Washington's Entrenched Power

One of the major issues with Washington is the entrenched power of multi-term representatives in both the house and the senate. Representatives who are re-elected term after term often end up in seats of power such as “Chairman of the House Ways and Means” committee, the “House Budget” committee, the senate “Defense” committee or the “Health Care” committee. These powerful positions are key targets for lobbyist seeking to gain legislation or changes in legislation that are more favorable to their vested interest. The members of these committees, and not just the Chairman, are often the ones that end up in scandals revolving “working” trips to resorts in the Caribbean or some other luxurious place where they are wined and dined by the aforementioned lobbyist in order to gain that favor.

These positions also give power to their members over the rest of the congress. If someone wants their bill to make it out of the committee that it was assigned to then they will often have to give favors to one or more committee members, often in the form of their vote on some other issue, in order to ensure that their bill is not dead on arrival to the committee. This is why these committee positions are so coveted by members of congress. A position on a powerful committee almost instantly imbues you with its power.

This entrenched power is bad for our country.  It ensures “politics as usual” and prevents true compromise on the important issues of the day. The only “fix” for this to be bantered about is term limits for the congressional members. The idea being to limit how many consecutive terms a congressional member can serve before being forced out. After all, we have a term limit on the office of the president so why not the congress as well? The problem with this is that it would require a constitutional amendment to achieve and this would be almost impossible with the entrenched power that is already there. It is human nature to want to hold onto power once you have it.

I would suggest something a little simpler. It would still be difficult to achieve but if the will of the people was strong enough it could be done. This suggestion is to place term limits on the membership of committees. Force a rotation of membership on the committees to break these strangle holds on power. This would only require a “congressional rule” to implement rather than a constitutional amendment.

When our forefathers wrote the Constitution they wrote it from the point of view of those that had no power, no say in the government. They greatly desired to limit the effects of entrenched power on the governmental body. Unfortunately, once they themselves had power they immediately began to fall under its spell. We have been slowly correcting this ever since; the abolition of slavery, a woman’s right to vote, etc. Now it is time to correct it within the very halls of congress.

When Taxes Are Not Taxes And Cuts Are Not Cuts

 I hate half truths and double talk, it drives me nuts. And nowhere do you find more of it than in politics. Washington’s political parties feed them to us on a regular basis. They can’t seem to make single political statement argument without them. The most recent such drivel that has really irritated me is coming from the republicans.

 During the recent debt ceiling limit debates the republicans continuously expounded upon the fact that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world at thirty five percent. This was one of the basic arguments that they used against raising taxes - any taxes at all – even in the form of removing corporate jet loop holes. According to a several studies, the majority of corporations pay little or no taxes. And even when they show a huge tax bill that money may never make it to the IRS. What these companies actually end up paying is not really known since they are not required to disclose this information. These corporations use various tricks to shelter the income that they earn from Americans in order to not pay their fair share of taxes. Of course, this gets it start by democrats raising the corporate tax rates to levels that would stifle any company’s ability to grow and compete in the world in order to support their favorite cause.
Then we have the democrats who have always loved to complain about republicans “cutting” their federal programs. The problem is that those cuts were seldom real cuts, which of course they don’t bother to tell you. You see, most programs within the federal government have an automatic increase in their level of funding every year. So if social program “x” got two billion last year then it will get two point two billion this year. When the republicans attempt to curve government spending by preventing this increase the democrats scream “budget cut”!

If you went into your job tomorrow and the boss said, “I’m very sorry but we cannot afford to give pay raises this year due to the economy” would you consider that a pay cut? No, you would probably be happy that you didn’t get a real pay cut!

Half truths and double talk, I hate it.

School Vouchers? Not so fast...

The new school year started a couple of weeks ago for my children. I have four of them, one boy and three girls, and three of them are now in school. My oldest, the boy, was transitioning this year to the middle school as a sixth grader and his mother and I were having serious reservations. The middle school here has a very bad reputation. The word from most parents is that the school is run like a prison and the staff, principal and teachers included, are rude, obnoxious, and seem to care little about the students.

The atmosphere of the school and the tone of the administration was a bit worrying. The children could not talk at anytime save for lunch, during which they are allowed to talk very quietly. When moving between classes they were only allowed to move "clockwise" through the school building. Even if his next class is the next door down, counter-clockwise, he still had to go all the way around the building to get to it. The school said that this was done to prevent bullying.

What? All students have their education turned into a robotic, unsocial and unstimulating experience because a few students cannot control themselves?

I guess I should not have been too surprised. When my son was in fourth grade he was bullied extensively on the school bus by an older and much bigger fifth grader. After several complaints to the school the bus driver decided that the best solution was to force my son to sit by himself in the front of the bus, away from his friends, to "protect" him from this bully. The bully, however, was allowed to keep sitting in the back of the bus with his friends where they continued bullying the other smaller students on the bus. When I heard about this I made a visit to the principal of the school. She never like me very much after that visit for some reason....

After talking things over with my wife we decided to pull him out of the middle school and home school him before he got too far into the new school year. Especially since the main reason for sending him to the public school - socialization - was completely missing from the environment.

So, we embarked on our first home schooling experience. The first thing my wife did was to test him to see where he was at. As I expected, he tested a full grade ahead in language arts - he was always a good reader. His math skills were not quite that far ahead but it was hard to tell for certain since the test we were using contained math for the 5th Grade level that my son had never seen while in the fifth grade. He also seemed to be emotionally struggling more with this test. He was complaining more and acting like he just could not understand simple directions on the test. Things that we knew were not above his understanding. We sat him down and asked him what was going on. His answers were all childish, nonsensical arguments about the test and why he could not understand it. My wife and I were totally baffled. Finally, my wife asked him if he was acting this way because he wanted to go back to the public school.

"No!" he insisted and, after a brief pause, tears began to stream down his face. The underlying frustration in him was obvious. He started towards his bedroom, he did not want his sisters to come in and see him crying. I stopped him and looked to wife and mouthed "privacy" as I headed towards our bedroom with him in tow. She shook her head yes and quickly followed us in, shutting the door behind her.

Without going further into the ensuing conversation it turned out that my son was having trouble simply asking for help. He did not want to leave any of the math questions unanswered since they were supposed to be 4th and 5th grade questions and he was now a big 6th grader. He could not stand the idea of not being able to understand some of the 4th grade questions and many of the 5th grade questions and wanted help - mainly on the meaning of certain terms that he was not familiar with.

Now, here is the amazing part. He told us that he had learned that he had to play dumb while in elementary school in order to get help!

He was always considered to be one of the "smart" kids since he could read on a third grade level in kindergarten, was in the special "PACE" classes for exceptionally bright children, and was always on the "A" honor roll ("A&B" honor roll in 5th grade). The teachers, thinking he was so exceptionally smart, ignored his request for help in class and spent their time helping the children that they thought needed it the most. So he learned that if he acted dumb then the teachers would give him more help when he truly needed it!

This, in a nutshell, is what happens when the schools cater to the lowest common denominator. School children get dragged down to that level rather than the slower children being lifted up. Our schools should be challenging the students, all of them. The liberals believe that no child should feel bad and all children should feel equal. Although I understand the basic feelings that are behind this their methods of achieving it are completely wrong and detrimental to our children.

Conservatives seem to think that the school voucher program is the best way to go. With a school voucher system parents could send their kids to any school they wanted to. They could send them to a "better" public school or even a private school. According to conservatives this would stimulate competition and force bad schools to improve. The thing is, the school voucher program would only be useful for a few select families. I am physical conservative who usually votes republican but I am by no means wealthy. I am not struggling to pay my bills but it is nearly a paycheck to paycheck existence. I cannot afford to drive my children back and forth everyday to the next nearest school. The cost in gasoline alone would be staggering. A school voucher program would be useless for me and many others, I'm sure.

What we need is greater freedom within the schools.  Freedom "from" intrusive school boards that think they know what is best for our children. Freedom "from" administrators with condescending, know it all attitudes. Let’s give the parents of the schools real power. Freedom from the federal and state government telling us exactly what our children "need". We could give real power to the parents - like the "PTA" but with actual authority. If parents knew that the PTA had actual voting power, power to change the way the school is run and the freedom to involve themselves in the daily school process as needed then we might actually begin to see some changes.

It would not be a lovely bed of roses overnight but eventually new methods of teaching our children would evolve that would shine above the rest. The parents, seeing those other methods working elsewhere, would quickly bring those methods to their schools. Parents would work much faster than the bloated bureaucracy of our school systems. And, just maybe, future students would find school to be an enjoyable and stimulating experience.

Mandated Health Insurance VS Mandated Auto Insurance

All too often we hear pundits on the left arguing that if the government can mandate that people buy automobile insurance then the government can mandate that people buy health insurance. Even worse, pundits on the right never seem to respond to this statement beyond rolling their eyes and quickly moving on to something else – making it appear that they are afraid that their political rivals might be correct. So are they?

Not only no but HELL NO!

Here are the main differences:

1)       Automobile insurance is not mandated by the federal government. It is mandated by the states if the states so choose – “States Rights”.

2)      In most states you can be self insured by having a bond whose value is equivalent to the required liability levels of your state.

3)      You can choose to not own a vehicle and use public transportation instead.

4)      You can choose to not operate your motor vehicle on the public roads and highways. If you don’t then you don’t need auto insurance. Many farmers and businesses own and operate vehicles on private land without insurance or registration and don’t even need to have a driver’s license to operate them.

5)      The only way to opt out of the Health Insurance mandate is to commit suicide!

Yes, most of us need our vehicle and we need to drive it on the public highways so we purchase liability insurance.  Every right comes with certain responsibilities and the ability to pay for any injury or damage that we may cause while exercising our right to drive a vehicle on publicly owned roads is one of them. This insurance protects others from our own mistakes. Health insurance is not protecting others from our own mistakes – it is something we purchase to protect ourselves from the high cost of health care.

We can claim the right to health care but our “right” to anything ends where the other person’s rights begin. We do not have the right to force someone else to pay for our health care or to provide their health care services for free. That would infringe too heavily upon their right to make a living and their right to keep their own hard earned money. Just because the federal government can get a bare majority of congressmen to sign off on doing just that by force of law does not make it any less of an infringement on our rights.

Is there a constitutional right to health care?

So, is there a constitutional right to health care? Well, in short, the answer is yes. Or, more accurately, the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to tell you that you "don't" have the right to health care. The federal government also does not have the authority to tell you that you must pay for someone else’s health care.

That last statement is one that some of the far left liberals are using to support the "Individual Mandate" portion of the Health Care Reform law - albeit without the "federal government" part. They are saying that you, as an individual, do not have the right to force someone else to pay for your health care cost and therefore should be forced to buy health insurance. This, of course, completely leaves out the fact that most young people that choose not to buy health insurance end up paying for their own health care cost out of their own pocket. It also leaves out the fact that this is EXACTLY what they (the liberals) are doing with the individual mandate – forcing those who choose to pay for their own health care cost to join the insurance system to help pay for the cost of others.

Hypocrisy at its finest…

Bob Beckel knows what it is all about....

   Bob Beckel finally admitted that his true feelings about the Tea Party on Fox News this morning... "The hell with them!" he flamed at the end of a segment about congress woman Maxine Waters statement that the "Tea Party can go straight to hell!"

   So, what was Bob so upset about? Well, his anger stemmed from the fact that members of the Tea Party seemed to be willing to let the country go into default rather than compromise on raising taxes during the latest debt ceiling limit increase. I take it that he also understands that the liberals forcing health care reform down our throats when they had the power to do so was also wrong? Well, one can only hope.....