Congressman Tim Bishop continues to push his manufactured campaign issue, with the full union backing of the Communication Workers of America, to fight against outsourced call centers. He calls it a “surgical strike”. I think there are more appropriate names for it.

It’s always fun to listen to someone who hasn’t spent a day outside of academia or government tell the rest of us, a) what the problem is; and b) what the solution is. The first question that I would ask Congressman Bishop is “why is this such an important issue for your constituents?” Answer: It isn’t. There are no major call centers in his district and there are none that I know of that are weighing a move to his district. So why is this his major legislative focus?

He is desperately looking for an issue, any issue, that he can campaign on. He cannot campaign on his record. He cannot campaign on a record of supporting the Obama economic disaster. He cannot campaign on how much the debt ballooned on his watch. So Doctor Bishop wants to do a little surgery and penalize companies who outsource call centers. Since Bishop never held a job that produced anything for a profit he can be excused for not grasping the impacts of his proposed bill.

One of his provisions is to make companies that have outsourced call center jobs overseas ineligible for government contracts. Two of the largest US PC manufactures HP and Dell and they both have call centers overseas. So does Congressman Bishop want the stop the federal government from buying PCs from HP and Dell? Who should they buy them from? Chinese Lenovo, Taiwan based Acer? Japan’s Toshiba? Speaking like a general he says it is a surgical strike. Well surgical strikes are designed to limit collateral damage, and Bishop’s plan is chock full of collateral damage.

Here is how Bishop could really help the situation. First, take a basic economics course. Study how the global economy works and how free global trade helps everyone. Perhaps he should ask his backers at the Communications Workers of America, what they can do to make call centers in the US more cost-effective. Do they have too many work rules in their contracts? Do they force their members to pay union dues to pay for the union to back Bishop and Obama? If their dues were limited to collective bargaining, perhaps employers could afford more call center jobs in the US. Tell Obama we need to slash the corporate tax rate so that companies do not save billions of dollars by locating operations in overseas countries with lower tax rates and then trap those profits overseas so they can’t be brought back to create jobs here.

But that may be too much to ask of Mr. Bishop before November. So here’s a better idea. Step down, and let someone who has actually created jobs take your place.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

It’s time for Romney and Gingrich to step up their games with the fall in mind and stop slinging mud at each other. I’ll give Santorum and Paul a pass at this point as although they are trailing far behind, they are trying to stay on the high road and true to their beliefs.

Tips for Mitt

It’s time to give up the ghost on RomneyCare. Okay, you were a govenor and states are sovereign and it looked like a good idea at the time. But your efforts to defend RomneyCare while attacking ObamaCare is one of the reasons that many conservatives don’t trust you. ObamaCare is largely resonsible for the birth of the Tea Party, the only birth that conservatives want associated with ObamaCare and Obama probably wishes it was an abortion instead. I think many conservatives would accept you saying, it appeared workable, no one had tried it before, states should be a laboratory for differnt approaches to governing, but this idea really didn’t work, and regardless of whether it worked or not, healthcare is not the constitutional responsiblity of the federal government. Then forcefully reitereate that you will end ObamaCare.

Everyone knows that politics is not beanbag. It is a full contact sport, but just be careful with taking things out of context to twist their meaning. There should be enough differences between you and Gingrich, to present your plans and let the people decide. Keep it clean, no hitting below the belt.

Tips for Newt

It’s time to put on your big boy pants. If you think Romney is tough, wait until you get in the ring with Obama. He will have no compunction about lying about your record. If your excuse for not doing as well in the last two debates is that you never stood next to someone on the same stage who lied about your record, you have a rude awakening coming. If most of your supporters are salavating to see you debate Obama and this is all it takes to knock you off your debating game, throw in the towel now, please!

You need to come clean on what you did for Freddie Mac. Obama is still blaming the economy on the Bush years and the terrible mess he was handed, the center of which was the housing meltdown. If you don’t put on the table exactly what your role was and what you were paid to do, Obama will have a field day saying, “For the past four years we have been trying to recover from the housing crisis, and do you really want to put someone in the White House who caused it? De we really want to go back there?” Newt, you have to get this out now and put it behind you if he can.

It’s Obama and the Economy, Stupid

If we don’t get Obama out of the White House, ObamaCare will be permanant. If you thought Obama had socialist leanings before, imagine what they will be if he no longer has to face the electorate? If the past three years haven’t been painful enough, what will happen with a Republican Congress and an Obama presidency? Obama will try to run on a “do-nothing” Congress this fall but that’s a tough sell with the Democrats in Control of the Senate, but if the Republicans take both chambers and Obama stonwalls for two years, he can make that argument in 2014, “It’s a Republican Congess and we are stonewalled. I need a Democratic Congress to work with.” We may see a reverse landslide to 2010. Let us not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This should be an easy election to win, if we don’t screw it up ourselves.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Don’t pay attention to what you are hearing from Obama’s supporters. What they really want may be the opposite of what they are saying.

Let’s start with some basic math. Forty percent of Americans self-identify themselves as conservative, twenty percent as liberal, leaving forty percent in the middle. For a conservative to win, they have to hold their base (40%) and pick up twenty-five percent of those in the middle (25% of 40% equals 10%). That will give them fifty percent of the vote. Liberals, on the other hand, need to hold their base (20%) and pick up seventy-five percent of those in the middle. The last time the Republicans nominated a true conservative, Ronald Reagan it was two blow-out victories. Liberals will argue that the time before that Republicans picked Barry Goldwater and it was a blow-out the other way. This is true, but I believe there were some mitigating circumstances. First, if Goldwater was elected he would have been the third U.S. president in less than three years. America might not have been ready for that. Then there was the famous Johnson ad suggesting that Goldwater was ready to start a nuclear war.

What is different since then? America is ready for a new president, as they were when Jimmy Carter was in office. The is no threat of an all out nuclear war, although there are nuclear dangers. Last, I turn to a famous quote by Winston Churchill, “If you are twenty, and you are not a liberal you have no heart. If you are forty, and you are not a conservative, you have no brain.” We are a more conservative country now.

Mitt Romney

I believe Obama would prefer to run against Romney. Conservatives do not embrace Mitt Romney. So right out of the gate, he is at risk of losing part of his base. To succeed he has to pick up more of the middle. In an Obama vs. Romney match-up, don’t think the race card will not be played. It will be done in a subtle way. For example, the main stream media will probably run more stories about race in America, inequality, unemployment among minorities, suggesting it is racially motivated. If enough white guilt can be kept alive, Obama gets another shot. In a debate, Obama can go right after Romney and say I based ObamaCare on RomneyCare, and don’t deny it. Romney is immediately on the defensive. Obama will try to narrow the differences between him and Romney. As the governor of a blue state, Romney had to take some positions  to get elected. Obama will highlight those. If he can make the case of who do you want to vote for, the honest upfront liberal, or the pseudo liberal in Republican clothing, it will be another Obama-McCain match.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry has stronger conservative credentials, but has lost support over his immigration stance. That means an even tougher hill to climb, capturing more of the middle with stronger conservative credentials than Romney. The other negative is that Perry’s debate performances have been dismal. I don’t think Obama will have a hard time pushing Perry’s hot buttons in a debate and if he can bait him into an outburst, Perry’s done.

Herman Cain

I think Herman Cain is who Obama’s team fears the most. Conservatives are embracing Cain, so he seems to be in the best position so far to hold the base. The race card is out of play. Cain has been working on getting his positions down on policy, but when gets it, he knows his material. He does not need a teleprompter to deliver a speech. He has executive experience like Romney and Perry, but not in government. Which could be a bad thing, or it could be a good thing. The bad thing is that government experience helps in knowing what levers to pull. The good thing is that you don’t accept that’s the way it has always been, you ask why? If no one can give you a good reason, stop doing it. That could be huge with today’s bloated government. I have no concerns about a one-on-one debate between Obama and Cain.

The Abortion Issue

There is a big kerfuffle over what Cain said in response to a question on abortion. He said it was a personal decision. Here is the actual clip;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKYYDefMV4

Cain makes a couple of points and Piers Morgan tries to set the usual trap. Cain clearly and emphatically says he is pro-life. He also talks about the federal government’s role in abortion since, after all, he is running for a federal office. Abortion is not in the Constitution, either for or against. There is no Constitutional right to kill your child. Prior to the disastrous Roe v. Wade decision, it was left up to the states, which is where it should be. So Morgan goes for the trap, find a difficult personal dilemma, put your guest in that role and try to get them to contradict himself. Cain didn’t bite, but he fell short in his explanation. What he later explained he meant by a personal decision was that when faced with such a dilemma, you are going to follow your beliefs, talk about it with your family, maybe get spiritual counseling, but the last thing you will probably do is a Google search on what the law is. As Reid Buckley wrote about his family in An American Family: The Buckleys,  “The solidarity that our parents fostered in their children was remarkable. God, Family, Country…and in that order.” You do what you believe is right and sort out the consequences later.

The Media

The media is attacking Cain because he is the front-runner and they see him as a big threat to Obama, mainly because they will lose the race card, their favorite tool. After all what can Janeane Garafolo say now? What can they attack the Tea Party about? Obama will be forced to run on his record, his healthcare, his immigration policy.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Just when you thought Joe Biden couldn’t get any lower he finds a new bottom to scrape. In an act of desperation to save the sorry state of this administration Joe Biden introduces rape and murder as justification to pass their latest job bill and implies that if you oppose the jobs bill you are in favor of more rape and murder.

First of all, police, firefighters and teachers are not employees of the federal government. They are employees of and paid for by local government. So any money that comes from Washington to help pay their salaries will at some point end and then what? Either the state or locality comes up with the funding to maintain those positions or they have to lay them off. The Republicans accurately called that measure temporary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxxotkX9ZOo

So Biden says increases in crime that have happened in Flint, Michigan, specifically rape and murder will increase if the Republicans continue to oppose this second stimulus package. It is not temporary to the crime victim, Biden says.

Let me provide Vice President Biden some scenarios, not hypothetical, but a true stories.

Sherry Rives, of Bear Creek, North Carolina, emerged from her shower to see a knife-wielding man coming towards her. When he threatened to rape her, she ran into her bedroom and got her 9 mm pistol. The two wrestled for the pistol and Rives was wounded in the thigh. She then gained control of the pistol and shot her tormentor several times, forcing him to flee. She then locked herself in the bathroom and called police. When police arrived, they found the would-be rapist dead with four bullet wounds to the chest. The woman’s father said she kept the pistol in the house for protection and she knew how to use it.– The Herald, Sanford, NC, November 12, 1997

The burglar ransacked 81-year-old Alberta Nicles’ Muskegon, Michigan, home before waking her up and ordering her around the house to search for money. Ending up back in her bedroom, the intruder–a suspected crack addict with a long history of criminal activity–removed the widow’s pajama bottoms and was preparing to rape her when she informed him that she knew where there was some money. Her assailant let her up and followed her to a closet where the woman instead retrieved her late husband’s .38. She turned and shot her tormentor to death. Nicles then went to a neighbor’s home to call police because her own lines had been severed by the intruder prior to his breaking in. “This was not just a random breaking and entering. …He was planning on taking advantage of the vulnerability of an elderly person. …She was clearly acting in self-defense,” Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague said.– The Chronicle, Muskegon, MI, January 2, 1997

A Stockton, California, real estate agent put an end to an attempted rape, after a man posing as a potential home buyer attacked her in a model home. Crumpling to the floor, the realtor drew a .380 from her purse, forcing the man to flee. Pursuing him outside, the woman fired several shots at the man, missing him as he jumped in his car. She halted his escape by shooting out one of his tires and with the help of some nearby construction workers, held the thug for police. The would-be rapist is being investigated in connection with a similar 1993 attack on a female real estate agent. — The Record, Stockton, CA, February 18, 1995

Those of us who defend the Second Amendment have a saying, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” I would like to ask Vice President Joe Biden where in each of the scenarios above the victim, or potential victim, could stop the action, call 911, and then wait patiently with their attacker until the police arrive? I would guess that Vice President Biden would say, gee that’s a tough situation, you should probably submit to the rape so that you are not killed, of which there is no guarantee, and then call 911 as soon as you can afterward.

Joe Biden has been an outspoken supporter of gun control. He doesn’t grasp the fact that police rarely stop crimes, they investigate crimes. It is the deterrent effect of certain punishment that may prevent crimes. What can stop a crime in progress is a citizen with the right to carry a gun. Other than that it is picking up the pieces. So to come full circle in the analogy, by his advocacy of gun control Joe Biden is responsible for more rapes and murders than anyone who votes for this new round of stimulus. I could, once again, say shame on Joe Biden, but what would be the point?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

photo by kevin dooley

Tim Bishop is frustrated. He says so in an e-mail to constituents. When you have subsisted in Washington by spending other people’s money while making it appear you are Santa Claus, you get frustrated when the spending spigot is shut off. He laments that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has not “advanced a real agenda”. Really? The House passed a budget. How are Tim’s Bishop’s colleagues in the Senate doing with that? With the nation sinking under $16 trillion in debt, about $6 billion of which was added since Tim Bishop went to Congress, the Republicans passed “Cut, Cap, and Balance.” Tim Bishop voted against it, and his colleagues in the Senate wouldn’t even vote on it. Just what does the term “real agenda” mean to Tim Bishop?

Tim Bishop voted against a bill that would halt new EPA regulations on cement companies until the matter was studied further. Tim Bishop voted billions of dollars for “shovel ready” projects that President Obama later snickered weren’t so shovel ready (another revelation for the most inexperienced president in our history). Who knew? Now if I am not mistaken, as an engineer I believe a fair amount of concrete would be needed in most construction projects. So again, we have Tim Bishop in a fight with himself. He calls for more infrastructure spending, and then opposes delaying new regulations on cement companies, cement being one of the primary ingredients in concrete. What a concept; let’s spend boatloads of money on construction and make construction more expensive at the same time so that we get the least amount of bang for our buck.

Tim Bishop voted against a bill that would require the economic impact of EPA regulations be evaluated. If it is okay to require an environmental impact statement on construction projects, why not require an economic impact statement on EPA regulations? Tim says that would be bad.

If that is not enough, he closes his e-mail by asking constituents to send him ideas on how Washington should get more involved. This is from the Congressman who had to intervene on behalf of Long Island wineries to get Washington to speed up on the approval of the shape of their wine bottles and their labels. This we need more of? If you look at the Constitution, half of what the federal government does is not in there and should be shut down.

Tim Bishop voted for the stimulus that will have to be paid back. Based on the fact that his district is wealthier than average (let’s chant together, “Tax the Rich! Tax the Rich!”), we will end up paying about $3 billion of that tab while the district got about $600 million in funds. That means that Tim Bishop voted in favor of a program that will provide about $3 billion in funding somewhere else at a cost of around $600 million to those citizens. This has typically been the case in New York. Our heavily Democrat congressional delegation keeps voting for bigger and bigger government that New Yorkers have to pay far more for than they ever receive in benefits and they wonder why New Yorkers are moving elsewhere? (Hint: that’s why we are losing two Congressional seats). How dumb is that?

Tim Bishop doesn’t have a clue, and doesn’t appear to be looking for one. It is time for a change.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

President Obama Speaking at Solyndra

Congressman Tim Bishop has not been able to keep from spending, no matter what. The Postal Service has an $8.5 billion deficit, and Tim Bishop is out there fighting to keep an unneeded post office open. We are trillions of dollars in debt and he comes out blasting the Tea Party, because they want Congress to not waste anymore money on green boondoggles like Solyndra.

At issue is a Continuing Resolution, that is, a bill to provide temporary funding to the government. At the heart of the issue is that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has run out of money, so there is an issue of whether to give them $3 billion more or $6 billion more. In addition the Republicans want to cut funding for such green projects like Solyndra, which just declared bankruptcy after getting a $500 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee. How heartless can those Tea Party people be to not want to send good money after bad for progressive boondoggles? But of course we should listen to Tim Bishop. After all he has been such a trusted steward of our money so far, right?

The above chart shows how much debt limit has been increased by Congress to keep the government functioning, since 1940, when it was almost zero. Tim Bishop was sworn into Congress in January of 2003, from a point where it had leveled off, the line almost goes vertical. That is eight trillion dollars in additional borrowing in just ten years in office, and he has the utter gall to say the Tea Party’s calls for restraint are unwarranted? Somebody has to do it. If Tim Bishop and Nancy Pelosi had not spent trillions of dollars that the government didn’t have, maybe we wouldn’t be quibbling over $3 billion.

Waste and Fraud

It remains to be seen if Solyndra was a massive fraud or the Democrats thinking they are really investment bankers and venture capitalists rather than elected officials, but we could have used that $500 million rather than waste it. But Bishop objects:

“Even worse, the Republican bill calls for much of that sum to be funded by cutting federal loan programs that have encouraged new job creation by U.S. automakers and clean energy manufacturers.” — e-mail message from Tim Bishop to his constituents.

$39 billion in stimulus dollars have been earmarked for green energy jobs. So far, $19 billion has been spent and 3,500 jobs have been created. That’s $5.4 million per job, people, do you think we can do better than that in the private sector? But what is a “green job?” According to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, if you drive a hybrid bus, it’s a green job, if you drive a gas-powered bus it is not a green job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1scrqqWpFlM

As one pundit put it, Washington is the only place where the circus never leaves town. This is what Congressman Bishop decries that Republicans are trying to cut. Do you think your hard-earned money is being well spent?

There is a report out today that the federal government paid about $600 million to federal workers who are DEAD! The Justice Department buys muffins for a meeting that cost $16 each! Medicare and Medicaid routinely have $60-$100 billion per stolen, and Tim Bishop has no suggestions how to cut, and even takes the time to write his constituents that, “I am sick and tired of this divisive posturing we have come to expect from the Republican Tea Party Caucus.”

I have a piece of news for you, Congressman, in case you have not been paying attention. The last Democrat who thought it would be a great idea to attack his opponent as beholden to the Tea Party was a guy named David Weprin in the 9th Congressional District of New York special election. In a district that was 3:1 Democrat registered voters, he lost big. Many Tea Party members from the heart of your district traveled on their own time and at their own expense into Brooklyn and Queens to get out the vote for Bob Turner. If you think it is a winning strategy to attack the Tea Party, I have three words for you. Bring it on.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by Mike Licht, nationscapital.com

Often overlooked in the class warfare that President Obama is unleashing on America so that he can continue spending, is how business is being strangled by regulations. Every time the government fails to protect our rights and freedoms because it is too busy trying to micromanage our lives, and as a result some calamity descends upon us, the answer is always more regulations. Nowadays, that will typically mean thousands of pages of new laws that turn into tens of thousands of pages of new regulations and those who never met a payroll wonder why we are stuck at 9% unemployment.

Why does this happen? I believe there are two reasons. The first is the expansive view of the Constitution that many progressives hold. There is very little that they believe the federal government is not allowed to do. Most of our law schools are also espousing the concept of a “living, breathing” Constitution, meaning that what the Founding Fathers wrote is quaint but its meaning must change with the times. The graduates of those law schools eventually make it to the bench and even the Supreme Court. The problem is that if you take that view, the Constitution is meaningless.  If you can say the Constitution meant this in 1792, but those same words mean something else today, you no longer have a Constitution.  As Jefferson wrote,

“Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution; Let us not make it blank paper by construction. –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, Monticello, September 7, 1803.

The progressives are doing exactly what Jefferson said we should not do, turn the Constitution into blank paper, by contriving different meanings from the words than the authors intended.

The second problem is that the function of the Congress is to write laws. They don’t enforce them, that’s the role of the executive branch. So their knee jerk reaction to a problem is to write another law, regardless of whether the previous law is not working simply because it is not enforced.

So what are the checks on this runaway regulation? Congress keeps churning out more and more regulations that are choking the economy, and the Supreme Court has let them wander far afield of the Constitution. There used to be another check on runaway federal power, but that was eliminated with the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution.

When the Founders created the concept of the United States, they envisioned a president elected by the people, a judiciary appointed for life, and a Congress split into two chambers. One of those chambers, the House of Representatives would be the branch of government closest to the people. The other chamber was to represent the states. If you recall it was the states that created the federal government, not the other way around, and the states wanted to have a say in that government. To do so, senators were appointed by state legislatures, and as such, if they wanted to remain in that role they were to represent the interests of the states to the federal government.

The Seventeenth Amendment changed it so that senators would be directly elected by the people. Knowing human nature as I am sure you do, would senators continue to care what their state legislatures wanted or would they start to pander to individual blocks of voters? So with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment the states were shut out of a direct say in the federal government and were reduced to becoming lobbyists.

If you think of some of the more partisan senators, from both sides of the aisle, do you think they would be appointed by their state legislatures? Do you think there would be any such thing as a federal unfunded mandates? Do you think there would be a Department of Education?, Transportation? Housing and Urban Development? EPA? Most states already have similar departments at the state level. What senators, appointed by their state governments, would pass these laws? Very few, I would venture to say.

Regulations in Action

Consider where we are today. Early in the Bush administration, concern was raised about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their solvency. Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank said they were fine, and Dodd filibustered any attempt to rein them in. The financial industry blew up and what do we now have? The Dodd-Frank Act that layers on massive regulation to the financial services industry and many banks are just sitting on money rather than lend it.

In 2001, Enron went bankrupt taking billions down the drain with it. The principals of that firm ended up with long prison sentences. The accounting firm that audited the books went out of business, but somehow that was not enough. Massive new regulations were needed to make sure it didn’t happen again. In the following video, listen to Bernie Marcus, one of the founders of The Home Depot, which employs 350,000 people today describe what it would be like to start that company today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjRIM1LFWRM

In an economy that is in desperate need to create jobs, a company that eventually created 350,000 jobs could not get off the ground today because of regulations. How many more Home Depots are out there? How many companies have said, the hell with it, let’s stay private, even if it means curtailing growth, going public is not worth the cost nor the headaches.

Our government is killing us, economically. It cannot slake its thirst for more tax revenues; it cannot stop spending;  it cannot resist telling us something else we should do for our own good; it cannot help trying to craft the perfect law and regulation that will prevent all harm from befalling even the most naive among us. It cannot be done. But unless and until we unwind the coil of regulation that is choking us to death; unless and until we perform liposuction on the laws that are crushing us under their weight; unless and until we return to Constitutionally limited government and fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility, the terms Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness will be redefined to Subsistence, Subservience, and Preying upon each other. Which America do you want to live in?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner photo by craezer

Yesterday, the House passed a bill that would prevent the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from telling Boeing, America’s largest exporter, that it couldn’t build a factory in South Carolina, a Right-To-Work state. Boeing built a $750 million factory (with their own money, not yours) and hired 1,500 workers, before the NLRB stepped in and called this union retaliation. But no jobs are being eliminated back in Washington state, in fact, Boeing has added  2,000 jobs.

So why is the federal government telling a private company where it can or cannot locate a factory? It is purely a union play, by a bunch of bureaucrats. Boeing faced a tough strike in 2008 for 58 days. Boeing’s new plane the 787 Dreamliner is way behind schedule, partly due to the strike. Boeing tried to negotiate a ten-year moratorium on strikes by the union. The union refused. So Boeing decided to add capacity in South Carolina. It didn’t shut down operations in Washington state, it didn’t relocate the plants in Washington to South Carolina, and yet the NLRB says it is a retaliatory move because of the 2008 strike. I guess in the bizarro world of the NLRB adding 2,000 jobs in Washington is retaliation.

What is President Obama doing about this? After all it is adding jobs in an economy that desperately needs them and doing so with private money. Obama says the NLRB is an independent board so his hands are tied. Now if you will excuse him, he has to get back to demanding more taxpayer money to create green jobs at a cost of around $600,000 each. Meanwhile, Obama’s jobs adviser, Jeffrey Immelt of GE is shipping jobs off to China to help the Chinese compete with Boeing. What the hell is going on here?

We have Congressman like Tim Bishop fighting to keep an unneeded post office open at taxpayer’s expense, and fighting to stop Boeing from creating jobs with private money in South Carolina. He is joined in this effort by his Congressional neighbor, Steve Israel, from the adjoining district who also happens to head up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, responsible for giving control of the House of Representatives back to Nancy Pelosi. This is purely a union play. But I’ve got some bad news for the Congressmen. According to a recent Rasmussen poll 48% of Americans no longer see a need for labor unions, while 30% disagree.

The unions threw everything they had at Scott Walker in Wisconsin and lost; they came out in force against Bob Turner in NY-9 and lost; we have Jimmy Hoffa calling the Tea Party folks “sons of bitches” who should be taken out. Taken out? Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds like a violent threat, not that the unions are ever violent, but I am probably overreacting. We all know that violence always comes from the Tea Party.

It’s time to clean house people. Jobs are created by private industry, not government. Our president doesn’t understand that. Not only does he not understand that but his appointees at the NLRB are actively working to kill private sector jobs. President Obama for an equivalent time in office, has the second worst job creation record, only surpassed by Herbert Hoover. He and Hoover are the only two presidents since 1890 with negative job growth over their first two and a half years in office. If there are any moving companies that do business between Washington, D.C. and Chicago, you might want to add 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to your mailing list.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by Violentz

Most presidents view an address to a joint session of Congress for serious non-partisan purposes. Outside the annual State of the Union address they are rare. President Bush only did it once, in the aftermath of 9/11, and while jobs are very important to the country at this time, it is no place for a lecture (saying pass this bill seventeen times) from the most inexperienced president in our history.

This is not to minimize the importance of getting the economy moving. Who does not know that this is a problem? But it rings hollow that it was not important enough for the president to call Congress back into session in August, nor to delay his own two-week vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. Even scheduling the speech was bungled. President Obama does not seem to understand that Congress is co-equal to the Presidency and to the Judiciary. They do not report to him. He does not commandeer their chamber for his use whenever he so desires. He can make a request and then Congress can pass a resolution to invite him.

But let’s look at it a different way. Can anyone imagine John Boehner requesting an audience in the White House where he would bring in television cameras and then lecture the president about how things are done around here? Preposterous. But this president used his State of the Union address to lecture the Supreme Court, also guests at that speech, on a ruling that they made. Just who does he think he is? He is not king; he is not a dictator. He is a candidate for reelection who is rapidly sinking in the polls and is looking for the Hail Mary that will save his sorry presidency.

Having added four trillion dollars to the national debt, he is back looking for more. After a bruising battle to raise the debt limit, all he can think about is spending. But this time it will be different. This time it is paid for. Let’s think about that. Paid for by whom?

The federal government has no money other than what it takes from the private sector. So how is it possible that President Obama and his merry men and women are smarter than 340 million of their fellow Americans? How do they think that they can take money from the private sector, and only they know how to best put it back into the private sector to make the economy grow? I know there are readers out there objecting that it is not just the private sector who pays for government, but actually it is.

Think of it this way. If a Congressman takes his $174,000 salary and, assuming he knows how to actually use TurboTax, he figures out that he owes $50,000 in income tax and pays it. Is he really paying for any part of government other than a portion of his own salary? To put it another way, would it be any different to cut the salary to $124,000 and make it tax-free? Not really. The Congressman will never pay enough in taxes to cover his own salary. The same can be said of any government worker. They will never pay enough taxes to cover their own pay and put additional money to pay for the rest of government. So the government is ultimately supported by the private sector. The more government spends, the less there is available to the private sector that really creates jobs, because at a minimum, some of the money collected has to go to paying the rest of the salaries and everything else that is government. If you leave a dollar in the private sector it is still a dollar, If you pass it through the government first, you will never get the whole dollar back into the private sector.

So if you want the economy to grow; if you want to create jobs, the way to do it is to make the government as small as possible to still meet its basic mission, as spelled out in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), and leaving the rest to us. Shrink the government back to what the Founding Fathers laid out, and reduce the taxes accordingly. This is not the time for political posturing.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by photobunny

It would be an understatement to say that unions have had some setbacks recently, so what’s wrong with hogging a holiday all to themselves as they lick their wounds?

The Marathon County Labor Council originally tried to ban Republican lawmakers from Monday’s parade, but it backed down when the Wausau mayor threatened to refuse insurance costs and other expenses to the public event.

While it is true that organized labor was behind the establishment of Labor Day, when you consider that at their peak in the 1950s, unions only represented a little over a third of  all workers, it never would have happened without a lot of non-union support to get them more than the fifty percent needed to pass any legislation. So just how did we get in this mess?

Another New Deal Idea

The National Labor Relations Board was created as part of the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, passed in 1935, in the midst of the progressive movement. The Wagner Act is an interesting study.

First of all there is nothing in the Constitution that empowers Congress to pass any law regarding the conditions under which private businesses could or could not hire people. The Wagner Act only applied to private companies, as even Roosevelt said that allowing public sector employees to organize was crazy, or to use his own words:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters. — Letter to Luther C. Steward, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, August 16, 1937

The Act also allowed states the prerogative to protect against compulsory union membership. This is exactly backwards. The federal government doesn’t tell the states what it can or cannot do.  The states created the federal government (remember that ratification process back in 1788?) and in case there was any doubt, they erased it with the Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. {emphasis added}

You will notice that it is the states, through the Constitution, that are granting powers to the federal government, not the other way around. The Act tells private employers that if they fire someone for joining a union they have committed a federal crime, but if they fire someone for not joining a union that was okay and is federally protected.

Adding the Public Sector

Despite Roosevelt’s views on public sector unions, if there is a political opportunity to stick it to the citizens to advance one’s political career by all means do so. New York City Mayor Robert Wagner, the very son of the Senator who sponsored the Wagner ACT, was facing a tough reelection. All five Democrat county leaders were against him. That’s not good when that happens. Wagner needed to pull a rabbit out of his hat if he was going to win. So, in 1958 an aide came up with the idea of allowing public sector employees to unionize and create a huge voting block in his favor. Eureka! He went on to win again. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, allowing the unionization of federal workers. It wasn’t a law debated and passed by Congress, just an executive order from one president.

In the private sector union membership declined from it’s peak to its current level of around 7% of all workers. In the public sector is has continued to grow, and to cost a bundle. Why? As union leader Victor Gotbaum said, “we have the ability to elect our own boss.” And elect they did, unions almost always come out in force for Democrats, those who get elected have been more than happy to negotiate generous pay packages, early retirement, retirement pay formulas that allow loading up on overtime the last few years to jack up the calculation, numerous sick days that can be converted to cold hard cash upon retirement, etc., etc. The cookie jar is empty. The party is over. Stop whining, kid, that you didn’t get more ice cream.

Labor Day for All Americans

How about we celebrate Labor Day for all Americans, who work and have worked  to make this country great? How about a little round of applause for all those non-union workers who supported the rights of union workers to organize? This is not a private party with a union goon manning the velvet rope. This is an American holiday that is open to all Americans, because it was passed into law as a legal holiday by our Congress. Thank you. Now, I’ll have a beer and a Hot Dog, please.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.