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'How good were you with math?': Glenn confronts Mike Lee on his controversial tax plan

April 15, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Senator Mike Lee helped co-author the controversial tax plan presented by Senator Marco Rubio and Glenn confronted him on the facts today on radio. Glenn, who has been one of Lee’s most vocal supporters, asked him if he was as good at math as he is the law.

GLENN: So yesterday, we read the Rubio Tax Plan, and we think it's butt ugly. However, the Easter egg, as we called it yesterday, was -- the co-sponsor was Mike Lee. So that got us scratching your heads, because we know Mike Lee. And maybe the brilliance of this is it only looks butt ugly, and that's the genes you, because all the Democrats will say this is butt ugly if you are conservative. Mike Lee is smarter than we are. We are missing something. Please tell me that is the case, Mike Lee.

LEE: That is absolutely the case. Thank you for having me on the show. It is hard to get people's attention when introducing a tax plan --

GLENN: Oh, no. Not on America's "Charity Day", when we all feel so very charitable for all the money we gave to the charity called the government?

LEE: Right. Right.

PAT: What are we missing --

LEE: Charity does not take money from people at the point of a gun. Look, our current tax code is bad, okay. It consists of tens of thousands of pages, together with implementing regulations. The current tax code discourages work, savings, investment, new business formation, marriage, and even having children. That's bad. So what we are trying to do is offset that.

I agree with what you were saying a minute ago. It would be great if we had a single rate system. What was true for Malachi ought to be true for government. There ought to be one rate. The problem is you can't really get there from here. You can't really go from a seven-rate system to a one-rate system without raising taxes on a lot of poor and middle class folks.

So we want to simplify the code and do it in a way that's pro-growth and pro-family and offsets the penalties against the very things the government is discouraging right now and ought not be discouraging any longer.

PAT: How did the Russians do it?

LEE: I'm not really an expert in Soviet tax policy.

GLENN: Maybe you should ask someone in the Obama administration. They know all about the Soviets.

PAT: Seriously, this a tax increase for people -- we were figuring about $116,000 to $600,000 some, an increase for them, right?

LEE: No. That is a distortion brought about through the media

PAT: We were looking at it, thinking it looks like an increase.

STU: I know there's more deductions in there, so how do you get rid of that? Seems like the people in that group would pay a little more by the basic numbers.

LEE: The other overwhelming majority of them would not. 80% of all Americans would pay under a simple rate. You could call it a flat rate of 15% under the plan. All income learned below $75,000 by single filerswould be taxed a 15% under this plan, subjection to two deductions.

Then all income below $150,000 for people filing jointly, married, would be taxed at 15% also. We think it is a huge improvement over the status quo, because we don't think your taxes should go up significantly just because you get married. And right now, that is true. Today, some of hat income below $75,000 for singles and below $150,000 for joint filers is taxed at 25%, not under 15% rate, as it would be under our plan. Importantly, and I think it has been misrepresented in the press on this point, is that your tax bill wouldn't jump to 35% on all of your earnings once you make $151,000. Instead, you would pay 15% on $150,000 and 35% of the marginal $1,000 over that level.

GLENN: Can I ask a question? You are saying that we are worried about you are going to raise the taxes on a lot of people paying at the lower end. So you've got a 15% flat tax there, right?

LEE: Yes.

PAT: Two rates.

GLENN: So why don't we do one 15 and one 25 over 150?

LEE: That would been one approach, but as we have run the numbers, we think it is the best way of making it work in a way that doesn't add unduly to our deficit.

This is a work in progress. Rome wasn't built in a day, we are open to all kinds of suggestions. We are open to considering something like that. We weren't able to make the numbers work the first round when we put it together.

But this is still a big tax cut. This is still a $1 trillion tax cut, and that's putting it conservatively. Some would say it is more like a $4 trillion tax cut. This is a very aggressive tax cut, a Reagan-esque type of tax cut. You could say a lot of things about it, but you can't call a tax hike, under any interpretation, any form of mathematics cannot call this --

GLENN: You are so good with the law. How good were you at math? I just want some assurance here, because I trust you, Mike and I like you, and you are really truly one of the good guys, but we are look at this and we just don't see this the same way. We are trying to figure this out.

STU: I'm sure you have accounted for this. But looking at it from the surface, right now, there's a 35% bracket, which kicks in at $411,000 before you start paying that. Now that same rate kicks in at $75,000 with your plan. That is a significant change. I understand the rate below 75,000 for some people will be lower, but that's a big change. You are getting hit with a high rate at $75,000.

LEE: Well, that first $75,000 or first $150,000, if you are married and filing jointly, is never taxed at 35%. It's taxed at 15%, and a --

GLENN: But at $76,000, if I am single, I am paying 35%.

LEE: Yeah. I've got lots of charts and things I could show you, if we were there, but the overwhelming majority of people would not see any tax increase on this, and for most Americans, this would be a very significant tax cut. As important as anything else, it is a tax code simplification. We have to remember, complexity is a subsidy for lawyers and for accountants, for lobbyists and for people who make their business the process of contacting and influences government.

So there are no easy fixes here, but part of the beauty of this plan is that it would dramatically simplify the tax code. It is pro-family, pro-growth, and this is a tax cut plan Reagan would be proud of.

GLENN: Tell me about businesses.

LEE: On the business side, we lower the rate quite significantly down to 20%. We look to a single layer taxation system, and it's at 25%. It's a business tax rate of 25%. We get rid of the double taxation that's in our existing code on the business side by eliminating taxes on capital gains and on dividends. And so we think this is incentivizing all the right things, incentivizing investment and business formation. And overall, it's diminishing the disincentives, the penalties the government is currently putting in place on getting married and having children.

We don't think the government should be involved in those decisions. It shouldn't. And it currently is, and it is punishing the very people who are building our society and getting married and having children. We shouldn't be doing that. We also shouldn't be disincentivizing people from forming businesses.

STU: Seems like every conservative that has looked at this plan loved the business side of this. It really does look like it is a role pro-growth plan and would really help people not only in corporations, but also LLCs and things like that, correct?

LEE: Yes. And it would also be very, very helpful to growing small businesses. It would allow for immediate full expensing to provide tax relief for grows small businesses. So look, Americans, all Americans, will end up being wealthier on this. They will end up having more disposable income, end up with a lot for economic growth as a result.

I'm not saying it's perfect or the kind of plan I would design if we were designing a tax plan ab initio. We have to start

with the government that we have, rather than the one that might have been, had we more sanity in your government over the years.

STU: Real quick, before Glenn comes in with a much smarter question, I'm sure. Reading the way it's structured, it seems to me that what you are doing here -- and there's a lot of good things. The business side is good. I think the vast majority of people, individual earners would pay less under the plan. Not just the majority, but the vast majority would. Is there an element, though, where you are saying let's be honest. Every time we introduce something like a flat tax, they come out, beat it up, say it is a tax cut for the rich. So if we let some of the rich get hit at little bit, we are shielded from that and maybe we can kind of get a bunch of good policy in, but not the whole thing. Is that --

LEE: No, that's not the motivation here, nor is it an accurate description of how this operates in any objective way.

The reason is, first of all, when we get rid of the double layer taxation from the double taxation by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, that by itself is opening up -- us up to a huge amount of attack from the left that hates this. They also hate the fact we are levering the playing field between big and small businesses. What we want is fair competition, instead of cronyism. What we've got now is cronyism. When we have fair competition, that creates millions of new jobs.

GLENN: But the only way you only have fair competition is to be flat.

LEE: That is a very fair point, Glenn. Again, I can't emphasize enough I would prefer a single flat --

GLENN: Because this is what you said. We can't get there from here. And I understand. I really do understand, you can't change a tire going 150 miles per hour. And so I get that. But, you know, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Barak Obama, they all gave us the biggest tire changes at 150 miles per hour this country has ever seen on our side, on the conservative side. We had Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Regan. That's it. Calvin Coolidge. That's it. Why is it we are so afraid of standing up and talking common sense and saying you damn right, if the Soviet Union can figure this out, we can do it. If the Marxists and the communists realize that this was a better system, then why can't we? When you look -- I don't remember the number, and I'm sure you know it, like 17.9 or 18% that's the number, no matter what you do to the rates you always collect about that much. So why aren't we just targeting that number?

LEE: Right. Well, again, I would love to go to that kind of system. On average we are able to collect about 18% of GDP through our income tax system. That seems to be a relatively constant figure, regardless of how high you set the top marginal rate, but again, what we are looking at here is the biggest simplification we can get, and one bit eliminates a lot of the --

GLENN: But may I ask you -- and Mike, you know I love you, right?

LEE: I do. And I appreciate that.

GLENN: I respect you. We all respect you and love you.

We are just so frustrated, because if people in Congress would have used and rightly so, and it's not too late -- if they would stand on their desks and shout at the top of their lungs, the IRS has become a weapon against the American people. You could redo it, because you could shut it down. There is nobody on the right or the left except for those in power, that want the IRS to become a weapon. And you have the best shot of shutting the IRS down and cleaning house right now than you have had in 100 years.

LEE: That is a very fair point, and that is exactly why we all ought to be reforming government along exactly the lines I describe in my new awesome book,Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document.

PAT: Nice.

GLENN: Whoa. Man, a week on the radio tour, trying to sell your book. You got good. That was good.

LEE: That stuff doesn't go -- it just flows from the lips. If we have to choose between two rates and tax fairness for working parents, or on the other hand, a one rate system that raises taxes on all families, I think we have to go with the two-rate system. That is fair. That is conservative. This is Burkean conservatism. You are taking a set of contemporary problems and dealing with them in a practical way.

PAT: You just said A 'Barack Obama' false premise there, Mike. I don't think those are the two options, are they? Can we not work it out where it's fair for working families and -- the wealthy are working families, too, by the way.

LEE: Under the current system, we can't work it out that way, because the current system really does punish people for getting married and pushing them for having children.

GLENN: You know why?

LEE: - interacts with your senior entitlement program. There's no way that you get out of having children without a huge penalty through our tax system. The parent tax penalty is something the mainstream media goes out of its way to obscure, and this is a proposal that finally addresses that, in a way that none other does.

GLENN: Because, Mike, with those penalties are there, because it's a -- say it with me -- a Progressive income tax. So maybe we should stop trying to play in the Progressive field. I have one question for you, when we come back, if you could hold for a second. I have to take a break, then I ever one question for you, then we'll cut you lose.

Featured image courtesy of the AP

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.