Talk Is Cheap

The other morning, Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in rolling out a new $900 million initiative to fight the horrendous drop out rate in urban high schools, said President Obama is "committed to do the right thing by children."  He went on to say that "drop-out factories in low-income communities" are "morally unacceptable" and that Obama continues to show "tremendous courage" in standing up to intransigent forces like the teacher's union who have opposed similar efforts to force low performing schools to close.  Sighting high performance inner city schools like the Harlem Village Academy, that have narrowed the achievement gap between black and white students, Sec. Duncan said that "these are the projects we want to invest in."  I'm sure those are comforting words to the children and families living in the slums of Washington DC who's private school vouchers were just taken away by President Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress.

Once again the president's actions don't match his rhetoric.  What he says, or what anyone of his spokespersons attributes to him for saying,  should have a longer shelf life than the time it takes the words to leave their mouths.  Take this montage from Breitbart.tv » Obama ‘American Agenda’ Flashback: Dems Should Not Pass Healthcare With a 50-Plus-1 Strategy where Obama's own words contradict his latest attempt to pass healthcare over the objections of a majority of Americans.  Speaking of healthcare, again, I thought jobs were supposed to be his number one focus.  Again, ever since we learned that his administration would focus laser-like on jobs and the economy, all we've heard from the White House is that Congress must pass Obamacare.  Huh?

I am reminded of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, wherein he hopes that one day black boys and girls "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."  Likewise, the content of Obama's words and speeches should be judged on the   sincerity and commitment behind them, rather than the articulation and eloquence of their delivery.  If all we are looking for in our leaders is intelligibility, then let's elect James Earl Jones...."This is CNN."  

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

As part of his 100 Jobs/1000 Miles bike ride across the State of Michigan, he's picked asparagus in Hart, shook cherry trees in Traverse City, replaced worn out sewer pipes in Detroit, and helped skiers onto the high-speed chair lift in Boyne Falls.  Last night he tossed pizzas in Midland.  For the last twenty years, Pete Hoekstra has represented the 2nd District on the west side of the state in Congress, but what he really wants to do is become our state's next governor.  And judging by his work ethic, should he be fortunate enough to win, he'll not only have earned it, he'd probably do an outstanding job.

Full disclosure; I've had my doubts about Pete Hoekstra's gubernatorial campaign.  Still do in some respects, but I no longer count him out as a bona fide candidate in a strong field of Republican candidates.  In fact, according to the latest EPIC-MRA poll conducted between 2/22-2/25, Pete's currently running first in the field of five.  What has changed my mind about giving him a second look, is his continued presence and strong performance in the polls, along with the recent endorsement by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.  I am also proud of the fact that he follows this blog, but please don't hold that against him.    

Pete Hoekstra brings a solid background in business, as well as his many years in Congress to the table.  As the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pete helped restore our nation's intelligence network after 9/11 and remains an unapologetic and vigilant advocate against Islamic jihadists.  He has long defended states' rights and hopes to restore Michigan as an economic powerhouse.  If you were like me, and had previously overlooked Mr. Hoekstra, I urge you to take another look.  You can find out more about Pete Hoekstra by visiting his website at hoekstraforgovernor.com.

Gender Bender

I came across a story in the March 1st issue of Forbes magazine, written by Christina Hoff Sommers, about the National Science Foundation spending $135 million over the past several years on a "gender bias program" called Advance, that aims to improve the numbers and fortunes of women in the sciences.  Turns out that like the hoax of global warming, as perpetuated by environmental activists armed with shoddy and incomplete research, Advance may be doing more harm than good.  Not only does the program misrepresent the research done in this area of study, it may be doing irreparable harm  in the fields of engineering, physics and computer technologies.

The Advance program was funded after another $3.9 million NSF grant was provided to psychologist Virginia Valian, who started the Gender Equity Project.  The Gender Equity Project, housed within Hunter College, part of the City University of New York or CUNY, was designed to transform our nations' laboratories.  Ms. Valian and her colleagues believed that women were at a disadvantage because they did not always share with men, "the single-minded dedication and intense desire for achievement" that epitomized most practices in the laboratory.  She noted that "If we continue to emphasize and reward always being on the job, we will never find out whether leading a balanced life leads to equally good or better scientific work."  How's that for a rationalization.  Who's more at fault here, her for even thinking up such bunk, or the morons who wrote her the check?

Further research in this area, shows that bias against women in the sciences is extremely weak.  Studies point to data that indicate men and women simply have different tastes when it comes to areas of study.  For instance, women may be underrepresented in the fields of engineering, but thrive in the areas of sociology and biology.  As the author of the story points out, "Is this because engineering departments discriminate against women while biology departments do not, or is it because more women choose not to spend their lives with inanimate objects?'  There's a joke about husbands there somewhere, but I digress.  Another study, paid for by the NSF itself, found that "at many critical transition points in their academic careers (e.g., hiring for tenure-track and tenured positions and promotions), women appear to have fared as well or better than men."

For my money, this kind of ridiculousness in academia should not be rewarded and certainly not paid for by the American taxpayer.  That's what university endowments and private foundations are for.   Furthermore, this kind of wasteful spending is a glaring sign that Washington has more of our money than is necessary to operate essential government programs and way too much time on their hands.

Porky Pigs

Do you ever get the impression that Congress finds things to do just so they can quickly get to other things that might be more important to them?  Like spending money on projects and initiatives that will engender loyalty, or even immortalize themselves in their home districts.  Well duh, you say.  No, I'm not that naive.  In other words, working to pass legislation that may improve our lives, or rather what Congress perceives may improve our lives, is really just a trojan horse to pass what they really want.  Which is more pork for their own constituents and their own aggrandizement.  Take this latest attempt at a jobs bill.  Two weeks ago a much larger jobs bill, $85 billion to be exact, was pulled by Sen. Harry Reid for apparently being too big.  He felt that it contained too much pork and would create too few jobs, and that the Republicans would use that against him and his fellow Democrats in the fall.  Funny thing though, the Republicans were all for it.  Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), among others, are now livid that the pork they supported in the larger bill has been removed.  Hence, they no longer favor trying to generate jobs for out of work Americans.

That's an overstatement to be sure.  I'm not sure any jobs bill, or any bill for that matter, that is written and supported by this Congress and this president, is of any real value to Americans at all.  It just strikes me that a bunch of Republicans find themselves opposed to a tax holiday on payroll taxes for new hires over the loss of some pork for their own districts.  Maybe not forever, but just long enough to show Harry Reid how mad they are for not informing them of his new plan, which apparently turns "too big to fail" on its ear.  What the Democrats may have stumbled upon, at least Mr. Reid thinks so, could be termed "too small to ignore."  That is to say, that Mr. Reid is gambling that Americans aren't necessarily opposed to major change, they just don't like really big and expensive bills to try and accomplish said change.  So rather than try and pass behemoths like the $862 billion stimulus and the $1 trillion Obamacare, the new strategy will be to break these monsters down into smaller, more manageable portions.  Take the new $15 billion jobs bill.  Smaller numbers will attract less attention and therefore better digested at the state and local level.  Easier on the eyes and even more opportunity to spread the pork around.  The end result may still be hundreds of billions spent with little result, but you get the idea.

Physics Lesson

There was a game we played as children called crack-the-whip.  Kids would line up, shoulder to shoulder, hold hands and run around the playground making sweeping turns.  Invariably, the inertia caused by the connection with rotation from the center outward, or centrifugal force, caused the kids on the end to be cast off.  Sometimes harmlessly, sometimes not.  Today, that game is being played out on a larger scale in party politics and with equally benign or disastrous results.  It all depends on your perspective.

On the Republican or conservative side of the aisle, the whip as it were, is embodied in the form of the Tea Party.  The Tea Party hopes to strengthen the conservative cause by helping to cast off the more moderate voices of the Republican party in favor of those with more intestinal fortitude for what lay ahead.  The Tea Party recognizes that to do otherwise will inevitably lead to more spending and more intrusiveness and government expansion.  So far its hapless victims, and otherwise decent folk, may include Florida's governor Charlie Crist, Arizona's senator John McCain, Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Utah's senator Bob Bennett.  Many other politicians, both Republicans and Democrats alike, at every level of government, may be flung into the monkey bars as well.

President Clinton's declaration in 1996, that "the era of big government is over", albeit premature, will inevitably prevail.  Otherwise our future will be that of Greece's, Spain and Portugal.  These three countries are just the tip of the European welfare states' iceberg of debt.  Unless and until those in power recognize that the uncontrolled continuance of transfer payments, or the redistribution of wealth from those who produce to those who do not, will ultimately lead to financial collapse, then the attempted purge will undoubtedly roll on.  The all boats mentality, buoyed by an artificial tide, created by the gravitational pull of the welfare states' moon, will soon recede.  But it is important to remember, that unlike the sun, the moon does not generate its own light.  Real light and warmth comes from the sun.  Real strength and energy therefore is generated by oneself, not provided by others.  Temporary assistance may sometimes be required to regain our footing after a fall, but personal responsibility is the engine that propels us into the future.

Night and Day

The contrast couldn't be more stark.  One leads with absolute and necessary determination to cut spending, lower taxes, and reverse the kinds of policies that have put our municipalities, states, and our country in peril.  The other pays only lip service to waste and ineffectiveness, demanding others make the hard choices for him, while continuing to extend and expand a government that even he knows cannot be sustained nor payed for.  One hasn't reached his zenith.  The other peaked too soon.  One is the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.  The other is the Democrat President of the United States, Barack Obama.

If you have not had the chance to hear or read what Governor Christie is doing in New Jersey, you should.  It's breathtaking.  I don't mean that in the way that Barack Obama sends shivers up the leg of Chris Matthews.  I mean that in the sense that no one, not even other Republican lawmakers, have shown the kind of courage and conviction that Governor Christie demonstrated in a speech to a joint session of the New Jersey legislature last week in Trenton (Read Speech,Watch Speech).  When Democrats chide Republicans for being obstructionists, saying we don't have a plan of our own, here it is.  If every Republican lawmaker adopted Christie's candor in taking on special interests and pork, Democrats calling us obstructionists would be flirtatious.  This stuff is seismic.  These are the kinds of bold strokes and measures that can rebuild a party, or launch a career.

In an attempt to fill a $2 billion deficit, Governor Christie is crafting a budget that will cut funds from 375 state programs.  He's cutting their school aid budget by $475 million.  Over 500 school districts will be affected, 100 will get no state funds at all.  Yet despite these cuts, not one dime will be lost in the classroom.  He said that New Jersey cannot afford the $100 million they contribute to state pensions, calling such expenditures unfair to a majority of state residents.  As an example, he cited a 49 year old state employee who retired after contributing   $124,000 toward his own pension, but the state will pay him $3.8 million over the rest of his life.  Or the teacher who paid only $62,000 for her pension, and nothing for full medical, dental, and vision coverage for her family, but who will receive $1.4 million back on her pension and $215,000 in healthcare.  Instead, Governor Christie suggested public entities like the New Jersey Transit Authority, for which the state will cut its subsidy, "revisit its rich union contracts, end the patronage hiring that has typified its past, and consider service reductions or fare increases."

Governor Christie closed his speech with "Make no mistake: our priorities are to reduce and reform New Jersey's habit of excessive government spending, to reduce taxes, to encourage job creation, to shrink our bloated government, and to fund our responsibilities on a pay-as-you-go basis and not leave them for future generations.  In short, to make New Jersey a home for growth instead of a fiscal basket case."  Now isn't that the kind of straight talk grownups want to hear?  Isn't that the kind of real action that is required to speed our recovery at every level of government?  Of course it is.

Gutless Obstructionists

The system is failed.  There's too much money, too many lobbyists.  The senate filibuster must go.  It's too hard to get or maintain sixty votes.  It's the process.  The Republicans are obstructionists.  The Senate Democrats are gutless.  There's no leadership from the White House.  These are the excuses provided over the last two days on MSNBC, to explain why Obama and the Democrats continue to plummet in the polls, from two different left wing progressives; Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, and Howard Dean, former governor of New Hampshire, former presidential candidate, former head of the Democrat Party, and current resident of planet P*j3R^xoI+ia (phonetically pronounced as bat-shit-crazy).  Excuse upon excuse, followed by further excuses, are offered daily to those willing to drink the numbing kool-aid proffered by followers of failed policies.  It's never their ideas or individual practitioners, like Obama, Reid, or Pelosi that may be at fault.  No way, uh uhh.  It's always an outside force, some form of gremlin, that ruins all things progressive.

Once again, perhaps a little louder this time....IT'S THE SPENDING, STUPID!  And for good measure....STOP THE LIES!  Even Sen. Evan Bayh missed that point in trying to blame a jobs bill that failed earlier in the month as one of his reasons for leaving his senate seat prematurely.  The supposedly bipartisan bill was loaded with pork, spent too much and created too little jobs.  It damn well have better been pulled!  Sen. Bayh also pointed to a bill, co-sponsored by a handful of Republicans who eventually voted against it, that would have created a deficit reduction commission to help the president cut spending.  Why does the president need a commission to cut spending?  He doesn't.  What he and the Democrats desperately need and want however, is for Republicans to share ownership of his growing deficits.  Full disclosure: Congressional Republicans should take responsibility for TARP funds and other deficit spending run up under George Bush.  If they don't, they'll never hear the end of "Deficits?  Where were you when George Bush was in charge?"  My guess is they probably will by held responsible, in effect, by losing a number of primary races this year.

What the American people want is an end to mindless spending.  We are promised by every presidential candidate every four years, that if elected, they will find waste and eliminate it.  They promise to cull through every government program and if any one is found to be unsuccessful, useless or duplicative, it will be done away with.  NEWS FLASH:  WHEN WASTE, INEFFICIENCY, AND DUPLICATION ARE FOUND, THAT HOLE IN THE BUDGET MUST NOT BE REPLACED BY MORE WASTE, INEFFICIENCY, AND DUPLICATION.  This simple message should quickly become the lexicon of every elected official in every committee room of every federal, state, county and city hall throughout this country, and very soon.