About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Don't Vote For Hobson's Choice Next November

Since our December 8 message entitled "How To Vote The Bums Out" many other messages have continued to flood in with the theme of voting against every incumbent next November.  Like the Tea Parties most of these messages convey an anger & frustration but with no aim like the aforementioned December 8 message that suggested voting only for incumbents who are graded "B" or higher by NTU.  If graded lower than "B" vote against the incumbent.

The best message I received in his regard concerns the GOOOH movement (pronounced "go") standing for "Get Out of Our House."  It is a non partisan plan to evict the 435 career politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives and replace them with everyday Americans just like us.   GOOOH will actually pick citizen candidates in every district to run for Congress in 2010 based on an intensive process - you can't get more grass roots than this.   GOOOH has been around since 2007 & has thousands of supporters.  Neal Boortz recently announced that he has become a member of GOOOH following the urging of many members of his radio audience.   Website: http://www.goooh.com is worth a look.

Now NJ's 12th district already has an outstanding Independent grassroots candidate in FairTax supporter & Member of this e-mail club, Dave Corsi, who ran as a complete unknown in 2008 & earned 4,500 votes.  Dave's theme in 2010 is once again "Had Enough?"

Dave recently sent me the article below that points out how the Republicans voted for the Medicare Part D expansion in 2003 & are (with good reason) against all of BO's current healthcare overhaul plans.  Please ignore some of the rhetoric in the article especially from Bruce Bartlett who can't be trusted on anything.  But the article illustrates the point that the two party system plays us for fools by keeping the same handful of career politicians in office (or other high paying job when out of office) @ our expense.  It is not the Republicans who will save us & more importantly reverse the detestable deliberately destructive policies of the Statist Democrats - it is the people @ the Tea Parties & Town Hall meetings who are looking for leadership, most of the incumbents who are graded "B" or higher by NTU, candidates who will emerge from the GOOOH process, & candidates like Dave Corsi who strike out entirely on their own.  Just think that Dave got 4,500 votes in 2008.  Now if he can get 10,000 votes in 2010 & 50,000 votes in 2012 he will become a viable candidate that grew from a meeting around a kitchen table that Carol & I were honored to attend.

Voting to replace Democrats with Republicans in 2010 is a real Hobson's choice - an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative.

DECEMBER 27, 2009

GOP Lawmakers Change Tune On Costly Health Plans

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Democrats are troubled by the inconsistency of Republican lawmakers who approved a major Medicare expansion six years ago that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits, but oppose current health overhaul plans.

All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats.

The Democrats claim that their plan moving through Congress now will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and they cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support.

By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates.

With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added to the federal debt.

Some Republicans say they don't believe the CBO's projections that the health care overhaul will pay for itself. As for their newfound worries about big government health expansions, they essentially say: That was then, this is now.

Six years ago, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "We were concerned about it, because it certainly added to the deficit, no question." His 2003 vote has been vindicated, Hatch said, because the prescription drug benefit "has done a lot of good."

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said those who see hypocrisy "can legitimately raise that issue." But he defended his positions in 2003 and now, saying the economy is in worse shape and Americans are more anxious.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said simply: "Dredging up history is not the way to move forward." She noted that she fought unsuccessfully to offset some of President George W. Bush's deep tax cuts at the time.

But for now, she said, "it's a question of what's in this package," which the Senate passed Thursday in a party-line vote. The Senate bill still must be reconciled with a House version.

The political situation is different now, Snowe said, because "we're in a tough climate and people are angry and frustrated."

Some conservatives have no patience with such explanations.

"As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt," said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He made his comments in a Forbes article titled "Republican Deficit Hypocrisy."

Bartlett said the 2003 Medicare expansion was "a pure giveaway" that cost more than this year's Senate or House health bills will cost. More important, he said, "the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers. One hundred percent of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit."

The pending health care bills in Congress, he noted, are projected to add nothing to the deficit over 10 years.

Other lawmakers who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion include the Senate's top three Republican leaders, all sharp critics of the Obama-backed health care plans: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Eleven Democratic senators voted with them back then.

The 2003 vote in the House was even more divisive. It resulted in a nearly three-hour roll call in which GOP leaders put extraordinary pressure on colleagues to back the prescription drug addition to Medicare. In the end, 204 Republicans and 16 Democrats voted for the bill.

Democrats certainly have indulged in deficit spending over the years. They say they have been more responsible over the last two decades, however. Bill Clinton's administration was largely constrained by a pay-as-you-go law, requiring most tax cuts or program expansions to be offset elsewhere with tax increases and spending cuts.

Clinton ended his presidency with a budget surplus. But it soon was wiped out by a sagging economy, the Iraq war, GOP tax cuts and the lapsing of the pay-as-you-go restrictions.

Obama and many Democrats in Congress have vowed to restore those restrictions. But they waived them this year for programs, including heavy stimulus spending meant to pull the economy from the severe recession of 2008-09.

The 2010 deficit is expected to reach $1.5 trillion, and the accumulated federal debt now exceeds $12 trillion. When the Republican-led Congress passed the Medicare expansion in 2003, the deficit was $374 billion and projected to hit $525 billion the following year, in part because of the new prescription drug benefit for seniors.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Budget Analysis Of The Senate's Healthcare Reform Bill

Just like it took most of the almost 2 years of the last Presidential election campaign to drag out of BO just what he stood for & what he was preparing to do to America if elected the details of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the so-called manager's amendment are also slowly being uncovered.  This is the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve.  It will be the lead document in the negotiations in the House-Senate conference next week.

Thanks to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) & Rove.com the above table shows in billions of dollars the projected tax increases ($517.7), Medicare Cuts ($475.3), & Spending - for subsidies, etc. ($882) that result in a projected deficit reduction of $111 billion (not counting interest) between 2010 & 2019.

CBO & the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that by 2019 the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 31 million leaving about 23 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be illegal immigrants).  Under the above legislation, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent.  Approximately 26 million people would purchase their own coverage through the new government insurance exchanges (Plan B toward obtaining the goal of universal coverage) & there would be roughly 15 million more enrollees in Medicaid & CHIP than is projected under current law. 
 
Now you can do your own analysis of the numbers in the table but here are a few points that you should consider in determining how important this issue is to your livelihood & health:
 
1.  Are the reductions in uninsured people summarized above worth the $517.7 billion in increased taxes in a nascent recovering economy?
 
2.  Are the reductions in uninsured people summarized above worth the $475.3 billion in Medicare cuts to doctors, hospitals, & the elderly?  For those of us who do not believe that Medicare cuts will take place then throw the $111 billion in deficit reduction out & you can see what will be added to our national debt by the above legislation.  On the other hand statistics show that many senior citizens spend an overwhelming majority of their lifetime healthcare expenditures during the last year or less of their lives.  Accordingly, denying medical treatment through Medicare cuts to the elderly is one of the best ways to make BO's budget projections be accurate.  Choose your poison.
 
3.  The first Medicare cuts go into effect right after the 2010 election - just how dumb are we?
 
4.  Any significant spending on subsidy benefits for the uninsured do not go into effect until the fifth year of the program so there are ten years of revenue collection & only six years of meaningful spending which makes the first ten years of the program look better from a deficit standpoint.  If you didn't know the answer it would make you wonder what all of the healthcare reform rush has been about.
 
5.  Look @ the magnitude of the numbers as they increase to the ones shown in 2019 & make you own projections of what happens after that.  Parts A & B of Medicare & in particular their respective Hospital Insurance Trust Fund & Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund have been projected for years to be exhausted any where from 2016 to 2019 meaning that the balance in the trust funds will decline to zero.  Now we all know that the these trust funds are essentially accounting mechanisms.  Any cash generated when there is an excess of receipts over spending is not retained by the trust funds; rather, it is turned over to the Treasury, which provides government bonds to the trust funds in exchange & uses the cash to finance the government's ongoing activities including earmarks like building bridges to nowhere in Alaska.  However, these trust funds are not currently running annual surpluses & are therefore just another Ponzi scheme of musical chairs where you don't have to guess who will be standing (out of luck) when the music stops.  There are far greater consequences to the world here than just to yourself, your children, & your grandchildren.
 

Friday, December 25, 2009

FairTax Christmas Wish

Below is a Christmas wish I received from Ken Hoagland, Chairman of the FairTax National Campaign. 
 
So many people have spontaneously said to me things like "why can't the FairTax be passed because it is so simple & makes so much sense for our country?"  Of course you know the answer to that & that is why we have to double our efforts in 2010 because the stakes have never been higher for America's existence as we have known it.  The FairTax would pass into law in five minutes if everyone would spread the word the best they can & let their elected reps know their feelings.

Dear Doug,

They came to Bethlehem for the census. They stayed in a manger because no rooms were left. That night changed the world.

These thousands of years later, I hope that this holiday season finds you with those you love and reflecting on friendship, grace and the spirit of the season--whatever your beliefs.

"With me in my stocking and Ma in her cap, we had just settled in for a long winter's nap...". From "The Night Before Christmas" this will be told again to the delight of millions of children. Honestly, for me that "long winter's nap" sounds just right--even if out of reach with two active boys in the house.

Today, we rest and reflect and celebrate. Many will pray. Tomorrow, we think and worry again, as always, about our families, our future and our nation. We are needed by each.

As hard as this year has been for our country, and perhaps for you, I sincerely hope that today you find a measure of peace and some rest from your labors.

Work on the second American tax revolt begins again soon, so rest well now. We are all needed in the coming year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and the season's best wishes to you and yours.

Ken

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Value Of Being The Democrat's 60th Vote

As we all know by now after Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson ended his hold-out for supporting BO's universal healthcare bill over the weekend, the Senate voted along party lines @ 1 AM Monday 60 Democrats to 40 Republicans for the first of three cloture votes necessary to bring the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (or substitute amendment) to the Senate floor.
 
The arcane Senate procedures require additional cloture votes @ 7 AM Tuesday & 1 PM Wednesday before the bill comes to the Senate floor between 7 & 9 PM Christmas eve.  If one Democrat jumps ship during the cloture votes without picking up a Republican vote the bill will die for now.  There are numerous messages all over the internet urging people to continue the drill of contacting your senators asking them to vote against the bill.  In this regard Mike Huckabee was in Nebraska yesterday asking Senator Nelson to reconsider - Governor Huckabee's rally drew over 1,800 people on only one day's notice just a few days before Christmas so if this is important to you I recommend that you do your part also.  Not all 60 Democrats are on board for all of these cloture votes so your effort may not be in vain.  It only takes 51 votes on Christmas eve to pass the actual bill.
 
Now the value of Senator Nelson being the 60th vote necessary to keep this monstrous bill alive can best be quantified by realizing that in exchange for Nelson's support Congress agreed to pay Nebraska's Medicaid expansions forever thereby ending the principle of Medicaid being a federal-state partnership - @ least in Nebraska.  This makes small change out of the other bribes like for Connecticut's Senator Christopher Dodd getting a $100 million earmark for a hospital at the University of Connecticut, Vermont Senators Pat Leahy and Bernie Sanders getting an extra $250 million in Medicaid funding, Florida Senator Bill Nelson getting three counties carved out of Medicare Advantage cuts that will happen everywhere else in the country, & the detestable whining Senator Mary Landrieu getting $300 million for her pet projects in what has become known as the "Louisiana Purchase."  Source AFP.
 
Many people are saying that Ben Nelson's capitulation should cost him his political career but those of us who believe in the principles of "Death Of Democracy" realize there is a good chance that @ least in the short run he will be seen as a hero in Nebraska - the only place where he is up for reelection.
 
As the great Whitney Ball wrote to Carol & me earlier this month - "As this year of government encroachment comes to an end, may your holiday season be filled with the hope of true & abiding liberty."

Friday, December 18, 2009

Bringing Cap & Trade Close To Home

Taking a break from his relentless pursuit of what will surely turn out to be welfare-state healthcare reform if he is successful, BO jetted off to what has been billed "The United Nations' World Summit On Climate Change" in Copenhagen to make a deal where the U.S. contributes to a program where rich nations put up $100 billion per year to help poor nations fight the effects of the political science formerly known as global warming - now known as climate change.

Crippling American businesses through the costs of Cap & Trade legislation reductions in carbon dioxide emissions thereby providing one more way of making Americans dependent on government has turned out to be BO's second highest anti-American priority - right after healthcare reform. Next in 2010 will come comprehensive immigration reform where the poorest, most uneducated, & lowest skilled people who stole their way into America in the first place will ensure Democrat reelections & an end to freedoms that all too many Americans have taken for granted.

If you think that this Copenhagen conference is really about the environment please watch the video below - the conference provides a forum for the world communist-socialist movement that has the goal of destroying capitalism.



Now with all of the billions & trillions of dollars that BO's projects are costing it is no wonder that people have trouble relating to the numbers so I bring Cap & Trade literally closer to home by seeing what happens if you try to sell an energy inefficient house (& they all will be energy inefficient) after Cap & Trade becomes law - please remember it passed the House by of vote of 219 to 212 on June 26. See blog posting dated June 27 for details.

In particular Section 202 entitled "Building Retrofit Program" of H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES Act) "establishes a program under which the Administrator of EPA, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, supports development of standards and processes for retrofitting existing residential and nonresidential buildings. Authorizes the Secretary of Energy to provide funding to states to conduct cost-effective building retrofits, using local governments, other agencies or entities to carry out the work, through flexible forms of financial assistance up to 50% of the costs of retrofits, with funding increasing in proportion to efficiency achievement. Also supports retrofits of historic buildings."

These rules will obviously affect home sellers, buyers, & builders. In essence when you sell your house, environmental experts have to come in and do a survey to find out if you've got leaky windows, if all the environmental systems are correct, if you have relatively new appliances, and until you modernize in the way they say, you can't sell. The Heritage Foundation has calculated that the cost of this program will be $1870 for a family of four in 2020 rising to $6800 by 2035 - so plot your own cost curve for you & your family from now to $1870 & then to $6800.

I suggest doing your own study on this to determine how important stopping the Senate action, when it starts, is to you. Here are some sections of the House bill to use as a starting point.

2 TITLE II - ENERGY EFFICIENCY
2.1 Subtitle A - Building Energy Efficiency Programs
2.1.1 Section 201, Greater Energy Efficiency in Building Codes:
2.1.2 Section 202, Building Retrofit Program:
2.1.3 Section 203, Energy Efficient Manufactured Homes:
2.1.4 Section 204, Building Energy Performance Labeling Program:
2.2 Subtitle B - Lighting and Appliance Energy Efficiency Programs
2.2.1 Section 211, Lighting Efficiency Standards:
2.2.2 Section 212, Other Appliance Efficiency Standards:
2.2.3 Section 213, Appliance Efficiency Determinations and Procedures:
2.2.4 Section 214, Best-in-Class Appliances Deployment Program:
2.2.5 Section 215, Purpose of Energy Star:

BO tells you how important it is to him in the video below.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Responses - FairTax Editorial In Houston Chronicle

Below are just three of the responses I received to last night's subject message.  The first two are very thoughtful - I love these kind of communications where we can all learn.  My comments are in red.
 
---Response #1 - a series of messages---
 
Have you calculated what the FairTax will be after all this spending, it will be a tough sell. The progressives have almost implemented their plan in only a few months, nothing will be fair very soon.
 
Your question shows the beauty of the FairTax.  With all of this spending we would know what the rate would be & if there is anyone left who cares the bums will be tarred & feathered & run out of the country on a rail.  Right now many are tricked into thinking someone else will pay for all of the new spending.  Ken points this out in his editorial. 
 
OH! how I hope you're right! (tar and feather)
 
I thought some more about your question re the FairTax rate increase following all of BO's spending increases.  Please remember that the consumption base in America is twice the size of the income base ($8.8 trillion vs. $4.2 trillion in 2005 respectively) so whatever rate increase is needed for the FairTax to pay for BO's increased spending the rate increase equivalent for combined income tax & payroll tax would be more than twice the FairTax rate increase to generate the same amount of revenue.  The FairTax is not the law of the land (yet) so we should be concerned about how much more taxes we will pay under our current system.  There are not enough people making over $250,000 per year to pay for all of BO's spending so it will come down to the rest of us as it always does.  The FairTax passes the four tests that should be required of any tax - efficient, transparent, uniform, & promotes economic growth.
 
---Response #2---
 

Doug,

 

The author of the Houston editorial makes a huge assumption.  He assumes that the blood running through the veins of the 300 million Americans occupying this county now is made up of the same determination, fortitude and love of Country of 200 years ago.   This Country is not the same. Half the population pays no taxes.  The FairTax as I see it is facing a strong head wind.  You have to convince the non-payers to pay. 

 

Have you seen the faces of America, the faces our soldiers are being killed for, they are in Wal-Mart everyday. - Tremendous point.

 

Playing Devil's advocate.

 

With re to "half the population pays no taxes" please remember this is true of income taxes but not the regressive Social Security & Medicare taxes that are paid on the first dollar of income.  For many people who do pay income taxes these payroll taxes are greater than the income taxes paid. 

 

---Response #3---

 

Great editorial by Ken Hoagland!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

FairTax Editorial In Houston Chronicle

Below is the subject editorial sent to me by Ken Hoagland, Chairman of the FairTax National Campaign.  Following the themes of all of the Tea Parties I attended in 2009 Ken presents the FairTax as the solution to America's economic woes.  Please note Ken's references to the two party system. 

Dear Doug,

At a recent holiday party, the editorial page editor of the Houston Chronicle -- my hometown paper and the nation's fourth largest -- asked me for an update on the FairTax campaign. After filling him in, I promised him a guest editorial defining the FairTax as the solution to the dangerous headlong rush we are taking as a nation toward an "economic cliff."
 
He placed what I sent him very prominently on the front page of the following Sunday's editorial section with a very positive graphic of a man emerging from a torn IRS 1040 form with a bag of money over his shoulder -- and a smile on his face.
 
I thought you would like to see it. It is one more reminder to the public at large that a solution exists -- if we have the will to embrace it.
 
We have big things in mind for 2010 -- which very well could be, "The Year of the FairTax."
 
Best wishes to you and your family,
 
Ken
 
It's time for a second tax revolt
By KEN HOAGLAND
Printed in The Houston Chronicle
Dec. 12, 2009

More than 200 years ago a new idea about the rights of individuals and the rights of government began as a tax protest in Boston Harbor.

"No taxation without representation" was the rallying cry that led to the new concept that all government power and authority should derive from the consent of those governed. Is a second American tax revolt now needed to restore that noble but increasingly tattered idea?

Somehow, these many years later a new American aristocracy made up of both parties is taxing generations of future citizens, not even yet born, in order to secure mind-numbing levels of national debt today. With government debt now totaling more than $500,000 per household, the voice and best interests of the average American seem lost. We have taken a destructive national path of spending beyond our means that retards job creation, shreds responsible fiscal policy and undermines the pursuit of happiness itself.

The second American tax revolt might very well be found in HR25, the long pending FairTax legislation that most in Washington love to hate. The FairTax replaces all federal taxes on income with a simple and transparent tax on personal retail consumption. The FairTax raises the same revenues now raised but in a way that helps the economy rather than hurting it and, most importantly, in a manner that restores the role of the American citizen.

Today our federal taxes are hidden from plain view through withheld payroll taxes and by embedding tax costs in the price of American goods and services. The relationship between personal wealth and the cost of government has been effectively hidden, making almost impossible any real check and balance on government spending and self-defeating debt. For candidates from both parties, the promise of new spending buys elections and to many citizens it is "free money" that is being thrown at real problems and needs.

The FairTax ends embedded tax costs, puts the cost of the federal government on every receipt and shifts national taxation away from what goes into the economy — work, savings and investment — to what comes out of the economy — consumption. The FairTax expands the tax base so that nearly every American sees a tax reduction. The average tax bill (adding together Social Security/Medicare and income taxes) now amounts to more than 30 percent of what is earned. The FairTax caps taxation at no more than 23 percent of what is spent. In essence, those who spend more pay higher taxes without exceptions granted by Congress to the favored few with tax lobbyists.

The FairTax protects the poor and middle class in several ways. First, a monthly "prebate" paid to every family reimburses the FairTax paid on retail spending up to the poverty level, wiping out federal taxes on those at or below the poverty line while also eliminating the highly regressive FICA payroll tax. For a middle class family of four, the prebate allows more than $28,000 of federal tax free spending a year on top of an overall tax reduction. Advanced economic modeling shows that the poor and middle class are the biggest beneficiaries of the FairTax in terms of tax reduction.

By eliminating all federal withholding and payroll taxes, the FairTax brings taxation into the open so that average Americans can fairly debate the cost/benefit of devoting personal wealth to so much government spending. It is a desperately needed awareness if we are to control our government.

At the same time, shifting away from taxing labor, manufacturing, investment and upward mobility itself will make the United States the most favorable tax environment in the world. This will bring trillions of dollars of private investment, now offshore, into our economy. Without borrowing against the future earnings of our offspring, this private investment creates jobs, better benefits and a new era of economic growth where productive American workers are again in high demand.

The FairTax doesn't pit the poor against the rich or Wall Street against Main Street. While every economic level benefits under the FairTax, the poor and middle class see the greatest immediate tax benefits. If there are losers they are congressional committees who can no longer sell pieces of the tax code, illegal immigrants and those in the $1.5 trillion a year underground economy who become taxpayers as consumers and foreign producers who now enjoy a tax advantage over American manufacturers.

But because the FairTax ends the $1.5 billion a year tax lobby business along with congressional power over the tax code, it will take another tax revolt to trump the narrow self-interests of Washington insiders. The good and bad news is that a relative few, but politically powerful and influential, Americans profit richly from the corrupted tax system. With all their profits and power, can they be bested by hometown Americans across the political spectrum? Only if we remember that the first American tax revolt earned us that right.

Hoagland is chairman of the FairTax national campaign and a long-time Houston resident. His book, "FairTax Solution," goes on sale in March.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

A Great Example For Voting The Bums Out

Thanks to our Midwest member who sent the inspirational video below of congressional candidate Lieutenant Colonel Allen West who will be running for Congress again in 2010 in Florida's 22nd district - a district well over 1000 miles from the home of the patriot who sent us the link for the video so she is obviously following the race closely. This is the district that was @ the center of the Bush-Gore presidential election disputed vote recount.

After winning an August 2008 primary Col. West lost the 2008 general election 54.9% to 45.1% to Democrat Ron Klein so West is hoping to get @ least a 5 point swing in his favor in this affluent district that votes Democrat @ a greater percentage than the national average compared to figures for the prior two presidential elections.




Now if the above video sparked your own interest in this race it also provides several other links to gain insight into West's positions but please always do your own homework. Klein's positions are a matter of record that can easily be found.

West is a 20+ year career army officer who received many honors. He is very big on safety & education which he calls "the great equalizer."

His opponent Ron Klein is graded "F" by NTU with an 8% favorable rating so this race involves an automatic disqualifier for voting for the incumbent Klein based on our "vote the bums out" program. At least the people in Florida's 22nd district will get a real choice. The rest of us should hope to be so fortunate & if we are that we make the most of it.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

New Blog Postings Notice

With both our many new blog subscribers & e-mail club members in mind I made the following two postings under "Classics:"
 
A Contrast In Christmas Messages - original posting 12/22/07 - be sure to check out the update @ the end
 
Ad Hoc Anno Domini - original posting 12/24/08
 
Go to ReturnToExcellence.net & click on "Classics" on the left hand side.
 
Also recently posted under "The FairTax" is the piece entitled "A Comparison Of The FairTax Prebate To The Earned Income Tax Credit To A Negative Income Tax To The Flat Tax."

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Responses To How To Vote The Bums Out

The responses to last night's subject message were unanimous - people really do want to get rid of this Congress.  Now all we have to do to exercise our term limits right is follow through & keep turning the bums out until we have a Congress full of fiscally prudent Members as graded by the National Taxpayers Union.  Spread the word of this plan.  Below are three of the responses that provide the flavor of all of the ones received.
 
---Response #1 to Jim Gearhart of NJ 101.5 Transmitting The Subject Message---
 
Dear Jim - Here is a variant of GRIP.  I think it deserves an airing on your show.
 
---Response #2---
 
Sounds like a plan!
 
---Response #3---
 
Excellent Commentary.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

How To Vote The Bums Out

Many of you have seen the piece making the rounds on the internet the past several months that sometimes has the self-explanatory title "Vote The Bums Out." I know this because many of you have sent the piece to me. It is amusing that several in our group like the idea of the piece (i.e.; voting out all 435 Members of the House plus one third of the Senate in 2010) so much that they claim to have written it themselves or @ least boast that a close relative like "my baby brother" wrote it.

Now with Congress regularly polling in the 20% approval range for several years the thought of exercising our term limits right every two years is appealing. The problem is that we do not vote for the lowly rated Congress but rather individual Members whose constituents think are doing a fine job - so most constituents say just throw out the rest of them but leave mine alone. Incumbents get reelected well over 90% of the time - a rate just below Saddam Hussein's.

The practical problem in effecting such a plan lies in the details. We have members of our group who are Republicans, Democrats, many with no party affiliation, & one who wishes there were no parties @ all.

Lets start with an incumbent Republican & a Republican voter. In order to vote the incumbent out of office the Republican voter will have to vote for someone other than the incumbent in a Primary. If the incumbent wins the Primary the Republican voter will have to vote for a Democrat in order to most effectively vote the incumbent Republican out of office. Of course the same steps apply with an incumbent Democrat & a Democrat voter. This process is not going to be very appealing to either lifelong Republicans or Democrats. Anyone who does follow this process will vote for many people they don't like in order to vote the bums out.

A better way is to find & vote for candidates in the primary stage that deserve & have earned your vote for your vision of our country.

The great SC senator Jim DeMint has said that he would rather have 30 senators like himself than 70 like Specter. Now with only 30 you will lose every vote that comes to the Senate floor but as things keep getting worse & it becomes obvious who is to blame your 30 will become 31 & grow from there so you eventually have some substance in place. We did not get President Reagan until we went through Carter & Ford (who beat Reagan in 1976). Without them I don't know if we would have gotten Reagan who slowed the Socialist movement by over 20 years - in between we once again had no good candidates who could get elected.

In summary, I personally am for the idea of voting the bums out as described above but with the tweaking of voting for incumbents who are graded "A" or "B" by the National Taxpayers Union. This handful of politicians have done nothing wrong fiscally & deserve to have a long look @ their records rather than just throwing them out of office simply because they are incumbents. Just keep voting against any incumbent who does not have a grade of "B" or higher from NTU. It will take a while to get the desired result but the deck is stacked against us anyway for the simple reason that we are outnumbered right now as proven by the 2009 Presidential race. If the statists can keep their ground game organization going wealth creating people will never have another candidate of their choice win an election because the numbers are just not there & in fact get worse every day as more people become dependent on government handouts as we slide to the last stage of "Death Of Democracy."

This may seem like a message of despair but as one of my lifelong mentors Professor Milton Friedman said "we have to keep trying because it is just too important not to."

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Responses - A Separation Of Economics & State

Below are three varied responses to the subject message that pertained to unemployment, the Stimulus, & how to unleash the free enterprise capitalistic system to create jobs & wealth. Keep your eyes on BO's "jobs summit" planned for Thursday to see if any of the free enterprise methods detailed in the original message are even discussed - in other words will we have a separation of economics & state or will we have the continuation of a centrally planned (against competition) low growth high unemployment economy?

Response # 1 comes from a subscriber to ReturnToExcellence.net & makes an excellent point re sole proprietors or partners in a small business.

You don't have to be a reader of these messages very long to notice that the writer of Response # 3 did not make, as it applies to me, careful use of possessive pronouns.

---Response # 1---

I can tell you from our experiences things are not getting any better.

Don't forget that when small business owners shutdown their businesses they cannot receive unemployment benefits.

Since my company deals directly with small business owners, I can tell you that they are nearly ALL, and I do mean nearly ALL, right on the edge of shutting down. Only pride and the fact that they cannot get unemployment benefits keep them hanging on. Also, for many of them, having their business open or closed doesn't change the property tax equation.

Thanks for your continued efforts to keep us all informed.

---Response # 2---

Doug,

I believe this article represents one of your finest writings. Will our grandchildren know prosperity or poverty?

---Response # 3---

Entrepreneurs do create those jobs, but your Pres. is doing everything he can to discourage them by adding big health care increases and increasing the amount of money entrepreneurs pay in taxes.

All your Pres. does is spend money that we do not have on different programs, hoping that they can cure the economy. People who are behind in mortgage payments? - govt will give money to their mortgage firms not to foreclose on their homes. This only prolongs the problem.

Next year govt will be on big spending project to create thousands and thousands of jobs. Will it work??

Sunday, November 29, 2009

A Separation Of Economics & State

For the week ending November 21 the DOL reported that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits declined by 35,000 to 466,000. Although this decrease is good news the jobloss recovery will probably continue because the level of new claims typically must be below 400,000 to result in payroll growth - the labor force always has a natural churn of hundreds of thousands of new claims every week. Based on a chart provided by Mark Gongloff there should be a payroll change of minus 40,000 jobs associated with this new initial claims figure.

Now to turn our economy around we need in the words of Ayn Rand "a separation of economics & state." What we have is illustrated in the graph above prepared on January 9, 2009 by Christina Romer (BO's Head of the Council of Economic Advisers) & Jared Bernstein (Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Biden) to show the expected effect of the Stimulus on the unemployment rate - the actual unemployment rate is also shown for comparison. Romer & Bernstein were tasked to develop BO's plan to recover from the 2008 recession & they both certainly bought into the Stimulus 100 percent. It should be noted that although Romer has academic economic credentials Bernstein is considered to represent a progressive pro-labor perspective - he has degrees in Fine Arts (Music), Social Work, Philosophy, & Social Welfare.

A separation of economics & state would unleash the free enterprise capitalistic system to create wealth without the encumbrance of government interference which is the menace that is the root cause of our unemployment problem. Fred Charette writes "only entrepreneurs create jobs by risking career & capital to start & build businesses that employ people to make useful things & provide needed services. By contrast, the government & the unions destroy jobs."

But go a step farther to understand why we need unfettered free enterprise: Bill Burbage writes - "no entrepreneur has ever had the objective of 'creating jobs'. (In fact) they constantly seek to eliminate jobs. People go into business to make a profit. If any jobs are created in the process there is no way to avoid it. To create more jobs, the sovereign must remove as many obstacles as he can between the entrepreneur & his ability to make a profit. No other stimulus is necessary. Instead of eliminating the obstacles that already exist, we are preparing to pile on even more with the carbon tax & healthcare reform."

Now with regard to the carbon tax, healthcare reform & all of BO's other socialist programs Curtis F. Von Der Ahe writes - "hiring will not pick up until the full effects of cap & trade, healthcare reform, pro-labor laws, & new taxes are known. Unfortunately, once they are known, hiring still won't pick up."

With all of this in mind I am reminded of one of my life long mentors Peter Drucker saying - "it is not the company that makes a profit that rips off society but the one who doesn't." Boy do we have examples to prove this over the past year.

In summary, unemployment & the standard of living in a country are functions of the market value of all the socialist programs of the past in that country. This is exactly what we are living with now & it won't be reversed any time soon unless those of us who understand this message participate as best we can to stop BO's economic policies & programs that are intended to shape America to look like Europe for starters.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Coming Malicious Faceless Entity

Below is a message from a subscriber to ReturnToExcellence.net that transmits the lead editorial (red highlights by me) in Thursday's WSJ re the release last week of revised lower breast screening guidelines made by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force - a federally funded task force meaning that BO paid for it.
 
The group's recommendations were published in the Annals Of Internal Medicine.  They dropped guidelines for women to have a mammogram every year starting @ 40 & replaced them with recommendations for testing done every other year from 50 to 74.
 
For anyone who thinks that rationing is not part of BO's universal healthcare plan please consider these reduced (read rationed) breast care recommendations were coupled with a call later in the week by the American College Of Obstetricians & Gynecologists for reduced cervical cancer screening .  All of a sudden Pap tests are now recommended @ a later age & @ less frequent intervals. 
 
It is obvious that BO plans to partially offset the increased costs of insuring the currently uninsured by reducing both the number & scope of medical procedures of those currently insured.  Finally we have found a topic where BO's administration thinks costs matter.  The reduced number of PAP tests & mammograms being recommended admits that less healthcare treatment & screening results in lower costs.  Now why can't we apply this principle to consumer driven healthcare without all of the trillion dollar reforms that BO & Congress are planning for one sixth of our economy?  But then you know the answer to that.
 
None of the 16 members of the breast screening panel who were interviewed could recall how many members voted for the revised lower guidelines but all could say that there was a consensus - in other words the members of the panel hope the blame will go to the anonymous task force itself & not the individual members as if the members have no culpability.  This is the type of malicious faceless entity that will control our medical procedures under BO's universal healthcare plan.  Now these two panels want us to believe that their so-called independent work the same week revising long standing guidelines for both breast & cervical cancer testing that have saved so many lives is merely a coincidence.  We don't know how dumb BO thinks we are but it is obvious that he certainly plans to find out.  I can hardly wait to find out too.
 

A Breast Cancer Preview

The mammogram decision is a sign of cost control to come.

A government panel's decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.

As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening.

So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists and radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.

The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren't valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.

Of course, this calculation doesn't consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That's a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel's own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 655 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.

The recommendation to cut off all screening in women over 75 is equally as myopic. The committee notes that the benefits of screening "occur only several years after the actual screening test, whereas the percentage of women who survive long enough to benefit decreases with age." It adds that "women of this age are at much greater risk for dying of other conditions that would not be affected by breast cancer screening." In other words, grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money to reduce the chances that she dies of a leading cause of death among elderly women?

The effects of this new breast cancer cost-consciousness are likely to be large. Medicare generally adopts the panel's recommendations when it makes coverage decisions for seniors, and its judgments also play a large role in the private insurance markets. Yes, people could pay for mammography out of pocket. This is fine with us, but it is also emphatically not the world of first-dollar insurance coverage we live in, in which reimbursement decisions deeply influence the practice of medicine.

More important for the future, every Democratic version of ObamaCare makes this task force an arbiter of the benefits that private insurers will be required to cover as they are converted into government contractors. What are now merely recommendations will become de facto rules, and under national health care these kinds of cost analyses will inevitably become more common as government decides where finite tax dollars are allowed to go.

In a rational system, the responsibility for health care ought to reside with patients and their doctors. James Thrall, a Harvard medical professor and chairman of the American College of Radiology, tells us that the breast cancer decision shows the dangers of medicine being reduced to "accounting exercises subject to interpretations and underlying assumptions," and based on costs and large group averages, not individuals.

"I fear that we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people's lives for money," Dr. Thrall continued. He's not overstating the case, as the 12% of women who will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes may now better appreciate.

More spending on "prevention" has long been the cry of health reformers, and President Obama has been especially forceful. In his health speech to Congress in September, the President made a point of emphasizing "routine checkups and preventative care, like mammograms and colonoscopies—because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse."

It turns out that there is, in fact, a reason: Screening for breast cancer will cost the government too much money, even if it saves lives.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Homosexual Marriage In NJ Via The Lame Duck

Below is a message from Steve Lonegan that immediately affects NJ & could easily spread to other states. Steve's message pertains to NJ's lame duck Senate getting ready to pass a homosexual marriage bill. The point is that the Democrats do not have the votes to pass such a measure so four Republicans came from nowhere to provide the needed votes for passage. Worse yet, if possible, Governor-elect Chris Christie who had campaigned as a traditional values conservative opposing homosexual marriage & who also had accepted support from groups like the NJ Family Policy Council has remained silent on the matter.

Now I had some great discussions with many of you just before the election re the importance for all of us to find candidates who live & will govern by the principles that our country was founded on. This was also one of Alan Keyes main points in his speech @ the Woodbridge Tea Party on October 24. Chris Christie was not such a candidate - I thought Christie would come in and tinker around the edges for a few months & it would not be long before you would not be able to tell the difference between Christie's & Corzine's governance. I never thought it would be this soon that the similarities would surface but I sure am glad that neither Carol or I voted for Christie.

Just read the horror story below & if this is important to you call any of the people Steve lists @ the end of his message if you have not worn your fingers out during the last ten months.

Steve Lonegan

Last Friday "gay" marriage was DOA. State Senate Judiciary Chairman Paul Sarlo, a Democrat, said that he wasn't going to bring the bill to enact it before his committee, because he didn't think it had the votes to pass during the "lame duck" session.

But something happened over the weekend. According to NJN, four liberal Republicans in the New Jersey Senate - Bill Baroni, Jennifer Beck, Kip Bateman, and Sean Kean - said that they would provide the votes to pass gay marriage in New Jersey.

That's right, the Democrats lacked the votes to pass gay marriage, so they weren't going to even try. Then four liberal Republicans crossed-over to help and now it looks like New Jersey will have gay marriage.

This is a flip-flop, because legislators like Jennifer Beck are on record as opposed to ramming through votes during the lame duck session, after an election, when no one is paying attention.

Voters in thirty one states have voted on and defeated gay marriage. Apparently, these four "Republicans" would deny New Jerseyans the right to vote on this culture changing issue, and they would condone slipping it through in the still of the night.

During his run for Governor, Chris Christie campaigned as a traditional values conservative and is on record as opposing gay marriage. State Senator Tom Kean Jr. - the leader of the Senate Republicans - is on record as supporting an amendment to the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Christie and Kean have each received the benefits of the support of New Jersey's traditional values conservatives. Both have been favored by groups like the New Jersey Family Policy Council.

Now, they have fallen silent.

We needn't have gay marriage in New Jersey. A strong, clear statement by Governor-elect Chris Christie and Senator Tom Kean Jr. will help these four Republican State Senators to think again.

As Kean said in 2006, when the State Supreme Court first raised the issue of gay marriage, "The eyes of the country are on New Jersey."

Please call Governor-Elect Christie and Senator Kean and ask them to implore these four Republicans to oppose a vote by the legislature on gay marriage and support putting the question on the ballot for all the voters of New Jersey to decide.

Contact Governor-Elect Chris Christie
c/o Senator Joe Kyrillos (Transition Team member)
1715 Highway 35, Suite 303, Middletown, NJ 07748
(732) 671-3206
SenKyrillos@NJleg.org

Contact Governor-Elect Chris Christie
c/o Senator Sandra Cunningham (Transition Team member)
1738 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City, NJ 07305
(201) 451-5100
SenCunningham@NJleg.org

Contact Senator Tom Kean Jr.
425 North Ave. East, Suite C, Westfield, NJ 07090
(908) 232-3673
SenKean@NJleg.org

Contact Senator Bill Baroni
3691A Nottingham Way, Hamilton Square, NJ 08690
(609) 631-9988
SenBaroni@NJleg.org

Contact Senator Kip Bateman
36 East Main St., Somerville, NJ 08876
(908) 526-3600
SenBateman@NJleg.org

Contact Senator Jennifer Beck
32 Monmouth St., 3rd Floor, Red Bank, NJ 07701
(732) 933-1591
SenBeck@NJleg.org

Contact Senator Sean Kean
1955 Highway 34, Bldg. 2A, Wall Township, NJ 07719
(732) 974-0400
SenSKean@NJleg.org

On to Victory,

Steve Lonegan
Steven Lonegan


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

FairTax On Radio - 11/12/09

For anyone who missed Barbara Panella & me on the radio last Thursday just click on click here to hear the audio to hear the show.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Statistics Behind A Jobloss Recovery

Congressman Frelinghuysen e-mailed the statistics below that are behind our jobloss recovery. 
 
The original message brought many personal accounts like two from one member alone - "I remember when I was in first grade, in Rahway, walking to school a distance of approximately one mile.  (Forty years ago we walked to school.)  In that one mile I passed Purolator Oil Filter, Merck, Virginia Barrel, Regina, and dozens more.  The corporate parking lots were filled with cars.  I remember being late for first grade and the Nuns would crack my knuckles because I stopped to watch a big truck back into the loading dock.  Today, these companies are gone.  The liberals were successful of ridding this country of the evil corporations that make things and have greasy by products.  In this country we cannot have a company that creates smoke or dirt.  My heart goes out to the kids in grammar school who will never know the joy of watching an 18 wheeler back into the loading dock or the fun walking to school with their buddies.  If we have no evil corporations, surprise surprise, we have no jobs."
 
A later thought from the same member - "Doug:  It wasn't that many years ago we always understood that our best days were ahead of us...funny how we don't hear that tune in a jobloss recovery."

15,700,000:  Americans unemployed and looking for work—the highest number ever.  Since the President signed the trillion dollar "stimulus" in February, the number of unemployed Americans has increased by nearly three million.

190,000:  Individuals whose jobs were eliminated in October.

1,737,000:  People unemployed in October because they have been laid off.

2,804,000:  Jobs lost since the "stimulus" was signed in February.

9,284,000: People who are working only part-time because they cannot find full time employment.

2,373,000:  People who want work, but who are not currently looking because of the state of the economy.  

5,594,000:  People unemployed and searching for work for more than 27 weeks—the highest level ever.

1,090,000:  Job seekers that are new entrants to the workforce and have yet to find a job.

26.9:  Average number of weeks job seekers are unemployed after losing their jobs—the highest number since the statistic was first recorded in 1948. 

27.6%:  Unemployment rate among job seekers between the ages of 16 and 19—the highest level since the statistic was first measured in 1948.

15.7%:  Unemployment rate among African Americans—the highest level since 1985.

13.1%:  Unemployment rate among Hispanics and Latinos. 

17.5%:  Rate of underemployment, accounting for the unemployed and those who are unable to find adequate work. 

15.5%:  Unemployment rate among job seekers without a high school degree.
 
65.1%:  Rate of the U.S. population in the workforce.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Jobloss Recovery

About this time last year & up to the inauguration BO was seen everywhere with his sign "Office Of The President-Elect."  Now of course there is no such office - it was just something BO made up. 
 
More recently BO claimed that the Stimulus "saved or created" over 1 million jobs.  Now there is no such term "saved jobs" in any economics book so once again this is a term BO made up.  With re to "creating jobs" - please refer to what Stuart Meyers used to define as a job to his students - "A job is an opportunity to create more present or future value for an employer than it costs to maintain the worker in the job" - otherwise the job disappears.  These are not the types of sustainable wealth creating jobs the Stimulus produces.  Schramm, Litan, & Strangler report that it is new businesses less than five years old that have created nearly all net jobs since 1980 - without new businesses job creation in the American economy would have been negative for many years. 
 
The truth is that BO claimed that unemployment would not go higher than 8% if the Stimulus was enacted & that his economic staff predicted that the unemployment rate would be 7.7% by October with the Stimulus & 8.7% if the Stimulus was not enacted.  We all know that these figures have been far exceeded - the unemployment rate of the labor force in October is 10.2%. not 7.7%.  Since the Stimulus was enacted unemployment has increased in every state except North Dakota.  Counting discouraged workers (who are not considered part of the labor force) & part time workers who really want full time work results in an unemployment rate of 17.5%.
 
Despite these terrible unemployment figures the quarter ending September 30 recorded an initial 3.5% GDP seasonally adjusted annual rate expansion.  These initial GDP figures are regularly adjusted up or down.  Also much of the growth was due to the "cash for clunkers program," "the first time home buyers tax credit", & government purchases so it is surprising that many economists believe that the recession ended in June - of course the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official determiner of recession starting & ending points won't make that call for many months to come. 
 
Employment is considered a lagging indicator & yet until the recession that ended in November 1991 that lag was really only a few months.  If June was the end of the recession we don't have a jobless recovery like most economists are saying but rather a jobloss recovery - this is the third such jobloss recovery in a row where unemployment continued to grow long after the respective recession ended. 
 
For an explanation of why & what role the Stimulus plays please refer to the following excerpt from Henry Hazlitt's 1946 Book entitled "Economics In One Lesson" (thanks to Mark Levin & Carpe Diem I have posted the work in its entirety on ReturnToExcellence.net).  
 
Hazlitt's book was first published at a time of rampant statism at home and abroad - much like today.  To get the most out of the following excerpt please read it with the definition of a real American job defined above in mind. 
 
"There is no more persistent and influential faith in the world today than the faith in government spending.  Everywhere government spending is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills.  An enormous literature is based on this fallacy, and, as so often happens with doctrines of this sort, it has become part of an intricate network of fallacies that mutually support each other.

A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions.  A certain amount of public works — of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments—is necessary to supply essential public services.  With such public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned.  I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of "providing employment" or of adding wealth to the community that it would not otherwise have had.

A bridge is built. If it is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection.  But a bridge built primarily "to provide employment" is a different kind of bridge.

The bridge has to be paid for out of taxes.  For every dollar that is spent on the bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers.  If the bridge costs $10 million the taxpayers will lose $10 million.  They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.

Therefore, for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else.  We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them at work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing.  But there are other things that we do not see, because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence.  They are the jobs destroyed by the $10 million taken from the taxpayers.  All that has happened, at best, is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project. More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, television technicians, clothing workers, farmers."

Monday, November 9, 2009

Responses - Pelosi Healthcare Reform Bill Passes 220 to 215

Below are just two of the responses to the subject bill & vote that sums up the responses communicated to me.  Sums up my feelings too.
 
---Response #1---
 
1,990 pages - who read them all? how many quiet paybacks can they put in 1,990 pages?  This is transparency????
 
---Response #2---
 
Thanks, sent to my list of 30, doubt if they voted for them in the first place, just in case sent it on.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Pelosi Healthcare Reform Bill Passes 220 to 215

Below is the House vote on the Pelosi healthcare reform bill.  All Members of the House voted including the winner (Owens) of NY's special election just last Tuesday.  Three less "ayes" & the bill would have failed.  Even @ that 39 Democrats voted against the bill.  Remember the names on the list below & do everything you can to see that these people never hold elective office again.
 
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 887
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

      H R 3962      RECORDED VOTE      7-Nov-2009      11:16 PM
      QUESTION:  On Passage
      BILL TITLE: Affordable Health Care for America Act

Ayes Noes PRES NV
Democratic 219 39    
Republican 1 176    
Independent        
TOTALS 220 215    


---- AYES    220 ---

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baldwin
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boswell
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Cao
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson (IN)
Castor (FL)
Chu
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly (VA)
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Dahlkemper
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Donnelly (IN)
Doyle
Driehaus
Edwards (MD)
Ellison
Ellsworth
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Fudge
Garamendi
Giffords
Gonzalez
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Halvorson
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Heinrich
Higgins
Hill
Himes
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holt
Honda
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kilroy
Kind
Kirkpatrick (AZ)
Klein (FL)
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Luján
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney
Markey (MA)
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler (NY)
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Perriello
Peters
Pingree (ME)
Polis (CO)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Quigley
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Rothman (NJ)
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schauer
Schiff
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Towns
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Velázquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth

Friday, November 6, 2009

BO's Despicable Simultaneous Double Whammy Continues

In the last 48 hours, as predicted, under the cover of everyone trying to stop Pelosi's 1,990 page healthcare reform bill the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee passed the Boxer-Kerry Cap & Trade Bill by a vote of 11 to 1. All Republicans on the committee boycotted the vote & only Montana Senator Max Baucus voted against it.

Above are two photos courtesy of AFP of some of the 20,000 plus people who went to Washington yesterday for the anti-Pelosi healthcare reform bill rally held on the steps of the Capitol. After the rally the attendees, each with pages of the bill, went into the three Congressional office buildings trying to find Members who support the bill to see if they can explain it. Most of these Members were no where to be found.

Take a good look @ the people in the attached photos. They are virtually the only thing standing against passage of Pelosi's bill that is now scheduled to be voted on this weekend. We can also thank the Republican Members of the House who participated in the rally that was led by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

If stopping Pelosi's healthcare reform bill is important to you & you don't think you have done as much as you can to participate in stopping it the time is getting very short. If you don't know what to do to help just let me know & I will give you some ideas.

Unfortunately as we see above we will soon get another tiresome chance to beat back BO's relentless onslaught to destroy our way of life when the Cap & Trade bill comes to the Senate Floor.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

BO's Despicable Simultaneous Double Whammy

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning a floor vote on her 1,990 page healthcare bill on Friday. California Senator Barbara Boxer is also trying to slam the Kerry-Boxer Cap & Trade Bill through the Senate Environmental & Public Works Committee this week under the cover of everyone concentrating on healthcare.

Countering @ least the healthcare vote is the planned national “Congressional House Call” on Thursday @ 12 noon on the steps of the Capitol with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Jon Voight, Mark Levin, & many others who will host the grassroots effort once again asking people to join in to fight back against BO's anti-American onslaught. Bus trips have been arranged - just let me know if you would like to go & need the bus information. Americans For Prosperity has also organized an effort for people to go to their Members local offices to wage a similar anti-Pelosi healthcare reform bill protest. I can help with details on this also if you need it. Please call or fax your Member if you cannot attend - it all adds up.

Just like the recent tea parties & town hall meetings this type of grassroots activity is the only thing standing in the way of the government takeover of healthcare - with Cap & Trade now trying to gain a simultaneous priority.

The video below shows just how despicable Iowa Congressman Steve King thinks all of this is.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Responses - Dede Dines Out

Below are three responses to the subject message that I selected because they are not from anyone who I had the original recent discussions with on the NJ Gubernatorial election matter. All three responses express dissatisfaction with the current electoral condition & not just in NJ.

So the question is what do we do about it? Our best hope is to get involved every chance we can to unseat BO's plans between now & Nov 2010 when we once again have a chance to find some people who earn our vote & really have the country's interest @ heart rather than merely staying in high paying, plush jobs with many perks. The same applies to solving state-level problems.

At least in NY's 23rd district those people have a real choice thanks to the candidate himself sticking in & the leadership of those, starting with Sarah Palin, who endorsed the Conservative against the wishes of the detestable NY Republican machine. Just think how we would feel in NJ if something like that had happened here last Spring - we would have the real choice now of Steve Lonegan vs. Jon Corzine, not some phony malleable hand picked candidate who can't articulate a position on anything.

Glenn Beck writes in his book "Common Sense" - "Every time you vote 'against' someone rather than 'for' someone the two party system wins & America loses."

---Response #1---

I tend to agree with you - Corzine and Christie are poor choices.
Christie has a lot of negatives against him.
Corzine not saying much of anything.
Its a NO WIN situation.
Neither is saying how they hope to improve conditions except in vague terms.

---Response #2---

Interesting to get your slant on the NJ gov race....have been following it on the national news...I suspect that IL will be up against something like what you have there come gov election time.

---Response #3---

You have a good point, except how long will it take to fill the bucket. The NJ Senate & Assembly both have to be changed as well before much of any candidate will mean much at all. With a Christie vote at least a quart will go in the bucket, other wise the bucket stays dry and Corzine will poke a larger hole in the bottom. Now is the time to ban together, not in the next four years where third candidates have no chance of carrying the bucket at all. If they want a shot at the prize they should run in the primaries. I also would have liked Lonegan, but it wasn't to be.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Dede Dines Out

I have had several genuinely excellent discussions with many members of our group re the NJ Governors race that will be decided on Tuesday. Although just about every one I have discussed this with voted for Steve Lonegan in the primary they are now reluctantly supporting Republican Chris Christie over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine. Most people feel it is important for Corzine not to be reelected. Carol & I also think it is equally important that Christie not be elected.

Anyone who read Paul Mulshine's Cross Country column in today's WSJ on page A17 will learn some of the details as to why Christie has been short on details since the Republican machine put him in the race last winter. Also anyone who heard Alan Keyes speak @ the Woodbridge Tea Party last Saturday learned why Christie is just the type of candidate America does not want in office - he will perpetuate more of the same statist leaning direction that the country has been heading toward for decades & four years from now there will be two more lousy candidates to vote for so that New Jerseyians once again cannot get ahead regardless of which one of them is elected. Six months from now you will not be able to tell the difference in the governance of NJ.

Most reluctant Christie supporters who I have discussed this with think that Christie winning will send Democrat congressmen & BO himself a message but such messages are always short lived & spun to whatever point necessary to minimize the result. Also, some people told me they are picking the lesser of two evils - how pitiful.

Now a much better example of an important election to learn a lesson from is found in NY's 23rd congressional district's special election to replace Republican Representative John McHugh who recently accepted the job of Secretary of the Army. The original Democrat candidate for the seat is John Owens & the original Republican candidate hand picked by the Republican machine was five-term state-level Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava who bowed out of the race today because 3rd party Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman had passed her in the polls. Now how much good would it have done for America to have Dede elected to hold the Republican seat vacated by McHugh.

How much of Republican Dede's positions do you share? - she is an abortion rights advocate who favors homosexual marriage. She is for card check, Cap & Trade, & favored bank bailouts & the Stimulus Bill - something every House Republican voted against. In past elections she has lined up with the ballot line of the Working Families Party -- a socialist outfit with ACORN connections.

Several days ago Sarah Palin endorsed Doug Hoffman, the 3rd party Conservative Party candidate. Palin was soon joined by Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann (R, Minnesota), Steve Forbes, The WSJ Editorial Board, Michelle Malkin, The National Review, The Club for Growth, & just yesterday former Republican NY Governor George Pataki. Even with her clear anti-American record on display Newt Gingrich endorsed Dede saying that "Republicans must embrace centrists who can capture swing districts" - a position great for Republican stats but awful for America.

Worse than even Newt's endorsement - as of October 29 the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was planning to dump $300,000 in the race promoting Dede. I just hope they committed the money & Dede dined out of the race wasting it all. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was just as pitiful when Dede was still in the race saying the voters will decide - like who else will? Steele could not endorse Doug Hoffman could he? - that would not be the politically correct thing to do for the Republican Party, but in the meantime the hell with America.

So now the people in NY's 23rd district have a real choice - something NJ voters do not have with the two major party candidates. But even New Jerseyians can start to make a difference - not in this election because either Corzine or Christie is going to win but by studying the other candidates' positions & voting for someone who deserves & earns your vote - neither Corzine or Christie do. There are excellent Gubernatorial candidates like Jason Cullen & his running mate Gloria Leustek who ran on the Lonegan line in Somerset County in the primary for Freeholder. Cullen told me that he is a perpetual candidate so in the long run a vote for him, if you think he earns it, will not be wasted.

But getting back to NY's 23rd - it has been in Republican hands for nearly 120 consecutive years. Don't think that the Conservative Party candidate is a shoe-in though. As a sign of the sliding times in America eight-term Republican John McHugh, the man who moved over to the Department of the Army just a few months ago, was elected in November 2008 with a grade of "D" by the National Tax Payers Union with only a 30% favorable rating. Now just how will Dede's supporters votes be distributed between the statist & the conservative? On Tuesday night watch the results of this race closely - it will let you know if there is any hope in the immediate future.