Common Sense with Paul Jacob

99

If you think we have only 12 months in a year and January comes after December, you must live outside Washington.

Politicians bristle at the notion that they don’t live in the real world. But when it comes to controlling the spending of our tax dollars and staying within a budget, the politicians in Washington prove they’re from a completely ‘nother planet.

Looking for some scheme to spend more tax money without breaking their own promised budget caps, the career politicians will try almost anything.

Almost anything, except keeping their promise, that is.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, in Congress for 20 years, admits the obvious, “We all know we engage in a lot of smoke and mirrors.” The latest scheme they’re offering: a 13-month yearly budget! 13 months. That’s right. 13.

Not 12. 13.

Now, to us common folk it seems there are only 12 months in a year. But the congressional leadership refuses to trim the increases in their spending so the calendar has to bend a little. And there ain’t no ‘controlling legal authority’ out there to tell ’em, “Hey, only 12 months in a year, bubba.”

That’s another full 30 days of spending for the Martians in Washington. Let’s put the new congressionally fabricated month right after December and before January. Since it’s a creation of career politicians in Washington designed to get around reality; perhaps we should call the new 13th month “Deceptuary.”

“Deception” plus “January” “Deceptuary.” What else would you expect from Planet Washington?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Another shooting spree leaves more people dead, this time in a church in Ft. Worth, Texas. What can we do to stop these acts of violence?

Darn good question. First, though, let’s stop blaming ourselves. A headline in my paper screams, “America the Violent.” These acts are not the fault of society at large. You and I are part of society. I’m not to blame for these shootings. Are you?

Stop blaming guns. My state representative sent me a letter saying, “I voted for no guns at school.” Idiotic. Did anybody vote to put guns in schools?

Stop blaming the media and video games and movies. Some of this is offensive, but it doesn’t put a gun in someone’s hand and pull the trigger for him.

When it comes to politicians I admit it’s tempting to blame them. Politicians do their darnedest to screw up an awful lot of things. But these shootings are not the fault of politicians. In fact, most agree that none of the gun laws or other measures being emotionally debated in Congress would have prevented any of these killings.

Who is to blame? The killers. That’s where moral responsibility lies. They’re the ones that did it.

The hallmark of a civilized society is individual responsibility. When we blame others for what criminals do, we send the wrong signal. It’s not society’s fault. Let’s teach our kids that everyone is responsible for his or her own actions, good actions or bad.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. hated prejudice. He said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

It’s wrong to prejudge people because of their race or creed or nationality. But is discrimination wrong in and of itself?

Every day we discriminate for and against people because of what they say, how they act in short, because of their character. And well we should. Martin Luther King thought we should all be judged on the basis of the content of our character.

The Miss America Pageant is changing its standards to allow women who have been divorced or had abortions to compete for their title. The story is a troubling one. It doesn’t have to do with where you stand on abortion or divorce. It has to do with the freedom of any private organization to promote what it believes in.

The Miss America organization says it changed its rules to avoid being sued under New Jersey’s discrimination law. As a private organization, Miss America has a right to set the standards for character that they deem important. And to do so without being harassed by the New Jersey legislature.

While it’s profoundly wrong to prejudge others by their race, sex or religion, it is every bit as wrong not to reward people of high character. Our country’s very future depends on rewarding good behavior. When it comes to character, let’s discriminate.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Throwing money at a problem doesn’t always solve it.

Take the areas of education, health care, and transportation. The government has been spending more and more money on these areas, but the problems just get worse.

Every year, we spend more educating each student. Almost twice as much as we did 20 years ago. But test scores keep dropping, and most educators admit we’re losing ground.

The cost of health care is going through the roof at the very same time that complaints about the quality of care are also going through the roof. Thanks to government subsidies, government regulation and government mismanagement, a lot of that money goes down the drain.

Meanwhile, if you’ve flown this summer, you won’t be surprised to learn that flight delays have reached an all-time high, 70 percent more than last year. Why is that? The FAA, a government agency, uses equipment that is outdated and unreliable even though better equipment has been available for years. According to the Department of Transportation, preventable flight delays cost airlines and travelers $5 billion a year.

What all these problem areas have in common is that bureaucracies either totally or partially created by government stand between consumers and the services they need. Politicians must stop throwing our money at the problems. They need to get out of the way.

Let those who teach, fly and heal do their jobs. And let the rest of us pay them directly so they know who they work for.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

As the kids go back to school, they have to think about getting good grades.

Now congressmen have to worry about grades, too. The National Taxpayers Union plugged 146 spending votes from 1998 into its calculator to come up with grades for each and every congressman.

The taxpayer group learned that citizen legislators, those who term-limit their time in Congress, are much more reluctant than their careerist colleagues to dip into the pockets of the taxpayer.

After reviewing every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy, NTU assigns a “Taxpayer Score” to each congressman, gauging his commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation. The most fiscally prudent member of the House turns out to be Mark Sanford of South Carolina who earned a Taxpayer Score of 90 percent. Then comes Matt Salmon of Arizona, Bob Schaffer of Colorado and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

What do these A-plus representatives have in common? All have voluntarily limited their terms. But Congress as a whole didn’t do nearly so well. The overall congressional score dropped 4 points from 1997 to a pathetic 39 percent. Averages also declined by 12 points in the Senate, to only 41 percent.

In other words: Congress got a big fat F. If we want more A’s from our congresspeople, we citizens need to do our homework, too. That means learning who has signed the Term Limits Pledge and who hasn’t. Because those who take the Term Limits Pledge are the ones who bring home the A’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The payroll taxes taken out of our checks for Social Security are a big bite. Most of us pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes, state taxes, or virtually any of our monthly bills.

Politicians preach that Social Security is a sacred trust with the people. What phony baloney! If Social Security is a trust, that trust has been shattered by career politicians.

Year in, year out, budget after budget, they raid the money taken from the mouths of your family and mine, and fritter it away on one failed program or another. But folks in Washington promised that this year would be different. Social Security would be placed in a “lock-box,” not to be touched.

Well, there they go again. Another promise that lasted about 5 seconds. With Congress passing so-called emergency spending bills and the president calling for even more, it seems very easy to get the keys to that lock-box lately.

The only folks in Congress serious about standing up against this flim-flam are those who have limited their terms. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is battling both parties to hold the line against a new round of wasteful spending. Mark Sanford of South Carolina is working to put your Social Security dollars under your control and out of the reach of spendaholic politicians. The professional politicians will continue to defraud taxpayers until Social Security goes belly-up or the payroll taxes smother future generations.

The small band of citizen legislators like Coburn and Sanford need your help to stop this madness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Something’s rotten in Washington. We’re learning that government agencies hid evidence and obstructed justice in the aftermath of the 1993 siege in Waco, Texas a siege that left 80 people dead.

The apparent cover-up is a further tragedy on top of the grisly body count of women and children who were part of a religious sect that, whether good or bad, never harmed anyone else.

Who is to blame? Joseph DiGenova, a former independent counsel, says, “A fish rots from the head,” clearly implicating President Clinton for creating a climate that says the rules can be bent or broken.

How about Attorney General Janet Reno? After the death toll in Waco, she said she takes full responsibility. Words. Just words.

Not only is something rotten in Washington, much of Washington is rotten.

Attorney Gerry Spence says that the lesson from Waco is that if the government wants to get you, they will. That’s frightening, and the actions of the Justice Department and the FBI hardly refute the point. Even in a free country, the government can deprive us of our liberties, and even our lives.

But in a free society, when such things happen, our elected officials and those they appoint are supposed to be held accountable. And those who commit these acts are supposed to get prosecuted, not promoted. The situation will not change with the same political hacks who brought us to this pass.

There is a tide in the affairs of men. We need new people more than ever. Our Republic is at stake.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What if they held an election and nobody came? Terrible, right? What if they held an election and lots of people came, but the politicians ignored us? Worse.

What if they held two elections and the people came out in droves, two separate times on the same issue, and the politicians still told them “get lost!”? That would be Idaho.

The people of Idaho went to the polls in 1994 and placed term limits on their state legislators and local office holders. Instead of accepting this vote of the people, the legislators introduced bills to repeal term limits.

But too many representatives were scared the public backlash might cost them their seats. So they placed a very confusing measure on the ballot to try to fool the people into voting down term limits. The voters saw through it.Even then, still more bills were introduced to repeal the term limits law.

One of the reasons Idaho politicians think they can get away with snubbing their noses at the people they’re supposed to be working for is the terrible lack of competition for legislative seats. The advantages of incumbency have meant that most of the legislators face no serious opposition.

Idaho politicians won’t get away with it. Activist Donna Weaver and a group of supporters around the state are committed to a political process that’s open to the people. The politicians have launched unprecedented and mean-spirited attacks on these patriotic citizens, but Weaver and company won’t budge from their stance that this beautiful state isn’t the politicians’ own private Idaho.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Congresswoman Tillie Fowler won’t ‘fess up.

In 1992, Councilwoman Fowler supported a local term limits measure that passed with an 82 percent vote. She also endorsed the Florida term limits law dubbed “Eight is Enough” that passed with 77 percent. She ran for Congress that year and pledged to serve no more than 8 years. She won.

When she first got to Capitol Hill, Fowler insisted on the floor of Congress, “I am committed to adhere to the 8-year term limit if my voters choose to keep me here that long.” Last year Congresswoman Fowler reaffirmed her pledge saying, “My commitment remains. The 1998 election will be my last, and, should I win another term in 1998, I will retire from the House.”

Pretty darn clear.

But after the ’98 election, rumors started to make the rounds that she would break her pledge. When a public firestorm ensued, Fowler claimed she hadn’t made up her mind. Good people keep their word; bad people break their word. Mrs. Fowler can’t make up her mind.

Her hometown paper now refers to her as “Slick Tillie.” Fowler told USA Today that being in a minor leadership role in Congress has given her “a more open mind on term limits.” When folks in Washington speak of having an open mind it usually signals that all their good sense has fallen out.

At one point, Fowler even said that perhaps she had been “too honest” with people. Too honest? Nice trick, but Slick Tillie, tricks are for career politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember the Republican Revolution?

In 1994 Republicans swept into power on a platform of reform. They would clean up an out of touch Congress they said. They agreed to abide by the same laws they pass for everyone else and enact term limits on committee chairman and on Congress as a whole. Republican congressional leaders told us they would usher in a revolution.

At first, things really looked up. They placed Congress under the laws the rest of us live by. Term limits were passed on committee chairs.

But six years later the revolution never happened.

The laws don’t really apply to Congress as they do to you and me. Hundreds of special exemptions have been granted to members of Congress. Speaker Hastert has also decided that chairmen can simply trade their committees between themselves and hang on to power. Term-limited Rep. Van Hilleary of Tennessee complains, “Now that we’re in the majority the Republican Party doesn’t seem to be interested in [term limits] anymore.”Entrenched Republican incumbents are acting just like the old Democrats.

Some good did come. There are members of Congress, and they’re mostly Republicans, who have voluntarily limited their time in Washington, because they truly believe in a citizen legislature. These members have been a breath of fresh air doing what they believe is right and not playing the usual political games. They could write a book on how to be effective in Washington without selling your soul.

But the GOP leadership is another story. They’re writing a very different book, “How to Become a Minority Party.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.