Big Labor – Page 4

Odds and ends number 73

As I often do, here’s a collection of little items which grow to become one BIG item. And I have a LOT of them – so read fast.

For example, I learned the other day that Richard Rothschild, who spoke so passionately about private property rights (and the Constitution in general) will be back in our area Saturday, March 2nd as the speaker for Dorchester County’s Lincoln Day Dinner. That’s being held at the Elks Lodge outside Cambridge beginning at 3 p.m. Tickets, which are just $30, are available through the county party.

While Rothschild is the featured speaker, you shouldn’t miss some of the others scheduled to grace the podium, particularly gubernatorial candidates Charles Lollar and Blaine Young as well as Congressman Andy Harris. For a small county like Dorchester, that’s quite a lineup!

The controversy over the Septic Bill is far from the only item liberty-minded Marylanders have to worry about. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been bombarded with notices over a number of issues.

For example, after what State Senator E.J. Pipkin termed as a “structural failure” regarding hearing testimony on Senate Bill 281 (the gun-grabber bill) he offered an amendment to the Senate rules to handle these cases. However, I could not find a follow-up to that bill.

What I could find, though, was Pipkin’s statement that the state was making citizens into criminals, stating “The penalties embedded within the Governor’s Gun Control bill are extreme; they would criminalize paperwork errors in ways that destroy careers, lives, and families.” And he’s absolutely correct.

“This bill does not address the issue of gun violence in Maryland. The real issue is illegal firearms in Maryland, something the Governor’s bill does not target,” Pipkin concluded.

But guns aren’t the only problem. Unfortunately, we are one step closer to an offshore wind boondoggle in Maryland despite the best efforts of those who deal in the realm of reality to stop it. One bastion of sanity in Maryland is Change Maryland, whose Chair Larry Hogan expressed the following regarding offshore wind:

It seems Martin O’Malley’s priority is to make electricity and gas more expensive. He is pushing an increase in the gas tax and pushing a wind energy policy that is not cost effective and guarantees that electricity will be more expensive for rate payers.

At the close of the last session, the governor ignored the budgeting process which resulted in a train wreck. Instead he was out on the steps of the capital, leading wind energy activists in chant that said ‘all we re saying is give wind a chance.’

There are no assurances that this offshore wind proposal will not devolve into crony-capitalism that reward friends of the governor and political donors.

Actually, Hogan slightly misses the point because true capitalism would occur when the market continues to shun the expense and non-reliability of offshore wind. I guarantee that if this project goes through it will cost those of us who use electricity in Maryland a LOT more than $1.50 a month – subsidies can always change, just like tax rates on casinos.

The aforementioned Pipkin also weighed in on offshore wind:

This legislation may represent a shift in how private business is done in and regulated by the state.

This bill requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to weigh new criteria in approving private development contracts to build off-shore wind turbines. The Commission will now consider prevailing wage and Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) participation as criteria in its contract award.

This could set new precedent. In the future, we could see every business now regulated by a state agency subject to prevailing wage and MBE requirements.

You think? Our Big Labor-friendly governor stops at nothing – nothing – to grease the skids for his union cronies. And surely this will extend to whatever road work is performed once the gas tax is increased by O’Malley and General Assembly Democrats. Wait, did I say road work? Hogan and Change Maryland question that assumption, too:

Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan backed transportation reform which has emerged as a key issue this legislative session after several years of being relegated to the back burner. Specifically, key members of the Maryland House of Delegates are advocating guiding principles to ensure much-needed investments are made in infrastructure and fundamental reforms made to transportation policy.

“Previous attempts to improve our transportation network in Maryland have been an abject failure. Our top elected officials are saying roads and bridges are crumbling, but what they won’t tell you is they are the ones who caused the problem in the first place,” said Hogan. “Another myth that is being foisted upon us is that there is an urgent need to raise the gasoline tax, and that is simply not true.”

Hogan joins Del. Susan Krebs and other House members in instilling common-sense policy solutions to making transportation policy. These include protecting the transportation trust fund with a constitutional amendment, realigning infrastructure investments to reflect how Marylanders actually travel and restoring funds for transportation. (Emphasis mine.)

I highlighted the above phrase as a way to say, “bingo!” That, folks, is the problem in a nutshell.

This is a state which jacked up the tolls on the Bay Bridge to create a cash cow for other projects which don’t pay their own way, like the Inter-County Connector outside Washington. O’Malley’s gas tax is really intended to build rail lines most of us will never ride rather than build projects we could use, like perhaps a limited-access Easton bypass for U.S. 50, widening Maryland Route 90 into Ocean City, or building an interchange at the dangerous U.S. 113 – Maryland Route 12 intersection in Worcester County.

The gas tax proposal has led to acrimony in Annapolis, as Delegate Kathy Szeliga points out:

(Senate President Mike) Miller called House Republicans who oppose his gas tax proposal, “Neanderthals,” and “obstructionists.” In response to his comments, Delegate Szeliga tweeted, “Yabba-dabba-do, Mr. Miller,” further commenting that she hopes to obstruct and stop this massive 70% increase in the gas tax and government expansion. In response to Senator Miller’s jabs at Republicans, Delegate Herb McMillan added, “Even a caveman can see that it’s stupid to raise gas taxes when there’s no guarantee they’ll be used for roads.”

Kidding aside, you can call me a “total obstructionist” as well, Senator Miller. On the road to serfdom someone has to stand in the way, and I’m one of those someones.

Notice that I haven’t even talked about the federal government yet. One sure sign of a new year, though, is the ubiquitous Congressional scorecard. Two organizations which have released theirs recently are Americans for Prosperity and Heritage Action for America.

Not surprisingly, Harris scored a 95% grade from AFP, leading the Maryland delegation – former Congressman Roscoe Bartlett had the second highest grade at 91%. As for the rest, well, their COMBINED score was 50 percent. Heritage Action, however, graded Andy more harshly with an 81% grade (Bartlett scored 67%.) Once again, the remainder of Maryland’s delegation scored anywhere from a lackluster 17% to a pathetic 4 percent.

We’re also talking about immigration reform more these days. I happen to lean somewhat on the hawkish side, so I believe these reports from the Center for Immigration Studies are worth discussing. In one, former Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia looks at what happened the last time we went down this road insofar as collecting back taxes from illegal aliens – a key part of the compromise provision – was handled after the 1986 reform.

The second CIS report looks at recommendations the bipartisan Jordan Commission made in 1997, after the 1986 immigration amnesty program failed. This middle ground made five recommendations:

Integrate the immigrants now in the United States more thoroughly;
Reduce the total number of legal immigrants to about 550,000 a year;
Rationalize the nonimmigrant visa programs and regulate them;
Enforce the immigration law vigorously with no further amnesties; and
Re-organize the management of the immigration processes within the government.

That seems like a pretty good starting point to work from, particularly the first recommendation.

Another study worth reading is this one from Competitive Enterprise Institute called “The Wages of Sin Taxes.” In it, author Chris Snowden takes an unflinching look at who really pays for these tolls. As CEI states in their summary:

Most remarkably, Snowdon, a fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, demonstrates that financial burden supposedly placed on society through the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, high-calorie foods, has little basis in reality. The myth that these “sinners” cost the rest of us money is perpetuated in large part because “government has no incentive to tell the public that these groups are being exploited, and the affected industries dare not advertise the savings that come from lives being cut short by excessive use of their products.” This type of tax is actually a regressive “stealth tax” that allows lawmakers to take money from their constituents with the lowest incomes without the pushback an upfront tax would provoke.

I would put that in the category of “duh.” Ask yourself: how much state-sanctioned money and effort do you see given by government to prevent drinking, smoking, and gambling? Yet they rake their cut off the top in each of these three vices, which are only legal because government and society have compromised on these issues.

On the other hand, those who grow or smoke marijuana or do other illegal drugs are considered criminals and tossed in jail or fined. The same is true with prostitutes in most locales. If there were tax money to be made, though, and societal mores shifted ever-so-slightly toward a more libertarian viewpoint with regards to these self-inflicted actions, they would be legal – but you’d certainly still see the public service announcements about “just say no” or the dangers of selling one’s body. (Oddly enough, I doubt we buy time around the world to warn about the dangers of illegally immigrating to the United States. Why do you think that is?)

And I don’t think items like this upcoming movie will help the libertarian cause – not because of the message per se, but the poor quality of the animation. It reminds me of those cheesy Xtranormal movies people make, sorry to say.

I also have a couple items – as I get closer to wrapping this up – that I think are worth reading. Paul Jacobs is on Townhall giving our state a little tough love regarding the drive to tighten petition rules (in a state where it’s already very difficult to succeed) while Mike Shedlock is there making a point I’ve made for several years – my daughter’s generation is being hosed.

While he’s a little bit older than the Millennial Generation, I think Dan Bongino can relate. This video is now going viral on Youtube, in part thanks to the Blaze.

Finally, I think it’s worth alerting my readers that this may be the last edition of odds and ends for awhile. No, I’m not going anywhere but in the interest of bringing more readership I’m in the process of exploring the concept of a quicker posting tempo which may or may not feature shorter posts.

I’ve always felt the ideal post was somewhere between 500 and 1,000 words, but these odds and ends posts can run 2,000 words or more. Maybe it’s better for both readers and this writer to space things out and perhaps devote 200-300 words to an item rather than wait and collect a bunch of items which could get stale after a week or two. I can’t always control the length of my Ten Question Tuesday posts or ones where I report on an event, but I can work with items like these and see what’s truly worth writing about.

As the political world and internet evolve, I think the time is right to change up the mix and tempo here just a little bit. Certainly I won’t get to a point where I’m simply rehashing press releases but I think it’s a better use of my time to shorten the average post I write.

So there you have it: another post which weighs in at 2,000 words, exactly.

Odds and ends number 65

Gee, this format seems familiar. I don’t know if it’s the time of year or just luck of the draw, but there have been a slew of items I’ve seen as interesting yet not necessarily worthy of a full post by themselves. So we’ll blend them all together and see how it turns out, sort of like homemade chocolate chip cookie dough.

I don’t know if this is the Maryland GOP shooting itself in the foot once again or just being inadvertently tone-deaf. But as part of an otherwise rather boilerplate formal announcement of its Pathfinders program, which “is a statewide effort to develop the party through local candidate assistance and cultivating grassroots organizations,” they selected a date for their initial seminar which happens to be the exact same day many of those conservative grassroots have a gathering in Annapolis called Turning the Tides 2013. Fortunately, Pathfinders sounds like a continuing effort by the MDGOP so those of us who were booked for Turning the Tides can catch up rather quickly.

But you would think the powers-that-be would sort of scan the political landscape before selecting a date.

The political landscape may be just a little harder to survey if the IRS doesn’t change its mind about discontinuing a “key economic metric” after compiling data for two decades. In my last odds and ends post, I talked about Jim Pettit’s opinion on this pet subject of his, but the political consultant stated his case on National Review Online this week. It made the job of Change Maryland so much easier because the proof was in the pudding and easily spotted to boot. Now we’ll have to use more anecdotal data.

Accessing our elected representative to the federal government isn’t always easy, but one gentleman did and his question is the subject of what is billed as the first “Ask Andy” segment, featuring our Congressman Andy Harris.

It’s not exactly earthshattering that Andy wants a far more fiscally conservative approach than what is being proposed – certainly I do as well. (Actually, I’d prefer an infinite amount of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases since you can’t divide by zero.) But I can think of a lot of other interesting questions to ask Andy, one in particular being whether he’ll support John Boehner for Speaker after what Boehner did to Republicans who wouldn’t toe the mainstream party line. Somehow I don’t think that will be his next video.

And I think there’s a young conservative who agrees with me on this point about spending. Jonathan Bydlak has graced my website before, when the Coalition to Reduce Spending was formed last spring. But his op-ed (again, on National Review Online) states the biggest flaw in promises made by politicians over the last couple decades:

For years, Grover Norquist and Republicans have tried “starving the beast” of the federal government by capping taxes. While they’ve been highly successful at preventing tax increases, they have been less effective at addressing one problematic aspect of fiscal policy: the ability of the Federal Reserve and Treasury to borrow more and more to finance massive spending, as they have done under the Bush and Obama administrations. It’s simple: Borrowing today means a higher tax burden tomorrow when the debt comes due. True fiscal responsibility, then, requires us to curb spending in addition to limiting tax rates.

Imagine if instead of pledging not to raise taxes, all those politicians had pledged not to raise spending. It’s unlikely the United States would be facing massive tax increases as part of the so-called fiscal cliff. That’s why it’s important to do for spending what Norquist has done for taxes: create a means for voters to hold elected officials accountable when they break campaign promises of fiscal responsibility.

While Bydlak uses the op-ed as a means to promote his “Reject the Debt” pledge, the fact that he’s even starting this conversation is a good sign. Of course, it’s much more politically popular to refrain from raising taxes than it is to cut spending because, as with all things political, making cuts is a grand idea unless and until your particular pet program faces the budgetary meat cleaver. Even I’m realistic enough to know that certain items can’t just be axed abruptly; for example, in my book I proposed a lengthy sunset for Social Security because I knew too many people would have a rug pulled out from underneath them otherwise.

One thing the federal government should be paying more attention to, though, is the amount of time federal workers toil at furthering the agenda of their union at the expense of taxpayers like you and me. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group familiar to my readers, put out a note this week asking the Office of Personnel Management to release a study done regarding “official time”:

Federal employees spent about 3.4 million hours performing union duties while on the clock in 2011, according to an unreleased Office of Personnel Management (OPM) report made public in a November 26 Federal Times article. This amount of time, referred to as “official time,” cost the federal government $155 million. It represents an 11 percent increase in the amount of official time in 2010.

This information comes from leaks inside the administration.

Matt Patterson, a CEI Senior Fellow who covers the Big Labor beat for the free-market advocates, expounded on his findings in a post at the OpenMarket blog. It’s interesting timing considering the right-to-work controversy in Michigan. Look for a piece on that in tomorrow’s Patriot Post Digest; I wrote it yesterday.

I haven’t heard whether yet another effort to make Maryland a right-to-work state will be tried in next year’s General Assembly session, but I suspect that it will. Unfortunately, if I were to make a bet I would say Maryland would be about the last to pass such a common-sense law – then again, who would have thought Michigan would be the 24th?

Stranger things have happened.

Odds and ends number 58

While I ditched one long-running post series Friday night and another will soon go on its annual hiatus now that the Shorebirds season is nearly complete, the “odds and ends” series continues to be a fan favorite. (It’s also a writer favorite, which is why I keep doing these 1-5 paragraph looks at interesting items I come across.)

First up are the Libertarians, which once again have made it to the ballot in Maryland as an official minor party. This means all of their Congressional and Senatorial candidates can run under the Libertarian banner. Locally, First District Congressional hopeful Muir Boda noted:

We are so grateful for the hard work put into this drive for ballot access. This was a true grassroots political effort that will offer real alternatives to the two major political parties. Thank you to all who petitioned and to all who signed the petition giving voters more legitimate choices in November. Liberty is on the ballot!

What I find interesting, though, is that the Green Party, which also secured the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot, only has a handful of candidates running in Maryland. I encourage them to get moving and fill their ballot spaces as well!

About 18 months ago I posted about the District of Columbia’s 5-cent-per-bag tax and efforts to make it a reality in Maryland. So far our retailers have remained unscathed for the most part, but a recent study done by The Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University in Boston indicates that the bag tax is neither producing the revenue contemplated from the tax nor significantly reducing the number of bags in circulation, to wit:

We project that a rebound in grocery bag consumption will lead to higher Bag Tax collections. Consumers will pay $5.74 million in Bag Taxes, with D.C. receiving of $4.59 million in FY 2016 (114.8 million bags X $0.04) and retailers keeping the other $1.15 million. This revenue will drain resources from the private economy of D.C.

All other things being equal, consumers will allocate a portion of their spending to the Bag Tax or divert spending outside D.C. to avoid the tax ─ both will reduce consumption spending in D.C. As a result, retail businesses will see a reduction in sales and profits and, in turn, reduce their employment and investment expenditures leading to lower wages and income.

The higher Bag Tax collections will destroy 136 net local jobs. The job losses will cause annual wages to fall by $13.73 per worker and aggregate real disposable income to fall by $8.08 million. The tax will also lower investment by $1.58 million, with the loss concentrated in the retail sector.

The lost income and employment will be felt in the collection of other taxes in D.C., such as the sales tax. We estimate that D.C. will forgo an additional $163,510 in sales tax revenue due to the Bag Tax.

In short, people are working around the problem and retailers are lax about the collection of the tax. To them, it’s just more paperwork they can do without. Just like any other tax – such as the 2008 sales tax increase in Maryland – people eventually will pay the additional tax a little bit at a time but that will leave them less money for other economic activities.

And the bags add up. On Friday I spent $200 at the grocery store and probably received 15 plastic bags. If you figure (anecdotally, of course) that an average family gets a dozen bags a week for various purchases, that adds up to $30 a year. Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but if you read through the study you’ll find that other places which have adopted the tax increased it after a time – that nickel today might be a dime tomorrow and suddenly it’s a $60 annual bite.

Speaking of tax raisers, I’ve been getting a lot of shrill feedback from the Obama ~~For~~ Against America camp regarding the Republican convention. Let’s start with David Axelrod:

Judging from the number of times they’ve said it this week, you would think repealing Obamacare on Day One is the most urgent goal of the Republican Party and number one reason to elect Mitt Romney.

I’d like to know what’s noble about making it harder for people to get health care.

I’d like to know why you’re lying about the Republican goal, since it’s YOUR Medicare cuts which would eventually make it more difficult for seniors to receive care. Unfortunately, I doubt Obamacare would be repealed on the first day because I keep hearing this crap about “repeal and replace.” No replacement is needed.

How about Jim Messina:

If you’ve seen any coverage of Paul Ryan’s speech in Tampa, you know that the consensus among journalists and independent observers is that it was … factually challenged.

He lied about Medicare. He lied about the Recovery Act. He lied about the deficit and debt. He even dishonestly attacked Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin — a plant that closed in December 2008 under George W. Bush. He also failed to offer one constructive idea about what he would do to move the country forward.

Does Obamacare cut Medicare? Yes. Did the stimulus waste a lot of money and have few “shovel-ready” jobs to show for it? Yes. And that GM plant actually closed its doors in 2009, when Barack Obama was President.

Oh, and by the way Jim, that idea to cut spending to no more than 20% of GDP? That seems pretty constructive to me given our spending problem, with the trillion-dollar annual deficits your guy has run ever since taking office.

The ones who are “factually challenged” seem to be in the White House these days.

And then we have John Kerry:

I have one message burned into my memory for everyone who cares about the outcome of this year’s presidential election:

Respond quickly and powerfully to attacks from the other side.

(snip)

What makes 2012 different from when I ran for president in 2004 is that the other side doesn’t have to wait for an outside group to come along with false attacks.

Consider this: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spent about $23 million on smear ads against me in 2004.

This year, the Romney campaign and super PACs have promised to spend more than $1 billion.

Barack Obama has been a tremendous leader who has moved our country forward in more ways than we even probably now realize. He needs another four years to get the job done.

Shouldn’t that be “seared” into your memory, Senator? Of course, the $23 million in ads merely pointed out the truth! In fact, they probably didn’t go far enough in exploring your life as a turncoat.

I’ll grant that Obama is a tremendous leader – if you count leading from behind, that is – but as I point out to Jim Messina above the ones who are misleading voters are you guys. Ask Harry Reid next time you see him about the proof that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years, or else just ask him to repeat that off the safe zone of the Senate floor next time.

Oddly enough, each and every one of these e-mails asked me for money. Guess what? Thanks in large part to you, I have none to spare.

And it wouldn’t be Labor Day if I didn’t mention…Big Labor. If you don’t think Democrats and their toady groups aren’t scared, witness the bus driver protest in Montgomery County the other day. Montgomery County GOP Chair Mark Uncapher had the right comeback though:

(L)et me offer the SEIU bus drivers a test. If they want to take credit for kids making the honor roll, are they also will to accept responsibility for failing schools?

Of course they won’t, because those are always the fault of Republicans who won’t throw enough money at the schools.

Even though our convention is past, local Republicans aren’t done with the fun yet. The Worcester County Republicans will open their own headquarters on Saturday at 5 p.m. It will be located at 11934 Ocean Gateway, behind Sherwin Williams.

It’s good to see that other local counties are taking the step to open their own facilities instead of piggybacking from ours. Not that I mind the other counties coming here, but for convenience sake it’s better to spread the GOP wealth around. I was told to not forget my camera because “you may have a photo opportunity” so we’ll see.

But let me close with a sort of Labor Day-related question: is Barack Obama a communist?

Certainly he’s shrewd enough to not be a card-carrying member (not that most media would care anyway.) But this 30-minute snippet of an upcoming documentary called “The Unvetted” raises other disturbing questions about Obama’s background as well. This is what the Accuracy in Media folks write about the film:

A new film from America’s Survival, Inc. documents what journalist Cliff Kincaid calls “one of the most extraordinary cover-ups in American history — how a presidential candidate with a covert connection to a major Communist Party operative was protected by the major liberal and conservative media.” Kincaid is the president of America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) and recently held a Washington, D.C. conference on “The Vetting” of Barack Obama. The 30 minute film “The Unvetted” is available for viewing for free at the ASI YouTube channel.

Since they’d like me to share, I will:

“The conservative media must stop protecting Obama from the scrutiny he deserves. Our film ‘The Unvetted’ explains this scandal and cover-up,” says Kincaid.

While the film is rather sensational, I get the feeling that this horse is already out of the barn. I doubt many people are going to have their minds changed by the film, about which filmmaker Agustin Blazquez says:

I’m now editing a full feature documentary that I want to have ready in September–the election is fast approaching! I have been running a marathon working 14 to 16 hours a day in order to produce these two productions on time.

These productions need venues.

With the recent success of the ‘2016: Obama’s America” documentary, the climate could be good for another such film if it’s well made. As for this one, you can be the judge.

You can also be the judge as to how successful this edition of odds and ends will be. Now that voters will be starting to pay attention I’m probably going to get many more items worthy of inclusion.

Odds and ends number 56

I have a veritable catch-all of little feature items best handled in a paragraph or two, so I’ll get cracking!

First of all is an important update from the state Board of Elections with the ballot language for the seven statewide issues as well as a number of local questions (including four from Wicomico County.)

At first read, it doesn’t appear there’s any effort to deceive people into voting in a counter-intuitive manner (e.g. voting for an issue to repeal a particular law.) It appears that those who want to repeal certain laws would indeed vote against them at the ballot box.

I am a little concerned about the way Question 6 is worded, though. Here’s how the same-sex marriage bill is presented:

Establishes that Maryland’s civil marriage laws allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a civil marriage license, provided they are not otherwise prohibited from marrying; protects clergy from having to perform any particular marriage ceremony in violation of their religious beliefs; affirms that each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith; and provides that religious organizations and certain related entities are not required to provide goods, services, or benefits to an individual related to the celebration or promotion of marriage in violation of their religious beliefs.

Of the seven questions the state presents to voters, this is the longest. Actually, if you removed the first clause it’s not a bad law but the part about gay and lesbian couples is a non-starter, which is probably why that language was added – people will say, oh, okay, the churches don’t have to participate. But that’s not the point, and the additional language obfuscates it.

I also wonder why the term “same-sex” wasn’t used. With the possible exception of Question 3, it’s just going to be down-the-line “against” for me. But on a local level, I’m all for two of the proposed changes – not quite sure about the last two questions quite yet.

I’m very disappointed, though, that the term limits proposal for the County Executive did not make it through County Council. Apparently several Republicans don’t have the spine to return the county to a citizen-based power structure, ensuring no individual would run the county for more than eight years. I guess we will have to primary them, won’t we?

Of course, last night the County Council heard testimony about the county’s redistricting plan for a work session today. I happen to think the plan put in place by the Redistricting Committee is quite sound and well thought out because it uses a number of significant natural and man-made boundaries (like U.S. 50) to define districts as well as making change easier in the future.

But scuttlebutt I’m hearing is that a second plan is in the works; one which will be more favorable to certain incumbents on County Council. While it’s true that about 1/4 of the county’s population is displaced by the Redistricting Committee’s plan, the goal is to establish more permanent district boundaries which won’t change as much in future years. One thing I like about the Redistricting Committee’s plan is how it keeps most of the communities together – obviously Salisbury has to be divided into at least two districts based on population and this map puts the heart of the city into either District 1 (the majority-minority district) or District 4. (Since I began work on this post last night, I have learned there is a second plan, drawn up by a county employee. While I haven’t seen it, my impression is that it’s closer to the old map.)

Speaking of elections, this tidbit came to me from Cathy Keim of Election Integrity Maryland. It’s “even better than being a poll watcher” and it goes right to the heart of the problem.

I asked Anthony Gutierrez, our local BOE head, if you have to be registered in the county that you serve as an election judge. He said no. As long as you are a Maryland registered voter, you can be an election judge in any county that hires you. He also stated that Baltimore has a terrible time recruiting enough Republican and non-partisan election judges. The goal is to have one chief judge from each major party at each polling place. If they cannot do that, then they try to get a non-partisan judge. If they can’t do that……then it just has to be two of the same party! This holds for regular judges also.

Being an election judge is even better than being a poll watcher as you are actually running the election. Please bring this up to the GOP that they need to be filling these positions in Baltimore and PG County and maybe other counties. I know that this is a regular problem, so the GOP should already be aware of it, but it never hurts to get people working on a solution sooner rather than later.

In Wicomico County we only have about 38 precincts, so presumably they only need 38 election judges from each party. But if you’re armed with the poll watcher training and are an election judge in a “problem” county it’s indeed possible to give the Democrats fits by insisting the letter of the law be followed.

Apparently they’re not going to follow the letter of the law in Tampa during the Republican convention. If you believe the Accuracy in Media group and writer Tina Trent, agitators funded by radical left-wingers including George Soros are plotting to disrupt the proceedings – of course, they’ll get plenty of press coverage if they succeed. Meanwhile, during the next week there are going to be protests in Charlotte at the Democrats’ shindig (some by unions bitterly disappointed the convention is being held in a right-to-work state) but you won’t hear a peep.

The President’s campaign also has the laughable idea that seeing five years of Mitt Romney’s tax returns are enough. This is part of a missive from Obama ~~For~~ Against America’s Jim Messina:

Friday morning, I sent a letter to Mitt Romney’s campaign manager, asking that Romney release just five years of tax returns. And I made a commitment that, if he does, this campaign would not demand more.

You should add your name. Here’s why:

Right now, our opponent is proposing a $2,000 tax increase on middle-class families with kids in order to pay for tax breaks for millionaires like him.

He’s asking Americans to put him in charge of their taxes, while refusing to come clean about his own.

This isn’t going away because voters deserve better, and everyone but the Romney campaign seems to recognize that.

(snip)

Romney’s refusal to release his returns is raising more questions than he’s been willing to answer.

According to the one full year of returns he has released, Romney paid 13.9% in taxes on his income. Thursday, he said he went back and looked, and has never paid less than 13% over the last ten years.

Now we’re asking him to put his money where his mouth is.

It is absolutely relevant for us to ask how much a presidential candidate paid in taxes, if he sheltered his money or tried to get out of paying taxes at all, why he started — and continues to own — a corporation offshore in Bermuda, why he keeps his finances offshore in the Cayman Islands, and why he opened a Swiss bank account.

(snip)

This issue isn’t going away, and for good reason. Tell Romney to follow 30 years of precedent and release his tax returns.

Next thing you know, they’ll be asking for ten years’ worth. Meanwhile, we don’t have any of Obama’s college records, never mind the whole birth certificate thing. Of course, anyone can Photoshop any sort of “fake but accurate” documents they want, but that’s not the point, either.

I truly don’t give a damn whether Mitt Romney has a Swiss bank account or money in the Cayman Islands. It’s his money and he can do as he pleases with it. And paying almost 14% of his taxes on his income? Just ask an average American who scores a big tax refund check, complete with earned income credit, what rate he or she paid and I’ll bet the answer may surprise you. Sorry, Jim Messina, that class warfare card is no good here.

That’s Obama’s America. And to that effect a movie will be shown locally beginning Friday – showtimes are here, and the trailer is below.

I may have to go see this one, and I am not a movie buff.

I’m going to close with a little encouragement from a fellow blogger – Marianne (aka Zilla of the Resistance) has been through a lot with her late stage Lyme Disease. Well, not only has she found improvement with some of her most painful symptoms of late, she’s also received some cheering news from the Mitt Romney camp as he’s making what Marianne terms a “bold stand” against those medical professionals skeptical of some possible treatments for the disease. (Maryland is one area affected more heavily than most.) Perhaps there’s light at the end of the tunnel for her, and it’s not an oncoming train.

The light at the end of this post is also here, but it’s only the next post down. I encourage you to keep reading.

Gambling on our fiscal future

It appears the Maryland General Assembly will be working this summer after all, as Governor O’Malley announced there will be a Special Session beginning Thursday, August 9. A few observations:

First of all, beginning the Special Session on a Thursday probably means they’ll try and wrap things up in two days. It’s doubtful the General Assembly will want to be working over the weekend and it’s probable that the session has the single-minded goal of getting authorization for a sixth casino in Prince George’s County and offering table games at existing facilities before voters. The rumors I’ve been hearing make it sound as though the change from a 67% tax rate may be dead for now – but don’t be surprised if that issue is revisited in the regular session next year.

But the question is what people like us get in the deal. I understand the proponents are making all sorts of claims that counties will see a bounty of cash flow into their coffers, but any and all of the financial components are subject to change at the whim of the General Assembly. Since the Eastern Shore only has nine House votes (seven of which are minority Republicans) and three Senate votes (2 of the 3 are GOP), it’s more than likely that any sweetheart deals will be made to entice General Assembly members from Baltimore City and Montgomery County to vote for the plan at the expense of other parts of the state. That claim of $4.9 million for Wicomico County may end up being 4.9 thousand by the time all is said, done, and horse traded.

(Also worthy of note regarding the Eastern Shore delegation: the only three who voted for the bill in 2007 were Democrat Delegate Norm Conway and two Republicans: Senator Rich Colburn and the late Delegate Page Elmore. As it stands now, Senator Jim Mathias – who was a Delegate then – may be a vote against in the Senate, leaving Conway and Colburn as the lone gambling supporters of the Eastern Shore delegation.)

Oh, and speaking of horses: I thought the intention of the original gambling bill was to prop up local racetracks by allowing them to be slot machine locations. Yet I believe Ocean Downs is the only racetrack which doubles as a slot location – the other sites are standalone sites with no racing. Nor would it shock me to see at least some part of a prospective tax cut for casino operators come out of the 9.5% the equine industry is guaranteed in Maryland. The 48.5% for education will be the last thing they touch.

We all have to concede that, compared with the rosy predictions of $1.36 billion dollars in revenue by FY2013 – the year we are in now – slot machines have been an utter failure in Maryland. The reasons for this are legion:

Not all of the expected locations are up and running yet – locations in Baltimore City and Allegany County (Rocky Gap) won’t be open until 2013 and 2014, respectively. The Maryland Live! casino in Anne Arundel County just opened this year.
Because other states weren’t shackled by the poorly thought-out system of needing voter approval to make technical changes, they have already put table games in place, making them more attractive to gamblers.
Entertainment options are limited at the Ocean Downs casino by state law. This puts them at some disadvantage to nearby Delaware locations in Harrington and Dover which permit live music.
Finally, a poor economy has limited people’s “fun money.” On a personal level, I used to go to Harrington maybe once or twice a year with the bowling prize money I received at season’s end or other “mad money” I came across. But that’s no longer possible when there are more bills to pay and less income being made; certainly I’m not the Lone Ranger in that particular situation.

So don’t look for gambling to be a cure-all, and take any predictions of revenue from the state with a significant grain of salt. It’s clear that those in charge of Maryland didn’t think things through when they sold us the bill of goods known as Question 2 four years ago, and now that potential big-money campaign contributors and Big Labor are beckoning to build a casino in Prince George’s County just outside Washington, D.C. (talk about regressive taxation there) it’s suddenly enough of an emergency to call our legislature in.

I know Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin was not amused:

The real crisis in Maryland is not whether there should be a sixth casino location, but rather the trend of recent job losses. The state lost 11,000 jobs in June and has witnessed 4 straight months of job declines. Gaming expansion won’t create jobs for at least another year, and then at most 3,000 jobs. Marylanders need help today.

Meanwhile, this has been the ‘Summer of Union Handouts’ with teachers’ unions getting their own special session in May and now the trade unions getting their own special session in August. Curiously left out are the close to 2,000 union steelworkers laid-off last month at the Sparrows Point plant. The state is bleeding jobs at a rate of tens of thousands on a monthly basis, and the best the Governor O’Malley can muster is, ‘If you give me another casino, I can get you 3,000 jobs in a few years.’ How is that relief?

The Governor should know that economic development is more than just bio-tech and casinos. Instead of a special session for a single casino, we should be taking this time to develop policies benefiting all of Maryland’s working families – not just those with powerful unions.

Five years ago, Governor O’Malley called a Special Session which dealt not just with gambling but also raised taxes and spent big money on providing coverage to a small fraction of those Maryland residents who didn’t have health insurance. All this was supposed to solve our state’s structural deficit once and for all.

But a half-decade later, buffeted by damaging economic winds created in no small part by Democrats just like those who run Maryland’s government with an iron fist, we still struggle with financial hardship as a state – unfortunately, these troubles also affect the federal and local governments as well as many millions of Americans who by no means are better off than they were four years ago.

In short, there are two key problems with Martin O’Malley’s Democratic approach to state finances: rich people don’t stay to be hosed by higher taxes and broke people don’t gamble. Other than that, things are just going swimmingly.

The Maryland gambling pitch

With the question of a possible Special Session to address gaming hanging over our collective heads, I think it’s time to share something I received in my snail mail.

This was addressed to me as a member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee and was penned by Vance Ayres, who is the Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the Washington DC Building Trades Council. The letter reads as follows:

Dear Michael,

We’re the Maryland Building Trades, representing skilled trades throughout the state. We support a new destination gaming site in Maryland for one simple reason: it will put 8,400 people to work – the largest new union jobs program in the country.

But why are we writing to you, a leader in Wicomico County? Because new destination gaming is important to Wicomico County. The new destination gaming is estimated to yield at least $223 million in gaming taxes and millions more in state and local income and sales tax.

By law, the gaming taxes are distributed through the Education Trust Fund. In a stabilized fiscal year, Wicomico County’s annual share will be $4,890,000. And in times of budget crisis, the gaming taxes make sure the State meets its existing commitments to Wicomico County without cutting services.

If the legislature doesn’t act now, Marylanders will lose the chance to vote on competitive gaming until 2014. Our state will not get table games until 2015, and no destination gaming until 2017 or 2018.

Maryland can’t wait for new jobs. Our schools can’t wait for new revenue. A 3 year delay would cost the state nearly $1 billion. This includes lost gaming taxes and state and local taxes. It also includes the $120 million the State wastes on government-owned slot machines, paying twice the going rate.

A 3 year delay would cost Wicomico County $14,670,000 in stable fiscal years, and costs the state its funding source for this amount in unstable years. Either way, delay is bad for the State, bad for Wicomico County, and bad for our public schools. Delay helps no one except our existing operators. We need to put the interests of Maryland public schools ahead of the interests of Maryland Live.

Maryland gaming needs to become competitive now. According to a study produced by Union Gaming Analytics LLC, we annually send $620-$830 million of Maryland tax dollars to West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania to support their schools and help keep their taxes low. These states hope Maryland continues with its infighting.

Enclosed is a recent column in the Baltimore Sun by Martin Knott, a prominent Maryland business leader and chairman of the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, describing why the Maryland legislature needs to act now.

Marylanders want the legislature to act now. A recent poll showed that 84 percent of Marylanders want the right to vote on this issue this fall.

Please add your voice to the effort to put Maryland taxpayers and Maryland public schools first. We need to act now.

Sincerely,

Vance Ayres
Executive Secretary/Treasurer
Washington DC Building Trades Council
(Representing over 25,000 Construction Workers and their families)

Oh, so NOW Big Labor wants some help from Republicans? Should have thought of that a couple years ago.

Well, actually all of this should have been thought of about 6-8 years ago when the General Assembly tried and tried to get video slots passed under Governor Bob Ehrlich. But Democrats didn’t want to give him a victory to run on in 2006. Instead, they waited until Martin O’Malley was inaugurated but legalized slots in perhaps the most convoluted, ill-thought way possible: as I pointed out at the time, the inherent weakness in the approach voters approved in 2008 was that technical changes like adding a sixth location or table games could only be made within the narrow window of a statewide election.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the fact that the General Assembly – controlled by the Democrats unions love to support – botched up both the preferred budget process AND changing the slot machine rules in the frenetic final hours before sine die.

But all this is forgotten as the unions promise big money for Wicomico County if we support this changing of the law to benefit one entity at the expense of another – while the unions get their cut, since I presume only union contractors would be able to bid on the construction project based on what’s said in this letter about a “union jobs program.” (Talk about starting out on the wrong foot with me.) And there’s no lack of irony that Martin O’Malley is finally supporting a tax cut – but only for a very, very select few well-connected friends of his. What whining do we hear about lost revenue now?

Yet when I go through the letter I have no shortage of questions.

First of all, who came up with the $223 million revenue number from “destination gaming?” Does it account for the loss of revenue from other casinos? I’ve heard scuttlebutt that Ocean Downs is losing $2.5 million a year, so how is opening another Maryland facility featuring table games going to help them? Would Ocean Downs and the others already in operation be able to put in table games right away, or would they have to wait until this sixth casino opens? (I have never been inside Ocean Downs so I have no idea if their building can handle table games to begin with.)

Nor do I buy the contention that Wicomico County will get nearly $5 million a year from this for education, or anything else. Another weakness of the current gaming law is that the share of 48.5% to education would almost certainly decrease if the tax cut to casino owners is passed. As I understand it, at present the house’s cut is 33% while 48.5% goes to education, 9.5% to local horse racing purses and facilities (the original reason they wanted slots, to “save the horse racing industry”), 5.5% to local impact grants, 2% to the Maryland Lottery for costs, and 1.5% to the Small, Minority, and Women-Owned Businesses Account. So who gets cut if the rate goes to 40% for casinos? What about 45% or 50%?

Another item to ponder: why would it take so long to build a facility? If you’ll notice, the time line for destination gaming with a 2014 passage is 2017 or 2018 – so even if this goes through I would have to presume no new Prince George’s facility is finished until 2015 or 2016. A lot can change in three years, but in my (admittedly limited) experience with casino gambling I seem to recall at least one Detroit casino (Greektown) had a temporary facility to get up and running before building a more grandiose palace. Why isn’t this planned for the PG casino?

And I found this an interesting tidbit: the same Union Gaming Analytics the writer relies on for his information came to this conclusion in a recent Las Vegas Sun story by Steve Green about the firm:

And in the United States outside of Las Vegas, (Union Gaming Analyst Bill) Lerner expects gaming revenue to grow in the “very low single digits” as the U.S. casino expansion story frequently involves cannibalization of existing business as opposed to growing markets. (Emphasis mine.)

So we may steal a little bit of business back from West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, but I suspect the new Prince George’s casino will take the most from existing Maryland facilities. Yep, that’s just brilliant because then those operators will want their own sweetheart deals and the state will have to give in.

Here’s what we should do. If we are going to have a Special Session related to gaming, I want them to put before the voters a Constitutional amendment proposed to voters that would work something along the line of rescinding the 2008 Constitutional change, effective April 30, 2013. That would give the General Assembly 90 days to work out a new gaming law that would allow the state the flexibility it needs to adapt to changing conditions via the legislature. If they can’t do that and want to argue like spoiled children, I frankly don’t care if the casinos shut down on May 1.

I can tell you right now that any changes to the state Constitution that give one entity a better deal than the others or don’t address this absolutely asinine weakness in state law that makes it difficult for casino operators to invest in improving their facilities are pretty much dead on arrival with me. Just like many other things this Democratic-controlled General Assembly has done since I moved here in 2004, they have made a complete muckery of gambling in Maryland.

It’s time for the adults to take over.

Odds and ends number 51

Once again, my occasional look at those items I find are worth a paragraph but maybe not a full post.

I’m going to start with some reaction to the recent comments by Maryland Democratic Party Chair Yvette Lewis regarding the ongoing redistricting petition. This comes from Radamese Cabrera of the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, a group which opposed the current gerrymandering because they felt minorities were underrepresented.

While he discusses the lack of logic in splitting large counties and Baltimore City into multiple Congressional districts, I think the most interesting allegations come here:

The Fannie Lou Hamer PAC firmly believes that the majority Black jurisdictions of Baltimore City and Prince George’s County and the majority-minority county of Montgomery were drawn to protect and elect White Male Democratic representatives. I believe that Congessman Steny Hoyer, Congressman Dutch Ruppersburger and Congressman John Sarbanes are afraid to represent a White voting majority Congressional District. These individuals could only win in a White plurality districts.

In plain simple language, this means they need a District with a Black population with at least 25%. It will be interesting to see if John Delaney (D) can beat Roscoe Bartlett (R) in the 6th Congressional District when the this District is very conservative and has a large White plurality vote.

To quote Governor Howard Dean in the 2004 Presidential Campaign, “Why are White Democrats afraid to campaign and win elections in jurisdictions that are 90% + White?” Ms. Lewis, the question that needs to be raised in 2012 is; Why are White Democratic elected officials at the Federal, State, and County levels afraid of campaigning in majority White Districts?

The question not asked here is the more obvious one: why do minorities consistently vote for Democrats? If you look at economic results since the days of the Great Society one would have to conclude through a preponderance of the evidence that monolithically voting for the Democrats has provided a disservice to the black community. Voting 75-25 in favor of Democrats instead of 90-10 or 95-5 might just get someone at 33 West Street to really pay attention to your needs. After all, white people split their votes so both sides try to earn our trust.

The next item I wanted to talk about probably has no hope in hell of succeeding in Maryland, at least until 2014. But Bob Williams of State Budget Solutions has written a piece on how to deal with government employee unions. It’s timely in the wake of Wisconsin’s success.

Besides unions in states which aren’t ‘right-to-work’ states (Maryland is not one) I can’t think of any other entity where money is taken from a person involuntarily and used for a political purpose the worker may not approve of. If some state official went around and told employees they had to donate to his or her re-election fund or be fired, the official would be run out of town on a rail once that was found out. But unions do this and no one bats an eye – of course, when that power is taken away (and Williams provides examples of this) Big Labor finds itself in big financial trouble.

Unfortunately, Maryland finds itself going in the other direction – for example, child care workers are now forced to either join the union or pay a “service fee” to them. And guess where they go? To the union’s “Committee on Political Education” (read: contributions to toady Democrats.)

Speaking of unions, I wanted to follow up on something I wrote on Examiner about three weeks ago. I noticed a few days later the picketers had gone across the street to picket Walmart, at least for one day. (I suspect Wendy’s may have taken exception to the group of three people drawing attention to their restaurant.) But a friend I spoke with who works at Walmart contended the picket wasn’t about the Salisbury store but rather one being built in Denton, Maryland – presumably by non-union labor. Regardless, I don’t think it’s going to hurt Walmart’s business and people are going to be happy to finally have them in Caroline County rather than drive to Easton, Seaford, or Dover.

And now about the image you see on the left. I’ve spoken about this event a few times in the past, and while we seem to be winding down in our foreign military involvement it’s a sure bet that we won’t be retreating to Fortress America anytime soon.

So this year Move America Forward selected Thursday, July 12 as its date. It seems like this is a little later on the calendar than it has been in the past, so maybe they’re looking to take advantage of the patriotic fervor that comes in the wake of Independence Day. (Or, more likely, it works better with the calendar of proposed guests and hosts – a list which will surely be announced on the Troopathon website once it’s restarted over the next few weeks.)

The Move America Forward group also promises a revamped theme:

For Troopathon 2012, we’re taking the gloves off and giving Troopathon a much more raw, gritty theme than you have seen in the past. No more fancy stuff, just raw in-your-face and fervent support for our troops in Afghanistan! (Emphasis in original.)

Perhaps that’s a necessary change because, after raising $1.3 million in the first rendition back in 2008, their results have petered out to around $500,000 last year – a nice total, but short of their $700,000 goal. And while that may not matter so much simply because there are far fewer soldiers afield than there were in 2008, the lack of support also sends a subliminal message to both our troops and our jihadist enemies.

The final note will be a programming note: as I let my monoblogue Facebook fans know on Friday, I will have an interview with U.S. Senate hopeful Dan Bongino up at 8:00 tonight. If you want some of the inside scoop on this site, become a Facebook fan of mine!

Union picketers engage in ‘shame’ campaign

Picketers protest in front of the Target store here in Salisbury on May 15, 2012. The Eastern Shore of Maryland isn’t known as a union hotbed, but members of Carpenters Local 2012 of Seaford, Delaware were recently spotted at an intersection close by the Target store in Salisbury.

A banner held up by a small group of union members read “Shame On Target For Lowering Area Standards In Our Community.” Since the Salisbury store is several years old, it was not clear if this was in reaction to proposed renovation work there or if the picketers were critical of Target in general. Like most department stores in the value-price retail segment, Target is a non-union store, but the chain is in the midst of a long-term program of renovations to existing stores.

(continued at Examiner.com…)

Odds and ends number 50

Half a hundred now of these items which deserve a paragraph or three, and in this rendition several are of national interest.

I wanted to start out with a rather comprehensive look by Accuracy in Media at voter fraud. In truth, this is less of an expose than a confirmation because we on the Right had been thinking about this for years, and some of these accounts have filtered down to a local level.

Now I’ve heard people claim that voting should be a privilege reserved to property owners or to those who pay taxes rather than receive goodies from the government. I don’t agree with that approach, but I think that perhaps if local election boards are running into a problem with last-minute registrations scant weeks before an election, the simple solution would be to simply move back the deadline. Honestly, if people wish to register to vote they’re going to do it well in advance of the election. This would also do away with the open invitation to fraud known as same-day registration.

But I also agree we should do away with motor voter laws and eliminate early voting. If people are serious enough to vote they already have the right to get an absentee ballot. To me it’s a waste of taxpayer money to spend thousands on multi-day elections when just 2% of voters participate.

And don’t even go there and tell me I want to suppress turnout, because I don’t. I want prospective voters to take their responsibility more seriously. The left always screams “voter suppression” whenever some common-sense idea like photo voter ID or those others above are introduced, but they are all in favor of oppressive campaign finance laws. Isn’t that monetary suppression? Hypocrites.

The report is well worth a read.

Along that same line, writers Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer ask why certain corporate interests can go scot-free under the Obama regime while others are hounded by the Justice Department. That’s not to say that Wall Street is a batch of crooks by any means, but in politics perception is reality and the fact that Wall Street gave far more to Barack Obama than John McCain leads to the thoughts of pay-for-play and cronyism.

Speaking of entities which give Democrats a lot of money, Matt Patterson and Trey Kovacs of the Competitive Enterprise Institute asked in the Washington Times why unions just won’t let go if a bargaining unit doesn’t want to stay with them. Well, the answer seems pretty simple to me – as they write:

There is a reason why unions are fighting to hold workers against their will and challenging laws that bring greater freedom to the workplace. Union leaders need a monopoly on labor in order to bankrupt governments and corporations, and they require unfree markets to maintain their own power and wealth.

That goes in the category of “duh,” workers be damned.

And this is a video worth sharing, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the point.

Personally I would prefer Medicare eventually be phased out or devolved to the states, but I realize that’s a decades-long process. Having said that, though, it’s obvious that Obamacare is the wrong direction to go despite the fact it cuts Medicare. Paul Ryan’s not pushing seniors off the cliff.

Finally, I wanted to bring up the attention being paid to a national issue by our own Congressman, Andy Harris. In a recent release, he decried the abuse of taxpayer dollars by those here illegally:

Illegal aliens are filing false tax returns claiming numerous fake child tax credits. Once our tax dollars are in the hands of illegal aliens, it’s impossible to get the money back. Once I learned about this outrageous loophole that allows billions of dollars per year to be stolen from US taxpayers, I knew I had to act.

In November of 2011, I joined Rep Sam Johnson in introducing H.R. 1956, Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act, to close this loophole. The bill is necessary because the IRS claims that they are simply following the law. We had hoped that the IRS would act without legislation.

One would think that the White House would instruct the IRS to stop giving away tax dollars to illegal aliens scamming our tax system. This is an urgent and immediate problem, especially as we’ve passed the tax filing deadline of April 15th.

The child care tax credits have grown from $924 million in 2005 to $4.2 billion last year. H.R. 1956 will curb the fraud in this program by requiring the IRS to only allow this tax credit for children with a social security number. H.R. 1956 was assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee and I am waiting for the hearing to be scheduled any time. (Emphasis in original.)

So my question is why there’s been no hurry to move this bill? I guess one would have to ask Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) because it’s his committee. Perhaps his contributors would like the waiver to stand?

In truth, though, I think this is another in the series of ill-advised cautions by the Republican establishment to not risk alienating the Latino vote. Never mind that they turn off millions of voters who are concerned about the illegal alien problem – I’ll grant it’s less of a concern now that migration by illegals is now a net outflow due to a poor economy, but once conditions improve we may become a magnet once again.

Well, that cleans out my mailbox for the most part. Glad you stopped by for some original monoblogue content – I can’t put all my good stuff on Examiner because in all honesty I’m not sure their format would lend itself to such a post. That’s why I maintain this independent, conservative site!

But by all means you should subscribe to my Examiner page to get notice of when I do post there. I’m having fun juggling all these writing plates! Haven’t broken one yet.

And a happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I wrote this yesterday so I could devote a little time to the moms in my life today, so enjoy.

Odds and ends number 43

More of the small stuff you love! Let’s begin with this.

Up in the Second Congressional District, GOP candidate Larry Smith is challenging his four rivals to eight hour-long debates on various issues. But considering he has more to gain than two of his rivals (who serve in the Maryland General Assembly) that’s probably a pipe dream – not to mention they would likely be in session several nights a week.

But the key complaint Smith has is simpler: “This election should not be decided on who has the most insider endorsements, but rather who would be the best representative of the voters of the district.” All that is true, but if these debates were to come to pass I would hope that a conservative runs them, rather than the debacles we have seen with the GOP Presidential debates and their “gotcha” questions.

I wish Mr. Smith the best of luck in going to Washington.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 43”

Odds and ends number 41

Not that I necessarily keep track of these things, but this is my first look in 2012 at those items which are worth a paragraph or three, but not a full post. It helps me clean out my e-mail inbox.

I couldn’t figure out how to embed this “Made in America” video, but I found it interesting when I watched it. I’m generally in favor of free trade and against strict protectionism, but if the difference is as small as they claim then buying American is worth it. Perhaps the claim of using 5% more American products would create 220,000 jobs is a bit dubious, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Our nation needs to take steps in regaining its onetime prominence as a leading manufacturer. But it’s interesting to note several of the companies prominently mentioned have at least one plant in a right-to-work state. I can’t ascertain whether these are all non-union shops, but chances are fairly good – given that only about 1/10 of the private-sector workforce is unionized – that these good, honest American jobs don’t come with the union label.

Not that Maryland is making any quick moves to join the ranks of Virginia and other right-to-work states – this year, HB91 hasn’t progressed beyond first reading. But the group New Day Maryland pointed out to me a couple other bills of interest in the General Assembly this term to keep an eye on, and I thought I’d pass along the word.

House Bill 23, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act, would prohibit the fund-raiding Governor O’Malley is almost as well known for as his constant zeal to raise taxes. And House Bill 43 would allow appropriations bills to be subjected to the same referendum process as those bills not dealing with appropriations. (The last remaining legal straw opponents of the in-state tuition for illegal aliens referendum are grasping for is that the bill is an appropriations bill, although it’s not.)

Both these bills have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 31. I presume written testimony is acceptable, too.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 41”

The Maryland Model (part three)

This will be the final part of a three-part series; in case you’re getting caught up here are parts one and two.

In truth, though, this part won’t be based strictly on the Maryland Model. It’s actually going to be a critique of a presentation I ran across, one which is presumably some sort of PowerPoint presentation translated to Scribed for the purposes of disseminating. Called Become a Force Multiplier: 5 Simple Tasks for American Activists, it addresses many of the issues we will face in 2012 with a particular focus on Big Labor’s aspect. (Not surprisingly, since it’s done by LaborUnionReport.com.) More importantly, they note that:

Several of the tactics and action models described herein have been adapted from models used by unions and other Left-wing groups. In other words, the Left is already using these models, you need to as well.

Fight fire with fire, as it is said.

Continue reading “The Maryland Model (part three)”