Inflation strikes!

When Mrs. Crucis and I had been married only a few years, the Viet Nam War ended.  Nixon had been elected and was making good on his promise to end the war.  The peace talks finally bore fruit.  But another fruit, one created by LBJ and the democrats had ripened too.  Inflation and debt.

Most citizens now don't remember those days. The days of high, over 10%, inflation, interest rates over 20%, and wage and price freeze.  It happened at the end of WW1, again after WW2, and in 1976, with Jimmah Cahtah in the White House, instead of using the wisdom of past presidents to keep their hands off the economy, Jimmah had to meddle.  Home mortgage interest rates skyrocketed to nearly 25%.

The turmoil continued until Reagan was elected.  Within two years, interest rates fell like a rock off a cliff, employment was up and the recovery was well underway.

I scanned the news websites this morning and what do I see.  Jimmah Cahtah redux.  For those of you who don't know, the Consumer Price Index measures inflation.

Consumer Prices in U.S. Rose in February as Gasoline Jumped

By Alex Kowalski - Mar 16, 2012 7:48 AM CT

The cost of living in the U.S. rose in February by the most in 10 months, reflecting a jump in gasoline that failed to spread to other goods and services.

The consumer-price index climbed 0.4 percent, matching the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, after increasing 0.2 percent the prior month, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The so-called core measure, which excludes more volatile food and energy costs, climbed 0.1 percent, less than projected.

The biggest jump in gasoline in more than a year accounted for about 80 percent of the increase in prices last month, leaving households with less money to spend on other goods and services.

The biggest jump in gasoline in more than a year accounted for about 80 percent of the increase in prices last month, leaving households with less money to spend on other goods and services.

The government, for decades, has manipulated reports of inflation by dropping data for the most volatile items affected by inflation, fuel and food.

The "core" items mentioned in the article are those that do not include food and fuel.  When you add food and fuel, the CPI doubles, more than double if you delve into the figures.

One reason why the price of oil has spiked is inflation.  The Dollar is still the currency of oil.  When the fed pumps out more dollars, it takes more dollars to buy the same amount of oil, i.e, the price goes up.  Some analysts have declared if the fed hadn't run off more dollars in their so-called "Quantitative Easing," the price of oil would be in the $80 range instead of the current price over $100 a barrel.  In short 20% of the increase of oil can be attributed to inflation.

Dollar Inflation the Primary Cause of Rising Oil Prices

“I’m under strict instructions, and have been from the beginning, to not talk about the dollar.” -White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, March 17, 2008 – Link

There is a direct relationship between Dollar value and oil prices. All crude oil purchases worldwide have been conducted exclusively in U.S. Dollars for over thirty-five years. [1] When Dollar value falls via inflation (i.e. the creation of money by the Federal Reserve and other banking mechanisms), oil prices rise. [2] [3] [4]Petrodollar Inflation; it occurred during the 1970′s oil ‘price shock’, and it is occurring right now. [1] This phenomenon could be called

Oil is a critical economic and strategic resource – because every country needs oil to develop and prosper, they also need U.S. Dollars. This has raised the demand, and value, of the Dollar worldwide for several decades. [1]

However, the U.S. Dollar is continuously devalued (inflated) by Federal Reserve and U.S. government monetary policies. [5] Due to recent ‘super-inflation’ of the Dollar, oil producing nations are losing money – or rather, wealth – by selling oil in Dollars. To prevent losses, oil producing nations will sell some or all of their oil in other currencies (Euros, for example). This further devalues the Dollar, since oil buying countries no longer need them to purchase oil.

So when you hear Bernake talk about more "Quantitative Easing," know, too, your gas at the pump will be going up as well. 

To paraphrase, Obama's Pastor and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "Obama's chickennnsss!...have come home!...to roost!"

Thursday Thoughts

Darrell Issa tries to get documents from Holder's DoJ.  After multiple delays, he receives paper so redacted as to be useless.  What remains that is readable is questionable.  After all, this administration is built on lies.  They manipulate data and when caught, deny the act.  All that makes this cartoon so appropriate.

***

The 2nd Amendment had a couple of winners recently.  First Maryland's "May Issue" concealed carry statues were declared unconstitutional because they were capriciously granted to favorites.  This decision will undoubtedly be appealed but it puts another nail in the coffin of gun-control and makes the anti-2A forces retreat once again.

The second case was concealed carry on campus in Colorado.  The Colorado courts have declared unconstitutional the prohibition against student's, who have all the proper state permits, from carrying on campus. No more gun-free zones in Colorado universities.  No more Virginia Tech-type shooting galleries.

***

We're from the government and we're here to help you!  Whether you can afford it or not.

***

And finally, Eric Holder blocked the use of photo-IDs for voting in Texas.  Yep, gotta protect democrat vote fraud in the Lone Star State.

***

As you can see, I had trouble finding a topic for today.  Cartoons are always a good fall-back and today, I had plenty to choose from.          

No Sales Tax on Caucus Platform

I belong to a number of conservative groups in Missouri. Note, I said "Conservative," not Republican groups although I belong to those too.  For the most part, quite a large part, I agree with their viewpoints---smaller government, fiscal and social responsibility, adherence to the Constitution as it was originally formulated and presented to the states.

But there is one area I vehemently disagree.

Many of these groups are on FaceBook.  I received notice of a post this morning concerning the 'Pub party platform for this coming Caucus and what should be included.  Once again, the Hydra raised its head---the Federal Sales Tax.

I am continually amazed how people think this is a solution for their hatred of the IRS!  I don't like the IRS either.  However, it has a necessary purpose.  As long as there are taxes, some agency must exist to insure the government gets its legal cut.  It's true that often the IRS can give mob leg-breakers tips and lessons how to get people to cough up what is owed.  I don't like those techniques either.

However, removing the IRS, which seems to be the primary motive of the Sales Tax crowd, won't remove the need for the function served by the IRS.  Something WILL replace it.

Be that as it may, let me list the objections that I have about any sales tax.

It is a tax on consumption.  Read that again!  It a tax on consumption.  It will increase cost of the taxed item to the buyer.

When times are good, the personal impact is less and often ignored.  The personal bite has a lesser impact. When times are bad, like it has been since the fall of 2008, the tax bite grows longer teeth. 

When times are tough, people review their expenditures...and cut back.  Necessities come first, everything else is reduced or cut completely according to circumstances.

That has had a decisive impact to Cass County. A county sales tax is the sole revenue stream for the county.  Sales tax revenues have fallen short of forecast.  The budget was developed using those forecasts and now when the bills are coming due, the funds aren't there.  Spending levels depended on that missing revenue. Now, for a number of reasons, the county could have bankruptcy.

That's one danger of a sales tax, the "trickle-down" effect.  But let's take another look at sales taxes---the unintended consequences.

Who and what will be required to be taxed.  The proponents say that a sales tax will be more equitable, that everyone will pay their "fair" (oh, how I detest that word) share.  Does anyone really think those on the lower end of the economic scale, those on various welfare programs, will pay their "fair" share?  I don't.  They already receive food stamps, many receive free or subsidized housing, free medical care.  The liberals will immediately move to exempt this block from the sale tax and given the plethora of liberal judges in the state, I think it would be a matter of hours before some judge blocked the sales tax or exempted the welfare class. 

But that's just an expected legal entanglement.  What about those working poor?  They must buy food, fuel, pay for housing just like every taxpayer.  The impact to them is higher prices for the necessities of life.  It matters not if the base price of those necessities doesn't increase (they will), the bottom line is that with the additional sales tax, food, fuel and housing will take more of their limited dollars every month. The people will, in self-defense, cut spending for other items that can be deferred or ended. 

Then there is the impact of increased sales taxes on fuel.  Shall there be limits on who shall be taxed there.  Should fuel be taxed? There is already approximately $0.35 state and federal tax per gallon now and around $0.45 tax per gallon of diesel fuel. 

Increased taxes on fuel has a significant trickle-down effect on everything, everything that is transported by truck from food, fuel, delivery of manufactured items, from auto-parts to clothes at the local Target and Walmart stores. Everything that is sold at the retail level must be transported by truck. If fuel costs go up, so will those items.

Fortunately, we here in Cass County, live close to the Kansas State line.  Kansas has a higher sales tax than Missouri at this time.  If Missouri's sale tax increases to that or higher than that in Kansas, what is the incentive to buy here, in Missouri?

None.

People will take their limited dollars to neighboring states with lower taxes and buy their necessities there.  Shall Missouri build guard posts on the state borders to impose a sales tax on people returning from shopping trips in other states? 

It is interesting that Kansas has, in past times, sent "spies" into Missouri looking for Kansas residents buying in Missouri to avoid the higher sales tax in Kansas.  Will Missouri now create an office to monitor our buying habits?

The proponents say, "We'll exempt food and fuel."  From everyone or just individuals?  If individuals are exempt, what about corporate entities?  Like restaurants.  Shall restaurants be exempt from sales tax on food purchases?  You do know they will then pass those costs along as increased prices for that steak, or hamburger you just bought, don't you?

And what about the service industry?  Shall they be taxed, too?  They sell a service.  If we're to be "fair", the service industry must collect sales tax too.  Like your plumber, or your neighboring electrician.

Shall internet sales be taxes, too?  Many such sales already are.  There will be a significant impact to internet sales as well.  Amazon already has legal battles in some states over the collection of sales tax.  So much that Amazon has moved some facilities from those states.  A number of on-line dealers will no longer sell to California residents for similar reasons.

If the proponents say they'll exempt every example of these taxed items, how will that meet the state's revenue requirements?  How can the state properly project revenue to insure it has the funds to meet the budget?

They can't.  That's how Cass County got itself in the situation it is now for revenue.  They forecasted a very modest increase and discovered that instead of a slight increase of revenue from the county sales tax, the revenue decreased.  People cut their spending.

With every exemption, the sales tax system gets more complex, more difficult to stay in compliance.  Errors in collection, errors in accounting will increase.

That is the problem with income taxes---too much complexity, too much confusion, unequal application, unequal assessment, unequal enforcement.

A consumption tax can easily turn into a death spiral from negative feedback.  Taxes increase. People spend less. Revenues fall. The state then increases the sales tax to compensate for the lost revenue. People cut further, buy in neighboring states, move out-of-state. Revenues continue to fall.  That's negative feedback.

So, what is to be done?  I agree the current progressive income tax is too complex and too unequal to continue.  At the federal level, it is supported by the 16th Amendment. To remove the income tax at the federal level, that amendment would have to be repealed.  The likelihood that of happening is remote to say the least.

If a federal sales tax is imposed without that repeal of the 16th Amendment, we would end up with both a federal sales tax AND a federal income tax the next dime the liberals gain control of a house of congress.  I have no expectation the establishment 'Pubs would fight the revival of the income tax. Worst, the federal sales tax would morf into a Value Added Tax like Europe. At every stage of production, through the wholesaler, to the retailer, to the end user, every stage is taxed and the rolled up costs added to that of the end-user.

That last is exactly what the liberals and democrats want---turn the US into a welfare state like Europe destroying the Constitution in the process.

No, there are too many dangers in expanding scope of sales taxes to allow such to continue.  If you truly want equitable taxation, change the progressive income taxes into flat taxes.  Everyone pays, no exemptions, a flat rate for all, individuals and corporations.  The progressive tax can be changed to a flat tax by an act of Congress or the state legislature.  The trick is passing it in such a fashion to make it impossible (if that can be done) to revert to a progressive tax model.

That is the true fair tax.

All to often people seize on an idea without thinking it through. There are always unintended consequences to every act.  Most can be recognized and planned for.  Any risk manager knows this.

Let's all be risk managers. Block any inclusion of a state and/or federal sales tax in our party platform come the caucus.

My ongoing saga

Is it cheating to copy a Face Book status post to my blog?  Well, they're both mine and I have readers who don't see both sides so I'm gonna cheat for today.

The saga is correcting my voter registration.  I've lived in the same house, same address for the last 15 years. I've voted in the same ward, same precinct for that same period.  Now magically, my house seems to have been transported to the opposite side of my street.

Here's the tale...

The saga of voter registration---mine and that of my wife, continues. During the February "practice" primary, we discovered we were no longer in the voting book. After showing our registration cards, we were written into the back of the book and allowed to vote.

The following week, I went down to Harrisonville and checked with the County Clerk. Lo! Our house had been moved to the east side of the road putting us in a different precinct... 32. The problem with that is that we still live on the west side of the street. After checking the maps, looking at my "old" registration card, I was told it'd be fixed. Point of information, I've lived in the 33rd precinct for 15 years. I'm smack in the middle of Ward 2.

Saturday, my wife and I received our new registration cards. No change. We were still in 32 instead of 33.

Another trip to Harrisonville today. Same scenario as back in February. Yes, I'm in 33 and new registration cards will be mailed.

When I got home, I sat in the car thinking about a comment the lady at the desk said, "even numbered houses were on the east side of the street in precinct 32." I offered to show her on Google maps my house was even numbered and clearly on the west side of the street.

She didn't argue, just made a note and said she'd fix it. Then she said, it was SOUTH Sxxxx that had even numbered houses on the east!

???

That's contrary to all the numbering conventions I'm aware of but there are always exceptions.

 So I drove south down my street, down North Sxxxxx (all even numbers of the west side,) to the switch to South Sxxxxx. I continued on south past the first two blocks on South Sxxxxx, the houses on the west side still had even numbers!!

I only drove two blocks on South Sxxxxx. I was heading to the park for my daily (I wish!) walk. Maybe the house numbers switched further south towards Lucy Web Road. I'll check that another day, but I doubt there are any even numbered houses on the east side of the street.

My wife and I should be getting corrected voter registration cards before the April city elections. I'm wondering how many others on my street have been shifted into Precinct 32 from 33? I don't know if the shift has any consequences. I'm just a retired engineer who instinctively tries to fix errors when he stumbles across them.

No post this morning.

I have a dental appointment this morning at the time I'm usually writing my daily blog post. Tomorrow, I make my quartetly visit to the vampire.  Blog posting this week will be interrupted.

Repost: The Constitution's "Elastic Clause"

Earlier this week I re-posted a review from Thomas Wood's book, 33 Questions about American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.  With the upcoming Supreme Court review of Obamacare, it's pertinent to review that so-called "Elastic Clause" that Obama uses as the authority to impose Obamacare---the preemption of federal power over the states and the individual.

Let's take another look at that clause as it was originally intended by the Founders.  And let us also hope that SCOTUS supports that interpretation and reverses Chief Justice John Marshall's decision.

***

Notes from: "33 Questions about American History You're not Supposed to Ask", Part 3

Today's report covers the chapter titled, "Does the Constitution really contain an "Elastic Clause"?"

From Woods...

In its listing of the powers of Congress, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution includes the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the department or officer thereof." This "necessary and proper" clause has proven to be a particular favorite among people and politicians who would expand the federal government's powers beyond those delegated to it. The typical high school social studies class presents it as an "elastic clause" that can be pressed into service to authorized just about anything.

To understand this clause, it's important to understand the context under which it was created and what it was NOT intended to mean. 

At the Constitutional Convention, one participant, Gunning Bedford, proposed a clause that would have added broad, sweeping powers to the federal government---open ended powers to enact laws "in all cases for the general interests of the Union." It was soundly rejected. 
Instead of that broad statement, a list of limited, enumerated powers was written into the Constitution. That list was followed by the clause that authorized those powers that were "necessary and proper", i.e., the "necessary and proper" clause authorized the enumerated list of specific powers. Those powers only. What has happened since the creation of the Constitution is the interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause to enable those broad, wide-sweeping, open-ended powers that the Constitution Convention rejected!

When the Constitution was circulated to the states for ratification, questions concerning this clause arose and the supporters of the Constitution reassured the Anti-Federalist groups, skeptical of centralized power after ridding themselves of the British government, that the clause would not and could not be used to allow the federal government to usurp broad powers not enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution. The answer provided to Virginia's convention ratifying the Constitution was that the clause "only enables them [Congress] to carry into execution the powers given to them, but gives them no additional power." James Madison held the same view.

The Myth:
The Constitution includes an "elastic clause" that gives the federal government sweeping power to do what it considers to be useful of convenient.[1]

The Truth:
The Framers explicitly and repeatedly affirmed that the Constitution granted the federal government only the authority to carry out its specifically enumerated powers. The Supreme Court ignored that history to grant the federal government far more expansive powers.

The Supreme Court in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, a decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall, decided to interpret the "necessary and proper" clause to mean "convenient" or "useful", the very purpose that Jefferson in the Federalist papers, Madison to the Virginia convention and others had expressly rejected. [2]

[1] Thomas J. Woods, Jr., 33 Questions about American History You're not Supposed to Ask, 2007, Crown Forum Press.

[2] Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, ed. David Waldstreicher (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002) 168-69.

Droughts and Floods

Weather can always be a blog topic, I suppose.  Yesterday, it was a flood, today it's a drought...of blog topics.  Yesterday, I had a number of items to discuss; more really than I had space. But time passes and some of those topics I had held in reserve have passed their optimum time. By that I mean they've been surpassed but new topics.

Like "USA-USA-USA" being deemed racist hate speech in San Antonio.

Unbelievable!

At one time, I spent a LOT of time in San Antonio.  The corporate offices of my employer at that time was located there, near an area called Hospital Hill.  In some years, I spent several months in San Antonio.  

I liked San Antonio.  With all the military bases there, Randolf AFB, Kelly AFB, Lackland AFB, Wilford Hall Military Hospital, (and that was just the Air Force bases.  It didn't include the Army bases) San Antonio was a microcosm of America. San Antonio had military families from all areas of the USA.  Those families had a significant affect on the local culture---as did the native culture of San Antonio on those military families.

Both the natives and the military imports were proud to be Americans.  Even the San Antonio Hispanics, many whose families had lived in and near San Antonio since before the Republic of Texas, were proud to be Americans first and "Texicans" second.

Now, after fifty years of liberal oppression, it is embarrassing to shout, "USA-USA-USA" in public. In San Antonio. It's now RACIST! to claim to be an American.  And one source of this oppression?  

Public education. It was the losing coach, the game officials, and the San Antonio Independent School District that decided the shouting "USA-USA-USA" is racist hate speech.

It's time to take back our schools.  Education is a personal responsibility, not that of some self-hating, America-bashing bureaucrat at the local, state or federal level.  It is the responsibility of parents to educate their children.  And the NEA/AFT fear the growing trend of home schooling.

They should.

Heroism Finally Recognized and Other Stories

Marine Sgt.Rafael Peralta

A fallen Marine's heroism has been finally recognized despite recognition being denied by then Secretary Robert Gates' review panel.

For the war in Iraq, four Medals of Honor have been awarded for extraordinary acts of combat heroism. Of those four awards, all of which were posthumous, three were for action that involved smothering a grenade to save others - action consistently recognized by the Medal of Honor.

One Marine - Sgt. Rafael Peralta - was nominated for the Medal of Honor for the same reason, but, unlike those who have been properly recognized, he was denied the nation’s highest award for combat valor by then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta was nominated for the Medal of Honor for using his body to shield his fellow Marines from a grenade.  Secretary Gates' review panel, in spite of overwhelming evidence, refused the award and downgraded it to the Navy Cross.  Now, more evidence has been uncovered that Sgt. Peralta did, in fact, pull that grenade to his body as was originally claimed and the review panel refused to believe. 

In reality, all it should take for the Marine Corps and the Navy is to resubmit Sgt. Peralta’s Medal of Honor nomination. That should be enough. A new secretary of defense means new possibility for Sgt. Peralta and the Marine Corps.

Regardless, there’s new information available, enough to reopen the case, and there’s also a formal request to the secretary of the Navy to resubmit the nomination from a bipartisan delegation of House and Senate lawmakers. It is important that the Marine Corps knows it has the secretary of the Navy’s support. Representing one of his own, a Marine, the secretary of the Navy should resubmit the nomination as soon as possible to the secretary of defense. -- Washington Times, March 6, 2012

***

Dennis the Menace is out.  Dennis Kuninich his primary bid to return to Congress.

Toledo, Ohio – U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur bid goodbye to political foe, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, before the votes were counted and her victory was sealed Tuesday night.

...

In Cleveland, Kucinich did not admit defeat but quietly slipped out of what was supposed to be a victory party.

It's about time we got rid of that self-avowed Marxist.

***

The story about a CMOH fraud has ended. At a public event in California, Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a local water board, told event planner Melissa Campbell, he was a Medal of Honor recipient. Campbell, a 10-year Marine veteran was thrilled...until she listened to comments from Alvarez. Before the event was over, she scanned the list of CMOH holders and discovered Alvarez's name was missing.  That discovery lead to charges that reached the Supreme Court.

Now that story is over.

On a tour bus trip to Southern California Edison’s Big Creek power plant, event planner Melissa Campbell was passing out snacks to dignitaries when one of them asked her a question that would change both of their lives and make U.S. judicial history.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a local water board, not waiting for an answer.

“I am a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.”

Nearly five years later, Mr. Alvarez, who never served in the military, stands among dozens who have been convicted under the federal Stolen Valor Act, a misdemeanor crime that carries a sentence of up to one year of imprisonment for lying about receiving military honors. After Mr. Alvarez’s appeal, his widely publicized case recently went before the U.S. Supreme Court. -- Washington Times.

But the real story is not about Alvarez. It is about Melissa Campbell.  She is the one who deserves recognition. 

...after exposing Mr. Alvarez’s medal claim as a hoax — later reporting to the FBI what she viewed as a crime in progress — Ms. Campbell said she wasn’t thanked by her employer. Instead, she said, she was fired.

“I was told it was unprofessional to confront him,” she told The Washington Times in a recent interview. The company did not respond to inquiries about her departure, citing a policy of not commenting on personnel matters. Mr. Alvarez declined through an attorney to comment.

Ms. Campbell now works as a family readiness officer for the military. She has politely declined the offers from a parade of lawyers inquiring whether she would like to file a lawsuit against her former employer. She told them she was not interested. While she still wants her name cleared, she said, she doesn’t want to spend any more time thinking about Mr. Alvarez.

Kudos to Ms. Campbell.  Well done!

***

A few months ago, Todd Palin publicly endorsed Newt Gingrich. When Sarah Palin was asked about that endorsement, she replied with a grin, "The First Dude went rogue." She, at that time, had successfully skirted the issue of Presidential endorsements.

Although she almost endorsed him in an earlier appearance on Fox, Fox News contributor and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin revealed that she voted for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the Alaska Republican presidential primary. 

...

“I knew you were going to ask me that, and I am just the poorest politician-sounding pundit,” Palin said. “It is tough for me to spin out of a question like that when it comes from a Fox reporter. If it comes from another reporter, I can spin out of it. Since it came from you, I will tell you, I won’t sound like a politician and I will tell you who I voted for tonight.”

Palin laid out her criteria in her decision.

“I considered who can best bust through the Orwellian Obama rhetoric that we heard more of today in Obama’s press conference talking about another insolvent and unconstitutional bailout that has no funds to finance — another program that he wants to kind of forced down our throat. Who can best bust these ideas of America never taking steps towards energy independence and we have the natural resources here and can do it, and who can best bust through that radical left dispensation and desire to mistreat those who are defenseless, mistreat those who perhaps have some disadvantages by making them more beholden to government? Who best can contrast themselves from that?”

Who was that? Palin said it was Gingrich, the “cheerful one.”

“I thought who best could do that  — my own personal opinion — is the cheerful one, Newt Gingrich,” she said. “I have appreciated what he has to for — stood boldly for. He has been the underdog in many of these primary races and these caucuses, and I’ve respected what he has stood for. Up here what we have — it’s not a primary, basically it’s not even a caucus — it’s a presidential preference poll. My preference tonight was for the cheerful one.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/06/sarah-palin-i-voted-for-newt-gingrich/#ixzz1oRs4bQWE

That works for me, too.              

Kansas City non-Education

Anyone living near Kansas City is aware that the Kansas City Public School district has lost its accreditation.  That loss is the accumulation of events spanning almost fifty years of failed liberal social engineering.  During the reign of federal Judge Russell Clark, education funds from across Missouri was directed to Kansas City (and also to St. Louis) by the dictate of Judge Clark.

All those efforts and wasted funding, well in excess of a billion dollars, lead to this point.  The KC School District cannot educate its students.

One solution that is being proposed is school vouchers.  That concept appears to be gaining ground but there are a number of issues, such as, will schools be allowed to voluntarily accept those vouchers, or will they be required to accept those vouchers.  Many advocates of vouchers feel that schools should be required to accept vouchered students, after all, it's just shifting tax dollars from one pocket to another.

Another issue is whether vouchers could be used to send students to private and/or religious schools? The proponents of vouchers want that ability as well.  But what of the right of the schools to choose curriculum according to their religious beliefs and doctrine? Would those rights now be controlled by the state since the state is now funding those private/religious schools via vouchers?  And, what if some parent objects to having their child being taught a doctrine that is in conflict with that taught at home?  Whose rights take precedent?

All those are good questions. But there is another hurdle that appears to be overlooked by the media...the Blaine Amendment. 

The term Blaine Amendment refers to either a failed federal constitutional amendment or actual constitutional provisions that exist in 38 of the 50 state constitutions in the United States both of which forbid direct government aid to educational institutions that have any religious affiliation.

The proposed text was:

"No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations."

Missouri is one of those 38 states that has adopted a form of the Blaine Amendment.

The Blaine Amendment was a topic on a local KC radio show recently. Evidently that caught the attention of the KC Star and this article appeared on Sunday, March 4, 2012.

Blaine Amendment brings challenges to private school parents

By JOE ROBERTSON, The Kansas City Star

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/04/3469028/blaine-amendment-brings-challenges.html#storylink=cpy

The full-sized public school bus, yellow and rumbling, pulled up at the front door of St. James Catholic School right on time as usual.

“There’s my bus,” 8-year-old Matthew Nelson said.

He meant his bus; 40 feet long. Just for him.

He had slipped out of art class at his school in Liberty with a gentle wave to the teacher and her whispered “ Bye, Matthew.” He’d climbed the steps to the main hall with his second-grade teacher and seen the sun-brightened bus outside the glass doors ahead.

He hates missing art. He’d rather remain in his familiar school than make this daily sojourn in his Catholic uniform to spend an hour in his neighborhood public school.

But if he’s going to get the federally funded special education services promised him, he has to go to the public school to get them.

Missouri’s Constitution won’t let any publicly funded teacher come to him.

Religious education backers are making a hard run this year at trying to force a statewide election to ask voters to eliminate Missouri’s “Blaine Amendment,” which blocks all manner of public funding from any religious-based entity.

It is a politically volatile battle, with many public education backers fearing that a change in the constitution would open the door to private school vouchers.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/04/3469028/blaine-amendment-brings-challenges.html#storylink=cpy

...

“Public money should not be used to support private schools that are not accountable to the public,” Missouri School Boards’ Association spokesman Brent Ghan said.

Go to the website for the complete article.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/04/3469028/blaine-amendment-brings-challenges.html#storylink=cpy

And that is the core issue..."public" control of private education.

My Grandson and Granddaughter attend a private, Christian school.  The school has a religious curriculum.  The school provides what they call a "classical" education that includes subjects such as teaching Latin and Greek.  When they have a school student performance, some songs are sung in Latin.  It's not a Catholic school either.

The discussion has arisen in the school whether to accept state education vouchers if, at some future time, students from the failed Kansas City School District want to transfer to this private school.  The school does NOT want the state finger in their pie.

Fortunately for them, a form of the Blaine Amendment exists in Missouri.  State judges have been very free in their interpretation of that law in St. Louis, so I would expect it's only a matter of time before a KC judge decides the Blaine Amendment doesn't apply in KC either.  Some organizations and Missouri legislators are proposing a repeal of that state provision.   

As it currently stands, I would not want my Grandkid's school to accept vouchers.  State educators would want strings attached to acceptance any such vouchers and with those strings will come requirements contrary to the school's principles and doctrines.  With or without a Blaine Amendment, the state must not be allowed to manage private education.  As it stands now, the state cannot competently manage the state's public schools.

The only solution that I can see and accept would be for the vouchers to be issued to parents for them to use as they, the parents, see fit.  Realistically, I have no real hope of that form of voucher being passed. It would block those educational tyrants from controlling the private schools. Those at the state level cannot allow that much freedom to the parents in Missouri.  Why, the next thing you know, schools will refuse to follow the state dictates on some important educational issue such as teaching self-esteem, or, or, sex education, or, or following state or federal mandated lunch menus.

No, the repeal of the Blaine Amendment would not be that great of a benefit to the state. Let's keep it.

Iowa joins with 44 other states to implement the RKBA

In case the acronym RKBA is unfamiliar to you, it means Right to Keep and Bare Arms.  The US 2nd Amendment, in other words.  Iowa is one of six states that has no such right in their state constitution.  They are about to correct that deficit.

Iowa House OKs bill to protect gun rights

Democrats walk out to protest move

By James Frazier, Thursday, March 1, 2012.

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Despite increasingly permissive gun laws, Iowa has long been one of only six states without a right to bear arms in its constitution.

Those days may be numbered, as the Iowa House has passed a bill to explicitly protect gun rights in the state constitution despite vigorous Democratic objections that included a mass walkout from the Statehouse.

Democrats in the Iowa House forcefully made their objections known with Wednesday’s walkout, claiming they were protesting the bill being brought to the floor without advance notice. They also had attacked earlier versions of the bill as an extremist bid to strike down all gun laws.

At a press conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy characterized the bills as eliminating “all gun laws, gone, not through legislation, but through altering the Iowa Constitution.”

As usual, democrats are more concerned about the loss of state repression of a basic human right than enabling those rights for the citizens of their state.  They follow the usual democrat tactic---fleeing, like those democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana. They refuse to perform their duties as legislators and use this tactic to block the exercise of the other legislators in the state. 

The democrat opposition continues.

We left in protest so that there could be some openness and transparency and some sunlight drawn on what this issue is: very, very extreme,” he said.

Republican leaders dispute that and charge that the walkout was not about the issues but about making a scene — it could not have paralyzed the legislature as a Democratic walkout in neighboring Wisconsin over an anti-union bill did.

Unfortunately for the democrats, this tactic doesn't work in Iowa. Instead it put on display the idiocy of those "lawmakers."  You see, the quorum requirements in Iowa is 50% and the split of the state legislators is 64-40, 'Pubs over the dems.

Oops!

When the dems heard the vote was still scheduled, they returned---and lost the vote 61 to 37.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, Hiawatha Republican, had declined to continue the debate until the Democrats had returned so as not to inflame an already sensitive issue, but Thursday he criticized the Democrats for walking out.

“Iowans send us here to go to work. Instead of standing here and debating, doing what Iowans pay and expect us to do, they left the capitol,” Mr. Paulsen said.

Gun rights advocates have made significant headway in Iowa. Concealed Carry was upgraded to make the state  "shall issue" instead of "may issue" and thus broke the power of the local Sheriffs to block Concealed Carry permits to anyone except their supporters.

The statists continue to lose. Illinois is the only state that prohibits this basic human right, the right to protect yourself and your family from the human predators amongst us. Iowa is about to rejoin the other 44 states with an affirmation of this basic right.  That leaves five more state that have yet to implement this right, California, New York, Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey. It's interesting to note that these five states plus Illinois have some of the nation's highest rates of violent crime.  Perhaps if they allowed their citizens to means and ability to defend themselves, those violent trends would reverse.

I'll not hold my breathe, however.  It's too much intelligence to expect from the dems.

Repost: "Did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Lift the United States Out of the Depression?"

I do a lot of reading. Most of it is fiction I admit, but not all.  A couple of years ago, I read a book by Thomas Woods titled, "33 Questions about American History You're Not Supposed to Ask." After I finished, I wrote several reviews on segments discussed in the book.  One of those was about the myth that FDR saved America from the Great Depression.  To my Father, this myth was gospel.  My studies of that portion of history when I was in college lead me to believe otherwise.  Woods affirmed my opinions.

Here is that  review again.  With Obama in the White House, it's pertinent to review the mistakes and errors of the past. This was originally posted on May 21, 2009.

Notes from: "33 Questions about American History You're not Supposed to Ask", Part 2

I've posted previously about some of the historical myths debunked in this book. For the previous posting, go HERE. This time, I'd like to address the myth: "Did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Lift the United States Out of the Depression?"

This is a myth long perpetrated by democrats, liberals, statists and the unions. The depression began in 1929 with the famous stock market crash. The root cause was the indebtedness of some key corporations (sound familiar?). When they could no longer service their debt and declared bankruptcy, that action triggered other bankruptcies when those debts went unpaid. The fact was that for some time, credit had been extended far in excess to the assets used for collateral for that debt. (Ring any bells? Can we say "sub-prime" mortgages and the credit extended to those who wouldn't have qualified for those mortgages without the arm-twisting of the financial industry by Congress? Fanny Mae? Freddy Mack?)

The popular thinking of the time was Keynesian Economics and that theory was adopted by Herbert Hoover. The gist of the theory was that there was insufficient spending and cash in the economy (just like the current stimulus bills passed by our democrat congress.) The remedy chosen by Hoover was wage supports. Needless to say, this didn't work and the depression deepened and Roosevelt was elected.

For you history buffs, there was another depression in 1920 just after WW1 with a crash just as severe as the one in 1929. However, that time there was no government interference and the economy recovered in less than a year.

When Roosevelt entered office, he continued all the programs created by Hoover but changed their names. Roosevelt and congress enacted two new programs, the National Industrial Recovery Act and the National Recovery Administration. The purpose of these two acts was wage and price controls. An idea copied from Benito's Mussolini's Fascist government.
This was the beginning of the "New Deal". The New Deal wasn't a single piece of legislation but a series of acts creating new bureaucracies, regulations, additional central control of industry and the economy that collectively were the components of the New Deal.

The basic premise of the New Deal was that government could control the economy better than natural capitalistic economic forces. As an aside, if you review all the depressions that have occurred in American history, you find that governmental meddling either caused the depression or delayed the recovery of that depression.

From Woods...

If the word fascism seems over the top, consider that NRA head Hugh Johnson (who once referred to the administration he led as a "Holy Thing...the Greatest Social Advance Since the Days of Jesus Christ [1]" gave Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins a copy of Rallaello Viglione's The Corporate State, a book that looked sympathetically on Mussolini's policies in Italy.[2]

The National Industrial Recovery Act and the National Recovery Administration were later declared unconstitutional, fortunately for us. Post-analysis found that the policies enacted by the NRA during it's short life deepened the depression and weaken the economy by blocking the free enterprise forces that would have created a better business environment and would have lead to the end of the depression. In short, the early components of the New Deal stopped the recovery from the depression and actually caused the depression to continue and get worse!

Again, from Woods...

Each New Deal program had its negative effests, but the collective effect was also substantial. Ohio University economists Richard Vedeer and Lowell Gallaway summed it up: "The Great Depression was very significantly prolonged in both its duration and its magnitude by the impact of the New Deal programs. The impact of all these multitudinous measures---industrial, agricultural, financial, monetary and other---upon a bewildered industrial and financial community was extraordinarily heavy. We must add the effect of continuing disquieting utterances by the President. He had castigated the bankers in his inaugural speech. He had made a slurring comparison of bankers in a speech in the summer of 1934." That the private sector could survive and even show early signs of recovery "in the midst of so great a disorder is an amazing demonstration of the vitality of private enterprise.

Re-read that last paragraph of the events of Roosevelt first year in office and compare it with the actions and works of Barack Obama since his inauguration in 2009. You would think they both had the same speech writer.

The New Deals admirers assure us that FDR's massive spending projects provided jobs and economic stimulus. True, government make-work projects benefit those who get the jobs. But we need to take the analysis further than this single obvious step. When considering the likely outcome of some economic policy, we cannot focus only on the short-term effects on its alleged beneficiaries. It is necessary to think about the long-term effect on the entire economy.

... 

These programs did not simply divert jobs from some people to others, or capital from some projects to others, in a zero-sum game. They destroyed wealth and made society worse off. In the private sector, resources must be employed in line with consumer preferences if entrepreneurs wsh to see a profit. If they do not employ resources according to consumer desires, they make losses and must either change their business plans or see the rest of their capital slip out of their hands.

Every action of the New Deal was aimed to hinder free enterprise and those engaged in free enterprise. The purpose was to create agencies of central control to force economic trends in the direction they thought would benefit them and their acolytes. Free enterprise and capitalism is the mortal enemy of those who favor state control, the statists, socialists, Marxists who cannot abide a free and open economy and personal liberty.

The Myth:
Franklin Roosevelt lifted the country out of the Depression and saved American capitalism from its own internal flaws. At the very least he gave people hope at a time of despair.

The Truth:
As a growing body of scholarship continues to show, the New Deal actually prolonged the Depression and crippled American capitalism.

In all honesty, the Depression did not end until the advent of World War 2 when much of the available work force was inducted into the Military services and took them out of the job pool. In fact, the Depression continued for a year after the end of the War as the returning veterans re-entered the job pool. But that is another story.

[1] On these conferences, see Shaffer, In Restraint of Trade; see also Eisner, From Warfare State to Welfare State, 128-33.

[2] For a critique of this system and its spiritual cousins, the medieval guilds, see Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Church and the Market (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2005).

Continuing on a Theme, Part II

Monday and Tuesday of this week, I wrote about the culture clashes between the first, second and third cultures at work in this country.  The first is the traditional American culture that founded this nation and spread it from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond to Alaska and the islands, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and others such as the Virgin Islands.

The first culture is one of work, innovation, independence and reverence of God. The second is the child of those who detest the constitution because it limits and restricts their ambitions for power and dominance.  They have a groups of dependents who have been enslaved by this would-be dictators. Collectively, they are statists and crony socialists.

The last culture is an import, islam.  We opened our borders for the oppressed who sought freedom.  Many came to this country since it's beginning  nearly 240 years ago.  Most of those who came assimilated into the American culture and prospered.  The third culture will not.  They wish to impose their culture upon us; to make us subservient to them.  Another form of slavery.

As I roam the internet, I'm finding more and more who also see these culture clashes.  Their viewpoints and observations differ slightly but they still support my theme of growing culture clashes.

The article below by Michael Barone appeared on the Investors Business Daily editorial page.  It's well worth reading.

Romney And Santorum Represent Two Different White Americas

By MICHAEL BARONE Posted 02/28/2012 05:29 PM ET

If you were listening reasonably carefully to last week's Republican presidential candidate debate, you heard Rick Santorum say, "Charles Murray just wrote a book about this."

The question was about Santorum's remarks on contraception, but his answer addressed the broader issue of "the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in America." That is indeed one of the subjects — but only one — of Murray's new book "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 to 2010."

Murray is a distinguished social scientist, a brilliant miner of data and a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute. And he is no stranger to controversy.

His 1984 book "Losing Ground" helped inspire welfare reform in the 1990s. His 1994 book "The Bell Curve" (co-authored by Richard Herrnstein) drew spurious charges of racism, which is perhaps one reason why he limited "Coming Apart" to whites.

...

Murray's argument is that we have seen a significant decline among whites in what he considers America's founding virtues — industriousness, honesty, marriage and religiosity — over the last 50 years.

That decline has not been uniform among different segments of the white population, however.

Among the top 20% in income and education, Murray finds that rates of marriage and church attendance, after falling marginally in the 1970s, have plateaued out at a high level since then. And these people have been working longer hours than ever.

He labels this group Belmont, after the upscale Boston suburb.

Barone is writing to present the contrasts between Romney, who he includes in the Belmont group, and Santorum, who is in the Fishtown group. 

In Fishtown, he reports, one-third of men age 30 to 49 are not making a living, one-fifth of women are single mothers raising children, and nearly 40% have no involvement in a secular or religious organization.

The result is that the children being raised in such settings have the odds heavily stacked against them. Santorum made this point vividly, and Mitt Romney chimed in his agreement.

These findings turn some conventional political wisdom on its head. They tend to contradict the liberals who blame increasing income disparity on free-market economics. In fact, it is driven in large part by personal behavior and choices.

They also undermine the conservatives who say that a liberation-minded upper class has been undermining traditional values to which more downscale Americans are striving to adhere. Murray's complaint against upscale liberals is not that they are libertines but that they fail to preach what they practice.

The rest of the article continues to compare the similarities and differences between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. While that is an interesting topic for another post, it diverges from the center-point of this one.

What Michael Barone presents is more evidence of the continuing culture clashes across the country---economics in this particular study, but that study does support the theme of contradicting cultures in motion.  The two groups Murray studied are really subsets of the first culture, or the traditional American culture.  Change is being imposed on these two groups by the second and third cultures, economics, and government regulations that support a contrary agenda.

Infighting, such as we've seen between the "Belmont" 'Pub establishment and the "Fishtown" candidates of Santorum, Gingrich, Cain and Bachman are a manifestation of segment clashes within the first culture.  

Those must stop.

The Beltmonts, the establishment, views those of us from Fishtown with as much disdain as do our mutual enemies from the second and third culture.  We are dividing our efforts fighting one another allowing the others to win.

That must stop.

The establishment must understand they are outnumbered by the Tea Parties.  We will not be assimilated into the establishment collective because we see little difference between that establishment collective than those we oppose.

In contrast, we of the Tea Party, need the organizational base of the establishment.  The establishment needs us because we are their base and we will be ignored at the establishment's peril.

There can no longer be divisions between Belmont and Fishtown. If we are to survive, if we want to return this nation to its conservative roots and the vision on the founders, we can no long support this internecine warfare.  We must merge to win our common view.  Or perish.