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Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find myself outraged by someone or something. It has almost become a ritual for me, watching the news, reading the newspapers and countless articles and editorials that are beamed our way via the Internet. It’s inescapable.
The latest outrage to catch my attention is a story told by Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, about the type of education we Californians are paying for with our tax dollars. Here’s how he describes the situation in his weekly “California Commentary”:
“Imagine walking though a California public school and hearing the voices of students of students singing ‘I am special’ to the tune of ‘Frere Jacques.’ One might look through the classroom window expecting to see kindergartners about to enjoy Graham crackers and milk – or perhaps a more politically correct snack…Now back to real life, where singing choruses of self-affirming music, such as ‘I Am Special’ is part of the curriculum in a college course called ‘Self Esteem’ taught at CSU Fresno…Students preferring to attend UCLA can enroll in a class on electronic dance music that explores ‘the political and cultural implications of the relentless hedonism of the dance floor.’ And at UC Berkeley, they can take a course entitled, ‘Sex Change City: Theorizing History in a Genderqueer San Francisco’ where they learn aall about the ‘regulation of gender-variant practices in public space by San Francisco’s Anglo-European elites.”
As Mr. Coupal notes, “These are just examples of real college courses funded with real tax dollars.”
Another outrage that recently came to my attention via a media website is a story headlined, “NASA chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World.” The article noted that the NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, in an interview with Al Jazeera, said: “When I became the NASA administrator – he (Obama) charged me with three things. One was to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering.”
Since when is it the mission of the U.S. Space Agency to help make Muslims “feel good?”
Another aspect of the NASA outrage to me is Obama’s failure to reauthorize the Space Shuttle after the current program ends and his declared intention to cancel the Constellation program (space exploration), which will make us dependent on other countries, such as Russia, to carry our astronauts into space. It’s outrageous to me that it has become the policy of this country to become dependent on our enemies for key elements of our defense capability.
Stephen Frank’s California Political News and Views reported the following outrageous story with the headline: “Feds Spend $550,496 Studying Sex Lives of Truckers.” The article continues: “Is it any of your business to know the sex lives of truck drivers? Would it even matter?…’The federal government has spent $550,496 on a project that involved conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews with American long-haul truck drivers to learn about their sex lives in order to assess their risk of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. The project has failed to find any instances of HIV among the truck drivers studied’…Actually, this could have been done for about $10 — all the Feds had to do is check the records of the Center for the Study of Diseases in Atlanta, which keeps such records.”
Is this outrageous enough for you?
Finally, the steady stream of coverage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has continuously demanded our attention with an endless parade of bad news. Since April 20, when the well blew, we have been subjected to 24/7 media coverage with a daily count of the number of days it has been since the incident occurred, how long Obama waited to become actively involved, blow-by-blow reportage of the efforts to cap the well, the callousness of BP executives, the plight of the people who live in the region, who will pay for the residents’ loss of income and the cost of cleaning up, and anything else anyone in the administration or the media thought was of interest. Regardless of who may be at fault or why it happened, the over-the-top reporting continues to be just another daily outrage.
Some people will probably say that I’m just a news junkie and that I should join “Outraged Daily Anonymous” (ODA) or some other self-help group to learn how to deal with my compulsion for news and information. Perhaps so, but unfortunately, as I commented earlier, being outraged by the news is inescapable.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) produces an annual summary of pork-barrel spending that is aptly named the Congressional Pig Book. This year, CAGW’s 2010 Congressional Pig Book Summary highlights the usual litany of Congressional misuse of government funds that have been appropriated by various members of Congress for the benefit of a wide variety of individuals and causes. These appropriations are generally attached to other bills as they make their way through the approval process and rarely see the light of day or are subjected to any sort of critical analysis in a sort of wink, wink, unwritten agreement that “if you vote for my bill, I will vote for yours.” Pretty much everyone goes along to get along, while the public is kept in the dark, unless of course, they happen to be a beneficiary of a particular piece of pork barrel legislation.
CAGW’s Spring 2010 newsletter notes that in 1991, the year of their first Pig Book, there were 546 projects with a total value of $3.2 billion. The numbers this year are 9,129 projects with a total cost of $16.5 billion. Not surprisingly, as the federal budget has grown, so have the number and total cost of earmarks.
This year, to qualify for inclusion in the Pig Book, a project had to meet at least one of the following seven criteria - most satisfied at least two:
-Requested by only one chamber of Congress
-Not specifically authorized
-Not competitively awarded
-Not requested by the President
-Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or previous year’s funding
-Not the subject of Congressional hearings
-Serves only a local or special interest.
The “pork barrel” appropriations included in the 2010 Pig Book were grouped in the following categories:
I. Agriculture: 475 projects, total $396.5 million..
II. Commerce, Justice, Science: 1,510 projects, total $714.4 million.
III. Defense: 1,752 projects, total $10.3 billion.
IV. Energy and Water: 939 projects, total $1.2 billion.
V. Financial Services: 260 projects, total $65 million.
VI. Homeland Security: 173 projects, total $242.8 million.
VII. Interior: 548 projects, total $361.1 million.
VIII. Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education: 1,789 projects, total $813.8 million.
IX. Legislative Branch: only one earmark was requested, total $200,000. (Note: The lone
earmark was attached to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, which includes increases
for staff salaries, money for parties for dignitaries, and $500,000 for a “pilot program” to
send postcards to their constituents about town meetings.
X. Military Construction: 182 projects, total $1.1 billion.
XI. State and Foreign Operations: 7 earmarks, total $209.4 million.
XII. Transportation/Housing and Urban Development (HUD): 1,483 earmarks, total $1.2 billion.
Last year the Obama administration and Congress added $1.4 trillion to the national debt, more than the total deficit of the prior four years, and U.S. Senator George LeMieux (R-Fla) noted, “Unless Washington’s lawmakers reverse course on spending, our deficits will continue to rise and our nation’s debt will suffocate prosperity…In the last fiscal year alone, Congress gave the State Department a 32 percent increase, the Environmental Protection Agency a 35 percent increase, and most all other federal departments and agencies saw increases well above inflation…The current earmark process is the engine that drives the train. Earmarks have become the tools used to build support for the annual appropriations bills that fund the basic functions of our government. Distracting attention from oversight, members often become focused on how much money they are able to get for their district or state.”
Although this year’s earmarks are a relatively small portion of the total federal budget ($16.5 billion vs over $1.4 trillion), they are symptomatic of what’s wrong with the way our government and the people who run it operate. It’s always about getting more money to spend, never less, and the method of budgeting Congress uses is deliberately designed to produce bigger budgets year after year, forever. Federal budgets are developed using a method that is described as “traditional incremental budgeting,” with departmental managers having to justify only increases over the previous year’s budget, and what has been already spent is automatically approved.
The system is rigged to always provide bigger budgets, never smaller, and no one ever spends less than their budget allows for fear that, if they do, their budget for the next year will be reduced by the amount they don’t use. Unless and until we wake up and change the way we do things, earmarks and spending will continue to grow until we simply go broke, which many people believe will be in the foreseeable future.. At that point, budgets and earmarks won’t matter, because there simply won’t be any money available to spend.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is backing an idea that has been advanced by California state assemblyman Mike Davis - to turn Michael Jackson’s Neverland property into a state park.
The list of reasons why this is a bad idea starts with the fact that there is no money in the state’s coffers for an expenditure of the magnitude that would be involved to accomplish this, assuming it could be done at all. But, there are plenty of other reasons, not the least of which is the location of the property in Santa Ynez Valley.
The entrance to Neverland is on a narrow country road that cannot possibly handle the volume of traffic that would be attracted to the site. The gates are gone, as is just about everything else that Michael Jackson built or housed on the property: The Ferris wheel, bumper cars and amusement park rides, steam engines that ran on a rail line around the grounds, animals in his personal zoo (elephants, orangutans, tigers, snakes, giraffes, etc.), wax figures of Michael, his personal crown and portraits of him dressed as a king, life-sized toys of superheroes and villains, Star Wars and Walt Disney characters, life-sized statues of Elvis Presley, Bruce Lee, Marilyn Monroe and others. In short, everything that made the place the attraction that it was. And, of course, the house and theater are reported to be in an extreme state of disrepair.
The cost to restore this 2,600 plus acre property to the condition it was in when Jackson lived there would be astronomical, assuming it could be done at all. Start with the fact that it is now owned by Sycamore Valley Ranch, Inc, a real estate company in which the Jackson estate is reported to still have an interest together with Colony Capital LLC, an investment company run by billionaire Tom Barrack. It’s hard to see how the property could be acquired by the California State Parks Commission without a substantial outlay of cash that the state just doesn’t have.
Another consideration is the traffic that a Neverland Park would generate. Think about this: Graceland has about 600,000 visitors a year, more than any other comparable attraction in the country except the White House. Given Michael Jackson’s popularity, my guess is that the number of visitors to Neverland would be far greater than Graceland.
But, assuming, for the sake of discussion, that a Neverland Park would attract the same number of visitors as Graceland, how would that impact SY Valley?
For starters, on average, there would be 50,000 visitors a month, or a daily average of almost 1,700 people. Since the entrance to Neverland is on a narrow country road, visitors would probably have to be bussed in, which would amount to about 275 buses a day.
However, chances are most visitors would travel to the SY Valley by auto and, assuming four people per car, that would mean off-site parking would be required for over well over 400 cars a day. Fewer passengers would mean more cars, perhaps as many as 600 or 700.
Given the rural nature of the surrounding area, just where could such a large number of cars be parked? Certainly not in the nearby unincorporated hamlet of Los Olivos. If you think there has been a hullabaloo about traffic and parking at the Chumash Casino, you can just imagine how residents in the area would react to having a Neverland Park in the Valley..
Parking could, of course, be provided somewhere on the Neverland property, but that would mean a steady stream of two-way traffic on a narrow country road that exits on Highway 154, with 55 mph cross-traffic, where there are already serious accidents fairly often. Furthermore, there is little or nothing that could be done to alleviate the impact of so many cars on the residents who live on the access road to Neverland.
Other problems that such a massive influx of visitors to the Valley would surely create include the increased demands that would be imposed on the SB County Sheriff’s Department for full-time policing, along with county road repair and maintenance, and environmental concerns.
If you agree that this is a really bad idea, I suggest you write or email the state Parks Commission and let them know. You can email them at info@parks.ca.gov or email state Assemblyman Mike Davis at www.assembly.ca.gov/davis. And, it probably wouldn’t hurt to email the president of the NAACP, Benjamin T. Jealous, at washingtonbureau@naacpnet.org
I suggest we all speak up before this really dumb idea gets any traction. I’m emailing this column to them today.
July 4th is the date that Americans celebrate the occasion of our nation gaining its independence from England. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it quite that way. That is, it appears that there are many Hispanics who think July 4th is also the date when Mexicans celebrate their own independence.
I must admit that I was more than a little troubled, annoyed is probably a better word, at the sight of a Mexican flag being carried in Solvang’s Independence Day parade on July 4th. Not just being carried in the parade, but carried alongside the American flag, at the same height, which is a clear violation of the U.S. flag protocol. A number of people in the community have made the same observation to me, so it’s clear that I am not alone.
There seems to be a general attitude on the part of many Hispanics that displaying Mexico’s flag is or should be of equal importance in America as our own traditions, but they are wrong. Mexico has its own independence day, actually two dates when they celebrate their own freedom, from both Spanish and French dominance, specifically on September 16 and May 5 respectively.
So, why do people display the Mexican flag at America’s July 4 Independence Day celebrations?
I don’t profess to have the answer, but I can tell you that, to me and many other Americans I know, it looks as though there are many Mexicans, regardless of their status as residents in this country, that is, legal or illegal, who are declaring their allegiance to Mexico. If so, they should go back. If not, they should be willing to become part of the traditional cultural and social traditions of becoming Americans first, regardless of their own ethnic and/or national heritage. Becoming or being “American” does not mean turning your back on your own heritage, but it does mean you owe your primary allegiance to America.
Americans are, or should be, Americans first. A major percentage of the 300 million people in this country are not very far removed from their own family members who were immigrants themselves. In my case, I am only a second generation American. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents were from Russia. This is the case with many people I know, that is, they are not very far removed from the land of their forbearers. It may sound simplistic to some people, I suppose, but I certainly have no desire to carry or see a Russian flag in an Independence Day parade.
In addition, we don’t see anyone carrying an Irish flag in our July 4th parades, or Polish or German or French flags, or flags of any other nation. So, why do some people want to display a Mexican flag?
The answer or answers no doubt vary, but whatever the reason, I find it offensive, and many people I know feel the same way, including some Mexican-Americans.
On previous Independence Days we have seen thousands of Mexicans marching in the streets of Los Angeles carrying the Mexican flag above the U.S. flag. One year, a group of students from Lompoc High School attempted to march on the city’s main commercial street carrying the Mexican flag above that of the U.S., but the local police quickly sent them back to school.
Furthermore, in some instances the U.S. flag was turned upside down, which is the generally accepted sign of distress. It was an extremely offensive display of Mexican nationalism and one that I will not easily forget.
So, returning to the display of the Mexican flag in this year’s Independence Day parade in Solvang, what’s your own reaction? Is it much ado about nothing or is it reason for offense?
Thirty plus years ago, in 1978, California state senator H.L. (Bill) Richardson) wrote a small book with the intriguing title, “What Makes You Think We Read The Bills?” in which he describes how politicians are actually elected by a very small percentage of the voters in their district, about one or two percent, and as a result, officeholders really listen only to that small constituency. The title of Senator Richardson’s book also aptly describes the way the U.S. Congress functions today in writing and voting on new legislation.
The surge of bills that have been disgorged by Congress since Obama was elected further illustrates Richardson’s thesis, as a succession of major new laws have been approved without being read by most of the legislators who voted on them.
Legislation that moves through Congress without any legislative language is called a “vapor bill.” The term was derived from the word Vaporware, an expression coined during the dot-com era to describe all-singing-all-dancing software that had not yet been written.
A recent example of a “vapor bill” is the Senate’s 2,000 plus page Health Care Reform act, which had no legislative language and was amended in the Senate Finance Committee, where none of the committee members had read the actual bill. At the time, the Washington Post reported that “President Barack Obama’s push for a sweeping health care overhaul is going to be voted upon in the Senate Finance Committee…and nobody has read the actual bill yet.” The Washington Post also headlined, “Senate Finance Committee Releases Its Final Text of Health-Care Bill,” but if you clicked on a link to the “Bill” that was referenced in the Post article, all you got was a 262 page description of the legislation…no actual legislative language (was) being given to Senators, Staff or the American Public.”
Aside from the obvious inappropriateness of having legislators vote on bills they have not read, one of the most significant problems with vapor bills is that the Congressional Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can’t “score” the legislation, that is, estimate what such bills are likely to cost. The fiscal impact of any bill cannot be evaluated without the actual legislative language, and the health care bill that was approved by Congress was over 2,000 pages of what was essentially nothing more than an outline of the proposed law.
Vapor bills are not submitted to Congress by accident. They have actually been a key element of the current Democratic Leadership’s strategy, which has been to put incomplete proposed legislation before the members of Congress without having to disclose the details, which made it possible for just a few insiders to write the actual language of the bill behind closed doors.
Having successfully shepherded the president’s health care law through Congress with a vapor bill, the Democratic leadership continued this strategy for other major legislation, such as the A.I.G. Insurance Bonus Bill and more recently the new Banking and Finance legislation. Lawmakers were also given just hours to examine the $789 billion stimulus plan, sweeping climate-change legislation and a multi-billion dollar bailout package before final votes were taken.
For example, the stimulus bill was 1,100 pages long and made available to Congress and the public just 13 hours before lawmakers voted on it. The bill failed to provide the promised help to the job market, and there was outrage when it was discovered that the legislation included an amendment allowing American International Group, a bailout recipient, to give out millions in employee bonuses.
Four major pieces of legislation have been passed by Congress using the same procedure:
House Energy and Global Warming Bill: passed June 26, 2009, 1,200 pages. Available online just 15 hours before vote.
$789 billion stimulus bill, passed June 26, 2009, 1,100 pages. Available online just 13 hours before debate.
$700 billion financial service sector rescue package, 169 pages, passed October 3, 2008. Available online just 29 hours before vote.
USA Patriot domestic surveillance bill, passed October 23, 2001. Not available to the public before debate.
The Sunlight Foundation, which lobbies Congress to bring more transparency to government, has begun attempting to get Congress to post bills online, for everyone to see 72 hours before lawmakers vote on them. Lisa Rosenberg has noted that “It would give the public a chance to really digest and understand what is in the bill and communicate whether that is a good or a bad thing while there is still time to fix it.”
Good suggestion, but as the oft-quoted saying advises: “Don’t hold your breath.”
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t learn something new about the negative impacts that Obama’s health care plan is having or holds in store for the sick and elderly in America.
Speaking to the American Medical Association in Chicago on June 15, 2009, Barack Obama made the following statement: “So let me begin by saying that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and they value their relationship with their doctor. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what’s broke and build on what works.”
So, what happened on the way to implementing Obamacare?
For one thing, we certainly did not get a health care plan that is acceptable to the American people. Rasmussen reports that 58% of the public want the president’s health care plan repealed.
So, did we simply lose our way? Was it deliberate, a part of the plan all along? Or, was it just legislative overkill that most legislators didn’t expect or foresee? Or, all of the above?
Whatever the case, each new step in the process of implementing Obamacaare exposes more information about the unanticipated or unintended consequences of the president’s health care plan. And, they aren’t good.
For example, a recent AP (Associated Press) headlined, “Senate fails to spare doctors from Medicare cuts,” reported that, although the Senate passed legislation to avoid a 21% cut in Medicare payments to doctors, their action was too late to prevent Medicare from implementing fee reductions for the month of June because the House was unable to act on the bill in time. The president of the American Medical Association said, “This is no way to run a major health coverage program.”
But, this situation was just the tip of the iceberg. Offering further insight to the potential disaster that is now unfolding in America’s health care system, a blogger, Joseph Scherzer, M.D., recently noted: “There is hardly a week that goes by without some new concern or demand, none of which have to do with learning about Medicine. We are caught up in a torrential whirlwind of bureaucratic regulations admixed with a flood of threats.”
Dr. Scherzer further commented: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!”, warning: “Because of government meddling in the practice of medicine and unreasonable, excessive rules, regulations and reimbursement that does not keep up with the actual cost of living, doctors nationwide are already decreasing the number of new Medicare patients they will take. Eventually, all across the country, and already in some states, there will not be enough doctors for all the baby boomers. I predict that because of the expected severe shortage of Medicare providers under Obamacare, our intrusive government will then force the doctors they are abusing to take on new Medicare patients or risk horrific fines if they refuse. And, with the appalling fines discussed below, consider how many physicians are just going to say “to hell with it” and throw in the towel and shut their doors so they won’t have to put up with government’s new socialist, terror tactics. Not only are the president and the Dems bankrupting the country and scaring off doctors, they are ensuring rationing of health care to seniors. Can you imagine what healthcare will be like for seniors in 10 years after Obamacare destroys the best health care system in the world?”
Some of the fines that Dr. Scherzer refers to range from $11,000 to $50,000 for such transgressions as making an error in Medicare billings, noting also that the government’s burden of proof is very light. In addition, the definition of “fraud” has been expanded to include “unnecessary” or “ineffective” services, or services that don’t “comply with Medicare requirements.”
Having run a hospital, I can tell you from firsthand experience that dealing with the bureaucratic overkill of Medicare and other government agencies can be enough to make many doctors decide to quit.
Put yourself in the position of your doctor, who must now practice medicine under the continuous threat of financial ruin for such simple mistakes as billing errors. Keep in mind that doctors do not actually do the billing themselves. It’s done by office staff.
The cumulative effect of all this regulation and financial risk can only result in increasing numbers of doctors giving up the practice of medicine.
Don’t be surprised if you call for an appointment to see your doctor one of these days, only to learn that he or she has retired or otherwise given up the practice of medicine.
You can count on it. And, who will be there to look after you?
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