State of Conservatism – Page 131

Maryland GOP: ‘Told you so!’

Unfortunately, sometime awhile back I already used “in the category of ‘duh'” and I didn’t wish to use it again. But, surprisingly, the best-laid plans of Martin O’Malley and Free State Democrats didn’t work, and Maryland Senate Republicans didn’t hesitate to point this fact out:

Final tax data from 2008 now proves what many predicted but had been strenuously denied by Democrats in Annapolis: Maryland’s high income earners are voting with their feet.

In calling a special session for the purpose of passing an historic tax increase less than a year after his election, Governor Martin O’Malley changed Maryland’s personal income tax from a flat rate to a graduated system with a surcharge on high income earners. During this 2007 special session, Republican Senators opposed these tax increases and forewarned that the net result would be revenue losses as this mobile segment of the population relocated their primary residences.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers agreed in a May 2009 opinion entitled “Soak the Rich – Lose the Rich” that described how the misguided budget policy of the O’Malley Administration would lead to outward migration of the very segment of the population that a state wants to keep for a healthy, progressive economy. In response, Democrats in Annapolis produced their own analysis attributing the loss of high income tax filers to the normal slack-off of annual returns.

Now the late filers have completed their returns and final numbers have been tallied. Instead of $106 million of new revenues predicted by O’Malley’s budget office, Maryland saw a decline of $257 million – for a total gap of $363 million. This is just part of the problem created by O’Malley that results in continuing out-year deficits over $2 billion each year.

It’s bad enough business is down for society’s producers, but then they get slammed with a tax increase and figure out that Maryland may not be such a green pasture after all. Why do you think that hundreds of professional athletes, entertainers, and the like live in Florida and Texas? (Hint: yes, the weather is nicer but there are places with even better climates.) Could it be the fact those two are among a handful of states which don’t have a state income tax? (The others are Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.)

I don’t know if they tried this again this session, but last year some Democrat geniuses tried to introduce a bill that would consider 3 months per year as enough time to qualify for Maryland residency for purposes of taxation. It didn’t go far, but this is how many Democrats think – they can’t bear to have anyone here making more that what they deem as a “fair share.” Playing the class envy card has gotten them this far so they aim for continued success.

In the last three years, we’ve all endured an economy which can best be described as a difficult one. Yet those who were affected by the “millionaire’s tax” are those who most likely still have the means to uproot themselves and move to more tax-friendly states like Florida and Texas. And guess who’s the loser? State government.

The state did just fine without a so-called “millionaire’s tax” as well as their other tax increases until Governor O’Malley came in and wanted to prime the state spending pump. (Governor Ehrlich did so as well with his final budget; until then his increases were relatively sustainable.) Throw in a larger share of federal dollars being required to maintain the state’s appetite for services and you have the situation we are in now. Imagine how Democrats must feel to be forced into the box of having to make cuts in an election year – think they’re not inwardly seething?

We have a choice in November. One choice is to take a hard look at what are priorities are and tailor a leaner, smarter budget to match. The other will be a repeat of 2007, where no tax increase will be taken off the table – we could see increases in the gas tax, income tax, sin taxes, sales tax (and services subject to it), and a whole multitude of other fees and levies.

Being a fiscal conservative, I prefer the former. But part of getting that will be looking past the class envy, a favorite divisive tactic of Democrats everywhere, and deciding it’s time to make a stand for maximizing our freedom.

Obamacare reaches its climax

Well, it sounds like we’re at the tipping point for nationalizing one-sixth of our economy and the question is whether the House will pass the Senate bill or not. Forget reconciliation – there would be no need for it once the House swallows real hard and the dam is broken.

This is a sampling of some of the best action items I’ve seen in the grassroots effort to stop Obamacare. Amy Kremer, writing as part of the upcoming TEA Party Express version 3.0, had these suggestions as a daily schedule:

Wednesday, March 10th: Medical Professionals (you do not have to be a physician) visit local district offices. Be sure to wear your medical attire. Let these offices know that you are not going to sit back and let the government takeover our health care system!

Thursday, March 11th: Veterans go to local district offices. Our veterans are so special. They have a voice like no one else. Veterans, let these offices know that you fought for her once and you are fighting for her again!

Friday, March 12th: Nationwide rallies at local district offices for 1 hour at 12 noon local. Let’s make it a special point for all of us to go during our lunch hour if at all possible.

Monday, March 15th: Make calls. Send Faxes. Send Emails. You can do all of these things during the day and after business hours.

Tuesday, March 16th: Rally in DC and Nationwide at local district offices. Americans For Prosperity also has sent out an alert to honk at 12 noon that day while you are driving in your car.

If you can’t go to DC on March 16th, please visit your local district offices to have your voices heard and show solidarity with those in DC. Our sources from the Hill tell us that the vote is likely to happen between March 16th and March 18th. If you are able to go to DC, please RSVP here.

If you are doing a rally at your local office please RSVP here, so we can let others know. This is a team effort, and we are part of your team. Whatever you need, please let us know!

Wednesday, March 17th – Friday, March 19th: If you are in D.C., please visit your Representatives and Senators. If you are not in D.C., please continue to visit local district offices! Make calls. Send Faxes. Send Emails. The calls, faxes, and emails can all be done during the day and after business hours.

Saturday & Sunday, March 20th & 21st: Town Halls for March Madness! In August we had some amazing town halls! They really made people and lawmakers stop and think about this health care legislation. Let’s do it again! Host a town hall in your community and invite your Senator and Congressman. More details on this next step will be available on American Grassroots Coalition within the next day or two. Thanks for your patience. (All emphasis in original.)

Sounds like a heckuva to-do list, particularly when we have a Congressman who’s on record for opposing Obamacare anyway. But it never hurts to remind him, does it?

More on that March 16th event comes from Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity:

On March 16, we’re holding the “Honk Against the Health Care Takeover” event. Here’s what we’re asking you to do. At 12 Noon your time on March 16, drive to your member of Congress’s district office and join a car caravan there, circling your representative’s office while honking against the health care takeover.

Just CLICK HERE for more information and to let us know you’re on board. You’ll be able to print off your very own “Honk Against the Health Care Takeover” sign for your car when you register. Sign up tomorrow, March 10, to receive a free bumper sticker in the mail before March 16.

In addition, you can sign up to be a car caravan leader. You can pick a parking lot near your Congressman’s office and let folks know you will be there to lead them over to the district office. It will be fun to meet fellow grassroots activists and to go over in a caravan to send your message.

Here’s the bottom line. The president is in the midst of his final all-out push for his health care takeover. Yes, his campaign is dishonest and over-the-top. But, to their credit they are refusing to quit this fight. So, we’ve got to beat them in these final days before the House vote.

They’ve put everything on the line for their ideology, as flawed as it is.

The question for us is: will we do the same for our values, our freedoms and our nation?

Knowing what I know about Americans like us, I believe the answer will be a resounding YES.

Again, given the fact we have Congressman on record as a likely “no” vote, I suspect our protest may be a little more subdued than others. But we’ll see.

Even Newt Gingrich chimed in, with this being the money passage from his post on Human Events:

I have even taken heat from fellow conservatives for cooperating with leading Democrats to achieve health reforms we agree on, like greater use of health information technology. In fact, there are even some specific elements of the bill — like payment reform to reward quality care — with which I agree.

However, as someone who has dedicated the last decade of his life to fixing what’s broken in America’s health care system, and has reached across party lines to do so, I regrettably have to say that this bill will do vastly more harm than good.

Here’s the rub, though. Why is it that conservatives and Republicans always have to reach across the aisle to Democrats?

You know, I’m damn tired of bipartisanship when it’s my side being sold down the river. I’ve watched this ship of state founder and draw dangerously close to the rocks ever since Ronald Reagan left office. While even Reagan couldn’t steer it in the proper direction, he at least held to the deepest part of the river and served as an anchor against the slow drift toward tyranny.

Not only is it time to kill this monstrosity of a bill, it’s long past time to reconsider why the government is in the health care market in the first place. One way or the other, entitlements left unchecked will destroy us – either we’ll drive the nation into default and bankruptcy or we’ll be dependent on government like New Orleans was as Katrina lashed the city.

We have a lot of hard decisions to make, but the first one is easy. Drive a wooden stake through the heart of Obamacare and be done with it.

Ideas for the right direction

On Thursday the BrinkleyPipkin budget reduction act (in Maryland that’s SB1004, Budget Reconciliation and Balancing Act) had its hearing. When I got the release on this hearing this was the part which jumped out at me:

The Brinkley-Pipkin budget reduction act had a hearing before the Senate Budget and Tax Committee today. By taking significant steps to further reduce spending in this year’s budget process, the Brinkley-Pipkin plan buys additional time to constrain spending to the existing available revenues without the need to raise taxes.

A key feature of the plan is the elimination of built-in statutory increases in state programs. This feature and an additional $75 million in spending constraint over the next three years would allow current revenues to “catch-up” with spending, thereby bringing ongoing spending and revenues into balance.

Many lobbyists and county officials testified today against additional cuts to state spending. Representatives of unions also opposed the Brinkley-Pipkin plan of additional cutbacks including the removal prevailing wage from state projects. The majority of citizens and taxpayers who testified supported all efforts to cut back government overspending. (Emphasis mine.)

So once again we have the government and big-government interests (i.e. the lobbyists) vs. the people. The information I was provided also had a chart showing the difference between our current budget path (which will certainly lead to higher taxes) and the Brinkley-Pipkin projections.

In theory, at least, the Republicans’ proposal not only balances the budget but creates a small surplus.

Obviously the counties were there to argue that the budget would be balanced on their backs and perhaps they have a point. But this should also lead the local governments into an effort to prioritize what services they wish to deliver, with the public being involved by determining how much they want to pay. For example, it would fan the flames of the ongoing debate here in Wicomico County regarding the revenue cap the county currently employs.

Government cannot co-exist with a free society as a cure-all. Every dollar taken out of your pocket to pay for services they wish to deliver is a dollar that you cannot use as you wish, despite the fact it was freely given to you. (In more and more cases, however, that dollar was given to you by the same government who wishes to take it away.)

It’s way beyond time to consider that role government has to play and amend it accordingly. Maybe not all of the cuts in the Brinkley-Pipkin proposal are wise, but they can begin this vital discussion of the role our state government plays in our lives.

The Spending Limit Amendment

Earlier this morning I participated in a conference call with Rep. Jeb Hansarling (R-TX) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). They are two of the three initial sponsors of a possible Constitutional amendment called the Spending Limit Amendment (H.J. Res. 79), a proposal to limit federal spending to 20% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This number was arrived at because that’s a rough average of federal spending vs. GDP over an extended period.

Their argument falls in a number of categories ranging from dire economic straits to lost productivity to a national security threat. In the call, Hensarling noted “we believe we have to act now” and that he’s “not naive about the fact 5,000 amendments to the Constitution have been offered but only 27 ratified.” Instead, “what we hope to do is start a national debate on the size of government.”

Added Pence, “we have come to the conclusion that we need to introduce a new force,” that force being one of changing our “charter.” He also made the oft-noted point that “as government expands, freedom contracts.”

A number of different bloggers asked questions; I happened to be one of them. My question related to the fact that this seemed to me a weaker version of the balanced budget amendments proposed in the early 1990’s. Congressman Pence argued that this was “not a weaker version” but “a focused effort” on reining in the “runaway spending on steroids” going on today. In their estimate, running a small deficit but only spending 20% of GDP was preferable to having a balanced budget consuming 40% of GDP.

On an earlier question, the pair agreed that the BBA debate “had an impact” on spending immediately after it was considered.

There’s a lot more to the roughly 40-minute call, but since I’ve been promised the recording later today I can let you be the judge. Suffice to say that this should be a great issue to use in the 2010 campaign and they hope the TEA Party movement embraces the proposal, but they agreed this will be “a multiyear effort” and warned that, left unchecked, in 20 years our spending will place us in the similar position Greece faces now.

It reinforced my belief that Pence and Hensarling are “keepers” when it comes to a “throw the bums out” mentality. You’ll enjoy hearing what they have to say.

Republicans united?

As the Church Lady would say, isn’t this conveeeeeeenient? I talk about Republicans divided in an op-ed then talk about uniting hours later. But Daniel Vovak makes a good point at a time when unity would be necessary.

The Republican Primary on September 14, 2010 has produced a spirited contest for the office of U.S. Senator, facing the probable Democratic primary winner, Barbara Mikulski. According to official reports and announcements, on the Republican ballot will be seven candidates, including: Carmen Amedori, John F. Curran, John B. Kimble, Daniel W. McAndrew, Jim Rutledge, Corrogan R. Vaughn, and Eric Wargotz.

Daniel “The Whig Man” Vovak has proposed a “Statement of Unity” for the Republican candidates to sign, and has pledged $250 to the primary winner, should that person sign his form. Vovak says, “Although I will not be a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, I was a candidate in 2006 and I remember perfectly well how Michael Steele treated the primary as a mere formality, never reaching out to any of his nine primary opponents, which hurt our Party in November 2006. In 2010, it’s a different situation because the Republican primary is a wide-open contest. It’s not that Maryland Democrats have been successful, it’s Maryland Republicans who lose statewide seats through internal division. Once these candidates unify behind the primary winner, any Democrat can be defeated.”

Vovak says that following last week’s U.S. Senate candidates’ debate in Montgomery County, every Republican candidate sought his support.

(snip)

In spite of losing statewide (among Central Committee members who selected a new party chairman in the wake of Jim Pelura’s resignation last year), Vovak sincerely congratulated (current MDGOP Chair Audrey) Scott following her decisive win and offered his help. Vovak says this “Statement of Unity” is something he practices and believes. He says, “If I had won the chairman vote, I would have proposed this same Statement to position Republicans for winning, long before Election Day. I have no doubt Audrey Scott shares the same goal.”

Currently, three of the seven candidates have indicated they will sign the Statement. Because Vovak has not been able to speak directly with all of them, he said he will wait until all have been given ample time to respond before releasing their names, though those candidates can speak freely at any time with their supporters and the media, should they desire to do so.

Within the Maryland Republican Party Constitution, under Article 11, Section 2, d(2), Maryland’s Republican Chairman must show no “partiality or prejudice” towards any Republican candidate before a primary. Article 2, Section 2 states that the Party “works towards the election of Republican nominees.”

It’s an admirable goal, and perhaps we will see all of the contenders sign this agreement before all is said and done September 14.

But this election is somewhat different than Steele’s 2006 campaign as there is no de facto favorite. A couple have run previous bids for the Senate that drew little support (Kimble and Vaughn, both also-rans in the ’06 race with Vovak) and a couple others are perhaps dark horses due to lack of name recognition or fundraising prowess – I’d put Curran and McAndrew in that category. The other three (Amedori, Rutledge, and Wargotz) to me are the leading contenders, with Amedori perhaps being the “establishment” candidate based on her tenure in the House of Delegates.

I happen to agree that the Maryland GOP shouldn’t take a stand to support any candidate pre-primary. I know some disagree with me because they fear the voters may select some David Duke-esque radical as the party’s representative but I place a lot more faith in the party electorate than apparently these officials do. I already lived in one state which tried to bribe and cajole good Republican candidates like Ken Blackwell out of the race to avoid primary fights and I don’t want a repeat in Maryland.

Since the reports of Barbara Mikulski retiring were apparently premature, it looks like whoever survives the primary has the uphill fight of knocking out the entrenched, reliably liberal incumbent who may be keeping the seat warm for Martin O’Malley once he’s through being governor.

I believe there is a scenario possible where, if Mikulski wins and O’Malley loses in November, Barbara could retire in early January and Martin O’Malley could name himself successor (or a placeholder to keep the seat warm) just before his term were to expire – leaving the possibility of two new Senators from the state in 2013 as Ben Cardin also runs for re-election in 2012 and the seat held by Mikulski is opened up for a special election by current state law. I think Martin O’Malley has aspirations beyond being Governor and this would be an opportunity for him to go national.

All that has yet to be seen but in any case it’s good for Republicans to put up a united front as they campaign to upend the Democrats’ apple cart this November.

Friday night videos episode 24

After a week off to recharge the batteries, FNV is back with a good mix of politics and music once again.

Health care continues to be a sore subject in Congress. But while Democrats used the sob story to make their point yesterday, our side adds some facts to the emotion. This comes from the fine folks of Americans for Prosperity:

As I often ask, which Americans are against prosperity?

The health-care summit yesterday was a dud; then again that was the expectation from Republicans like Rep. Michele Bachmann. From the Washington News-Observer:

And the National Republican Congressional Committee added a dash of humor to the “Blair House Project”:

Yet there is other news on the conservative front as well. Last week over 70 conservative leaders got together to sign the Mount Vernon Statement. Here’s what I thought of it
but the players had their say as well. Again from WNO:

Nor have they forgotten foreign policy. Our best UN Ambassador in recent times spoke to WNO about his thoughts on the Obama relationship with the world.

If you follow me on Facebook you know what I’m usually doing Sunday nights at 9:00 – listening to Local Produce on the radio. This remake of “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” (originally done by the Charlie Daniels Band) is done by one of the co-hosts, Bob Daigle, and a couple of his friends. He definitely has an interesting YouTube channel!

The second of two music videos tonight is fresh stuff I recorded last Saturday at the Brumbley Haiti benefit. The sound quality is markedly better, and not just because Not My Own played well. Maybe I’m finally getting this video recording stuff!

That’s a wrap for another version of Friday night videos – hope you enjoyed it!

Do we need bipartisanship?

Yesterday those Americans who were treated to the Blair House health care summit saw a President who told Congress that his time was more equal than theirs and snippily retorted that the 2008 campaign was over when John McCain made a point challenging one of Obama’s assertions.

Obviously the two parties have a very different perspective on what needs to be done with the healthcare issue, and the American people don’t necessarily agree with either side. Same goes for a number of other issues like the (so-called) stimulus, environment, energy independence, and foreign policy.

But this generation isn’t the only one who has wrestled with difficult issues. Over portions of four different centuries Americans have disagreed over a table, in a chamber, and even on a number of battlefields that include a few in our fair state of Maryland. Our Founding Fathers were divided into two camps, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, who made their case through debates and competing pamphlets – perhaps that was the internet of the day.

So what we are going through isn’t really new – I’m sure you could have even found a few folks back in the day who thought George Washington was a horrible President.

Yet there was also created with our system of government a system of checks and balances, and perhaps the three-legged stool isn’t standing so straight these days. With one party controlling the legislative and executive branches, the lone check on their power is the judiciary branch whose highest court hangs with a delicate balance of conservatives vs. liberals – should one of the conservative justices falter it’s possible that the next high court member could tilt the entire court in the opposite direction.

Once again we sit at a precipice which can determine the direction our nation will take. We in the political business are fond of using (or overusing) the phrase, “this is the most important election in years/a generation/our lifetime.”

In this case, though, the hyperbole may be true. If Americans elect a solid conservative majority we would see perhaps the quickest partisan turnaround in history, going from a solidly Democratic House to one run by Republicans and the onetime filibusterproof Democratic majority in the Senate coming down to possibly a split 50-50 body where Vice-President Biden may have more to do than snooze through a seven-hour long summit.

Some decry the loss of what they consider thoughtful moderates in each body, but over the last several decades we’ve seen moderation continue the helpless drift our nation has endured from republic to tyranny, with the federal government controlling more and more of the pursestrings and determining who wins and who loses in business and society. I don’t mind bipartisanship as long as it works in a manner that promotes the conservative, limited-government, Constitutional direction I believe the country needs to progress in. A 218-217 spilt in the House between parties is fine, but I truly want 435-0 conservative.

There is a core of about 100 Congressmen and maybe 20 Senators who deserve to be re-elected, in my opinion. The rest can be retired as far as I care.

In my lifetime, we’ve had a total of about 4 years when Republicans controlled both legislative branches and the exceutive branch (the pre-Jeffords jump 107th Congress and 108th/109th Congresses) – but conservatism hardly advanced because too many people said we had to be “bipartisan.” Bipartisanism has its use, but to me it’s a question of philosophy over party and what we need is a philosophical overhaul of Congress this year and the executive branch in 2012.

Immigration: divisive issue

In the last few days – as if fending off TEA Partiers and worrying about how new GOP wunderkind Scott Brown will vote isn’t enough – observers see a rift in the Republican Party over immigration.

Two pieces have drawn my attention. One is an article by Peter Slevin in the Washington Post and the other comes through the Center for Immigration Studies as a Backgrounder by James G. Gimpel, who is a professor of government at the University of Maryland. Both look at immigration as an issue which could permanently relegate the GOP to minority status.

But the two pieces disagree on why. Slevin and the Post, no friend of conservative Republicans, blames the hardline stance of TEA Partiers who want the borders secured and illegal immigrants frogmarched out of the country. Conversely, the Gimpel piece simply notes that, “The decline (in GOP voting share) does not seem to be associated with the local Republican Party’s position on illegal immigration.” Instead, the Gimpel study seems to indicate this has more to do with socioeconomic status and the state of politics where newly-arrived immigrants seem to congregate, large urban areas.

I’ve noted before that at the current time it’s better to not lose the base the GOP has by being soft on illegal immigration than cater to a group who is more likely to vote with their meager pocketbooks and support all the government goodies they can get. It’s going to be just as much up to the Latinos to bring themselves out of the ghetto that Democratic policies have placed them in as it is the black population’s own job to get off of the plantation Democrats have placed them on. Those who have immigrated here legally have just as much – if not more – of a stake in stemming the illegal flow as native-born Americans do.

For over 200 years, history has shown that the best way to get ahead in America is to assimilate into its culture. Certainly we can celebrate our heritage (I sure like my Polish cuisine) but the route to success over time has been to emphasize the “American” part of the moniker much more heavily than the “Polish,” “Mexican,” or “African.” In years past, immigrants were eager to shed their old ways and Americanize their first-generation offspring – now we only Americanize them insofar as striving to have them born in the United States to become “anchor babies.”

If a nation is to survive for long, it must have clearly defined borders and be prepared to only allow in those it deems worthy of entry. While I know some of my associates in the political and blogging worlds believe totally in the idea of a free market which includes providing labor, that policy has to have limitations or it will lead to chaos.

Immigrants in our history came for opportunities, and these opportunities only came to those who worked hard and were willing to sacrifice their blood, sweat, and toil. Unfortunately, our system of entitlements has brought forth a different sort of immigrants, and while they remain a few bad apples in a bunch that is still willing to work hard for little financial gain, those bad apples sap the strength of the whole.

But while the TEA Partiers are falsely accused of having a strain of xenophobia, it’s worth pointing out that the Gimbel study shows that ideology trumps race at election time among a larger and larger share of the minority population. Regardless of what the Republican Party does to attract minorities, it would never be enough for liberal Democrats to give them credit for trying. Just as we see in the black population, voting against their self-interest is becoming a problem for Latinos as well, and the immigration issue is just a red herring to the real problem of victimization practiced by poverty pimps of all colors.

Blaming the man for holding you down is a universal language.

Vote on the Contract FROM America

Earlier today I commented on the newly-minted Mount Vernon Statement, which to me is a noble gesture but seems to fall short on actionable items. After all, most conservatives are America-first, limited-government types who simply want Washington to get out of their way and allow America to continue to be the greatest country on earth – the “shining city on a hill” as it were.

In 1994 Newt Gingrich took similar principles and, with the help of dedicated conservatives, created the Contract With America for Republicans seeking seats in the House of Representatives. The success was obvious as the GOP took over the House for the first time in 40 years and all but one of the ten principles spelled out had some kind of Congressional action (term limits being the exception.) By nationalizing the election, Gingrich and his allies created the impetus for voters to look beyond their district and support a principle of governance.

This time, Newt is a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the game, and it’s a coalition of conservative groups (including a large number of TEA Party organizers) which are spearheading the effort. And instead of a select cadre determining each planks, this contract is based on input from the grassroots. Ten of these 22 planks will be inserted into the Contract From America.

DEMAND A BALANCED BUDGET: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

STOP THE TAX HIKES: Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.

COMMIT TO REAL GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY: Every bill, in its final form, will be made public seven days before any vote can be taken and all government expenditures authorized by any bill will be easily accessible on the Internet before the money is spent.

PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

PASS REAL HEALTHCARE REFORM: Greatly improve affordability of health insurance by permitting all Americans access to all health insurance plans sold anywhere in the United States through the purchase of insurance across state lines and allow small businesses and associations to pool together across state lines to buy insurance.

ENACT FUNDAMENTAL TAX REFORM: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the Internal Revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution.

END RUNAWAY GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

LET US SAVE: Allow all Americans to opt out of Social Security and Medicare and instead put those same payroll taxes in a personal account they own, control, and can leave to whomever they choose.

PROTECT INTERNET FREEDOM: No regulation or tax on the Internet.

GIVE PARENTS MORE CHOICES IN THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN: Improve American education by reforming the broken federal role through eliminating ineffective and wasteful programs, giving parents more choices from pre-school to high school, and improving the affordability of higher education.

PASS AN ‘ALL OF THE ABOVE’ ENERGY POLICY: Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition.

PROTECT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: Prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using funds to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in any form, including requiring “localism” or “diversity” quotas.

RESTORE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY & CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states.

PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS: Block state and local governments that receive federal grants from exercising eminent domain over private property for the primary purpose of economic development or enhancement of tax revenues.

REJECT CAP & TRADE: Prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.

STOP THE PORK: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the process is fully transparent, including requiring a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.

NO CZAR REGULATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION: All “lawmaking” regulations must be affirmatively approved by Congress and signed into law by the president, as the Constitution requires for all laws.

AUDIT THE FED: Begin an audit of the Federal Reserve System.

NO MORE BAILOUTS: The federal government should not bail out private companies and should immediately begin divesting itself of its stake in the private companies it owns from recent bailouts.

STOP CAREER POLITICIANS & CURB LOBBYIST POWER: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require Congressional term limits. No person shall be elected to the Senate more than twice or to the House of Representatives more than four times.

SUNSET REGULATIONS: All regulations will be “sunset” after ten years unless renewed by Congressional vote.

LET US WATCH: Broadcast all non-security meetings and votes on C-SPAN and the Internet.

Talk about your tough choices! Most of the lot is good, but right off the top I would say that items 7, 20, and 21 would be my favorites.

Number 7 is a slightly adapted form of TABOR laws, with TABOR standing for Taxpayers’ Bill Of Rights. This provides for necessary increases in government but not excessive ones. Yes, there is the weakness of not requiring cuts which should be made (since the natural tendency would be to budget to within a gnat’s eyelash of the limit) but the principle is sound.

I would only change number 20 to a 12+12 rule (6 House terms and 2 Senate terms.) However, the one thing missing from this plank is to restore the states’ voice in the process by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. The idea of popular election of Senators has shifted the balance in Congress and federalized the government, when the intent was to create tension between states and Washington.

Number 21 might just have been my suggestion from three years ago, back when I did my ’50 year plan’ series. My argument now is the same as it was then – if Congress is busy justifying the renewal of old laws, they may be too busy to think of new ones.

I could probably vote for 10, but it’s likely I’ll only vote for a few to strengthen their position. Bullet voting may be a good practice in this case. In any case, here’s a chance for the people to decide what they think is most important and what they’ll vote to change come November.

On the Mount Vernon Statement

Every so often I suppose society feels the need to reinvent the wheel.

Much has been made of the recent resurgence of conservatism as a counterpoint to the statism being foisted upon us by those in power in Congress and the White House. In this instance, President Obama is just the head of the tiger but as a whole it remains a dangerous creature. Responding to this threat is a loose confederation of TEA Partiers who remain leaderless by instinct or by choice; regardless their influence has been credited with stopping the march leftward and winning elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

One thing they have not been is – for the most part – a creature of Beltway conservatives. But, in their effort to create order where they see chaos, a group of Washington-based organizational leaders got together to create the Mount Vernon Statement. They see this as a necessary update on the Sharon Statement William F. Buckley and a small group of like-minded conservatives put together a half-century ago.

But it’s interesting to see where the conservative movement has gone in the interceding fifty years. A brief history sees that it influenced Republican politics to one degree or another, but it hasn’t always been successful in convincing the American people of its merits. Barry Goldwater was a disciple, but he was shellacked in the 1964 election. (One caveat is that this occurred less than a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, so LBJ could burnish Kennedy’s memory as needed. A little-known fact about JFK’s trip to Texas was that he was worried about re-election and wanted to shore up his base.)

With the possible exception of Reagan, it seems Republican presidents who have ran and won as staunch conservatives moderated to various degrees upon taking office. Nixon started the Environmental Protection Agency and installed disastrous wage and price freezes for a time to combat inflation. George H.W. Bush told us to “read my lips” but knuckled under to Congressional Democrats who promised him spending cuts if he’d raise taxes – only Bush kept his end of the bargain. His son George W. Bush cut taxes but expanded the federal role in education with No Child Left Behind and created a new entitlement program with Medicare Part D.

In my lifetime, we’ve never had a conservative President and Congress simultaneously who have truly acted in concert to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Consequently, we’ve never had a populace who’s seen the principles in the Mount Vernon Statement (or the Sharon Statement for that matter) put into action.

Yet Presidents when inaugurated don’t swear their fealty to any statement but to uphold the Constitution, which brings me back to the idea I began with of reinventing the wheel.

I have the utmost respect for those who put together the Mount Vernon Statement, just as I do William F. Buckley and those who participated in crafting the Sharon Statement. But in neither case did they pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as our Founding Fathers did when they declared their independence from the Crown and later wrote the document our system of government is based upon.

A lot changes in fifty years, and even that is miniscule compared to changes in the whole of our rich history. While Buckley and his cohorts were rightfully concerned with the Communist threat from outside our borders, today we face the danger of statism from within our seat of government. More troubling is that neither political party is immune to causing the backslide toward tyranny to continue.

Instead of trying to restate the Constitution to the issues of today, we may need to work all the way back to a new revolution – a revolution which begins at the ballot box in November and continues through 2012. Obviously a Congress dominated by conservatives won’t get a lot past a statist President unless they can achieve a majority able to override his vetoes, and the situation with Senate elections makes that impossible to achieve. Even if Republicans achieved an unprecendented miracle sweep of every Senate seat available this year they wouldn’t even have a clotureproof majority – it would be 59-41 GOP.

Luckily in this case we don’t have foreign soldiers protecting the Crown, but this revolution won’t be swift nor will it be easy. The battle continues for the hearts and minds of America, and the future of the Republic depends on our success.

Just how essential is “non-essential?”

As the large majority of my readers know – I’ll say large majority because readership is fairly Delmarva-centric but others from across our land stumble onto the site as well – this neck of the woods just endured two significant snow events in a week’s time (and may get another half-foot for the Presidents’ Day holiday.) In each case, state and local government shut down as did the gears of Washington, D.C. Only “essential” workers needed to come in while others were told to stay home or placed on the (aptly-named) “liberal leave policy.”

The obvious question to ask, then, is just how these positions can’t be cut in an era where we all need to cut back on our personal spending due to unemployment, lack of raises, or cutbacks in hours. Sure, there will be some government workers added to the unemployment rolls for a time but leaving capital in the private sector will eventually allow these workers to be absorbed back into the labor pool.

Of course, some would ask about the services which these temporarily furloughed workers were performing to make them non-essential. One example could be the paid staff at one of the many attractions run by the federal government and closed during the height of the storm. Tourism wasn’t exactly bustling during this time when everyone was hunkered down.

Perhaps the biggest shock was the news reports that these unexpected furloughs cost taxpayers $350 million in lost productivity for 3 1/2 days off. Some did their work from home, but if you take that figure and assume 200 days’ work per year it seems like an easy $20 billion cut right there without even breathing hard. It was a tough go for us in the mid-Atlantic region but out in flyover country people survived the lack of non-essential federal services pretty well.

Then again, if the definition of lost productivity includes not dreaming up needless regulations and lobbyists losing a chance to buttonhole their bought and paid for members of Congress on their newest rentseeking schemes (which only qualifies as productivity in the bizarro world of Fedzilla,) $100 million a day might not be a bad price to pay considering the federal government now spends over $10 billion per day.

We are approaching a point where the federal government is taking in less than 60% of what it spends (a $1.6 trillion deficit on $3.8 trillion budget.) Just to make things even we would need to cut entire departments or seriously curtail entitlement programs, or both. The Blizzards of 2010 proved that not everything is a vital function of government; however, the weaning of dependency needs to spread far beyond the borders of the District of Columbia.

Often I write about returning to a government based on the Constitution and much smaller than what we’re saddled with today. Those who more or less agree with me banded together into TEA Parties and eventually took that message to the “belly of the beast.” I’m certain that the vast majority of them would be willing to give up some cherished government service or entitlement as their sacrifice to the cause. To be truly independent and free requires losing the chains of dependence and slavery that Washington puts on us, and the elections of 2010 and 2012 could provide the key.

At that point, perhaps the next “storm of the century” won’t be such a big deal because the federal seat of government will command much less importance in life.

Note: while I was crossposting this to Red County, I ran across a great article by Chip Hanlon about those TEA Partiers – it’s well worth reading. Some places will need these protests longer than others will as there are governmental bodies who are getting the message.

A blizzard of budgeting

While the 2010 election is over eight months away, in sitting here watching the snow come down yet again this gives me an insight on writing a relevant post; one about the role of government.

One thing we expect for our tax dollars is snow removal, but this fickle and historic succession of snowstorms will certainly strain budgets in the affected counties and states. I’ve lived in Maryland for six winters now and some of them had less snowfall in toto than we’ve had in the last two weeks. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen 2 feet or more of snow in the backyard, and obviously that makes clearing highways a dicey process, let alone running a plow on the side roads.

Yet my fear is that we overcompensate next year and expect more storms of the century in the budgetary process. Certainly many scientists see us entering a long-term period of cooler weather than we’ve come to expect, but it’s highly unlikely that the winter of 2010-11 will see our area become ground zero for winter storms again. A manner of comparison can be drawn with hurricane seasons – some seasons Florida is hit hard, sometimes it’s the Texas Gulf Coast, and at times the Outer Banks seem to be in the crosshairs. Last year we even had the variation of an eerily quiet hurricane season.

But these storms have also proven that we can’t simply count on government to bail us out.

I have good friends who live in rural Delaware, and last weekend’s storm meant they had to do without power for the better part of two days. Obviously part of their issue was being in such a remote location, but the utility claimed they couldn’t get their trucks onto their road because it wasn’t plowed. As it turned out, the government didn’t plow their road – a local farmer did. (More importantly, the farmer helped the community by bearing the cost himself for the gas and use of his tractor.)

On a larger scale, allocation of a finite amount of resources is a tricky thing. Ask someone who was looking for a snow shovel this week whether they wished they’d purchased one a month ago and the answer would likely be yes. But, based on the experience of previous winters people felt no need to invest in a snow shovel. They do invest in bread, milk, and toilet paper on a usual basis, though, but you’d never know that with the panic buying which has occurred over the last couple weeks.

However, it is easier for private enterprise to find scarce resources than it is for a bureaucracy to do so – that Titanic is much more difficult to turn around once the course is reset. It’s for this reason I’ve often opined that there are a number of services which may work out better if done by the private sector than the public sector, and snow removal is one. No, it’s not foolproof and there is the possibility of corruption in awarding such a contract as opposed to having county or state workers do that job in addition to other tasks, but I think it’s worth exploring due to the obviously cyclical example of weather.

It also goes without saying that next winter may see a slew of entrepreneurs who will see the booming business private snow removal has done over the last month and hope to cash in next year. This could make the price of snow removal via private contractor more attractive – so why not consider the option?

One other thought occurs to me as I listen to the news of several roof collapses affecting poultry farmers.

With the difficulty these businessmen have had in erecting new chicken houses because of EPA regulations, will the damage from this storm hasten the long, slow decline of the poultry industry Delamarva is enduring? The industry is supposedly moving south already, so this storm just may be a fatal blow to some growers.

These chilling thoughts aren’t exactly the type preferred to get through what’s become a historically rough winter, but we as a region need to ponder them since we have little else to do as we’re buried farther in snow today.