Category: porkbarrel politics

Cheaters Never Prosper

Arkansas State Senator, Jon Woods, term limits, Arkansas, pay raise, disgrace, election, illustration

“I want to go home,” Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods whimpered.

The poor, pitiful politician — announcing he would not seek election to another legislative term — cried that he had not “been fishing with [his] brother in a year.”

“I have friends in my district who I miss,” he further lamented.

Before reaching for a tissue, realize that the legislator lives a little over three hours from the capitol in Little Rock and the legislature has only been in session for about 100 days in the last two years.

Certainly, that Senator Woods has any friends left is news — at least, non-lobbyist, non-legislator friends.

Woods infamously authored Issue 3, which narrowly passed last year and is now Amendment 94 to the state constitution.

Woods tricked voters by wording the ballot title to claim it was “PROHIBITING MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY . . . FROM ACCEPTING GIFTS FROM LOBBYISTS.” But now, lobbyists buy legislators lunch pretty much every day.

He misleadingly told voters the amendment was “ESTABLISHING TERM LIMITS FOR MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,” when in reality term limits were weakened, allowing pols like Woods to stay a whopping 16 years in a single seat.

The slippery solon’s amendment also created a so-called Independent Citizens Commission — a majority appointed by legislative leaders — that has since rewarded legislators with a whopping 150 percent pay raise.

The Arkansas Times’s Max Brantley called it “strange” that the “full-time legislator . . . would drop out of the race at this point.” Now that it’s time to face the voters with all his mighty “accomplishments,” the senator decides “to start a new chapter in [his] life.”

Dejected, befuddled, limping home as a martyr to crony politics, Woods knows he can’t win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Arkansas, Arkansas State Senator, disgrace, election, illustration, Jon Woods, pay raise, term limits

general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers porkbarrel politics too much government

Biden His Time

Joe Biden, president, election, nuzzle, statue of liberty, photomontage, collage, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Vice-President Joe Biden announced, yesterday, that he will not run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, ending many weeks of speculation.

The Veep’s exit from a race he never entered benefits Mrs. Clinton, who in those same polls has a larger lead head-to-head against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Much of “Middle-Class” Joe’s speech was the usual laundry list of progressive pie-in-the-sky, money-can-too-buy-us-love shibboleths:

“President Obama has led this nation from crisis to recovery, and we’re now on the cusp of resurgence.”
The public schools fail to adequately educate kids — at stupendous cost. Rather than innovate, Biden demands we “commit to 16 years of free public education for all of our children.”
Biden’s biggest pitch was for “a moon shot to cure cancer.” (Cancer will be cured . . . but not by politicians.)

Still, Joe voiced something other candidates fail to emphasize:

[W]e have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart. . . . I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition. They’re not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.

That hasn’t been Hillary Clinton’s approach, having compared conservative Republicans to terrorist groups. Plus, to the question “Which enemy that you made during your political career are you most proud of?” she answered, “Republicans.”

“Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take,” Joe Biden added.

I guess Joe’s not for Hillary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, democracy, election, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Presidential campaign 2016

Accountability Common Sense government transparency national politics & policies porkbarrel politics tax policy too much government

The Spenders’ Eternal Excuse

Post author By CS Admin
Post date August 21, 2015
5 Comments on The Spenders’ Eternal Excuse

Most modern welfare states have a huge problem: their politicians promise more than government revenue covers. So they borrow and borrow until they can borrow no more.

And then they go down. Like Greece has gone down. Banks are closed there, and the people suffer.

The problem is over-spending and over-promising (the latter being merely committing to future over-spending, so let’s just call it all over-spending). But when you confront a partisan of such extravagance — whether that person be a politician or a constituency beneficiary or an ideological socialist or social democrat — the most common defense is: THEY WOULDN’T LET US TAX ENOUGH.

The “they” in such defenses could be an opposition party, or a constituency, or . . . “the evil rich.”

But anyone with something other than a lump of coal for a brain knows the real truth: responsible people don’t make such defenses. If a political difficulty gets in the way of the extra revenue needed for something promised, it’s practically the same as an economic difficulty, so the excuse falls apart.

Say again?

If you cannot get enough revenue for your favorite program, it doesn’t matter whether the people who are the source of your “needed” revenue are broke — have nothing to give — or they simply balk at giving. The point is, you don’t have the revenue. The responsible reaction would be: cut back on spending.

Responsible people budget; irresponsible people blame others for not having the wherewithal to spend and spend and spend.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags bankruptcy, deficit spending, federal spending, over-spending, overspending, revenue, spend, tax, tax policy

national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

That’s What They Want

The political class sings monotone, striking one note ad nauseam.

The song is “Money.”

One night an Amtrak train crashes, with fatalities; early the next morning a crowded chorus argues for amped-up spending on “infrastructure.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) pled to the MSNBC lens, “Is it going to take more of these crashes and deaths to wake up the members of Congress who keep wanting to slim down the budgets going into infrastructure?”

Of course, no dollar amount is high enough that, if thrown at the problem, could guarantee no future accidents. Politicians want to toss the maximum moola at it, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Baltimore smolders — and not because the Orioles won a World Series, but rather at the hands of rioters using protests sparked by the death of a man in police custody as their cover. To many, the tragic events call not so much for justice in court, or enacting law enforcement reforms, but for more “investment” in “urban areas” to solve the persistent problem of urban poverty.

“There’s been no effort to reinvest and rebuild in these communities,” President Obama claims.

Isn’t Obama the country’s head honcho? Did he not make any effort?

That’s funny, because an analysis by the Free Beacon finds that the City of Baltimore raked in $1.8 billion from the 2009 stimulus bill alone.

Doesn’t that count?

“Today, government spends 16 times more . . . than it did when the War on Poverty started,” wrote Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield in their Heritage Foundation paper, The War on Poverty After 50 Years. “But as welfare spending soared, the decline in poverty came to a grinding halt.”

But why quibble about results?

Just send more money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Amtrak, infrastructure, spending

folly government transparency porkbarrel politics too much government

Lagniappes à la Legislators

Post author By CS Admin
Post date April 1, 2015
5 Comments on Lagniappes à la Legislators

Finally, a legislator with the guts to strike directly at the root of the problem: the People.

Well, not all the people. Just the ones who speak out, who show a lack respect for their elected betters.

In recent years, the Arkansas Legislature has heroically tried to control the chaotic and dangerous excesses of freedom and democracy in the Natural State. Legislators have proposed laws clamping down on citizen petitions, requiring employees to friend their employers on Facebook, outlawing photography in public and . . . well, you get the picture.

Last November, legislators convinced voters to amend the state constitution to weaken term limits and establish an independent commission (appointed by legislators) to raise their pay 148 percent. How? By astutely telling voters that the amendment would “set term limits,” while saying nothing about the pay hike.

Legislators also cleverly curtailed the citizen initiative process, regulating paid petitioners in ways the state constitution prohibits. But they got a pass on that; the eminent state supreme court has ruled in their favor. Then, unwilling to rest on their laurels, legislators introduced a new bill requiring petition campaigns to conduct costly criminal background checks on their paid petitioners.

One opponent called this deeply thoughtful measure “mean-spirited” and “unnecessary.”

Sen. Jon Woods argued the legislation doesn’t go far enough. He filed Senate Bill 0401, which mandates that any person speaking out in any way not in sync with the legislature must shut up.

“Enough pussy-footing around. Let’s end all this free speech hogwash,” Woods said. “We’re the boss!”

For real?

Unfortunately, everything prior to the previous three paragraphs is 100 percent true. Yup, every day is April Fools’ Day at the Arkansas Legislature.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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