Recently in Government Category

The media is still covering the story of the $700 billion+ bailout of banks and other financial insitutions, and others are starting to clamor for one of their own. The biggest bunch next in line are the Big Three automakers, saying they will go bankrupt unless they get billions in aid from the taxpayers. My response to this?

Tough.

They gambled and lost, and now they want us to bail out three failed businesses and the unions that have hamstrung them. The reasoning for the bailout is that millions are employed by the auto industry, directly and indirectly, and that they would all lose their jobs should the Big Three file for bankruptcy. The only problem with that claim is that it just ain't so.

Sure, quite a few will lose jobs as the Big Three reorganize and streamline their operations, cut costs, and actually start offering cars and trucks the American motorists actually want. Goodness knows Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and other foreign auto companies with factories in the US are doing quite well, not requiring taxpayer money to stay afloat.

But it isn't up to the taxpayers to support the commitments GM, Ford, and Chrysler have made to the UAW. Like any other business in trouble, painful changes need to be made. The UAW members will have to bite the bullet, accept smaller wages and less generous pensions, otherwise no amount of taxpayer money will save the automakers. A smaller cut of the pie is a lot better than no pie at all, and all a bailout will do is delay the inevitable unless major changes are made by management and the union. All the bailout will do is reward failure. It's no different than the bailout of the banks: a taxpayer funded reward for failure. It's got to stop somewhere. The taxpayers are not a bottomless ATM, nor is the government.

Our first mistake was the $700 billion bailout. Let's not follow that with yet another. Tell the automakers 'no'.

In light of a Ramussen report showing 59% of voters would vote to replace the entire Congress, I thought it would be a good idea to dust off, update, and repost something my brother posted back in 2002. It's just as timely today as it was back then, maybe even more so, given the information from Rasmussen.

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In the very early Eighties our youngest sister went to Smith College in Northampton, MA. Back then, as now, Smith was a hot bed of leftist True Think with a frightening mixture of rabid feminism and incipient Political Correctness. For four years she slaved away after her degree in Mathematics, finally returning home with her diploma.

As you might imagine, she also came home with a slightly more left-of-center world view than she had departed with. Our father, a curmudgeonly fiscal conservative, alternated between amusement and despair whenever politics were discussed at dinner. He finally fell back in to the old standby of "when you can't show 'em, shock 'em." One exchange that comes to mind quite clearly came when our sister and her live-in boyfriend of the time stopped by for dinner. My parents are not prudes so this was not an unusual thing, and they actually liked 'Geoffrey' a lot, despite his socialist take on the human condition.

That evening we were digging in to chicken parmigiana while Geoffrey waxed philosophical on the failure of government to effectively deal with poverty. Dad, never one to pass up a good straight line, began taking him to task over the multiple billions of dollars already spent to aid the poor. What did Geoffrey want to do, throw more good money after bad? Then Geoffrey made the mistake: he asked my father what he thought the government should do.

My father looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Just make me Emperor for two years. Give me complete control of society and in two years there won't be any more poor people."

Looking for the entire world like a deer in the headlights of an on-rushing Mack truck Geoffrey asked him how that would happen.

"Simple: After two years the malingerers will have jobs and all the others will have starved."

Our dad is a nice guy. No, really!-- he paid to have Geoffrey's shirt cleaned after he spit a mouthful of chicken and marinara sauce all over himself.

I've thought long and hard about the bailout bill President Bush signed yesterday, feeling both relieved and disgusted at the same time. I was going to post about it yesterday, but realized I really needed to think about the ramifications of this bloated piece of "crisis legislation".

I've been able to boil down the description of the bill to four words, ably provided by the WP Dad:

"It's a crap sandwich."

Something that was originally three or four pages is now over four hundred pages, most which not a single Congressman has had the time to wade through to find out what it is they were really going to be voting on. One thing quite obvious about the bill sent to the House from the Senate was the amount of pork packaged into it. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars were earmarked for all kinds of projects, none which had anything to do with banking meltdown. I guess too many of our 'representatives' saw this as an opportunity to use even more taxpayer dollars we can ill afford to spend.

A few of the earmarks added by the Senate include:

- $100 million tax breaks for auto racetrack owners.

- $2 million for makers of wooden arrows for children.

- $192 million in rebates for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry.

- $148 million in tax relief for wool fabric producers.

- $49 million in tax benefits for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

- $48 million a year for film and TV producers who produce their work in the United States.

More earmarks and tax breaks included in the bill can be found here. Read 'em and weep.

Is there any wonder members of the House were not pleased with the bill they ended up passing? More than a few representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, lambasted the Senate earmarks, feeling the bill should have addressed the problem at hand and not been used for more pork barrel spending, particularly at a time when voters are scrutinizing Congress closely.

This bailout bill is going to end up costing taxpayers far more than the $700 billion put forth by the original bill. We're all going to feel the pain of this bill when it comes due.

I've had time to rethink the vote on the bailout plan and, as I have done so and read articles and posts on the Web, I've come to the conclusion the results were exactly as Nancy Pelosi wanted them to be. It was a put up job by the Democrats in order to gain political advantage, and the country be damned.

If the economy tanks because of the failed bailout bill, you better believe the Democrats will scream long and loud that "it's all the fault of the Republicans!" Never mind this economic fiasco was the bastard child of House and Senate Democrats, refusing to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pushing them to back mortgages to moderate and low income families incapable of paying them back.

A number of Representatives and Senators, most of them Republicans, warned about the disaster in the making if steps weren't taken to stop the insane lending policies and the bundling of those iffy mortgages into investment vehicles that, on the surface, seemed like a heck of a money maker. But it was a house of cards. When the real estate market cooled, which was inevitable, that house of cards started coming apart.

It's not just congressional Democrats at fault. There are plenty of Republicans that should take the rap as well. So should the now-failed Wall Street investment banks. And, in the end, consumers taking on mortgages too big for their income to buy oversized and overpriced homes must also share the blame for their predicament.

Am I surprised the House of Representatives voted down the $700 billion bailout package? Yes, I am. Am I disappointed they've done so? No, not in the least.

I think one of the Representatives speaking on the floor of the House said it best (I wish I knew who it was): "This bill is 100 pages long. That's $7 billion per page. Before I vote for this I want to read it and know what it says!" I'm sure his constituents want the same thing.

The hastily assembled bailout bill needs more scrutiny, needs some more thought before the taxpayers commit to shelling out $700 billion.

While Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats point their fingers at Republicans for the failure of the bill, they should also ask why a number of Democrats, 90 of them, I believe, voted against the bill. Two of those Democrats are from New Hampshire, Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes. Both are staunch tax-and spend liberals. Both voted against their party because they saw flaws in the bailout, including lack of oversight. The last thing they wanted to do was hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money to the Secretary of the Treasury, yet have little oversight or review of how that money is spent. With that I wholeheartedly agree, something I thought I'd never do with those two.

Of course the bill might have had a better chance of passing if Nancy Pelosi hadn't made a speech on the floor of the House lambasting Republicans, Republicans she needed to ensure passage. That isn't the way to persuade members of the opposition party to vote for something she wants to pass. I guess she couldn't pass up the opportunity to place the blame for the banking meltdown on Republicans, even though there's more than enough proof it was members of her own party that should take some responsibility for the problems we now face.

It's a question of priorities, and we now know the priorities of the two Presidential candidates.

John McCain has decided to suspend his participation in campaign activities for the time being and is returning to Washington, DC to rejoin the rest of Congress to deal with the economic problems and the proposed $700 billion bailout. One of those campaign activities he's putting aside for the moment is the first debate with his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

Obama, on the other hand, is staying on the campaign trail and will waste little or no time dealing with the crisis. Instead he will continue his preparations for Friday night's debate and continue making campaign appearances.

If I were a cynic, I'd say that McCain's move was merely political showmanship, apparently putting his country's needs before his own. I'd also say Obama sees McCain's 'politically driven' move as a chance to garner some points out on the campaign trail without the need to counter anything McCain says, as well as be able to sell his message without worrying about McCain selling his own message. Yeah, I'd say that if I were a cynic. Yeah. I would. Really. I...would.

But I'm not that much of a cynic. I understand the two camps will see McCain's move in their own light, with the GOP spinning it as proof that McCain is putting country first, and the Democrats seeing it as merely political posturing by Obama's opponent to gain political advantage.

But I see it as John McCain going back to Washington to do the job he was elected to do, and Obama doing what he's done since before he was elected to the Senate four years ago - nothing...other than self-aggrandizement.

I'd say that's indicative of the differences between the two candidates.

The upcoming budget season for towns and cities here in the Granite State is going to be a tough one. It will be no less difficult for the state, with the governor calling for department heads to draw up two budgets: one tight, the other tighter. I expect it's not much different in other states, many of which are suffering from the same problems being seen here in New Hampshire.

The word is out across New Hampshire: money is tight and it's going to get worse. Town officials know their residents are having a tough time of it, with much higher fuel and food prices. The last thing the people need is to worry about paying higher property taxes or fees. It comes down to a choice of cutting budgets or raising taxes, and towns are looking very hard to hold the line on spending.

But even town officials are feeling the effects of higher oil prices, with the cost of heating fuel, gasoline, diesel, and asphalt going up. Even if the overall town budgets do not increase, the towns will need to change priorities, shifting funds from other programs and departments in order to cover the increased energy costs. Some towns will defer maintenance on roads or other infrastructure for a year, hoping energy prices will fall or that the economy will recover sufficiently to take the strain off of the individual taxpayer's budgets.

One challenge both the state and the towns will have to meet is declining revenues. Revenues from building permits and vehicle registrations have fallen off as the economy has tightened, meaning even more work needed for the budgeting process.

At the state level, revenue projections from the last bloated budget were woefully optimistic, with the revenue shortfall expected to be $200 million by the end of the biennium. (The state of New Hampshire runs under a two-year budget.) With the drop in revenues from the same decrease in vehicle registrations, as well as fuel taxes, cigarette taxes, and a host of other user fees and business taxes, the state must tighten its belt, too. The governor ordered some spending cuts to reduce that shortfall, but more cuts will be needed to erase the rest of the deficit even if those cuts are made for the upcoming two-year budget. At this point raising taxes would be a non-starter, particularly if state legislators want to be re-elected this November.

Some hard choices will need to be made.

At the state level, rolling back the outrageous 17.5% budget increase of the present budget would be a good start. Much of the state revenue shortfall can be blamed on the oversized budget and the unrealistic revenue estimates used to justify the increases. (The revenue projections for 2007-2008 were unrealistic even without the big boost in energy prices and softening economy, so the blame cannot be laid entirely on those two issues.)

At the town and city level, the choices will be harder. The effects of budget cuts and tax increases are felt and seen in very shortly after they take effect. When budgets are cut oft times they lead to lay offs of town employees, reduction in overtime, reduction of office hours, cutbacks in extracurricular activities at the schools, loss of tutors and teaching assistants, and so on. Tax increases, particularly during troublesome economic times, leads to loss of homes by taxpayers unable to pay their property taxes. Businesses will defer paying their property taxes in order to offset increase costs and decreasing income in other areas. This leaves the towns in the lurch because revenues fall off even more. It's a Catch-22, with everyone in town caught in between. The town budgeting process will have to balance the two needs, perhaps erring on the side of caution and making painful cuts to town spending. But it's something everyone can understand, something most of us have had to do with our own budgets when money is tight. Non-essentials, the want-to-haves, are put aside to meet needs. And so it must go with town spending. It's going to be interesting times around here for the next few months.

Now if we could only get the federal government to do the same thing.

Sometimes it takes government time to get things right, even at the local level. And sometimes it takes the watchful eyes of citizens to point out when government gets it wrong.
 
In one case, two concerned and outspoken citizens blew the whistle when their county government broke the law in regards to selecting a replacement to serve out the county sheriff's term, which was left vacant when the sheriff stepped down.

According to New Hampshire state law, such an action is supposed to take place during a public meeting, but the county convention did it by secret ballot, violating the state's Right To Know law. The two citizens filed suit in state court and the court found in their favor, agreeing the county convention had erred, voting in secret when they should have voted publicly.

The convention voted on the replacement again, and got it wrong again, which prompted another filing with the court. The poor replacement for the sheriff has now been in and out of office twice, and has taken it personally, even though the two citizens involved have stated more than once they have no objection to the county's selection, only to the county's illegal procedure.
 
Now it's gotten ugly, with threatening letters to the two citizens showing up and a police investigation started due to those letters.
 
If nothing else this series of events show we have to watch our government closely, at every level, in order to ensure they follow the same laws just like the rest of us. We should never be intimidated into silence by those who are governing with our consent, which can be withdrawn at any time.