Author: Redactor

Times are good. We know this first by checking our bank balances and second by hearing every politician under the sun grab the credit.

Pollsters often ask, “Who deserves credit for the good economy, the President or the Congress?” Some choice! Either way, politicians get the gold star. But one polling outfit, Rasmussen Research, asked the question a different way, giving three choices: the President, Congress or American business?

More than 70 percent said American business deserves the credit. Columnist David Broder writes that politicians “have made their constituents’ wallets fatter.” Senator Robert Byrd says Congress should spend the money they’ve “made” by “managing” the economy. But Congress isn’t a business that makes profits on goods and services. All of the money pouring into the federal purse comes from you and me in taxes.

Henry David Thoreau had a more accurate view of Washington’s economic wizardry. He pointed out: “Government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”

Thoreau was right. We can applaud the President and the Congress to the degree they stay out of the way of American workers, managers and entrepreneurs and let the good times roll. But no amount of Washington spin can rob the American people of the credit we deserve. We’re the ones making the money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Some people have no business giving advice.

For instance, Howard Stern shouldn’t give advice on etiquette or diplomacy. Nor should Dennis Rodman tell us how to blend into the crowd. When it comes to advice on how to be frugal and guard our tax dollars, it ought not come from Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Byrd is known as the king of pork barrel spending, having tried to move whole agencies of the federal government to his home state at what would have been an enormous cost to the taxpayers. If all his pork-barreling actually benefited the people, West Virginia would be the wealthiest state in the country. It’s not. It’s one of the poorest.

But of course, none of this stops Senator Byrd from pouring forth advice like a leaky fountain. Byrd complains in an article entitled “Time for Truth In Spending” that many of his pet programs are “facing crippling budget reductions under the current budget caps.” Yet, the budget caps allow more spending every year. There are no cuts.

The truth? One cannot teach an old Byrd new tricks. He wants to keep spending, always more and more. During the Senator’s 41 years in Washington our national debt has grown 20 times over from just under $283,000,000,000 to more than $5,682,000,000,000. Thanks for standing guard Mr. Byrd, but no thanks.

Senator Byrd created the fiscal mess, spending us nearly into bankruptcy. Frankly, his advice is for the birds.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

My wife and I are expecting a new baby. Needless to say, we’re excited.

But just the other day we got some bad news: our unborn child is already very deeply in debt.

According to recent estimates, a child born this year will have to pay $100,000 in federal taxes just to pay interest on the $5.5 trillion of national debt. That doesn’t include one penny to defend the country during the baby’s lifetime or any other federal program.

It doesn’t take into account state or local taxes, schools or roads. Nor does that include payroll taxes for Social Security. Those will be grabbing a bigger and bigger bite from future generations especially if politicians keep raiding the money we pay in.

My child is being stuck with a $100,000 tax bill to pay for the excesses of career politicians who’ve been pleasing every special interest under the sun before the baby was even born.

Steve Moore of the Cato Institute in Washington calls this “fiscal child abuse.” He’s right. The politicians in Washington regularly use their supposed concern for children to justify spending more and more on programs that don’t work.

If they really cared about kids they’d stop mortgaging their future. To me, the birth of a baby is like winning the lottery. So even career politicians piling up debts and sending my kid the bill can’t spoil this wonderful event. But what Congress is doing is child abuse and we’ve got to stop it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There is a benefit to experience. And that’s why we don’t need experienced politicians. Confused? Don’t be, it’s simple.

We need representatives who are experienced in the real world, not in politics. One of the hottest issues today is healthcare and HMOs. Many people can tell you horror stories about bad decisions made by HMOs and about the problems facing our healthcare providers as well as patients. Many of the problems have been caused, not by the healthcare industry or doctors; they’ve been caused by politicians who try to dictate solutions from Washington for problems they don’t know anything about.

Yet, this may change. A headline in The Washington Post says “GOP Doctors in the House Put Patients Before Party.”

Representatives Tom Coburn and Greg Ganske are medical doctors and both have pledged to limit their time in Congress. Coburn will leave after this term. Ganske will leave in 2004. Coburn and Ganske are citizen legislators who put their public trust first ahead of a political career. They have the guts to battle their colleagues in order to do what’s right for the people.

Whether Washington politicians have any business legislating about the relationship between a doctor and a patient is a darn good question. But like it or not, the politicians are legislating in the healthcare field. At least we can be thankful there are congressmen who aren’t professional politicians. They have real world experience.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What would you say if you heard that in some banana republic somewhere the national government came in and canceled a local election? Sounds like a dictatorship, doesn’t it? Well, it happened last year in America.

A group of citizens in Washington, D.C. went through all the legal requirements to put an initiative on the ballot. They drafted a statute, collected thousands of signatures and campaigned among their fellow citizens for a change in policy.

Then, just days before the election, our Congress ordered city officials not to count or report the people’s votes. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia led the charge to strip the citizens of Washington, DC of their voting rights. Now that the prohibition is about to expire, Mr. Barr wants to extend it.

The ballot issue is a controversial one: allowing sick patients to use marijuana if prescribed by a doctor. Doctors and politicians disagree strongly on this matter though it should be noted that in the 11 statewide elections, voters have endorsed the use of marijuana for medical purposes every time.

U.S. Term Limits, my group, certainly takes no position on the Medical Marijuana Initiative. But we do have an opinion on politicians arrogantly denying voters a chance to have their votes counted and reported. We’re against it.

Career politicians think they can dictate to us as if they were our rulers, instead of our servants. But for cryin’ out loud, this is America! Let’s count the votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Too often career politicians treat the government like it’s their personal plaything to be used and abused for their special benefit. It makes me angry.

We’ve all heard the stories of President Clinton renting out the White House to raise campaign cash. He allowed people to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom if they’d make big contributions to the Democratic National Committee.

Last year, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota held a fundraising event on top of Mt. Rushmore. Daschle not only used his connections to get on top of the national monument where other visitors are not allowed. He then used his unfair special access to give lobbyists and large donors unfair special access.

Now Vice-President Al Gore’s campaign is also exploiting his position. Gore wanted the media to take pictures of him on the Connecticut River. But with the summer drought the river wasn’t high enough. The local utility was ordered to release 4 billion gallons of water into the river, which raised the water level enough to allow Gore to paddle down the river for the media. Price to taxpayers: $7.1 million.

Now that’s all wet if you ask me. The director of the Vermont Department of Natural Resources, said, “They won’t release the water for the fish when we ask them to, but somehow they find themselves able to release it for a politician.”

The longer politicians hold power the more they think this country belongs to them personally. Our national treasures don’t belong to politicians. Instead of dumping billions of gallons of water, let’s dump career politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In 1776, America declared her independence with the stroke of a pen. But it took blood and courage to win that independence.

The 56 men who signed the Declaration paid a steep price for freedom. Five signers were captured and tortured by the British, and died as traitors. Nine fought and died in the Revolutionary War. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost sons in the Army. They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that the penalty might be death.

Carter Braxton saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He died in rags.

At Yorktown, Thomas Nelson knew British General Cornwallis was using Nelson’s home for a headquarters. But Nelson demanded that General Washington open fire anyway and his home was destroyed. Such was the price paid by the patriots of the American Revolution.

These were not rabble-rousing ruffians, but soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. And so they pledged their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor.”

Thomas Paine wrote, “Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated.”

Today, too many of our political leaders are more concerned with protecting their perks and power last week’s pay raise comes to mind than preserving the freedom of us all. It’s quite a contrast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Recently, legislators from 13 Western states got together to talk about a very serious problem: The People.

It seems more and more power is falling into the hands of the people and out of the hands of entrenched politicians. Those pesky citizen taxpayers have term-limited the politicians, you see, and are using the initiative process to further reform government. Term limits deprive the poor, downtrodden legislators of their lifelong monopoly on power.

Now, how on earth are legislators going to rule over the masses if they can’t monopolize power, and if the people are on a footing with politicians?! Excuse me while I wring out the tears from my handkerchief.

Okay . . . I’m okay now.

Thank goodness legislators, in alliance with special interests, are doing something about this, thank goodness. They plan to regulate initiatives out of existence and silence those pesky citizens. One Oregon lobbyist explained, “There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

nitiatives curb the power of politicians. Bill Sizemore, of Oregon Taxpayers United, says, “Politicians consider it a threat to their power, as it should be. They should keep their mitts off.”

Lloyd Marbet, of the Coalition for Initiative Rights, says initiatives “[don’t] always produce beautiful legislation, but ironically enough, neither does the Legislature.”

In the sixties, the slogan was “Power to the People.” Today, lobbyists, legislators and special interests are shouting “Power to the Politicians!”

Why don’t we put it to a vote . . . of the people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

You aren’t holding your breath for career politicians in Washington to clean up the election process, are you?

Our democratic election system desperately needs to open up to new people and new ideas. But frankly, politicians aren’t too keen on letting others compete for their jobs. Incumbents have too many election advantages. So many that few credible challengers are willing to even consider running. We hear a lot of talk about campaign finance reform, but will career incumbents really make it easier for challengers to beat them at the polls? Again, don’t hold your breath.

Meehan campaigned for office as a reformer, promising to step down after four terms in office. He even wrote to the clerk of the House asking not to be listed on the roll of congressmen after 2000. Now he says he’s grown in office. So Meehan’s breaking his word to the voters and staying in Washington as a career politician. If Meehan can get away with it, it will only be thanks to the advantages he has as an incumbent.

Marty the Hypocrite now has a plan to reform campaign finance. For the first time, it would let Congress regulate what private citizens can say about our congressmen. And under the spending caps in his bill, not a single challenger would have won in the last election.

The congressman breaks his word, abuses the system, and then tries to silence the rest of us. And this is the man whose bill is supposed to make campaigns more fair?

Give me a break, Marty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

They say that only 2 things are certain in life: death and taxes. Let’s focus on taxes, considered certain for two reasons.

First, taxes are collected involuntarily, and secondly, politicians are very fond of spending other people’s money. Very.

A new report from the National Taxpayers Union says the tax revolt that began with Proposition 13 in the 1970’s would never have happened without the initiative process. NTU found that tax limitation measures passed directly by voters through the initiative have a made a very real difference. On the other hand, tax measures passed by politicians themselves are typically “toothless.”

Why do our so-called representatives behave so badly when it comes to taxes and spending? The longer a politician sits on the receiving end of your tax dollars, instead of the paying end, the worse it gets. He grows fond of spending money and thereby making friends among special interests.

Our Founders advocated the proposition “No taxation without representation.” But today’s political leaders don’t really represent us on tax issues.

The exceptions are found among those who term-limit themselves. They know one day soon they’ll give up their powerful position spending our tax dollars and have to go back to merely paying the bills like the rest of us.

Hank Williams used to sing, “I’ll never get out of this world alive.” But the only thing that’s certain about taxes is that career politicians like spending our tax dollars a whole lot more than “We, the People” like paying them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.