Author: Redactor

Are you a fan of the ancient Greek and Roman gods? No doubt lots of folks think they’re nifty … even Hephaestus, the fire god, known to the Romans as Vulcan.

But does your affection for the god of fire mean that we should want the nation’s taxpayers to spend $3.5 million to clean up a statue of Vulcan out in Birmingham, Alabama? I mean, couldn’t the folks out in Birmingham handle it themselves with a bucket of water and some good rust remover? Okay if it’s a large statue, maybe lots of water and rust remover? It just seems to me this is a local job.

I’m not the biggest fan of Senator John McCain and his idea of campaign finance reform. His idea of making electoral politics more equitable is to hobble free speech and hamper electoral competition. The Senator has the wrong solution for a very real problem … the problem of pork.

But, he’s right about the pork. It was McCain who tried to stop federal funding to scrub down the statue of Vulcan. His effort has been dubbed “symbolic” because “only” a few million dollars were in play. McCain’s staff had identified some 24 pages of alleged pork in the appropriations for the Department of Interior alone. But even the amendment to stop this one symbolic slice of bacon got clobbered by a vote of 87 to 12. So, that’s at least 87 mutually back-​scratching senators who think they’re entitled to splurge taxpayer dollars on their district, at your expense and mine. Vulcan, have I got a job for you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Ah, freedom … In his great pamphlet, Common Sense , published in 1776, Thomas Paine wrote, “Freedom hath been hunted ’round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” It was Tom Paine’s dream that America would be a home for all those throughout the world who loved freedom. And Paine’s dream has come true.

In fact, it came true again recently for Chinese citizen Gao Zhan. She’s a scholar and a permanent resident of the U.S. She, her husband and their five-​year-​old son were detained in China in February after visiting their parents. Her husband and son are U.S. citizens and were soon released. But Gao was held for five months, ultimately convicted by a Chinese court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. Finally, due to pressure from the U.S. she was released.

Upon her arrival back in America, Gao told reporters: “Before I departed Beijing, I was warned not to talk about anything. Not to talk about my time, my experience in China, in any form … But with America standing behind me … I’m not scared. Here,” she said, “I can breathe freely, and now speak freely.” I hope America will always welcome those who, like Gao, love freedom. As it says on the Statue of Liberty: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yes, that’s our land, our country! And let’s keep it that way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Even the IRS can make mistakes. Just look at the historical record. Sometimes the IRS confiscates property they really should not have confiscated. Sometimes the IRS deprives people of constitutional rights they really should not have deprived people of. Sometimes the IRS intimidates and terrifies people they really should not have intimidated and terrified. But hey, everybody’s human. Even out-​of-​control government agencies exempt from the constitutional constraints that are supposed to guide everybody else in government can make mistakes. So don’t blame the IRS for periodically trampling the rights of innocent taxpayers. That’s their job. And it’s easy to screw up when you don’t have to worry about being held accountable for your screw-​ups. The IRS has finally gone too far, though.

Instructed by Congress to send tax rebates to some 112 million Americans, the agency decided it would be good to mail notices in advance of the checks, to explain that a check is on the way. Many have wondered why the explanation could not have been sent with the check. Yet, how else could the IRS have gratuitously spent millions of taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary mailing? But now it turns out that 523,000 of those unnecessary notices gave the wrong information, telling 523,000 taxpayers that they’ll get back more money than they actually will get. The check itself is accurate, but the announcement about the check is not. So now 523,000 corrections must be distributed. But don’t worry if you happen to be one of those misinformed people. The announcement about the announcement is in the mail.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Here’s a question they could use on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” See how you do with it. The question is: What are the chances that a congressional incumbent, who has been in office for more than two terms, will be reelected if he runs again for office? A) Not a chance, B) Fifty-​fifty, C) Between 80 and 90 percent, or D) Between 99 and 100 percent. If you have to use a lifeline, you haven’t been paying attention to the last four hundred installments of “Common Sense.”

The answer is D, between 99 and 100 percent. Sure, once in a while an incumbent Senator might get knocked out of office. But it’s rare indeed for a member of the House to lose in his district. And it is especially rare after the incumbent has survived his freshman and sophomore terms in office. The advantages of incumbency are just too great. Some of us have argued that because of Congressman Gary Condit’s tap dancing with the police during the Chandra Levy missing-​person investigation, the congressman should resign. So far, he shows no signs of doing that. If he does run again, he might or might not win. But the whole sordid mess reminds us once again that it really does take a big scandal to rattle the cage of congressional incumbency. Unless a representative retires, dies, gets squeezed out of power by redistricting, or lies to police about a missing person who might be dead, he has a permanent lock on power. If what we want is a healthy and competitive democracy, that’s not a situation we should accept.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

One of my favorite political leaders, former Kansas Governor Joan Finney, passed away recently. She was the first woman to be governor of Kansas. Though she had quite of a career in politics 16 years as Kansas state treasurer, 4 years as governor, Governor Finney believed in the people and always seemed much more comfortable among regular folks than among the state’s political elite.

In 1990, she surprised the entire political establishment by knocking off the incumbent governor in the Democratic primary. Then she bested the Republican in a strong Republican state. When asked why most of the state’s politicians and media didn’t see her upset victory coming, Finney said with her usual candor, “Legislators talk to each other and forget the people. The press, they talk to legislators.”

Joan Finney had a unique commitment to citizen-​led government. She was a tireless champion of the initiative rights of citizens: the ability of voters to bypass their servants in the legislature and enact laws or constitutional amendments directly. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to convince enough legislators to go along with her and actually establish that right in Kansas. Joan, a co-​chair of the U.S. Term Limits Council, was one of the first political leaders to embrace term limits.

I was lucky to know Joan Finney personally. She was down-​to-​earth, genuine, not just another plastic politician. She had strong beliefs and she fought for those beliefs. She was a woman of her word and someone who trusted and respected the people. Thanks, Joan. We’ll miss you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s called “pork”: The spending of our tax dollars for the special benefit of those folks well connected to our congressmen. And who is better connected to our congressmen than the congressmen themselves? In the end, the pork is really for their benefit, to help them get reelected by buying off powerful lobbies and taking credit for spending other people’s money. That’s why porkbarrel spending is so tough to stop. And sadly, the Bush Administration has already given up the fight.

Sure, when he announced his budget in April, the President vowed to cut pork in half as part of a “new way of doing business.” But Budget Director Mitch Daniels points out that even under Republican control of Congress, porkbarrel spending has “gotten out of hand.” Congressional requests for special earmarks to spend money on their pet home-​district projects have more than tripled under a GOP-​run House. Mitchell admits that recent efforts to curb such pork have met with little success. The biggest problem is his own party’s leadership in the Congress.

House Appropriation Committee director James Dyer, smugly says he’ll make a deal with the administration, namely, “if they do not direct money to politically popular programs then I will not direct money to politically popular programs.” A deal that stops politicians from using the U.S. Treasury as their reelection slush fund! Dyer knows none of the career politicians want that deal. And now Daniels says that while it may not be good government, pork is, in his words, “an acceptable cost of doing business.” Dear tax-​paying listener: Is it acceptable to you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.