MY BRAIN IS STILL REELING FROM OUR GOVERNMENT'S ACTIONS ON THE HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER
(See Thomas Sowell's reaction posted at the end of this edition)
Let's take a week to "cool off" and let this all soak in. But DO NOT LOSE THE ZEAL TO REPLACE CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS THIS COMING NOVEMBER!
The theme for Nov. elections (suggested by a friend) can be ENOUGH!
REDISTRICTING WILL BE IMPACTED BY 2010 STATE ELECTIONS AND THE CENSUS OUTCOME
In case you don't realize this, 2010 state elections will have a big impact on the REDISTRICTING coming in 2011 following the census. How districts are set can dramatically impact who gets elected. Here's a proposal that is too logical to ever be used: "Districts must be formed by four straight lines and four 90 degree corners. The resulting rectangle can be any shape, but it must be a rectangle." That will eliminate a lot of the "gerrymandering" of districts into serpentine shapes to include ...or exclude... certain blocs of voters.
Meanwhile, let's deal with another place where "state actions" can make a difference. Get your state lawmakers to work on this one!
DID YOU KNOW? THESE ARE STAGGERING PIECES OF INFORMATION (from WSJ 3/26/2010)
From Bureau of Labor Statistics info:
From 1998 to 2008 Public employees comp grew 28.6% while private sector comp grew only 19.3%. If government employees were compensated at the same level as the private sector employees, states and localities would save $339 BILLION per year! That savings is larger than the combined deficits of for 2010 AND 2011 of every state in America. Of the 40 states that have a budget deficit, if public employees pay was cut back to the level of private employees, 28 of them would have a balanced budget. In Ohio alone, some "retired teachers" are working in new public jobs accruing a second public pension. Some can earn nearly $200,000/year in pension and salaries.
SO, IF YOUR STATE IS IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE, YOUR LEGISLATURE HAS TO PASS ONLY ONE NEW LAW:
REQUIRE ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PAY AND BENEFITS NOT EXCEED THE PRIVATE SECTOR LEVELS ON AN OVERALL BASIS.
Individual exceptions can be made but the overall total for the state must not exceed benchmarked private levels. Of course the Public Employee Unions will have a fit--but they will if there isn't enough money to pay them too. A recent study estimated that State Pension Plans are underfunded by $3.2 trillion or $27,000 for every American household. If they want to pass another law then pass a RIGHT TO WORK LAW which allows people to NOT join Unions.
OHIO SUPREME COURT GETS IT RIGHT--OVERTURNS POLICY TO AWARD WORK TO NON-COMPETITIVE UNION CONTRACTORS
from the Columbus, OH, Dispatch Editorial: Wrongheaded Policy [my emphasis added]
"Commissioners' insistence on steering work to unions costs time, money" Saturday, March 27, 2010 2:51 AM
"The Ohio Supreme Court reached a conclusion on Thursday that has been obvious since Day One: The Franklin County commissioners were wrong to throw out, with shaky reasoning, the low bidders on various major construction projects under their supervision. The high court didn't say this, but the contract-bidding policy that commissioners obstinately have followed since 2006, championed first by then-Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, was a means to steer contracts to union shops, with scant regard for cost, quality and fairness." ...
..."The commissioners were embarrassed by their application of the policy in 2008: They hired a union plumbing company, Pennsylvania-based W.G. Tomko, to work on Huntington Park, over Ohio-based TP Mechanical, which bid $215,000 lower. TP had four prevailing-wage findings in 2005, because it made payroll errors amounting to $4,000 on a job for which the total payroll was $5.3 million. What knocked the company out of the running was a clerical error for $160 that the company settled with the worker.
"Later, the company chosen by the commissioners, Tomko, was found to have major safety violations in its past, which led to a worker's death, and to have denied pension payments to an employee who was serving in Iraq. Its owner served time in prison for tax evasion and was accused of stealing from a school district. If that wasn't enough, the company made a mistake in its ballpark work that risked undermining part of the structure and caused nearly $200,000 in damages."...
[Ed. note: Mary Jo Kilroy was elected to the US House from OH in 2008 in a narrow recount victory over Steve Stivers--a much stronger candidate. Kilroy was known among many in Columbus as the worst commissioner in the last decade, but out-of-state "special interests" money funded her victory. Stivers is running against her again in 2010 and I am supporting him and hope he wins this time.]
ANOTHER DARK HORSE POSSIBLE FOR 2012
John Thune, Senator, South Dakota. I know little about him but it's another new face on the radar screen. First he has to win reelection to the Senate to prove his appeal beyond any doubt.
MARKETERS EMPLOY TO UNDERSTAND WHY SHOPPERS BEHAVE AS THEY DO
Biometrics, emotional quotients, neuro-marketing--it's a brave new world we are living in. Marketers have known for years that the emotional response of consumer to colors, shapes, words and brand icons are very important in shopping decisions. Quantifying this knowledge is much harder. Consumers must be "instrumented" to monitor biological changes to different stimuli. Thus far, it's not a precise science, just as polygraph tests are not infallible either. But when a consumers measured biological indicators all move in a "favorable direction" at once, that indefinable appeal is one step closer to being defined. Someone once said, "I can't define beauty but I know it when I see it." Another person said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Both are right. Marketers will pull their hair out before they get all these consumers to line up like magnetic poles--but they won't quit trying. The stakes are just too high.
RETIREMENT--IS IT A BAD IDEA? YES, SAY MANY.
This is a teaser. I just finished reading most of a new book manuscript, not yet on the market, in which the author takes the position that we "need to work." He just defines "work" as a multi-faceted, tiered activity. His premise is that most people would be happier--and live longer--if they worked 'til they dropped. More as the book comes into being. It will be a good one.
TERM LIMITS--AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME
While working for life may be a good idea, the "career politician" who is still holding down a House or Senate seat after 30 years, as he or she approaches age 80 is a very bad thing for America. First of all, they inevitably become power brokers and power hungry. Second, they lose all touch with real people and real life. Third, no matter how good their health, their vitality is less than it was a decade or two ago. Finally, they dominate the powerful committee chairs in Congress to the detriment of everyone except themselves and their crony buddies. It is time for the Federal government to do what it did to the Presidency: establish term limits for Senators and Congressional Representatives. How long? 3 terms: 18 years if plenty for a Senator, and 6-8 terms: 12-16 years for a member of the house. Add a minimum of four years "gap" before they can either "lobby"--or run for another congressional office. That's a good start.
MANDATORY RETIREMENT AGE IN COMPANIES--AND IN SOCIAL SECURITY
It used to be 65, but in today's world, that's probably too young. Age 70 might be better--for some, that's too old, and for some, that's too young, but there is always "early retirement" starting at age 64. Full Social Security should start at age 70--and that should be applied to everyone age 50 or younger starting right now. Those between 50 and 67 (the current retirement age for younger people) should get their retirement age stepped up by 6 months every year until everyone is at age 70 retirement. Medicare presents a different problem. It is currently massively underfunded. Even IF the waste were driven down (it will never be driven out--it's a big government program--get real) that won't solve the problem. Raising the qualifying age will set off a firestorm of protest. (Lowering it is worse.) The only answer seems to be "stepping into it" actuarially. Join Medicare younger, and pay higher premium adders (your choice). Make more money and pay higher premium adders (because you can afford to pay them!) Remove the earnings ceiling entirely and pay 2.9 and then 3.8% on everything earned, and that will start to close the deficit gap. Unpleasant? Absolutely. Unavoidable? Definitely. Who has the guts to deal with these issues?
CAN SMALL THORIUM REACTORS REPLACE CONVENTIONAL NUCLEAR PLANTS FOR POWER GENERATION?
If you are a science and energy "junkie," open the attached file and read a while.
I HAVE READ THAT THERE IS PLENTY OF OIL UNDER THE USA IF WE WILL JUST DRILL, EXPLORE, ETC.
But everyone has the NIMBY objection (No In My Back Yard). Time to push for a higher degree of energy independence before oil goes no its next roller coaster ride past $100/bbl. A lot of it is up north in Alaska. Let's designate Sarah Palin to go work that out. Then I won't have to see her on TV all the time. She's getting old--already.
WATER AND ENERGY WILL BE THE ULTIMATE STRATEGIC RESOURCES AND WEAPONS
With enough energy you can do desalination but it take a LOT of energy. We need to work on both of those resources, while shoring up our borders and our crumbling infrastructure. Instead of sending $400 million to Ohio to waste on a 3C (Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati) train that is NOT FAST (avg. 39 mph) that solves nothing and will cost us $20 million a year in subsidies to keep operating--how about spending that money on something sensible--or NOT spending it at all (we don't have it!) The subsidy per "projected ridership" (which few people believe) will be equal to the fare the riders are paying--but Ohio taxpayers will subsidize the train that takes longer to get from Cleveland to Cinci than a car (or a bus?) on I-71. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
WE NEED A SECURE NATIONAL ID CARD
Immigrants, air travelers, drivers, voters, everyone needs a secure, reliable ID. Privacy zealots resist the idea, but there is no better substitute. There are many technological ways to do it, and none are absolutely foolproof, but our current system is NO system at all. This ID needs to be the centerpiece of both immigration and homeland security efforts. Driver's license agencies already exist that can implement the new ID system with only "modest" new equipment installations. The challenge is to require the right ID to get one. Maybe a better place to do it is at the Post Office. It needs new revenue producing work. Getting a secure ID should be a process like getting a passport.
IF WE CAN'T AFFORD NASA TO GO INTO SPACE, THEN LICENSE PRIVATE INDUSTRY
But one big question: who will insure it? Maybe nobody. Maybe that's OK. Ride at your own risk. It's already starting. Time to put some safety regs in place and license operators, pilots, etc. There is likely big money--and big risk--in it. Someone will do it--either here or in China.
OK, THAT'S ENOUGH. HERE'S A THOUGHT, AND TWO CLOSING PIECES ON THE RECENT POLITICAL CHICANERY THAT PASSES FOR LEGISLATIVE PROCESSES
A NEW ERA OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION WILL REQUIRE A WHOLE NEW SET OF STRATEGIES FOR AMERICANS
How to manage our lives, our finances, our investment and our personal affairs will test American ingenuity to the maximum.
BEST, JOHN
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This was copied from comments on an article written in the Washington Examiner and is too good not to share.
"The House is passing a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he does not understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a President who hasn't read it either and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke."
Health-care bill is beginning of the end
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 2:48 AM
By Thomas Sowell
With the passage of legislation allowing the federal government to take control of our medical-care system, a turning point has been reached in the dismantling of the values and institutions of America.
Even the massive transfer of crucial decisions from millions of doctors and patients to Washington bureaucrats and panels does not measure the impact of this largely unread and certainly unscrutinized legislation.
If the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an executive order of the president to do that.
With politicians now having not only access to our most confidential records and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, how many people will be bold enough to criticize our public servants, who will in fact have become our public masters?
Despite whatever "firewalls" or "lockboxes" there may be to shield our medical records from prying political eyes, nothing is as inevitable as leaks in Washington. Does anyone still remember the hundreds of confidential FBI files that were "accidentally" delivered to the White House during Bill Clinton's administration?
Even before that, J. Edgar Hoover's extensive confidential FBI files on numerous Washington power holders made him someone who could not be fired by any president of the United States, much less by any attorney general, who was nominally his boss.
The corrupt manner in which this massive legislation was rammed through Congress, without any of the committee hearings or extended debates that most landmark legislation has had, has provided a roadmap for pushing through more such sweeping legislation in utter defiance of what the public wants.
Too many critics of the Obama administration have assumed that its arrogant disregard of the voting public will spell political suicide for congressional Democrats and for the president himself. But that is far from certain.
True, President Barack Obama's approval numbers in the polls have fallen below 50 percent, and those of Congress are down around 10 percent. But nobody votes for Congress as a whole, and the president will not be on the ballot until 2012.
They say that, in politics, overnight is a lifetime. Just last month, it was said that the election of Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts doomed the health-care bill. Now some of the same people are saying that passing the health-care bill will doom the administration and the Democrats' control of Congress. As an old song said, "It ain't necessarily so."
The voters will have had no experience with the actual, concrete effect of the government takeover of medical care at the time of either the 2010 congressional elections or the 2012 presidential elections. All they will have will be conflicting rhetoric - and you can depend on the mainstream media to go along with the rhetoric of those who passed this medical-care bill.
The ruthless and corrupt way this bill was forced through Congress on a party-line vote, and in defiance of public opinion, provides a road map for how other "historic" changes can be imposed by Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
What will it matter if Obama's approval rating is below 50 percent among the voting public, if he can ram through new legislation to create millions of new voters by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants? That can be enough to make him a two-term president, who can appoint enough Supreme Court justices to rubber-stamp further extensions of his power.
When all these new citizens are rounded up on Election Day, that may be enough to salvage the Democrats' control of Congress, as well.
The last opportunity that current American citizens may have to determine who will control Congress may well be the election in November of this year. Off-year elections don't usually bring out as many voters as presidential election years. But the 2010 election may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America. It can be the point of no return.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford, Calif.
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
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John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, Phone 614-840-0959 http://www.mariotti.net http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/
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