Climate Change

Climate change has never been disputed; what has is whether mankind is contributing to it and to what degree.  Climate change is a natural occurrence caused by all matter in motion within our universe, particularly the relationship and life cycles of our planet and our sun.  Climate change has been occurring for billions of years and to varying extremes long before we were here.  Science has already produced evidence of that.

The science behind the man-caused aspect of climate change is imperfect and immature.  Until it becomes perfected and undisputed, it is an evolving theory.  Any logical conclusion in the absence of soundness is premature, as is any attempt to control, mitigate, or tax based on it.

Virginia – Second District Congressional Election

Published in the Virginian Pilot, October 23, 2010 here.

As an undecided Virginia 2^nd District voter this fall, I’ve become frustrated watching Congressman Glenn Nye and challenger Scott Rigell go back and forth over Rigell’s participation in Cash for Clunkers.  As they volley accusations of hypocrisy at each other, they seem to be engaging in a superficial argument.  What’s most relevant here is our government’s meddling in private industry, not whether either candidate’s words are hypocritical towards their actions with stimulus plans.

As the owner of a local car dealership, Rigell would have been criticized had he stood firmly on his anti-stimulus ideology and refused to participate in the Clunkers program.  Sitting it out would have forced a competitive disadvantage on his business and likely would have impacted the welfare of his employees.  On the other hand, as he is now being criticized for, he participated in the program and remained competitive among dealers across the country, while at the same time not being terribly enthusiastic about taking government money.  The point is that our government set the market, and car dealers could either play the game or lose business.  Any dealer who sold cars under the Clunkers program was simply facilitating a transaction between the government and the consumer, nothing more.

Had a government stimulus program not placed Rigell in this situation to begin with, we wouldn’t be having a debate.  So rather than finger-pointing and commentary about Rigell taking the money, what I would appreciate from the two candidates is clarity on what they each believe is the proper role of government in the private marketplace.

Us radical conservatives

Does it not bother you that Congress is eclipsing some of our basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?  Does it not bother you that the Executive Branch is swallowing the other two with its abuse of regulation?  Does it not bother you that the Congress has surrendered certain budgetary responsibilities to the Treasury?  That special interests are drafting legislation?  That people are going broke in response to our government’s actions in the housing market?  Does it not bother you that the Fed is eying our private retirement accounts as their next foundation of another Ponzi scheme?

That’s fine if you’d prefer the federal government rule every aspect of your life.  Me – not so much, and I stand with anyone else working to ensure my infant children have the opportunity to enjoy the same freedoms that I’ve enjoyed.  The alternative is that my kids will have to appreciate freedom as reflected in the history books.

And I won’t let that happen, which is why I do what I do.

Good guy 2, armed robbers 0

Did you see this September 28th Observer article from Charlotte, NC?

Criminals just the way I like them: dead.

Taxes and Stimulus

Low taxes keep more money in our pockets, which we spend, which increases economic demand, which fuels productivity, which creates jobs. As we go back to work, the taxpayer base grows and revenues to the government increase. Lowering taxes and relaxing unnecessary regulation attracts businesses and wealth back from overseas.

Raising taxes has the exact opposite effect. As people lose jobs, the taxpayer base shrinks, increasing the burden on the working population to cover expenses previously shouldered by the now non-working. At some point the money will run out, as will the motivation for the working population to work harder. And in a tax-heavy and over-regulated environment, businesses flee.

When government does our spending for us through higher taxation, they control where the demand is created, thus picking the economic winners and losers. They also control whether the spending stays here or goes to some other foreign economy. Government stimulus only prolongs the inevitable simply because their spending is short term and unsustainable.

And speaking of stimulus, government stimulus spending does not stimulate the economy because that money is simply being taken (taxed) from some other area of the economy first. The net effect is zero. Here’s an illustration to help you understand:

You and I are standing in the checkout line at Walmart. I have a dollar that I earned and I’m preparing to pay for my widget. Before I can, the dollar is taken from me (tax) and given to you (social spending). I leave Walmart empty-handed while you spend my dollar and walk away with the widget. How has Walmart (the economy) received a net benefit from this transaction beyond what was there originally?

So as you hear the debates raging about whether the “Bush tax cuts” should expire at the end of this year, ask yourself how you’ll feel having that dollar, oops make that two dollars in 2011, stolen from you while you wait in line at Walmart. That’ll sure help the economy recover, won’t it?

A little diddy I wrote

I’d sure love to hear this put to music someday………..

Eyes Closed ©
Jack Halley
December 15, 2009

Another back-door deal is inked, for our own good – we’re made to think;
Our hard-earned money changing hands….
We wake up one morning, been blind to the all the warning;
Our achievements blown away in the sands…..

Our deficit is exploding, expanding and foreboding;
We tripled our debt in eight months.
Too many czars and threats from afar;
American assault on all fronts.

We get Clunkers, the bailouts, the welfare cell phones;
Members’ of Congress private air travel home.
The healthcare debate and the climate change scam,
And who can forget the Stimulus Plan.

The private sector is buckling while our Congress is chuckling,
We’re trying to make our ends meet.
We have less of a voice and we’re losing our choice,
It’s time we recapture our seat.

This is America, the free and the brave;
High time we force them to cease and behave.
The tax cheats, the liars, the looters everywhere;
Spending our money and we don’t seem to care.

We get Clunkers, the bailouts, the welfare cell phones;
Members’ of Congress private air travel home.
The healthcare debate and the climate change scam,
And who can forget the Stimulus Plan.

Liberty and freedom, they own as they believe,
Seizing free will and the air that we breathe;
The tax cheats, the liars, the looters everywhere;
Spending our money and we don’t seem to care.

Spending my money and they don’t seem to care.

Cap and Trade

Cap and Trade will empower our government to heavily regulate multiple industries with fees, permits, emission “credits”, and penalties. It also gives our government a hand in everything that produces, stores, transmits, consumes, or requires energy in some fashion. All of the costs as a result of this legislation will trickle down to the consumer in the form of more expensive utilities and consumables.

The bill was urgently rammed through Congress before anyone had read it – including our Congressional reps – because it would not have passed a sanity check if we saw what it contained. Using global warming as justification for the largest tax increase in history is meant to distract us in to believing we’re supporting something for “a good cause”. The reality is that this Bill is designed primarily to give the government more control over multiple industries in the US. Before you disagree with my summarization, please read the bill yourself. You’ll be pretty dang surprised at everything it encompasses.

Read my 15 Minutes letter for more information on this Cap and Tax scheme.

True Rights

My exercise of free speech does not diminish your exercise of free speech. My right to equal protection under the law does not diminish your right to equal protection under the law. My right to worship does not diminish yours. My freedom to drink beer does not diminish your freedom to stay sober. If you believe you are entitled to healthcare as a right, even if you can’t pay for it, you are diminishing my right to keep the money I earn. The financial obligation must come from me as a taxpayer because government has no resources of their own to give you.

Anything that requires taking from one person to give to another can never be considered a right.

Virginian Pilot – Power Grab

Published in March 2010, no longer archived on the Pilot’s site.

Power Grab

Global warming is a myth and the recent leak of data manipulation is being downplayed by proponents of climate-change legislation.  NASA, along with various other international climate-science agencies, refuses to release their source data to debunk the leak because the raw data does not support the myth.  Despite this, those in power need leverage for their unprecedented power grab called Cap and Trade, so by keeping the factual climate data secret and directing the recent EPA designation that carbon dioxide is now considered harmful – watch another self-induced crisis gain momentum.  What Congress doesn’t act to legislate, the EPA is now ready to regulate, and our government has set themselves up for a guaranteed power grab either way while we remain powerless to stop it.

Similarly, the raging healthcare debate is about anything but improving healthcare.  Common sense reform ideas have been stonewalled and we’re led to believe that a complete government takeover is the only solution towards skyrocketing cost and expanded coverage.  Despite our country racking up a national debt that neither we nor our great-grandkids will ever be able to repay, and despite a staggering unfunded liability already accruing for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, our government keeps adding bureaucracy and further burdening our country while we again remain powerless to stop it.

These power plays are not going to help us, or make things cheaper and more accessible, or improve our environment.  Have we really even asked our elected representatives for any of this?  What we are witnessing are the consequences of having an imbalance in the three branches of our government.  I’m looking forward to our own power grab beginning in November 2010, and I pray our country isn’t irreversibly destroyed in the interim.

Virginian Pilot – Tyranny

The edited, published version can be seen here.

LTE 6/24/10

Tyranny
 
Congress has been trying desperately for the last 18 months to force a radical transformation down America’s throat.  After success with an ineffective stimulus bill, meddling in various private industries, and passage of infringing healthcare reform, they are now pandering in crisis mode to Cap and Trade and Immigration Reform using the Gulf disaster and the Arizona controversy as their respective justifications.  No matter this country is broke and popular opinion opposes everything they’re doing, Congress plugs along nonetheless in a fog of their own self-absorbed superiority.
 
What Congress doesn’t appear to comprehend is that they’re quickly becoming obsolete to the Executive Branch’s abuse of regulation.  Who needs Cap and Trade when the EPA can declare CO2 a pollutant and subsequently regulate and profit from it?  Who needs Congress when the Dept of the Interior can ignore a court ruling and put another moratorium on offshore drilling?  Who needs a budget process when the Treasury can commit $2 billion to a Brazilian oil company?  And who needs immigration law when the Dept of Homeland Security can simply “decide” to grant amnesty to all illegal aliens?  Despite Constitutional definition of the roles and powers of the three Branches, our Constitution goes abused and ignored by today’s White House.  What Congress doesn’t legislate, Obama is eager to regulate with complete disregard for the rule of law.
 
Our president is circumventing the legislative process and ignoring legal jurisdiction; a path aimed at the destruction of the check-and-balance system that has kept our republic sovereign for 200 years.  He is derelict in his duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
 
Our national debt of over $13 trillion will become the least of our problems if we fail to prevent the Executive Branch from consuming the other two.