Vivek in Sioux City, Iowa

A carpet store in Sioux City, Iowa is an unlikely place to participate in an intensely interesting and intellectually thrilling dialogue, but I was in the room where it happened.

One of Vivek’s campaign slogans is Truth.  He brings the truth in an unvarnished fashion.  He has thought deeply about the things that need to be changed in America and he has a detailed – and workable – plan.  As a former CEO of a multi-billion-dollar biotech company, he knows the role and power of the executive.

He started out with a shortened version of his stump speech.  My first report on it is here: Vivek in Iowa – American Thinker

Vivek made three promises:

1. Shut down the administrative state.  The Department of Education will be eliminated.  That’s a savings of $90 billion per year. Civil service protection will be eliminated.  An eight-year term limit on federal bureaucrats.

• Declare our independence from China.  We depend on our enemy for our modern life.  This is do-able.  More on this below.

• Revive national pride in America.  People – especially young people – must have a stake in this country.  You only value what you have a stake in.  We need to revive the values on which America was founded.  Part of that will be to end race-based discrimination and the President can do that.  He doesn’t need the permission of Congress.

The real action was during the Q and A.  It was something.  At one point, Vivek remarked about how much he enjoyed the questions.  He also praised Iowans for the seriousness with which they take their role as first in the nation to vote in the primaries.

I asked the first question about China.  I wanted more detail considering the news that it is now certain that China intentionally engineered the virus with gain-of-function actions and then either negligently or intentionally released it on the world.  I also noted the news of a Chinese spy base in Cuba along with the persistent problem of IP theft.

Vivek gave a long and detailed answer.  He commented that Joe and his family have been paid off by the Chinese.  But they aren’t the only ones.  Blackrock, the NBA and others have also been bribed.  Right now, China is weak and we can pull the rug out from under China.  China either meets our demands or we “cut the cord.”

The key thing is that we must not allow the budding Russia-China military alliance to continue.  By ending the Ukraine war, this is possible.  We have no national interest in Ukraine.  Give Russia some land, but force it to end its military alliance with China.

While Ukraine is not critical to American life, we do have a national interest in Taiwan as it supplies what we need for modern life: semiconductors.

The next question was from a corn farmer.  He wanted to know Vivek’s position on biofuels.  He’s for it as part of his core policy of American energy independence.  He said as recently as 2021, we were energy independent.  He then corrected himself and said it was 2019.

Vivek founded Roivant Sciences.  Today it has a market capitalization of over $7 billion.  He approached the industry as an outsider.  He figured out he could develop drugs that Big Pharma had abandoned.  It worked and he got five drugs approved.

His personal experience with the FDA lead to another conclusion.  He would cut the FDA’s staff by 90% as the bulk of what it does is unnecessary and beyond its statutory authority.  As a biotech investor, I wanted to stand and cheer.

People ask him how can he shut down the administrative state.  The President has the statutory authority to do so under 5 U.S.C. §3302.  There’s no need for Congress to pass a law because it’s already the law.

But what about the lawsuits?  SCOTUS had adopted the unitary Executive theory, that is, the President is elected to run the entire Executive Branch and that means he can fire people who work there.  Vivek is correct on the law here.

The next question was about the economy and the dollar.  Vivek is firmly opposed to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).  That’s because it means even more government control over your life.  Say something “wrong” on social media, and you can get cutoff from your bank account.  Canada did that during the truckers’ strike.

He wants the US dollar to be stable.  To do that he’ll tie it to a basket of commodities.  He’ll cut the Federal Reserve’s staff of 23,000 (who knew?) by 90%.  The Fed will only have a single mandate of controlling inflation.  That’s how we keep our status as the world’s reserve currency.

A question came up about our current national debt of $31 trillion.  The solution is to grow GDP.  He’s the only candidate talking about growth.  That’s possible if American fossil fuel production is unleashed.

Readers need to keep an eye on him in the debates.  America will be blown away by this guy.