wasteful, welfare-based government programs.
5. We need to cut taxes.

This is and has been the argument of my conservative counterparts. They add in a few examples of wasteful government projects and simple platitudes like, “Americans know how to spend their money better than the federal government does.” Yep, good fortune cookie wisdom.

In economic scholarship, however, the supply-side argument that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy has been thoroughly discredited by empirical evidence. Take Gregory Manikow, the author of the Microeconomics textbook Professor Tom Davidson uses in his classes here at Prin. Mr. Manikow, the conservative Harvard economist who chaired President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors from 2003 to 2005, famously declared supply-siders to be “cranks and charlatans.”

Martin Felstein, another conservative Harvard economist and former chief economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, admits that most Americans will use tax cuts to save and pay down personal debt, not buy goods and services to stimulate economic growth. (To be clear, I’m all for people saving and paying down debt, but first people need jobs in a functioning economy…) Even if Americans do spend some of their tax cut, what good does that spending do for American producers if they buy a Toshiba DVD player or a Toyota Camry? 

The more sensible solution is for the federal government to create jobs and provide a temporary infusion of cash into the market. The federal government does this by paying for projects in infrastructure, energy, environmental conservation and construction. These projects employ millions of Americans and move capital around within the market, in effect unclogging the arteries through which marketplace activities occur. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman notes, “When it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts.”

Finally, both public spending and cutting taxes have the effect of increasing the deficit; the difference is that public spending stimulates the economy and tax cuts don’t. With public spending, government investment is matched dollar for dollar by the wages — and subsequent spending — of those employed by the government projects. But with tax cuts, only pennies of every dollar will circulate through the economy because Americans won’t spend their tax cut savings. 

Why then do conservatives favor tax cuts and not government spending? In answer, let’s turn to President Ronald Reagan, the grandfather of today’s Republican party, who argued that smaller government was better government. He said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” For this reason, Reagan called the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act “humiliating to the South.” When running for governor of California, he ran against the state’s fair housing act, declaring, “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes in selling or renting his house, he has the right to do so.”

Look beyond the racial elements of this language to the underlying assumption that Americans are better off with the federal government on the sideline. I couldn’t disagree more. The courageous Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision integrated public schools, and then President Truman used the National Guard to protect Melba Beals and her classmates as they integrated Little Rock High. Sometimes government must do for us what we cannot do ourselves.

President Reagan’s ideology explains Republican opposition to the stimulus bill. Republicans believe in a weak federal government and are afraid that a successful stimulus will legitimize the liberal belief that government can be both strong and effective. Consider what an alarmed Rush Limbaugh said last week about the stimulus bill: “This ‘porkulus’ bill is designed to repair the Democratic Party’s power losses from the 1990s forward, and to cement the party’s majority power for decades.”

Oh. I thought the stimulus bill was designed to resurrect our economy after President Bush’s disastrous degregulation crusade…

This bill was supposed to be bipartisan. President Obama conferenced with the GOP House leadership on multiple occasions and, at their insistence, trimmed infrastructure and energy spending to make room for larger tax cuts. (The bill now includes $550 billion in spending and about $275 billion in tax cuts, with $0 in earmarks.) In turn, House Republicans showed their eagerness for bipartisanship by…voting unanimously against the bill.

I’m certain that moderate House Republicans will vote for the bill when it comes back from the Senate and conference committee. If they don’t, many are likely to lose their jobs in two years. But don’t worry; they’ll get a tax cut.