New Philadelphia Police Union Asks For Pay Increase

Thanksgiving is over. Black Friday, that magical day after Thanksgiving when stores cut prices to reasonable levels in hopes of breaking even for the year, is past. The weather is cold, damp, and wet. The prospects of snow increase day by day. Unemployment is on the increase again. Housing foreclosures are on the increase. Personal bankruptcies have exceeded one and a half million through October this year, a new high. More than 58,500 businesses filed bankruptcy papers during the same period. Negotiations for pay increases for city employees has begun. Yep, the holiday season is underway.

We live in an age of greed, selfishness, and feelings of entitlement. Starting in the 1960s, the work ethic in the United States changed. Pride of craftsmanship was traded for the easy dollar. This is the curse of the MBA, that highly educated group, if you have low expectations of education, of managers whose total ambition was to build the bottom line, to make larger profits. These supposed financial geniuses had the book learning but no practical understanding of business. It is unfortunate that they succeeded in destroying the concepts of dedication to God, country, and family which made the United States the great nation it was once. In its place they created a society where bigger is better, where morality, responsibility, and pride in self was replaced by the concept of “you owe me”.

The principle of responsibility for one’s self has all but disappeared. The pride of a job well done has for the most part been replaced with the concept of I deserve things and if I don’t work for them, then somebody should provide them to me. The idea of being paid for the work one does seems no longer to exist. Employment is now considered to be a right instead of a privilege.

It used to be that that pay raises were based on achievement. You work harder, you get promoted, you make more money. That and the acceptance of responsibility, was the bellwether of pay raises. Today that is no longer the case. There does not seem to be any correlation between ability, competence, professionalism and wage scales. The last negotiations between the City and the Police Union, along with the other three city unions, were unique in a number of ways. With the rest of the country in a depression, pay raises were granted city employees not based on achievement or job proficiency.

Police officers in New Philadelphia are in the top 20% of wage earners in the city. The average salary in the department, including benefits (wages, sick pay, hospital and medical care, retirement, clothing, paid holidays, overtime, personal days, special assignment differentials, et cetera) is in excess of $65,000 per annum. Not bad when the average income for city residents is somewhat below $44,000.

How did the wage scale get to the level it has for city employees during three depression years? What happened is two fold.

First, the administration has been inept in its negotiations. Unions have been advised by union negotiators, lawyers who do nothing but represent union members in conflicts with the city. The City failed to hire competent attorneys to represent it in such discussions. During the past negotiations the attorney hired by the Administration was not qualified in the intricacies of labor law, being primarily a human resources (personnel) manager. The City was in jeopardy at the start and never recovered. Members of City Council, for the most part, did not perform diligently to determine if the city was able to afford the pay raises, most of which were based on creation of new positions of sergeant and lieutenant, and the lumping together of all patrolmen into the highest paid level. City councilmen generally approved pay increases for 2% with the promise of reopening negotiations at the end of the year.

Secondly, when disputed contracts go to arbitration, the referee has a long association with the union movement, generally as a long term union member of good standing. When union lawyers present their case to a friendly arbitrator while the City uses an attorney who is not familiar with, nor has experience with, union law, the result is fairly well predictable. In the past, such conflicts have been decided on the principle that the City has the money and can afford the increases. There is no reason to suspect that the same formula will be used in the upcoming union contract discussions.

The police are going to ask for more money, probably more benefits as well. In return they won’t be asked to do anything more for the citizens than they already do. No increase in services, no increase in courtesy, no increase in patrolling of troublesome areas, no increased enforcement of the laws and ordinances which they ignore now. Business as usual, that’s the plan. But if they don’t get the wage and benefit increase they want? Well, it can’t get any worse. Or can it?

So here we go again. There will be much ado in the negotiations but they will be the same smoke and mirrors approach of the past. The city will be hit again for unjustified increased expense brought about by self-interest on the part of the unions. The added expense to the city will be made up as the mayor’s promised during his election campaign, to raise city taxes to pay the cost of City wage increases and layoffs will not be considered.

So here we have it. Another year of neophyte City negotiators taking on Union professionals. You would think that the Mayor and City Council would learn from their past ineptitude. But they won’t.

Welcome to the start of the holiday season.

A General Thanksgiving Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and

Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness”:

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our national government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York,the 3d day of October, AD 1789

George Washington

O'Farrell and Brown Just Don't Get It

Ohio State Representative O’Farrell has introduced a bill in the State Legislature to penalize Ohio companies which have manufacturing plants overseas. According to the article, House Bill 601 will end tax breaks for Ohio companies which “create foreign positions while eliminating domestic jobs.”

In Washington, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, is proposing similar legislation on the Federal level. Brown also came up with a new word, “reshoring”, which indicates bringing jobs back to the United States from overseas. Like O’Farrell’s proposal, Brown advocates elimination of various tax breaks for companies who have manufacturing facilities overseas or are using foreign manufacturers for the production of products to be sold in the U.S.

These legislative acts are well meaning and made with the best intentions. It would be wonderful were it possible to convince U.S. corporations to bring manufacturing back stateside by withdrawing financial support from companies who are making products abroad. But in fact, such legislation is attacking the symptom, not the cause of the problem.

A number of things must be considered, none of which are addressed by either Brown or O’Farrell. The basic problem is too much government. Laws effecting business operations are made by politicians who lack a practical knowledge of business or how an economy operates

Businesses exist to make a profit for the owners, including the stockholders who invest money in a business for the sole purpose of receiving a return on their investment. No return on investment, the stock becomes unprofitable, and the business goes broke. That’s the first economic law.

If expenses go up, return goes down, investment disappears. The largest expense is that of labor. Obviously, without the hands to do the work of manufacturing, nothing gets done. It was American labor which built this country, and it is American labor which may dictate its decline.

A case in point is Brockton, Massachusetts. Brockton was known for two things, Rocky Marcanio and shoe manufacturing. The Brockton shoe industry was started before the Civil War, At its high point in 1907, it employed 15,000 workers. In 1919, the 39 shoe manufactures in the city employed about 13,000 workers and produced more than eighty one million dollars worth of shoes. In the 1930s, after a violent union strike against the shoe manufacturers, companies started leaving the city for cheaper labor in the South, some moving to the Midwest to be closer to leather sources to lower their expenses. The shoe industry got a little boost during World War II, but that died shortly after when European footwear manufacturers began making shoes with proven Brockton techniques at lower cost because of the availability of less expensive workers. By 1964 there were only ten Brockton shoe factories, and they employed 2,000 workers. A revitalization of the shoe industry was attempted in the 1950s, but it failed. By the 1970s, there were only two or three operating shoe companies in Brockton. Now there is but one.

Expenses which caused the loss of business were government intervention and labor costs. Reports required by the federal government alone amounted to over 1.75 trillion dollars in costs to businesses in 2009. Add to this the ever increasing cost of labor because of government regulations which are favorable to unions especially in the fields of wage and benefit negotiations, and it is easy to see that many industries cannot afford to manufacture their products in the U.S. The combination of high cost to comply with government regulations, repressive corporate taxation, and high labor costs have driven manufacturing out of the country

Granted Brown and O’Farrell recognize a problem with jobs in Ohio and nationwide. What they fail to recognize is that they are looking at symptoms and not the cause of the financial difficulties we, along with the rest of the world, are experiencing. The cause of economic problems is too much government intervention into a field in which government has no knowledge. The bills both espouse will not fix the economy. Both are a threat to international companies who manufacture abroad. A prime consideration of manufacturing is to have a plant near the consumer. It was this reason that Caterpillar built plants in foreign countries, as have other American companies.

Product price is another consideration. When it is less expensive to purchase a hammer made in China rather than in Ohio, there is no question that the average U.S. consumer will buy for less. The steel industry failed decades ago because the unions did not recognize the reality that if foreign steel can be purchased for less than U.S. steel at the plant, the foreign steel would be chosen. The government’s response in these situations has been to increase welfare benefits, to seize private corporations which are failing because of poor management instead of allowing them to go bankrupt, and increasing the spending to the point of bankrupting the nation.

Government intervention in business always fails. Always. But the federal government never gets it

Brown and O’Farrell should have begun by forcing the withdrawal of government from the affairs of businesses and the citizenry. They should have asked for repeal of the minimum wage laws. They should have asked for massive cuts in both state and federal budgets including welfare of all types, including long term unemployment payments. They should have demanded that money stolen from the Social Security Trust Fund, starting with Lyndon Johnson, be returned to it with interest before any appropriations are approved by the Congress with the exception of those specifically mandated by the Constitution. They should have demanded a revised Income Tax Code which includes tax cuts for all individuals and businesses and offers immediate depreciation on all business construction, improvements, and investment in equipment. Such actions would free up investment capital and get the economy rolling again.

Of course, that will never happen. What politician would ever agree to give up the power provided him which comes from government created poverty and unlimited business control?

The Presidency and the Constitution

THE PRESIDENCY is the most visible thread that runs through the tapestry of the American government. More often than not, for good or for ill, it sets the tone for the other branches and spurs the expectations of the people. Its powers are vast and consequential, its requirements impossible for mortals to fulfill without humility and insistent attention to its purpose as set forth in the Constitution of the United States.

Isn’t it amazing, given the great and momentous nature of the office, that those who seek it seldom pause to consider what they are seeking? Rather, unconstrained by principle or reflection, there is a mad rush toward something that, once its powers are seized, the new president can wield as an instrument with which to transform the nation and the people according to his highest aspirations.

But, other than in a crisis of the house divided, the presidency is neither fit nor intended to be such an instrument. When it is made that, the country sustains a wound, and cries out justly and indignantly. And what the nation says is the theme of this address. What it says—informed by its long history, impelled by the laws of nature and nature’s God—is that we as a people are not to be ruled and not to be commanded. It says that the president should never forget this; that he has not risen above us, but is merely one of us, chosen by ballot, dismissed after his term, tasked not to transform and work his will upon us, but to bear the weight of decision and to carry out faithfully the design laid down in the Constitution in accordance with the Declaration of Independence.

* * *

The presidency must adhere to its definition as expressed in the Constitution, and to conduct defined over time and by tradition. While the powers of the office have enlarged, along with those of the legislature and the judiciary, the framework of the government was intended to restrict abuses common to classical empires and to the regal states of the 18th century.

Without proper adherence to the role contemplated in the Constitution for the presidency, the checks and balances in the constitutional plan become weakened. This has been most obvious in recent years when the three branches of government have been subject to the tutelage of a single party. Under either party, presidents have often forgotten that they are intended to restrain the Congress at times, and that the Congress is independent of their desires. And thus fused in unholy unity, the political class has raged forward in a drunken expansion of powers and prerogatives, mistakenly assuming that to exercise power is by default to do good.

Even the simplest among us knows that this is not so. Power is an instrument of fatal consequence. It is confined no more readily than quicksilver, and escapes good intentions as easily as air flows through mesh. Therefore, those who are entrusted with it must educate themselves in self-restraint. A republic is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.

The tragedy of presidential decision is that even with the best choice, some, perhaps many, will be left behind, and some, perhaps many, may die. Because of this, a true statesman lives continuously with what Churchill called “stress of soul.” He may give to Paul, but only because he robs Peter. And that is why you must always be wary of a president who seems to float upon his own greatness. For all greatness is tempered by mortality, every soul is equal, and distinctions among men cannot be owned; they are on loan from God, who takes them back and evens accounts at the end.

It is a tragedy indeed that new generations taking office attribute failures in governance to insufficient power, and seek more of it. In the judiciary, this has seldom been better expressed than by Justice Thurgood Marshall, who said: “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.” In the Congress, it presents itself in massive legislation, acts and codes thousands of pages long and so monstrously over-complicated that no human being can read through them—much less understand them, much less apply them justly to a people that increasingly feel like they are no longer being asked, but rather told. Our nation finds itself in the position of a dog whose duty it is not to ask why—because the “why” is too elevated for his nature—but simply to obey.

America is not a dog, and does not require a “because-I-said-so” jurisprudence; or legislators who knit laws of such insulting complexity that they are heavier than chains; or a president who acts like, speaks like, and is received as a king.

The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing.

Is my characterization of unprecedented presumption incorrect? Listen to the words of the leader of President Obama’s transition team and perhaps his next chief-of-staff: “It’s important that President-Elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.” Or, more recently, the latest presidential appointment to avoid confirmation by the Senate—the new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—who wrote last Friday: “President Obama understands the importance of leveling the playing field again.”

“Take power. . .rule. . .leveling.” Though it is the model now, this has never been and should never again be the model of the presidency or the character of the American president. No one can say this too strongly, and no one can say it enough until it is remedied. We are not subjects; we are citizens. We fought a war so that we do not have to treat even kings like kings, and—if I may remind you—we won that war. Since then, the principle of royalty has, in this country, been inoperative. Who is better suited or more required to exemplify this conviction, in word and deed, than the President of the United States?

* * *

The powers of the presidency are extraordinary and necessarily great, and great presidents treat them sparingly. For example, it is not the president’s job to manipulate the nation’s youth for the sake of his agenda or his party. They are a potent political force when massed by the social network to which they are permanently attached. But if the president has their true interests at heart he will neither flatter them nor let them adore him, for in flattery is condescension and in adoration is direction, and youth is neither seasoned nor tested enough to direct a nation. Nor should it be the president’s business to presume to direct them. It is difficult enough to do right by one’s own children. No one can be the father of a whole continent’s youth.

Is the president, therefore, expected to turn away from this and other easy advantage? Yes. Like Harry Truman, who went to bed before the result on election night, he must know when to withdraw, to hold back, and to forgo attention, publicity, or advantage.

There is no finer, more moving, or more profound understanding of the nature of the presidency and the command of humility placed upon it than that expressed by President Coolidge. He, like Lincoln, lost a child while he was president, a son of sixteen. “The day I became president,” Coolidge wrote, “he had just started to work in a tobacco field. When one of his fellow laborers said to him, ‘If my father was president I would not work in a tobacco field,’ Calvin replied, ‘If my father were your father you would.’” His admiration for the boy was obvious.

Young Calvin contracted blood poisoning from an incident on the South Lawn of the White House. Coolidge wrote, “What might have happened to him under other circumstances we do not know, but if I had not been president. . . .” And then he continued,

“In his suffering he was asking me to make him well. I could not. When he went, the power and glory of the Presidency went with him.”

A sensibility such as this, and not power, is the source of presidential dignity, and must be restored. It depends entirely upon character, self-discipline, and an understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie not only the republic, but life itself. It communicates that the president feels the gravity of his office and is willing to sacrifice himself; that his eye is not upon his own prospects but on the storm of history, through which he must navigate with the specific powers accorded to him and the limitations placed on those powers both by man and by God.

* * *

The modern presidency has drifted far from the great strength and illumination of its source: the Constitution as given life by the Declaration of Independence, the greatest political document ever written. The Constitution—terse, sober, and specific—does not, except by implication, address the president’s demeanor. But this we can read in the best qualities of the founding generation, which we would do well to imitate. In the Capitol Rotunda are heroic paintings of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the victory at Saratoga, the victory at Yorktown, and—something seldom seen in history—a general, the leader of an armed rebellion, resigning his commission and surrendering his army to a new democracy. Upon hearing from Benjamin West that George Washington, having won the war and been urged by some to use the army to make himself king, would instead return to his farm, King George III said: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” He did, and he was.

To aspire to such virtue and self-restraint would in a sense be difficult, but in another sense it should be easy—difficult because it would be demanding and ideal, and easy because it is the right thing to do and the rewards are immediately self-evident.

A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him. The president solemnly swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does not solemnly swear to ignore, overlook, supplement, or reinterpret it. Other than in a crisis of existence, such as the Civil War, amendment should be the sole means of circumventing the Constitution. For if a president joins the powers of his office to his own willful interpretation, he steps away from a government of laws and toward a government of men.

Is the Constitution a fluctuating and inconstant document, a collection of suggestions whose purpose is to stimulate debate in a future to which the Founders were necessarily blind? Progressives tell us that even the Framers themselves could not reach agreement in its regard. But they did agree upon it. And they wrote it down. And they signed it. And they lived by it. Its words are unchanging and unchangeable except, again, by amendment. There is no allowance for a president to override it according to his supposed superior conception. Why is this good? It is good because the sun will burn out, the Ohio River will flow backwards, and the cow will jump over the moon 10,000 times before any modern president’s conception is superior to that of the Founders of this nation.

Would it be such a great surprise that a good part of the political strife of our times is because one president after another, rather than keeping faith with it, argues with the document he is supposed to live by? This discontent will only be calmed by returning the presidency to the nation’s first principles. The Constitution and the Declaration should be on a president’s mind all the time, as the prism through which the light of all question of governance passes. Though we have—sometimes gradually, sometimes radically—moved away from this, we can move back to it. And who better than the president to restore this wholesome devotion to limited government?

* * *

And as the president returns to the consistent application of the principles in the Constitution, he will also ensure fiscal responsibility and prosperity. Who is better suited, with his executive and veto powers, to carry over the duty of self-restraint and discipline to the idea of fiscal solvency? When the president restrains government spending, leaving room for the American people to enjoy the fruits of their labor, growth is inevitable. As Senator Robert Taft wrote: “Liberty has been the key to our progress in the past and is the key to our progress in the future.... If we can preserve liberty in all its essentials, there is no limit to the future of the American people.”

Whereas the president must be cautious, dutiful, and deferential at home, his character must change abroad. Were he to ask for a primer on how to act in relation to other states, which no holder of the office has needed to this point, and were that primer to be written by the American people, whether of 1776 or 2010, you can be confident that it would contain the following instructions:

You do not bow to kings. Outside our shores, the President of the United States of America bows to no man. When in foreign lands, you do not criticize your own country. You do not argue the case against the United States, but the case for it. You do not apologize to the enemies of the United States. Should you be confused, a country, people, or region that harbors, shelters, supports, encourages, or cheers attacks upon our country or the slaughter of our friends and families are enemies of the United States. And, to repeat, you do not apologize to them.

Closely related to this, and perhaps the least ambiguous of the president’s complex responsibilities, is his duty as commander-in-chief of the military. In this regard there is a very simple rule, unknown to some presidents regardless of party: If, after careful determination, intense stress of soul, and the deepest prayer, you go to war, then, having gone to war, you go to war to win. You do not cast away American lives, or those of the innocent noncombatant enemy, upon a theory, a gambit, or a notion. And if the politics of your own election or of your party intrude upon your decisions for even an instant—there are no words for this.

More commonplace, but hardly less important, are other expectations of the president in this regard. He must not stint on the equipment and provisioning of the armed forces, and if he errs it must be not on the side of scarcity but of surplus. And he must be the guardian of his troops, taking every step to avoid the loss of even a single life.

The American soldier is as precious as the closest of your kin—because he is your kin, and for his sake the president must, in effect, say to the Congress and to the people: "I am the Commander-in-Chief. It is my sacred duty to defend the United States, and to give our soldiers what they need to complete the mission and come home safe, whatever the cost."

If, in fulfilling this duty, the president wavers, he will have betrayed his office, for this is not a policy, it is probity. It is written on the blood-soaked ground of Saratoga, Yorktown, Antietam, Cold Harbor, the Marne, Guadalcanal, the Pointe du Hoc, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a thousand other places in our history, in lessons repeated over and over again.

* * *

The presidency, a great and complex subject upon which I have only touched, has become symbolic of overreaching. There are many truths that we have been frightened to tell or face. If we run from them, they will catch us with our backs turned and pull us down. Better that we should not flee but rather stop and look them in the eye.

What might our forebears say to us, knowing what they knew, and having done what they did? I have no doubt that they would tell us to channel our passions, speak the truth and do what is right, slowly and with resolution; to work calmly, steadily and without animus or fear; to be like a rock in the tide, let the water tumble about us, and be firm and unashamed in our love of country.

I see us like those in Philadelphia in 1776. Danger all around, but a fresh chapter, ready to begin, uncorrupted, with great possibilities and—inexplicably, perhaps miraculously—the way is clearing ahead. I have never doubted that Providence can appear in history like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, if only as a reward for adherence to first principles. As Winston Churchill said in a speech to Congress on December 26, 1941: “He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants.”

As Americans, we inherit what Lincoln in his First Inaugural called “the mystic chords of memory stretching from every patriot grave.” They bind us to the great and the humble, the known and the unknown of Americans past—and if I hear them clearly, what they say is that although we may have strayed, we have not strayed too far to return, for we are their descendants. We can still astound the world with justice, reason and strength. I know this is true, but even if it was not we could not in decency stand down, if only for our debt to history. We owe a debt to those who came before, who did great things, and suffered more than we suffer, and gave more than we give, and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for us, whom they did not know. For we “drink from wells we did not dig” and are “warmed by fires we did not build,” and so we must be faithful in our time as they were in theirs.

Many great generations are gone, but by the character and memory of their existence they forbid us to despair of the republic. I see them crossing the prairies in the sun and wind. I see their faces looking out from steel mills and coal mines, and immigrant ships crawling into the harbors at dawn. I see them at war, at work and at peace. I see them, long departed, looking into the camera, with hopeful and sad eyes. And I see them embracing their children, who became us. They are our family and our blood, and we cannot desert them. In spirit, all of them come down to all of us, in a connection that, out of love, we cannot betray.

They are silent now and forever, but from the eternal silence of every patriot grave there is yet an echo that says, “It is not too late; keep faith with us, keep faith with God, and do not, do not ever despair of the republic.”

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The preceding is adapted from a speech delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on September 20, 2010, by Mike Pence, who graduated from Hanover College in 1981 and earned his J.D. from Indiana University School of Law in 1986. After running for Congress in 1988 and 1990, he was named president of the Indiana Policy Review Commission, a state think tank based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1991. He was first elected to Congress from Indiana’s 6th District in 2000 and was most recently elected to a fifth term in 2008. That same year he was elected to serve as House Republican Conference Chairman. During the 109th Congress, he also served as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in the House of Representatives.

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

Feds Shell Out $1 Billion to Dead People

The federal government has paid out well over $1 billion to 250,000 deceased individuals over the past decade — and can’t figure out how to fix the problem, according to a new report from Sen. Tom Coburn.

“Washington paid for dead people’s prescriptions and wheelchairs, subsidized their farms, helped pay their rent, and even chipped in for their heating and air conditioning bills,” the Oklahoma Republican’s report says.

Among the disclosures, based on a review of government audits and reports by the Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, and Congress:

● The Social Security Administration sent $18 million in stimulus funds to 71,688 dead people, and $40.3 million in questionable benefit payments to 1,760 deceased individuals.

● The Department of Agriculture sent $1.1 billion in farming subsidies to dead farmers.

● The Department of Health and Human Services sent $3.9 million to 11,000 dead people to help pay heating and cooling costs.

● Medicare paid up to $92 million in claims for medical supplies prescribed by dead doctors and $8.2 million for medical supplies prescribed for dead patients.

In some cases, the payments went to dormant bank accounts, while in others they landed in the pockets of living people who are “defrauding the system by collecting benefits meant for a now-deceased relative,” according to Coburn’s report.

The detected waste “is likely only a small picture of a much larger problem,” the report notes.

In June, the Obama administration announced new steps to avert payments to the deceased. Federal agencies are now required to check their payees against the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.

“But SSA admits its records are fraught with errors,” the report states. “It is extremely expensive and may even be impossible to determine if a person is alive or dead, particularly if the person died many years ago.”

Coburn concludes: “At this point in our nation’s history, it is of the utmost importance that every tax dollar spent by the government be put to good use. This means spending within our means on the living, not outside our means on the dead.”

Government Workers Overpaid

Bureaucrats Irked: Heritage Foundation Finds They Are Paid Too Much

In an interview with the Washington Post, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, directly credits The Heritage Foundation as having moved public opinion on the issue of overpayment of federal officials:

He said he was frustrated that “the Heritage and Cato misinformation campaign has obviously gained traction.” The two Washington, D.C., think tanks have produced widely discussed reports indicating that federal workers are paid too much. A “pretty prolonged misinformation campaign over the last six month leading up to this,” [Berry] said, “has worked.”

Berry was steaming over that last point.

The Heritage Foundation has been at the forefront of the overpayment issue. Heritage research has found that the average federal employee earns an annual salary almost 60% higher than the average private-sector employee — $79,000 vs. $50,000. Even after controlling for education and experience, federal employees get paid significantly better — 22% more per hour, on average — than private-sector workers. Once you add up the benefits, the gap in total compensation rises even higher — 30% to 40% above comparable private-sector workers.

But defenders of the federal pay system, including the OPM, have mischaracterized our analyses by suggesting they ignore skill differences between the public and private sectors, resulting in an “apples to oranges” comparison. On the contrary, Heritage has carefully accounted for skill differences, always comparing apples to apples.

In a letter the Washington Post this week, Heritage economist Bill Beach directly addresses those critical of our analysis:

Ignoring this evidence [of standard practice in calibrating data], government and union representatives quoted in your column attack our findings by relying on a survey that examines job descriptions. But federal workers tend to be less skilled within an occupation level - a senior accountant may qualify only as a junior accountant in the private sector. So economists look at skills and experience, not just official duties.

Amazing Grace

Turn up the volume and go to the link below. Turn up the volume. Trust us on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY8J35OXVxg&feature=related

The Rules of the Game and Economic Recovery

The Rules of the Game and Economic Recovery
By Amity Shlaes

The Monopoly board game originated during the Great Depression. At first its inventor, Charles Darrow, could not interest manufacturers. Parker Brothers turned the game down, citing “52 design errors.” But Darrow produced his own copies of the game, and Parker Brothers finally bought Monopoly. By 1935, the New York Times was reporting that “leading all other board games … is the season’s craze, ‘Monopoly,’ the game of real estate.”

Most of us are familiar with the object of Monopoly: the accumulation of property on which one places houses and hotels, and from which one receives revenue. Many of us have a favorite token. Perennially popular is the top hat, which symbolizes the sort of wealth to which Americans who work hard can aspire. The top hat is a token that has remained in the game, even while others have changed over the decades.

One’s willingness to play Monopoly depends on a few conditions—for instance, a predictable number of “Pay Income Tax” cards. These cards are manageable when you know in advance the amount of money printed on them and how many of them are in the deck. It helps, too, that there are a limited and predictable number of “Go to Jail” cards. This is what Frank Knight of the University of Chicago would call a know- able risk, as opposed to an uncertainty. Likewise, there must be a limited and predictable number of “Chance” cards. In other words, there has to be some certainty that property rights are secure and that the risks to property are few in number and can be managed.

The bank must be dependable, too. There is a fixed supply of Monopoly money and the bank is supposed to follow the rules of the game, exercising little or no independent discretion. If players sit down at the Monopoly board only to discover a bank that overreaches or is too unpredictable or discretionary, we all know what happens. They will walk away from the board. There is no game.

Relevance to the 1930s

How is this game relevant to the Great Depression? We all know the traditional narrative of that event: The stock market crash generated an economic Katrina. One in four was unemployed in the first few years. It resulted from a combination of monetary, banking, credit, international, and consumer confidence factors. The terrible thing about it was the duration of a high level of unemployment, which averaged in the mid teens for the entire decade.

The second thing we usually learn is that the Depression was mysterious—a problem that only experts with doctorates could solve. That is why FDR’s floating advisory group—Felix Frankfurter, Frances Perkins, George Warren, Marriner Eccles and Adolf Berle, among others—was sometimes known as a Brain Trust. The mystery had something to do with a shortage of money, we are told, and in the end, only a Brain Trust’s tinkering with the money supply saved us. The corollary to this view is that the government knows more than American business does about economics.

Another common presumption is that cleaning up Wall Street and getting rid of white collar criminals helped the nation recover. A second is that property rights may still have mattered during the 1930s, but that they mattered less than government-created jobs, shoring up home- owners, and getting the money supply right. A third is that American democracy was threatened by the rise of a potential plutocracy, and that the Wagner Act of 1935—which lent federal support to labor unions—was thus necessary and proper. Fourth and finally, the traditional view of the 1930s is that action by the government was good, whereas inaction would have been fatal. The economic crisis mandated any kind of action, no matter how far removed it might be from sound monetary policy. Along these lines the humorist Will Rogers wrote in 1933 that if Franklin Roosevelt had “burned down the capital, we would cheer and say, ‘Well at least we got a fire started, anyhow.’”

To put this official version of the 1930s in terms of the Monopoly board: The American economy was failing because there were too many top hats lording it about on the board, trying to establish a plutocracy, and because there was no bank to hand out money. Under FDR, the federal government became the bank and pulled America back to economic health.

When you go to research the 1930s, however, you find a different story. It is of course true that the early part of the Depression—the years upon which most economists have focused — was an economic Katrina. And a number of New Deal measures provided lasting benefits for the economy. These include the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the push for free trade led by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and the establishment of the modern mortgage format. But the remaining evidence contradicts the official narrative. Overall, it can be said, government prevented recovery. Herbert Hoover was too active, not too passive—as the old stereotypes suggest — while Roosevelt and his New Deal policies impeded recovery as well, especially during the latter half of the decade.

In short, the prolonged Depression can be put down to government arrogance—arrogance that came at the expense of economic common sense, the rule of law, and respect for property rights.

Arrogance and Discretion

Consider the centerpiece of the New Deal’s first 100 days, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which was in effect an enormous multi-sector mechanism calibrated to manage the business cycle through industrial codes that, among other things, regulated prices. The principles on which its codes were based appear risible from the perspective of microeconomics and common sense. They included the idea that prices needed to be pushed up to make recovery possible, whereas competition constrained recovery by driving prices down. They held that big firms in industry—those “too big to fail”—were to write codes for all members of their sector, large and small—which naturally worked to the advantage of those larger firms. As for consumer choice, it was deemed inefficient and an inhibitor of recovery. The absurdity of these principles was overlooked, however, because they were put forth by great minds. One member of the Brain Trust, Ray Moley, described the myopic credentialism of his fellow Brain Truster, Felix Frankfurter, in this way:

The problems of economic life were to Frankfurter matters to be settled in a law office, a court room, or around a big labor-management bargaining table. The government was the protagonist. Its agents were its lawyers and commissioners. The antagonists were big corporate lawyers. In the background were misty principals whom Frankfurter never really knew at first hand. These background figures were owners of the corporations, managers, workers and consumers.

One family that was targeted by NRA bureaucrats was the Schechters, who were wholesale chicken butchers in Brooklyn. The NRA code that aimed to regulate what they did was called The Code of Fair Competition for the Live Poultry Industry of the Metropolitan Area in and about the City of New York. And according to this code, the Schechters did all the wrong things. They paid their butchers too little. They charged prices that were too low. They allowed their customers to pick their own chickens. Worst of all, they sold a sick chicken. As a result of these supposed crimes, they were prosecuted.

The prosecution would have been comic if it were not business tragedy. Imagine the court room scene: On one side stands Walter Lyman Rice, a graduate of Harvard Law School, representing the government. On the other stands a small man in the poultry trade, Louis Spatz, who is afraid of going to jail. Spatz tries to defend his actions. But he barely speaks English, and the prosecutor bullies him. Nevertheless, Spatz is now and then able to articulate, in his simple and common- sense way, how business really works.

Prosecution: But you do not claim to be an expert?
Spatz: No.
Prosecution: On the competitive practices in the live poultry industry?
Spatz: I would want to get paid, if I was an expert.
Prosecution: You are not an expert!
Spatz: I am experienced, but not an expert . . . .
Prosecution: You have not studied agricultural economics?
Spatz: No, sir.
Prosecution: Or any sort of economics?
Spatz: No, sir.
Prosecution: What is your education?
Spatz: None; very little.
Prosecution: None at all?
Spatz: Very little.

Then at one point this everyman sort of pulls himself together.

Prosecution: And you would not endeavor to explain economic consequences of competitive practices?
Spatz: In my business I am the best economist.
Prosecution: What is that?
Spatz: In my business I am the best economizer.
Prosecution: You are the best economizer?
Spatz: Yes, without figuring.
Prosecution: I wish to have that word spelled in the minutes, just as he stated it.

Spatz: I do not know how to spell.

This dialogue matters because little businesses like Schechter Poultry are the natural drivers of recovery, and during the Great Depression they weren’t allowed to do that driving. They weren’t allowed to compete and accumulate wealth—or, in terms of Monopoly, to place a house or hotel on their property. Instead they were sidelined. The Schechter brothers ultimately won their case in the Supreme Court in 1935. But the cost of the lawsuits combined with the Depression did not go away.

Regarding monetary policy, it is clear that there wasn’t enough money in the early 1930s. So Roosevelt was not wrong in trying to reflate. But though his general idea was right, the discretionary aspect of his policy was terrifying. As Henry Morgenthau reports in his diaries, prices were set by the president personally. FDR took the U.S. off the gold standard in April 1933, and by summer he was setting the gold price every morning from his bed. Morgenthau reports that at one point the president ordered the gold price up 21 cents. Why 21, Morgenthau asked. Roosevelt replied, because it’s 3 x 7, and three is a lucky number. “If anyone knew how we set the gold price,” wrote Morgenthau in his diary, “they would be frightened.”

Discretionary policies aimed at cleaning up Wall Street were destructive as well. The New Dealers attacked the wealthy as “money changers” and “Princes of Property.” In 1937, after his re-election, Roosevelt delivered an inaugural address in which he described government as an instrument of “unimagined power” which should be used to “fashion a higher order of things.” This caused business to freeze in its tracks. Companies went on what Roosevelt himself resentfully termed a “capital strike.”

These capital strikers mattered because they were even more important to recovery than the Schechters. Consider the case of Alfred Lee Loomis, who had the kind of mind that could contribute significantly to Gross Domestic Product and job creation. During the First World War, he had improved the design of firearms for the U.S. Army. In the 1920s, he became wealthy through his work in investment banking. He moved in a crowd that was developing a new form of utility company that might finally be able to marshal the capital to bring electricity to the American South. But when Loomis saw that the Roosevelt administration was hauling utilities executives down to Washington for hearings, he shut down his business, retreated to his Tudor house, and ran a kind of private think tank for his own benefit. We have heard a lot about a labor surfeit in the 1930s. Here is a heresy: What if there was a shortage of talent brought on by declarations of class warfare?

Another challenge to the Depression economy was tax increases. While these increases didn’t achieve the social equality at which they aimed, they did significant damage by confiscating too much individual and corporate property. As a result, many individuals and businesses simply reduced or halted production—especially as the New Deal wore on. In the late 1930s, banker Leonard Ayres of the Cleveland Trust Company said in the New York Times: “For nearly a decade now the great majority of corporations have been losing money instead of making it.”

As for big labor, the Wagner Act of 1935 proved to be quite destructive. It brought on drastic changes at factories, including the closed shop—the exclusion of non-union members. Another innovation it helped bring about was the sit-down strike, which threatened the basic property right of factory owners to close their doors. Most importantly, it gave unions the power to demand higher wages—and they did. A wage chart for the 20th century shows that real wages in the 1930s were higher than the trend for the rest of the century. This seems perverse, considering the economic conditions at the time. The result was high paying jobs for a few and high unemployment for everyone else. The reality of overpriced labor can be seen in several stock phrases coming out of the Great Depression—“Nice work if you can get it,” for example, was the refrain of a Gershwin song performed by Fred Astaire in The Damsel in Distress, a film released in 1937 at the zenith of union power.

To return to the Monopoly board metaphor, the problem in the 1930s was not that there was no bank. It was that there was too much bank—in the form of the federal government. The government took an arbitrary approach to the money supply and made itself the most power- ful player. It shoved everyone else aside so that it could monopolize the board. Benjamin Anderson, a Chase economist at the time, summed it up in a book about the period: “Preceding chapters have explained the Great Depression of 1930 to 1939 as due to the efforts of the governments and very especially the government of the United States to play god.”

Relevance for Today

It is not hard to see some of today’s troubles as a repeat of the errors of the 1930s. There is arrogance up top. The federal government is dilettantish with money and exhibits disregard and even hostility to all other players. It is only as a result of this that economic recovery seems out of reach.

The key to recovery, now as in the 1930s, is to be found in property rights. These rights suffer under our current politics in several ways. The mortgage crisis, for example, arose out of a long- standing erosion of the property rights concept—first on the part of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also on that of the Federal Reserve. Broadening FDR’s entitlement theories, Congress taught the country that home ownership was a “right.” This fostered a misunderstanding of what property is. The owners didn’t realize what ownership entailed—that is, they didn’t grasp that they were obligated to deliver on the terms of the contract of their mortgage. In the bipartisan enthusiasm for making everyone an owner, our government debased the concept of home ownership.

Property rights are endangered as well by the ongoing assault on contracts generally. A perfect example of this was the treatment of Chrysler bonds during the company’s bankruptcy, where senior secured creditors were ignored, notwithstanding the status of their bonds under bankruptcy law. The current administration made a political decision to subordinate those contracts to union demands. That sent a dangerous signal for the future that U.S. bonds are not trustworthy.

Three other threats to property loom. One is tax increases, such as the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. More taxes mean less private property. A second threat is in the area of infrastructure. Stimulus plans tend to emphasize infrastructure—especially roads and railroads. And after the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision of 2005, the federal government will have enormous license to use eminent domain to claim private property for these purposes. Third and finally, there is the worst kind of confiscation of private property: inflation, which excessive government spending necessarily encourages. Many of us sense that inflation is closer than the country thinks.

If the experience of the Great Depression teaches anything, it is that property rights must be firmly established or else we will not have the kind of economic activity that leads to strong recovery. The Monopoly board game reminds us that economic growth isn’t mysterious and inscrutable. Economic growth depends on the impulse of the small businessman and entrepreneur to get back in the game. In order for this to happen, we don’t need a perfect government. All we need is one that is “not too bad,” whose rules are not constantly changing and snuffing out the willingness of these players to take risks. We need a government under which the money supply doesn’t change unpredictably, there are not too many “Go to Jail” cards, and the top hats are confident in the possibility of seeing significant returns on investment.

Recovery won’t happen from the top. But when those at the top step back and create the proper conditions, it will happen down there on the board—one house at a time.

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AMITY SHLAES is a syndicated columnist for Bloomberg and a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations, a graduate of Yale University and pursued postgraduate studies at the Free University in Berlin. She has served as a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and as a columnist for the Financial Times.

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(Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College)

Computer Vote Fraud Is A Growing Problem

Election Day, November 2, is when people go to the polls to vote their choices for who will represent them in national, state, county, and local offices, as well as for various levies, taxes, and various other issues and referendums. Vote they will, but will their votes be counted the way they are cast?

There are an alarming number of “voting machine errors” being reported around the country. Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and Washington have all reported recurring improperly cast votes with electronic voting machines.

These “errors” have a consistent trend. In cases reported thus far, computer voting machines in some locations have not properly recorded the wishes of voters as entered on the touch screens. Commonly what occurs are votes for one candidate, or party, being incorrectly recorded by the machine for the opposition.

In Clark County, Nevada, for example, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is running for his Senate seat against Sharon Angle (R), voters have reported, and had confirmed, that Reid’s name was already checked on the computer ballot when it appeared on the screen. In other cases, votes cast for Angle changed spontaneously to indicate the vote was cast for Reid.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there was no voter fraud, although issues do come up as the touch screens are sensitive. For that reason, Lomax said, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screens after they make a selection. Complaining voters disagree, stating that no matter how they, or election officials, tried to record the proper vote by touch screen, it was only accomplished with many tries and much difficulty.

Voter fraud of this type can, and does, occur when technicians who program the computers modify the program, a simple task, to change the results of your vote. It is quick and simple for a knowledgeable technician and easily goes unnoticed if you are not aware the problem may exist.

With this in mind, it is strongly suggested that when you cast your vote using a computer, you check closely to make sure that your vote is recorded as you cast it. If you have any doubt as to the correct recording of your vote, call an election judge before you close the screen. Once you had directed the computer to record the vote, it cannot be changed.

This is your election. Do not allow your vote to be stolen. Carefully check to be sure your vote is recorded as you desire.

Ninth Circuit Court Overthrows Law Requiring Citizenship For Voting

If you don’t believe your liberty is in jeopardy, think again. If you think the Judicial Branch of the United States government is going to protect you by enforcing the United States Constitution, think again. If you think the Obama administration is going to prevent the overthrow of our country by foreign powers, think again.

On Tuesday, the 26th of October, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated Arizona’s Proposition 200 which was passed in 2004. Proposition 200 required Arizona voters to produce proof of citizenship to register to vote and produce photo identification, or two pieces of non-photo identification, to actually cast a ballot in any Arizona election. What the Court of Appeals did was open the voting booths to anyone who walks in, with no restrictions, no proof of citizenship.

In the first four years Proposition 200 was in effect,, 30,000 aliens were prevented from registering to vote in Arizona. The Ninth Circuit Court, in defiance of the United States Constitution, made it possible for anybody, Mexican illegals, Muslim terrorists, Guatemalan illegals, anybody, to vote in elections for candidates at any level of government, from dog catcher to the President of the United States, without proof of citizenship.

Should this be a surprise? Not when you consider Maine which, by executive order, has forbidden officials to ask anybody what their citizenship is. (See the October 5 blog, Non-Citizens May Be Permitted to Vote In Maine Elections.) Next on the list of states to be sold out by the judicial system will probably be Georgia, the only other state with a citizenship mandate requirement for registration and voting.

A joint statement by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Secretary of State Ken Bennett, both Republicans, called the ruling "an outrage and a slap in the face to all Arizonans who care about the integrity of their elections."

In the mistaken and misguided effort to increase the number of people taking part in the electoral process, the courts and state and local election boards have relaxed the requirements for voting to the point where balloting by non-citizens is permitted with little, if any, confirmation of the legitimacy of the applicant to vote. The result is an unprecedented increase of fraudulent voting in elections at all levels.

In recent elections, including this one, we have seen groups like Acorn flooding the system with fraudulent registrations, felons voting, people going to the polls to vote for one candidate only to find the computer screen has already cast a ballot for the other, or to find someone has already cast a ballot, absentee or otherwise, in their name.

Voting registration should not be easy in these times when the continued existence of the United States is at stake. The Constitution requires citizenship, proven, undeniable proof of citizenship, to vote in the United States.

Voting is a privilege which comes with citizenship. Voting is a part of the American tradition which was bought with the blood of Americans, not illegals from Mexico or other foreign countries. The right to vote was not purchased by liberals on the left who want to impose their socialist ideals on United States citizens. It was wrenched by the common man from the monarchs of the British Empire. It was preserved by citizens who died in battles around the world and twice saved it from dictatorships. No court ever gave the United States of America its freedom. It was won and preserved by the common man, not the lawyer.

Wake up, America. You are losing your liberty and freedom. Make the decision now. Will you submit to the tyranny of those who will take your liberty from you or will you decide that freedom is worth the price of self-sacrifice, even to death if necessary?

Do not accept decisions such as those made by the Ninth Circuit Court passively. Be prepared to defend the United States Constitution from all enemies, both within and without.

There is no longer a neutral ground in the United States. You have to make the choice. Tyranny or freedom. The first is free, the second is not. Are you willing to pay the price?

Kick 'Em Out OnThe Second

November 2 is really close. If you haven't voted ahead of time, make sure you vote. With all the radio and television ads, recorded telephone calls, mail and newspaper advertising, it is hard to know who to believe. Every candidate is either the only one who can save the country or is the cause of all the problems we have past, present and future. There are a few things to consider before you vote.

First, the Congress, Senate and House of Representatives, make the laws. The President can make recommendations as to what he wants, but it is the Congress which decides what legislation is voted on and becomes the law of the land. The President can only approve or disapprove of what the Congress dictates.

The economic problems we have today are the result of congressional legislation which started with the 2006 Congress. When Democrats took control of the of both houses, the Senate and House of Representatives, in 2006 and the economy started to falter in 2007 is not a coincidence. Neither is the fact that the economy is continuing in the the worst depression since the thirties. It is due to legislation passed by the Congress since 2007 which lead to the current economic disaster we are now experiencing. It is pure and simple. Our problems today are the responsibility of the Congress.

The financial difficulties we are experiencing in New Philadelphia, and Ohio, are not going to be solved at the local level. It is impossible for either the city or state to solve the current financial, economic, or employment problems on their own, no matter who is elected locally, unless there is a major change in representation in the United States Congress. The pronouncements of candidates for state and local office that they, no matter which political party, can bring jobs, economic growth, and prosperity to our area are nothing but political promises which are impossible to fulfil.

The only way out of the economic mess Ohio, Tuscarawas County, and New Philadelphia are trapped in is to change our representation in the House and Senate. The incumbents who are running for reelection should be held responsible for what they have done, not credited for their irresponsible actions which have all but destroyed our economy.

On the state and local level, forget the rhetoric which this year's election has brought about. Check the past history of the candidates, where they stand on the issues, if you can sort that out. The claims by both sides, the slurs, the thirty second ads, should all be held in question. The important criteria, the reality of honesty, experience, past history, and integrity of the candidates should be the deciding factors for your vote.

If you get a bad haircut, do you go back to the same barber? If the mechanic doesn't repair the breaks on your car after a number of tries, do you go back? If restaurant serves poorly cooked food, do you go back? Then why reelect someone to Congress who doesn't look out for your interests?

Check out the record of the candidate. What has he really done to make life better for you? If you are not better off than you were six years ago, put the blame where it belongs. Kick the incumbents out who provided you with a 14-trillion dollar national debt for this year alone and a total national debt of 54.7-trillion dollars.

You have one of two choices on November 2. Keep the same Senators and Representatives in the Congress who have ruined the economy and sold the country down the path to ruin, or replace them with new representatives who can effect a change.

Vote. Kick 'em out. Take your country back.

New Philadelphia Law Director Comments On Airport Resolution 47-2010

The front page article in the Times-Reporter this morning, Airport Resolution Ready To Take Flight, raises more questions about the reasons for passage of Resolution 47-2010. If, according to the comments by the Law Director reported in the Times-Reporter article of October 25, 2010, the resolution doesn't make any changes to the operation of the airport, including implementation of the Master Plan, why should it even be on the floor for consideration by New Philadelphia's City Council? To quote the T-R, "Johnson, in his letter of reply to Lautenschleger, added that he doesn't believe the resolution before council at tonight's meeting materially changes the airport commission, the airport or the city's view toward the airport."

Why is City Council pursuing a meaningless piece of legislation when there is more serious business to be attended to? Has the city council become so ineffective that it now spends its time on do-nothing resolutions?

The T-R article also reports, "Taylor said during the Sept. 20 meeting that he no longer was asking council to adopt the master plan because the FAA, which approved the plan in 2007, doesn't officially require council to adopt it." That is true of course, unless he wants the city to accept the plan and pay for it.

The seems to be more to this whole issue than meets the eye. Look out New Philadelphia. We haven't heard the end of this yet.

City Council To Consider Airport Runway Extension and Natural Gas Pricing

On Monday, October 25, 2010, New Philadelphia City Council meets to vote on two important issues, the extension of the city airport runway and a natural gas aggregation program being proposed for the city. These issues will be read Monday evening at the 7:30 PM meeting.

The Airport Master Plan, Resolution 47-2010, started years ago under the previous mayor. A renewed effort by the Airport Commission to extend the runway was begun with the election of a new mayor, Michael Taylor, two years ago which resulted in a move to push the extension through City Council. A resolution drawn up to approve the Airport Master Plan met with heated vocal opposition from residents in the airport area who were in jeopardy of losing their homes and property should the Plan be adopted.

Because of the opposition to adopting the Plan, the Chairman of the Public Works and Economic Development Committee, presented to Council a resolution which stated, “City Council wishes to acknowledge, support and cooperate with the New Philadelphia Airport Commission for the continued operations of the Harry Clever Field as a valuable tool and asset for not only the City of New Philadelphia and Tuscarawas County, Ohio as well.” The wording is open to various interpretations, one of which would permit the Airport Commission to unilaterally approve the proposed Airport Master Plan.

As opposition continues unabated to the runway extension, on Monday one can suspect another change in wording, which will sound better but still leave the issue of a runway extension open for discussion. Runway extension should be discussed openly by City Council but without the omissions, half-truths, and misleading statements which have been made in Committee and on the Council floor. Candidness would be nice.

If Resolution 47-2010 is to show appreciation for past efforts made by the Airport Commission, a simple thank you is sufficient. A resolution or ordinance is not required.

Then there is the matter of the gas aggregation which will have its first reading Monday. The City was approached by Buckeye Energy Brokers, Inc. requesting permission to act as a broker representative for the City of New Philadelphia. Buckeye Energy Brokers would research existing natural gas suppliers who provide gas in the New Philadelphia area and provide the City with natural gas for a cheaper price. The price paid by the City for natural gas would be made available to other gas users in the city, if they contracted with the same supplier contracted with by the City.

Buckeye Energy Brokers are just that, brokers. They have no gas to sell. They represent existing gas suppliers the same way a real estate broker represents someone who wants to sell their home or other property.

Who does Buckeye really represent? Buckeye’s main interest is the commission, the money that comes from the gas supplier as a finder’s fee. Could there be a possibility that Buckeye’s supplier recommendation may be related to the commission?

When asked during a meeting the price of the gas being quoted, the answer was not forthcoming, nor was the name of the recommended gas supplier. Neither the Special/Contact Committee Chairman, nor the Mayor, were able to supply information on these important pieces of information.

When asked what other natural gas suppliers were contacted, the Mayor replied that no other supplier had called him. This makes no sense. The proper way to conduct city purchasing is to obtain at least three bids. We do that for car repairs, insurance companies demand it. The Service Director should have made such inquiries as a matter of course.

A contract which guarantees a specified number of years commitment with the gas supplier, unknown at this writing, is required of the City. The Mayor and Special/Contact Committee Chairman have been unable to provide what this commitment will be. The procedure and cost, should the City choose to opt out of the proposed commitment, was not known by either.

It has been reported that the City has a contract with an unnamed gas supplier. Confirmation or denial by Administration officials has not been forthcoming. If this is true, what will be the cost of reneging on that contract? We should be told who that supplier is, and the terms of that contract, before we enter into another.

Buckeye Energy Brokers insists the deal must be closed before October 31, 2010. We’re not sure why, but that’s the deadline, so City Council must act on an emergency basis this coming Monday. Sounds like a TV ad. “Send your money in for this shiny gizmo and we’ll include a shiny gizmo cleaner at no extra charge. But you have to order within the next 20 minutes because the offer is going to be withdrawn.” It’s a sales pitch as old as gullible people have been around to listen. I have dealt with gas suppliers for years and there is no deadline for start of service. You want gas, they turn it on. Beware the deadline offer. Beware of the last chance to act scenario.

The references Buckeye gave the city were checked, and not surprisingly they looked good to those who checked them. A question of logic – would Buckeye give a reference from anybody who wouldn’t say Buckeye was great. Of course not. Our inquiries to other sources paint a different picture. There is dissatisfaction with the services provided by Buckeye, which, had the advocates of the Buckeye aggregation plan done their due diligence, would have come to light.

Full details of the Buckeye plan are not known. Questions about Buckeye’s recommendations have gone unanswered. The “I’s” have not been dotted, the “T’s” have not been crossed. Research which should have been done by the Special/Contact Committee has not been done. The City is in close to buying into a plan of which little is known. As grandma used to say, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.”

These two unneeded resolutions have nothing to commend their passage by City Council. Ample opportunity has been given for an honest open discussion on both. The proponents of both did not present an overriding reason for their implementation. The Administration and the City Council Committees which sponsored both resolutions have failed to make their case. City Council should deny passage of both.

Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Recommends Inflation To Solve Depression

Unemployment stands at 17.1-percent. Homes are being foreclosed on. Family incomes are falling. Small businesses are closing, large businesses have cut back on expansion. The national debt is soaring, standing at more than $13.6 trillion. The federal budget deficit exceeds $1,357 trillion and is climbing. The trade deficit has reached $502.5 billion dollars, up 34% from last year. The value of the U.S. Dollar is declining. And then there’s Ben Bernanke.

Mr. Bernanke is the chairman of the Federal Reserve System. He controls the interest rates charged to banks which borrow money from the Federal Reserve and in turn loan it to businesses and individuals who need it.If Bernanke decides that the cost of living is expanding too quickly, that’s called inflation, he raises the interest rate of the money the Federal Reserve loans which slows spending down, as who wants to pay high interest rates on the money they borrow? Remember the 20% interest rates back in the 80s? If he wants to speed spending up, he lowers the interest rate and, hopefully, people and businesses will borrow more, spend more, and keep the economy rolling along.

Well, last Friday Bernanke decided that he should do something about the depression which started when the Democrats took control of the congress four years ago. He thought that Obama spending billions of dollars on programs to get people back to work wasn’t working, remember those shovel ready jobs which weren’t. What we need, he said, is to get an inflation started in the economy. Inflation. That is when prices for everything go up. He is worried, you see, that inflation rates are too low. So he wants to make some adjustments in the economy to increase the inflation rate upward, to make everything more expensive. His logic is that if things cost more, there will be more money for investment, a income for businesses, more money for taxes, and an end to the recession.

The cost of living increased by 1.1% in September. That’s not good enough, should be higher, Bernanke said. Obviously he looks at things from a different viewpoint than any of the folks on fixed incomes. He obviously doesn’t relate with the 54-million people on social security, nor is he concerned, apparently, with the 15-million people who are unemployed.He also doesn’t relate to business owners, large and small, who have cut back on what makes the economy really grow. Hiring is down. Investment is down. Construction is down. That’s true, according to Bernanke. His solution, however, is to make things more expensive rather than less.

But where is the money to do this to come from? Simple. Just turn on the printing presses at the Treasury Department, print more paper money which won't be backed by any real financial reserve, watch the value of the dollar drop, and let the good times roll.

Mr. Bernanke’s credentials are impressive, but as with most government and political figures, his education is incomplete. He lacks the one essential quality of good management, street smart. He does not know the reality of actually operating a business, or living on an income of less than $25,000 a year, as do 45% of working people. How can he relate to business concerns when his experience has been limited to academics and government? How can he understand the plight of the 75% of workers who earn less than $50,000 a year when his salary at the Federal Reserve puts him into the 6% of the population making in excess of $100,000 a year? He is in the position of the aeronautical engineer who can design an airplane, has never flown one, and is called upon to land a 747 because the pilot passed out.

Mr. Ben Bernanke missed an opportunity to make a major contribution to ending the depression we are in. The answer is not in increasing costs by inducing inflation. The answer, as Mr. Bernanke’s history books will tell him, is for the government to cut spending, decrease taxes, and get out of the way of American business.

America was not built on government control and subsidies. It was built on risk taking by people who invested their money in hopes of making a profit. Bernanke should advise the President and Congress, the surest way to economic recovery is for government to quit trying to control business. What is needed is less control, less taxes, and letting free enterprise and capitalism take control again. He is a highly educated and respected economist. Maybe the Obama group would listen. But then Bernnanke is a bureaucrat, a politician, a theorist without the street smarts.


“If you lay all the economists end to end they would point in all directions” - Harry S. Truman.

Obama's Plan to Subvert the U.S. Constitution

A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed health care bill. Read his conclusions and pass this on as you wish. This is stunning.

The Truth About the Health Care Bills
Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government

However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own

The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care

This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal health care direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide

If you decide not to have health care insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.

So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law It doesn't stop there though.

The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;

The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights... Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired attorney
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas

(Ed Note: Article was originally published on September 2, 2009, by Michael Connelly on his personal website, michaelconnelly.viviti.com.)

Zack Space and Solar Panels

According to the Times-Reporter, Zack Space announced the construction of the largest solar farm in the United States will be built in Muskingum County, Ohio.

Solar energy works well for the production of electricity and heating of water. It is used in the southwest with success. Solar panel generation of electricity and water heating is not effective at night or under low light levels, so an alternative source of power is required. The alternative sources are, of course, coal, oil, and/or natural gas.

According to Space, as reported by the T-R, 600 jobs could be created by the construction of this solar farm. This would include 300 engineering and design jobs, 300 more in the manufacturing of the solar panels. Engineering and design jobs disappear when the engineering and design of the panels is done. So those 300 jobs are a temporary increase in employment for Ohio, if that is where the engineering and design will be done.

Manufacturing jobs present a different situation, one which evidently was not disucssed by Space, at least not reported in the media. The media names two companies, Prius Energy S.L. and Isofoton, as the contractors for some 240,000 panels needed for the project. Haven't heard of them? No surprise. These companies are located in Spain, not the United States. According to Space, the companies should break ground on the plants next year.

But why not use United States manufacturers? We sure have them here. Why is it necessary to go to an overseas manufacturer when the job can be done by an American company? The United States has the knowledge, manufacturing capability, and experience to do the job. Why go to an overseas business instead of using facilities in this country?

Mr. Space should address the issue of why an overseas company was been selected to provide materials which could be manufactured by a United States company? Why send the money to Europe when we need it here at home? Isn't this the same Zack Space who supposedly wants to strengthen the U.S. economy?

Space announced the construction of a solar energy project "could be the stepping stone to create literally thousands of jobs in southeastern and eastern Ohio," is certainly open to question. His past actions do not exhibit the knowledge of how a free economy functions as shown the devistation he created by his support and votes for Obamacare and Cap and Trade

The solar farm facility may be a good thing for Ohio, that remains to be seen. Representative Space may have been instrumental in getting this project started, or he may be taking advantage of a situation "too good to waste." This is an election year. What are the chances that the timing of this announcement was politically motivated?

Space is a politician caught in an election year where the incumbants are in jeopardy. Listen to what Candidate Space has to say, then compare that with what Representative Space has done. The measure of a man is not in what he says, but in what he does. Dr. Phil said it best: The best indicator of what someone will do in the future is what he has done in the past."

This election is literally the most important in our lifetimes. The future of the United States, its freedom and liberty is at stake. Protect yourself, your family, your country. Know who and what you are voting for. It is your future. Vote.

Non-Citizens May Be Permitted to Vote In Maine Elections

Truth is stranger than fiction? If you don’t believe that, consider Portland, Maine. A referendum will be on the ballot in Portland this November to allow non-citizens to vote in the general election. This is insane.

The logic is that since they are living in Portland as legal aliens, are paying taxes, using the city’s services, that they should have a say in how the city is run. It goes deeper than that. Portland, among other things, is a city which offers sanctuary to illegal aliens, along with the State of Maine as a whole. While this is one more step in the destroying of the United States of America this action is not really surprising. as after all, it is Maine.

In April of 2004 Maine’s Governor John Badacci issued an Executive Order, “An Order Concerning Access to State Services by All Entitled Maine Residents”, making Maine the first sanctuary state in the US. Under his executive order, state employees are forbidden to ask about anybody’s immigration status. Because of this, illegal aliens, from any country, have unlimited access to all the privileges enjoyed by citizens of the United States, including the right to vote, driver’s licenses, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing, in-state college tuitions, you name it. These, along with other benefits offered by Maine are denied to American citizens who reside outside of Maine. The bottom line is that illegal aliens are free to sneak into Maine and, free from any threat of deportation or criminal prosecution, be supported by the state while planning the overthrow of the United States.

By exempting illegal aliens from the law with an executive order, Maine is in violation of federal immigration laws. Specifically Maine is in violation of United States Code 8, 1325, section 274, 276, 277 and other statutes. It is a federal crime to “aid, abet, assist, encourage or induce an illegal alien to remain in the United States.” Baldacci has left himself open to federal prosecution.

Now then, considering the stand Eric Holder has taken on Arizona’s stand on illegal aliens, he is suing Arizona for enforcing the United States laws on illegal entry into the country, there is nothing to stop the spread of sanctuary cities and states, like Portland, Maine, across the country. As Holder’s position on Arizona is totally political there is no reason to suspect the United States Justice Department will take any action against Maine nor Portland.

The danger which exists is mind boggling, so immense as to be unbelievable. In Maine it is now illegal to question someone who is registering to vote about his citizenship. It is possible, probable, that illegal aliens may vote in national elections. Portland is setting the precedent for this with the referendum appearing on their ballot this November. With the questionable tactics used by organizations such as ACORN, federal, state and local elections may be decided by a new voter bloc composed of illegal aliens in the United States.

It is time that the United States government lives up to its constitutional obligations and protects its citizens from enslavement by foreign nationals who are literally invading it. In towns and cities, large and small, law enforcement departments are not protecting their citizens from the infiltration of illegal aliens. It is the responsibility of government, from federal to city level, to arrest and prosecute anybody who is not legally in the United States. This is not being done and the results are bankrupting our country from both financial and security standpoints.

Wake up America! We are losing our freedom, liberty, security, and identity. We are being sold out by our President, our Congress, our appointed officials, our state, county, and city officials. Our country is being destroyed from within. Wake up and become involved.

On November 2, vote, and when you do, vote those candidates who will support out country. Vote for those who believe our republic is worth saving. Reject the special interest politicians who are self-centered and care only for the power, prestige, and financial gain the receive as politicians. Vote for the good of America.

How the Obama Tax Hikes Affect Your Bottom Line

In 1819 Chief Justice John Marshall stated, “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

With the Obama tax hikes, we are fast approaching that limit.

The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has compiled statistics demonstrating the catastrophic implications of this tax increase as the economy struggles to recover. In 2011, the first year of the new tax rates, the tax hikes will result in an estimated 238,000 fewer jobs and $40 billion less in total GDP. Fast forward to 2016, five years after the tax hikes: there will be over 800,000 jobs lost and a $135 billion loss to GDP in that year alone.

The Obama tax hikes will not just hurt the “wealthy,” as progressives would have you believe. The new tax rates will have a ripple effect throughout the entire economy.

•Mississippi, which has the lowest average household income in America, will lose 5,911 jobs annually, and each household will have $1,818 less in personal disposable income.
•Maryland, which has the highest-earning households in the United States, will lose an average of 13,983 jobs annually and will have $6,848 less in personal disposable income.
The Heritage Foundation has also measured the impact of the Obama tax hikes on individual states and Congressional districts. Find out how the tax hikes affect you and your family on Heritage.org.

Liberals often call the Obama tax hikes an end to “the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.” This is a fallacy that the Left has created in order to disguise the truth: taxes are increasing for the people and businesses that are creating jobs during a massive recession

In a piece on National Review Online’s The Corner, Heritage’s JD Foster explains:

More importantly for getting the economy kick-started, those higher rates will fall on the gazelles, those small businesses ready and able to grow rapidly — if they have the incentives, and if they have the cash. Higher tax rates on the gazelles, those small businesses that really matter to job creation, weaken incentives and drain cashflow. Higher tax rates on the gazelles are a real kick in the teeth.

“The average non-farm small business filing through the individual income tax code would see a tax increase of about $3,500,” the Center for Data Analysis report found. “Not only successful businesses would be hurt, although they would be hurt the most. Even firms with losses could face a tax increase, for example on capital gains, dividend, or carry-over income.”

Most economists agree with the Heritage Foundation’s findings. In a new poll conducted by CNNMoney.com, 60 percent of economists favor a continuation of tax rates as they currently stand.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) put it well in a speech to the Stamford Chamber of Commerce: “The surest way for Congress to help bring about a double-dip recession is to allow taxes to be raised on anyone during this uncertain economy we are struggling through.”

Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis has proven that “if the price of capital and labor increases through a tax increase, the pace of economic activity will slow down.”

They suggest another plan, whereby Congress will not raise taxes but will instead rein in its overspending to offset the enormous deficits their liberal policies have created.

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(The above article by Bethany Murphy was reprinted from the Heratige Foundation, http://myheratige.com, original publication 9/21/2010.)