To say today’s “Restoring Honor” event in Washington will be historic is an understatement.  Gauging by the biased reporting on the news pages of the New York Times and the seething, sputtering outrage from Bob Herbert and Charles Blow on the Op-Ed pages should give you a pretty good indication of the focus this event will garner.

Kate Zernike opens her report, titled “Where Dr. King Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle”, saying it is the ultimate “thumb in the eye” to stand on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in the place he stood and talk about restoring honor.  How dare he?  Isn’t that what racists said of Dr. King when he stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial with these words?

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

Ms. Zernike reminds us of the case of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired by the Obama administration when a videotape of her redemptive speech about how she first discriminated against a white farmer but later helped him was shown across the Internet.  She writes about video tape being heavily edited by failing to show how she mended her ways and helped that farmer.  But Ms. Zernike doesn’t finish the story where later in her speech Ms. Sherrod says that those who opposed Obama’s health care plan had racist motives because President Obama is black.  Ms. Sherrod’s redemption is far from complete.

She then says that the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights raises the specter of Jim Crow and George Wallace.  But it was the federal government that passed and enforced the Fugitive Slave laws and it was independent states of the north, exercising their states’ rights, who supported the Underground Railroad and refused to actively assist returning slaves to the South.  So states’ rights cut both ways.

She concludes that, “Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race.”  It’s hard to quiet the argument because those on the left keep falsely making it.  They cannot prove racism so they feel that by repeating often enough, they can make it stick.

I was at a street fair manning a booth for a Tea Party organization this spring.  An African-American teacher approached us tentatively to ask what we were about.  I asked her if she wanted the rumors or the truth and she opted for the truth.  I told her that we were a policy based organization focusing on accountable government, fiscal responsibility, limited federal government and following the Constitution.  She said she didn’t know any of that, she got e-mails from Moveon.org all the time and before leaving she signed our e-mail list.  When the truth reaches the ears of people over the screeching of the New York Times and the main stream media, it is generally well received.  The racial of mix of the Tea Party rallies will change over time when we can speak to the folks one on one without the lies of the left.

The Opionators

Bob Herbert begins his Op-Ed piece in a very open minded fashion, “America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.”  Thank you for sharing that, Bob, but there’s no need to pull punches here.

“There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.”

So why to you and your fellow travelers throw down the race card every time someone disagrees with a policy, if they are not of the same race?  Object to ObamaCare, that’s racism.  Object to the stimulus, racism.  Wanting Obama to fail to turn America into a socialist states, racism straight up.  Yes there is hatred and bigotry in this country, but it is primarily coming from the left.

Not to be outdone in the outrage department, Charles Blow titled his Op-Ed piece, “I Had a Nightmare.”  Mr. Blow said the following, “I find it curious that many of the same people who object so strenuously to the Islamic cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan, many on the grounds that it is inappropriate and disrespectful, are virtually silent on the impropriety and disrespect inherent in Beck’s giving a speech on the anniversary of King’s address.”  This would be an excellent point, if he could point to 3,000 blacks that Glenn Beck has murdered in the name of restoring honor.  But Mr. Blow can make no such connection, so his analogy to the Ground Zero mosque falls flat.  Curious indeed.

After venting his spleen, Mr. Blow suggests we re-read Dr. King’s speech “and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.”  Let’s do that.

“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

How do the actions of the left, throwing down the race card at every turn, accusing everyone who disagrees with Barack Obama to have racism at the core of that disagreement comport with not “drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred”?  It arrogantly assumes that it is impossible not to see the glorious benefit of the government running every last aspect of our lives, therefore the only reason to disagree has to be racism.  With regard to violence, where do we see the violent demonstrations on the left or the right?  Breaking windows, looting, SEIU members beating down street vendors for selling anti-Obama buttons, etc. are all on the left.  When the police show up at rallies organized by the left they show up in riot gear, at Tea Party rallies the mounted police have to decide whether to let people pet their horses or not.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

Didn’t America elect an African American President of the United States with 53% of the vote?  More than voted for Clinton either time, or Jimmy Carter?  Barack Obama wasn’t elected by minority votes alone.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

Who more closely shares that dream, Glenn Beck, or those on the left who insist that forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King gave his speech that blacks can’t get into college or get a job without affirmative action; that black families have not been destroyed by government programs like welfare that drove fathers away; that government run schools that can’t graduate its students are far better for blacks than school vouchers that will let them escape those hellholes?  Dr. King’s speech says nothing about racial preferences.  Dr. King’s speech talks about color blindness.  Dr. King’s speech says give us an equal chance.  Glenn Beck believes that.  Those on the left do not.  It is those on the left who believe African Americans cannot compete without more government programs to help them.  Glenn Beck believe they can succeed if government gets out of their way and if the left stops the lies of dependency that hold them back.  It is the New York Times, Charles Blow, Bob Herbert who wrap themselves in racial division and then say, “Why can’t we come together?”  If you want us to come together, stop standing in the way.

Steven Slater tells off a plane load of Jet Blue customers, grabs a couple of beers, pulls the emergency chute and dramatically exits the plane, his job, and his career.  He is soon hailed across the Internet as a hero.  People walk away from home equity loans saying, “I’m not going to be a slave to the bank.”  Challenge after challenge to any reference to God in the public square as part of an effort to drive faith underground.  Our is government telling us that the only way we can survive is by a government handout.  We cannot make it on our own.  If you wonder why we are heading in the wrong direction as to 70% of your fellow Americans believe, perhaps we should give morality a closer look.

The story on Mr. Slater is unclear.  He says one thing, witnesses say another.  It will eventually get sorted out, but let’s assume for a moment that Mr. Slater is correct in that a passenger’s behavior set him off.  In a more moral society, Mr. Slater could have done one of two things.  One, he could have taken a deep breath, held his tongue and just written it off to that passenger having a bad day.  He would have won the admiration of those who watched him behave with self-control and dignity.  Or, two, he could have asked the pilot to inform the authorities to meet the plane on the ground because an unruly passenger defied the instructions of the flight crew.  That passenger would have been arrested on the ground and would be facing federal charges.  But instead Mr. Slater took the route of immediate gratification.  He got on the intercom and told off the whole plane, grabbed a couple of beers from the beverage cart, triggered the emergency escape chute and then like a giddy child went down the slide and ran home.  A moment’s thrill of control followed a world of grief.  Was his moral compass broken or pointing in the wrong direction?

Shawn Schlegalis a real estate agent in Arizona.  Since moving there in 2005 he bought several houses with each one financing the next.  He is currently in default for $94,873 and is basically saying tough luck, I’m not paying.  The lender got a court order garnishing his salary, but that was eighteen months ago and he hasn’t heard anything since.  “The case is sitting stagnant,” he said. “Maybe it will just go away.”  While I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for any bank that would approve this chain of financing, I don’t know if the lender was aware of what the home equity loan was for, but it is Mr. Schlegal’s attitude that disturbs me.  He made the decision to do this and he feels it is not his fault.  True he will be impacted if he tries to borrow again in the near future, but he doesn’t seem to care.  This is reinforced by the commercials flooding the airwaves advising consumers how they can walk away from their credit card debt.  How about selling the flat screen TVs and sports cars you purchased on the plastic, and pay it back?  Meanwhile our government continues to use your taxes to help people who are over their head pay their mortgages.  Why do you have to pay your mortgage and theirs?  You were responsible, they were not.  The very concept of such a program would have been baffling to the Founding Fathers.

Our current government reinforces the idea of Americans as imbeciles.  The mortgage companies took advantage of you, they were predatory lenders, while it was government programs that told the predators to get busy.  We have to have more home ownership, we have to help people achieve the American Dream, so Andrew Cuomo at HUD, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the good folks at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who made millions on pushing these products, all pushed these government programs on more people, encouraging them to buy houses they couldn’t afford and when the bubble burst they pointed the finger at everyone but themselves.  They believe the American people are helpless idiots who cannot fend for themselves and if by some accident someone does succeed, it is the government’s responsibility to take as much of what they earned by the sweat of their brow and give it to the simpletons they claim to be responsible for.  That is a racist, sexist, class warfare point of view that unless our Ivy League educated elites give us our daily instruction, we will shrivel up and die.  It is anything but the American Dream.

We see efforts to ban the Pledge of Allegiance because it contains the phrase “under God”; to ban the display of the Ten Commandments in court houses; the ban of religious displays on publicly owned land; and to ban prayer in any form at school graduations, football games or other gatherings.  While atheists, a small percentage of the population, do not believe in God, why is another person who believes in God so offensive to them that they can’t bear hearing it?  But as faith is driven further and further from the public square, boorish behavior becomes more and more acceptable.  There is something to be said about eternal damnation curbing one’s baser appetites than responding to the statement, “You want me to stop it?  Make me.”  There is something to be said for fulfilling one’s obligations because it is the right thing to do, but the right thing to do does not come from living in the here and now.  That is self-gratification.  Doing the right thing comes from a set of morals that say, “Character is what we do when no one is watching.”  Those who believe in a God believe someone is always watching.  Perhaps John Adams said it best:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Zogby International conducted a survey to measure how well people understand economics and what their political persuasion was.  The conclusion they came to was clear:  the Left is economically ignorant.  As reported in the Wall Street Journal (Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?) there were eight questions and the multiple choice answers were:  Strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree or are not sure.  Here are the statements:

1. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services
2. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago
3. Rent control leads to housing shortages
4. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly
5. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited
6. Free trade leads to unemployment
7. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment

Answers of strongly agree and somewhat agree were grouped together for scoring purposes, as were strongly disagree and somewhat disagree.  The survey respondents were then asked their political persuasion:  progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; libertarian.  The correct answers to the statements are

1. Agree
2. Agree
3. Agree
4. Disagree
5. Disagree
6. Disagree
7. Agree

Here is how the respondents performed grouped by political views:

1. Libertarians 84.3% correct answers
2. Very conservative 82.4% correct answers
3. Conservative 77.7% correct answers
4. Liberals 59.9% correct answers
5. Progressive/very liberal 32.4% correct

If this were a course in school, liberal, very liberal, and progressive students, would have all failed and in some cases miserably;  conservatives would all have passed by comfortable margins.  The article goes on to say, “The pattern was not an anomaly.”  I think this survey explains an enormous amount about the frustration being felt across America today. 

Other studies have shown that about 60% of Americans describe themselves as conservative.  The current administration is driving hard left at an extraordinary rate and most Americans don’t understand what President Obama and the Democratic Congress are doing or why.  This survey explains it pretty well.  They don’t know what they are doing, or they are expecting outcomes that are economically flawed.  The American people know it and they have been shouting, “STOP!”  But the Democrats blissfully press on in their ignorance and are confused why America is not going along. 

Statists have long assumed and treat their fellow Americans as if we are too stupid to know what they are doing is for our own good.  Well here’s the proof folks that the American people are the ones who know what works and what doesn’t and the only way to fix it is to send all the progressives/very liberal/liberal politicians packing.  If we elect conservatives they will implement what works and what economics proves works, and our country will be on the mend.

You hear a lot of talk these days about the Senate being broken because nothing can get passed with a majority vote.  Everything has to get sixty votes to pass and that’s just un-American.  Is it? 

The House of Representatives

The Founding Fathers were brilliant in designing the government that has survived longer than any other, and it wasn’t an accident.  The House of Representatives was designed to be the branch of government closest to the people.  The members come from districts that are sized based on population.  It is also in the House of Representatives that all revenue bills (i.e., tax increases) must originate.  The Senate cannot create legislation to raise taxes. 

The Senate

 The Senate was designed with a different purpose in mind.  In the form of federalism that they created, the Senate was supposed to represent the individual states.  Originally Senators were appointed by the state legislatures and this continued until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, which provided for the direct election of Senators by the people.  The Senate was designed to be a check on the tyranny of the majority.  In the House, populous states like New York, California, Texas and Florida, have a lot of representation.  To prevent a handful of states from pushing around everyone else, representation in the Senate is the same for Rhode Island as it is for California, two each.  In the House, California trumps Rhode Island.  In the Senate they do not.  Are you picking up the theme?

 The Dreaded Filibuster

Being able to filibuster in the Senate is another way of allowing cooler heads to prevail.  If legislation before the Senate cannot win over some reasonable number of Senators, then it’s probably not a very good idea for the country.

 As proof that things are more partisan today, pundits point to how the number of filibusters has greatly increased over time. 

 In the entire 19th century, including the struggle against slavery, fewer than two dozen filibusters were mounted. 

 It is reported that things really took off during the Clinton administration.  Hmm, what else was going on then… Hillary Care?  We have also seen the out of control growth of the federal government’s involvement in almost every aspect of our lives, such as, how much we can be paid, how much a bushel of wheat should cost, how schools are funded; none of which is in the Constitution as powers the federal government should have.  Those are all things that, according to the 10^th Amendment, are the purview of the states or the people.

 The Filibuster Fix

So if you don’t like the way the Senate is bogged down, instead of taking the brakes off the car, how about dumping the junk in the trunk?  The less minutia the federal government gets involved in (let’s start with health care), the less reason, reasonable Senators will have to filibuster.

“The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.” – New York Times, January 2, 2010

“The Treasury Department publicly maintains that its program is on track. “The program is meeting its intended goal of providing immediate relief to homeowners across the country,” a department spokeswoman, Meg Reilly, wrote in an e-mail message.” — same article, NYT

Hot on the heels of Janet Napolitano’s performance at the Department of Homeland Security, that things worked just swell and then, er, no it was a catastrophic failure, we have another example of this administration’s ineptitude.  Let’s not let the marketplace work by flushing out the bad loans, have banks face up to the reality of their bad lending decisions, allow housing prices to reach a market level, all in a reasonably short time, no, let’s get another massive, taxpayer funded program in place to gum up the works and drag this out for years. 

A Habit of Ignoring History

In 1929 Hoover mishandled the economy in a similar way bringing in the leaders of major industries and jawboning them to keep up production even in the face of falling demand so that jobs would not be lost.  The businesses went along until that policy hit their financial statements in the form of plunging profitability.  Stock prices fell sharply and more disastrous policies followed, first by Hoover and more by Roosevelt.

In 1920-21 there was a very steep and serious recession.  However, companies cut wages and government didn’t interfere.

“The annual unemployment rate peaked at 11.7 percent in 1921, but it had fallen to 6.7 percent by the following year, and was down to an incredible 2.4 percent by 1923,” Murphy writes. “That is how a market with flexible wages and prices quickly corrects itself after a Fed-induced inflationary boom.”

 

Roosevelt’s policies followed Hoovers’ with more and more government interference.  Throughout the Great Depression the programs didn’t work, government grew tremendously leaving us saddled with that legacy.  On the other hand Reagan in the 1980s pursued a policy of cutting taxes and shrinking government.  Roosevelt needed World War II to end the Great Depression, Reagan ushered in 25 years of unprecedented economic growth.  Which one does Obama choose to follow?  That’s right, Roosevelt.  Brilliant!

Inexperience on Full Display

President Obama rides into town with no executive experience, but with wondrous rhetorical skills and a hard left agenda.  He jams through a stimulus package that doesn’t stimulate.  His security policy is to undo everything that worked under Bush to keep us safe.  One of the first things Janet Napolitano does is  release a report saying that the real threat is from our returning military that might become right wing zealots,  Meanwhile Islamic terrorists, correct that, isolated extremists, continue to plot to kill us.  Now the New York Times points out that the Emperor’s mortgage program, Making Home Affordable, has no clothes.

“Whatever the merits of its plans, the administration has clearly failed to reverse the foreclosure crisis.” — NYT

When asked by a Congressional Oversight Panel what the administration was going to do in the face of this lasting not a year or two but for many years into the future, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said:

“What to do about it,” he said. “That’s a hard thing.” — NYT

Sounds like the seeds of another government program to fix the other government program.  Just like FDR did all through the 1930s.  Trying to stop the market with government programs is like trying to stop the tides.  You may divert it and you may end up with water in places you didn’t want it, but you are not going to stop it.

Who doesn’t love a freebie?  Who does not get a thrill of good fortune by finding money in the street, no matter how insignificant the amount?  We may not believe in the Tooth Fairy, but many of us believe we have a rich benevolent uncle, Uncle Sam, who is willing to lavish upon us his wealth if only we would ask.  The sad truth is that Uncle Sam is not rich, but penniless and is running a ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush.

Health Care for $20

One of the major reasons that health care costs are rising out of control is that no one is minding the store.  While Washington twists itself in knots to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic of health care, we have little to no say in how our health care dollars are spent.  Our health care “insurance” system is not really insurance.  Insurance is meant to protect us from a financial catastrophe.  Going to the doctor for a checkup is not a catastrophe.  Paying a $20 co-pay for that checkup is like finding money on the street.  There is no way anyone can get a physical exam, except by a hooker, for $20.  It is a good idea to get a physical checkup every year?  Yes, then pay the bill and ask what you are paying for and make sure you need it.  You take your car in for service don’t you?  Do you file an insurance claim when you do?  Can you get it done for $20.  Let’s get real.  What we have is called third party payer and when someone else is picking up the tab, do we care what it costs?  Really?  But someone is picking up the tab.  Look in your other pocket, because you are.  If you are generally healthy and you get your annual checkup, your insurance premium (here in New York at least) will probably run around $10,000 per year.  But, hey, you only paid $20 for that physical!  What if you paid the full amount for the physical, say, $500.  What if your insurance premium was cut to $5,000 because you would pay most routine medical costs out of your pocket and what if you could put the $4,500 left over ($10,000 original premium, minus $5,000 current premium, minus $500 cost of checkup), into a tax free account that can be used for future medical expenses or retirement if you don’t use it?  If you are a young person and stay healthy into your mid-40s, you would have accumulated over $90,000 in your medical savings account and you still have catastrophic insurance coverage and the government stays out of the picture.

Retirement for Free

Like many well intentioned Government programs, Social Security, enacted during the Great Depression, seemed like a good idea at the time.  When enacted there was about 15 workers paying in for each recipient drawing out.  Today there are about a little over 3 workers paying in for each beneficiary.  Bernie Madoff would blush at the audacity of it.  On top of that the money that is paid into Social Security can only be “invested” in Treasury Securities so the return is lousy, but safe.  People reacted to Social Security by saving less because the government safety net was there.  Had people been encouraged to save for their own retirement, they would not be leaving their children this legacy of a ticking time bomb.  So today, many young people feel the government’s hand in their pocket when they look at the FICA line on their pay stub, but don’t believe they will ever get a penny back.  Nice concept.

Bring Home the Bacon!

What’s the measure of a good Congressman or Senator?  Bringing home pork for the district, no?  If you are like me, you get flyers every year or several times per year, touting how Congresswoman Jones obtained federal funding for that pier at the amusement park.  With 435 Congressmen you can count on this, for each $1 that your Representative brings home $434 leaves the Treasury for each of the other Congressional districts and probably more, depending on the power and seniority of your Representative.  Guess who’s paying for that Turtle Crossing in Florida?  that bridge to nowhere in Alaska? that airport in Johnstown, PA that no one uses?  That’s right, you are.  What if we decided locally if we really needed a pier at the amusement park, and if we did, pay for it ourselves?  Then we could let the people of Florida decide if they want to build a turtle crossing, the people of Alaska decide if they wanted a bridge to nowhere and the people of Pennsylvania decide if they wanted an airport that no one used.  Then we could cut federal taxes by an equal amount to keep them out of mischief and help us pay for these projects if we really wanted them.

Let’s Get Organized

There was a time in our history where labor unions performed a valuable service.  In those times when many industrial jobs were unskilled or semi-skilled, employers could dismiss someone on a whim and replace them within the hour.  Unions gave those workers some counterbalancing power and fairer treatment.  Today, we have a much more sophisticated economy and workers have more skills and mobility.  Union membership has declined accordingly, in the private sector at least.  Why is union membership still growing in the public sector?  What is different about workers in the public sector that they still need unions?  Are we suggesting that all government workers are unskilled?  Why do teachers need a union?  Are they not skilled such that they could sell their services to the highest bidder?  Why do unions fight merit pay for teachers?  Why are school principals, the de facto CEO of the school and who in New York easily make six figures, unionized?  Do you get an idea why our K-12 public school system is trailing the world in performance?

In Michigan, privately owned small businesses that provided day-care services suddenly discovered that they were part of a union and union dues were being withheld from their government contractual payments.

Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it’s happening elsewhere in the country.

Ms. Berry, runs “The Berry Patch” a private day care center she operates from her home catering to low income clients.  The money that was once paid to her, now goes to a union that does little for her.  She is “self employed and wants nothing to do with the union.”  Don’t you think we need more of these tactics in America?  Card Check anyone?

Going Postal

And let’s not forget the Postal Service.  As postal rates are again scheduled to increase on January 4, let’s look at this paragon of efficiency, that is actually authorized by the Constitution.  In 2008, the Postal Service lost $3 billion, and the Postmaster General John Potter pulled down $800,000 in compensation including $135,000 in incentive bonuses.  What do we have to pay this guy if he actually breaks even?  Also, let us not forget this is also a very heavily unionized operation.

Don’t Worry, You Won’t Feel a Thing

During World War II, FDR needed to raise more revenue to pay for the war.  Fearing a backlash, his team hit upon the idea of payroll withholding.  Knowing the potential backlash that would result when taxpayers had to write that big check on April 15th, he rightly figured that if he took a little bit each week, he could take a lot more in total.  Statists in Washington have never looked back.  It’s like the tax that was imposed on telephone service to pay for the Spanish American War that is still in place today.  Instead of picking our pockets every week, what do you think most Americans would say about the size of the federal government if they had to write one big check on April 15th?  There would be no tax rebates, because there would be no tax withheld.  Do you think Americans would force Congress to sharpen their pencils and scale back the size of government?

Help is On the Way

Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help!’”  But perhaps the best example of how far from our founding principles our government has strayed comes from Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut as she spoke during a House End of Year Wrap Up Session:

“This House–we understand, we’re there,” she said.  “You can count on us because we believe that it’s our moral responsibility to make sure that you and your family need our help.” 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the House of Representatives making sure I need their help.  I need as little interference as possible from them.  Their meddlesome intrusions in our lives is killing what made this country great.  It is a point we cannot make often enough.

If I asked you a simple question, what government organization works well, what would you say?  Let’s take a look at two government organizations and compare their effectiveness and motivation.

The Military

Whether you support our troops on the battlefield or want them to always stay home in their barracks, most Americans will say the military does a pretty good job.  Why? That is, why are they effective, not just why do people think so?  Well, they put a lot of investment in training and technology.  They seem to have solved the problem of integration, being based on merit rather than racial prejudice.  These are all important things, but I don’ t they get to the core of the issue.  The key question is, what happens if they don’t do their job?  They die…they die, the guy beside them dies, their buddies die, and depending on the size of the conflict, their families and country may eventually die.  With that kind of motivation, race is not even secondary.  If the guy next to me has got my back and I have his, I don’t care what color he or she is.  We do it right, we live;  we don’t, we die.

The K-12 Teacher

K-12 education comes under fire in this country, and rightly so, for failing to produce an educated workforce.  In New York, for example we spend over $14,000 per student, per year on education, far above the national average of around $9,000.  Are students in New York 50% smarter than the country in general?  Hardly.  Is the nation as a whole turning out well educated students?  Sadly, no.

Our K-12 public schools are a government run monopoly.  So what happens to a K-12 teacher if they fail to do their job?  If they have been in the job long enough to get tenure, nothing.  They will get a raise like everyone else.  So what motivates them to turn out outstanding students?  I’ll wait.

Let me be clear that I don’t want to lump all teachers together.  They are many teachers who, by having what  I suppose is a strong moral streak,  do a great job because they want to teach.  Okay, so let’s look at the teaching profession where there is a group that does their best because they get satisfaction from doing a good job.  Now, some studies come out that say the way to improve results is smaller classroom size.  The teachers’ unions get behind it and eventually push it through.  So what does that mean?  If you cut the size of the class in half, you double the number of classes.  If you double the number of classes, you have to double the number of teachers and thus have to go deeper into the labor pool to find them.  Before you took this step, we can probably assume that all the self-motivated teachers were already on the job.  So the additional teachers are motivated by what?

Co -conspirators

That brings us back to the teachers’ unions.  When government’s come under pressure to cut educational expenses, the airwaves are soon flooded with the heart wrenching commercials pleading to restore the funding “for the children’s sake.”  What you don’t hear is the trailer that says, “This commercial paid for by the PTA,” or “This commercial paid for by the Association of Concerned Parents.”  No, what you typically hear is, “This commercial paid for by the X Teacher’s union, Joe Blow, President.”

Who do the unions really represent…really? The students? or the teachers?  They want the funds restored so that their membership is not hurt and their dues are not curtailed.  If their true concern was for the students, why not support school vouchers and charter schools?  They fight the former with a vengeance and the latter, if it is not union organized.

Let’s Not Pick on K-12 Education

Let’s look at other government areas.  Government is the only area where union membership is growing.  How many people relish going to their Department of Motor Vehicles?  How efficient is the Post Office?  Amtrak?  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a bonus compensation plan, which is a step in the right direction unless it leads to cooking the books and making extremely risky loans that lead to the near collapse of our economy.  How can we get this under control?

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Our government is trying to install a massive health care program that will cost a trillion dollars.  At the same time, tens of billions of dollars are stolen from Medicare every year and they can’t stop it.  Early this year, the Obama Administration passed a $787 billion stimulus package, spent $18 million to build a website to track it, and put Joe Biden in the role of watch dog.  How is that working out?  A recent report from ABC News, of all places, found that credit for creating jobs was given on the web site to Congressional Districts that do not exist.  A $1,000 grant was purported to have created 50 jobs.  The New York Times investigated and found that the $1,000 went to purchase a lawn mower.  It took from the time of the founding of the Republic until about the mid 1990s to accumulate $6 trillion in debt.  It has doubled since then, and it is projected to go from $12 trillion to $14 trillion by next year!

It cannot be controlled.  It is impossible to control.  The only solution is to cut the federal government down to size.  Take out the Constitution and read what the true functions of government are supposed to be.  The military, absolutely;  the Post Office, yes it’s in there; coin money; establish patents and copyrights; establish the courts; control the District of Columbia; regulate interstate commerce; make treaties; give the State of the Union address.  That pretty much sums it up and everything else should be left to the states and local government or the people.

We should jettison all the rest and cut this government down to size and get out of debt.  Department of Labor–gone;  Department of Health and Human Services–gone; Department ment of Housing and Urban Development–gone; Department of Transportation–gone; Department of Energy–gone; Depatrment of Education–gone; Department of Veterans Affairs–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense;  Department of Homeland Security–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense; Department of the Interior–gone; Department of Agriculture–gone.

The amount of money saved would be enormous.  Selling all the real estate and buildings would bring in more money.  We could then cut taxes to jump start the economy and run a surplus to cut the debt.  The next step would be to make it illegal for unions to organize government workers without a referendum approved by all the voters.  Side benefits would be less campaign money because there would be less government to influence.  Government would be more accountable to the people because it would be closer to the people, that is, at the state level or local level.  We can do this proactively, or wait until the government is bankrupt and we have to sell off the parts to the Chinese.

There is panic in the ranks of the left this Halloween.  In today’s Times, Frank Rich, does his level best to whistle past the graveyard, but the fear is clear.  He astonishingly titles his piece, “The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York.”  I guess they feel the Hitler moniker has lost its zest, so the leftists resort to calling those on the right, Stalinists.  Their disorientation could not be more palpable.

What has them in such a tizzy?  It centers around the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.  The local Republican party bosses chose a candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who would never be mistaken as a conservative, although Mr. Rich actually called her, “a mainstream conservative by New York standards.”  That’s like saying David Letterman is chaste by liberal standards, as if these things are measured on a relative scale.  But that’s the way liberals and statists think.  If your neighbor is more promiscuous than you, then you must be celebate.  If you want to make Nancy Pelosi a moderate, move her to Cuba.

Ground Shift

What has Mr. Rich and his cohorts nervously clearing their throats, is that the uprising against the entrenched statists, led by the Tea Parties, actually delivered results.   Ms. Scozzafava is pro-abortion, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-Obama stimulus package, pro-card check to make it easier to form a union without a secret ballot election, and supported by ACORN.  This is what Mr. Rich calls a conservative, “by New York standards.”  What sticks in his craw is that the election was a win-win, for him and his friends.  Elect the Republican or the Democrat and it doesn’t matter much, they both hold the same basic views.  Then along came Doug Hoffman.

Doug Hoffman threw his hat in the ring on the Conservative Party line.  By this Saturday, with support pouring in all across the country from true conservatives, Hoffman was in a dead heat with the conservative and the Republican Scozzafava was fading fast.  So she decided to suspend her campaign, and Mr. Rich and company hit the panic button.

So how does Mr. Rich frame his argument?  Well he starts by saying Hoffman has no grasp of local issues.  Uh, the position is United States Congressman, not city alderman.  He well understands the issues at the national level and how the policies of the Obama Administration are bankrupting the country.  Those policies will negatively affect the people in his district.  But leave it to Mr. Rich to scoff at Hoffman, because he doesn’t know how much pork barrel spending the district needs. A true patriotic Congressman, like John Murtha, finds a way to build an airport in the district that nobody uses and hands the bill to people in other districts like, well, New York’s 23rd.  He’s going to Washington to fight those who are bleeding the Treasury dry.  So Mr. Rich fights that by calling Fort Drum, home to the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, a “pork-dependent military base.”  Hmmm…the last time I read my copy of the Constitution, it specifically required providing for the national defense.  I couldn’t find in my copy where it required building airports no one needed so that John Murtha could get re-elected in perpetuity.  I understand it is a fine distinction, but I would have thought someone employed by the New York Times would be able to make it.

Frank Rich’s Happy Talk

Mr. Rich oddly calls the developments in New York as good news.  With a recent Gallup Poll, showing that for every self-described liberal there are two self-described conservatives, Mr. Rich says the ideologues that brought about the events in New York’s 23rd, may then start picking off other conservatives and destroy the party.  Does he mean conservatives like Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Charlie Crist, oh my!  With 73% of GOP voters saying that Congressional Republicans have lost touch with their base, this is not good news for Mr. Rich and company.  What he believes is that a small cabal of conservatives will put unelectable candidates on the ballot that voters will reject and the Democrats will gleefully reap the rewards.  In reality, the GOP leadership has for too long put weak candidates on the ballot that Democrats easily beat because the Republican base cannot get excited about them.  McCain is a war hero and worthy of our admiration, but just look at his signature legislation:  McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy.  He was not a conservative on many fronts. 

Nixon was a conservative, Ford was not.  Reagan was a conservative, Bush 41 was not and  Dole was not.  George W. started more conservative than not, but then drifted to become a big spender.  McCain was not a conservative.  Do you see a pattern here?  Conservative Republicans win.

With Obama’s approval rating going down in a virtual straight line, Mr. Rich confidently proclaims that the only politician Obama has to fear is Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.  By all means, Mr. Rich, you keep telling your pals that.

Can anyone offer us a deal to give us cash if replace our Congressional Clunkers?  How about the health insurance companies?  They’d probably kick in, since they are Congress’ new whipping boy.  Oil companies, coal companies?  They get bashed every time Congress screws up and bans nuclear power, offshore drilling, ANWR, and coal as the price of oil climbs.  Banks who didn’t take TARP money?  Well Congress wants to set their salaries now.

Congressional Mileage

How much liberty per dollar are we getting for the money guzzling Congressmen and Senators who pull down $169,300 per year (more for committee chairs, and Speaker Pelosi who weighs in at $217,400)?  And this doesn’t begin to count their expense budgets, gold plated health care, etc.  I’m sure we could get much better mileage from a smaller government and a Congress that only meets half a year.  I’m willing to bet that the longer Congress stays in session the more trouble they get us into, while consolidating their power and feathering their own nests.

Here’s the Plan

Let’s set up a fund.  We’ll let Goldman Sachs run it, as they seem to know how to turn a buck. Anyone can contribute to the fund, no limits. For every Congressman who voted for the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the Health Care disaster and is run out of office, the fund will pay out a percentage of the fund to everyone who registered and voted.  The percentage will be calculated as the percentage of these clunkers who are retired out of Congress.

Think about it.  If you are a voter who really, really believes that the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the government takeover of our health care system is a good thing, you will vote to re-elect the members of Congress who voted the same way.  However if you don’t, then perhaps you need a little personal stimulus to cross party lines, or set aside ideology, and vote the bums out.  It might even help improve voter turnout.  And why not?  If ACORN can get illegal aliens and dead people to vote for their candidates, we need a way to fight back.

What do you think?

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, entitled, “What You Might Not Know About the Recovery,” that might more appropriately be entitled, “What I Don’t Know About the Recovery,” Joe Biden educates us on the stimulus.  It’s typical after the fact political obfuscation to try to convince people that they are not really seeing what they see with their own two eyes.

He begins in typical fashion going back to when he and Barack Obama took office, but avoids mentioning President Bush by name:

We still have a long way to go, but clearly we are closer to recovery today than we were in January.

This is a true statement, but I would argue that this is in spite of the $787 billion of our money squandered on the stimulus plan, while Mr. Biden says it is because of it.  It is instructive to see how someone begins their defense of an issue and Mr. Biden begins by saying that not all of our $787 billion is being spent on pork barrel projects.

Notwithstanding this progress, the nature of the Recovery Act remains misunderstood by many, and misconstrued by others: critics have suggested that the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet programs. As the person leading the administration’s efforts to put the Recovery Act into effect, I want to set the record straight.

He takes up the position that the statists typically do, that we are too stupid to understand.  This is complex stuff, America, way over your head.  You need us in the political class to take care of this for you.  Notice he didn’t say there was no pork barrel spending.  He says that not the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet projects. (Don’t forget the $30 million for Nancy Pelosi’s salt marsh harvest mouse).  Feel better?

Tax Cuts?

He says the single largest part of the recovery act is tax cuts, more than one third.  Huh?  Does he mean the $8 per week in lower payroll taxes?  That’s going to stimulate the economy?  At the same time they are finding trillions, TRILLIONS, in new taxes and spending through Cap and Trade, Heath Care reform, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, that will dwarf the paltry $8 per week that people are probably saving, rather than spending, if they even notice it at all.

Transfer Payments

The second largest chunk, Mr. Biden tells us, is for transfer payments.  In other words, money from the federal government given to state and local governments. Where do all governments get their money from?  Us.  So taking our money in federal taxes and giving it to state and local governments helps us exactly how?  Don’t forget the portion of each dollar that gets lost along the way as each bureaucracy handles it.

What are these transfer payments going to be used for?  Uncle Joe tells us:

The money is allowing state governments to avoid laying off teachers (14,000 in New York City alone), firefighters and police officers and preventing states’ budget gaps from growing wider.

The dictionary defines recovery as returning to health, consciousness, etc.  This part of the stimulus does nothing to stimulate the economy.  It’s another one of the Obama administration’s wonderful fictions about saving jobs.  As the economy continues to shed jobs even above the level that the Obama administration told us it would go without the stimulus Biden boasts that they saved the jobs of government workers; union workers; Democratic voters.  Also it helps bloated state governments that have mismanaged their finances from having to make fiscally responsible decisions but keeping them fat, dumb, and happy.  By the way, which states seems to be in the most financial trouble?  California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan?  Aren’t those all “blue” states?  So is the Obama adminisitration helping America or helping themselves?

On Track?

Mr. Biden says that we are on track and that 25% of the funds have been committed.  What exactly does that mean, committed?  If you go to Recovery.gov, you will see that as of this week, only 8.5% of the money has actually been spent.  Give Mr. Biden a calculator, please.  With the three chunks that the Vice President says comprise the stimulus: tax cuts, transfer payments, and infrastructure projects, and that signs of recovery are due to the stimulus, how can the stimulus have that kind of affect when only 8.5% of the money has been spent?

The Resiliency of the American Economy

The American economy is the envy of the world.  It is resilient beyond description.  It is recovering on its own, despite government interference, and the government meddling that caused this recession.  The American people are no longer being fooled by the smooth talking Barack and Joe Show.  A Rasmussen poll shows that only 25% of the American people believe that the stimulus has helped the economy.  If that’s not bad enough 31% say that the stimulus has actually hurt the economy.  On top of that 45% say the rest of the stimulus should be cancelled.

The Stupid American People

With 92% of the stimulus yet to be spent 9% more Americans say cancel the rest than say to keep going.  So Mr. Biden grabs the op-ed page of the New York Times to, sigh, lecture the American people once again on how they misunderstand, and misconstrue what your benevolent, socialist leaning government is trying to do for you.  How ungrateful can you be?  If you people don’t get it, then the president and vice president will just have to take over the rest of the economy and set you all straight.  They will tell you how much you can earn, what cars to buy, what food to eat, what kind of light bulbs to put in your house, control how much energy you can use in your house through the smart grid, what medical treatment you can have, and when you have to die.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

The American people have been charmed by Barack Obama as he is a very charming man.  He is an historic president.  But they are starting to notice the tea parties, the abdication of the main stream media to do their job, the warnings about what is happening to their country and they are starting to pay attention.  The more they see and hear the more Obama’s approval ratings drop.  So he pushes harder and faster.  It will be a close race to see if President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can ram through their agenda and slam the door behind them, or if we can wrestle back control of our liberties and send these people packing.

It’s time to brush off the Constitution, read the 10th amendment, and start stripping the federal government back down to the size the founders envisioned.  That will give more power to the states and the people and make government more accountable.  Face it, when your Congressman represents several hundred thousand constituents and their voice is only one of 435 in the House of Representatives, is it any wonder that the founders gave them only the powers spelled out in the Constitution.  They believed that effective government has to be responsive to the people.  That is impossible in Washington.  It is too big.  It is run by too many unelected career bureaucrats.  It has too much power to tax us, regulate us, spend our tax dollars on things to which we are morally opposed, and interfere with our liberties.

This is a critical time in our history and time to roll back the unrelenting growth of government and shrink it down to size.