An Agenda Worthy of Pursuit

An article today in Right Wing News drew my attention to another article, from The Weekly Standard. As John Hawkins (RWN) says in his article, "a terrific concept is worth stealing", and I'm doing him the compliment of stealing his, as well as that of the original authors, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, on The Weekly Standard.

On Deficit and Taxes, the agenda offered includes:

• Change the rules so it takes the support of a supermajority in Congress to raise taxes.
• Attempt to flatten and simplify the tax code.
• Support a Balanced-Budget Amendment or some other sort of legislated spending limits.
• Support Social Security reform including private accounts, raising the age limit in 2030, permanently tying the age limit to the average lifespan of Americans, & index Social Security payments to prices, instead of wages.
• Set the baseline budget to the rate of inflation when we're running a deficit and the rate of inflation + 1% when we're in the black.
• Oppose taxes on the internet.

I'd like to see something in the way of a flat tax, and The Fair Tax, although I dislike the intrinsic rebate concept in it, makes a good starting point. But the Fair Tax doesn't attempt to address spending controls, or spending reduction, so the notion of a balanced budget amendment, or other limit, is an essential goal.

I disagree with Social Security reform; the Fair Tax gets it right, as did Harry Browne: kill Social Security, and all related programs. With the monies that will no longer need to be extorted from us, we can all take care of ourselves. And for those who really need help, it's far better achieved at a more local level, with much less overhead.

Taxes on the Internet would simply destroy it. And too much in our present society depends on this medium to which few of us had access as recently as a decade ago. For all its problems, it is an essential part of the lives of most Americans.


On Energy issues:

• Drill ANWR ASAP.
• Permanently get rid of the Clean Air Act Amendments that lead to different gasoline blends going to different states (which raises the cost of gas about 15 cents per gallon)
• Low interest loans and tax credits for companies that agree to build new refineries or nuclear power plants.

As I said in my previous article, drill ANWR, but also develop the resources in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. We need to be independent of other countries for our basic energy requirements.

On Health Care:

• Tort reform, which will reduce not only costs paid out in lawsuits, but the cost of "defensive medicine."
• Streamlining the regulations that make bringing a new drug to market so slow and expensive.
• Health care savings accounts.
• Allowing health insurance companies from anywhere in America to compete for business in any state.

The FDA needs to be returned to the function it served prior to the Thalidomide scare. The additional authority it was given in the wake of that panic would not have prevented the damage done by that drug, and has served only to dramatically increase the cost of medications, delay the introduction of new medications, and prevent sick people from making an informed decision to take a risky medication that might save their lives.

A free market approach to health insurance business is such obvious good policy that it should not even have been necessary to propose it.

On Illegal Aliens:

• Significantly increase spending and resources for border control.
• Put an end to "catch and release" programs (i.e. if we catch an illegal immigrant, they stay in our hands until they're deported).
• Crack down on businesses that hire illegal aliens.

RWN gave this section the heading "illegal immigration". Ain't no such thing, folks. "Illegal immigration" is an oxymoron, concocted by liberals to distract from the reality that these people are criminals. Immigration is a legal process, and if you're not a citizen, you're either an immigrant, or an illegal alien.

On other issues:

• Pledge to continue to appoint textualist judges.
• Oppose Affirmative Action as unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.
• Support a "loser pays" principle that will cut down on frivolous lawsuits.
• Continue to push for school vouchers, particularly in areas where schools are failing.
• Support the presentation of a Photo ID in order to vote.
• Push for stricter control of legal immigration. Cut back the number of immigrants being allowed to enter the US and be more selective with the people we allow into the country.
• Support Three-Strikes and You're Out laws that get criminals off the street permanently.
• Oppose new regulations on the internet.
• Support free trade at every opportunity.
• Oppose any and all government spending on abortion.
• Support a Constitutional Amendment that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.
• Oppose minimum wage hikes.

School vouchers are a Good Thing. But we need to go further. The teachers' unions have for too long had a strangle hold on the education process in this country, and the effect has been disastrous. As performance has fallen, they've fudged the tests, and the number continued to decline. We need to free teachers from any requirement to join these unions, in any state, whether the state is a right to work state or not. And frankly, it's a scandal that so few states (currently 22, I think) are right to work states. If I could do it, I would ban teachers from joining unions in the first place.

We do need to do something to ensure that only registered voters are allowed to vote, and that only U. S. citizens are allowed to register. This will be hugely difficult to legislate, as the politicians are generally opposed to any such changes, but we must find a way. I think that the right path may be to require a voter registration card, perhaps issued by the DMV (to avoid creating yet another bureaucracy), and for which the registrant is required to establish proof of citizenship. Then at the polls, the card would have to be shown, even though the registration list is still used. Belt and suspenders, both, I say, as this is key to protecting our country.

Just as "illegal immigration" is an oxymoron, "legal immigration" is redundant. But the point is well made. We need to drastically change our handling of immigration, beginning by working to physically deport all illegal aliens. Doesn't matter how long they've been here -- longevity only establishes how long they've flaunted our laws. Send them home -- now.

I would add:

• Establish by Constitutional Amendment that English is our national language, and then banish the foreign language classes in our public schools, for any purpose other than bridging the students into English.
• Get the Federal government out of education. Public schools need to be controlled locally -- as locally as possible -- and even state control is questionable. Better to have them controlled at the county or community level, where the politicians can receive very direct retribution for their failings.
• Oppose minimum wage laws. Opposing hikes is well and good, but the reality is that all experience shows that minimum wage laws increase unemployment. Some minimal level of unemployment will always exist -- how else could we change jobs -- but minimum wages increase unemployment, and higher minimum wages make it worse, as has been seen in Europe, where double-digit unemployment is the rule.
• Legislate against kitchen-sink legislation. Many of our governmental ills have been achieved through the bargaining process where bills receive the attachment of riders that have nothing to do with the apparent purpose of the bill. This is rationalized as essential to the process. That's nonsense, and at worst, we should tolerate only riders that are entirely consistent with the subject of the bill.
  

These are tall orders to achieve, but worthy of the attention of every citizen. Can we do less for our children, in all good conscience?

Great Quotes!

From an interview with blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News, this quote on the ACLU is simply too good to ignore:

They are foot fungus on the toes of liberty, halitosis in the mouth of Christianity, and a huge ball of wax in the ears of society. They’re a rotten organization that makes this country a worse place to live.

I simply could not pass it up!

And later, he also says:

Judicial activism and the whole concept of a “living Constitution” are fundamentally undemocratic concepts because they enable 9 judges in black robes to overrule the will of elected legislatures while camouflaging what they’re doing by claiming it’s in the Constitution.

Two great comments in a single interview....

Stupidity is not reason enough...

So our Republican "leadership" has caved on drilling in ANWR. Some bunch of idiots calling themselves the Republican Main Street Partnership is claiming responsibility -- though there's certainly nothing responsible in achieving such a moronic goal as to leave our country dependent on oil from foreign producers, some of whom appear to be working actively for our demise. Perhaps they fail to comprehend treason, one of the three crimes enumerated in the U.S. Constitution:

high treason
n : a crime that undermines the offender's government
[syn: treason, lese majesty]

treason
n 1: a crime that undermines the offender's government
[syn: high treason, lese majesty]
2: disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
[syn: subversiveness, traitorousness]
3: an act of deliberate betrayal [syn: treachery, betrayal,
perfidy]

It beggars the imagination; what on earth can they be thinking?

But perhaps I give them too much credit, in supposing that thought and reason were involved....

Let's review. More than 25% of the gasoline production in the United States happens on the Gulf Coast, and was recently imperiled by Katrina. No new refinery has been built in the United States in the last 25 years, yet gasoline consumption has increased a reported 30% in that period.

To keep up with America's ever-increasing demand for oil, the United States has steadily increased its dependence on foreign oil since 1985. In 1993, total imports as a share of petroleum products supplied broke the 50% mark for the first time. Today total imports of 11.5 million barrels per day comprise 58.2% of petroleum products supplied (EIA Monthly Energy Review December 2001, Table 1.8). See this reference.

Can anyone contend, in today's world, that this is a rational policy?

Since 1985 imports of refined petroleum products have increased by 34%. Today the total import of oil is 55%. The volatility in the Mideast can lead to disruptions in oil supply and higher prices. Since 1970 US production of crude oil has declined from 9.6 million barrels per day to 5.8 million barrels per day. During this same period consumption has increased from 14.7 million barrels per day to 20 million barrels per day. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has in the past tightened supplies and has caused gasoline and oil prices to spiral. The “War on Terrorism” will cause further instability to the Mideast region and prioritize this
nation’s need to be energy secure.
-- The Need for a Balanced National Energy Policy, National Energy Policy Council (NEPC)

We now have the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to reduce our dependence on foreign resources, both because of the oil available in ANWR, and the huge reserves now known to be found in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.

U.S. officials, the petroleum industry and environmentalists are studying Alberta's tar sands development for ideas on how to exploit oil sands and oil shale resources that some say could turn Utah, Wyoming and Colorado into the nation's oil production center.

Tapping tar sands on the periphery of the Uinta Basin east of Salt Lake City would yield 12 million to 16 million barrels of low-sulfur oil, said James Bunger, acting energy director for the Utah governor's economic development office.

And oil shale deposits found in a 16,000 square-mile region bounded by Utah's Uinta Basin, Wyoming's Green River Basin and Colorado's Piceance Basin could hold 1 trillion to 2 trillion barrels of oil, depending on the grade of shale being produced, Bunger added.
-- Alberta's tar sands development may offer lessons for western U.S.

The exploitation of oil sands and tar sands is expensive, and makes economic sense only in the face of high-priced foreign oil supplies. OK, we have that condition now, and things won't be improving any time soon, for the following reasons:

1. The Gulf Coast refining facilities continue to be at risk from hurricanes, and weather trends suggest we are in a period of increasing hurricane activity.
2. Environmental protests make it almost impossible to increase conventional drilling activity, anywhere in the United States.
3. The economic growth of China, and other Asian markets, is creating a growing demand for oil where there had been only minimal demand for many years.
   

The environmental activists contend that we must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and while I don't subscribe to their hysteria, I do believe that we're overdue for a technology change. Having said that, just as I have said with respect to the politicians, the environmental folks are at risk of treason, in failing to provide for our continued economic health and continued security, with any of the "plans" they propose.

Today we can see that Western Europe has failed utterly to deal with its own gasoline problems. They have accepted for decades a scandalous pricing situation, as the governments there have led the way in taxing their populations on such essentials as gasoline. Moreover, Europe has cultivated a close relationship with the Middle Eastern suppliers, accepting a considerable influx of immigrants, many of whom have continued to conduct themselves philosophically as exiles, rather than immigrants, as we see in the riots in France.

We recognize that the War on Terror, if it will be won at all, will be waged for decades. That means, to any rational observer, that the supply of oil from OPEC will continue to be at risk. In Venezuela, another significant supplier, political turmoil there makes continued dependence on that source risky.

In the immediate future, we must recognize that any termination of the continuing flood of illegal aliens from Mexico is likely to jeopardize the free trade treaty with that country, and in turn, the supply of oil from them. And if we fail to terminate that influx, we are at risk of being taken over by a major change in our resident population, as espoused by La Raza.

In consideration of all these factors, the only rational path we can consider is to make ourselves independent of foreign energy supplies, whether they be from fossil sources, or any other. In the near term, it makes good sense to drill in ANWR and to develop the extraction of oil from the oil sands, oil shale, and tar sands in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. This latter action will also have a positive effect on the U.S. economy, and in particular, on the economy of those three states, which will enjoy a real boom as these resources are developed.

Failure to ensure our future, and that of our children and grandchildren, is treasonous. Tell your elected representatives just that.

Mourning in the morning...

Well, the results are in, and all 8 of the propositions on the California ballot were defeated yesterday. That's beyond pathetic, and I'm ever more interested in finding a better place in which to raise a family.

On Prop. 73, the parental notification issue, I am appalled that anyone with an IQ higher than that of a carrot could vote against this one. Do we really want our young girls going off to the abortionist on their own, while we remain unaware until we're left to pick up the pieces? And by the way, we'll also be paying for the abortions, at inflated rates, through our tax dollars, I am sure.

Prop. 74 would merely have withheld tenure until a teacher had fulfilled five years of service. Never mind the larger issue of why tenure should be needed, other than in a university. My own step-daughter has suffered through some nightmares in the classroom, and one of the teachers in question has been "teaching" for 25+ years. How on earth can we allow our state to continue to be in 49th place in quality of education?

Prop. 75 annoys me beyond belief. The ads against it claimed it was a power grab, and would silence the voices of teachers, firemen, etc. In truth, it would merely have required the unions to which they belong to annually obtain their individual permissions to use union funds for political campaign purposes. Since they could easily still give that permission, I fail to see how anyone was at risk of being silenced.

Prop. 76, of course, was dangerous. The notion that the state should be required to spend no more than it has taken in -- what could be more frightening? So we're now likely to continue to see the state assembly propose budgets that exceed revenues by 12% or more each year. That way lies bankruptcy, and will eventually lead to businesses fleeing the state in droves.

Prop. 77 being defeated ensures that the Democrats will be able to continue to take us all down the path to unfettered socialism. They have redrawn the districts so that it is well nigh impossible for them to be unseated, and the idea of an election is, at this point, a bad joke.

Props. 78 and 79, thang God, were both soundly defeated. I'm somewhat astonished, as I'd have the liberals to be hugely in favor of them. But they would have had a disastrous impact on the drug industry, which is already under attack at the Federal level.

Prop. 80 is the brightest spot in an otherwise dim result. The voters have soundly rejected any more games by the Public Utilities Commission such as those that led to the $40-billion+ deficit that allowed Arnold to be elected.

It's not pretty, friends. Not pretty at all. The small crumbs of victory are in 78, 79, and 80. The loss of 73-77 is a catastrophe.