On Nov. 22, 2004, in what became known as the Orange Revolution, massive protests erupted across the Ukraine after charges that the Nov. 21 presidential run-off election between candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych was rigged by the authorities in favor of the latter. Ultimately, Ukraine’s highest court annulled the election and a new vote reversed the result.
Surprise, surprise — the so-called Super Committee isn’t very super.
It appears that the august micro-body of solons will fail to come to an agreement to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, not in any combination of new revenue or spending “cuts” by today’s effective deadline.
On the bright side, given the nature of the likeliest possible agreement this committee would conceive, its failure sounds like the best possible result.
We’re now over $15 trillion in debt, running a deficit of $1.5 trillion this year alone. Still, the Super Committee couldn’t sop up even 80 percent of the red ink they’re spilling just this year. Not even spread out over the decade.
It gets worse. “I think we need to be honest about it,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul pointed out yesterday on CNN. “Spending is still rising under any of these plans. We’re only cutting proposed increases in spending.”
“The curve of spending in our country is going up at about 7.5 percent a year,” Sen. Paul went on to explain. “If you were to freeze spending for ten years, no cuts . . . they would call that a $9 trillion cut.”
So, as we face a debt crisis, the Super Committee couldn’t even manage to lessen their planned massive increases in spending.
Or talk straight with the American people.
Why? Perhaps because official Washington knows that spending is the real source of their power.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On Nov. 21, 1911, British suffragettes stormed Parliament in London. Two hundred and twenty women and three men were arrested and received prison sentences.
The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.
“Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.”
On Nov. 20 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights. New Jersey’s action was followed by the other states making the first 10 amendments to the Constitution the law of the land and completing the revolutionary reforms begun by the Declaration of Independence.
The first in a series, “Common Sense Principles”:
On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a 272 word speech to dedicate a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His “Gettysburg Address” ended with the hopeful appeal “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
“Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society.”
Incentives work. Because people are self-interested.
Even the seemingly altruistic protagonist played by Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams exclaims, “I haven’t once asked what’s in it for me,” only to then ask, “What’s in it for me?”
That line comes to mind when I hear politicians and business folks talk about private-public partnerships, from subsidies for ethanol to billions in government loans to supposedly spur “green” technology.
The bankruptcy of the solar panel maker Solyndra cost taxpayers more than half a billion dollars. But it’s not merely that government is less than stellar at picking investment winners; it’s that the interests of politicians and businesspeople aren’t “the public interest.”
Never will be.
Sure, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress yesterday, “I did not make any decision based on political considerations.” But internal company emails feature complaints about pressure from the Obama Administration to delay announcing layoffs until after the 2010 elections.
Whose interest did that serve?
Documents also uncover Solyndra executives hiding bad news the better to win additional federal funds and, alternatively, threatening that the company was about to go under hoping the potential bad press for Obama might shake down additional bucks.
Companies have an interest in the big money the federal government dangles before them. Politicians have an interest in appearing to be economic wizards creating jobs and spurring a new world with bright green hues.
Neither incentive promotes sound business behavior nor equates with the public interest.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.