Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Facts and fancies

Let's look at the record.
The Soviet Union collapsed, after 75 years of socialism -- and praise by American liberals for the enlightened views of its leaders.
Cuba and North Korea are basket cases.
Sweden is scaling back, Ireland is cutting spending by 20 percent, Britain is slashing spending.
China is alive only because of capitalism.
In short, everywhere and anywhere socialism/communism/facism,/liberalism/progressivism or whatever other ism that doesn't begin with "capital" has been tried it has failed.
What works? Freedom. Allowing people to take risks and either succeed or fail.
The American people know that, which is why we got real hope and real change Nov. 2.
Young Americans aren't going to learn how the world works by attending public schools or reading the liberal media. They have to learn it from us, or the hard way.
Nearly 400 years ago the first Americans tried collectivism and it failed them, resulting in the deaths of nearly half the settlers in New England.
In spite of their misery, the pilgrims joined with the Indians and gave thanks for their freedom.
Sadly, some misguided Americans still want to return to the system wisely rejected by the nation's first settlers. No matter how many times it fails, they can't let it go.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Get the facts

If he does nothing else, let's hope the next mayor of Jacksonville asks questions.
Apparently, the current one does not.
Mayor John Peyton, while raising taxes and fees he says are needed to pay employees, has championed spending millions of dollars on the Jacksonville Journey.
This is, like all liberal ventures, well-intentioned. It is supposed to reduce crime, which all would agree is a worthy goal.
But two years into the program, and while spending more than $12 million this year alone, there is little evidence that anything is being accomplished.
One need look no further than the oversight committee's own report.
It hails the hiring of more policemen, without citing any proof that more police results in less crime.
It hails efforts to find jobs for convicted criminals after they are released from prison. It does not cite any statistics on how many were place in jobs or how many returned to crime.
At the same time, it calls for greater efforts to reduce waste, inefficiency and abuse in the costly program. Apparently, the committee knows those deficiencies exist but does not cite any examples.
The most glaring flaw is that it hails a slight drop in crime since the program began without providing vital relevant facts.
They are: is this different from the experience in other cities that are not spending vast sums of money on similar programs? Is it related to demographics, which many studies have found are directly related to the incidence of crime?
The new mayor, as he is struggling to help the city get its finances in order, will need to ask some tough questions and demand answers.
He might start by ordering an independent study. The oversight committee consists of those who invented the Jacksonville Journey and they have an obvious incentive to show that it is working.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Directions

Republican leaders postponed their meeting with President Obama.
Good. They need to regroup and get on message.
First, they are not the people's choice. They were the lesser of two evils -- but they were still evil, as far as voters were concerned, as a result of botching the opportunity they had in 1994.
Tea Party candidates would have clobbered Republicans and Democrats.
Second, moving halfway from where we are to where the liberals want to go is not "bipartisan compromise."
It is caving in halfway.
The American people want to go in another direction. Let the liberals do the bipartisan compromising by moving toward less government, less spending and less taxing.
Ignore the New York Times and the various George Soros outlets and do what the people want, for a change.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Stop marking ears

GOP doesn't stand for Good Old Pork. Or, at least, it shouldn't.
Having won back the House largely by riding on the Tea Party movement, which favors banning earmarks in the federal budget, some Republicans now are trying to wiggle out, saying earmarks don't amount to a lot of money.
Maybe by their standards.
No matter the cost, earmarks -- also called pork barrel projects -- are highly symbolic of wasteful government. Getting rid of them would help erase the public's perception of the Republicans as just diluted Democrats. The Congress of 1994-2006 create that perception by going in as reformers and winding up as big spenders.
That resulted in Congress going to the liberals in 2006 and the White House in 2008.
Fortunately for the country, the Democrats squandered their chance as well.
Banning earmarks does not mean that worthy projects won't get done.
Florida TaxWatch has campaigned against pork-barrel projects -- called "turkeys" in the Sunshine State -- for years.
It points out that turkeys are items inserted in the budget by one or more legislators without being on the state's priority list. In some cases they are not even a state responsibility.
The federal government has legitimate responsibilities, such as building highways and bridges. But they don't all need to be built in West Virginia just because it has a powerful senator.
Ban earmarks and run government like a business. Do what needs to be done not what you need to do to get re-elected.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Good read

Mad as Hell, by pollster Scott Rasmussen is a must-read if you want to understand the political wind that is sweeping over the country.
Although the Lamestream Media tried to ignore it, and then denigrate it, the Tea Party movement is stronger than ever. Thank the Internet and the fair and balanced coverage from Fox News for that.
Rasmussen says the Tea Party is the most important populist movement in this nation's history. It is large, growing, and here to stay, he says.
Moreover, it demographically mirrors the nation and gets higher marks from the public than either of the two major parties. It also has a sizable component of disaffected Democrats.
Rasmussen bases his analysis on polls and extensive interviews. He makes a compelling case. While I didn't agree with some of his opinions, his facts speak for themselves.