Category: Common Sense

There’s something about democracy that makes the heart glad.

Of course, it’s a little more happiness-making if you have real elections, and not just legislators-for-life. That’s why I like term limits. And that’s why it tickles me no end when the critics make claims about term limits that are the opposite of the truth. I guess they have to pretend to like something that at bottom they really don’t like that much at all.

Anyway . . . one thing the critics like to say is that under term limits, all the power to do anything in a legislature will quickly drift away. To the governor or the lobbyists or the regulators or the staffers anybody but the legislative newcomers who got the opportunity to serve because of term limits and who actually have the political authority to introduce legislation and vote on it.

Actually, under term limits the new guys hop off the bench a lot faster than they used to. And far from being ineffectual clowns, they are often quite the contenders.

Certainly that’s true in Ohio, one of the 50 or so states of the union suffering a few budget problems right now. The governor there, Bob Taft, wants to deal with the shortfall by cutting some government spending and also by raising some taxes.

Many legislators in Columbus’s term-limited chambers feel that these approaches would cancel each other out. So the new guys have been flexing their muscles, opposing tax hikes.

They don’t want to follow the governor’s playbook. Maybe they’ll win, maybe they’ll lose. But obviously they’re more than puppets, eh guv’nor?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I think I’ve found an approach we can all live with.

I’ve caught flak lately for suggesting that maybe an individual’s rights are relevant to how we should deal with persons suspected of terrorism or of knowing a terrorist or saying hello to a terrorist.

These are dangerous times, granted. So dangerous that some people believe we dare not pause to check whether there’s any actual evidence of nefarious dealings before locking people away. Let’s not be too dainty when everybody’s life is on the line, is the feeling.

Of course, that feeling might change just a little if the feds come knocking on OUR door. And while we’re detaining and investigating people for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, who knows . . . ? Maybe we’re wasting investigative resources that could be spent on more substantial leads.

Even some former FBI officials are raising a red flag about how the U.S. is going about things now. In any case, I’ve found a compromise that I’m sure will please all parties.

It’s from a fan who writes that maybe we should just, quote, “strap the occasional suspect into a chair in the Capitol Building and make him sit through an Appropriations Committee mark-up. The sound of the hogs feeding at the trough of government revenues is almost certain to drive the a truly guilty party to confession, contrition, and repentance.”

This could work. The very idea of having to witness this kind of activity makes me want to confess, and I ain’t done nothin’. I swear.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Ah, the power of the mass media.

No sooner had I taped not broadcast, mind you, just taped my latest installment of “Common Sense,” than the gears started going into motion.

Somebody at the studio must have phoned Montgomery County, Maryland, and said, “Hey, Paul Jacob is against this! You’d better veto it if you know what’s good fer ya!” And that’s what County Executive Douglas Duncan did.

Although he had supported it before, Duncan promptly killed council legislation that would have turned Montgomery residents into prisoners.

Imagine it! Prohibited from smoking in the privacy of your own home, if some vindictive neighbor decides to go after you. The new law would have fined people $750 for each separate infraction.

Quite a steep tax for being politically incorrect. Next they’d be throwing you in jail for burning a hamburger in the kitchen. You know, that’s what they can do if you refuse to pay a fine: throw you in jail.

Oh, sure. The uproar over this particular piece of Puritanical paternalism was instantaneous and worldwide. On ABC’s “This Week,” George Will compared the Montgomery Council to the Taliban. John Stossel made it the focus of his “Give Me a Break” segment on “20/20.” The ACLU threatened to sue.

Even the Moscow Times weighed in. You know you’re in trouble when the Russians start wagging their fingers at you for going over the top. But I still give myself the sole credit for stopping the Montgomery home smoking ban in its tracks.

After all . . . This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In the past, I’ve often panned congressional pork.

Now I say, ban the pork. It’s time to be a lean, mean, fighting machine. Let’s get serious about this war against terrorism and for freedom and self-responsibility. Let’s get rid of porkbarrel legislation altogether.

Let’s make pork illegal.

Pork is a state or local project that has no relationship whatever to national defense or law enforcement, nor fulfills a federal mandate. The benefits of porkbarrel are local and, in the best of all possible worlds, so would the payments be. Assuming local taxpayers still want to foot the bill once they realize they’re stuck with it.

Pork gets on the budget to begin with only because of logrolling and back-scratching, not because it fulfills a true federal obligation of the government.

Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste says it’s time for a little patriotic restraint on the part of pork-barreling career politicians. It’s time for our congressmen to say things like, “I will sacrifice the $3.5 million I have requested to restore the statue of Vulcan in Alabama to pay for three Tomahawk cruise missiles.”

I agree, but I go further. It’s time for Congress to ban pork altogether. Make a law and not as a temporary wartime measure, but permanently. As long as it’s legal for the whole nation to be forced to pay for a bridge in Ohio or a park bench in Madison, Wisconsin, it is going to happen. So let’s ban it.

Our federal government should be providing for the national defense, not the local latrines.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Potatoes aren’t the only thing they have in Idaho. They also have potatohead career politicians.

Okay, that wasn’t nice. I apologize to any career politicians or potatoes who were offended.

But on the other hand, Idaho voters are being treated like potato salad. And that’s not right either. Idaho politicians have tried again and again to trash term limits. But the people of Idaho have refused to play along.

So now the politicians are taking the people to court. Last year, 6th District Judge Randy Smith heard a challenge to the Idaho term limits law. It pertained to the desire of county-level officials to remain on the job.

Of course, as soon as Judge Smith’s ruling made clear his bias against term limits, the true purpose of the lawsuit rapidly emerged. All kinds of statewide lobbyists and statewide politicians crawled out of the potato bag to demand an end to term limits.

Judge Smith stressed a section of the Idaho code stating that “Any person legally qualified to hold such office is entitled to become a candidate.”

But I think Judge Smith is missing something. After all, under term limits, whether one is “legally qualified” depends on how many terms one has served! And Judge Smith also admitted that the state constitution “allows the people the . . . right to propose laws and enact the same by initiative.”

The Idaho Supreme Court is about to decide this question. Let’s hope they realize that the constitutionally protected voting rights of the Idaho citizen cannot be sliced and diced at will.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Before what’s left of our liberty goes up in smoke, we need to take a deep breath and think things through . . . or at least our legislators do . . . at least the legislators of Montgomery County in Maryland.

The Montgomery council has just approved one of the most restrictive anti-smoking measures in the entire country. Now you can’t smoke in peace in your own home.

The new law is not an outright ban, but it does open the door to all manner of harassment and hardship. If you smoke in your home and some of the fumes happen to drift into the home of a neighbor, whether through a vent or a door or an open window, your neighbor can now complain to the county’s Department of Environmental Protection, which could then slap a fine of $750 on you or your landlord. Just think of it as a new cigarette tax.

Bob Levy of the Cato Institute can only shake his head over this eagerness to solve every little local headache by looking to the government. He says, “Ordinarily, we rely on common courtesy and mutual respect when individuals relate to one another. But nosy, intrusive government has polarized the dispute between smokers and nonsmokers.”

One member of the Montgomery council tries to reassure us. If people abuse the new law, we’ll repeal it, he claims. But I don’t think we can trust them to repeal it, seeing as how we couldn’t trust them not to pass such an outrageous law to begin with.

But I do trust you to complain, especially if you live in Maryland.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Trust in government has gone way up in the wake of 911. But the realities of Washington politicking are the same old same-old.

Take the recent anti-terrorism bill, the so-called “USA Patriot Act.” Who could be against that, eh? It has the word “patriot” in the title.

Well, Representative Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, was one congressman who voted against it. He said it was unconstitutional. Paul was especially annoyed by the tactics used to push the bill.

For instance, the vote was taken before members of Congress had seen a final version! In other words, your Representative had no way of knowing exactly what he was voting for before he voted for it which is how controversial items get tucked into lengthy legislation without anybody making a fuss.

The more complex a bill is, the more time lawmakers should have to review it. But as Paul points out, “that’s not the way it works in the Congress. As a matter of fact, it works almost the opposite way. The more complex, especially if controversial, the less likely it is that you’ll get to read it.”

Paul notes that when it came to this particular bill, the political heat was on to get it done, regardless of how. Even so-called “sunset provisions” designed to ensure that controversial government powers would not remain permanent turned out to be a farce.

However you stand on this so-called “Patriot Act,” it’s clear Congress is flying blind. Americans are more ready than ever to trust their leaders. But in the Congress, leaders are hard to find.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The President of the United States asked him to do it. So did a number of elected officials and Republican Party leaders.

For the good of the party, for the good of the country, for all they hold dear, they wanted Representative Bob Schaffer of Colorado to do just one little thing. Break his word.

But Bob Schaffer refused. Refused to break his word to the voters by continuing to serve in Congress. Said no to the usual Washington two-step of saying what voters want to hear to get elected, then doing the opposite once in office. Schaffer said that he didn’t want to follow the path of politicians who “find a way to weasel out of a promise.”

No doubt the congressman was tempted to break his word. He had grown to enjoy serving in the congress. And his district is safely Republican. He likely could have survived thumbing his nose at his constituents. All the more reason that good people need a self-imposed time limit: so they won’t succumb to the sirens of power.

But Schaffer did the right thing by keeping his three-term pledge. At his press conference to announce his decision, he offered words that must sting the power-brokers in Washington like holy water splashed on vampires.

“The biggest issue for me,” said Schaffer, “is maintaining commitments and keeping my word.” Ouch. Gee whiz, a lawmaker who really, truly believes in walking the walk. It may be common sense to you and me, but it sure is mighty uncommon for all too many in Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Even the Washington Post has to admit it.

“You know the Democrats are the party that cares most about the poor,” says a Washington Post editorial, “because [the Democrats] tell you so, world without end, and bask in the glow.”

But it’s a “lie,” says the Post . And Exhibit A is the farm bill presently larding its way through Congress.

The House Agriculture Committee has $70 billion dollars to “play with” as the Post puts it. About 5 percent goes to food stamps and other programs for the poor. But most goes to subsidies for the largest ag-producers. Half of all these government subsidies go to a mere 5 percent of the large farming concerns.

The measure was so offensive that the Bush Administration felt it had to break with the House Republican leadership to oppose it. Republican Senator Richard Lugar tried to change the formula to send more to the poor and less to large agricultural companies.

BUT two farm-state Senators, Harkin of Iowa and Daschle of South Dakota both Democrats blocked Lugar and plunged for the pork instead. The Post says it’s because they want to maximize price supports.

Congressmen see themselves in a bidding war for the votes of farm states. From farm spending to defense spending, the highest priority of the career politicians be they Democrats or Republicans seems clear.

Dole out our tax dollars in whichever manner will best buy votes. Which means, when you think about it, that reelection campaigns cost not millions, but billions, every year: your taxes their bribe money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Thank goodness Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online has all the answers. He’s settled the argument about whether we ought to worry about big government gobbling away our civil liberties or just worry about big government when it’s under the wing of those lousy left-wingers.

Goldberg says that during this time of security crisis we should simply trust our government to do the right thing. Don’t worry. Be happy. Great idea. Don’t worry your pretty little head about a written constitution enumerating the limited powers of government. And who needs a clumsy old legal code? How silly of us! You gotta have trust, people.

Boy, I feel better already. But folks like William Safire aren’t quite in Goldberg’s corner. Safire is more than a little perturbed that our president has declared a fuzzy martial law to deal with non-citizens living in the U.S. who are “suspected terrorists.” Any chance that a federal government armed with tremendous police powers and secret trials might abuse that power and the people on trial? Well, it’s possible.

But where’s your trust? You’re not going to give it to rabble-rousers like George Washington, are you? Washington said: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master . . .” How can an old fogey like Washington understand what we face today? Better to trust our sage new politicians to make it up as they go along without a lot of legality mucking up the works. Don’t worry. Be happy.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.