Author: Redactor

What’s the point of democracy? Isn’t it to delegate authority to representatives who then discuss and debate the issues, vote their conscience and so forth? Or are these so-called representatives just supposed to follow the orders of one guy at the top? Californians still remember how Gray Davis groused about his democratic burdens after taking office as governor.

Davis complained that the folks in the legislature had a, quote, “totally different view of the world than I do, totally different. . . . People expect government to reflect the vision that I suggested. Nobody else in the Legislature ran statewide. Their job is to implement my vision. That is their job.”

Wow. Casual dinner-party remarks caught secretly on tape? Nope words uttered to a roomful of newspaper editors. Later, Davis floated a similar theme about the judges he had appointed, saying, sure, they’ve got to follow the law, blah blah blah, but they must do it in a way that, “keeps faith with my electoral mandate.” Maybe he should just fax them instructions for each case.

Now Davis and his ego are grappling with a power shortage. Instead of working to repeal the market-distorting regulations that got California into this mess in the first place, the governor decided to get the state into the business of buying electricity. Davis was positive this would be a short-term thing, but months later the state’s involvement is still draining the treasury. I guess when the only person you listen to is yourself, it’s hard to get a second opinion.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hey, congratulations, Senator Robert Byrd! Gosh, what an honor for you, sir. It seems that the West Virginia Senator is a proud recipient of the Porker of the Month Award.

Citizens Against Government Waste distributes the Award each month to the congressmen who are most bodacious when it comes to lugging federal funds back home at the expense of the rest of the country. Byrd has been perched in the Senate since 1959. He has cast more than 15,000 votes. So he knows what it takes to be an irresponsible spender of other people’s money.

West Virginia is one of the top five states in pork per capita. A great achievement, sort of. Byrd is spending our money on recreation areas, theater revitalization, airport fences, documentaries, etc. Any one of these projects might have some value in and of itself, of course. And as the unrepentant Senator Byrd likes to chirp, “One man’s pork is another man’s job.” Of course, West Virginia continues to be one of the poorest states in the nation. But never mind about that.

In fact, the most important impact of pork is what we don’t see: the jobs that aren’t created when our money is spent on the projects that Byrd likes instead of on the projects that we like. If the people of West Virginia want to appreciate what Byrd has brought them, they can go out to one of the rest areas off the highway and inspect one of these $100,000 restroom facilities up close. It’s like winning the lottery . . . or is it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It seems that the Washington elite politicians, lobbyists, the movers and shakers just aren’t appreciated by the rest of the country. It’s not their fault; it’s just that the American people aren’t sophisticated enough to understand the wonders of Washington.

Former Speaker Tom Foley recently complained that his constituents thought he was living high on the hog. Said Foley, “All I could think of was the humble basement apartment I lived in while I was flying back and forth to my district every weekend.” No mention that in addition to his “humble” Spokane apartment, Foley had a million-dollar home in Washington, D.C. Well, a minor detail really.

Another defender of Washington is Rep. George Nethercutt, who used the term limits issue to defeat Foley. Once in the capitol, however, Nethercutt found that the powerful in Washington aren’t so bad after all once you’re part of the club and they “have the best interests of the country at heart.” Yet, Nethercutt worries that citizens will misunderstand the magnificent importance of the Washington elite. He tells of the angry faces of those who wait in traffic jams caused by police blocking off the roads to allow congressmen a carefree drive to the Capitol to vote.

Nethercutt explains, “It’s symbolic of the perception that there is an elitism for those of us who serve. All we’re trying to do is vote. We’re trying to do our job and we hope to help the people sitting in those cars.” Of course, the stranded motorists must get to their jobs, too. But the Washington elite cannot be burdened with such trivial matters; they’re too busy running our lives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Forget about the rolling blackouts in California. Forget about our shaky relations with China, the federal debt, that F your kid just got on his math test or your trouble paying the rent this month. Yeah, we’ve got a real crisis on our hands, folks. I know you will be as stunned as I was. If you have a heart problem, I urge you to change the station right now.

No, it’s not a giant asteroid hurtling toward the earth. It’s term limits hurtling toward career politicians in the state of Maine. “It has been a disaster, a total and complete disaster,” says a college professor in Maine who was quoted in the paper recently. And the career politicians are nodding their heads furiously. For example, Maine’s governor, Angus King, says that by the time he leaves office after reaching his own eight-year limit, he will have served with a number of different speakers of the House and presidents of the Senate.

In the olden days, of course, you could get acquainted with just one guy and be sure he would stick around forever. What a catastrophe having to meet and greet so many new faces. King also complains now, get this that under term limits new people are constantly coming into the legislature and some lawmakers are being forced to leave office even when they are willing to continue to serve!! Oh no! So term limits have actually limited terms?! What a disaster for the career politicians. Somebody call an ambulance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Forget about why Johnny can’t think. What happened to the thinking ability of the teachers and bureaucrats and the law enforcers? When school shootings make the headlines, common sense is one of the first casualties.

Again and again, schools are throwing the book at innocent children for doing innocent childish things. Grown adults are adding two and two and coming up with five. Ever play cops and robbers when you were a kid? It’s a guy thing. I bet if you surveyed one thousand adult guys, at least 999 of them would admit that yeah, as little boys they did play cops and robbers at one time or another. Very few of those thousand, if any, grew up to become bank robbers. Harmless stuff, right?

Well, not if you use a paper gun and not if you’re attending second grade in Irvington, New Jersey, in the year 2001. Kids caught playing cops and robbers there were recently suspended from school, and school officials called in the real coppers. The police did some deep thinking of their own and charged the little boys with making terrorist threats. Sounds like it really is getting dangerous to go to school these days dangerous for little boys, anyway, who do the things little boys always do.

The people we trust to teach our children how to think seem to be doing precious little of it themselves. Panic is the enemy of clear thinking. We all need to take a deep breath, count to ten, and consider whether two and two maybe add up to four after all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Politicians say the darnedest things. Remember former Speaker of the House Tom Foley? Voters in Washington State passed term limits. Foley didn’t like that. So he sued the people to overturn their vote. Next election, the voters sent Foley packing, the only Speaker defeated since the Civil War.

Now politicians in Oregon are trying to follow in his footsteps. They don’t like the term limits that Oregon voters passed with a 70 percent majority, the first initiative in state history to gain a million yes votes. The politicians want to repeal term limits, extend them, water them down, ANYTHING to get out from under those darn limits so they can wheel and deal with our tax dollars for the rest of their lives. Now they’ve introduced legislation to change the filing period for legislative candidates. Why? So they can sue the people of Oregon and overturn the term limits law.

The legislation would allow for an immediate lawsuit, no delay. State Rep. Bill Witt says, “It’s an effort to subvert the will of the people by using the courts . . . [It’s] disgraceful.” Rep. Jeff Merkley called the maneuver “transparently self-serving.” But Representative Carl Wilson would have none of that. On the floor of the people’s House, he told fellow legislators: “I don’t expect voters to understand. But as you know, we are privy to things they are not. This hallowed place is where we are, and we know it best.” Politicians say the darnedest things.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Politically speaking, I think term limitation is the best thing since sliced-bread. But it’s being given credit for a change in the Arkansas Legislature that, well . . . I just never expected.

The Arkansas Legislature, like legislatures in 18 other states, is term-limited. Now the big news is that the Legislature is, for the most part, sober at least much more so than in the past. And many folks are connecting the two: putting the credit for the recent sobriety trend, or the blame, on term limits. Seems in the old days, before term limits, the nightlife of a legislator was a heckuva lot more exciting than it is today. For instance, there’s the old story from the 1960s. The Speaker announced that a late night vote was going to be even further delayed, when a legislator yelled from the back of the chamber, “We’ve got a bigger problem than that, Mr. Speaker. We’re out of ice.”

No doubt some of the stories have gotten wilder in the retelling, but one legislator’s mother, who had long worked in the Capitol, tried to talk her son out of running for office saying, “You’ll go up there and you’ll start running around and lose your marriage and everything.” There are lots of funny stories about the parties and antics of legislators past. Only problem is the stories are not funny; they’re sad. I don’t know if term limits deserves the credit for the greater sobriety among legislators, but what the heck we’ll take it. Let’s be glad, in any case, for yet another refreshing change in legislative behavior in the wake of term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

So they’re finally paying attention, huh? Whaddaya know. Well, I can’t say it comes as a shock. Yup. Looks like thanks to term limits, politicians in Houston are heeding the voters just a little bit more than they did before.

Mary Williams of Taxpayers for Accountability sure has noticed the difference. Since 1997, her watchdog group has succeeded in getting a majority of the city council to sign a no-new-tax pledge. Mayor Lee Brown has also signed the pledge, along with over 100 candidates for seats on the council. Why this sudden shower of sensitivity toward the taxpayer? Term limits mean more electoral competition. More electoral competition means more accountability to the voters. So long as Houston politicians enjoyed an unchallenged power of incumbency, the power to get reelected almost automatically, they didn’t have to worry much about answering to the voters.

As Mary Williams says, “Without term limits, these no-tax pledges would never have been signed or kept. Most taxpayers understand that term limits are necessary to hold politicians’ feet to the fire and to protect the wallets of the taxpayers.”

Mary Williams is right. In response to those who would disparage the 70 percent of Houston voters who said yes to term limits, she says, “We the people still have freedom. And that freedom includes the right to deny part-time Houston City Council members long-term careers.” She believes that Houston citizens have a right to genuine representation. Before term limits, Houston citizens had a problem. Now they have a solution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Gosh, it’s tough having to run for office without already being a permanently entrenched incumbent who can just snap his fingers and instantly command vast resources and firepower. These out-of-work career politicians really have my sympathy.

Consider, for example, the plight of former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa. He’s running for mayor of Los Angeles after having been termed out of his job in the state legislature. He says it would be a lot easier to campaign if he were still in office. “Would I prefer to be speaker right now?” he asks rhetorically. “Absolutely. . . . If I call a press conference [these days], no one shows up. If you do it as speaker, everyone’s there. . . . And, you can raise money if you’re already in elected office.” Straight from the horse’s mouth, folks. The incumbents themselves admit that incumbency as such confers huge advantages over challengers on the campaign trail. From which fact one can readily deduce that term limits helps even the playing field.

As the Los Angeles Times points out, the benefits of incumbency are “immeasurable.” They include “a battle-tested army of aides, ready attention from the media, and that most important political asset of all, access to money.” The political consultants agree. “The advantage of incumbency is amazing,” says Rick Taylor, a political consultant in LA. Campaign manager Ace Smith says, “If you’re a [known incumbent], you have Rolodexes the size of oil drums of people you’ve helped for decades. You just dial for dollars.” Just dial for dollars? Sounds like fun. Maybe too much fun.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

People are nervous. The stock market has taken a hit. Some folks say that shows how dangerous it would be to allow people like you to control more of your own money so you can better plan your own retirement. Risky scheme, as Al Gore told us. Better to let the politicians manage it. Yes, the politicians are always super-careful with your money. Well, I’m not convinced.

Sure, no private investment is without risk. But how much riskier to let the government plan our retirement for us! We all know that Social Security funds never were set aside for safekeeping as originally promised. There is no lock box, never was. The program is pay-as-you-go. The U.S. economy is basically very strong. Anyone who has invested in the stock market with reasonable prudence over 30 or 40 years has come out ahead. If some folks find stocks too risky, there are always safer investments available.

Today, federal government workers have an excellent retirement program that allows various choices of relatively safe investments. On the other hand, the Social Security program is a financial basket case. If the feds can’t keep their promises when the economy is strong, do you think they’ll be able to give everybody a happy retirement if the economy really tanks? Government can’t create wealth out of thin air. The government gets their money from you and me. Don’t let politicians scare you. The real issue is who gets to control your money you or them?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.