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.

A recent article in the New York Times, “Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance,” talks about how Food Stamps are now, thankfully, accepted and people can get the help they deserve. 

I remember the first time I encounteed food stamps.  I was in line at the grocery store behind a woman with a cart piled high and among its contents were soda, potato chips, and other tasty luxuries.  When the bill was tallied, she took out her book of food stamps and handed them to the cashier.  I related this story to a friend who told me that you can’t use food stamps on junk food so it must have been applied against the other items in the cart.  Even so, I thought back to when I grew up.  We weren’t poor but we were no where near rich.  Things like soda and potato chips were a rarity reserved only for those times when relatives were coming from a distance for a visit.  Otherwise it was home brewed ice tea and supermarket generic cookies.  But even those treats weren’t purchased through a subsidy of our food staples.

New York is now actively reecruiting new food stamp recipients in all languages imaginable.  It seems that it is not enough to provide the service but you have to make sure that everyone who can get food stamps is taking advantage of them.  Let’s see, government employees paid by taxpayers going all out to make sure that a taxpayer funded program is using as much taxpayer money as possible including a program on Rikers Island (the city jail) to enroll inmates as the leave.  The article describes one woman who was actively recruited to join the program:

A big woman with a broad smile, Ms. Bostick-Thomas swept into the group’s office a few days later, talking up her daughters’ college degrees and bemoaning the cost of oxtail meat.

“I’m not saying I go hungry,” Ms. Bostick-Thomas said. “But I can’t always eat what I want.”

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb here.  By a “big woman” can we take that observation to mean she is not lacking in caloric intake?  She says she doesn’t go hungry.  She talks about her daughter’s college degrees.  So why are taxpayers tasked with helping her eat what she wants?  And what is that anyway?  Steak? Lobster?  Twinkies?  Ice cream?  Why aren’t the daughters with their college degrees helping their mother?  Maybe they could invite her over once a week and feed her the foods she favors?  And if they are not local, why not ship her a box of Omaha Steaks?  Why does some other taxpayer have to pick up the tab for her after they worked hard to feed their own family?

The Other Side of the Coin

On the other side of the coin, from the budget of the same Department of Agriculture, we pay farmers not to grow food in the form of farm subsidies.  Why?  Well, if we didn’t, the prices of farm products, aka food, would become too cheap for the farmers to make a decent living.  In my simple economic model of supply and demand that would seem to indicate that maybe we have more farmers than we need.  But you see farming is a way of life as much as it is an occupation, and taxpayers must be sensitive to preserving that way of life whether or not it is economically justified.  I am sure there are several million unemployed people in this country who would like to have their jobs subsidized.  Unemployment compensation is when the government gives you a check (actually its funded by your employer) when you lose your job.  Farm subsidies are when the government (no employer funding here) pays farmers to keep working at their job.

Add to that another government program to pay farmers to produce corn to make ethanol, another uneconomic subsidy.  Ethanol is pitched as a substitute for gasoline, but it takes a lot of energy to make it, it cannot be transported via pipeline like petroleum products, and when the corn is diverted to produce ethanol, the cost of almost all food goes up.  Corn is used for feed for cattle, as seed to produce corn, for corn syrup as a sweeter.  So on top of regular farm subsidies, we have ethanol subsidies to further drive up food prices.  In the case of corn syrup, sugar could be a substitute, but our government places a very high tariff on imported sugar, to protect our domestic sugar producers.

Coming Full Circle

So, on the one hand we have several government programs, funded by taxpayers, that drive up the price of food.  Then we have another program, taxpayer funded, to help people buy food because food is too expensive.  And then we have government workers and programs, taxpayer funded, that are actively marketing the food stamp program to overweight people, who never go hungry, have college educated children who could help them but don’t seem to, so that the recipient can eat the things she wants to.  But if you see a problem with this, don’t worry.  Michele Obama is about to use more taxpayer dollars to launch a program to fight childhood obesity.  Can we get off this Merry-Go-Round?

How about we shut down the Department of Agriculture?  It’s function is not in the Constitution and so it should not exist at the federal level.  End farm subsidies.  If that means we have a few less farmers, so be it.  The American people do not owe anyone other than themselves a way of life.  To the farmer who can make it, you have my complete admiration.  End ethanol subsidies.  If ethannol is a viable fuel, it should be able succed on its own, not because Archer Daniels Midland spends millions on agricultural lobbyists. Negotiate free trade agreements so that our successful farmers, instead of being paid not to produce, produce and sell their goods around the world.  Likewise end high tariffs that protect our farm products.  These steps should lower the cost of food.

With lower food costs we shouldn’t need a food stamp program.  End it at the federal level along with the Department of Agriculture. If there continues to be a need it will probably be a much smaller one and let each state decide if it wants to start its own program.  Also, with everyone saving on food there is a greater liklihood for people to contribute to food banks to help the truly needy.  But to have one government program create a problem and another government program to try to solve it is lunacy.

With our economy hurtling toward a cliff with out of control spending, we don’t need to be on both sides of a problem.

The Incumbent Protection Act, aka McCain-Feingold, took a big hit yesterday from the Supreme Court.  It is particularly timely with so many incumbents nervously eying the exits.  The McCain-Feingold bill prohibited corporations and unions from “electioneering communications” within in 30 days of a primary, or 60 days of a general election.  Those time limits probably match pretty nicely with when most people start paying close attention to elections.  So if this kind of communication is cut off, who is left with the power of name recognition?  That’s right, the incumbent and that is probably why 90% of incumbents are re-elected.

Outrage on the Left

President Obama immediately came out swinging saying it was a victory for “big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies, and other special interests.”  He somehow overlooked the SEIU union whose president topped the list of visitors to the White House.  Unions will have unfettered communications as well.  Chuck Schumer promises hearings and the Naderite Public Citizen group is proposing a constitutional amendment banning free speech for “for-profit” corporations.  I’ll give you a moment to ponder that; a constitutional amendment to eviscerate the First Amendment.

The Momentum is Building

On April 15 it will be the first anniversary of the Tea Parties that were held across the country.  Let’s raise a cup of tea, that the Ship of Liberty that was foundering on the rocks may at last be turning it’s guns on the enemy and turning the tide of battle.  Virginia, New Jersey, a close loss in NY23, Massachusetts, the First Amendment, the momentum is building.  But let’s not forget the words of Churchill:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. — Winston Churchill

Don’t let up until we have our country back.

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 teacher’s 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 teacher’s 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 function 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; Deparment of Housing and Urban Development–gone; Deparment of Transportation–gone; Deparment of Energy–gone; Deparment of Education–gone; Deparment of Veterans Affairs–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense;  Deparment of Homeland Security–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense; Deparment of the Interior–gone; Deparment 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.

President Obama is in Japan today and plans to issue a joint statement on nuclear disarmament.  It’s not yet clear how far he will go towards apologizng for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but one can never tell with his worldwide apology tour.

Let’s Ban All Nuclear Weapons

With the same idiocy that is used in gun control here in America where criminals with illegal guns are given a government issued guarantee that their prey will be defenseless, the Obama Administration wants to extend this to the world of nuclear weapons.

Can’t you just see the grinning Ahmadinejad, with a secret stash of nuclear weapons, as President Obama ceremoniously destroys our last nuclear weapon?  Or how about Kim Jung Il?  Do you think he will feel a little taller that day?  Can’t Obama just do something innocuous like Gerry Ford and hand out WIN buttons?  Does each of his programs have to do damage to our country on such a massive scale?

When democracies having nuclear weapons are demonized, only demons will have nuclear weapons.  God help us all.

Conservatives, do not lose heart.  Tea Party people, stand firm.  Like many great turning points in history, they often involve an historic battle that is lost.  The Alamo. Remember the Maine. Dunkirk.  Pearl Harbor.  9/11.  What they do instead is rally the troops, get them fired up and motivated.

The Battle

In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, the aloofness of the professional pols came to a head.  It was the epitome of a recent Rasmussen poll that said 74% of Republicans said their elected leaders were out of touch with the base.  On the Democratic side, the opposite was the case were most Democrats felt their elected leaders held similar views to their own.  So what happened in the special election in New York’s 23rd district?

Republican party bosses chose Dede Scozzafava to defend a seat that has been Republican since the Civil War.   Ms. Scozzafava is pro-abortion, pro-”reform in workers ability to organize”, pro-gay marriage,  pro-Obama stimulus package, and endorsed by the Working Families Party, an ACORN front group.  That was more than conservatives could stand.  Doug Hoffman threw his hat in the ring, conservatives from around the country rallied to him, and Scozzafava eventually dropped out of the race and threw her support behind…the Democrat!!

So the race was between a Democrat and a Conservative, with the Republican candidate a footnote.  The Democrat prevailed by about 5% and picked up a seat for Nancy Pelosi.

The Talking Heads

The liberals started rubbing their hands and crowing over the Republican party self-destructing.  I see it differently.

In a Gallup poll, 40% of Americans considered themselves conservative, 20% described themselves as liberals.  That leaves 40% in the middle.  The prevailing wisdom among the Republican Party leadership is that we need to run “moderates” and have a big tent to win elections.  I say, do the math. 

If you need 50% to win the election, and many times you don’t, then run a conservative candidate.  You will start off with the 40% that call themselves conservative, and then you only need to win 25% of the middle to put you over the top.  (40% in the middle x 25% = 10%; 40% conservative base plus this 10% = 50%). 

Liberals have the tougher job.  Starting out with only a base of 20% self-described liberals, they need to win 3/4 of the middle to get to 50% and win.  It’s even tougher for them because they typically have to go hard left to win the primary and then try to swim upstream to get back in the middle without anyone noticing.

Putting Elections on a Platter

So what has been the strategy of the Republican Party leadership?  Run moderates, because “we can’t win elections with the conservative base alone.”  That’s true but neither can the Democrats win with just their liberal base and as I just proved, theirs is the tougher job.  But when you run moderates, here’s what happens.  A good portion of the conservative base stays home, disgusted.  So from starting with 40%, you maybe now have a 20% base.  You just let the Democrats pull even.  Now you have to win not 25% of the middle but half of the middle.  Let’s say the middle is a continuum from almost conservative to almost liberal.  If Republicans keep their base, then they can just go after the middle group that is “almost” conservative.  If they alienate their base then they have to get every vote in the middle that is the least bit conservative and maybe some liberals.  On the flip side, if they keep their base by running conservative candidates, that forces the Democrat to get all the liberals, all moderates, and some who lean conservative, to capture 3/4 of the middle.  After going hard left to get nominated, that is an almost impossible task.

Don’t Let Obama Fool You

Obama’s election had an historical element to it that we are not likely to see again.  He is an incredibly good speaker, that is, until you realize that is all he is.  Put up a moderate like McCain, and it was no contest.  The only time it became interesting was when McCain picked Palin, which got the base energized.  But the McCain campaign completely mismanaged bringing Palin on board, and the moment was lost.

Remember the 23rd!

So, conservatives have to rally and the Republican leadership has to pay attention.  As Margaret Thatcher used to say, “Don’t go wobbly.”  Start putting conservatives on the field and turn the tide of the battle. 

The next battle is Florida where Charlie Crist…better update his resume, there is a new kid in town, named Marco Rubio and he’s a conservative.

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 Spector, 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 unelectiable 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.

When Ronald Reagan left office it was more than “Morning in America.”  The Cold War was on its death bed.  The economy was booming, and there was optimism everywhere.  Why?  Because Ronald Reagan didn’t see the government as the solution but part of the problem.

There is a story from World War II where the Germans successfully attacked an airfield wiping out many American planes on the ground.  When they came back to do a reconnaissance check, they saw that all the planes had been replaced.  They knew at that point they could never win the war when the American economy, not just the military was lined up against them.

How did Reagan win the Cold War without firing a shot?  Not by negotiating for more arms reductions, but by building up our military.  He understood that the planned economy of the Soviets could not possibly keep up with the free market American economy.  They were broke and an arms race was not possible to win.

Then and Now

Where are we today?  President Obama and his administration are piling more debt on us than at any time in history.  His is attacking the most productive in our society as the means to pay for all his plans.  How long will they put up with it?  He is trying to expand government to unprecedented size.  Meanwhile the Chinese Communists are instituting free market reforms and buying up our debt.  It is not hard to see at some future date the Chinese Communists doing to us what Reagan did to the Soviets.  The Chinese economy is growing strongly, and the Obama Administration is crippling our ability to respond to a Chinese threat of an arms race, with overwhelming debt.  His focus may look like it’s domestic, but it carries a dangerous national security component.  National security is explicit in the Constitution.  Everything that Obama is reaching for is under the cloudy authorization of “the General Welfare” under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.  We need to get back to the explicit responsibilities of the federal government enumerated in the Constitution and leave everything else to the states and the people as the Tenth Amendment tells us.

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 everytime 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 get 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 spend 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 larget 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, Michagan?  Aren’t those all “blue” states?  So is the Obama adminsitration 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 benevolant, 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.