Economic Freedom

Minutes after being declared the winner in Illinois, Mitt Romney took to the stage at a hotel in a suburb of Chicago and drew sharp contrasts between himself and President Obama, signaling that he is increasingly focusing on the general election rather than on others in the Republican field. “For 25 years, I lived and breathed business and the economy and jobs. I had successes and failures. But each step of the way, I learned about what it was that makes our American system so powerful,” Romney said, dressed in a dark blue suit and surrounded by risers of cheering supporters flapping white Romney signs.

No political party enjoys losing an election, but a healthy party reacts to defeat - after a suitable period of grieving - by trying to figure out what went wrong. That's what Democrats did in the late 1980s after a string of failed presidential campaigns, and the process led to the election of Bill Clinton, a moderate Southern governor. And that's what many Republicans are trying to do now, after the defeat of Mitt Romney in November. They're pondering what went wrong and how the party needs to change.

Nina J. Easton's article on Clint Bolick and the Institute for Justice ("A New Civil Rights Story," April 20) was a much-needed counterweight to Leftist/liberal critiques of the economic plight of minorities. Bolick correctly cites the lack of economic liberty as the primary reason for the struggle many minorities wage to better their lot. Insightfully, he observes that the melange of paternalistic bureaucracies installed to protect us from ourselves works collusively with established business and trade groups to prevent the entry into the market of fledgling entrepreneurs such as JoAnne Cornwell and Ali Rasheed, who thus "bootstrap" themselves out of poverty and privation.

WASHINGTON -- When the political parties gathered for their nominating conventions four years ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was largely unknown. Now, after the Fed's unprecedented actions to deal with the financial crisis and Great Recession, he's become a central villain for people who blame Washington -- particularly the Fed -- for the nation's economic trauma. "Ben Bernanke is a traitor, a dictator. He's rotting out our republic," South Carolina state Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican, said to a standing ovation and chants of "End the Fed" during a rally in Tampa on Sunday of thousands of supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

President Reagan's call Friday for a constitutional amendment to limit tax increases drew sharp criticism from the Democratic leader of the Senate, who said the President delivered "shopworn ideas . . . wrapped in patriotic bunting."

For all the headaches of daily business life in this chaotic land, Roman Nicolaev didn't feel especially put upon--until a mysterious bomb set his shop on fire. On that day last April, Nicolaev came to see the true challenge of being a Russian entrepreneur: "You can't call it business, what's going on in the Soviet Union," said the store manager, 39, whose neatly trimmed goatee and shaded wire-frame glasses give him a vaguely bohemian look. "We're just moving toward a civilized level."

U.S. high-tech companies are providing the Chinese government with technology to regulate the Internet (Jan. 27). As we condemn China for its pitiful human rights record, let us not forget that our freedom-loving people in the U.S. are providing China with the tools for suppression--all in the name of economic freedom and profit! CAROL IU Los Angeles

America is celebrating its first Independence Day of a new century. Amid the car sales, barbecues and fireworks displays, it is easy to forget the rationale for the independence we declared from England 224 years ago: freedom. Consider some of the insights into freedom that are a part of our heritage: "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end."

The article, "On the Road, a Soap Opera Really Is About Laundry" (Jan. 24), is humorous and relates to my experience. Many years ago, in Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong, I was the laundry boy for a women's residence that housed about 40, college-age, female students and tourists from Great Britain and America. For 13 years, I did their laundry by hand and ironed their clothes, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, making about $80 per month when I left. I immigrated to America, received a good education and a job brought me economic freedom.

Philippine President Corazon Aquino, maintaining that she has no political ambitions, said she does not plan to seek reelection in 1992. "I was only meant for transition," she said on her weekly radio program in Manila. "Even now I consider this the transition period from dictatorship to full democracy." Aquino, who succeeded Ferdinand E.

Rick Santorum went shopping between his first stop on Wednesday at an oil services firm in Harvey, La., across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, and his second, speaking to tea party activists in this Republican stronghold on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. He stopped at a Toys R Us and bought four Etch-A-Sketches. Santorum, handed a political gift by one of Mitt Romney's campaign advisors, made the most of it campaigning in Louisiana, where he is hoping a big win on Saturday will fire up his insurgent candidacy after he finished far behind the GOP front-runner in Illinois on Tuesday.

Minutes after being declared the winner in Illinois, Mitt Romney took to the stage at a hotel in a suburb of Chicago and drew sharp contrasts between himself and President Obama, signaling that he is increasingly focusing on the general election rather than on others in the Republican field. “For 25 years, I lived and breathed business and the economy and jobs. I had successes and failures. But each step of the way, I learned about what it was that makes our American system so powerful,” Romney said, dressed in a dark blue suit and surrounded by risers of cheering supporters flapping white Romney signs.

Mitt Romney, faced with an economy that appears to be brightening a little each day the general election draws closer, is casting President Obama as a free-market antagonist bent on building a massive bureaucracy that has slowed the recovery and stunted the economy. On Monday, the front-runner in the Republican presidential primaries, accepted an opportunity that allowed him to highlight his argument in Obama's front yard, the University of Chicago, where the president was once a law professor.

A college campus may not be the best place to find conservative support, but Mitt Romney did his best at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., on Monday, deflecting questions about Planned Parenthood and birth control to rally the crowd by promising economic freedom and lower gas prices. Standing in shirt sleeves in front of an academic hall flanked by blooming magnolias, Romney repeated again and again his pledge to improve the economy by loosening regulations, lowering taxes and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open up their political systems and economies, warning that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand. " Clinton, addressing an international meeting in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, said the region's governments need to share more power with civic and volunteer groups to overcome the problems of exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources.

President Obama, pushing a key part of his overhaul of financial regulations, sent to Congress a draft bill that would create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which he said would better protect Americans from unscrupulous practices and make financial products easier to understand. Under the 152-page bill released Tuesday, the new agency would bring together what the administration called the "fragmented" system of responsibility for consumer protection.

Re "Me, Find a Husband? Later, Maybe," June 26: The young, single women of Japan who are enjoying unprecedented freedoms and choices may consider "feminist" a pejorative, but it is feminism that got them where they are today. Economic freedom, the choice not to marry or not to have children, the ability to be self-determining--these are freedoms I relish every day of my life, hard won by those darn ol' feminists. Perhaps a little arigato would be in order. Kelly Bailey Los Angeles

University of San Diego law professor Bernard Siegan, known for his strong defense of economic freedom and for his libertarian views on property rights, was nominated Friday to a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 62-year-old constitutional scholar was named by President Reagan to serve on the 9th Circuit, the highest federal court in the West, with jurisdiction over federal appellate matters in California, eight other states, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Re "Me, Find a Husband? Later, Maybe," June 26: The young, single women of Japan who are enjoying unprecedented freedoms and choices may consider "feminist" a pejorative, but it is feminism that got them where they are today. Economic freedom, the choice not to marry or not to have children, the ability to be self-determining--these are freedoms I relish every day of my life, hard won by those darn ol' feminists. Perhaps a little arigato would be in order. Kelly Bailey Los Angeles