WARNING! POLITICAL RANT

People are disgusted with politics as usual. I’m one of them. Here’s my latest rant. This week Peter Diamond was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics. That’s quite an accomplishment. His work led the other two winner to investigate and explain why employers and employees sometimes have difficulty connecting. Seems to me that’s an important piece of work right now with high levels of unemployment.  

Dr. Diamond has been nominated by the President as a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board. At his hearing he explained: “In all my central research areas, I have thought about and written about the risks in the economy and how markets and government can combine to make the economy function better for individuals.” That sounds like the sort of knowledge we ought to have at high levels in the government. Oh yes, Paul Bernanke, the present head of the Federal Reserve was one of Dr. Diamond’s students.  

The nomination still has not been voted on in the Senate because Senator Shelby put a “hold” on it. Here’s the explanation of a hold that I found.  "hold - An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure."  HOLD

So a hold is a threat to filibuster an action. And with that threat, one Senator can block any nominee. Earlier this year senator Shelby blocked 70 nominations.

I don’t know if Peter Diamond is a good candidate for the Federal Reserve. The Senate Banking Committee approved him by a vote of 16-7 back in July. So why can’t the Senate just vote yes or no on him? Why can one person tie up the work of the government like this? I heard that there are 200 nominees for various offices that are on “hold.”  

I hate this political maneuvering that uses parliamentary tricks to prevent things from getting done. What is so bad about honest, out in the open votes yea or nay? I have the same reaction to these “ear marks” that get slipped into bills without going through proper hearings and waste millions of dollars on dumb stuff.

And I am also tired of the dingbat candidates for office who are talking about cutting a billion from prisons and a billion from schools, but refuse to say exactly how that is going to work. Whose going to guard the prisoners? Whose going to teach the kids? Maybe the prisoners are going to teach the kids. That would teach those prisoners to commit crimes. Stop talking in election slogans and give me some solid proposals that add up properly.

STOP PLAYING POLITICS AND GET THINGS DONE FOR THE SAKE OF THE PEOPLE, ALL THE PEOPLE, NOT JUST THE FEW ON TOP!!!!!!

Sorry. Got carried away. Election Season gets me worked up.

In all seasons, may the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne


14535

GUV'MENT

Abraham Lincoln used the phrase in the Gettysburg Address: "That government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this earth." Here in Marion County members of Lincoln's own Republican Party do all they can to undermine the government of, by, and for the people. And the most vulnerable suffer as a result.

Here's what happened. This county has a lot of children and elderly people at risk. They need all sorts of help to survive. We're not talking lazy people in good health who won't work, but children in poverty who aren't being taken care of, and elderly who have to choose between eating and taking medications. You'd think that the wealthiest country in the word could make provisions for its most vulnerable citizens, but it doesn't. Thank goodness there are all sorts of nonprofit organizations trying to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately there is never enough money to take care of all the needs. The question has arisen several times of whether the local county government should help some of the more effective agencies in their work. "That isn't what the people want," some commissioners claim. Are we sure? How do we know?

One of the commissioners, a Republican with a bit of the old Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt party spirit in him, proposed a non-binding referendum to see if the citizens of the county would support using up to one-half mil of assessed property taxes to be used to support social agencies. The local paper calculated that would mean each homeowner would be designating up to $50 a year to be used for this purpose. Not a spendthrift approach and one that would not raise the taxes at all.

Dozens of civic minded people packed the county commission auditorium to support the proposal. A much smaller number of people came to oppose it. The objections were that people are taxed enough and can't pay anymore, that the government is incompetent and won't spend the money rightly, that helping people is socialism and government shouldn't be doing such things. Those who supported the proposal talked about the dire conditions of some people, about the needs that just aren't being met.

Now understand that the proposal was only for a non-binding referendum, a straw poll, to see what the voters thought. The proposal was defeated 3-2. Three of the Republican members voted against it, one Republican and the lone Democrat voted for it. It was a sad defeat, but the position taken by the opposing commissioners was even more distressing. First, they took the position that it is not the purpose of government to do things like support people in need. It seems to me that the preamble of the U.S. Constitution says that one of the reasons for establishing the constitution was to "promote the general welfare." Of course, the Constitution doesn't seem to be in high regard lately, especially the Bill of Rights. The second reason for not supporting the referendum was essentially that it didn't matter what the people thought. The opposing commissioners didn't want the citizens messing around trying to tell them what to do. Out came that old saw, "This country is NOT a democracy. It has a representative government."

It seems to be a popular activity of some elected officials to undermine the expressed will of the people. When the people adopted an amendment to reduce the student-teacher ratio in schools, some "leaders" notably the unlamented former governor Jeb Bush (brother of the soon to be unlamented former President George W. Bush) worked hard to get around the amendment or have it repealed. Now there is a move to make it harder for the people to propose changes to the State Constitution. That will teach the peasants to stay in place.

I wish I could blame all the problems on a single political party, but idiocy knows no political bounds. The Democratic National Committee is going to disenfranchise the Democratic voters of Florida in next year's Presidential Primary. The state will not be given any delegates to the nominating convention as punishment for the state legislature setting the Primary date earlier than the national big-wigs wanted it. I have never understood why the people in Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate role in the selection of the President. Usually by the time the citizens of Florida get to vote, it's all over. Why can't there be a national primary? And while we're at it, how come we are still messing around with that antique Electoral College which made it possible for the person who lost the popular vote in 2000 to become President? It's a holdover foisted on us by some of our founding fathers who didn't particularly want the people electing the president (or U.S. Senators, for that matter.)

Actually, our founding fathers didn't have much to worry about. Most people don't vote anyway. THAT should be a subject for another political blog.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.


Wayne