When New Years come, they seem to come suddenly. New Year comes always as a surprise, with nary a warning; then raising its head, forcing itself upon our minds a day after Christmas, it sings the dirge. Death as yet undefeated. The winter kills a tender reed. We reflect upon it for less than a week, and recognize if briefly, New Year upon New Years’ nearly imperceptible creeping of Time: Time the thief, Time the Blighter, Time O Most Unmerciful. Then we do it again like nothing happened.
People sometimes regret their fading memories, but in fact the sum of them would probably kill an elephant. It wasn’t only sin that severed spirit from this world—not one sin or a million collected the whole world over. Remember it was on that day when the children of Adam learned of good and evil, that man and woman entered into finite time and generations began to live and die. No it was the sum total of sin and error across all time and space, which the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself and obliterated when He rose again. On the cross Jesus felt as if His Father God had forsaken him, and in a single moment of finite time it may very well be, because God doth not behold death (because He cannot die), nor existential Sin (because He is pure and perfect). God brought man to the portal nevertheless, even to the eye of a needle through which we may enter in with Christ, into the glorious Kingdom of Heaven.
The Godhead resides outside (as well as inside) time. Not so with us. With Him there are no solar “New Years.” All things are always New and fresh and equally Old and true, and also Wonderful. We count our years on earth because we haven’t very many. The wise make use of their time. The foolish squander it. If you ask me what life is, I will tell you that it is only time. Every New Year turning is like a bell that says your wash is almost done or the goose nearly cooked. Dust becomes dust, whether you exercise it, medicate it, intoxicate it or pretend it doesn’t exist. One might be very angry, or grateful, that God gives us so little time.
The impact upon men’s and women’s minds of thinking past time and beyond a single solar New Year is fundamental to reason and to accumulated knowledge, and indeed to civilization itself. This ability to think past finite time entails learning history among other subjects, but it critically involves learning His Story. That is because thinking past time is inherent to a reverence for and/or even the mere reference to God. There is nothing else can take His Place in our hearts or in thinking. The People of these United States have erred terribly to try and extinguish His presence from public schools and the public square. They have sinned in accepting and abetting the restrictions on freedom chiefly brought about for this purpose.
Minds without the ballast of God are easily wrecked. They fall victim to storms and madness. They substitute greedily almost every other god to fill the intellectual and the moral void. Such minds accept respective conditions of slavery, because they can never adequately measure the price or the joys of freedom: whether slavery to the will of other men and governments, or addictions to material substances, or release to the sucking hold of a psychological pit—all in order to relieve the pain of life in temporal finite time, and to escape the haunting at every New Year.
I tell you that there is another way to view things, and it puts it on the line as it must be put. Maybe the world ends at the stroke of midnight tonight, or maybe not until December 21, 2012 or any other date that you prefer. Maybe it never ends, but even scientists say that the sun will burn out someday. To tell the truth the point is that you are supposed to live in this world but with a fundamental reference outside of it. That’s what it means to live in but not of the world. Do your best—sure, but also live outside of finite time the way our Lord instructed. That’s a big part of what it means to have that mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus (ex: I Corinthians 2:16). If you do this then you are and will be a potent force for good in the world. If you don’t then you are like the chaff or worse like chattel, particularly in this day and age of decay and omnipotent secular federal government. Oh yeah, the physical realm is still a dust to dust proposition but with a difference. You can leave your signature, you can make your mark; right wrongs and injustices, give evil a hard time; win one for the Gipper, and glorify God—this New Year, and the next, and the next after Next.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Merry Christmas to All! (Issue #481)
I watched a classic film at the Beltonian Theater (www.BeltonianTheater.com) last week. I’m also looking forward to seeing others before Christmas and again before New Years while holidays last. The thing that struck me this time about “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) was that while it was over sixty years old, it was as marvelous as ever today on the big “silver screen.” Literally generations have watched this story depicted on film and enjoyed it the same as me.
Christmas is similar, in that, generations over the course of many centuries have heard and read and seen reenacted the Story about a special babe, born to a virgin on one holy night. Travelers reported seeing him lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. The birth is as joyful an event to contemplate now as it was then, and as marvelous to hear that Story again as it was on the first day it was told.
There was a married couple named Joseph and Mary who loved each other, and they travelled across country to a little town called Bethlehem. The young bride was very pregnant and so the trip was hard, but they had to go there in order to pay their taxes, because those were the instructions from the Roman government. The weather was cool—cold when the sun went down. They arrived in town when it was evening and there was no lodging left, nothing at the inn where Joseph had expected to find room. But they were able to go out where the animals were kept, and there they found shelter from the cold.
In northern countries elsewhere houses are traditionally built adjoining stalls and barns, because the body heat from animals helps keep the people warm. The place where Joseph and Mary resorted to was quite a bit warmer than the outside air. The manger was normally used as a trough or box to hold hay for the animals to eat, but it made a perfect crib or bed for a baby. Mary brought the swaddling clothes, the clean warm wraps she planned to put around her newborn.
The night was clear and beautiful. A large, unusually bright star shone almost directly above their shelter. Mary delivered her baby easily, and as they had discussed they named him Jesus. Jesus was the son of Man (since his mother was Mary) and also the Son of God (his Father). Joseph was Jesus’ step-father therefore, because Mary had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit and angels had explained this both to Mary and Joseph before their wedding. Indeed, outside the place where Jesus was born shepherds would report that angels and a “multitude of the heavenly host” were attending and happily announced this great and historic Event to them (see Luke 2:8-14).
Imagine: God didn’t think Mary needed to be eighteen or to finish college first before having a child. Mary didn’t mind nor did Joseph, who was also quite a bit older than Mary. Even without the extramarital pregnancy, Mary’s relationship with Joseph would appear scandalous today. God didn’t ask them (or us), however, for permission or about the wisdom of His plan. He informed them and they accepted it, because in those days they knew some things better than us. To use a Biblical metaphor, like the clay which ought not to question what reason is in the Potter’s hand. Subordination was clearly understood as between the Creator and all He creates.
Miracle attends the birth of every human child. The birth of Jesus was singularly spectacular, however, because he was the coincidence of Man and God on earth. Jesus beheld a perfect, all-powerful eye upon the world wherever he went. His existence and being as such, gave proof of so much, namely the proof of God’s plan and of Life beyond the veil of matter. Jesus Christ was and is the living proof of Purpose and Power, that Love is stronger than hate and Life the ultimate conqueror over death.
Without that first glorious Christmas morning when Jesus drew his breath and smiled his first smile, and looked up at Mary with an immense joy and love radiating back at him from a mother’s heart—nothing, absolutely nothing else would be the same. “It’s a Wonderful Life” would not play at a movie or dinner theater. The story would be dark, incomplete, unfulfilled if written. Life itself would be accidental, love a temporal cheat. That is why Christmas is the most important Birthday in the world. Moreover, we all have an invitation to His party. A multitude of the heavenly host are still attending every year and celebrating, announcing the Good News to those who have never heard. Whenever we sing our “Silent Night” and other sacred carols, we sing our Lord’s “Happy Birthday” song. Merry Christmas to all!
Christmas is similar, in that, generations over the course of many centuries have heard and read and seen reenacted the Story about a special babe, born to a virgin on one holy night. Travelers reported seeing him lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. The birth is as joyful an event to contemplate now as it was then, and as marvelous to hear that Story again as it was on the first day it was told.
There was a married couple named Joseph and Mary who loved each other, and they travelled across country to a little town called Bethlehem. The young bride was very pregnant and so the trip was hard, but they had to go there in order to pay their taxes, because those were the instructions from the Roman government. The weather was cool—cold when the sun went down. They arrived in town when it was evening and there was no lodging left, nothing at the inn where Joseph had expected to find room. But they were able to go out where the animals were kept, and there they found shelter from the cold.
In northern countries elsewhere houses are traditionally built adjoining stalls and barns, because the body heat from animals helps keep the people warm. The place where Joseph and Mary resorted to was quite a bit warmer than the outside air. The manger was normally used as a trough or box to hold hay for the animals to eat, but it made a perfect crib or bed for a baby. Mary brought the swaddling clothes, the clean warm wraps she planned to put around her newborn.
The night was clear and beautiful. A large, unusually bright star shone almost directly above their shelter. Mary delivered her baby easily, and as they had discussed they named him Jesus. Jesus was the son of Man (since his mother was Mary) and also the Son of God (his Father). Joseph was Jesus’ step-father therefore, because Mary had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit and angels had explained this both to Mary and Joseph before their wedding. Indeed, outside the place where Jesus was born shepherds would report that angels and a “multitude of the heavenly host” were attending and happily announced this great and historic Event to them (see Luke 2:8-14).
Imagine: God didn’t think Mary needed to be eighteen or to finish college first before having a child. Mary didn’t mind nor did Joseph, who was also quite a bit older than Mary. Even without the extramarital pregnancy, Mary’s relationship with Joseph would appear scandalous today. God didn’t ask them (or us), however, for permission or about the wisdom of His plan. He informed them and they accepted it, because in those days they knew some things better than us. To use a Biblical metaphor, like the clay which ought not to question what reason is in the Potter’s hand. Subordination was clearly understood as between the Creator and all He creates.
Miracle attends the birth of every human child. The birth of Jesus was singularly spectacular, however, because he was the coincidence of Man and God on earth. Jesus beheld a perfect, all-powerful eye upon the world wherever he went. His existence and being as such, gave proof of so much, namely the proof of God’s plan and of Life beyond the veil of matter. Jesus Christ was and is the living proof of Purpose and Power, that Love is stronger than hate and Life the ultimate conqueror over death.
Without that first glorious Christmas morning when Jesus drew his breath and smiled his first smile, and looked up at Mary with an immense joy and love radiating back at him from a mother’s heart—nothing, absolutely nothing else would be the same. “It’s a Wonderful Life” would not play at a movie or dinner theater. The story would be dark, incomplete, unfulfilled if written. Life itself would be accidental, love a temporal cheat. That is why Christmas is the most important Birthday in the world. Moreover, we all have an invitation to His party. A multitude of the heavenly host are still attending every year and celebrating, announcing the Good News to those who have never heard. Whenever we sing our “Silent Night” and other sacred carols, we sing our Lord’s “Happy Birthday” song. Merry Christmas to all!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Increasing Business Revenues Helps Fix Budget Gap, Reduce National Debt (Issue #480)
No duh—more business income translates into more in tax monies collected, and so theoretically, more with which to meet budget shortfalls and pay down our astronomical national debt. Almost exclusively, however, discussion about deficits and debt reduction inevitably centers on how best to reduce government spending or to increase taxes. Mostly liberal proponents of increasing taxes argue over what level the tax rates should be increased to and for which segments of the population. Proponents of decreased spending, debate over which federal programs should be trimmed or eliminated altogether. The choice poses a classic false dichotomy, given that a rising tide lifts all boats. Even if cutting government spending is clearly part of the answer, it isn’t exclusively all that is required or at least all that proves helpful. President Reagan knew it was possible to grow the whole pie larger, and a free market economy should never be viewed as a “zero-sum” game.
Of course today with the accumulated national debt and annual budget deficits climbing to new highs, and the nation’s economic health anemic at best, the dichotomy (false or not) becomes untenable. Increasing the tax rates and cutting federal spending programs cannot be done without considerable pain and political difficulty, not to mention without disturbing perhaps the majority of Americans who will be affected in some way. Obama’s deficit commission stated that making reductions for sustainable levels of debt and deficits would necessitate large tax increases or major spending cuts and quite probably some of each. Even if these are done, however, given those structural dislocations in the current economy, it is not very likely that the measures will do enough in time to turn this economy around to any long-term satisfaction of the American people. The fact is that both options in isolation or together merely share (and also redistribute) scarcity.
Without a doubt spending should not be profligate, and taxes should be fairly levied and impose the least burden possible. Notwithstanding, the more effective answer to reducing debt and alleviating deficits, is to grow the economy and increase business revenues. Significant and sustainable increases in the revenues of businesses, however, are unlikely using the standard approach and economic shell games of today, whether off-shoring of jobs, lay-offs of domestic labor, or selling off various assets and subsidiaries to foreign buyers. To achieve any real or sustainable increases in revenue, businesses must increase and maintain their competitive advantage in domestic and foreign markets. Moreover, a true competitive advantage is a matter of producing goods and providing services that customers want to purchase because the products and services satisfy customer needs better than the competition. If a business is not excelling at satisfying customer needs, then any other perceived “competitive advantage” equates to little more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Under President Reagan, Michael C. Sekora directed a program called the Socrates Project within the U.S. intelligence community. Socrates enabled the United States years ago to foresee America’s present economic crisis, and it also identified the means to rebuild the country’s competitiveness and to turn things around. George Herbert Walker Bush scrapped the program for a globalized, one-world vision and supposed “New World Order.” In his scheme of things he was willing to tolerate the movement of American wages downward, willing to see well-paying and secure manufacturing jobs sent abroad to other countries. It is high time now, however, particularly since the last election that we start to complete Ronald Reagan’s economic legacy by returning America to its preeminent position in the world. The United States should pursue national strategy to this end.
The Socrates Project utilized all source intelligence and determined by examining competition worldwide that the U.S. and its organizations had begun losing competitive advantage in the marketplace after World War II as a result of switching from technology-based planning to economic-based planning as the foundation of most decision-making. Socrates also foresaw that if the U.S. continued to rely upon economic-based planning with its inherent degradation of competitive advantage, the economic health of the U.S. would eventually go into a catastrophic freefall where no amount of economic maneuvering would be able to stop it. Socrates “saw” that China via an aggressive use of technology-based planning was, in effect, rapidly building itself into the next world superpower atop the wreckage of U.S. manufacturing industries and systemic failure to apply technology strategically to marketplace coordination and real goods and services output. China was outmaneuvering the US and its organizations in the acquisition and utilization of worldwide technology purposefully, in order to decimate America's ability to generate competitive advantage long-term and to ensure a maximum competitive advantage across the full range of markets and industries well into the future.
The Socrates Project developed a highly advanced form of technology-based planning called automated innovation to restore America’s competitiveness. In automated innovation, the process for acquiring and utilizing technology for a competitive advantage, including research and development, is automated so that it can be executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility. Automated innovation enables the U.S. and its major public and private organizations to consistently outmaneuver China in the exploitation of technology, in order to acquire and maintain maximum competitive advantage. Automated innovation would thereby greatly increase corporate revenues too. A Socrates Project system was deployed under Reagan and is credited with helping bring our country back economically after the devastating Carter years, when so many key industries were losing position in global competition. After the first President Bush abolished the Socrates Project, the basis of the Socrates initiative moved into the private sector where it was refined since the 1980s.
Contemporary debate in terms of how best to reduce the U.S. national debt and close federal budget deficits must include a third leg as it were, and not just the tired rhetorical tug-of-war between the need and desire to increase taxes or to cut spending. What needs to happen is that private businesses must increase their revenues in a significant and sustained way, in order to grow the economic pie and bring in more tax revenue towards retiring the debt and living within budget means. Political debate must include more than the usual suspects. Corporations and businesses have to refrain from mere economic shell games that claim profit as they hollow out their insides or lay off more American workers.
Businesses grow when the tax and trade policies are less regressive, when public-private partnerships produce the tools they need to have a real technology-based competitive edge. The U.S. Government and various State Governments should look into tech-based planning and associated tools, in order to fully address their sagging economies and mounting debt burdens. The problems we face are unique and systemic and not entirely cyclic in nature. To address the economic health of the U.S., Congress should move resolutely towards reexamination of President Reagan’s Socrates Project and the swift deployment of an upgraded and reconstituted Socrates system enabled with 21st century technology, in order to usher in automated innovation and return us to the deliberate path of sustained economic prosperity and a choice of what’s best for America.
Of course today with the accumulated national debt and annual budget deficits climbing to new highs, and the nation’s economic health anemic at best, the dichotomy (false or not) becomes untenable. Increasing the tax rates and cutting federal spending programs cannot be done without considerable pain and political difficulty, not to mention without disturbing perhaps the majority of Americans who will be affected in some way. Obama’s deficit commission stated that making reductions for sustainable levels of debt and deficits would necessitate large tax increases or major spending cuts and quite probably some of each. Even if these are done, however, given those structural dislocations in the current economy, it is not very likely that the measures will do enough in time to turn this economy around to any long-term satisfaction of the American people. The fact is that both options in isolation or together merely share (and also redistribute) scarcity.
Without a doubt spending should not be profligate, and taxes should be fairly levied and impose the least burden possible. Notwithstanding, the more effective answer to reducing debt and alleviating deficits, is to grow the economy and increase business revenues. Significant and sustainable increases in the revenues of businesses, however, are unlikely using the standard approach and economic shell games of today, whether off-shoring of jobs, lay-offs of domestic labor, or selling off various assets and subsidiaries to foreign buyers. To achieve any real or sustainable increases in revenue, businesses must increase and maintain their competitive advantage in domestic and foreign markets. Moreover, a true competitive advantage is a matter of producing goods and providing services that customers want to purchase because the products and services satisfy customer needs better than the competition. If a business is not excelling at satisfying customer needs, then any other perceived “competitive advantage” equates to little more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Under President Reagan, Michael C. Sekora directed a program called the Socrates Project within the U.S. intelligence community. Socrates enabled the United States years ago to foresee America’s present economic crisis, and it also identified the means to rebuild the country’s competitiveness and to turn things around. George Herbert Walker Bush scrapped the program for a globalized, one-world vision and supposed “New World Order.” In his scheme of things he was willing to tolerate the movement of American wages downward, willing to see well-paying and secure manufacturing jobs sent abroad to other countries. It is high time now, however, particularly since the last election that we start to complete Ronald Reagan’s economic legacy by returning America to its preeminent position in the world. The United States should pursue national strategy to this end.
The Socrates Project utilized all source intelligence and determined by examining competition worldwide that the U.S. and its organizations had begun losing competitive advantage in the marketplace after World War II as a result of switching from technology-based planning to economic-based planning as the foundation of most decision-making. Socrates also foresaw that if the U.S. continued to rely upon economic-based planning with its inherent degradation of competitive advantage, the economic health of the U.S. would eventually go into a catastrophic freefall where no amount of economic maneuvering would be able to stop it. Socrates “saw” that China via an aggressive use of technology-based planning was, in effect, rapidly building itself into the next world superpower atop the wreckage of U.S. manufacturing industries and systemic failure to apply technology strategically to marketplace coordination and real goods and services output. China was outmaneuvering the US and its organizations in the acquisition and utilization of worldwide technology purposefully, in order to decimate America's ability to generate competitive advantage long-term and to ensure a maximum competitive advantage across the full range of markets and industries well into the future.
The Socrates Project developed a highly advanced form of technology-based planning called automated innovation to restore America’s competitiveness. In automated innovation, the process for acquiring and utilizing technology for a competitive advantage, including research and development, is automated so that it can be executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility. Automated innovation enables the U.S. and its major public and private organizations to consistently outmaneuver China in the exploitation of technology, in order to acquire and maintain maximum competitive advantage. Automated innovation would thereby greatly increase corporate revenues too. A Socrates Project system was deployed under Reagan and is credited with helping bring our country back economically after the devastating Carter years, when so many key industries were losing position in global competition. After the first President Bush abolished the Socrates Project, the basis of the Socrates initiative moved into the private sector where it was refined since the 1980s.
Contemporary debate in terms of how best to reduce the U.S. national debt and close federal budget deficits must include a third leg as it were, and not just the tired rhetorical tug-of-war between the need and desire to increase taxes or to cut spending. What needs to happen is that private businesses must increase their revenues in a significant and sustained way, in order to grow the economic pie and bring in more tax revenue towards retiring the debt and living within budget means. Political debate must include more than the usual suspects. Corporations and businesses have to refrain from mere economic shell games that claim profit as they hollow out their insides or lay off more American workers.
Businesses grow when the tax and trade policies are less regressive, when public-private partnerships produce the tools they need to have a real technology-based competitive edge. The U.S. Government and various State Governments should look into tech-based planning and associated tools, in order to fully address their sagging economies and mounting debt burdens. The problems we face are unique and systemic and not entirely cyclic in nature. To address the economic health of the U.S., Congress should move resolutely towards reexamination of President Reagan’s Socrates Project and the swift deployment of an upgraded and reconstituted Socrates system enabled with 21st century technology, in order to usher in automated innovation and return us to the deliberate path of sustained economic prosperity and a choice of what’s best for America.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Automated Innovation Revolution Key to Rebuilding, Advancing U.S. Economy (Issue #479)
To rebuild America’s competitiveness, it was obvious from the vantage point of the Socrates intelligence project, established by Michael C. Sekora during Reagan’s second term that America had to re-introduce technology-based planning as the foundation for decision-making. On the other hand, the U.S. could not simply revert to or adopt the same level of technology-based planning U.S. decision-makers had before World War II in industry or the public sector. In order to regain economic health and sustain economic superpower status, U.S. decision-makers needed to execute a level of technology-based planning designed in the Information Age and surpassing that being executed in China, India and elsewhere.
To borrow terminology from our World War II Pacific strategy, what the US needed to do was to leap-frog the technology-based or “tech-based” planning of those other countries. Part of the arduous analysis required in order to do this entailed the Socrates team mapping out the evolution of tech-based planning literally since the dawn of mankind. In so doing, two more things became obvious. First, tech-based planning (and mankind itself) makes an evolutionary leap forward every few hundred years—for example, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and so on. Second, mankind appeared altogether poised to make the next big evolutionary leap forward with tech-based planning, what Sekora referred to as the automated innovation revolution.
In the automated innovation revolution, the entire process for acquiring and utilizing technology (research and development, tech-alliances, etc.) is standardized and automated. The result is that the acquisition and utilization of technology can be executed with previously unimaginable speed, efficiency and agility—producing an endless, rapid stream of products and services based on technology breakthroughs that are automatically generated and utilized at amazingly fast rates. Resources become unified spontaneously through the application of usable information.
The Socrates team saw that if the U.S. was to generate and lead the automated innovation revolution, it would ensure America’s competitiveness and economic health for many future generations. The Socrates team designed, built and demonstrated a proof-of-principle version of the automated innovation system. The Socrates Project’s automated innovation system would generate another major benefit for the U.S., in that, it enabled public and private organizations throughout the U.S. to work together in a self-determined, highly symbiotic fashion—the result being that technology and the full range of various resources throughout the U.S. might be utilized in a highly coherent but flexible and independent fashion, increasing the competitive advantage of the U.S. and its private and public organizations, and still be fully compatible with democratic-republican principles and the free enterprise system.
A briefing was prepared and shown to President Reagan and his key advisors, which demonstrated conclusively both the threat posed by China’s and India’s tech-based planning approach, as well as the unprecedented, long-term competitive advantage the U.S. would be able to capture by generating and leading the automated innovation revolution. A relatively straightforward deployment of interface terminals to access the world’s technology information using advanced artificial intelligence software and all source intelligence data, would enable symbiotic relationships between U.S. public and private organizations to develop. A quick consensus emerged in the Reagan Administration that the full Socrates automated innovation system should be built and installed at a separate and independent government agency to support U.S. industry and a few government agencies with a valid need for the information.
President Reagan viewed “Socrates” as an innovative and prudential step for the United States to take for practical and self-interested reasons, given some grim long-term economic predictors. He also averred with the Socrates team that it would probably lead mankind into its next evolutionary step and that it was far better for the United States to set terms and parameters in this step rather than, say, China. Indeed, deployment of an automated innovation system would address the pressing economic challenges posed by China and India and the ever increasing likelihood that America would find herself displaced as the world’s premier economic powerhouse. At the same time and just as importantly, if the system were implemented deliberately for access by multiple users and using objective protocols with the proper oversight mechanism, the system would amount to having a brand new and powerful tool for superior performance with virtually no down side—the caveat for deployment being, that it must remain true to cherished American principles of private property, individual initiative, limited government and free markets.
Unfortunately before the draft executive order could be finalized and signed by President Reagan, his second term came to an end. By that time moreover, Reagan had personal health issues to attend to, albeit he did leave with full confidence that his vice-president and incoming president, George H.W. Bush would continue with “Socrates” to complete his impressive economic legacy. When Bush came into office, however, he abolished the Socrates Project in deference to Japanese demands; to reap a so-called post-Cold War “peace dividend”; and to usher in his own idealized “new world order” policy of unabashed globalism—without the same priority being given to parochial or exclusive U.S. economic interests.
Today with the U.S. having lost industry after industry overseas, and Americans’ standard of living in rapid decline, it is past time to complete the task that President Reagan charted. A legislatively authorized Socrates-like project would be a fitting tribute to the man whose 100th birthday anniversary we celebrate in February 2011. More critically, the automated innovation system is a necessary key to America’s economic wellbeing moving forward in the Information Age, against cutthroat market and currency manipulations being waged by authoritarian regimes and aggressive, culturally competing nation-states. The U.S. must generate and lead the automated innovation revolution, but while it is still possible to do so, the time is also far spent in terms of America’s economic eclipse. We must therefore move quickly and with resolution to do it, before it is too late and unsettling downward trends become irreversible.
To borrow terminology from our World War II Pacific strategy, what the US needed to do was to leap-frog the technology-based or “tech-based” planning of those other countries. Part of the arduous analysis required in order to do this entailed the Socrates team mapping out the evolution of tech-based planning literally since the dawn of mankind. In so doing, two more things became obvious. First, tech-based planning (and mankind itself) makes an evolutionary leap forward every few hundred years—for example, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and so on. Second, mankind appeared altogether poised to make the next big evolutionary leap forward with tech-based planning, what Sekora referred to as the automated innovation revolution.
In the automated innovation revolution, the entire process for acquiring and utilizing technology (research and development, tech-alliances, etc.) is standardized and automated. The result is that the acquisition and utilization of technology can be executed with previously unimaginable speed, efficiency and agility—producing an endless, rapid stream of products and services based on technology breakthroughs that are automatically generated and utilized at amazingly fast rates. Resources become unified spontaneously through the application of usable information.
The Socrates team saw that if the U.S. was to generate and lead the automated innovation revolution, it would ensure America’s competitiveness and economic health for many future generations. The Socrates team designed, built and demonstrated a proof-of-principle version of the automated innovation system. The Socrates Project’s automated innovation system would generate another major benefit for the U.S., in that, it enabled public and private organizations throughout the U.S. to work together in a self-determined, highly symbiotic fashion—the result being that technology and the full range of various resources throughout the U.S. might be utilized in a highly coherent but flexible and independent fashion, increasing the competitive advantage of the U.S. and its private and public organizations, and still be fully compatible with democratic-republican principles and the free enterprise system.
A briefing was prepared and shown to President Reagan and his key advisors, which demonstrated conclusively both the threat posed by China’s and India’s tech-based planning approach, as well as the unprecedented, long-term competitive advantage the U.S. would be able to capture by generating and leading the automated innovation revolution. A relatively straightforward deployment of interface terminals to access the world’s technology information using advanced artificial intelligence software and all source intelligence data, would enable symbiotic relationships between U.S. public and private organizations to develop. A quick consensus emerged in the Reagan Administration that the full Socrates automated innovation system should be built and installed at a separate and independent government agency to support U.S. industry and a few government agencies with a valid need for the information.
President Reagan viewed “Socrates” as an innovative and prudential step for the United States to take for practical and self-interested reasons, given some grim long-term economic predictors. He also averred with the Socrates team that it would probably lead mankind into its next evolutionary step and that it was far better for the United States to set terms and parameters in this step rather than, say, China. Indeed, deployment of an automated innovation system would address the pressing economic challenges posed by China and India and the ever increasing likelihood that America would find herself displaced as the world’s premier economic powerhouse. At the same time and just as importantly, if the system were implemented deliberately for access by multiple users and using objective protocols with the proper oversight mechanism, the system would amount to having a brand new and powerful tool for superior performance with virtually no down side—the caveat for deployment being, that it must remain true to cherished American principles of private property, individual initiative, limited government and free markets.
Unfortunately before the draft executive order could be finalized and signed by President Reagan, his second term came to an end. By that time moreover, Reagan had personal health issues to attend to, albeit he did leave with full confidence that his vice-president and incoming president, George H.W. Bush would continue with “Socrates” to complete his impressive economic legacy. When Bush came into office, however, he abolished the Socrates Project in deference to Japanese demands; to reap a so-called post-Cold War “peace dividend”; and to usher in his own idealized “new world order” policy of unabashed globalism—without the same priority being given to parochial or exclusive U.S. economic interests.
Today with the U.S. having lost industry after industry overseas, and Americans’ standard of living in rapid decline, it is past time to complete the task that President Reagan charted. A legislatively authorized Socrates-like project would be a fitting tribute to the man whose 100th birthday anniversary we celebrate in February 2011. More critically, the automated innovation system is a necessary key to America’s economic wellbeing moving forward in the Information Age, against cutthroat market and currency manipulations being waged by authoritarian regimes and aggressive, culturally competing nation-states. The U.S. must generate and lead the automated innovation revolution, but while it is still possible to do so, the time is also far spent in terms of America’s economic eclipse. We must therefore move quickly and with resolution to do it, before it is too late and unsettling downward trends become irreversible.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Unfinished Legacy: President Reagan and the Socrates Project (Issue #478)
President Reagan established a proud legacy during his two terms in office, the philosophical hallmarks of which were a reduction in the size of the federal government and empowerment of the private sector of the economy. What is not fully appreciated is that Reagan intended another aspect, which should still be added. Reagan started a process whereby he would overlay this aspect through executive order, at least initially. Unfortunately his attempt to provide a technology strategy and vision did not survive the follow-on George Herbert Walker Bush administration.
The executive order was drafted towards the end of his second term and would have created a government agency somewhat on par with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The agency would have answered directly to the White House and had the mission and the means to enable U.S. government organizations and American companies to work together in a highly coherent and unprecedented fashion. Reagan essentially tried to provide the marketplace, as well as select government planning agencies, with new tools that were possible with the onset of the Information Age.
Reagan was convinced that this additional aspect would ensure not only America’s economic survival, but also its preeminence and continued economic superpower status. On the basis of his draft executive order, Michael C. Sekora established a prototype program called the Socrates Project within the U.S. intelligence community. The program was aimed at improving America’s economic efficiencies and reducing the frictional components of the marketplace through better information, particularly in those domains relating to technology. The program design was meant specifically to address an apparent decline in U.S. manufacturing and competitiveness worldwide. The Socrates Project’s mission was two-fold: to determine the underlying cause of America’s declining competitiveness; and to use this determination to propose the subsequent development of means to reverse the economic decline.
To determine the cause of America’s declining competitiveness, the Socrates team used all source intelligence to generate a holistic, bird’s eye view of competition worldwide. The team’s view and understanding went well beyond the inferior data that is still the best available to most university professors, think tank analysts and consultants, in terms of scope and completeness.
What the Socrates team determined was that the source of America’s declining competitiveness followed an epochal shift in thinking that took place after World War II. It was not directly related to investment or to patterns of destruction, so much as it was based on the decision-makers’ response to post-war political and economic conditions. At the end of World War II decision-makers throughout the U.S. began shifting away from technology-based planning and began adopting economic-based planning instead. Within a few years, the economic-based planning model had become the standard, all-but-unchallenged foundation for decision-making throughout U.S. industry, government and academe. At the same time, much of the rest of the world continued refining and utilizing technology-based models of planning.
In technology-based planning the foundation for decision-making is the acquisition and utilization of technology, where technology is defined as any application of science to accomplish a function, in order to produce a better product or service. Based on targeted information, technology can be manipulated, offensively and defensively in a chess-like way, in order to acquire and maintain competitive advantage. In contrast, economic-based planning models lead to manipulation of funds as the foundation for decision-making. The measure of success based on economic-based thinking, is the efficiency at which one manipulates so-called economic drivers. Economic manipulation, unlike its technological counterpart is unrelated to anything real or tangible and is not even integrally coordinated with the nation’s wealth or productive outputs per se.
What was also obvious to the Socrates team from their unique bird’s eye view of competition, was that countries like China and India were using technology-based planning to catch up and further, to undercut America’s ability to generate or regain competitive advantage. Indeed, they were rapidly transforming themselves into world economic superpowers as our status slipped and the U.S. position was being eclipsed. While we in the U.S. were coming up with increasingly sophisticated economic shell games to maximize profits, China and India were systematically outmaneuvering us in the acquisition and utilization of technology to eliminate our ability to produce products and services that had competitive advantage in foreign markets, and increasingly in our own domestic markets.
With the global bait and switch nearly completed and the United States suffering through its worst recession since the Great Depression, Reagan’s initiative with Socrates seems positively prescient. With revitalized conservatism in vogue again since the last election, tea partiers and conservatives in the next Congress would do well, not only to follow the fiscally prudent “Roadmap for America’s Future” laid out by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), but to revisit the national strategic level effort required which Ronald Reagan suggested before we got into this mess.
The executive order was drafted towards the end of his second term and would have created a government agency somewhat on par with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The agency would have answered directly to the White House and had the mission and the means to enable U.S. government organizations and American companies to work together in a highly coherent and unprecedented fashion. Reagan essentially tried to provide the marketplace, as well as select government planning agencies, with new tools that were possible with the onset of the Information Age.
Reagan was convinced that this additional aspect would ensure not only America’s economic survival, but also its preeminence and continued economic superpower status. On the basis of his draft executive order, Michael C. Sekora established a prototype program called the Socrates Project within the U.S. intelligence community. The program was aimed at improving America’s economic efficiencies and reducing the frictional components of the marketplace through better information, particularly in those domains relating to technology. The program design was meant specifically to address an apparent decline in U.S. manufacturing and competitiveness worldwide. The Socrates Project’s mission was two-fold: to determine the underlying cause of America’s declining competitiveness; and to use this determination to propose the subsequent development of means to reverse the economic decline.
To determine the cause of America’s declining competitiveness, the Socrates team used all source intelligence to generate a holistic, bird’s eye view of competition worldwide. The team’s view and understanding went well beyond the inferior data that is still the best available to most university professors, think tank analysts and consultants, in terms of scope and completeness.
What the Socrates team determined was that the source of America’s declining competitiveness followed an epochal shift in thinking that took place after World War II. It was not directly related to investment or to patterns of destruction, so much as it was based on the decision-makers’ response to post-war political and economic conditions. At the end of World War II decision-makers throughout the U.S. began shifting away from technology-based planning and began adopting economic-based planning instead. Within a few years, the economic-based planning model had become the standard, all-but-unchallenged foundation for decision-making throughout U.S. industry, government and academe. At the same time, much of the rest of the world continued refining and utilizing technology-based models of planning.
In technology-based planning the foundation for decision-making is the acquisition and utilization of technology, where technology is defined as any application of science to accomplish a function, in order to produce a better product or service. Based on targeted information, technology can be manipulated, offensively and defensively in a chess-like way, in order to acquire and maintain competitive advantage. In contrast, economic-based planning models lead to manipulation of funds as the foundation for decision-making. The measure of success based on economic-based thinking, is the efficiency at which one manipulates so-called economic drivers. Economic manipulation, unlike its technological counterpart is unrelated to anything real or tangible and is not even integrally coordinated with the nation’s wealth or productive outputs per se.
What was also obvious to the Socrates team from their unique bird’s eye view of competition, was that countries like China and India were using technology-based planning to catch up and further, to undercut America’s ability to generate or regain competitive advantage. Indeed, they were rapidly transforming themselves into world economic superpowers as our status slipped and the U.S. position was being eclipsed. While we in the U.S. were coming up with increasingly sophisticated economic shell games to maximize profits, China and India were systematically outmaneuvering us in the acquisition and utilization of technology to eliminate our ability to produce products and services that had competitive advantage in foreign markets, and increasingly in our own domestic markets.
With the global bait and switch nearly completed and the United States suffering through its worst recession since the Great Depression, Reagan’s initiative with Socrates seems positively prescient. With revitalized conservatism in vogue again since the last election, tea partiers and conservatives in the next Congress would do well, not only to follow the fiscally prudent “Roadmap for America’s Future” laid out by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), but to revisit the national strategic level effort required which Ronald Reagan suggested before we got into this mess.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
When there’s Not a Lot to be Thankful For (Issue #477)
One out of every ten workers is unemployed and a much higher percentage is left piecing together part-time gigs just trying to make ends meet. Half of all marriages end in divorce and forty percent of all babies are born out of wedlock, this in addition to the more than a million babies aborted every year as a form of birth control or convenience or because a mistake was made. More than half of unmarried relationships are also on the rocks, albeit they are certainly entered into and ended at an ever quicker pace. Technology has geared us for speed not accuracy, information instead of knowledge. And who has the time for wisdom, whether it doth cry or not? Our people are increasingly distracted, error prone, fidgety, unable to focus, tethered to alarms and bells and ringtones, games and virtual realities that are not their own.
President Obama just promised jobs to India. Meanwhile thousands of American young adults with college education find it hard to get their first job, at least one modestly commensurate with their level of education. It takes them ten years to pay off their education loan. More Twenty-Somethings are in fact living at home with parents or grandparents now. Sixty-Somethings who want to retire can’t, because they lost half of their retirement savings in the financial collapse of 2008.
The United States finds herself in a swirl of crisis dynamics—at once economic, social and political. We truly haven’t seen structural problems of this magnitude since the Great Depression. The economy is in something of a free fall, as yet hidden from view by the Fed and U.S. Government while China eats our lunch. We elected a Chief Executive two years ago with hardly any experience and a penchant for proposing Marx as the solution. The rest of the political class couldn’t lead themselves out of a wet paper bag. The only caveat: it simply remains to be seen if the new “Class of 2010,” though well-meaning, has any clue at all about what to do next. And you say that we should celebrate Thanksgiving? Well, what exactly for?
If one is graceful, one is well, full of grace. If one is hopeful, then full of hope. Thanksgiving implies being thankful (full of thanks) or grateful (full of gratitude), which still begs the question why be that at all? It really doesn’t make much sense, considering that gratitude applies to things we already have. Unless my gratitude prepositions me for getting more or at least not losing something, then what good is it? Should I be grateful for fixing the tire when the tire is fixed? How about some assurance that it never goes flat again? (I’d rather be assurance-and-insurance-full). If God would just do that, i.e., shower His blessings in advance, before they are needed or wanted or even asked for, it would be a lot more efficient. Otherwise, as Eddy Arnold sang it so well, “Make the World Go Away” and I reckon I’ll be grateful for that. That is, unless there’s more to this thing called Life than a pocket full of posies.
There’s a story in the Bible about Jesus healing ten lepers (Luke 17:12-19). Only one of them, after he’d been healed, thought enough about it to pause and get down on his knees and actually thank God. It wasn’t as if Jesus was going to take back the healing! And yet Jesus recommended the actions of the one grateful man over the inaction of nine who were simply thankless. Now that’s interesting. If one is graceless, one is less or without grace. If one is hopeless, then without hope. Being thankless implies ingratitude or the absence of thanks. The implication being that there must be a quality missing: something good, something of innate value that should have been there but wasn’t. Gratitude is that missing quality in the example, and its presence may bear a relation to something received or to some other circumstance of living, but it really isn’t dependent on anything. God could have kept the lepers from getting their disease in the first place. Why be grateful for a healing, especially when one is healed?
Now consider the counsel King David gave to the people of Israel. He told them to give thanks to God under any and every circumstance. Not only because “Both riches and honor come from [God]” and He rules over all and is able “to make great and to give strength to all” (I Chronicles 29:12), but because an offer of thanksgiving is payment of “vows unto the most High” (Psalms 50:14). That is to say, it is a dedicating of oneself in service and to a certain way of life; it is an active promise of love and fidelity. The promise is also ‘for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’ as with marriage. Thanksgiving therefore is an affirmation of one’s relationship to God and not to things or to however well things are going, nor even to His blessings. Thanksgiving is a duty but not one that is negative or coerced. It is a voluntary expression of love and loyalty to God and His great project called Life. People do it, and Nations do it. Moreover, it is always the right thing to do, even when there’s not a lot that’s obvious to be thankful for.
President Obama just promised jobs to India. Meanwhile thousands of American young adults with college education find it hard to get their first job, at least one modestly commensurate with their level of education. It takes them ten years to pay off their education loan. More Twenty-Somethings are in fact living at home with parents or grandparents now. Sixty-Somethings who want to retire can’t, because they lost half of their retirement savings in the financial collapse of 2008.
The United States finds herself in a swirl of crisis dynamics—at once economic, social and political. We truly haven’t seen structural problems of this magnitude since the Great Depression. The economy is in something of a free fall, as yet hidden from view by the Fed and U.S. Government while China eats our lunch. We elected a Chief Executive two years ago with hardly any experience and a penchant for proposing Marx as the solution. The rest of the political class couldn’t lead themselves out of a wet paper bag. The only caveat: it simply remains to be seen if the new “Class of 2010,” though well-meaning, has any clue at all about what to do next. And you say that we should celebrate Thanksgiving? Well, what exactly for?
If one is graceful, one is well, full of grace. If one is hopeful, then full of hope. Thanksgiving implies being thankful (full of thanks) or grateful (full of gratitude), which still begs the question why be that at all? It really doesn’t make much sense, considering that gratitude applies to things we already have. Unless my gratitude prepositions me for getting more or at least not losing something, then what good is it? Should I be grateful for fixing the tire when the tire is fixed? How about some assurance that it never goes flat again? (I’d rather be assurance-and-insurance-full). If God would just do that, i.e., shower His blessings in advance, before they are needed or wanted or even asked for, it would be a lot more efficient. Otherwise, as Eddy Arnold sang it so well, “Make the World Go Away” and I reckon I’ll be grateful for that. That is, unless there’s more to this thing called Life than a pocket full of posies.
There’s a story in the Bible about Jesus healing ten lepers (Luke 17:12-19). Only one of them, after he’d been healed, thought enough about it to pause and get down on his knees and actually thank God. It wasn’t as if Jesus was going to take back the healing! And yet Jesus recommended the actions of the one grateful man over the inaction of nine who were simply thankless. Now that’s interesting. If one is graceless, one is less or without grace. If one is hopeless, then without hope. Being thankless implies ingratitude or the absence of thanks. The implication being that there must be a quality missing: something good, something of innate value that should have been there but wasn’t. Gratitude is that missing quality in the example, and its presence may bear a relation to something received or to some other circumstance of living, but it really isn’t dependent on anything. God could have kept the lepers from getting their disease in the first place. Why be grateful for a healing, especially when one is healed?
Now consider the counsel King David gave to the people of Israel. He told them to give thanks to God under any and every circumstance. Not only because “Both riches and honor come from [God]” and He rules over all and is able “to make great and to give strength to all” (I Chronicles 29:12), but because an offer of thanksgiving is payment of “vows unto the most High” (Psalms 50:14). That is to say, it is a dedicating of oneself in service and to a certain way of life; it is an active promise of love and fidelity. The promise is also ‘for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’ as with marriage. Thanksgiving therefore is an affirmation of one’s relationship to God and not to things or to however well things are going, nor even to His blessings. Thanksgiving is a duty but not one that is negative or coerced. It is a voluntary expression of love and loyalty to God and His great project called Life. People do it, and Nations do it. Moreover, it is always the right thing to do, even when there’s not a lot that’s obvious to be thankful for.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Election of 2010: Analysis and Prospectus (Issue #476)
When the smoke finally cleared, Election Day November 2nd turned out to be about as big as conservatives could have hoped. If expectations soared unrealistically high in some areas (many hoped the GOP might retake the Senate but had to be content flipping six seats), still elsewhere those expectations were exceeded (as with the conservative sweep across the country at state level). Democrats lost control of nineteen state legislative chambers and eleven governorships. In Texas, Republicans expanded their two vote majority in the state house to almost fifty.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi may yet serve as Minority Leader in the U.S. House next session, but she is defanged without her Speaker’s gavel. Democrats have started to reorganize with or without White House direction, inventing an “Assistant-to-the-Leader” position basically to promote moderation inside the Democrat leadership. Considering that come January 2011 for the first time in more than six decades there will be fewer than two hundred Democrats in the House, it probably isn’t such a bad move.
The year 1994 was considered a wave election by Republicans too, but that “revolution” fizzled when President Clinton beat a very fast track back to the center. This time the wave election turned out to be a veritable tsunami—nearly twice as big with Republicans picking up 60 seats in the House. President Obama also seems far less likely to dance a soft shoe; and anyway, the Tea Party contingent of the GOP, which did not exist in 1994, will hardly be impressed. Clinton took everyone’s breath away, and even his opponents swooned when he declared ‘the Era of Big Government’ to be over. It was a lie. Now Tea Partiers and conservative stalwarts know better and won’t fall for the line again.
The mid-term election is more akin to the Reagan Revolution of 1980 in terms of its size and its professed ideological purpose. In an article by Lou Cannon appearing in Politics Daily, he attributes four factors to the results of the election in terms of Republican resurgence. Accordingly, “The first [factor] is public dismay with the slow pace of the recovery. The second and related factor is the perceived ineffectiveness of the stimulus and various government bailouts. The third is reaction to Obamacare, which the White House wrongly expected would become popular after it became law…. [and the] fourth factor, both effect and cause, is the tea party….” This litany of causal factors is more or less complete and indeed now common wisdom, except that Cannon overly limits his explanation about the tea party in his piece. The Tea Party as such, is more than just a populist reaction to the serious economic downturn. Yes it bears resemblance to other populist backlashes, except this one has a history and a serious accumulation of discontent dating back years even before the tea party movement coalesced in 2009.
The oversight is worth pointing out, because what is behind the Tea Party also offers causal explanation for the Republican tidal wave. The additional factor is correctly identified as a simmering brand of strict Constitutional construction, which has mostly been maligned, shoved aside or overlooked since the 1960s. It is an insistence no less populist but altogether separate. It is a subsurface and traditional inclination of a majority of the American people and is defensive aggressive in its nature, which explains its robust reappearance. Classically it is a response to tyranny or perceived tyranny and is a distinctive conservative lineament of political philosophy very closely aligned, by extrapolation to the Founding Fathers’ worldview. Its critique of the current social, economic and political milieu has it that government is indeed too big, and also too powerful, too intrusive, too much “in the way,” too overbearing and monitoring, as with Big Brother or the stereotypical Nanny. It is also far too costly of late, and—to the extent that the federal government no longer respects its legal and constitutional bounds, may constitute an impediment to Freedom writ large (which is after all the American project), as well as a physical and moral threat to the People themselves.
A “neo-federalist” wing of the Republican Party with direct Southern and Middle American historical roots has been kept down for years by the GOP establishment and most recently by domination of the neo-conservative wing, which reached its zenith of power during the years of George W. Bush. States rights and Tenth Amendment advocates are now demanding their day in the sun, and the intramural strife will be clearly in play as the GOP seeks next year to integrate its newfound friends in the Tea Party, much like swallowing an anaconda.
The Election of 2010 could very well herald a new era of conservative dominance, whatever its eventual stripe. While winning elections is hard work, however, it is only the first step towards what one hopes will be effective governance. Tea Party freshmen are going to Congress for a purpose, but they are going to need continuing grassroots support and a constant store of encouragement and concrete ideas to get anything done over the long haul. The enthusiasm of new Tea Party members in Congress will also eventually have to translate into specific policy actions that really do help “restore the Republic” according to the Constitution and Founders’ Intent, if that’s what they want to accomplish. Policies and legislation are most definitely required to put Americans back to work and to achieve full and sustained economic recovery—and sooner rather than later, as the Democrats found out. There is also the long and intentionally ignored political imperative that the United States must secure her borders; and then address the sheer magnitude of legal and illegal immigration, ensuring it reaches a reasonable and assimilative level.
The new kids on the block are going to have a lot of work to do. The Tea Party “revolution” could very well fizzle like others before, if they fail to repeal Obamacare or compromise too much with the president on this issue; if they are unable to get government spending under control, or reverse the trend of ballooning national debt. If the Republican Party establishment is seen to subvert the tea party effort, there will almost certainly be a third party alternative for an increasingly large number of disaffected conservative voters inside the GOP’s base, and this could portend a potential realignment or collapse of the Third American Party System.
The best thing that could emerge from the Election of 2010 is a new and more conservative consensus, marked by serious bipartisan hard work and honest efforts to address the crisis dynamics in our economy and polity. Another more likely scenario is that we could be looking at two more years of not only divided, but also gridlocked government leading up to the Election of 2012. If this happens of course, what’s hot is likely to get hotter and what’s a problem is likely to get worse. Arguably only when one of the two major parties (possibly with the help of a strong independent contingent) takes charge of two branches of government (usually the Congress and Executive Branch), does gridlock give way to a period of significant political and economic achievement—the next one presumably stamped by clear conservative branding, but only as it emerges from the Republican dustup. .
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi may yet serve as Minority Leader in the U.S. House next session, but she is defanged without her Speaker’s gavel. Democrats have started to reorganize with or without White House direction, inventing an “Assistant-to-the-Leader” position basically to promote moderation inside the Democrat leadership. Considering that come January 2011 for the first time in more than six decades there will be fewer than two hundred Democrats in the House, it probably isn’t such a bad move.
The year 1994 was considered a wave election by Republicans too, but that “revolution” fizzled when President Clinton beat a very fast track back to the center. This time the wave election turned out to be a veritable tsunami—nearly twice as big with Republicans picking up 60 seats in the House. President Obama also seems far less likely to dance a soft shoe; and anyway, the Tea Party contingent of the GOP, which did not exist in 1994, will hardly be impressed. Clinton took everyone’s breath away, and even his opponents swooned when he declared ‘the Era of Big Government’ to be over. It was a lie. Now Tea Partiers and conservative stalwarts know better and won’t fall for the line again.
The mid-term election is more akin to the Reagan Revolution of 1980 in terms of its size and its professed ideological purpose. In an article by Lou Cannon appearing in Politics Daily, he attributes four factors to the results of the election in terms of Republican resurgence. Accordingly, “The first [factor] is public dismay with the slow pace of the recovery. The second and related factor is the perceived ineffectiveness of the stimulus and various government bailouts. The third is reaction to Obamacare, which the White House wrongly expected would become popular after it became law…. [and the] fourth factor, both effect and cause, is the tea party….” This litany of causal factors is more or less complete and indeed now common wisdom, except that Cannon overly limits his explanation about the tea party in his piece. The Tea Party as such, is more than just a populist reaction to the serious economic downturn. Yes it bears resemblance to other populist backlashes, except this one has a history and a serious accumulation of discontent dating back years even before the tea party movement coalesced in 2009.
The oversight is worth pointing out, because what is behind the Tea Party also offers causal explanation for the Republican tidal wave. The additional factor is correctly identified as a simmering brand of strict Constitutional construction, which has mostly been maligned, shoved aside or overlooked since the 1960s. It is an insistence no less populist but altogether separate. It is a subsurface and traditional inclination of a majority of the American people and is defensive aggressive in its nature, which explains its robust reappearance. Classically it is a response to tyranny or perceived tyranny and is a distinctive conservative lineament of political philosophy very closely aligned, by extrapolation to the Founding Fathers’ worldview. Its critique of the current social, economic and political milieu has it that government is indeed too big, and also too powerful, too intrusive, too much “in the way,” too overbearing and monitoring, as with Big Brother or the stereotypical Nanny. It is also far too costly of late, and—to the extent that the federal government no longer respects its legal and constitutional bounds, may constitute an impediment to Freedom writ large (which is after all the American project), as well as a physical and moral threat to the People themselves.
A “neo-federalist” wing of the Republican Party with direct Southern and Middle American historical roots has been kept down for years by the GOP establishment and most recently by domination of the neo-conservative wing, which reached its zenith of power during the years of George W. Bush. States rights and Tenth Amendment advocates are now demanding their day in the sun, and the intramural strife will be clearly in play as the GOP seeks next year to integrate its newfound friends in the Tea Party, much like swallowing an anaconda.
The Election of 2010 could very well herald a new era of conservative dominance, whatever its eventual stripe. While winning elections is hard work, however, it is only the first step towards what one hopes will be effective governance. Tea Party freshmen are going to Congress for a purpose, but they are going to need continuing grassroots support and a constant store of encouragement and concrete ideas to get anything done over the long haul. The enthusiasm of new Tea Party members in Congress will also eventually have to translate into specific policy actions that really do help “restore the Republic” according to the Constitution and Founders’ Intent, if that’s what they want to accomplish. Policies and legislation are most definitely required to put Americans back to work and to achieve full and sustained economic recovery—and sooner rather than later, as the Democrats found out. There is also the long and intentionally ignored political imperative that the United States must secure her borders; and then address the sheer magnitude of legal and illegal immigration, ensuring it reaches a reasonable and assimilative level.
The new kids on the block are going to have a lot of work to do. The Tea Party “revolution” could very well fizzle like others before, if they fail to repeal Obamacare or compromise too much with the president on this issue; if they are unable to get government spending under control, or reverse the trend of ballooning national debt. If the Republican Party establishment is seen to subvert the tea party effort, there will almost certainly be a third party alternative for an increasingly large number of disaffected conservative voters inside the GOP’s base, and this could portend a potential realignment or collapse of the Third American Party System.
The best thing that could emerge from the Election of 2010 is a new and more conservative consensus, marked by serious bipartisan hard work and honest efforts to address the crisis dynamics in our economy and polity. Another more likely scenario is that we could be looking at two more years of not only divided, but also gridlocked government leading up to the Election of 2012. If this happens of course, what’s hot is likely to get hotter and what’s a problem is likely to get worse. Arguably only when one of the two major parties (possibly with the help of a strong independent contingent) takes charge of two branches of government (usually the Congress and Executive Branch), does gridlock give way to a period of significant political and economic achievement—the next one presumably stamped by clear conservative branding, but only as it emerges from the Republican dustup. .
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Special Category of Hero (Issue #475)
Tom Brokaw wrote an introduction to the coffee table book called Medal of Honor containing portraits of Medal winners some years ago. In it he recounts the arbitrary sort of way that veterans may be regarded by their government or fellow citizens depending upon the time in history. Veterans know this better than most, because a distance of inches or time measured in seconds is often the dividing line twixt life and death on the battlefield, or even in training. Timing is everything as they say. Being at the right time and place makes all the difference. Even mistakes, all but inevitable, will figure in to how things turn out. A mistake or shortcoming can evoke guilt in some, ironic gratitude in others. Veterans of the Korean Conflict were, according to Brokaw, “caught in the backwater of World War II.” Americans were so preoccupied with their own lives at that point that the bloody conflict received very little public attention. Then as we were consumed by the assassination of President Kennedy and the terrible social and political upheavals that followed in the sixties and seventies, to include bitter divide over the Viet Nam War itself, regard for the veteran and his sacrifice actually receded. It stayed sour to some degree until after the First Gulf War.
There are also family members or friends one may know, who may or may not have been veterans, but who are or were bigger than life characters. The fact that no one knows them makes it no less of the truth. God keeps the full and complete record. History is poorly written, even at its best. Most soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen serve and sacrifice nearly anonymously. In a similar way, the politics swirling before, during and after every conflict or engagement, and constant these days throughout every tour of duty, remains a separate reality, unimpressive for the most part, subordinate certainly to the daily tasks and the military missions of all who serve in uniform—with the possible exception of some top brass, who have to answer to the civilian political leadership! When there is a civil-military dispute, the top brass voice their concern or position to political leaders, but then support and implement whatever decision is duly and legally reached. If disagreements are fundamental or some political embarrassment ensues, top brass may very well have to resign—but this is far preferable, so that the bulk of forces remains insulated from all the furious tempests in teapots that have nothing to do with the proximity of life and death issues in a day’s work, or the short and long-term physical wellbeing of men and women defending our nation.
Defense of American’s homes and Homeland remains paramount under any circumstance, disagreement or no, just as every man and woman who joins the armed services swears to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. The American fighting man or woman is a thinking man or woman too. The special category of hero we cultivate, and sometimes celebrate knows what he is doing, or at least knows in advance what he might do if the training and conditioning kick in. American heroes show forth more moral courage than animal courage. The American soldier who wields his weapon is as deadly, say, as the Hun was in his day—but they are not the same equivalent moral agents, even if sentimentality and an immediate reference to the civilized order must wane until the blood cools and safety will allow it.
American veterans comprise a special category of hero precisely because of who they were going into military service. In a democratic-republic such as ours, the young recruit represents us going in. He or she represents the collective responsibility we share to protect and defend our way of life. So we send our best, and we literally send our hope—out of the city, off the farm, from small towns and neighborhoods they go. Frequently they delay college or their career, and place young family life on hold, or else put it through the lonely hardship of separation. The new recruit represents every citizen, indeed he is a surrogate for the same: to bear the assigned risk; to meet the many challenges, to accomplish the mission, to master skill and craft, to face the enemy. And so, notwithstanding an exquisite execution of violence or the longsuffering execution of mundane duties, the American veteran is heroic, who returns home bringing the same good he brought into service back with him. Indeed, he often packs more of a positive nature and value in his rucksack than what he at first had, in terms of those hallmark signs of military service: maturity, discipline, self-confidence, teamwork, learning and yes, even humanity.
There are also family members or friends one may know, who may or may not have been veterans, but who are or were bigger than life characters. The fact that no one knows them makes it no less of the truth. God keeps the full and complete record. History is poorly written, even at its best. Most soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen serve and sacrifice nearly anonymously. In a similar way, the politics swirling before, during and after every conflict or engagement, and constant these days throughout every tour of duty, remains a separate reality, unimpressive for the most part, subordinate certainly to the daily tasks and the military missions of all who serve in uniform—with the possible exception of some top brass, who have to answer to the civilian political leadership! When there is a civil-military dispute, the top brass voice their concern or position to political leaders, but then support and implement whatever decision is duly and legally reached. If disagreements are fundamental or some political embarrassment ensues, top brass may very well have to resign—but this is far preferable, so that the bulk of forces remains insulated from all the furious tempests in teapots that have nothing to do with the proximity of life and death issues in a day’s work, or the short and long-term physical wellbeing of men and women defending our nation.
Defense of American’s homes and Homeland remains paramount under any circumstance, disagreement or no, just as every man and woman who joins the armed services swears to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. The American fighting man or woman is a thinking man or woman too. The special category of hero we cultivate, and sometimes celebrate knows what he is doing, or at least knows in advance what he might do if the training and conditioning kick in. American heroes show forth more moral courage than animal courage. The American soldier who wields his weapon is as deadly, say, as the Hun was in his day—but they are not the same equivalent moral agents, even if sentimentality and an immediate reference to the civilized order must wane until the blood cools and safety will allow it.
American veterans comprise a special category of hero precisely because of who they were going into military service. In a democratic-republic such as ours, the young recruit represents us going in. He or she represents the collective responsibility we share to protect and defend our way of life. So we send our best, and we literally send our hope—out of the city, off the farm, from small towns and neighborhoods they go. Frequently they delay college or their career, and place young family life on hold, or else put it through the lonely hardship of separation. The new recruit represents every citizen, indeed he is a surrogate for the same: to bear the assigned risk; to meet the many challenges, to accomplish the mission, to master skill and craft, to face the enemy. And so, notwithstanding an exquisite execution of violence or the longsuffering execution of mundane duties, the American veteran is heroic, who returns home bringing the same good he brought into service back with him. Indeed, he often packs more of a positive nature and value in his rucksack than what he at first had, in terms of those hallmark signs of military service: maturity, discipline, self-confidence, teamwork, learning and yes, even humanity.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Voting about Faith, America’s Survival (Issue #473)
This week I attended a funeral. A three-year old special needs child had passed away. The sun broke through the overcast day, when the gates of Heaven opened up to receive her—at least that’s how it seemed to all the believers gathered there at the graveside singing hymns, mourning, and bearing witness to how precious a little life can be.
People of faith believe that identity is always intact. God keeps us safe with Him, where we are always looking and acting our best in the image He created us in. People of faith believe their purpose extends beyond the temporal material world and into Eternity. Everything in this physical life therefore is couched in the context of a relatively brief mortal existence on earth, and the Life and Time indestructible elsewhere. People of faith tend to live according to discretion and morals, by virtue of a continuous reference to the Life that is to come. This reference smoothes out some emotional rough edges, allays disappointment, enables forgiveness to occur, and displaces class envy. The crash or the burn-out, or so-called “postal” bouts of anger and revenge, are more often characteristic of someone without faith or someone who enters into a crisis of faith.
In politics faith has implications too. Government is seen as a portion, or mere functional piece, of that relatively brief mortal existence here on earth. Caesar is to be respected certainly, but a person’s natural rights—even a little person’s—are more important. Government is subordinated to one’s spiritual journey. Government is subordinated to certain values, which constitute the duty of a faithful and faith-filled people to their God. People of faith are always, potentially, revolutionary. The Declaration of Independence is their civil creed.
The First Amendment to the Constitution had once established a useful firewall, even as the advance of secularism continued over two centuries to affect the democratic society at large. States even towards the end of the Twentieth Century remained sovereign with respect to most matters of religion, in the context of our federated Republic. Within the states themselves moreover, a high regard for matters of the spirit and of religion, provided for a libertarian approach that gave space and freedom for entire communities of faith to deviate from the majority norms in their pursuit of happiness. People also knew how to mind their business then. Property more or less ensured privacy, because it wasn’t lightly taken away, or heavily taxed, or invaded by the government. The advance of secularism, coupled with a corrosive leveling form of democracy, eventually dismantled the federalist construct of our government and has all but killed the Constitution. It was only a matter of time before every remaining pocket of religious freedom and faith-based “deviant” institution would be under attack.
Today any semblance of resistance to the secular norm is quashed at every level of government and society. A consolidated national democratic and secular majority-will, skewed, corrupted and expressed by a conformist and no-longer-federal government, invades every family and household in the country. People of faith are about to be extinguished—or rather, the faith of the people, which is the real aim of attack. Ironically, faith can inform and cause people to respond in two very different ways whenever their Caesar presumes upon the prerogatives of their God and His people. It is, of course possible, to take solace and comfort from the fact that life is short and there are sure rewards and perfect justice in Heaven. The other way is to live heroically, knowing that whatever the cost or ultimate sacrifice, it is well worth the teaching and the example of the Lord, in order to bring His Prayer to fruition: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). It is certainly worth the fight if done in defense, and for the future of freedom and the future of America’s posterity. It is worth voting too when the ballots are not bullets, and when a peaceful way forward presents itself in order to bring about political revolution.
There is indeed a time for every season, but much involves the choice that free men and women make as it were, in time. People without faith will vote for their stomachs every time. They will give in to fear and to fearful political exhortations of envy, because they never see beyond the grave. They empower government to take from others what they think they need, and acknowledge no higher authority than their own selfish greed and that of greed’s henchman, the bureaucrat with a badge and snub-nosed gun. After all, they have nothing else to reconcile, nothing more to redeem, nothing to justify outside the narrow confines of incidental breath and an accidental heartbeat. The truth is that it was never unconstitutional according to the Founders’ Original Intent to have prayer in schools, public or otherwise—it is entirely unconstitutional, however, to have the Federal Government telling sovereign states what they can and cannot do and defining what is or isn’t allowed in their schools.
The underlying problem has never been about prayer or monuments. It isn’t about how or whether to teach objectivity, critical thinking, logic or the scientific method. It sure isn’t about studying Chinese in kindergarten, and whether to double up on increasingly ungraded math and science homework! The crisis in schools is massive, and the failure to educate readily apparent. The solution, as with so much else, involves transmission and receipt of our cultural inheritance and of history again. It involves preparing kids and young people for the workplace and for society, concentrating on skills but also on discipline and character. Education will fix itself, when the Republic is restored and the American people, including all people of faith are free again. The biggest problem we face today isn’t phonics or bilingualism. It isn’t the amount of money thrown at something, or the quality of teachers in low-income neighborhoods. It has everything to do with the Federal Government and its massive overreach in terms of raw power. It has to do with entire branches of the Federal Government, which no longer serve the best interests of the American people! The solution has to do with knocking the Federal Government back down to a proper constitutional size and scope. GOOD CHRISTIAN: IF YOU VALUE ANYTHING AT ALL IN THIS LIFE, YOU MUST VOTE!
People of faith believe that identity is always intact. God keeps us safe with Him, where we are always looking and acting our best in the image He created us in. People of faith believe their purpose extends beyond the temporal material world and into Eternity. Everything in this physical life therefore is couched in the context of a relatively brief mortal existence on earth, and the Life and Time indestructible elsewhere. People of faith tend to live according to discretion and morals, by virtue of a continuous reference to the Life that is to come. This reference smoothes out some emotional rough edges, allays disappointment, enables forgiveness to occur, and displaces class envy. The crash or the burn-out, or so-called “postal” bouts of anger and revenge, are more often characteristic of someone without faith or someone who enters into a crisis of faith.
In politics faith has implications too. Government is seen as a portion, or mere functional piece, of that relatively brief mortal existence here on earth. Caesar is to be respected certainly, but a person’s natural rights—even a little person’s—are more important. Government is subordinated to one’s spiritual journey. Government is subordinated to certain values, which constitute the duty of a faithful and faith-filled people to their God. People of faith are always, potentially, revolutionary. The Declaration of Independence is their civil creed.
The First Amendment to the Constitution had once established a useful firewall, even as the advance of secularism continued over two centuries to affect the democratic society at large. States even towards the end of the Twentieth Century remained sovereign with respect to most matters of religion, in the context of our federated Republic. Within the states themselves moreover, a high regard for matters of the spirit and of religion, provided for a libertarian approach that gave space and freedom for entire communities of faith to deviate from the majority norms in their pursuit of happiness. People also knew how to mind their business then. Property more or less ensured privacy, because it wasn’t lightly taken away, or heavily taxed, or invaded by the government. The advance of secularism, coupled with a corrosive leveling form of democracy, eventually dismantled the federalist construct of our government and has all but killed the Constitution. It was only a matter of time before every remaining pocket of religious freedom and faith-based “deviant” institution would be under attack.
Today any semblance of resistance to the secular norm is quashed at every level of government and society. A consolidated national democratic and secular majority-will, skewed, corrupted and expressed by a conformist and no-longer-federal government, invades every family and household in the country. People of faith are about to be extinguished—or rather, the faith of the people, which is the real aim of attack. Ironically, faith can inform and cause people to respond in two very different ways whenever their Caesar presumes upon the prerogatives of their God and His people. It is, of course possible, to take solace and comfort from the fact that life is short and there are sure rewards and perfect justice in Heaven. The other way is to live heroically, knowing that whatever the cost or ultimate sacrifice, it is well worth the teaching and the example of the Lord, in order to bring His Prayer to fruition: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). It is certainly worth the fight if done in defense, and for the future of freedom and the future of America’s posterity. It is worth voting too when the ballots are not bullets, and when a peaceful way forward presents itself in order to bring about political revolution.
There is indeed a time for every season, but much involves the choice that free men and women make as it were, in time. People without faith will vote for their stomachs every time. They will give in to fear and to fearful political exhortations of envy, because they never see beyond the grave. They empower government to take from others what they think they need, and acknowledge no higher authority than their own selfish greed and that of greed’s henchman, the bureaucrat with a badge and snub-nosed gun. After all, they have nothing else to reconcile, nothing more to redeem, nothing to justify outside the narrow confines of incidental breath and an accidental heartbeat. The truth is that it was never unconstitutional according to the Founders’ Original Intent to have prayer in schools, public or otherwise—it is entirely unconstitutional, however, to have the Federal Government telling sovereign states what they can and cannot do and defining what is or isn’t allowed in their schools.
The underlying problem has never been about prayer or monuments. It isn’t about how or whether to teach objectivity, critical thinking, logic or the scientific method. It sure isn’t about studying Chinese in kindergarten, and whether to double up on increasingly ungraded math and science homework! The crisis in schools is massive, and the failure to educate readily apparent. The solution, as with so much else, involves transmission and receipt of our cultural inheritance and of history again. It involves preparing kids and young people for the workplace and for society, concentrating on skills but also on discipline and character. Education will fix itself, when the Republic is restored and the American people, including all people of faith are free again. The biggest problem we face today isn’t phonics or bilingualism. It isn’t the amount of money thrown at something, or the quality of teachers in low-income neighborhoods. It has everything to do with the Federal Government and its massive overreach in terms of raw power. It has to do with entire branches of the Federal Government, which no longer serve the best interests of the American people! The solution has to do with knocking the Federal Government back down to a proper constitutional size and scope. GOOD CHRISTIAN: IF YOU VALUE ANYTHING AT ALL IN THIS LIFE, YOU MUST VOTE!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Loss of Manufacturing is the Federal Government’s Fault (Issue #471)
Anne Marie Cox of Catholic News Service (CNS) reported on the president during his recent campaign swing through four states. On September 29th President Barack Obama visited a Mid-West family in a Des Moines, Iowa neighborhood and spoke to a group assembled in backyard lawn chairs. The local parish priest, Father Michael Amadeo of the Holy Trinity School, was the last one to pose a question. The priest shared a story about a parishioner. Apparently the 55-year-old father had lost his manufacturing job over one year ago and the family was struggling. The priest asked what the president’s economic policies would do in the next year to help people in that circumstance. If anyone were looking for hope, however, they might as well have phoned a call center in India.
President Obama responded that many of the manufacturing jobs simply will not return, because modern factories are so efficient and require fewer workers. Moreover, some jobs are moving overseas where wages are cheaper. His concluding advice was for the unemployed man to keep his skills honed and to be ready when the economy finally turns around again. The president plugged clean energy as a promising business alternative and then left. Not only was the president less than empathetic to the priest’s question or the plight of unemployed man, his administration has got its economics all wrong and government policies are sure to drag this recession all the way to Kingdom Come.
The following analysis is taken from Tom Pauken’s excellent book, Bringing America Home (2010). In it he details those policies behind our nation’s marked economic decline. A central reason for huge trade deficits and the shift of economic power from Main Street to Wall Street is a business tax system that gives private-equity moguls incentives to take imprudent risks with the companies they control. In this respect, they have a distinct advantage over owners of U.S. companies who would like to run their businesses in a tried and true conservative fashion or pursue capital accumulation-based strategies, but find that our tax structure “disincentivizes” them. The United States has a corporate income-tax rate of 35 percent. That rate is an economic incentive for financiers to load a company up with high levels of corporate debt in order to avoid taxation. It is a no-brainer—you can write off debt on your taxes, but savings and investments get taxed heavily. No rational businessman would want his company to accumulate significant savings if the interest on those savings is taxed at 35 percent.
American businesses that have their plants and employees in the United States also do not operate on a level playing field with our trading partners or competitors. Every major trading country in the world except for the United States provides a tax advantage for domestic manufacturers. Even as other countries have removed tariffs over the past four decades, they have been careful to put into place value-added taxes or VATs that provide their companies with a significant economic advantage over foreign businesses. Austin business economist David Hartman has developed data on the effects of a border-adjusted VAT. Starting with France in the mid-1960s, European countries began adopting border-adjusted VATs that now average 19 percent. All Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, made up of over 30 developed countries—all except the United States, that is—have since adopted VATs or their equivalents averaging 18 percent. As a result, U.S. goods carry the full burden of federal, state, and local taxes, plus an added tax averaging 18 percent when they are shipped to foreign markets. To make matters worse, foreign goods that are shipped into the United States enjoy an 18-percent VAT abatement—yet are subject to none of the taxes imposed on U.S. manufacturers.
It really is small wonder that so many big companies have moved their manufacturing outside the United States. It is more of a wonder why the rest haven’t gone! The hollowing out of our manufacturing base and the resultant unemployment and regrettable socio-economic inequalities that have been produced, were predictable. They were caused by the federal government’s regressive tax and trade policies. The president shows every indication of perpetuating the same policies of what Doug Ingram has called a design for “exporting prosperity.” In the past ten years the United States has lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs. Obama did not start the problem, but Obama’s deficits after less than two years in office already exceed President George W. Bush’s after eight years. Unemployment is stuck at nearly ten percent and is likely to remain there for two more years. The Democrat Congress, for the first time in recent memory has not even passed a part of the proposed budget out of committee for the fiscal year that already began. In other words, the president honestly can’t give much hope to the priest in reply to his question. Either the president doesn’t know what to do in the next year, or else his intent is for more of the same that got us in this mess in the first place.
President Obama responded that many of the manufacturing jobs simply will not return, because modern factories are so efficient and require fewer workers. Moreover, some jobs are moving overseas where wages are cheaper. His concluding advice was for the unemployed man to keep his skills honed and to be ready when the economy finally turns around again. The president plugged clean energy as a promising business alternative and then left. Not only was the president less than empathetic to the priest’s question or the plight of unemployed man, his administration has got its economics all wrong and government policies are sure to drag this recession all the way to Kingdom Come.
The following analysis is taken from Tom Pauken’s excellent book, Bringing America Home (2010). In it he details those policies behind our nation’s marked economic decline. A central reason for huge trade deficits and the shift of economic power from Main Street to Wall Street is a business tax system that gives private-equity moguls incentives to take imprudent risks with the companies they control. In this respect, they have a distinct advantage over owners of U.S. companies who would like to run their businesses in a tried and true conservative fashion or pursue capital accumulation-based strategies, but find that our tax structure “disincentivizes” them. The United States has a corporate income-tax rate of 35 percent. That rate is an economic incentive for financiers to load a company up with high levels of corporate debt in order to avoid taxation. It is a no-brainer—you can write off debt on your taxes, but savings and investments get taxed heavily. No rational businessman would want his company to accumulate significant savings if the interest on those savings is taxed at 35 percent.
American businesses that have their plants and employees in the United States also do not operate on a level playing field with our trading partners or competitors. Every major trading country in the world except for the United States provides a tax advantage for domestic manufacturers. Even as other countries have removed tariffs over the past four decades, they have been careful to put into place value-added taxes or VATs that provide their companies with a significant economic advantage over foreign businesses. Austin business economist David Hartman has developed data on the effects of a border-adjusted VAT. Starting with France in the mid-1960s, European countries began adopting border-adjusted VATs that now average 19 percent. All Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, made up of over 30 developed countries—all except the United States, that is—have since adopted VATs or their equivalents averaging 18 percent. As a result, U.S. goods carry the full burden of federal, state, and local taxes, plus an added tax averaging 18 percent when they are shipped to foreign markets. To make matters worse, foreign goods that are shipped into the United States enjoy an 18-percent VAT abatement—yet are subject to none of the taxes imposed on U.S. manufacturers.
It really is small wonder that so many big companies have moved their manufacturing outside the United States. It is more of a wonder why the rest haven’t gone! The hollowing out of our manufacturing base and the resultant unemployment and regrettable socio-economic inequalities that have been produced, were predictable. They were caused by the federal government’s regressive tax and trade policies. The president shows every indication of perpetuating the same policies of what Doug Ingram has called a design for “exporting prosperity.” In the past ten years the United States has lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs. Obama did not start the problem, but Obama’s deficits after less than two years in office already exceed President George W. Bush’s after eight years. Unemployment is stuck at nearly ten percent and is likely to remain there for two more years. The Democrat Congress, for the first time in recent memory has not even passed a part of the proposed budget out of committee for the fiscal year that already began. In other words, the president honestly can’t give much hope to the priest in reply to his question. Either the president doesn’t know what to do in the next year, or else his intent is for more of the same that got us in this mess in the first place.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Texas is Winner in Debate about the Debate (Issue #470)
Debates provide information about candidates and their responses under pressure. In close contests, voters may wait for debates before deciding for whom to vote. This is especially true of independents, those voters who are not registered as members of a particular political party. Those who watch debates also tend to vote more often on the issues, whereas those who do not watch are more likely to vote on the basis of personality and feeling. The media not only report on a debate itself but also usually announce a “winner,” and of course the verdict affects voter behavior by creating a positive bandwagon effect. Candidates try to use debates to their advantage, in order to overcome negative perceptions or defuse certain issues. Debates are great for a candidate to reach sizeable television audiences, but just as easily debates can torpedo a campaign and are considered risky so long as the candidate enjoys a sizeable lead.
Big media agencies such as The Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Antonio Express-News, and The Houston Chronicle, together with KLRU “Public” TV are sponsors of the October 19th Texas Gubernatorial Debate in Austin at the UT Campus. There are five candidates running for Governor, and the sponsors changed their rules to allow two major and two minor party candidates to participate, they said to foster an exchange of ideas and promote the health of our “democracy.” They voted to allow every single candidate except one, however, to participate. The only candidate excluded by sponsors is the officially registered write-in candidate, Andy Barron, who collected thousands of petitioner signatures and then also paid the hefty registration fee. In other words, he met State Law for ballot access—and one would hope this were sufficient to be heard. The sponsors actually dropped their criterion down from ten percent to one percent of public support when Governor Perry declined to participate, but the substantiating poll the sponsors used did not pick up sufficient support for Barron’s write-in insurgent candidacy. Notwithstanding, a recent KWTX News Channel 10 poll showed support for Andy Barron in the Central Texas area to be in double digits.
The Andy Barron for Governor Campaign is currently paying for a prestigious outside research group to conduct a statewide scientific poll, on the outside chance that the campaign’s media ads have stirred recognition of their candidate and upped public support sufficiently to break the sponsors’ threshold for inclusion in the debate. The irony is that only Governor Rick Perry’s recalcitrance has materialized a debate involving more than two dominant party representatives. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules would not have allowed the sponsors to go forward with just one candidate, turning the planned debate essentially into an interview. Other candidates would have to be afforded equal time under such a circumstance. The Republican Governor has long demanded that Democrat Bill White release his 1990s income tax returns from when White served as Texas Democrat Party Chairman and Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary, or else he would not engage him in a debate.
Now there’s a good chance Andy Barron will prove public support above the lowered threshold of one percent statewide and could possibly receive a late invitation to participate. If Barron is still not afforded an invitation to debate after showing sufficient scientific polling to prove his level of support above one percent, there could be basis for a lawsuit. Many in Barron’s campaign already suspect an anti-religious bias and specifically anti-Christian discrimination. If four or five candidates who were invited actually appeared, it will be the most interesting cross-section of political opinions ever represented before the public in Texas gubernatorial debate history. There would also emerge a most difficult situation for Perry, particularly if his lead in the polls narrows by a couple points. In that situation where four of five candidates are scheduled to appear and the race between Perry and White is close, Perry might be pressured to join the debate himself. Since 1984 the Presidential debates have become such an institution, that a candidate finds it difficult to avoid them no matter how big his lead, at least without making his refusal a big issue in its own right. We may be headed for a similar situation in the context of gubernatorial debates.
Tea Party support among candidates for Governor this year is divided between Governor Perry, who has the backing from Sarah Palin, but also Libertarian Kathie Glass, as well as “Other” party write-in candidate, Andy Barron. All three have expressed support for the key constitutional concept of nullification, a doctrine whereby states may prevent enforcement of Federal authority in cases where encroachment of the Federal Government on states’ rights exceeds Constitutional authority to do so in that area. Imagine a debate scenario in which three of five candidates for Governor of Texas actually support the sovereign right of the State to nullify unconstitutional acts of Congress and unconstitutional executive orders by the president! That would make Texas the winner no matter who finally wins election on Election Day, November 2nd.
Big media agencies such as The Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Antonio Express-News, and The Houston Chronicle, together with KLRU “Public” TV are sponsors of the October 19th Texas Gubernatorial Debate in Austin at the UT Campus. There are five candidates running for Governor, and the sponsors changed their rules to allow two major and two minor party candidates to participate, they said to foster an exchange of ideas and promote the health of our “democracy.” They voted to allow every single candidate except one, however, to participate. The only candidate excluded by sponsors is the officially registered write-in candidate, Andy Barron, who collected thousands of petitioner signatures and then also paid the hefty registration fee. In other words, he met State Law for ballot access—and one would hope this were sufficient to be heard. The sponsors actually dropped their criterion down from ten percent to one percent of public support when Governor Perry declined to participate, but the substantiating poll the sponsors used did not pick up sufficient support for Barron’s write-in insurgent candidacy. Notwithstanding, a recent KWTX News Channel 10 poll showed support for Andy Barron in the Central Texas area to be in double digits.
The Andy Barron for Governor Campaign is currently paying for a prestigious outside research group to conduct a statewide scientific poll, on the outside chance that the campaign’s media ads have stirred recognition of their candidate and upped public support sufficiently to break the sponsors’ threshold for inclusion in the debate. The irony is that only Governor Rick Perry’s recalcitrance has materialized a debate involving more than two dominant party representatives. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules would not have allowed the sponsors to go forward with just one candidate, turning the planned debate essentially into an interview. Other candidates would have to be afforded equal time under such a circumstance. The Republican Governor has long demanded that Democrat Bill White release his 1990s income tax returns from when White served as Texas Democrat Party Chairman and Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary, or else he would not engage him in a debate.
Now there’s a good chance Andy Barron will prove public support above the lowered threshold of one percent statewide and could possibly receive a late invitation to participate. If Barron is still not afforded an invitation to debate after showing sufficient scientific polling to prove his level of support above one percent, there could be basis for a lawsuit. Many in Barron’s campaign already suspect an anti-religious bias and specifically anti-Christian discrimination. If four or five candidates who were invited actually appeared, it will be the most interesting cross-section of political opinions ever represented before the public in Texas gubernatorial debate history. There would also emerge a most difficult situation for Perry, particularly if his lead in the polls narrows by a couple points. In that situation where four of five candidates are scheduled to appear and the race between Perry and White is close, Perry might be pressured to join the debate himself. Since 1984 the Presidential debates have become such an institution, that a candidate finds it difficult to avoid them no matter how big his lead, at least without making his refusal a big issue in its own right. We may be headed for a similar situation in the context of gubernatorial debates.
Tea Party support among candidates for Governor this year is divided between Governor Perry, who has the backing from Sarah Palin, but also Libertarian Kathie Glass, as well as “Other” party write-in candidate, Andy Barron. All three have expressed support for the key constitutional concept of nullification, a doctrine whereby states may prevent enforcement of Federal authority in cases where encroachment of the Federal Government on states’ rights exceeds Constitutional authority to do so in that area. Imagine a debate scenario in which three of five candidates for Governor of Texas actually support the sovereign right of the State to nullify unconstitutional acts of Congress and unconstitutional executive orders by the president! That would make Texas the winner no matter who finally wins election on Election Day, November 2nd.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Employment Preference Given to Immigrant Aliens over U.S. Citizens (Issue #469)
You may have noticed Ethiopians collecting tolls in Dallas, or Somalis working for the Texas prison system doing contract work. Not African-Americans, mind you—we’re talking Africans. Apparently state agencies hire people on visas and not necessarily the thousands of qualified American citizens who are out of a job in need of work. Preferring aliens over U.S. citizens, particularly in times of economic downturn, is a despicable policy even for Obama’s “Amerika.” The liberal mantra is that one truly can’t find an American to do “that kind” of work in America, no matter what kind of work that is. At the heart of the matter are preference categories, affirmative action for so-called disadvantaged minorities and women, or special categories like handicapped. Employers have to verify that an individual whom they plan to employ or continue to employ in the U.S. is authorized to accept employment, not whether he/she is a citizen—about that, employers frankly don’t care.
It is true that no alien may accept employment in the U.S. unless he/she has been authorized by the Government, but you see aliens are more equal than the majority of U.S. citizens and that’s the rub. Aliens, such as those who were admitted as permanent residents, granted asylum or refugee status, or admitted in work-related nonimmigrant classifications have employment authorization as a direct result of their immigrations status. Moreover, other aliens may apply individually for employment authorization. In general, temporary non-immigrant workers will fall into the work category of seasonal agriculture, or else specialty areas like defense, nursing, fashion, athletics and entertainment. Permanent workers fall into one of several categories that represent extraordinary ability, advanced degree, a certain profession, business or skill. There are in fact many ways in which a person may be able to work in the U.S. Approximately 140,000 immigrant visas are available every year for alien permanent worker categories, and there are millions of permanent resident aliens already living and working legally now in the United States.
You’ll also be happy to know that Congress mandates a Diversity Immigrant Visa Program too, which is administered annually by the Department of State. Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act makes 55,000 Diversity Visas (DV) available each year to persons from countries with low rates of immigration. The Department of State conducts a lottery to hand these out, and international registration for one of these babies opens up on October 5th and closes the day after Election Day, November 2nd. These lucky “Lotto” Winners will have preference for hiring when they arrive in the U.S. All of which doesn’t sound that terrible, until one considers something else alongside of it. American citizenship places one at a positive disadvantage for employment opportunity, especially if one is white and it involves applying for a government job or government contract. U.S. citizens are actually disadvantaged when it comes to getting a job with the U.S. or State Government in these United States of America!
Whereas a government job now and again may require a security clearance, which could possibly advantage citizenship, most government jobs do not require one. Some preference categories such as for veterans in the State of Texas might also give a citizen the edge. Federal preference categories, however, direct preference in hiring based on minority race/ethnicity, female gender, or disabled status. State agencies across the state follow Federal Guidelines and Federal “Law” with respect to the eligibility to work in the U.S. based solely on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policy directives. The USCIS standard is that, as long as an individual completes an I-9 and the agency can verify an individual is legally able to work in the U.S., that state agency (or any private employer) is able to hire them. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines with respect to non-discrimination practices further and expressly do not have “preference” criteria to hire American citizens over someone else, say, who is legally able to work by virtue of permanent legal residency or the VISA that authorizes work in the U.S.!
Virtually every Human Relations (HR) Department in government and quite a few larger businesses parrot the politically correct policy position that, why yes, we certainly do not preference a mere citizen but will gladly hire someone with a VISA if that person is the “most qualified candidate” and most especially if that person happens to fall into a minority category. As the U.S. Department of Labor proclaims, “Affirmative action must be taken by covered employers to recruit and advance qualified minorities.” Translation: a person who is African and black has a better chance to get jobs under the law and EEOC guidelines than a person who is a U.S. Citizen and happens to be white—for Federal jobs and contracts to be sure, and also for the states and employers who follow the same idiotic rules.
The majority of unemployed and underemployed people fall into that unfortunate category of being both white and citizen, but then a policy of not hiring them first over immigrant aliens is only idiotic if the Government chiefly serves them. Silly Rabbit, you just answered your own stupid question. Consider the full extent of the mess we’re in. As stated, employers must verify that an individual whom they plan to employ or continue to employ in the U.S. is authorized to accept employment in the U.S. That’s truly amazing, even if it no longer sounds strange, because it wasn’t always so. You see, once upon a time Americans enjoyed an existential right to work and a corresponding right to hire virtually unimpeded by government “oversight.” The presumption of freedom changed only with the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, which provided terms of the last amnesty for illegal immigrants. In other words, we started enforcing dictatorial terms of hiring, in order to advantage certain legalized and formerly illegal immigrants over newly arriving illegal ones. Of course there shouldn’t have been too many of those, since the implicit precondition for amnesty was that we would secure our U.S. borders.
In periods of economic downturn and high unemployment, citizens compete more directly with alien residents and temporary workers for scarce job openings. Some of them will no doubt experience disappointment and anxiety if/when they do not “win” the competition for jobs. Today there are more than four job-seekers for every opening. For any given job, there probably are dozens of applications. Historically periods of economic downturn correlate strongly to increased political nativism and to anti-immigrant sentiment among the native population (majority ethnicity and citizens). Prior to 1965 the political establishment showed a pattern of responding to this, through steps to alleviate the overall numbers of legal immigrants being admitted to the U.S. National origins percentages were applied to aid in the process of assimilation. In many ways, the period we witness today is atypical, because there are many favored categories for hiring that did not exist before the Civil Rights Era. Moreover, we have a much larger problem today with illegal immigration, as well as with illegal hiring and employment.
Under such a circumstance, it would appear prudent to introduce legislation and administrative policy preferences that address the obvious and valid concern, and which recognizes the fact that U.S. Citizens do indeed have greatest stock in our society. The edifice of government is chiefly maintained by the citizen-voter and citizen-taxpayer. The government’s obligation to its American citizens and the rights that inhere in them under the Constitution exceed that for resident aliens or nonimmigrant workers, foreigners and visitors of every stripe. Preference in hiring should be afforded to the native born and naturalized citizen worker in these United States. Government agencies do not currently discriminate on the basis of citizenship versus non-citizenship, so long as the person is authorized to work in the U.S., but it is time that they should.
Monday, September 20, 2010
States Must Resist the Tyranny of the Federal Government (Issue #468)
As parties to the compact that created and empowered the U.S. Government, States have legal standing to check the federal government’s use of powers that States did not delegate. Inaction and refusal to comply with an unconstitutional federal mandate is the primary tool that States can employ. An example of this peaceful, efficient and effective resistance to federal meddling is the response to The Real ID Act 2005, which requires States to implement certain driver’s license and identification card standards and sharing of the same with other States. Most States simply have done nothing, or in fact have passed resolutions opposing it. Neither have they funded the program or implemented it. The Tenth Amendment is very important for state officials to understand because it authoritatively explains that: (1) the States and the people have kept all powers which they did not specifically delegate or specifically give up to form the Union; and (2) U.S. authority at the national federal level is limited, defined, and delegated by the States. The first point reminds us that Texas is independent and sovereign and has the wherewithal to take care of herself. The second aspect reminds us that the U.S. is not an unlimited and all powerful master but rather, a steward charged by the States with certain duties.
The original Constitution was quickly amended with the “Bill of Rights” (the first Ten Amendments) because there was considerable concern among the Founding Fathers that the original Constitution, without it, might be later misconstrued or misunderstood. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments, in particular, do not add or subtract anything in the way of powers or authority. They do, however, explain to subsequent generations what the Founders explicitly meant by the original Constitution—in military parlance, they communicate the Founders’ “intent.” The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are simply authoritative declarations which, like a monument, mark a boundary for future generations, and like a fence, keep some things on and some things off your property. If Texas is to remain sovereign and independent, Texas officeholders must wisely, peacefully, but immediately endeavor to take care of the State’s own affairs and its people and to defend the State and its people against the Federal Government’s use of “powers not delegated to the United States.”
But what happens if Texas does not preserve local self-government? What happens if the U.S. exercises “the powers not delegated” to it by the Constitution? What if Texas gives up local self-determination either voluntarily or otherwise? What if the U.S. Government overreaches into the affairs of the States and individuals? Is it of any consequence? Article 1, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution indicates that it is of grave consequence: “The maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.” ‘Houston, I’d say we have a problem!’
In fact, we’ve had a dual problem for quite some time: (1) the abdication or neglect of self-government by States; and (2) the usurpation of “the powers not delegated” by the U.S. Federal Government. Both acting in tandem make for a perfect storm, in terms of endangering our freedoms and the national Union itself. Patriots are passionate about the Tenth Amendment because it is the cornerstone of our Federal Republic. If we ignore it and fail to line up the other stones in the Constitutional edifice with it, the entire building is in jeopardy of collapsing, and this is very much the way the Founders explained their rationale for building a federal structure with dual State and Federal sovereignty in the first instance. To violate the intent and letter of the Constitution in this regard is illegal, in that it violates the Organic Law of the land. Moreover, it is risky, imprudent and foolish from the basis of history and politics, which the Founders understood extremely well. But this does not need to happen!
If your neighbor begins to build a greenhouse on your property, the neighborly thing to do, is to go talk to your neighbor and point out the problem, i.e., that he has crossed the property line and is on your property. If necessary, you may need to uncover boundary monuments and get out a survey instrument to demonstrate to your neighbor where the boundary line is and how he is encroaching upon your property. This usually solves the problem, especially if it is done in a timely manner. The first point of the illustration is that there is a dual responsibility: one must not encroach, and the other must be diligent enough to identify and defend against such encroachment. This is especially true for a federal republic made up of independent sovereign states. The second point is that vigilance and timely defense is necessary to avoid costly disputes. Even reasonable neighbors are very slow to admit and correct encroachments that are left uncontested for years. Unfortunately, the States have for a long time acquiesced to encroachments on their rights and the rights of the people—often because an unconstitutional federal action appeared to be beneficial.
If Texans are to be free and our Union preserved, then Texas officeholders must wisely, peacefully, incrementally but immediately endeavor to restore our State’s self-government, which is now impaired by the Federal Government’s use of “powers not delegated to the United States.” There are two areas where the General Government of the U.S. is presently seeking to unconstitutionally extend its authority: (1) healthcare; and (2) environmental regulation. Other areas of overreach include firearms regulation and legal tender laws. Moreover, the General Government of the U.S. has not merely usurped State and individual rights, but it has also failed to faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States. All of which means that, as a sovereign, independent State Texas must refuse to comply with, facilitate, or enact unconstitutional federal legislation. We do not fund or budget it. We do not manage or implement it. We do not allow the Federal Government to harass or serve warrants, unless they are for Constitutional laws. This is a tall order but absolutely essential if we are to escape abject tyranny. May God turn us back to Him, and may God save Texas and keep these United States.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
What Would Jefferson Say? No Good Government Here (Issue #467)
As a modern Jeffersonian Republican, my political philosophy can pretty much be summed up by Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. In that speech, he outlined what he considered to be the sum of good government. Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s third president, said that good government consists of these attributes: (1) it is wise and frugal; (2) it keeps men from injuring one another; (3) government otherwise leaves men and women free to their own pursuits of industry and improvement; and (4) government does not take out of the mouth of labor the bread that it has earned. The first two of the attributes have to do with the limited nature of civil government itself, whereas the second two posit an expansive view of the human individual.
Good civil government is first of all wise and frugal. Wise is an adjective purporting wisdom, and wisdom is the right application of knowledge. Scripture says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. So how does that apply to civil government? Directly, in that, wise political leaders are humble, recognizing that they are not omniscient; good civil magistrates recognize their limitations and govern from a felt sense of humility—they do not profess to know everything. Wise political leaders are cautious, recognizing that though they wield much power, rarely do they achieve the ends which they set out to accomplish. There are sad and unintended consequences to the careless use of power, as with mishandling a loaded gun. Wise political leaders recognize that they too are subject to live under the same laws as they put upon others; and all men and women, including themselves, are subject to fundamental principles of right and wrong and correct behavior.
Frugal is also an adjective meaning thrifty, economical, careful, cautious, prudent, provident, not wasteful, sparing, scrimping; abstemious, abstinent, austere, self-denying, ascetic, monkish, Spartan; parsimonious, miserly, penny-pinching, close-fisted; tightfisted, tight, stingy. Today our present civil government is hardly that and indeed closely resembles the opposite or antonym of the word frugal—our government is extravagant and is therefore not a good government on that basis alone!
Good civil government secondly, according to Jefferson, keeps men from injuring one another. This too is hardly the case along our southern border with Mexico, and yet this is the fundamental and essential purpose of civil government—to protect life, liberty and property. A Jeffersonian view of humanity recognizes that individual men and woman are sovereign; that they have inalienable rights that are not conferred; not granted by governments or compacts, but bound up in their very nature in who they are—free and responsible and special (according to Scripture made in the image of God). The purpose of government is limited and not extensive. It is simply to protect individuals from harm. Civil governments are necessary only because of irresponsible behavior, specifically aggression. If we were angels we would not need civil government. Sovereignty of the state is only an extension of the sovereignty of individuals.
Good civil government, thirdly, leaves men free to their own pursuits of employment and improvement. Civil government is not to direct the actions of individuals, only to keep them from harming others. Sovereignty again is essentially individual and not collective. Today regulations and requirements and the threat of legal entanglements, are so pervasive and onerous in relation to just about anything one might try to do. Government literally stands in the way of individual pursuits and dreams contrary to the vision of our Founders. At the same time taxes kill anything you might actually accomplish!
This brings us to Jefferson’s Fourth attribute, namely, good civil government does not take out of the mouth of labor the bread that it has earned, i.e., does not steal from the fruits of our labor. Government today steals from Peter to pay Paul and Paulette, and sustains a huge bureaucracy to enforce the terms.
A modern Jeffersonian view of civil government is humble; sees itself as a servant of sovereign individuals and not as their master; recognizes that the fundamental action and authority of civil society is left to free and responsible actions of individuals. Today everything is turned on its head. Instead of individuals having the most responsibility and freedom, civil government controls almost everything. Civil government should be the least of all governments, because remember there are many governments (self, family, church, etc.). Moreover, civil government of the State of Texas should be a far more prevalent factor than, say, the national federal government. Again everything is turned on its head. Mayors every day contend with extensive burdens placed on city government and local schools by a multitude of unconstitutional federal mandates. And oh by the way, the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution is not merely a federal issue to be interpreted by the federal government; rather, it is an issue of great consequence for state lawmakers who, among other state officials, are responsible to defend Texas sovereignty and independence. This is underscored by the requirement that every office bearer in Texas must swear: to the best of his or her ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the U.S. and of this State.
The U.S. Government has grown so large, so powerful and so intrusive, that the States are in very real danger of losing their self-determination and sovereignty. One of the reasons for this growth is the misconception that the federal government itself is the final interpreter or sole arbiter of whether it has exercised “the powers not delegated” to it by the Constitution. It is commonly believed the U.S. Supreme Court has the final say concerning whether or not the U.S. has exceeded its constitutional bounds. If this is the case, we find ourselves in a situation akin to Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, where the creature cannot be checked and may in fact overcome its own creator.
Good civil government is first of all wise and frugal. Wise is an adjective purporting wisdom, and wisdom is the right application of knowledge. Scripture says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. So how does that apply to civil government? Directly, in that, wise political leaders are humble, recognizing that they are not omniscient; good civil magistrates recognize their limitations and govern from a felt sense of humility—they do not profess to know everything. Wise political leaders are cautious, recognizing that though they wield much power, rarely do they achieve the ends which they set out to accomplish. There are sad and unintended consequences to the careless use of power, as with mishandling a loaded gun. Wise political leaders recognize that they too are subject to live under the same laws as they put upon others; and all men and women, including themselves, are subject to fundamental principles of right and wrong and correct behavior.
Frugal is also an adjective meaning thrifty, economical, careful, cautious, prudent, provident, not wasteful, sparing, scrimping; abstemious, abstinent, austere, self-denying, ascetic, monkish, Spartan; parsimonious, miserly, penny-pinching, close-fisted; tightfisted, tight, stingy. Today our present civil government is hardly that and indeed closely resembles the opposite or antonym of the word frugal—our government is extravagant and is therefore not a good government on that basis alone!
Good civil government secondly, according to Jefferson, keeps men from injuring one another. This too is hardly the case along our southern border with Mexico, and yet this is the fundamental and essential purpose of civil government—to protect life, liberty and property. A Jeffersonian view of humanity recognizes that individual men and woman are sovereign; that they have inalienable rights that are not conferred; not granted by governments or compacts, but bound up in their very nature in who they are—free and responsible and special (according to Scripture made in the image of God). The purpose of government is limited and not extensive. It is simply to protect individuals from harm. Civil governments are necessary only because of irresponsible behavior, specifically aggression. If we were angels we would not need civil government. Sovereignty of the state is only an extension of the sovereignty of individuals.
Good civil government, thirdly, leaves men free to their own pursuits of employment and improvement. Civil government is not to direct the actions of individuals, only to keep them from harming others. Sovereignty again is essentially individual and not collective. Today regulations and requirements and the threat of legal entanglements, are so pervasive and onerous in relation to just about anything one might try to do. Government literally stands in the way of individual pursuits and dreams contrary to the vision of our Founders. At the same time taxes kill anything you might actually accomplish!
This brings us to Jefferson’s Fourth attribute, namely, good civil government does not take out of the mouth of labor the bread that it has earned, i.e., does not steal from the fruits of our labor. Government today steals from Peter to pay Paul and Paulette, and sustains a huge bureaucracy to enforce the terms.
A modern Jeffersonian view of civil government is humble; sees itself as a servant of sovereign individuals and not as their master; recognizes that the fundamental action and authority of civil society is left to free and responsible actions of individuals. Today everything is turned on its head. Instead of individuals having the most responsibility and freedom, civil government controls almost everything. Civil government should be the least of all governments, because remember there are many governments (self, family, church, etc.). Moreover, civil government of the State of Texas should be a far more prevalent factor than, say, the national federal government. Again everything is turned on its head. Mayors every day contend with extensive burdens placed on city government and local schools by a multitude of unconstitutional federal mandates. And oh by the way, the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution is not merely a federal issue to be interpreted by the federal government; rather, it is an issue of great consequence for state lawmakers who, among other state officials, are responsible to defend Texas sovereignty and independence. This is underscored by the requirement that every office bearer in Texas must swear: to the best of his or her ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the U.S. and of this State.
The U.S. Government has grown so large, so powerful and so intrusive, that the States are in very real danger of losing their self-determination and sovereignty. One of the reasons for this growth is the misconception that the federal government itself is the final interpreter or sole arbiter of whether it has exercised “the powers not delegated” to it by the Constitution. It is commonly believed the U.S. Supreme Court has the final say concerning whether or not the U.S. has exceeded its constitutional bounds. If this is the case, we find ourselves in a situation akin to Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, where the creature cannot be checked and may in fact overcome its own creator.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Two Cents’ Worth and the Penny Saved (Issue #466)
You may have recently noticed a new penny.
Obviously the penny isn’t worth much, well maybe a penny but not one red cent’s worth of value. The penny pincher knows it hasn’t always been made of pure copper, but since 1962 the “cent” was minted with 95 percent copper composition and only 5 percent zinc. Today the penny has reversed itself, with 97.5 percent zinc and only 2.5 percent copper. The 2010 penny practically blows away, and practically speaking it might as well be the same denomination as a paper bill, a.k.a. Federal Reserve Note. The coin doesn’t jingle so much as clink, like some subway token or cheap fake. The penny is emblematic of the debasement of U.S. currency that has taken place under our very noses. There is more than one reason why passers-by, have long since ceased to pick up a penny, or even a nickel or a dime. There’s no dime’s worth of difference.
Speaking of emblematical debasement, one will also notice on the new Reverse side that Captain America has lent his shield to the occasion. The cartoon reflects the insubstantial and fictitious nature of the cords that bind this Union together, as well as the marshal nature of domination perpetrated by the federal government in the Twenty-First Century. The symbol is actually intended to convey that message.
According to the U.S. Mint, the design evokes Abraham Lincoln’s “preservation of the United States…as a single and united country.” Lest the country get carried away somehow by remembrance of Freedom or Liberty, it was required by the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, Title III of Public Law 109-145. While the obverse or heads side bears the familiar Victor David Brenner likeness of President Lincoln which has appeared since 1909, the reverse now shows a union shield. The shield dates to the 1780s and at first represented the united nature of political resistance to and military defense by Thirteen Original Colonies against British tyranny. The union shield was co-opted and used widely in the North during its prosecution of the War Between the States. According to the U.S. Mint, it is the foregone conclusion and symbolic representation of this shield today that thirteen vertical stripes represent all fifty states joined into “one compact union to support the federal government, [as] represented by the horizontal bar above.” This then becomes the meaning of the inscription E PLURIBUS UNUM—“out of many, one”: that all fifty sovereign states exist to support the Federal Government. Oh great, now that the Federal Government is run by a unitary Chief Executive and his appointed czars, in order to wage wars indefinitely and to command the un-free market economy! Heaven help us.
It would sure be nice if a candidate for Governor, for instance, would start sounding a theme so many Texans are wanting, and waiting to hear; namely, that the 1st and the 10th Amendments still mean what they say, and all the Bill of Rights in between. In terms of policy this could and probably does mean a return of prayer in public schools to help give our children and society the foundational set of values we need to build upon again. From a Constitutional perspective, this is Freedom in fact, and the truth of the matter is that we have not got the sort of Republic our Founding Founders intended. Self-determination is Freedom; and matters of faith and education are left entirely within the purview of the States, according to the Constitution. It is time to ‘Just say No’ to the Federal Government.
The Colonies that united together during the American Revolution did so, on the basis of self-determination and the sovereign political will of their respective peoples. They did not do so because the Federal Government ‘represented by the horizontal bar above’ screwed and bolted them down in a vertical alignment, and declared unilaterally that is how it was going to be. Ironically, the patina on the Statue of Liberty covers copper, rather than zinc, and figuratively that copper is more malleable than a steel rod or iron, intimating the way that separate societies of the several states are supposed to be able to seek and expect an accommodation with the federal government, to pursue those solutions and prescriptions the Constitution had left them free to pursue.
Speaking of emblematical debasement, one will also notice on the new Reverse side that Captain America has lent his shield to the occasion. The cartoon reflects the insubstantial and fictitious nature of the cords that bind this Union together, as well as the marshal nature of domination perpetrated by the federal government in the Twenty-First Century. The symbol is actually intended to convey that message.
According to the U.S. Mint, the design evokes Abraham Lincoln’s “preservation of the United States…as a single and united country.” Lest the country get carried away somehow by remembrance of Freedom or Liberty, it was required by the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, Title III of Public Law 109-145. While the obverse or heads side bears the familiar Victor David Brenner likeness of President Lincoln which has appeared since 1909, the reverse now shows a union shield. The shield dates to the 1780s and at first represented the united nature of political resistance to and military defense by Thirteen Original Colonies against British tyranny. The union shield was co-opted and used widely in the North during its prosecution of the War Between the States. According to the U.S. Mint, it is the foregone conclusion and symbolic representation of this shield today that thirteen vertical stripes represent all fifty states joined into “one compact union to support the federal government, [as] represented by the horizontal bar above.” This then becomes the meaning of the inscription E PLURIBUS UNUM—“out of many, one”: that all fifty sovereign states exist to support the Federal Government. Oh great, now that the Federal Government is run by a unitary Chief Executive and his appointed czars, in order to wage wars indefinitely and to command the un-free market economy! Heaven help us.
It would sure be nice if a candidate for Governor, for instance, would start sounding a theme so many Texans are wanting, and waiting to hear; namely, that the 1st and the 10th Amendments still mean what they say, and all the Bill of Rights in between. In terms of policy this could and probably does mean a return of prayer in public schools to help give our children and society the foundational set of values we need to build upon again. From a Constitutional perspective, this is Freedom in fact, and the truth of the matter is that we have not got the sort of Republic our Founding Founders intended. Self-determination is Freedom; and matters of faith and education are left entirely within the purview of the States, according to the Constitution. It is time to ‘Just say No’ to the Federal Government.
The Colonies that united together during the American Revolution did so, on the basis of self-determination and the sovereign political will of their respective peoples. They did not do so because the Federal Government ‘represented by the horizontal bar above’ screwed and bolted them down in a vertical alignment, and declared unilaterally that is how it was going to be. Ironically, the patina on the Statue of Liberty covers copper, rather than zinc, and figuratively that copper is more malleable than a steel rod or iron, intimating the way that separate societies of the several states are supposed to be able to seek and expect an accommodation with the federal government, to pursue those solutions and prescriptions the Constitution had left them free to pursue.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Prayer to Save Texas and America (Issue #465)
On August 19, 2010 an important “Save Texas” rally and concert was held at the Mayborn Convention Center in Temple, Texas. YouTube sensation Krista Branch presented a vibrant concert performance, featuring patriotic and inspirational Christian music. She started with her song hit entitled, “I am America” and gave an encore performance of the same song at the end of the evening. The worship event was hosted by Dr. Andy Barron, Central Texas area orthodontist and a devout Christian, who subsequently filed on August 24th to be an official write-in candidate for the Texas Governor’s race.
Barron has stated simply that, if elected Governor, Texans will be free once again to have prayer back in their public schools. The plank comprises much of his platform. The following is a slightly altered version of the opening prayer presented by Yours Truly at the “Save Texas” rally and concert. Prayer of course has a powerful alterative effect, whenever people of faith fervently invoke the Name of God, whether silently or audibly. Prayer can change the course of nations, as well as the paths that people walk. Please think of this as you read, in order to infuse the words with power and bring a blessing into your own experience.
“Dear Lord, our God: Thank you for being with us and meeting us always where we are; and Lord thank you for your Son. Thank you for your mercy and for all the many blessings we enjoy. Thank you for bringing us to this spot—this physical spot, as well as this place in our lives, this time in history. We pray for a safe journey and return Home.
“Thank you for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen; and for law enforcement and border patrol and all those who protect us. Lord—we pray that you’ll protect them, and grant them Victory as You would have it done.
“God grant us peace in our time. We pray that you will always steer us clear of violence and evil. Keep us secure also from temptation. Keep safe those whom we love. Protect the innocent and the unborn, the frail and weak. And Lord, if it be Thy will that we must ever confront evil let us not be afraid when doing so. Be with us in our hour of need and darkness; give us strength and heart, as well as the courage to prevail.
“O Lord our God we pray earnestly for our Country: for healing in our Economy, for a rejuvenation of our civil society; for resuscitation of the Body Politic and regard for the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law. Deliver us from the Evil Tide and from the imposition of socialism and communism in Your Land of Liberty.
“We pray also for your Church. And Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before you remembering 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says: ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.’ We know your promise is true, even at this grave hour. We pray for your forgiveness and for healing in the land. May we do what is required of us to obtain the blessing contained in this your promise. God grant us vision Lord, as that peculiar people who are called by Your Name. God save Texas to be that beacon that America so desperately needs, to light the way for our fellow countrymen.
“Enable us to restore the Republic of our Fathers—and so honoring the God of our Fathers again in the Schoolhouse, at the Courthouse, in all manner of private and public discourse. Let our worship of Thee be always pleasing. May the love of Christ enter in and bless and sanctify us wholly, that we may abound to every good work and know and follow the leadings of Truth. Give every self-professing Christian the courage to attend to his or her civic and sacred responsibilities: to participate and to vote, as well as to live according to his or her convictions.
“Lastly, we pray that the Church will awaken to a higher sense of righteousness in every denomination, in every body of believers; that we should begin to unify under the bloodstained banner of the Cross. Let the message be only this: Christ crucified and resurrected. And may we know and feel with a calm assurance that He lives and reigns forever. O God, we give Thee praise because He lives. To Thine be the glory in our daily walk. Amen.”
Post Script: Glenn Beck hosted the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, 28 August with a very similar religious theme. Like Dr. Andy Barron, he urged his audience to pray more. Krista Branch was also there at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial performing, and several members of the Central Texas Tea Party were in attendance too. More than 100,000 people gathered to hear speeches by Beck and Sarah Palin. The rally coincided with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. With so much of substance accomplished from that original Dream of his (itself from the Declaration of Independence), it is ironically time now to begin to restore key features of the American Dream based upon the United States Constitution, rather than to transform further. For a very large Christian audience in America, that’s what the November 2nd Mid-Term Elections will be about.
Barron has stated simply that, if elected Governor, Texans will be free once again to have prayer back in their public schools. The plank comprises much of his platform. The following is a slightly altered version of the opening prayer presented by Yours Truly at the “Save Texas” rally and concert. Prayer of course has a powerful alterative effect, whenever people of faith fervently invoke the Name of God, whether silently or audibly. Prayer can change the course of nations, as well as the paths that people walk. Please think of this as you read, in order to infuse the words with power and bring a blessing into your own experience.
“Dear Lord, our God: Thank you for being with us and meeting us always where we are; and Lord thank you for your Son. Thank you for your mercy and for all the many blessings we enjoy. Thank you for bringing us to this spot—this physical spot, as well as this place in our lives, this time in history. We pray for a safe journey and return Home.
“Thank you for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen; and for law enforcement and border patrol and all those who protect us. Lord—we pray that you’ll protect them, and grant them Victory as You would have it done.
“God grant us peace in our time. We pray that you will always steer us clear of violence and evil. Keep us secure also from temptation. Keep safe those whom we love. Protect the innocent and the unborn, the frail and weak. And Lord, if it be Thy will that we must ever confront evil let us not be afraid when doing so. Be with us in our hour of need and darkness; give us strength and heart, as well as the courage to prevail.
“O Lord our God we pray earnestly for our Country: for healing in our Economy, for a rejuvenation of our civil society; for resuscitation of the Body Politic and regard for the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law. Deliver us from the Evil Tide and from the imposition of socialism and communism in Your Land of Liberty.
“We pray also for your Church. And Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before you remembering 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says: ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.’ We know your promise is true, even at this grave hour. We pray for your forgiveness and for healing in the land. May we do what is required of us to obtain the blessing contained in this your promise. God grant us vision Lord, as that peculiar people who are called by Your Name. God save Texas to be that beacon that America so desperately needs, to light the way for our fellow countrymen.
“Enable us to restore the Republic of our Fathers—and so honoring the God of our Fathers again in the Schoolhouse, at the Courthouse, in all manner of private and public discourse. Let our worship of Thee be always pleasing. May the love of Christ enter in and bless and sanctify us wholly, that we may abound to every good work and know and follow the leadings of Truth. Give every self-professing Christian the courage to attend to his or her civic and sacred responsibilities: to participate and to vote, as well as to live according to his or her convictions.
“Lastly, we pray that the Church will awaken to a higher sense of righteousness in every denomination, in every body of believers; that we should begin to unify under the bloodstained banner of the Cross. Let the message be only this: Christ crucified and resurrected. And may we know and feel with a calm assurance that He lives and reigns forever. O God, we give Thee praise because He lives. To Thine be the glory in our daily walk. Amen.”
Post Script: Glenn Beck hosted the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, 28 August with a very similar religious theme. Like Dr. Andy Barron, he urged his audience to pray more. Krista Branch was also there at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial performing, and several members of the Central Texas Tea Party were in attendance too. More than 100,000 people gathered to hear speeches by Beck and Sarah Palin. The rally coincided with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. With so much of substance accomplished from that original Dream of his (itself from the Declaration of Independence), it is ironically time now to begin to restore key features of the American Dream based upon the United States Constitution, rather than to transform further. For a very large Christian audience in America, that’s what the November 2nd Mid-Term Elections will be about.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Doggett, Edwards Deal Constitution another Blow in the Name of Education (Issue #464)
Austin Congressman Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX District 25) recently sponsored an amendment to H.R. 1586 that is grossly unconstitutional, and his friend Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX District 17) of Waco supported it enthusiastically. It just goes to show how any good cause these days, particularly if it is a winner politically, will trump adherence to the U.S. Constitution or the intent of the Founding Fathers. Doggett’s amendment essentially places an education spending mandate on the State of Texas alone of all the fifty states.
H.R. 1586 refers to The FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. The bill like so many others is a veritable grab-bag of bailouts and legislation pertaining to unrelated topics such as education, Medicaid, and nutrition—not to mention a massive bailout for state governments. The total cost is $26 billion, which costs every American family approximately $126 per year. The bill also allocates $10 billion for jobs in education nation-wide, of which $831 million would go to Texas, in order to pay for 14,500 teacher jobs. The bill’s controversial amendment introduced by Rep. Doggett and voted for by Congressional Democrats including Edwards, requires Texas to maintain the same level of funding in education for the next three years.
Never mind the Governor has no such authority to guarantee or to direct the State Legislature to spend a certain amount of money, or to possibly bind future Legislatures. As U.S. Congressmen from Texas, Doggett and Edwards should know that. Beyond that, one would hope that they appreciate the U.S. Constitution too and the understand the fact that Court precedent precludes federal legislation from treating States unequally. The idea being that all States, old and new, do and should share an equality of constitutional right and power as a condition of belonging to the Union in the first place. States are equal in power, dignity and authority, each competent to exert that residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the United States by the Constitution itself. To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress might come to be a union of States unequal in power, including States whose powers were restricted only by the Constitution and others whose powers had been further restricted by acts of Congress!
It is clear from the legislation that Texas has some Democrat congressmen, who are either unaware of constitutional limits to their authority, or else they are outright traitors to the State. Doggett’s Amendment would require the Governor to offer some sort of presumably written assurance to the feds to receive the funds earmarked for Texas. Even if that assurance amounts to a prediction and there are no claw-back or enforcement provisions in the legislation, the Governor does not work for, or report to, the Federal Government. Hence the language of the Amendment is an attempt to extort certain behavior quid quo pro for the funds, and it amounts at least to implicit infringement on State sovereignty.
Doggett sponsored his amendment essentially to pick a bone: he was unhappy that Governor Perry used part of the money Texas received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a.k.a. the federal stimulus package) to offset regularly scheduled spending. Hence Doggett is trying to ensure Texas uses federal money to supplement rather than supplant funds for education with money it receives. Clearly it is a continuation at federal level of partisan wrangling over Texas legislative priorities and Texas State budget. If taken on its face, the Amendment doesn’t even satisfy Federal legislative priorities or U.S. Congressional intent. The federal stimulus package was, well, for economic stimulus—not all about education. Likewise, this current polyglot bill is for stimulus too. Education spending clearly has merit, even in the area of stimulus, but there are many other things money can be spent on to foster recovery and economic growth: to put people back to work and take economic pressure off families; to keep students in school and to enable the workforce to pursue education and wellbeing.
Both Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Chet Edwards are myopic at best and, quite frankly, they lack a larger vision—conservative, progressive or otherwise. In hindsight, Doggett apparently begrudges the fact the Texas economy is doing so well, or that state government is in a far better position than virtually any other state. Now that Texas faces an $18 billion shortfall next year, he wants to limit flexibility and virtually assure that Texas follows the path of a California or a New York to bankruptcy. Texans simply cannot know today whether or not they will be able to afford exactly the same percentage of the budget going towards public education. No one doubts the Governor’s commitment to education, but limiting his and the Legislature’s flexibility in bad economic times is particularly imprudent, even foolhardy. Not only that, the offset using federal dollars for “scheduled spending” actually includes things like textbooks and other costs which support education. Indeed, there really is no quantifiable harm for the offset using federal funds that Doggett complains about. Education is far more complex than that, and benefits do not accrue dollar for dollar.
Doggett’s approach would literally preclude the realization of cost savings ever (so much for improving efficiency or trying innovation to get a better return on investment, or better results in the classroom either). The Amendment is really a stunt designed to embarrass the Governor, given that economic imperatives are likely to drive him and the Legislature to make hard choices, in order to balance the budget next year. Doggett was elected in 1994, and if doesn’t know this then he has been in Washington, D.C. too long, having forgotten that unlike the U.S. Congress, States are required to balance their budgets! In the bigger scheme of things, education is important but economic opportunity for high school and college graduates, as well as the solvency of state government is more important. Typically there is not a wide trade-off and certainly it isn’t zero-sum, but during the Great Recession and for the next couple of years it could be. Only Doggett and other liberal Democrats in Congress would attempt to play ostrich with the situation and put their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the reality of high unemployment, the slowness of the recovery, the uncertainty of business environment. For Chet Edwards’s part, he was first elected in 1990 and was considered for President Obama’s Vice-Presidential pick in 2008—largely for his adept record at looking and acting conservative while supporting liberal politics, such as the anti-Texan and unconstitutional Doggett Amendment to score points for supporting education while empowering the federal government even more.
H.R. 1586 refers to The FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. The bill like so many others is a veritable grab-bag of bailouts and legislation pertaining to unrelated topics such as education, Medicaid, and nutrition—not to mention a massive bailout for state governments. The total cost is $26 billion, which costs every American family approximately $126 per year. The bill also allocates $10 billion for jobs in education nation-wide, of which $831 million would go to Texas, in order to pay for 14,500 teacher jobs. The bill’s controversial amendment introduced by Rep. Doggett and voted for by Congressional Democrats including Edwards, requires Texas to maintain the same level of funding in education for the next three years.
Never mind the Governor has no such authority to guarantee or to direct the State Legislature to spend a certain amount of money, or to possibly bind future Legislatures. As U.S. Congressmen from Texas, Doggett and Edwards should know that. Beyond that, one would hope that they appreciate the U.S. Constitution too and the understand the fact that Court precedent precludes federal legislation from treating States unequally. The idea being that all States, old and new, do and should share an equality of constitutional right and power as a condition of belonging to the Union in the first place. States are equal in power, dignity and authority, each competent to exert that residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the United States by the Constitution itself. To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress might come to be a union of States unequal in power, including States whose powers were restricted only by the Constitution and others whose powers had been further restricted by acts of Congress!
It is clear from the legislation that Texas has some Democrat congressmen, who are either unaware of constitutional limits to their authority, or else they are outright traitors to the State. Doggett’s Amendment would require the Governor to offer some sort of presumably written assurance to the feds to receive the funds earmarked for Texas. Even if that assurance amounts to a prediction and there are no claw-back or enforcement provisions in the legislation, the Governor does not work for, or report to, the Federal Government. Hence the language of the Amendment is an attempt to extort certain behavior quid quo pro for the funds, and it amounts at least to implicit infringement on State sovereignty.
Doggett sponsored his amendment essentially to pick a bone: he was unhappy that Governor Perry used part of the money Texas received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a.k.a. the federal stimulus package) to offset regularly scheduled spending. Hence Doggett is trying to ensure Texas uses federal money to supplement rather than supplant funds for education with money it receives. Clearly it is a continuation at federal level of partisan wrangling over Texas legislative priorities and Texas State budget. If taken on its face, the Amendment doesn’t even satisfy Federal legislative priorities or U.S. Congressional intent. The federal stimulus package was, well, for economic stimulus—not all about education. Likewise, this current polyglot bill is for stimulus too. Education spending clearly has merit, even in the area of stimulus, but there are many other things money can be spent on to foster recovery and economic growth: to put people back to work and take economic pressure off families; to keep students in school and to enable the workforce to pursue education and wellbeing.
Both Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Chet Edwards are myopic at best and, quite frankly, they lack a larger vision—conservative, progressive or otherwise. In hindsight, Doggett apparently begrudges the fact the Texas economy is doing so well, or that state government is in a far better position than virtually any other state. Now that Texas faces an $18 billion shortfall next year, he wants to limit flexibility and virtually assure that Texas follows the path of a California or a New York to bankruptcy. Texans simply cannot know today whether or not they will be able to afford exactly the same percentage of the budget going towards public education. No one doubts the Governor’s commitment to education, but limiting his and the Legislature’s flexibility in bad economic times is particularly imprudent, even foolhardy. Not only that, the offset using federal dollars for “scheduled spending” actually includes things like textbooks and other costs which support education. Indeed, there really is no quantifiable harm for the offset using federal funds that Doggett complains about. Education is far more complex than that, and benefits do not accrue dollar for dollar.
Doggett’s approach would literally preclude the realization of cost savings ever (so much for improving efficiency or trying innovation to get a better return on investment, or better results in the classroom either). The Amendment is really a stunt designed to embarrass the Governor, given that economic imperatives are likely to drive him and the Legislature to make hard choices, in order to balance the budget next year. Doggett was elected in 1994, and if doesn’t know this then he has been in Washington, D.C. too long, having forgotten that unlike the U.S. Congress, States are required to balance their budgets! In the bigger scheme of things, education is important but economic opportunity for high school and college graduates, as well as the solvency of state government is more important. Typically there is not a wide trade-off and certainly it isn’t zero-sum, but during the Great Recession and for the next couple of years it could be. Only Doggett and other liberal Democrats in Congress would attempt to play ostrich with the situation and put their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the reality of high unemployment, the slowness of the recovery, the uncertainty of business environment. For Chet Edwards’s part, he was first elected in 1990 and was considered for President Obama’s Vice-Presidential pick in 2008—largely for his adept record at looking and acting conservative while supporting liberal politics, such as the anti-Texan and unconstitutional Doggett Amendment to score points for supporting education while empowering the federal government even more.
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