State of Conservatism – Page 140

Explanation impossible? Well, maybe not.

Honestly, the production could have been better and I haven’t actually seen the ad run because I don’t watch much local TV except for MASN and that network doesn’t put many political ads on during the summer a year and a half out from the general election. Nonetheless, this ad is quite funny in a “sad, but true” way:

I don’t doubt that Frank Kratovil is “just following orders” because he’s a freshman legislator from a vulnerable district and his first priority is getting himself re-elected. Otherwise, it may be tough for him to continue living in the shadow of the Bay Bridge so he can claim to hold those “Eastern Shore values”.

There is an element of disingenuousness, though, about the NRCC’s claim of Kratovil “voting with Nancy Pelosi 89% of the time.” Aside from the really conservative folks who simply skip votes renaming a post office or honoring some sports team for winning a championship, most Congressmen do vote with Nancy Pelosi a staggering percentage of the time, and Frank has occasionally gone off the liberal reservation to vote properly on issues – although far less often than a real conservative in the Andy Harris mold would have done. Nor should it be said that Kratovil doesn’t attempt to play on that liberal staple, class envy.

Even on a bill Frank introduced which would help out small business there is a hesitation of sorts, as in this example. Why stop the break in 2011? Is there some magic formula that says we’re only allowed to keep our deduction through 2011 before it hurts the government? In a way that practice reminds me of the grants that help out cities on a temporary basis until they have to come up with the money themselves after the grant runs its course – usually resulting in either layoffs or increased taxes.

In any event, enjoy this initial salvo of Campaign 2010 and gird your loins from occasional shots across the bow for the next 10 months or so. It’ll start getting really nasty about this time next year.

Quick links

Astute readers may notice I’ve added a few new links in the last few days, including two this morning.

A few days back I added the Eastern Shore Libertarians site which is essentially operated by recent Salisbury City Council aspirant Muir Boda. While I’m obviously a registered Republican and would like to see people vote that way, as a party we could do quite well in adopting many libertarian planks concerning limited government and – arguably – a more hands-off approach to personal freedom issues (e.g. working against the nanny state of Maryland.) Obviously the reason there is a Libertarian Party is because neither of the two predominant parties address all the issues they hold dear, although I see the Republicans IF they were properly following their platform falling much closer.

This morning I added a new blog in the Free State bloggers section called Subprime Maryland. It’s the voice of Maryland’s chapter of Americans for Prosperity (as I note, are there any Americans for loss? Maybe in Annapolis and Washington.) It’s a statewide blog but has a heavy Eastern Shore influence; in fact, it’s relevant today because the local AFP chapter is meeting tonight at 7 p.m. over at Bayland Aviation at 5279 Airport Road in Salisbury (naturally, adjacent to the airport.)

The other item I placed this morning is the beginning of the Election 2010 area of my website, starting with a link to Jim Rutledge’s U.S. Senate website. With the large number of state races up for grabs, this may eventually become a very large column depending on how widespread an area I decide to cover (for example, the Eastern Shore has three Maryland Senate and seven House of Delegates districts, so that will certainly take up space.)

I have yet to begin work on my legislative scorecard for the General Assembly session just past, so I may not hit my original goal of being done by July 4th. But, one never knows because I only have one session to cover and not three as I did last year in starting the process. It’s something that I will start researching in coming days and readers won’t want to miss when it’s done because voting patterns continue to emerge.

LSYR fundraiser

I know you’ll all complain about the last Weekend of local rock post for two reasons: one because I should stick to politics and the other being I didn’t resize the photos like I usually do before I put together the post – so it’ll take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load. Sorry about that!

In all honesty I could have made this WoLR 25 because many of the photos will fall under that category. But yesterday my lady friend and I sat out in the sun and enjoyed a nice day listening to the music and either renewing acquaintances or making new ones, depending on the person’s perspective and who we met.

Let me throw the pictures on, starting here. There are nine photos.

I stood on the stage and took this shot looking back out over the crowd. At most points there were between 30 and 40 there, the number fluctuated during the afternoon.

These were some of the people enjoying the pulled pork and other goodies put out by the McIvers, who graciously served as hosts.

I’m going to do the political pictures first even though the band opened things up. They played a set before the remarks and one afterward so my chronological order isn’t that important.

This man is Jim Rutledge. As far as I know he's the first Republican to step up and challenge Barbara Mikulski for her U.S Senate seat next year.

First to speak was a new political face; his name is Jim Rutledge. One could assert he’s mad as hell and won’t take it anymore because he’s a political novice looking to replace Senator Mikulski – an uphill battle to be sure.

After a somewhat lengthy introduction, he more briefly touched on some of the focal points of his campaign – national security, taxes, and the Second Amendment were some highlights.

I know someone else who has one of these on her car. It's called speaking common sense.

We’ve also penciled Rutledge in to speak at our June WCRC meeting, so perhaps more people can hear from Jim when our merry band next meets. You may have seen him yesterday evening at the Hebron Carnival since he planned on stopping by there too.

Page Elmore stressed the importance of next year's election because there's been a lot of damage done by the majority in Annapolis.

Page Elmore added a few words in his typical low-key style. I was a little surprised not to see him in his usual red shirt. He’s quite concerned about keeping some of the seats the GOP already has because of some possible changes locally.

Our keynote speaker actually was the briefest one. State Senator Harris just pointed out a couple votes his future opponent made and said he wouldn't have voted the same way.

Andy Harris isn’t quite in campaign mode yet, but mentioned we are just 17 months and 10 days from the 2010 election. It’s going to be an interesting one given his opponent now has a record – certainly Harris will point out its many shortcomings.

It occurs to me that I forgot to take a “spread” picture so you don’t get to see all the great food we had to partake in. So I’ll just get to the band pictures and wrap this up.

The band is called “The Occasionals” and played a number of classic rock staples – quite well, I might add.

The three guys who make up The Occasionals are shown as a group here.

Here's the guitar player closer up.

This one is the bass player closer up.

And finally a neat shot of the drummer.

Also, I should complement the guys who did the sound, it was excellent. Okay, perhaps the people across the way had objections but it’s not like the party was an all-night affair. Get a life people!

I spoke to YR head Mark Biehl, who thought the turnout was excellent for a first-time event. Of course, there were lessons to be learned and fine tuning to do for what the LSYRs plan as an annual affair but overall Biehl termed the gathering a “successful” one. There was a 50-50 drawing which brought in a few more dollars and a post-party gun shoot I didn’t attend – all in all, the day (and previous night for those who tended the cooking pig) was quite eventful.

Finally, yesterday after I came back home I found out someone there supposedly had some “choice words” for me when we met. Well, that someone didn’t come up to me and tell them to my face and it’s not like he didn’t have the opportunity so I’ll leave it at that and let both you and I guess what they might have been. Heck if I know, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it either.

Simply put I’m looking forward to promoting and enjoying more LSYR events as time goes on and permits!

Odds and ends no. 19

It’s been a couple months since I went through my “blog ideas” folder and checked out what’s in the grab bag of interesting stuff so tonight seems like a good occasion to look there once again. So let me open up my mailboxes and see what pops out at me…

I haven’t touched on the issue of energy in awhile, in part because our gas prices haven’t gone quite as sky-high as they did this time last year – even with recent price increases we’re only paying about half as much at the pump as we were at this point in 2008. But that doesn’t mean the issue has gone away and I keep in touch with my source in the energy industry. She sent me a primer on rhetoric vs. reality and I may gather more information later this week as I’ve been invited to another blogger conference call on the subject.

Now, let’s look at those who would deign to create law on the subject of energy as well as a thousand and one other aspects of life. How this escaped a full post I don’t know – perhaps it was because our current legislator wasn’t included as part of the survey. Regardless, the National Taxpayers Union last month released its list of big spenders in Congress, and out of the Maryland and Delaware contingent only Roscoe Bartlett had a decent grade (his 72% was a B) while Mike Castle was fortunate to “earn” a D. While there’s certainly room for argument about fiscal friendliness and the weight the NTU assigns to particular votes, in 2008 the trend was not one toward smaller government and I can but imagine what the 2009 report will show.

But even if Congress held the line, what happens if they’re not the ones who hold the purse strings anymore? It’s an argument postulated in a recent op-ed by the Center for Individual Freedom, which asks the question:

(W)hat if the GOP is proven right … the voting public once again demands change … and America discovers that a Congress full of resurgent Republicans is powerless to stop the bleeding?

That scenario is all too plausible given the breathtaking rate at which the legislative branch is losing its power to determine the nation’s economic future to unelected bureaucrats.

This trend began late last year, when the Bush Administration used fears of a nationwide financial meltdown to smooth passage of its Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), promoted as a panacea for the nation’s financial ills.

TARP, unfortunately, did not unfold as advertised. Even its name proved to be a lie. Rather than buying up the “troubled assets” that were supposedly prolonging the credit crunch, TARP morphed into a plan for injecting liquidity into the nation’s banking system (a move, it should be noted, that has done little to increase lending rates). Because Congress had practically given the money away at gunpoint, the mandarins at the Treasury Department were free to change the program’s aims at will – despite the fact that they had claimed only weeks before that the original plan was the only thing standing between the nation and economic oblivion. (Emphasis mine.)

Multiply that by the dozens of bureaucratic fiefdoms entrenched in Washington and it’s clear we need a sea change in attitude among Americans, too.

Let’s start with our Congressman. This was the response I received a few weeks ago regarding my concerns with the stimulus package:

Thank you for contacting my office to share your thoughts on the economic stimulus legislation. As your Representative, I am guided by the perspectives of my constituents and our common goals of restoring fiscal responsibility to our nation’s federal government, revitalizing our economy, protecting the Chesapeake Bay and preserving the agricultural heritage of our communities.

Our economy is in crisis and the American people are hurting. Since the current recession began in December 2007 over 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs. Employment fell in every month of 2008, and over 600,000 jobs were lost in January 2009 alone. In Maryland unemployment has reached a 15 year high. There is a consensus among economists that drastic action is needed to rejuvenate the economy.

In an attempt to address the nation’s worsening financial situation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, H.R. 1, was introduced in the House of Representatives on January 26, 2009. This legislation contained $819 billion in infrastructure spending, revenue sharing with the states, middle class tax cuts, business tax cuts, unemployment benefits, and food stamps.

While this initial package contained well-intentioned efforts to strengthen our economy, the bill also contained billions in spending that I was not convinced would go directly to stimulating the economy. Considering the fact that our nation is already over $10 trillion in debt, we cannot afford a fiscally reckless stimulus bill. Consequently, I voted against the proposal and expressed my belief that Congress could and must do better. As the bill moved to the Senate and then the Conference Committee between the chambers, I worked with like-minded colleagues on both sides of the aisle, particularly members of the Blue Dog Coalition, to remove billions of dollars of spending that was not timely or targeted, including eliminating $200 million for the National Mall, $75 million for smoking cessation activities, and $16 billion in permanent changes to Medicaid. In the end we succeeded in cutting over $60 billion in misguided spending from the legislation while adding significant tax relief for Maryland families. Ultimately, the package included $288 billion of tax cuts for working families, including $70 billion to protect middle-class families from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Let me be clear, the final version of the stimulus bill was not perfect. However, given the depths of the financial crisis, we could not afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the necessary. The bipartisan compromise contained critical job-creating infrastructure investments in areas like transportation and broadband development. It included needed aid to states and localities to stave off layoffs and cuts to essential services. Meanwhile, the $288 billion worth of tax relief will help grow our economy by providing over 95% of working families with a tax cut. And, most importantly, it is projected that the package will create or save approximately 8,200 jobs in the 1st District and over 66,000 across the state of Maryland.

The stimulus bill enjoyed the strong support of a diverse range of coalitions, including conservative pro-business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Association of General Contractors and the National Restaurant Association. The package is projected to create or save over 3.5 million jobs, and even conservative economists like Mark Zandi, an economic advisor for John McCain’s presidential campaign, noted “that the jobless rate will be more than 2 percentage points lower by the end of 2010 than without any fiscal stimulus.” Although I am under no illusion that the stimulus bill alone can bring us out of the current recession, I believe that it is an essential first step.

Like you, I am concerned about our nation’s fiscal policies. Consequently, I voted against the release of an additional $350 billion to bailout Wall Street and the $410 billion FY09 Appropriations Omnibus, two costly measures that I did not believe were the most responsible expenditures of taxpayer dollars. My first official act as a Member of Congress was to sign on as an original co-sponsor of legislation to stop the automatic 2010 Member pay raise and I was pleased to later join my colleagues in successfully rejecting the pay increase when it came to a vote before the full House of Representatives.

Please know that I will work to ensure rigorous oversight over the stimulus and I encourage you to do so as well by visiting the www.recovery.gov website, where you can track the bill’s impact.

Please do not hesitate to contact me again in the future regarding issues that concern you. I believe that continuous communication with the residents of the First District is essential to helping me be an effective advocate for you in Congress. To stay informed, please visit my website at www.house.gov/kratovil.

Thank you again for contacting me and I look forward to hearing from you.

While the jury is still out, Frank’s not as bad as I feared thus far but certainly we can do better in Congress.

Continuing on the subject of legislative business, there are some who feel we Republicans can do better as a party here in Maryland. While the subject didn’t openly come up in our recent convention, there’s a few in the General Assembly who don’t care for party leadership, as evidenced by this letter (h/t Blue Ridge Forum).

They’re the same folks who complain that the party is missing a fundraising opportunity by pricing its VIP gathering with Newt Gingrich too low, at least if you believe this Alan Brody piece in the Gazette newspaper. (Again, h/t to Blue Ridge Forum).

Yeah guys, just keep alienating your grassroots. While it’s true that Gingrich should be a good draw, I don’t think many GOP activists in Maryland have $250 in pocket change lying around to get a chance to meet with Newt Gingrich, let alone twice that much. Honestly, the party brass should be pleased with getting the onetime Speaker to be a speaker as opposed to the little-known person the event featured last year.

Just bring on an establishment candidate next year or try a coup at the Fall Convention and watch the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland contingents walk out – then see how successful 2010 is without us.

Finally, you may recall that the group Our Country Deserves Better did a bus tour last fall to promote the McCain/Palin ticket (well, mostly Sarah Palin). They’re going to do it again, this time as part of the Tea Party movement.

From August 28 to September 12, a host of folks will cross the nation with daily rallies. The Tea Party Express will wrap up in Washington D.C. for a gathering to show support for fiscal conservatism in our nation’s capital. Methinks the tour needs to make a slight detour southward! Delaware and Maryland have liberal big-spenders in Congress too.

So that’s a cleaning of my mailbox. Hope you enjoyed it!

Muzzled for liking tea?

This is a fairly disturbing piece, and it made me think of another local blogger to boot. It comes from my blogging friend Bob McCarty, who tells the tale of a tea party organizer in Quincy, Illinois being denied the right to speak at a Quincy City Council meeting. I presume the passage on his blog is missing a word, since the key sentence reads:

“In a 7-6 vote down party lines, members of the Quincy City Council voted to (deny) him his right to speak, despite the fact that he had taken all of the proper steps required of a citizen to appear on the council’s agenda.”

I think my slightly edited version is correct. The other possible error is in the chart McCarty uses, the party affiliations are either reversed or incorrect since both he and Steve McQueen (the organizer) say that the 6 Republicans voted in his favor yet the chart shows a 7-6 GOP majority.

In either case, the question is whether these tactics are going to spread to other jurisdictions, particularly ones where Republicans do not have a majority such as Salisbury City Council. I worry less about the Wicomico County Council since as currently composed it’s 4-3 GOP and the three Democrats generally seem amenable to honest debate.

We all know that there are local bloggers who swarm like flies to these meetings, particularly those involving the Salisbury City Council. Certainly I’m sure that many would love to see such a rule applied to one in particular because his camera is ever-present.

This brings up an interesting legal question. Let’s not look at this particular person as the press representative he purports to be and instead see him as a private citizen. Do free speech rights cover photography, a form which isn’t in words but does express thoughts and ideas, along with the possibility of finding a subject in an unflattering pose?

Or, to use another example, would the Tea Party organizers need to undergo this treatment if they wanted to express their disgust with our government’s free-spending ways? Here in Maryland, aside from a protest in front of Government House for Governor O’Malley’s edification, there’s not the opportunity for influencing the wheels of state government since the Maryland General Assembly isn’t in session again for another 8 months.

To be perfectly frank, I’m not completely convinced that our current Administration will continue to have a hands-off approach to internet writers like myself. Perhaps I’m a little bit too small-time to pay attention to, but what could happen to larger investor-owned sites like Red County if government leans on them as they apparently are making an impression on Chrysler bondholders?

Seeing this example in Illinois should remind us that government does not always attempt to be of, by, and for the people but rather dictated to the people, who simply exist to be worker bees for maintaining their hives. If you extend the analogy to what the producers of society pay for taxes (hint: theirs aren’t going down) you can see why many of us won’t go quietly.

Observations on the 2009 Maryland GOP Spring Convention

This post ended up with fewer pictures in it because I didn’t take a large number (about 15 total).

I signed the petition, you should too.

I arrived at the Clarion in Hagerstown too late to cover the Executive Committee meeting, but was told by Justin Ready of the Maryland GOP that little of consequence occurred aside from the pledge to support a petition effort to rid the state of speed cameras. (By the way I signed the petition.)

It wasn’t a bad number of people still about for the social milling around 11:00 or so when I arrived. One thing that was sort of nice about the hotel was that suites were primarily placed around a central bar and gathering place. And no one was thrown into the pool, at least not while I was present.

The bar was indeed open after 11 when I arrived and there still was a goodly gathering down by the pool.

The Mike Pappas hospitality room wasn't nearly as crowded but had a steady flow between his and adjacent interconnected suites.

I did manage to get a nice shot of most of the Wicomico contingent present. As you read on you’ll find that’s a story unto itself.

From left to right, some of my fellow Central Committee members with one other elected official: Blan Harcum, Dr. John Bartkovich, Gail Bartkovich, M.J. Caldwell, and Bob Laun. Gail isn't on the Central Committee but is on our County Council.

So we all went to bed, thinking about some of the agenda items which were on the docket for the next day. In our packets we had three resolutions to consider; additional items on the slate were a number of reports and an election to fill the party’s vacant Third Vice-Chair position.

Our breakfast host and speaker was Hagerstown Mayor Robert Bruchey. On the whole his remarks were the sort I liked: short, sweet, and to the point. He briefly explained how he got to the position he was in, noted his accomplishments came despite a City Council controlled by Democrats, and spoke about some of Hagerstown’s assets like its arts and entertainment district and a soon-to-be opened School for the Arts in downtown Hagerstown – achieving this while rolling back the city’s property tax by a penny. It was a nice contrast to some of the more long-winded remarks we’ve been subjected to on previous occasions.

There were still quite a few empty seats once we got started. You may notice we didn't have the county signposts; those were left in someone's living room.

Politics rarely runs on time and we didn’t get the room in order until about 10 or 15 minutes after the scheduled 9 a.m. starting time for the convention. However, we managed to blow through many of the reports and other party business in fairly short order. All that was left was a review and debate of the three resolutions on the agenda – and that’s where the trouble began.

This was the seventh state convention I’ve attended, dating back to the one just prior to my election to the Central Committee in 2006. At one point we had established the concept of regional chairs in lieu of the three vice-chairs we now have but found out later that an error in having this conform with convention rules made its adoption null and void. Thus, several attempts had subsequently been made in bringing back this idea but none had met with success because opponents continually stated various items needed to be addressed.

So the adoption was pushed back to after the 2010 elections (to address the concern of shortening the terms of the existing vice-chairs), the proposal was recodified to match the new by-laws, regions were changed, and so on and so forth. Finally it seemed we had something that could make it over the 3/5 hurdle needed for by-law changes – we were barely short in the Fall Convention last December.

That is until someone whose name I missed but who hails from Montgomery County came up and whined that we had much more important business as a party to do than talk about this issue, and we’d done so ever since she was elected in 2006 (the same election I was voted in.) Well, we do have many important issues but obviously no one had asked their inclusion on the agenda! Part of the reason we gather is to conduct the business of the party, and the regional chairs idea would help the party do its business in a more sensible way. Anyway, she made the motion to table the regional chairs question until after 2010.

My narrative is going to skip ahead somewhat, because the same fate also befell a different proposal which would establish each county’s voting strength based not on the number of registered Republicans in each county (the current method) but on the number of votes cast for GOP top-ticket candidates in the previous General Election. Again, I believe it was somebody from Montgomery County who asked the issue be tabled.

Now, Jim Pelura can talk all he wants about how “every voice is important” in the Maryland Republican Party and how we’re “gaining momentum” as he did last Saturday. He can also speak to how we “may be a minority but we’re not irrelevant” in Annapolis. But those of us from the rural counties who provide the backbone of the party’s support and a good deal of its “bench” sure feel like the red-headed stepchildren when it comes convention time.

We have been promised the concerns will be addressed though and I look forward to a solution which satisfies those who make up the grassroots of the party. With that I can get back to a narrative.

Many of the other speakers delivered their usual reports to the convention on national and state doings. Joyce Terhes went through a laundry list of how our freedom had been eroded over the last 100+ days and Louis Pope chimed in with the need to fight a “600 front” war with Democrats, referring to the approximate number of county elected officials in the state.

District 2 Senator Donald Munson had the honor of giving a rundown of the General Assembly session, noting that while each session of the body has its charm and peculiarity, this one was “short on charm but big on peculiar.” We got to Annapolis broke and we left there the same way. Maybe that’s why we had these signs around the hall.

This was one of about eight different signs bearing a theme of we will not forget in 2010. Soon I'll be helping that effort as I compile 188 voting records.

It was at this point that the resolutions were placed on the floor and subsequently tabled. For the record, the counties which voted to table both resolutions were Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll, and Montgomery. Between the five they control 70.711 LCD votes, which is a majority of the 141 available.

On the other hand, those counties who voted not to table either proposal (Cecil, Dorchester, Frederick, Harford, Queen Anne’s, Somerset, Talbot, Washington, and Wicomico) control a scant 35.716 LCD votes – mostly from Harford and Frederick counties. Tellingly, there were no representatives from three Eastern Shore counties: Kent, Caroline, and Worcester. (Although, they combine for less than 4 LCD votes.)

Yet those counties on the Shore generally elect Republicans.

We also needed to fill a vacant Third Vice-Chair position, with the two candidates being Brandon Butler of Garrett County and Kelly Schulz of Frederick County. Schulz was an easy winner in this election, carrying all but four county delegations.

With the uproar about the resolutions being tabled, one piece of new business was suggested: a Convention Committee to look at several items including siting and voting. It was an effort to end the “rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Finally, we had a nice lunch with guest speaker Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. After explaining why he ran in the first place – because he didn’t believe his kids and grandkids would grow up in the same America he did – the Congressman started out by blaming the housing crisis on “overregulation” and admitting to be somewhat ambivalent about total Democrat control, as the more dumb things they do the better Republicans look.

Roscoe also noted that he agreed in part with Rush Limbaugh about wanting Obama’s policies to fail, but certainly wants the country to come back strong despite them. Don’t confuse the two, he warned. Bartlett also called on the tea parties to become an “enduring” movement and explained that the Democrats were good people – just wrong on ideas.

One concept he spent some length on was health care; or, as he put it, the “best sick care in the world.” Some items he wanted to see as a counter to socialized medicine were total portability in health insurance (in other words, not tied to an employer), eliminating the cap on pre-existing conditions, and a growth in health savings accounts. Most of these were solid conservative approaches to the issue, which means they’re not going to be adopted anytime soon.

Finally, Bartlett waxed eloquent on “needing a cultural change”. Instead of celebrating the athletes of the world, we need to show more appreciation to the nerds. Why should smart people have to play dumb to be accepted?

Actually, that’s a good question to wrap this piece up with. In general, the GOP has a good share of intelligent folk so it shouldn’t be that hard to place the power struggle aside and come up with a system for running the party everyone can live with. I look forward to finding out what changes are made come fall.

Again, it’s a philosophy

One of the articles I was asked to write for the Patriot Post this week delves into a recent Washington Times story by Chuck Neubauer about a sweetheart deal that involves a company Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband runs, CB Richard Ellis, and legislation she introduced to allow the FDIC to use $25 billion in TARP money to prevent home foreclosures.

I’m not writing here to get into the nuts and bolts of that deal. Instead the story points out yet again that the difference between government as practiced and as our Founders intended remains a chasm, and the gap seemingly only grows wider with each passing day.

People can argue all day about whether Feinstein and her husband intentionally flouted Senate ethics rules or were interested in adding to their already sizable fortune through the contract in question; however, my query is about what possesses someone who is entrusted by the public to represent their best interests to be involved in any questionable situation where she can benefit from taxpayer money?

And the problem isn’t one of having a working spouse, far from it. The problem is the cavalier attitude about spending the taxpayer’s money to prevent foreclosures – a problem which had at least some of its origin in the very government attempting to bail it out.

Much of the anger expressed at our Tea Parties was directed toward politicians who failed to see that government could not and should not attempt to serve as the solution to all of our (real or imagined) problems. But it’s not only politicians; they simply serve as a convenient scapegoat. Too many in society joke about getting their share of the bailout, yet the problem isn’t financial. The problem is one of expectations, as far too many in the public have been conditioned to expect a handout.

A prime example of this comes at tax day – the very day we here in Salisbury stood in the pouring rain and cold to protest – when most filers assume they’ll get a handsome tax refund but forget that all they’re doing is getting money which was confiscated from them over the course of 52 weeks back in one lump sum – without interest. (For the purpose of this argument, I’ll ignore the fact that many are simply getting a handout from the federal government because they don’t pay taxes in the first place.) In truth, a prudent government would not take enough money to give you that large sum back.

Nor would a prudent government be such an alluring target for scam artists who ponder ways to enrich themselves by adding a pork amendment for a favored constituent or writing arcane provisions designed to punish particular behavior or reward another. For just as surely as shifting the rules of the game to tilt in one’s favor, myriad financial interests vie for a place at the table of government in a neverending effort to use the tax code to reward or punish behavior.

Even the FairTax, which I prefer to our current byzantine system, does modify behavior to an extent by favoring non-consumption or reuse over buying items anew. In one respect that is an argument for retaining a flat tax based on income or money earned, but on the whole I believe a consumption tax is better. In either case, only enough revenue should be raised to do those functions the federal government is assigned to do by the Constitution.

Certainly, honorable men and women need to be elected to legislate that which government needs to do. But it’s been my longstanding belief too that if you provide less of a temptation for scofflaws, their behavior will improve. If you don’t have that cookie jar in the first place, the kid’s not going to sneak over and take out a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies while you’re not looking.

It’s up to us to rid government at all levels of as many cookie jars as we can, because that’s a diet we the people can all live and prosper with.

A new link

You may notice I made a couple changes here over the weekend.

First of all I removed the Salisbury city election box on the left hand side since the election is now complete. More importantly though I added a new link under the Eastern Shore blogs on the right.

Don’t Tread On Me! is an outgrowth of the Salisbury Tax Day Tea Party and promises to be a new gathering place for political activists – just don’t tell Janet Napolitano. (You may also notice in the photo up top there’s a guy holding up a camera about center frame wearing a hoodie. That would be me.)

As founder Chris Lewis notes in the second post:

Enough is enough. I am tired of the lies, of the selfish and greedy nature of the politicians who do not listen or care what we have to say. The people who should be sacrificing, are the politicians, not the people. They work for us. it is time to take our country back from the elitist idiots who are screwing up America. This will and must start right here in our local communities. We can no longer be satisfied to work all day, take care of our families, enjoy time with our loved ones and offer our time to local communities and charities; we must now be more active in local, state and federal politics.

Well said, but this sentiment was more succinctly phrased by President Eisenhower in 1954:

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

In either case, it is good to see more and more people waking up to face some of the ills afflicting our nation. And, to the critics who echoed the vapid utterances of Janeane Garofalo about these Tea Party protests being solely about having a black President, take note that the first post-Tea Party act involves…private property rights. That sounds pretty racist to me.

It’s also worthy of note that Chris announced in his first post a run for a Wicomico County Council at-large seat, so perhaps he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Certainly we will hear more about that as the months progress although the start of filing is only about 2 1/2 months away as I recall.

As one who has been slogging in the trenches of political activism in my own little way for awhile, it’s good to have some company in the foxhole. Let’s hope that Lewis has a hit on his hands and Wicomico County gets an activist group of citizens on the right side of the political spectrum for a change.

Pictures from Salisbury’s Tea Party

Yep, I made it – a little later than I would have liked but I managed to roll in while they were still reciting the Bill of Rights. As usual, the captions of the photos help tell the story.

This pretty much summed up the mood of the participants:

Who knew that a phrase from a movie about television, part of the mass media derided by some speakers, would sum up the feelings of those who were present?

And talk about a nasty day weatherwise. I think the event happened to take place on the coldest day we’ll see in April, and certainly one of the wettest.

I took this shot when I arrived about 5 p.m. Some were estimating about 500 people present at the event's peak, I'd say that guess was only a little optimistic. — I took this shot when I arrived about 5 p.m. Some were estimating about 500 people present at the event’s peak, I’d say that guess was only a little optimistic.

But despite the need for umbrellas the crowd was in good spirits.

Here's another shot of the crowd taken from about stage left looking toward Division Street. — Here’s another shot of the crowd taken from about stage left looking toward Division Street.

There were even some who were smart enough to work to the downtown traffic. Many speakers had their words punctuated by the horns of passing motorists on Division Street.

Some of the protestors lined up along Division Street for passing motorists' reactions. — Some of the protestors lined up along Division Street for passing motorists’ reactions.

Since some people are going to assume that this Tea Party was a radical right-wing nut idea, may as well toss them a little red meat.

The picture's a touch blurry but still legible. I didn't look for the car missing the rear license plate. — The picture’s a touch blurry but still legible. I didn’t look for the car missing the rear license plate.

Still, there were a number of sharply worded and humorous signs there. It was half the fun of taking pictures.

To be honest I think the answer to this question is 'no'. — To be honest I think the answer to this question is ‘no’.

Two sets of sentiments I share for the price of one.

Nothing wrong with borrowing a little bit of Ronald Reagan every now and then.

This may have been the best usage of an Obama phrase in the whole bunch. He sure is on his way to doing so.

There were numerous speakers during the event, most taking two to three minutes. Aside from the Pledge of Allegiance and reading of the Bill of Rights there was no set list of speakers.

One of many speakers who made his feelings known during the Tea Party.

In case you’re wondering, the event organizer was Chris Lewis and he’s in the black and yellow jacket to the left of the speaker in the photo.

This gentleman was a particularly inspiring speaker.

I actually got video of him with my phone…guess I’ll have to figure out how to get it on here.

There was only one overtly political speaker I saw. You might know this guy.

State Senator and Congressional hopeful Andy Harris was on his third Tea Party of the day, having gone to Annapolis and Bel Air as well.

This was another interesting display. I honestly hope they didn’t actually USE all of this but simply brought the boxes to make the point!

Is this an argument for the FairTax or what?

While I think I saw a Daily Times reporter there as well, I was quite disappointed that just one TV station bothered to be live at the event – especially since Channel 47 is just around the corner!

Channel 16 (WBOC) was the only TV station doing live shots from the event.

As one of those who jumped in line to speak, let me tell you I thought it was a very moving experience.

I chose to speak on a subject I’ve touched on peripherally and that is the war on prosperity. A couple posts back I expressed the sentiment in the “Going Galt” movement but in this case it was simply noting that President Obama’s “soak-the-rich” tax scheme was an attack on the American Dream and prosperity in general. As I asked (I’m paraphrasing since I didn’t write the remarks beforehand), “why bother working hard and putting your nose to the grindstone for the tax man to take it away?”

While there were a number of folks in the crowd who were familiar to me (including at least one elected official besides State Senator Harris), the majority were just everyday folks who weren’t necessarily political until today and may not be political next week – they’re just frustrated with the direction our nation is going.

But people like me who have been in the fight for awhile would like to see them stay engaged because this is what America is truly all about – a government for the people and by the people, not dictated to the people.

For those among the 400 to 500 people who braved the cold and rain with their signs, I have a suggestion. Don’t toss out your sign, just stick it in the front window of your home or business. (So what if it got a little wet and runny, as long as it’s still legible.) Let others know which side you’re on and that you still feel you have the right to speak out and present your own petition for a redress of grievances.

We can yet take back our nation, the trick is to keep this fire burning for 18 to 42 months. The job can be completed by November of 2012 if we work hard at it.

Are we there yet?

Today’s “Founders Quote Daily” from Patriot Post is appropriate as usual:

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

And we’re STILL a high-taxing state. Anyway, Good Lord willing and if the creek don’t rise I’ll see you at the Salisbury Tax Day Tea Party this afternoon.

If they don’t read a 1200 page bill…

In the past I have noted that one of my favorite books is Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. As a small offshoot of the whole Tax Day Tea Party movement there is an effort afoot to send a copy of the volume to members of Congress. This has also made for a new term in the political lexicon, “going Galt.”

By definition, “going Galt” is slowing down the work schedule or the innovation so as not to become one of those affected by President Obama’s “soak the rich” tax scheme. In other words, if I worked 70 hours a week and made $300,000 for my efforts, “going Galt” would be dropping the workload to 60 hours a week in order to make just a little bit less than the point where extra wealth would be seized by the IRS.

The “Going Galt” website interprets the idea this way:

When you see that a majority of your government’s policies and programs are not simply inefficient or ineffective, but are actually wrong in principle and detrimental to your own personal goals, then every dollar taken from you and spent implementing these programs becomes not just an act of theft, but an act of slavery as one is forced to support one’s oppressor. Seen in that light, it is crystal clear why people would choose to reduce their taxes so as to starve the beast and free themselves from its clutches. For these people, “Going Galt” is not an economic decision, but a moral one. They are ultimately fighting for their freedom and should be applauded and supported in their actions. (Emphasis in original.)

It is this view of government as oppressor which is moving from the radical to the commonplace as expressed in the Tea Party movement.

And if that still seems like a fringe element sort of concept, another method of measuring government impact on one’s life has been around for many years and buttresses the point of just how intrusive those bureaucrats are becoming.

While sine die for our Maryland General Assembly occurs tomorrow, a number of revenue enhancements they have adopted over the last many decades means that our state’s Tax Freedom Day doesn’t come along until next Sunday – a date which ranks as 5th latest in the year among the 50 states. (Sarah Palin’s Alaska is the earliest, they were freed way back on March 23. Right behind them is Bobby Jindal’s state of Louisiana which celebrated the milestone on March 28.) As a whole, the average American celebrates today, just two days before the IRS collects its due and 103 days into the calendar year.

However, the Tax Foundation (who determines each state’s tax burden as a percentage of the calendar year) cautions:

Tax Freedom Day, like almost all tax burden measures, ignores the current year’s deficits. If the projected deficit for 2009 were counted as a tax, Tax Freedom Day would arrive on May 29 instead of April 13-the latest date ever for this deficit-inclusive measure. (Emphasis mine.)

Hence the frustration that’s beginning to boil over like a tea kettle, whistling loudly but ignored by those in charge.

It would be an interesting question to ask our legislators and those who determine how our money is spent (all the way from the Salisbury City Council and Wicomico County Council through our General Assembly to Congress on the legislative side and from Rick Pollitt to Martin O’Malley to Barack Obama on the executive roster) just how many of them have actually read Atlas Shrugged – much less understood the concept behind Ayn Rand’s work.

If they’ve read the book, they will hopefully understand that the squalor which builds as conditions deteriorate for the masses isn’t all that far-fetched in a nation where unemployment is rising in most sectors except for government employment. It’s a workforce where most are honest and hard-working but you run more and more into the modern-day Wesley Mouch.

It’s my belief that government – at least as constituted in modern society – cannot solve problems because by doing so the agency or bureau would eliminate the reason for its own existence. Thus, problems tend to be addressed by regulation, which creates another set of problems for a new agency or bureau to work on. Government agencies can easily multiply faster than rabbits, and each gets a larger workforce that depends on taxpayers for their wages and benefits.

By getting into the legislative body, one can set the agenda for perpetual re-election and power by creating as many government jobs as possible while attempting to spread just enough benefits to the voting population to curry favor come time to vote. Is it any wonder that the campaign to win office nearly always spends far more than the office is worth salary-wise?

Yet those we place in charge of representing us cannot be counted on to even read the legislation which spends trillions of dollars of not just my money, but my daughter’s and any children she’s fortunate enough to have. This despite our President’s pledge to give Congress and the public enough time to read what’s he’s about to enact.

So while I feel this effort by the Galtists has its heart in the right place, the only thing that politicians listen to is the votes on Election Day – unfortunately the Tea Parties will long be a thing of the past once that day of reckoning arrives again.

In somewhat unrelated but still relevant electoral news, I found out today as well that one of the local left’s favorite whipping boys (because of their support for Congressional aspirant Andy Harris), the Club For Growth, is losing its president. Outgoing head Pat Toomey announced today that:

With 41 Republican senators, we should be able to use the filibuster to stop (liberal senators) in their tracks. But several of those Republicans support that liberal agenda. One of them is Arlen Specter. I personally believe that it is time for him to go. And that job falls on me. Very soon, I intend to announce my candidacy for the United States Senate in a Republican primary challenge against Arlen Specter.

In other words, a possible rematch of the 2004 campaign looms where Specter and Toomey battled and establishment Republicans (including President Bush) angered many of the grassroots conservatives by publicly backing Specter.

Taking over the Club will be former House member Chris Chocola from Indiana.

Steele hits a brick wall

Apparently Michael Steele wanted to jump on the Tea Party bandwagon a little too late. This comes from the DontGo Movement:

A few days ago Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party. He was thanked for finally reaching out to the movement but denied to speak.

National Communications Director Juliana Johnson states, “Steele hasn’t shown any interest in this movement until now, until the cameras are rolling. We denied his invitation. In addition, this is a nonpartisan event, not an RNC event.”

Eric Odom, Director of the DontGo Movement, said in his letter to Steele’s people, “…We’re still excited to know that Chairman Steele will be in Chicago and we hope, after knowing that he’ll be in the city, that he’ll stop by and mingle with the Americans who will be rallying on April 15th. This will also present a fantastic time for Chairman Steele to LISTEN to what we have to say and perhaps gather some thoughts on what the RNC needs to be doing moving forward.”

As I made clear before, we as a local party have no official role in the Tax Day Tea Party proceedings in Salisbury but many of us will be there as private citizens and fed-up taxpayers. That’s something which transcends party lines in our neck of the woods.

But some of the DontGo people were even less kind about the GOP getting involved.

Is the Tea Party tied to the GOP? Of course not.

In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is, the RNC has been about as effective as a lead balloon in actually engaging the free-market minded grassroots with regards to political action. The RNC, as well as all but two Republican members of Congress, have been eerily silent over the past few weeks.

RNC Chairman Steele’s office did reach out to me on Tuesday (although rumor has it that he is now denying such a conversation took place) morning and the person I spoke with asked if we would be interested in having him speak at the Chicago Tea Party. This request was, of course, at the last minute and only after national media eyes became involved.

But that was the first time the RNC had really injected itself at the national level into any part of the Tea Party Movement. (Emphasis in original.)

And I can see why the Tea Party organizers seem wary of a political party and apparatus getting involved. It’s politicians of both stripes who have placed our nation in the situation we find ourselves in, and while Republican principles run toward fiscal conservatism their voting patterns of late haven’t always lent themselves to backing up their words with deeds.

Instead, we have a huge proportion of Americans who have washed their hands entirely of politics, much to their detriment. The cynicism and mistrust many look to those fat-cat politicians with is well-earned and has been pretty much since our Republic was formed. Even in the day of our Founding Fathers there were unscrupulous men who sought only their own enrichment in the public arena.

In the end, one day of protest isn’t going to make a huge difference. We’ll get together, hear a few speeches, and have an opportunity to vent our frustration. However, the next day we’re all going to wake up and little will have changed in the free-spending ways of Congress, the legislative bodies in the several states, and local jurisdictions everywhere.

To make a lasting difference will take more than a one day rally, and the involvement is going to take its toll along the way. Our original revolution was years in the making as was the war between the states. In this particular era thus far we’ve managed to make our changes by ballot and not by bullet. Sometimes I think the best we can hope for is that these widening differences between the government and governed don’t come to bloodshed.