Posts Tagged ‘Democrat’

There was a strong push in the last Arizona election cycle to disenfranchise political parties by turning the Arizona Primary election into a “round one general election” in which there would be a single ballot with all candidates listed on it without regard to party affiliation, but only the top two vote-getters from the Primary would be on the General Election ballot.  Some very good political thinkers were involved at least in conceptualizing this ballot proposition.  The proposition failed by a two to one margin

The main thing the proposition was designed to do was to give independents (voters not affiliated with any party) a greater say in the primary.  There are certain good things about today’s party system; it allows people with common political views to identify their positions on issues (platform) and to select candidates who will run for office in the general election.  The founding fathers were not fond of political parties; but parties in their times were specific special interest factions such as merchants, or lawyers, or veterans, or bankers, or planters.  The political parties spoken of by Washington and his contemporaries were what we would now call lobbyists or political action committees (PACs).

Today’s parties are made up of voters with diverse professions, economic stations, races, educational levels, and lifestyle, and serve primarily as a vetting process for candidate selection. party) more say in Primary elections.  To me that alone doesn’t make any sense because primary elections are elections in which political parties nominate their candidates.  Independents are independents because they don’t support party politics.  Arizona already does something that I think is very bad in that they allow independents to vote in one primary of any party they wish. To me nobody except party members should have a say in who the party nominates..  I’m glad it did because I think it was a very bad idea.

Even minor parties have played a significant role in shaping our politics.  By presenting their views to the public they have caused the two major parties to adjust to attract those voters.  Two examples are the Socialist Party who originated the idea of vast social programs and redistribution of wealth, and the Libertarian Party who has pushed for a more stringent compliance with the constitution and lest government involvement in the lives of citizens.  Both of these minor parties have never reached the number of supporters needed to enact their policies, but the Democrats have adapted many of the aims of the Socialist Party, and the Republicans have adjusted to the right in response to the ideas of the Libertarian Party.

One problem with a top two primary is that it does not give the voter more choices but limits them to only two in the general election.  A second problem is that in a district in which one party dominates, no other party has a chance to make it on the ballot, both general candidates could be from the same party.  It would virtually illuminate all minor party candidates from ever getting on a general ballot.

Many independents say there is no difference between the two parties; however, even the most cursory review of their stand on issues reveals that as false. The main causes of independent discontent with the two major parties can be categorized as: 1) They are all professional politicians who are mostly concerned with feathering their own nest and being reelected, and 2) They can’t work together to get anything done.

I think Item one is partly true; I do believe that many people in congress have a genuine desire to do what’s right, but their view may differ from that of many of their voters.  They have elevated themselves to a special class that is paid much more than the average voter, has amazing perks and benefits, and gives them special exceptions to things the rest of us live with every day.  When congress was first given an annual salary in 1855 it was $3000; comparing the consumer price index of 1855 to 2012, that equates to under $12,000 per year in today’s dollar.  Then, being in Congress was a part time job, they spent a couple of months a year mostly approving a budget.

This brings us to item two.  As the founders intended, the federal government dealt with relatively few departments and programs, they didn’t enact many new laws every year, they took care of business and got back their farm, store, law officer, parsonage, etc.  For the last 80 years congress has gotten along too well, they have passed way to many laws, creating way too much government, and spending way too much public revenue.  Any congress that refuses to raise expenditures or increase taxes is a good congress.  Democrats want to keep using the public revenue to buy votes, and Republics want to reverse that process.  In a nutshell that is the difference between the two parties.  I will vote for the senator or representative who refuses to go along with government programs, trillion dollar deficits, and forever increasing taxes.  A “do-nothing” congress is better than a “do-something” congress unless the something being done is cutting spending, cutting government, and cutting taxes.

So since the main accusation is that Democrats and Republicans are the same, you better look again.  And if you want to save the country you better hope the “do-nothings” outnumber the “do-everythings”.

POSTED BY BECKET ADAMS

Detroit officials have until Thursday (what’s with Thursday deadlines?) to rescue their ailing city from financial insolvency or a state takeover.

“A deal backed by Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, would grant the city the power to void contracts and slash costs but not provide state funding or loans to bail the city out of its financial problems,” CNN Money reports.

But fierce “opposition from unions — in a city that remains a bastion of labor power — has so far stymied efforts to pass a rescue package,” the report adds.

If the city council doesn’t get its act together and come to an agreement on the deal by Thursday, Gov. Snyder has announced that he will (legally) appoint an “emergency manager” to take over the day-to-day operations normally performed by the mayor and city council.

“The city council is under pressure from the public and city unions to reject the deal with the state [emphasis added],” Money reports, “At the same time, it would lose its powers if Snyder goes ahead and names an emergency manager.”

And with all these massive fiscal problems, the only action the council has taken this week was to double the city’s corporate income tax to 2 percent.

“Years of decline in population and businesses and a shrinking of the tax base have pushed Detroit into a deep financial hole despite a recent resurgence in the U.S. auto industry,” CNN Money reports.

“Without more cost cutting, the city will won’t be able to pay its bills come June. An estimate in January, the most recently available, was that the city would be down to $20.9 million in the bank by the end of this week,” the report adds.

So let’s say the unions have their way, the city council can’t come to an agreement on the Bing & Snyder deal, and the governor appoints an “emergency manager.” What powers would he/she have to save Detroit? If it comes to that, an “emergency manager” would have the authority “to void contracts with both unions and vendors” and sell off city assets.

Void contracts with unions? Whoa. If the unions don’t like the rescue package, they’re going to hate a Republican-appointed “emergency manager.”

“As the debates, negotiations and lawsuits raged this week, they did so without Bing, who was recently released from the hospital after serious intestinal surgery and won’t return to work for two weeks,” CNN Money reports.

“Both Bing and Snyder say they want to avoid a state takeover, which in itself could be the first step toward the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history.”

by Roger Hedgecock, former Mayor of San Diegoby Roger Hedgecock, former Mayor of San Diego

I live in California.

If you were wondering what living in Obama’s second term might be like, wonder no longer. We in California are living there now.

California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democrat Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%.

California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it “Medi-Cal.” Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, with smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago.

Good job, Brownie.

This week, the once and current Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown had to confess that the “balanced” state budget adopted five months ago was billions in the red because actual tax revenues were billions lower than the airy-fairy revenue estimates on which the balance was predicated.

After trimming legislators’ perks and reducing the number of cell phones provided to state civil servants, the governor intoned that drastic budget reductions had already hollowed out state programs for the needy, law enforcement and our schoolchildren.

California government needed more money.

Echoing the Occupy movement, the governor proclaimed the rich must pay their fair share. Fair share? The top 1% of California income earners currently pay 50% of the state’s income tax.

California has seven income tax brackets. The top income tax rate is 9.3%, which is slapped on the greedy rich earning over $47,056 a year.

Income of more than $1 million pays the “millionaires’ and billionaires’” surcharge tax rate of 10.3%. Brown’s proposal would add 2% for income over $250,000.

A million-dollar income would then be taxed at 12.3%. And that’s just for the state. Brown also proposed a one-half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring sales taxes (which vary by county) up to 7.75% to as much as 10%. Both tax increases will be on the 2012 ballot.

The sales tax increase proposal immediately brought howls of protest from the Left. Charlie Eaton, a sociology grad student at UC Berkeley and leader of the UC Student-Workers Union, said, “We’ve paid enough. It’s time for millionaires to pay.”

At least five other ballot measures to raise taxes are circulating for signatures to get on the 2012 ballot in California. The governor’s proposals are the most conservative.

The Obama way doesn’t end with taxes.

The governor and the state legislature continue to applaud the efforts of the California High Speed Rail Authority to build a train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Even though the budget is three times the voter-approved amount, and the first segment will only connect two small towns in the agricultural Central Valley. But hey, if we build it, they will ride.

And we don’t want to turn down the Obama bullet-train bucks Florida and other states rejected because the operating costs would bankrupt them. Can’t happen here because we’re already insolvent. If we get into real trouble with the train, we’ll just bring in the Chinese.

It worked with the Bay Bridge reconstruction. After the 1989 earthquake, the bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco was rebuilt with steel made in China. And, workers from China too. Paid for with money borrowed from China . Makes perfect sense.

In California, we hate the evil, greedy rich (except the rich in Hollywood, in sports, and in drug dealing). But we love people who have broken into California to eat the bounty created by the productive rich. Illegals get benefits from various generous welfare programs, free medical care, free schools for their kids, including meals, and of course, instate tuition rates and scholarships too. Nothing’s too good for our guests.

To erase even a hint of criticism of illegal immigration, the California Legislature is considering a unilateral state amnesty.

Democrat State Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has proposed an initiative that would bar deportation of illegals from California .

Interesting dilemma for Obama there. If immigration is exclusively a federal matter, and Obama has sued four states for trying to enforce federal immigration laws he won’t enforce, what will the President do to a California law that exempts California from federal immigration law?

California is also near fulfilling the environmentalist dream of de-industrialization.

After driving out the old industrial base (auto and airplane assembly, for example, air and water regulators and tax policies are now driving out the high-tech, biotech and even Internet-based companies that were supposed to be California ‘s future.

The California cap-and-trade tax on business in the name of reducing CO2 makes our state the leader in wacky environmentalism and guarantees a further job exodus from the state.

Even green energy companies can’t do business in California.

Solyndra went under taking its taxpayer loan guarantee with it. No job is too small to escape the regulators. The state has even banned weekend amateur gold miners from the historic gold mining streams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In fact, more and more of California ‘s public land is off-limits to recreation by the people who paid for that land.

Unless you’re illegal.

Then you can clear the land, set up marijuana plantations at will, bring in fertilizers that legal farmers can no longer use, exploit illegal farm workers who live in hovels with no running water or sanitation, and protect your investment with armed illegals carrying guns no California citizen is allowed to own.

The rest of us only found out about these plantations when the workers’ open campfire started one of those devastating fires that have killed hundreds of people and burned out thousands of homes in California over the last decade.

It’s often said that whatever happens in California will soon happen in your state. You’d better hope that’s wrong.

Roger Hedgecock’s nationally syndicated radio show originates from KOGO 600 AM, San Diego daily.

A jury on Monday convicted a senior Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on all but one of six charges in the latest corruption trial stemming from a five-year investigation into the use of taxpayers’ resources for political purposes.

Rep. Bill DeWeese was convicted of felony counts of conspiracy, conflict of interest and three counts of theft, while the Dauphin County jury acquitted him of one other theft count.

The verdict, reached early on the third day of deliberations, struck a grave blow to the 35-year career of the former floor leader who also once served as House speaker. A woman seated with DeWeese’s family cried out when the first guilty verdict was announced.

DeWeese’s lawyer vowed to appeal. DeWeese said he intended to keep his House seat — despite a constitutional provision interpreted to bar any felon from serving in public office — and continue his re-election campaign in his southwestern Pennsylvania district.

“I certainly feel that I did nothing wrong,” the 61-year-old DeWeese told reporters.

“I believe that, in the court of public opinion, I shall be favorably received to some substantial degree. That’s up to the voters, but I certainly will continue to run,” the Greene County lawmaker said.