ThisIsCommonSense.org

Animal House” was a movie about the crazy antics of a college fraternity. But if you live in Massachusetts, you don’t have to buy a ticket to the movies, just stroll down to the state capitol and take a peek at your legislators.

Amidst the shouts of “Toga! Toga! Toga!” and drinking and partying, you’ll see an orgy of spending by entrenched politicians. Bay State lawmakers partied, drank and slept their way through a spending spree recently where they added nearly $200 million to state spending.

House Speaker Thomas Finneran admitted the session might be confused with a keg party. But another legislator defended himself, “I’m a responsible drinker,” he says. Perhaps he IS a more responsible when it comes to drinking than when spending the people’s tax dollars. Is this a legislature of rookies who just don’t know any better? Nope. These are elite professional politicians arguably doing what they do best partying and spending our tax money.

Sure, Massachusetts’s voters presented legislators with a petition for a constitutional amendment for term limits. The state constitution says the legislature must vote on it. But lawmakers ignored the constitution and refused to even hold a vote on the measure. No doubt they had a big night on the town planned and couldn’t be bothered by their constitutional duties. Career politicians are wilder than college students. And we need term limits in Massachusetts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Okay, no big surprise that people don’t like paying taxes. But it may surprise you that the number one reason people hate paying their income taxes is that they believe the federal government will waste about half the money we fork over to them.

That’s right: according to an ABC News poll, on average, Americans believe 46 cents out of every tax dollar they pay is wasted by the Washington bureaucracy. But such waste isn’t simply bad management. The politicians will go to extraordinary lengths to have our tax money because it, after all, is the real source of their power. Once they’ve got it, of course, they’ll proceed to spend it to “help” people, of course.

President Clinton always wants to “help” people. Now he is giving 300,000 Native Americans heavily subsidized phone service. Mr. Clinton is giving it, but you are paying for it. The cost of your phone service is being raised by decree of the FCC. Is this what Indians want? If so, why don’t they spend their own money for phone service?

Keep in mind, this is the same Clinton administration that just last year was found in contempt of court for what a federal judge called “deception” and “abuse” in mishandling over $2.5 billion of Indian trust funds. Seems to me the federal government should stop swiping your money, the Indians’ money, and the money of the guy down the street. Heaven knows they’ll only waste it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In 1944, two American kids, Ed Jaksha and Bob Wright, hit the beaches of Normandy to save the world. “Never surrender,” Winston Churchill had said. There was no surrender in these freedom-​loving lads, or in thousands more like them.

Fifty years after storming the beaches of Normandy, Jaksha and Wright stormed the parking lots Nebraska to collect signatures on petitions petitions to place term limits on state legislators and members of Congress, to restore citizen control of government the same mission they’d risked their lives for half a century ago. Nebraska officials told them the law required a certain number of signatures.

They got the signatures and the voters passed term limits with 68 percent. But then came a lawsuit. In the end, the state supreme court arbitrarily raised the signature requirement after the fact and threw out the people’s vote for term limits … after all the signatures had been collected the court changed the requirement. Contemptible.

But Jaksha and Wright charged back into action. Even more signatures were gathered and the voters again said yes with a 68 percent vote. Again a lawsuit and again the state supreme court flouted the law and killed term limits. But now the voters had had enough; they booted the judge responsible out of office.

Best of all, Nebraska activists are right now collecting signatures to give the people a third opportunity to enact term limits. These patriots never surrender.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Those poor, poor politicians, they get awfully tired. Dodging the tough issues can wear a body out. And having to pretend to serve the people while pursuing the perks and privileges of a power, well … sometimes it gets to be too much.

So the politicians in Oregon decided to do something about it to tell the pesky citizens to pay their taxes and then “Butt out!” Legislators filed 50 different bills that would in one way or another destroy the citizen initiative process in the state. After all, it was by citizen initiative that the people passed term limits. The politicians would never have done so.

Virtually every other reform you can imagine has only one good chance to become law. Through the legislature? Ha, not on your life. Only through voter initiative can citizens break up the monopoly politicians have created for themselves. The Oregon Legislature placed a measure on this May’s ballot to increase by a whopping 50 percent the petition signatures required to place a voter-​sponsored initiative on the ballot. The supporters of the legislature’s measure admit it will give an advantage to wealthier groups. Even so, a retired state judge said, “It is not a solution, but it would give us a breather.”

A breather? Yes, they want a breather from democracy, so they can better plot removing the people from future decisions. Oh, we’re always happy to give the career politicians a breather. How about term limits?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

When people contribute money to political candidates, I think that’s great. My first thought is that they must agree with the ideas that candidate is campaigning for. But too often career politicians in the Congress show their fundraising efforts are geared to those who want or need to buy influence, not to those who support their general ideas about governance.

Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the Chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, is under fire from Democrats because he told multi-​billionaire Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, that he had not given Republicans enough money, or as Davis put it, “political support.” Bill Gates and his company, Microsoft, have gone through hell in the courts over the past several years for committing the sin of doing better than their competitors in the marketplace.

If Republicans agree that Microsoft is being harmed by arbitrary court action, they shouldn’t need an additional pay-​off from Bill Gates in order to fight for what they believe is right and just. The federal budget should not be a slush fund used by career politicians to reward their friends. Nor should the federal regulatory and police powers be used to threaten political enemies.

But the longer politicians stay in Congress, the more they tend to accept and practice a corrupt doctrine. A doctrine that says the federal government and our tax dollars are theirs to use as clubs to coerce political support. No wonder there’s so much cynicism about Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Wouldn’t it be nice if when you paid your income tax, you could send the money to the programs or projects you thought most important? Here’s one I bet wouldn’t get too many people checking the box: funding the decadent shindigs that we still for some reason call “political conventions.”

This year, Republicans partying in Philadelphia and Democrats celebrating in L.A. will churn through some 26 million of our tax dollars for the all-​important cause of hoopla. The Reform Party will get a few million dollars as well. Yes, we taxpayers are buying balloons, confetti, fancy hors d’oeuvres, liquor and entertainment so the political elite can have a swell time. Somehow having my tax dollars given away to fund party favors for politicians just doesn’t warm my heart the way making a donation to a local charity does.

Some will say, “Oh, it’s only a trifling $26 million smackers. What’s the big deal? In a $1.8 trillion budget, that’s nothing.” But you know, a million here and a million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

To take the fruit of someone’s labor away from them is bad enough. But to take it away to fund extravagant parties for a special elite group is a special insult added to injury. My Mother used to say, “Don’t be a party pooper.” Well, sorry Ma, I really don’t have anything against someone having a party; it’s just that when I’m paying the bills, I’m cheap.

At least, cheaper than politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.