Sometimes small examples point out huge issues.

Two local radio commentators were talking yesterday morning on a Charleston, SC radio talk station about the issue of providing IPad2’s to children in a few local schools. One caller pointed out that it might be preferable to use the money for merit pay for better performing teachers. One of the hosts stated that “the money was allocated for capital improvement projects” and could not be used for pay. It seems like a small thing but it is not. It is typical of government at all levels and shows why citizens get so disgusted with the way government functions.

The money for the IPad2 computers is being distributed from a “pot of money” that was allocated for school improvement projects. Remember that this money was collected in taxes from citizens and that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The legislature or school board hung a piñata of many millions of dollars without any specific projects or uses in mind and people are now swinging sticks and fighting over where to spend the money which falls out. Politicians like to allocate spending this way because: 1) they can talk to potential voters about how they support education, 2) they don’t have to actually make any decisions; 3) they don’t have to do any work, and 4) when the money gets used in crony deals or for dumb projects, they can claim that it was someone else’s fault. The very fact that the money is not allocated for specific projects leads to back room deals, lobbyists influencing spending, and political payoffs.

The IPad2′s might be a great idea but one would think that if buying IPad2s for students IS a great idea, there would be a public hearing where the people proposing the idea would explain: 1) how it will help the students, 2) the cost of the proposed project versus the cost of traditional textbooks; 3) how software updates, security, and content is managed, 4) how maintenance and repairs are handled, and 5) how they impact of the program will be measured and assessed. Then, if the legislature or school board is convinced that the idea has merit, the funds are allocated to cover the program, and not a penny more. As the judge in My Cousin Vinny stated, (paraphrasing) “That is a well thought out, cogent argument”. But that is not what happens. The money is distributed by lobbyist influence, political pay offs and to the “network of the connected”.

Another result of allocating money in the government manner is that every September is Christmas for the government. Financial managers in the government know that any money allocated and not spent will be withheld the next year. Therefore, every September there is a buying spree for every government agency to ensure that the funding is spent, whether the purchases are needed or not. The money falls downhill. The big agency “dumps” money down to smaller organizations that have to spend the money or pass it down even further. If the government was surprised one year and was only allowed to spend in September at the average rate of the previous eleven months, billions of dollars would be saved and the waste exposed (which is why that will never happen).

One of the arguments for the recent health care bill was that funding could be obtained from waste recovery. Waste is built into the government spending and anyone who works in government knows that waste recovery is a false promise. Until the government leaders who spend the money are held responsible for the way that they allocate the money and do their business, waste will continue and cronyism will continue.

Anyone who thinks the government runs anything more efficiently than private industry is deluded, at best. There will always be someone who pipes up with, “What about the military?” Anyone who says that has obviously never been in the US military.

Mister President, thank you for taking the time to meet today.

POTUS: You’re welcome

Today, your approval ratings sit at near lows and the economy is still in the doldrums. Do you see things turning around soon?

POTUS: I still believe that the stimulus package saved us from catastrophe and will help the economy gain strength.

Mr. President, I would argue the stimulus package hurt you in two big ways: your poor approval and the birth of the Tea Party movement.

POTUS: How can you make that argument? They are not related.

I believe they are. First, One of the biggest criticisms of you when you were a candidate was that you had little executive experience. In all honesty, even Gov. Palin had a lot more experience than you in executive positions and your campaign operatives hammered her endlessly about being inexperienced. But the stimulus package is where the narrative was reinforced: I believe that when your economists advised you that if you didn’t put $750 billion into the economy it would tank, so you tried to do it in good faith. However, you made a rookie mistake; you trusted Speaker Pelosi.

POTUS: Rep. Pelosi is a strong and loyal public servant.

I know you believe that but she went to Rep. David Obey, Chairman of Appropriations, and said “spend $750 billion”. He, in turn, went around to every Congressman he could find and asked them what pet projects they wanted to spend money on. That is how you ended up defending $789 billion of crap.

POTUS: I wouldn’t put it that way. A lot of those projects were very worthwhile.

Maybe so, but you ended up defending stuff that even you had to turn your nose up at. An experienced executive would have crafted a bill with projects that had to be paid for anyway: bridges, schools, roads, the electrical grid, etc. and sent that bill to Congress. All that would have happened was you’d be moving necessary projects forward. You got boxed in and embarrassed by your Democratic Congress despite good intentions.

POTUS: That may be how you see it but how does that have anything to do with the Tea Party?

There was a lot of unrest with the government during the last years of the Bush administration with rising spending and the wars. You ran on a promise to change things. Many people who knew that you were no where near as qualified as Senator McCain voted for you because of the ideal you represented: no more status quo, transparency, change, etc. When your administration started doing things without transparency, sneaking through unpopular bills by bending rules, spending even more than the Bush Administration, doing almost everything for the benefit of labor unions, the people had finally had enough. Because you had represented yourself as different, and turned to be a larger version of the same old politicians, there was a lot more disappointment with your administration than there would usually be. Because the Republicans were big spenders and Democrats turned out to be even bigger spenders, along comes the Tea Party.

POTUS: You seem to forget that I ran on green jobs, ending the Iraq War, closing Guantanamo Bay, and bringing a different tone to Washington.

Mr. President, the Iraq War was won when you came into office. That was a done deal. If anything, the Democratic Congress made the tone in Washington much worse. Republicans weren’t even able to present ideas on any of the major bills. You know you can’t close Guantanamo Bay and send those prisoners back into the fight. And until technology improves, green energy will destroy our economy. Besides, this winter is making Al Gore look a little foolish.

POTUS: Climate change is an important issue. We need to be the leader in this regard.

True, but you and everyone else knows that until India and China sign on, anything we do here will not only be futile, it will give those two countries a competitive advantage. Beside, real data contradicts the UN’s computer models about the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.

Moving on, the biggest controversy in Washington these days is the health care bill. Admit it, you could not have possibly known all the junk that was in that bill and it certainly wasn’t written in a few weeks.

POTUS: There are some things in the bill that need to be adjusted, like the 1099 requirement for small business. But a lot of other parts of the bill are monumental achievements, like the pre-existing conditions section.

Since you bring that up, let’s take two scenarios: 1) A 55 year old man has been working for the same company since he was 18. He has always paid his taxes, never been in trouble, a stellar citizen. He has hypertension and mild diabetes. His company goes out of business. He can’t get insurance at his new job. Clearly that is wrong.

POTUS: That is exactly the person we are trying to help. This bill prevents that from happening.

Fair enough. Scenario 2: We have a 32 year old male. He has never worked a day in his life. He is perfectly healthy. He chooses not to work. He never pays taxes. He even sells a little bit of crack to school children to get by. One day, he has a pain and goes to his emergency room for some free care. He finds out he needs a major operation and long term postoperative care. He has a pre-existing condition. What obligation do the people who have been paying into the system their whole lives have provide him insurance?

POTUS: That is a little extreme for an example.

No. They are both pre-existing conditions. Wouldn’t it have been better to allow all people to purchase across state lines and to own their own policy so they can carry it from job to job?

POTUS: I have said anyone with good ideas can bring them to me.

Those ideas were brought to you before the bill was passed and the Republicans were not allowed to offer amendments. That is why people are fed up.

POTUS: I agree there are adjustments that have to be made.

Moving on, we have massive debt now. You offered to freeze spending. But that was after you raised spending for most domestic programs by about 24%. That is like curing binge drinking by not drinking more than you did when you were drinking the most alcohol.

POTUS: We are trying to reduce the rate of growth.

That doesn’t make sense. You don’t reduce the first derivative. You have to make the amount go down, not how fast it gets bigger.

One last question: You work closely with Sen. Reid. How can you possibly put up with that guy?

POTUS: Senator Reid is a great public servant who worked hard to get many of my agenda items passed.

True, but it is one thing when a politician lies to you. It is another when he is lying, you know he is lying, he knows that you know that he is lying, but still lies to you anyway.

POTUS: Lying about what?

You know as well as I do that the set of suppositions and nonsense that was given to the Congressional Budget Office about the health care bill, such as ten years of taxes to offset six years of benefits and a separate bill to fix reimbursement for physicians in Medicare, was garbage just to make the numbers turn out in your favor. Sen. Reid always talks about how the bill will bring down costs when he knows it isn’t true.

POTUS: He and I believe that it is true.

That just about says it all. Thank you Mister President.

The first amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I was considering the arguments about separation of church and state the other day and thought it might be helpful to review what the first amendment actually said. I know this may seem a little simplistic but the amendment specifically prohibits Congress from passing a law establishing an official religion for the country or a law that prevents people from practicing their religion preference. The amendment specifically does not mention the executive or judicial branches, or anyone else, for that matter. Of course, one must remember that the founders would not recognize the current federal government. The original theory was that the Congress would basically run the country in times of peace but the President had large powers for emergency situations and war because the Congress worked too deliberately in a crisis situation. George Washington felt he would only veto a bill if he believed that the law violated the Constitution. Today, Congress sits on its hands and even is currently trying to pass laws ceding power to the executive branch. I find that pretty interesting since when George W. Bush was President, there was much gnashing of teeth about too much executive power from Democrats but with Barrack Obama as President, Democrats are giving unilateral power to the Treasury Department, for example.

The founding fathers were acutely aware of the history of Europe and the Middle East where untold millions had died as a result of religious wars over the centuries. In Britain alone, the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Protestants had caused war, government upheaval and tension for centuries. Therefore, in order to avoid those types of conflicts, no official religion for the country would ever be established. Some modern advocates try to make it sound like the founders were against religion. It only takes even a cursory reading of any of the writings of most of the founders to trash that view. The vast majority of the founders were devoted to their religion and used it to guide their actions and values routinely. To claim otherwise is fiction.

People in line with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have taken the position that anything government in the same area code as anything religious is a violation of the Constitution, specifically the first amendment. But is it? Since the federal government intrudes into almost every area of citizen’s lives, does that mean that religion has no place in the modern United States? Or, does the Constitution mean what it says?

Let’s look at an example for the sake of argument:

There has been a monument to memorialize Americans who lost their lives in military service in the Mojave National Preserve since 1934. It is a cross no more than about eight feet tall. It can be seen from a few hundred yards. A case recently went to the United States Supreme Court to decide whether it was allowed on public lands. I suppose it is redundant to point out that no one seemed to mind for about sixty-six years. Looking back at the first amendment, did Congress have anything to do with this monument? Did they make a law establishing it? The memorial was originally placed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars which is not Congress, and, as an organization, is a heck of a lot more respected and popular. So, since 1) Congress was not involved, and 2) no law was made, and 3) no prohibition on the free exercise of religion was established, how does the mere presence of the memorial violate the first amendment? None of the specific prohibitions listed in the first amendment apply. The case is, of course, a lot more complicated than it appears. There is question of standing for the plaintiff, there is a question about land transfer and a number of other issues including that the government refused to allow a Buddhist monument in the same area in 1999, stating they were going to remove the cross. Notwithstanding all the complexities, the plaintiff in the suit argues that the mere presence of any religious symbol on government property establishes an official religion for the nation.

Using that same premise, a Star of David or a cross on a headstone in a government cemetery is an endorsement of religion. If the mere presence of a religious symbol establishes religion, then there certainly are a number of established religions in the country.

It comes down to the same argument all over again: Can judges interpret the law any way they want, or does the Constitution mean what is written? If the liberal former view is true, they Bill of Rights would have been a lot easier to write as one amendment, “Do whatever you want to” and courts could serve up the Law du Jour each day of the week.

The Ku Klux Klan, founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest, originally the militant wing of the post-Civil War Democratic Party

The Civil Rights Act of 1964…. originally filibustered by a group of Senators, 18 Democrats and 1 Republican, including Al Gore, Sr. Democrat; yep, father of Vice President, Al Gore, Jr.

The longest filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fourteen hours and thirteen minutes…. by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a Ku Klux Klan recruiter. Yes, you are correct, that is current sitting Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat, of West Virginia.

Who blocked the integration of the University of Alabama? Governor George Wallace, Democrat.

It was Republicans who passed the thirteenth amendment, banning slavery.

It was Republicans who passed the fourteenth amendment, giving blacks due legal process

It was Republicans who passed the fifteenth amendment, giving blacks the right to vote.

In 1894, the Democrats passed the Repeal Act which took away civil rights from blacks granted by Republicans in 1892.

The term “yellow dog Democrat” came from the fact that Democrats would rather for for a yellow dog than a Republican because Republicans favored civil rights.

Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1875, and 1964

The 1924 Democratic convention featured a 10,000 person Ku Klux Klan rally.

So if Democrats want to play the racism game, in the words of President Barrack Obama, “Go for it!” We will just start teaching real history.

The only potential explanations for Chris Matthews slide into zombie-ness must be Creutzfeld-Jakob, Kuru, Alzheimer’s, neuro-syphilis or something pathological. He appears to be losing his mind. He says astonishingly incoherent and obviously biased things that any rational person would not dare to say, knowing that it exposes outright hypocrisy and lack of thought. He is either completely shameless, jumping the shark for his failing ratings or is losing his faculties. Most opinion shows are clearly one-sided but no one can take he or Keith Olbermann seriously. They are both speakers at far left pep rallies who appear to just try to be outrageous trying to attract viewers. It is like a bad car accident. There is no legitimate multi-sided discussion on either show. It is a speaker spouting one-sided views with a Greek chorus of believers agreeing or saying “Yeah” like the Famous Flames behind James Brown. At least Matthews (who had worked with Tip O’Neill on Capitol Hill), started with some credibility and lost it. This is different than Olbermann who never had any credibility to start with.  At this point, it is impossible for Olbermann to gain any, as he has slimed himself like an all-over body tattoo. His bias will never wash off. For completeness, I have never seen Rachel Maddow’s show and have seen enough in the news about her to have no desire to see it.

On the other side, everybody knows that Sean Hannity’s show is over-opinionated to the right but at least has Bob Beckel, Kirsten Powers, Juan Williams and other liberals on the show and doesn’t shout them down. Hannity is also fairly consistent in what he says.  Glen Beck is a show in its own category. He is immensely popular because he pretty much complains about everybody and everything (which is one of America’s favorite pastimes). An old Navy saying is “a sailor is never happy unless he is bitching about something”. Beck is apparently America’s favorite sailor. Everyone can identify something which irks them every day. Beck puts voice to those things.

When I see any story about “fill in the blank commentator said fill in the blank”, I always ignore them, coming from the right or left. People who is smart enough to think for themselves have no reason to worry about the over-reach of the opponents and give them publicity; and already likely agree with the ones on their side. Therefore, let them say what they want.

Matthews is particularly sad because he has become a parody of the Saturday Night Live parody. It is a terrible thing to see someone lose it like that.

The problems are:
1) We have people without health insurance who are afraid they cannot get care.
2) Doctors get less and less reimbursement from Medicare/Medicaid every year and shouldn’t have to lose money taking care of patients.
3) Medicare/Medicaid run out of money
4) The current proposed bill sucks.

Here is a start (it fits on one page):
Anyone eligible for Medicare/Medicaid or uninsured who has a legitimate medical problem can go to see a doctor. The doctor can receive a tax credit for the cost of taking care of the patient.

So… what does this simple idea accomplish?

1) In the stroke of a pen, there is no one in the entire country who has to worry about being able to obtain care for legitimate medical issues.
2) Doctors will not be forced to lose money providing care to anyone.
3) Medicare/Medicaid administrative processing costs are reduced by billions of dollars. After all, the Internal Revenue Service is already checking returns.
4) Billing will become much simpler and understandable. No longer will nefarious individuals claim to have done 950 procedures in a day (true example of fraud).

Of course, there are some political problems with this approach:
1) Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress don’t get to pay off lobbyists and contributors with money embedded in the current monstrosity of a bill.
2) Paper manufacturers will lose money printing copies of the disastrous bill and there will be a glut of leftover paper in Washington.
3) The administration will have to return the new presidential portraits of the President in a his robe and wooden staff parting the waters.

Of course, access to care will improve and administrative costs will be markedly reduced. But, then again… that was never what this was about in the first place.

In the first year of this presidency, the current administration has displayed deference, almost subservience, to organized labor. Deference would not be surprising, since organized labor is the single largest contributor to the Democratic Party. Organized labor is now getting treatment which discriminates against non-union workers and those policies are now forming a disturbing trend.

First, the automobile industry bailout: Money was given to prop up General Motors and Chrysler instead of allowing the companies to reorganize under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In fact, the US government now owns the majority stake in the companies. In bailing out these companies, public money was taken, in the form of taxes, from auto workers in the south whose average salary is about forty three dollars an hour and given to United Auto Workers members in Michigan whose average salary is about seventy one dollars an hour. The Obama administration portrayed the action as helping the General Motors and Chrysler corporations. In fact, a chapter 11 bankruptcy would have been much more advantageous to the companies as it would have allowed renegotiation of the labor contracts and would have relieved the pressure of legacy costs to the companies. Additionally, it would not have cost tax money. The money was really a bail out of the United Auto Workers, not the companies. It hasn’t worked and the two companies have shown no signs of changing fortunes. At a recent auto show, all of the awards for vehicle of the year in all classes were swept by Ford Motor Company, the company that refused the bail out.

Second, the school voucher program in Washington, DC: The voucher program in Washington, DC cost about $7600 per student. The schools at which the voucher students attended had 90% higher scores in language skills tests and 95% higher scores in mathematics testing. The interesting paradox is that the Washington, DC public school system spends about $13,000 (almost twice as much) per student. The omnibus spending bill removed funding for the school voucher program. The Democrats, in their infinite concern for children, cancelled a program which cost taxpayers half as much and resulted in markedly better school performance. Why would they do that? The answer is easy. The teachers union has been paid off for supporting Democratic candidates in the election. The Democrats are willing to harm poor children and their families in order to pay off the union.

Third, the stimulus construction projects: The stimulus bill passed by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration has a provision that stipulates that stimulus construction projects have to pay union wages to workers on stimulus projects. Why would that provision be in the bill? After all, it would result in less money to do projects and the ones that are completed would cost more. The reason is easy. Governments don’t build roads and bridges, private contractors do. Those contracts are awarded by bid. A non-union company can submit a lower labor cost bid than a union company. The raw materials cost will be the same. Therefore, the non-union bid will generally be lower. This provision in the bill is expressly for the benefit of union contractors to receive stimulus money contracts for infrastructure. The unions will receive money but the taxpayers will get less and more expensive infrastructure projects completed for their money.

Fourth, the “Employee Free Choice Act”: This piece of legislation is close to criminal. The rules would change and take away the right of workers to a secret union election ballot. To organize a union, all that organizers would need is 51% of employees to sign a card and the union would be installed. The cards would be public and the period of time to have them signed in unlimited. This is like the mob protection racket in Chicago in the 1930s. Union thugs intimidating workers is not progress. The intimidation may not even be the worst part of the bill. In the event of non-resolution of a union contract, after a set period of time the federal government will set wages. Hmmm… with the Democrats in power, I wonder whose side would be favored? Therefore, people who are intimidated into a union will have their wages set by the federal government. This is an economic disaster of the highest magnitude just waiting to happen. It will lead to companies closing because they are no longer profitable and revival of the union thugs who have essentially gone away (with the exception of the Service Employees International Union) due to people’s reluctance to embrace unions. South Carolina just won the competition for the new Boeing 787 assembly plant largely based on Boeing not being forced to deal with labor unions.

Fifth, the health care proposal currently before Congress: More than sixty years after his death, the United States is still being hurt by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s financial policies. When FDR froze wages as part of his recovery policy, the only way to compete with compensation packages for employees was to add benefits. This was particularly true in collective bargaining agreements. Subsequently, since they could not raise wages, labor unions developed expensive and comprehensive health care benefits for their members. The current Democratic mantra is always to pay for everything by “taxing the rich”, despite the fact that it is not fiscally possible to do that. Then again, they never let logic or facts get in the way of policy. The problem with “taxing the rich” is that a significant portion of higher income earners are actually small businesses which file tax returns as individual returns and the people with large benefit packages tend to be union members. Since the unions put the Democrats in office, they expect some pay back. It was announced yesterday that the conference bill (which in the Senate version was supposed to be financed partly by taxes on “Cadillac heath plans”) now has an exemption for organized labor. In other words, if you are not in a union, you pay higher taxes but if you are in a union, you do not. Not only is that a blatant pay off to labor unions, it is likely not to pass a constitutionality challenge. As an aside, I think the pop-up timer is out on the current health care bill. Put a fork in it, it is done.

In all five examples, it is easy to see the pay off to the various unions by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration. It is brazen and open. It is also going to massively harm the United States economy and prevent recovery. Most people in the United States don’t regularly follow politics, but they certainly recognize dishonesty and graft when they see it. A recent poll which asked people if they desired to have their jobs converted to union jobs had only 9% say yes and a resounding 83% say no. Since union membership is at an all-time low, preferential treatment for labor unions at the expense of the majority of the population is not very smart politically, as well. This is the Democratic version of the organized crime “protection” rackets and is disgusting. The current administration’s poll numbers are tanking and the mid-term elections may become disastrous for Democrats should the course not be adjusted.

Fred and Diane are sitting at a car dealership.

Fred: “I sure hope we can get a good deal on this car.”

The salesman walks in with a huge stack of paper.

Salesman: “Just sign this contract and you are on the road. woo hoo”

Diane: “How long is that contract?”

Salesman: “It is 2074 pages”

Diane: “That seems awfully long. Can we look at it?”

Salesman: “You don’t need to read it before you sign it.”

Fred: “But what about those negotiations we had?”

Salesman: “Don’t worry, I drew up this contract on my own. It has nothing to do with our discussion before.”

Fred and Diane look at each other and a voice over says:

“Would you sign the contract? That is exactly what Senator Harry Reid wanted and that is exactly what the Democrats did. Any wonder the Republicans wouldn’t sign on?

Fred is sitting at the dining room table… Diane walks in

Diane: “Honey, I was looking at these bills and we are getting in trouble. When we started spending more last year, we overdid it. Every month, we spend $500 a month more than we make.”

Fred: “You’re right, this is a crisis. I have an idea that I got from the Democrats. We’ll freeze our spending at the current level, exactly like the President’s plan. That is sure to solve the problem.”

Diane: “Are you nuts? That won’t work. We’ll be getting further into debt every month.”

Fred: “Then I wonder why the Democrats want to do it?”

Brought to you by the Committee To Help Liberals Learn Math

The old saying goes something like, “When you see your enemy committing suicide, there is no reason to intervene”. Rep. Alan Grayson might be the best thing to happen to conservatives in a long time. Every time he appears on television, it is equivalent to the Democrats hiring Charles Manson as their national spokesman. He is so outrageously repulsive that any Democrat or left of center Independent can’t help but be embarrassed to be associated with any issue he supports. He is the poster boy for guilt by association. Because he is so repugnant, if you agree with anything he says, you look like a nut (by definition) and your election prospects plummet. The left blogs usually comment to the effect of “we need a few more like him” to which moderate Democrats cover their faces and pray no more come along and Republicans offer to buy him more time on the air. He is the Typhoid Mary of politics. Everyone marginally associated with him will suffer the wrath of reasonable voters.

Additionally, he is legislatively harmless since he essentially accomplishes nothing of substance in policy matters as a representative and makes any conservative’s (or almost anyone, for that matter) policies look sane by comparison. Grayson’s antics have the net effect of improving Republican prospects across the entire nation. Reasonable Democrats cringe when they see the -D after his name when he appears on television. He is what the military call a force multiplier. As long as he stays in public view, he can ensure Democratic losses in places he has never even seen for people he doesn’t even know. I believe it would be effective to run campaign advertisements in the fall that were only ten seconds long. All they need say is, “Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and best of all, Alan Grayson, are all Democrats. How are you voting?”