The Devil Is In The Details

            There’s a long-standing political truism that says “the devil is in the details”. President Obama has laid out some very ambitious liberal programs, and attached budget amounts that cost in the trillions of dollars. Not millions, or billions, but trillions. These are broad, sweeping, expensive programs in which the details are just now coming to light. We are seeing headlines noting that states, counties and cities are gleeful at getting some of that “free” money from  the stimulus package. And those local governing bodies that know how to work the system are finding other pockets of money for everything from education to jails. Practically nothing is coming out of Washington for we-the-people. For instance: not even a whisper of a tax cut except from President Obama’s lips.   So … how much is this going to cost you and me? We will learn that as the details emerge from Pelosi and Company; in the House where all financial actions start, and then from the bureaucracy, where it is spent. The mainstream media is not reporting the details. They’re too busy swooning over Obama’s next Great Society announcement..But details are beginning to reach us The American Legion is livid about a proposal that would require a wounded serviceman to take care of the cost of his own wounds. Some non-profits are highly concerned about tax revisions that can drastically cut charitable giving. The national debt just surpassed $11-trillion, and Obama’s budget calls for $3.6-trillion. We-the-people are asking: who is going to pay for all this? And the answer comes back loud and clear: the devil is in the details.

Charlie Company: Priority Number One

            We have a new administration in Washington right now, and there is a great debate about what our priorities will be. Priority one is the economy, and that makes some sense. Then comes whether or not some executives have been given one-million dollar bonuses. Public Health is on the list, as is education. We seem to have forgotten that we are at war … that we have men and women in harm’s way. This is still a dangerous world, and our terrorist enemies would take us down in a heartbeat if given the chance.  One of the first duties of the federal government, listed in the very first paragraph of the U. S. Constitution, is to “provide for the common defense.” Our leaders in Washington seem to have forgotten that we did not choose this war; it was thrust upon us on 9-11-01 with an attack on American soil that killed more Americans than were lost at Pearl Harbor. In my book, our common defense should be our top priority any time we have troops in combat. This comes to mind because tomorrow, March 26, 2009, right here in Gainesville, Georgia, Charlie Company of the 48^th brigade, Georgia National Guard, which is stationed here, will be starting a deployment to Afghanistan. Volunteers all, these troops are going into harms way to protect you and me and all America. Patriots Call, a patriotic group that supports our GI’s  . and their families, is holding a reception for these troops from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Gainesville Civic Center.  We thank you, guys, for making America safe and your number one priority and we are with you, all the way. God Bless you … and God Bless America.

FYI — Profit Is NOT A Dirty Word

            Have you noticed that the profit motive is being demonized lately by the liberals in Washington? The profit motive came under fire in the Carter administration, but since Ronald Reagan the liberals have laid low with criticism of the free market and profit. They promoted government programs, and insist they were not socialist. They used the word greedy in connection with any corporation, and when one executive erred, the liberal talking heads on TV news  castigated all business leaders.. But they seldom attacked the word profit, or profit motive. Political and social liberals are in control now, and their new language paints PROFIT as a dirty word. The liberals still bridle at being called Socialist, but embrace the idea that the profit motive is evil. This comes mostly, I suspect, from the newspaper industry. The elite newspapers are losing readers and losing money, and in trying to stay afloat financially the managers are cutting staff to stay in the black. The reporting staff, mostly made up of political liberals, say management is cutting staff solely to make a profit. Pharmaceutical executives are criticized for making “too much” profit. And executives in many industries are accused of making an “obscene’: profit. And woe be to a small businessman who makes a profit of more than $250,000 a year. If the liberal establishment is now bringing the word profit into the open in a negative way, can  Socialist be far behind as a positive word in the lexicon of liberals?

The Answer To This Mess: Let Supply and Demand Work

             I am not an economist, but as a historian I have great respect for economists who have studied and created theories that explain the ups and downs of free markets. I have become a die-hard believer in the theory of supply and demand, not because I understand it, but because I have now lived four score years and seen it work. To put it candidly, when people have a lot of money to spend and goods in the marketplace are scarce, the price rises. With higher prices, people say the heck with that, and quit buying. Then retailers – to get rid of the goods – cut prices, and manufacturers cut production. And when things get really slow, both will lay off some workers lest the company goes broke. Thus you have business cycles – ups and downs – and the law of supply and demand takes over with a decision made by we-the-people to spend – or not  spend – our money. So … in the free market system we-the-people make the great economic decisions, voting every day with our money. Look at the economic history of the United States. In a free market the people spend their own money for what THEY want, and what THEY can afford. Every time a government tries to tell us how to spend our money, or puts more money in the system, or takes it out – as in socialized countries – it messes the whole thing up. Through Fannie and Freddie our government messed with natural supply and demand in the housing market, and the bottom fell out. Now they are at it again … this time at an even grander scale.

Local Republicans Reorganize From The Grass Roots Up

            The Republican Party completely restructures itself every other year … all the way from the precinct level to the Republican National Committee. So it was that last Saturday the Hall County GOP held its County Convention. The incoming officers were elected, and Jim Pilgrim is the new County Chairman. Delegates were elected to the District and State GOP conventions where District-wide and State-wide officers will be elected, and where delegates will be elected to the national organizing convention. This is one of the major differences between the Republican and Democrat parties; the Republicans elect their party officials from the ground up, while the Democrats tend to select their leaders from the top down. Studies of last year’s local and state elections indicate Hall County will vote conservative at about the 70% level, so one might think this group would be a bit laid back, but not so. With President Obama in office, Nancy Pelosi – as Speaker of the House – is taking America headlong into Socialism. There was a gritty determination at this local Republican gathering to turn things around at the national level. It reminds me of meetings of the GOP after Bill Clinton clobbered the first George Bush, and had a majority in the House. The Democrats passed a massive tax hike, and Bill turned Hillary loose to socialize medicine. Led by Newt Gingrich, the Contract With America, and a remarkably strong grass-roots organization, at the next election the GOP gained a majority in both the House and Senate. Will that happen again in two years? It could.

Tomorrow We Have A Solemn Duty To Vote

            Tuesday is an election day in Hall County … the day we vote yes or no on the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST – and I never come to an election – even a small one – but that I think of a guy I grew up with. He was a big, lanky country boy from Lynchburg, Tennessee … a couple of classes ahead of me – and we played football together. It was early in World War II and in good Tennessee tradition, he had volunteered as soon as he was old enough. He came home once before going overseas, and one of our friends made some comment about him volunteering, and J. C. Church commented that he had also volunteered for hazardous duty. “Why on earth did you do that?” our friend asked. The answer was quick and direct: “So you can vote.” We all chuckled because our high school history teacher, who was also our coach, had drilled us on the importance of voting in a democracy. It was humorous at the time, but it tells one how steeped we all were in liberty and justice, and their relationship to the right of free people to vote. Church was killed in World War II, running up the beach at Anzio … cut down by German 88 artillery fire coming in from the hills. Tomorrow you and I have an opportunity to vote, and I know at least one guy who died that we might have that right. As we learned as teenagers, voting is not just a privilege.  It is a solemn duty … a debt you and I owe to a lanky GI who paid the price for us … long ago on a blood-stained beach in Italy.

Balance The Budget Battle of 1997

            A little bit of history if I may … The year was 1997 and an intense battle was underway in Washington. President Clinton had submitted a budget with a deficit, and the Republicans were sending it back with instructions to get it in balance. It was pointed out that it had been 28 years since the federal government  balanced its budget. The United States was $5-Trillion in debt, and interest alone was costing $300-million a year. On the conservative side you had a group led by Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and John Kasich. On the other side was a team led by President Bill Clinton and several long-time Washington liberals fighting to maintain the welfare state. The Republicans had control of Congress. The Democrats had President Clinton’s veto power. Clinton had agreed to a balanced budget by 2002 but no serious cuts would come until after he was out of office. During the election campaign just ended President Clinton had declared the “era of big government is over” but now back in office he was waffling. Georgia’s Senator Max Cleland had also campaigned on a balanced budget platform, but now said he would support the balanced budget only if it would allow deficit spending under certain vague circumstances. The Republicans threatened to submit an amendment to the constitution but that would take a two-thirds majority and they didn’t have that. The Gingrich-led Republicans did manage to get a balanced budget more than once. So, guess what? The other day ex-President Clinton pointed with pride that the federal budget was balanced under his leadership as President, and nobody in the media challenged him.

To Spend More Than You Take In Is Nuts

            A bit of LOCAL history if I may … When those of us who served in World War II returned home to settle  in small town America (Gainesville, Georgia, in my case), we looked at our federal government and its spending habits, and we realized it was no longer spending for war, but was still spending more than it was taking in. To our dismay, we learned deficit spending had been going on when we were kids in the 1930’s. America had a long-standing habit of spending more than it took in, but the Roosevelt administration had made deficit spending an art form by introducing a new type of spending we now call social programs. Some of the WW II types thought America should pay its own way, so we declared we were “conservatives” and got involved with the Republican Party. Our stand was not politically popular here in Hall County.  First it was not popular with the “Post Office Republicans”. These were the Republicans, active in Presidential election years, who sought appointments if the GOP won the presidency (i.e. appointment as the local Postmaster). This group, which included some blacks whose family had been Republican since Reconstruction, just after the Civil War, was not at all fond of these young Turks poking around in their political playground. Immediately after WW II the South was solid Democrat. Except in Presidential election years there was no Republican on the ballot, so whoever won the Democrat primary was declared the winner. Then there was the “race card.” The national Democrats were pro-black, while Southern Democrats (both white and black) operated under the “Jim Crow” laws which gave the blacks some political goodies but kept them out of office. There was one hitch in all this: Democrats were 99.4% fiscal conservatives who had this oddball idea government should pay its own way, while national Democrats believed in spending like a drunk sailor (sorry about that, guys. I was Navy, also). Fast forward to today. The South is still fiscally conservative, and here in Hall County it is now solid Republican. The blacks (now African-Americans) have their share of “Post Office” Democrats. And to a large degree Republicans AND Democrats agree on one thing: for our government to constantly spend more-and-more money than it takes in is NUTS. Raise taxes; NO. Cut spending; YES. You see, there is this deep down, gnawing feeling in our gut that constantly spending more than we take in will, sooner or later, take America down.