Common Sense with Paul Jacob

If you think the high cost of gas is unfair, you’re right. But don’t blame the gas stations or the oil companies. Like you and me, they’re just trying to make a living. When the costs go up for every single seller in that market, you can bet that the prices you have to pay will go up too. But are all of those costs necessary?

One worthless cost is arbitrary regulation. Refiners are now being forced to reformulate their gasoline with ethanol. It supposedly has environmental benefits, but it’s more a farm subsidy than anything else. This and other burdens mean that building new refineries has become a very risky investment. So supply is lower and prices go up. Then there’s taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute reports that over the past twenty years the gas tax is the fastest growing tax imposed on middle-income Americans. In 1980 the feds charged 4 cents a gallon. Now it’s 18 cents. Add a few more dimes for state and local tax gouging, and it turns out that 40 or 50 cents of the cost of each gallon is imposed from above. Much like cigarettes and liquor, the stuff that gets us from here to there is being treated as a cash cow by the government.

The GOP Congress has mumbled about dropping a nickel from the gas tax, but hasn’t followed through. Who pays for the spinelessness of the career politicians? You and me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

If I told you that anarchy reigned in L.A., you might suppose I was referring to corruption and criminal activity by Los Angeles police. Actually, this particular anarchy is taking place in Los Angeles County and it has to do with the desire of career politicians there to trash democracy to protect their careers.

Term limits activists turned in enough signatures on petitions to qualify a measure for the November ballot. At first, the county officials said the signatures weren’t enough. Then, after the deadline for placing the measure on the ballot had passed, county officials admitted: Oh yeah, looks like you do have enough John Hancocks on this thing. But oops! You missed the deadline.

The measure enacts a two-term limit on County Supervisors and stops them from drawing their own political boundaries. As expected, all five sitting L.A. County Supervisors are opposing the initiative. Their offices have become lifetime positions. The districts are huge, containing nearly 2 million residents apiece. No incumbent supervisor has lost an election in 20 years. And of course, those county officials counting term limits signatures know who butters their bread.

Term limits activists are taking these power-grabbers to court. So far the local courts have allowed this lawlessness to continue, accepting the lame excuse of County officials that changing the ballots now would be chaotic. And it’s true that justice can be inconvenient, especially for the people whose hands are caught in the cookie jar.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

Don’t you hate it when politicians put their careers ahead of their duty as our representatives? It’s even worse when they do so using our tax dollars.

Monday, September 11, 2000

This year Education Secretary Richard Riley has been traveling so much he’s managed to attend campaign events for 10 vulnerable congressional incumbents. In fact, 80 percent of his visits have been with Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns. All the trips have been paid for by you guessed it you, the taxpayer.

Mr. Riley declined to speak to reporters, but his spokesperson said, “It’s all education-related.” Well, that’s very nice. Education-related.

Yes, our well-paid Education Secretary is campaigning for his cronies and sending taxpayers the bill, but not to worry, his tax-funded PR flak says it’s “education-related.” What’s the job description of the Secretary of Education? Does he actually administer and manage the Department? Or is he just a glorified messenger with a briefcase full of tax dollars? If politics is what motivates Mr. Riley then he should go to work for the Democratic National Committee, not the taxpayers.

One Republican suggested Riley has been in Washington long enough to learn how to abuse the system. Both parties do this and both parties are wrong. The longer folks stay in Washington, the more likely they are to forget that it’s not their money it’s yours.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Should the United Nations be carrying out the edicts of totalitarian governments? And should we as Americans be paying for it? A fellow named Bawa Jain organized a religious meeting at the United Nations, a summit of a thousand religious leaders from around the world. But guess who wasn’t allowed to attend? The Dalai Lama, exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. Nor were members of China’s Falun Dafa spiritual movement welcome. Why? Because China’s Communist government didn’t want them here.

China has repressed the Dalai Lama and banned Falun Dafa. China is no friend of religious freedom, or freedom period. Organizer Bawa Jain says he was “forced” to follow the preferences of the Chinese Communist government. And UN Secretary General Kafi Annan backs the decision. “I have tried to open this house as much as I can,” he says.

Politicians in this country, including our President, are so afraid of sounding anti-United Nations that they are willing to allow huge amounts of our tax dollars to be spent stupidly, or even worse, immorally. American taxpayers have shelled out more $15 billion dollars to the UN over the past decade. If the United Nations doesn’t stand for bringing people together, what’s the point?

It’s bad enough that the U.S. government has insulted the Dalai Lama before at the bidding of the Chinese, but abandoning the American principle of freedom is even worse.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember the first Star Wars movie? Just when the Empire’s star-cruisers were closing in on Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, the good guys in their spaceship made the light-speed jump to hyper-space , escaping the Empire’s storm-troopers. The politicians want to make a jump, too.

Their jump is to what we might call hyper-incumbency. They don’t want to escape the Empire; they are the Empire. They want to escape us the voters.

George Nethercutt is the fellow who won office pledging to serve only three terms. Now he’s breaking his word. His betrayal of the people of Eastern Washington is a sad commentary on the corruptible nature of man. But the encouragement Nethercutt has gotten from the Republican leadership big dollars and other reelection help all to double-cross the voters, well, that’s truly despicable.

Republicans won their congressional majority by anchoring the Contract With America with a promise to fight for term limits. Now, these same men renounce term limits, yank it from the platform and back George Nethercutt. These career politicians want an even bigger victory from the Nethercutt race: a victory over any notion that the voters can hold the professional politicians who run Congress accountable.

Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times called Nethercutt “the perfect emblem of the Republican campaign for the House.” And he suggested a slogan for the GOP jump to Hyper-Incumbency: “Vote Republican, we’re not as bad as you think.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Too often that sums up the career politicians who run the federal government.

A couple examples: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was considered a potential Al Gore pick for Vice President. But the Department of Energy’s problems at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, with laughable, though frightening breaches in security, shunted Richardson out of the picture.

On a Sunday TV show, Richardson defended himself by saying he had actually increased the Los Alamos security budget. He threw money at the problem. Now Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman is on the hot seat for federal policies that may have fueled the wild fires ravaging Montana. The Montana governor argued mistakes made by Glickman’s department have caused very serious problems for the people there.

Glickman’s response? That he had spent more money than his predecessors on fire protection programs. This is the Washington trap. It’s easy for politicians to throw money at problems because it’s not their money. And part of the problem is that they spend so much money they lose perspective. A million dollars becomes a very small sum.

Soon politicians get used to spending money and taking credit. Why follow-up? Why see what works or doesn’t work? Career politicians have neither the humility nor the risk-taking spirit to test and review their miracles. They spent money on it. Don’t bother them about the results.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s the second most important election in the country writes Jonathan Rauch in National Journal, because “The race puts a fundamental principle at stake.” It’s the race for Washington State’s 5th congressional district, the crown jewel of the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.

In 1994, House Speaker Tom Foley sued the voters to overturn a term limits initiative and was defeated by a challenger who pledged to serve no more than three terms in Congress. That challenger was George Nethercutt. Now, three terms later while most who self-imposed term limits are, in fact, keeping their pledges George Nethercutt is playing Pinocchio, breaking his word to the voters and trying to stay in power.

In fact, Nethercutt’s portrayal is so real, that movie posters starring George Nethercutt as Pinocchio, produced by U.S. Term Limits, are going up all over Spokane. (You can get one free at “USTermLimits.org“.)

Rauch writes, “Nethercutt himself has offered all sorts of arguments. Some of them are pathetic . . . Others are irrelevant . . . Some are crass . . . Still others are simply weird.” That nose just keeps growing. Will Nethercutt win? Spokane voters must decide.

The long-nosed Nethercutt does have a big financial advantage in the race gained by breaking another longtime promise never to take more than a third of his campaign funds from PACs. Nethercutt has incumbency going for him, but not character.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

My favorite contrarian is the popular ABC journalist John Stossel. Stossel is never afraid to tackle someone’s sacred cow. Perhaps too that’s why John Stossel adorns the dartboards of so many critics.

They may not share his laissez-faire philosophy, or perhaps they own one of the sacred cows Stossel has carved up. Certainly, critics have a right to oppose Mr. Stossel’s views. But they are wrong to question his integrity because of a human error. And they’re wrong to twist the facts of the case in a dishonest attempt to censor his viewpoint.

The story is this: recently, in a report on organic foods, Stossel made a mistake. Yep, a mistake. Stossel said ABC had tested for pesticide residue on both organic and processed foods. Though no such testing has been done by ABC News, it has in fact been done by outside parties. And the tests do indeed show as Stossel broadcast that there is no special health threat from pesticide residue.

John Stossel didn’t know that ABC had not performed the test. When he found out the truth he went public with the information. Integrity doesn’t mean one never makes any mistakes; it means that when we inevitably do make a mistake, we admit and rectify it. And that’s precisely what John Stossel did.

Television news has a checkered track record, so we need to be vigilant. But holding the media accountable is not advanced by ideological witchhunts. Give me a break! If infallibility is the test, we’re all losers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

My teenage daughter’s one word description of it was “gross.” She was referring to Vice President Gore’s primetime deep-breathing kiss with his wife Tipper at the Democratic Convention.

Now my daughter isn’t against kissing unfortunately. She just doesn’t care who is the best kisser between Bush and Gore. Frankly, I don’t think she’s too impressed with either one. She also thinks it’s strange that this kind of choreographed spontaneity is the stuff of presidential campaigns.

How did we get to the point where our presidential elections are so devoid of content that a candidate’s big innovation is to slap a smooch on his wife? Oh well, I guess it is kinda nice that he’s kissing his own wife instead of somebody else’s. It would be even nicer if folks running for office were a little more like the rest of us, real people instead of just playing real people on TV.  It requires that our leaders have experience in the real world of business and in our communities, rather than only knowing the political world of favors, phony attacks, half-truths and media spin.

We know President Clinton wears boxers, not briefs. (Or was it the other way around?) We know that Gore can and will kiss his wife with great ardor if enough homes are tuned in on TV. We know far too much drivel and spin about the personal lives of the politicians and not nearly enough about what principles they truly believe in. If any.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.