Earmarks survive Senate vote

I think everyone can agree on the following basic facts:

  1. The American voters dislike earmarks.
  2. Earmarks lend themselves towards corruption.
  3. Earmarks favor politicians on the appropriations committee and are used to help incumbents retain their seats.

I 100% want to see a permanent ban on all earmarks.  The House Republicans support a ban on earmarks.  President Obama tried to curtail earmarks in January of 2009 and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate laughed at the President and kept doing business as usual.  Now that House Republicans have reiterated their new found stand against earmarks; President Obama has joined them and called for a ban on earmarks.

The only problem is the US Senate.  Harry Reid, the Democrat in charge of the Senate supports earmarks as do a majority of the Democratic Senators.  Unfortunately a few moderate Republican Senators, mostly those who have been in office for far too long have joined with Harry Reid.

Today the Senate was unable to pass even a three year moratorium on earmarks.  The vote was 56 nays, 5 no votes, and 39 ayes.

Of the Republicans 32 voted yes, 8 voted no, and 2 abstained.  Of the Democrats (and those independents who caucus with them) 7 voted yes, 48 voted yes, and 3 abstained.

The Senate has long been dysfunctional and it is in desperate need of reform for many reasons.  I think the main problem is the Senators tend to be long tenured and completely out of touch with their constituents. 

Outgoing Democratic Senator Evan Bayh voted the right way; he voted with a minority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans.  Our supposedly Republican Senator, Dick Lugar, voted with Harry Reid and the Democrats, AGAIN.

I have not been able to vote for Lugar for some time.  Hopefully a good small Government type will run against him and defeat him in the primary in 2012.

Mike Sylvester

Big tax increase coming January 1st, 2011 to Indiana Employers

It has been awhile since I have posted about unemployment insurance in the state of Indiana.  Many of my past posts on this topic have drawn a huge number of comments.  I plan on doing several posts on the topic in the next month or two.  Consider the following facts:

  1. In 2000 Indiana had a surplus of 1.6 billion dollars in the Unemployment Fund.
  2. Today the Indiana Unemployment Fund owes the Federal Unemployment Fund almost 1.7 billion dollars.

So in a ten year period the Indiana Unemployment Fund has paid out 3.3 BILLION dollars more than it has taken in.  Every year since 2001 the fund has paid out more in benefits than it has taken in.

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War on Terror

I remember a few years ago when our President’s name was George Bush and he had a Republican majority in the House and Senate.  After 9/11/01 President Bush pushed through many items that I opposed at the time and that I still oppose today including:

  1. The USA Patriot Act.  This act erodes our civil liberties and is more of a crime fighting bill then a bill to “fight terrorism.”  
  2. The new and expensive Department of Homeland Security that is more interested in “strip searching” Americans getting on flights then closing our southern border.
  3. The invasion of Iraq.
  4. The invasion of Afghanistan.

The Democratic Party initially went 100% along with the four items listed above.   After all America had been attacked and they wanted to appear patriotic…  At the time the Democrats gave President Bush each and every legislative item he wanted.

A couple of years passed and the Democrats decided to oppose the above items and used that opposition in their 2004 and 2006 campaigns.  I especially remember some of John Kerry’s rhetoric when he was running for President.  I remember listening to their rhetoric and suddenly they opposed the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan (They opposed Iraq a lot more than Afghanistan) and I remember them decrying the loss of civil liberties due to the Patriot Act.  They constantly talked about bringing home most of our troops from the Middle East.  The peace activists in the Democratic Party staged large marches and this was a major campaign issue.

Then a funny thing happened.  The Democrats took both the House and the Senate in 2006.  They had the power to make changes to all of the above programs.  Alas, they did not have the Presidency so they told their constituents that they really could not do anything because President Bush could just veto anything they passed.

Then in 2008 we elected a Democratic President who campaigned on a wide variety of issues including getting our troops out of the Middle East in a controlled fashion and doing a thorough review of the USA Patriot Act.  For the last two years the Democrats have held the Presidency and had strong majorities in both the House and Senate.

Consider the following:

  1. We have as many troops in the Middle East as we did under the “dreaded and evil” President Bush.
  2. We are spending more money on our military then we spent under the  ”dreaded and evil” President Bush.
  3. We have escalated the number of unmanned drone attacks on targets within Pakistan.  Note Pakistan is supposedly our ally and we are giving them billions of dollars per year; while at the same time we are bombing remote villages in order to kill a few of “terrorists.”  Under the Democrats we has escalated the supposed “war on terror” within the borders of Pakistan.
  4. The USA Patriot Act is still in full force.  It has been reviewed and continued.  Well over 99% of the arrests, wiretaps, etc. have involved normal crime fighting activities that have NOTHING to do with terrorism.  There are numerous cases where the US government exceeded its authority and the Democrats no longer care.  They must look “strong” or else they are afraid voters will cast their votes for the “dreaded Republicans.”
  5. The Department of Homeland Security has actually been significantly expanded.  The Department of Homeland Security has failed to close our southern border; however, they are doing ”invasive pat-downs” on children, the disabled, nuns, etc.  To date the TSA has not stopped a single terrorist attack; however, they have made flying within the United States a major hassle. 

The peace activists and civil libertarians in the Democratic Party have been hypocritically silent on these issues… 

The Republicans now have control of the House.  Unfortunately they favor all of the above items as well so there is no chance of meaningful change on these items. 

I think the Republicans will easily take the Senate in 2012 and likely the Presidency.  I have a feeling that in the 2014 and 2016 campaigns the Democrats will again decry the Patriot Act and the large number of troops we have in the Middle East… 

What Hypocrites…

Mike Sylvester

Crawford for Council

There are three “at-large” seats on the Fort Wayne City Council.  Dr. Crawford has announced his intent to run for one of those seats in 2011. 

The current City Council has the following at large members:

  1. John Shoaff (D)
  2. Liz Brown (R)
  3. Marty Bender (R)

Dr. Crawford served as a City Council member and was defeated in 2007.  He had a reputation as being a thoughtful and well informed member of City Council.  He had the reputation of a person who favors smaller Government.  He lost for several reasons, including the fact that he supported some things that were in no way things supported by those citizens who favor smaller government.

It will be interesting to see who decides to run for the office.  Dr. Crawford will be a strong contender; however, he damaged himself with some small Government advocates with his support of the smoking ban and the failed Harrison Square Project. 

Mike Sylvester

The upcoming race for Fort Wayne Mayor

The upcoming race for Fort Wayne Mayor is starting to clear up, at least a little bit.  I have no idea who I will support; the field is no where near determined at this point and I do not know enough about the candidates.

I want to start with the Democratic side.  Pretty much everyone assumes that Tom Henry will run for another term; however, I am not so sure of that.  I truly do not think Tom Henry really wanted to be Mayor in the first place; I think he agreed to run and has been “filling the office.”  If our current Mayor decides to run he will easily win any primary and will be the nominee.

On the Republican side it looks like there will be two relatively strong candidates; more could follow.  AWB is reporting that John Crawford will be running for City Council at Large; there is no doubt that at one time he was considering running for Mayor.

The first Republican candidate is Paula Hughes.  I will have to research her much further; however, at first blush she is not a candidate that I can get excited about; the Maplecrest Extension Boondoggle was a horrible decision that our County officials made.  

The second potential Republican candidate is businessman Eric Doden.  I really know little about him; however, what I do know sounds somewhat promising.  It looks like the house has has lived in for the last couple of years is a couple miles outside the City limits.  Apparently he has purchased a Condo inside the City limits.  As long as he and his family live in this Condo a majority of the time and based on what LITTLE I know about the three current three potential candidates listed in this post there is a decent chance that he may be the candidate I end up supporting.

That being said, I truly have no idea who is running so I have no idea who I will support.  We are too early in the process to make any decisions.

Who will you support?

Earmarks and corruption

Earmarks are a hot topic.  They have been discussed in detail over the last few years.  I 100% oppose earmarks and I was very disappointed when President Obama failed to reform earmarks like he promised to on the campaign trail.

That being said, I truly believe President Obama did want to reform the earmark process; I feel he wanted to minimize them and make the process more transparent.  The truth of the matter is Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid refused to reform the earmark process and kept along with business as usual.

Luckily Nancy Pelosi will not be Speaker of the House come January of 2011.  The leadership of the House Republicans are almost assuredly going to ban earmarks for the next two years.  I will look at this vote carefully and I hope a large number of Democrats wake up and vote for this ban.  This two year ban is a step in the right direction; what should really be done is they should be permanently banned.  That way it would take another vote in the House to overturn the ban.

President Obama once again brought up earmark reform in his Saturday radio address.  He came out in favor of major earmark reform.  He is actually siding with the House Republicans which is a good thing.

The problem is going to be the US Senate.  Mitch McConnell is the embarrassing leader of the Republicans in the Senate.  This idiot voted in favor of TARP, stimulus, and bailing out GM.  He is a typical “establishment, big-government Republican” who needs to be “primaried.” 

Up until the new Senators are seated the Republicans have two very conservative Senators who are heroes of mine, DeMint and Coburn.  Both are leading the fight to ban earmarks for two years.  It looks like most if not all of the new Republican Senators will side with DeMint and Coburn…

The Senate Republican caucus is going to have a SECRET vote on whether to ban earmarks for two years this coming Tuesday.  What cowards.  This vote should not be secret so that we can primary any idiot Republicans who support retaining earmarks.

Mike

Winning national elections

It amazes me how many of the Republican and Democratic strategists completely fail to understand how to win (or lose) national elections.  This post is not about winning one race; it is about winning on a national level.

For some insane reason the majority of professional Republican and Democratic strategists are obsessed with catering the the independents/moderates.

In my opinion there are really only three overall factors that determine the results of national elections:

  1. How energized and active you political base is.
  2. How active and energized your opponents political base is.
  3. How well you do convincing the moderates/independents to vote for your candidates.

I think this is best show with recent examples.  The Democrats get demolished in the 1994 mid term elections.  President Bill Clinton ran to the political “middle” and governed from the “middle” for his last six years in office.  By governing from the middle Bill Clinton actually ensured that neither party’s political base was particularly energized or depressed; however, Bill Clinton did everything in his power to appeal to the “middle.”  He actually analyzed public opinion and specifically “triangulated” on the “middle.”  This allowed Bill Clinton to stay in office. 

2008 was entirely different.  In 2008:  The Democratic base was excited; young and minority voters turned out in mass to support President Obama and by default other Democrats.  The Republican base was neutral if not disappointed.  They did not like John McCain and were disappointed in the Republican President and Congress.  The “middle” was relatively split.  Hence the Democrats won…

2010 was a completely different scenario.  The Democratic Base was no longer excited.  I am not sure it is fair to say they were depressed; however, there is no doubt they were not excited.  Young and minority voters did not turn out in 2010 like they did in 2008.  The Republican base was angry and went to vote in huge numbers.  The “middle” was relatively split.  Hence the Republicans won big.  They won big because the Republcian base was energized and actually expanded by the Tea Party.

I doubt that either Party really grasps the concepts in the post.  I feel the key to winning elections is to appeal to your base.  The “middle” will always split between the two Parties. 

Mike

2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending

The Fort Wayne Business Weekly has an excellent article entitled “Allen County nets $191 million in Recovery Act spending.”

The article claims all of the following:

  1. 70% of the American Recovery Act Spending is done
  2. Currently 191.6 million has been spent in Allen County
  3. On a per-person basis Marion County (Indianapolis) got well over seven times as much as Allen County.  In fact Marion County got more than half of the total amount Indiana received.

The article lists the ten largest grants, these grants amout to a little more than 42% (A little over 81 million dollars) of the total grants.  The stated purpose of this act was to CREATE American jobs; lets see who got the money (Note this is just the 10 largest grants which are about 42% of the money):

  1. Fort Wayne Community Schools got almost 41 million dollars through three of the ten largest grants.
  2. Indiana Department of Transportation got almost 10.8 million dollars.
  3. East Allen County Schools got almost 6.95 million dollars.
  4. ITT got 5.3 million dollars.
  5. City of Fort Wayne got 4.6 million dollars.
  6. Southwest Allen County Schools got almost 4.5 million dollars.
  7. Northwest Allen County Schools got almost 4.1 million dollars.
  8. Northeast Work-force investment got almost 3.75 million dollars.

The article talks about some of the positives of the over 181 million tax payers dollars granted to Fort Wayne:

  1. Fort Wayne got funding through the Transportation Department that created many full time construction jobs that pay good salaries for 5-8 months.
  2. A lot of road re-paving was done.
  3. A few trail projects and one bridge rehabilitation project was handled. 
  4. Over 4.5 million was received for the separation of the combined sewers.
  5. More than 50 small businesses received loans with many of the fees waived and a 90% guarantee, meaning the taxpayers are on the hook for 90% of the loan and the bank is only on the hook for 10% of the loan is the business cannot pay the loan back. 
  6. ITT got a contract to work on an infrared sounder; whatever that is.
  7. The schools got a ton of stimulus money, the state of Indiana gave the school districts less money since they knew they were getting stimulus money.
  8. FWCS launched a project using 18.3 million dollars to hire 91 people in a restructured reading intervention program.  Even with the stimulus money FWCS is down a total of 120 janitorial positions and another 21 positions.

This article was excellent and illustrative.  The 2009 American Recovery and Investment Act has largely been a failure and certainly did not do what was promised by the Democrats.  The Act spent a lot of money that the Federal Government had to borrow.  Current and future generations will pay for this wasteful spending for many decades.  It is not fair to say that the Reinvestment Act did nothing; it is fair to say we spent too much money for too little effect. 

  1. Much of the money was spent on public schools.  This gave the schools a one time injection of money which allowed them to continue operating at their current unsustainable levels of spending.  In fact Indiana counted some of the stimulus dollars as having come from the state; so in reality much of this money was basically a “bail-out” for Indiana and other states.
  2. The money spent on public schools did create a few jobs.  What the spending did do is prevent layoffs in the school district.  This is NOT creating jobs; it is preventing needed layoffs.
  3. Some money was spent on transportation and other infrastructure projects like re-paving roads.  This money DOES match the original intent of the Act and this money did create a large number of TEMPORARY construction jobs.  I imagine many of those construction workers are now drawing Indiana Unemployment…

This is another example of the Federal Government failing to understand its proper fuction.  The prupose of the Federal Government is not to create jobs.

Mike Sylvester

The “cat food” commission report and the Pat Miller Show

I often listen to the Pat Miller Show on WOWO. 

Today Pat Miller was talking about the recommendations released by the Debt Reduction Commission co-chairs.  He absolutely hated their recommendations.  He focused on disliking the cuts in military spending and the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction.

I called in and we discussed the matter.  After we were off the air he went on and discussed our conversation after the break.  Then an hour later he brought my comments up again…

Pat Miller and I agree on a fair number of things (Maybe 80%); however, his thoughts on this report are not among them.

Let me tell you some of the things about the recommendations that I dislike:

  1. It caps Federal spending at a level that is far too high.
  2. These recommendations are only a small step in the right direction.  This plan does NOT balance the Federal budget.  We need a plan that balances the Federal Budget.

Let me tell you some of the things that I like:

  1. They want to simplify the tax code; this is essential.
  2. The plan proposes spending cuts that are unpopular with both the right and the left.  We need to cut spending across the board.  Spending cuts that I especially like in this proposal include:  Cutting military spending, cutting all foreign aid, raising the retirement age, and limiting social security payments.

There were two points that I made that Pat Miller disagreed with:

  1. First I said that I fully support removing the mortgage interest deduction.  I have several problems with the mortgage interest deduction:  First off it rewards debt, second off it was a small contributor to the housing bubble, third off I want to see a simpler tax code and one way to do that is to eliminate tax deductions - I am sick and tired of Congress and their social engineering.  It is not the job of Congress to social engineer the American people with eeducation credits, mortgage interest deductions, energy credits, etc.
  2. Secondly after I was off the air he kept bringing up the fact the I want to cut military spending.  I definitely want to cut military spending.  Heck here is a partial list of what I want to cut:  All agricultural subsidies, I want to eliminate the Federal Departments of Education and Energy, I want to eliminate the Federal unemployment system entirely, all foreign aid (including to Israel), I want to cut the number of Federal workers significantly, and I want to cut military spending.  I am sick and tired of both parties having “sacred cows” that they refuse to cut.

I am not sure if Pat Miller served in the US military or not.  I am also not sure how much time he has spent researching military spending.  I spent six years in the United States Navy on active duty.  I have seen the waste of the US military first hand.  There is no doubt in my mind that we can cut military spending by FAR MORE than the 100 billion dollars called for by the Deficit Reduction Commission. 

Here are some ways we could save a lot of money on military spending:

  1. We have far too many flag officers.  We should cut their numbers significantly.
  2. We should close down at least 1/3 of all of our overseas military bases.  I support having military bases; however, we have far more than we need.  I will take it further and say we need to maintain our military bases in countries that support the United States.  By bringing a lot of our troops home we can also impact the US economy in a big way.  They and our Government will spend a lot of money in the US that is currently spent in foreign countries.
  3. We should change the rules in many of the countries we maintain military bases in.  We often sign agreements with other countries that REQUIRE the US military to hire foreign workers rather then US military veterans and the spouses of current soldiers. 
  4. Politicians back projects that the Pentagon does not even want in order to create jobs in their districts.  This must stop.
  5. The military contracting system is inefficient if not corrupt in some cases.
  6. We need to get out troops out of Iraq AND Afghanistan.

I do not have sacred cows, instead I want to cut spending on pretty much everything.

Mike Sylvester

Kevin Knuth defends Democratic Mayor no matter what

Kevin Knuth has a post that is worth your time over at his blog.  I have an earlier post here. 

Kevin is trying to defend the City of Fort Wayne’s absurd decision to waste $72,000 taxpayer dollars on a Chicago consulting firm to assist the City of Fort Wayne with ”Social Media Consulting.”

Kevin, think about it this way:

1.  The City Budget is going to be very challenged over the next few years.  The City needs to focus on critical items and needs to eliminate wasteful consulting contracts.

2.  If there is a legitamate reason to spend money on “Social Media Consulting;” (which I highly doubt) then a local firm should be hired.

This is not a complicated issue.

Mike Sylvester

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