Government And Business

Government and business have always had a symbiotic relationship. Government benefits from the tax revenues of businesses and business benefits from the protection of government, bankruptcy protection being one example. Until recently.

The relationship has turned into a parasite/host one. But who’s the parasite and who’s the host? That’s the real question and one I hope to answer here.

Let’s start by defining what a parasite is. A parasite is an organism that feeds off another without regard for the other’s health. In light of recent actions by the government, inspired by FDR’s New Deal, the government has become parasitic. With the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, the U.S. government has increasingly become dependent on corporate tax revenues while imposing increasingly stricter regulations hampering their ability to freely conduct their business.

But not all businesses suffer under these conditions. The ones who can afford it hire lobbyists to protect their interests against the government by lobbying for special favors. This does nothing but give the government the power to pick winners and losers. It becomes an endless cycle.

This brings up another question: how do you end an endless cycle? The first step should be to ban lobbyists. This needs to start on the business end. If businesses want to improve their public image, they need to end their lobbying practices. Once they’ve shown they’re serious about ending this practice, the government, in order to prove they have the public’s interest at heart, should ban lobbyists altogether.

While this would be a good start, it won’t eliminate the problem. The government would still be able to raise corporate taxes. My solution? Cap corporate taxes at 25%. This way businesses would be able to plan their budgets knowing the maximum they would pay in taxes. That would also help them when deciding on expanding and/or hiring new employees. This would give employers the protection they need while possibly increasing tax revenues for the government.

While this two step solution is far from perfect, it could go far in bringing business and government back to a symbiotic instead of parasite/host relationship. If anyone else has other suggestion I’m open to them.

Indian prophecy about Washington

“I am a chief, and the ruler over many tribes. My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes, and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle.

“It was on the day when the white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forest that I first beheld this chief. I called to my young men and said, Mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is not of the red-coat tribe-he hath an Indian’s wisdom, and his warriors fight as we do-himself alone is exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies. Our rifles were levelled, rifles which but for him knew not how to miss-’twas all in vain; a power mightier far than we shielded him from harm. He cannot die in battle.

I am old, and shall be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers in the land of shades; but ere I go there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy. Listen! The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies-he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the father of a mighty empire!”

Washington received this prophecy fifteen years after an attempt to retake Fort Duquesne (Fort Necessity when under American control). During that battle Washington’s hat was shot off, three bullets passed through his coat, and two horses were shot out from under him. He was unharmed. One of Washington’s aides even repeated the prophecy during the Revolutionary War when his troops became apprehensive about how exposed Washington was. And we all know how that war turned out.

What they shoulda done

“We need healthcare reform!” “We need a public option!” “We need single-payer!”

With the 1000+ page healthcare bill going through the House, we hear these sentences every day. As it stands, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives the federal government the right to grab the power they’re reaching for. The only thing close to such a provision is the interstate commerce clause, but even that falls short.

With the federal restrictions keeping us from crossing state lines to purchase insurance, interstate commerce is not an issue. What the Democrats, Progressives, and liberal Republicans should have done if they were serious about universal healthcare, back when Clinton was president, was remove those restrictions. That would have given them the avenue they needed to get this bill passed, Constitutionally.

If they pass this bill, as it is written, it will be unconstitutional and subject to being found as such by the Supreme Court (not for a while, though, with the current makeup of the court). The Tenth Amendment clearly makes this a state issue. Remember: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Progressives do not like the Tenth Amendment. It goes against one of their fundamental beliefs, i.e. rights not explicitly denied by the Constitution to the United States are implicitly granted. Progressives are behind the healthcare “reform” being shoved down our throats. Hence the violation of the Tenth Amendment, which will ultimately be the downfall of the bill, if it’s passed in its current form.

I agree we need healthcare reform. But any reform needs to be within the Constitutional limits set forth by the founders.

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sneak peek

The following are the last two paragraphs from the first chapter of my book.

Everything comes back to class warfare with progressives. You shouldn’t be surprised to find several examples in this book of early 20th century progressives promoting this type of warfare. Teddy summed it up best when he said, “The belief in different classes, each having a voice in government, has given rise to much of our present difficulty; for whosoever believes in these separate classes, each with a voice, inevitably, even though unconsciously, tends to work, not for the good of the whole people, but for the protection of some special class – usually that to which he himself belongs”.

His opponent during the campaign, Mr. Taft, believed that every class should have a voice in the government. President Roosevelt believed that every citizen should vote “as a good citizen, whose prime interests are the same as those of all other good citizens.” It’s my belief, however, that every individual, of every class, should vote their conscience. As my parents have told me my entire life, you have your own mind, use it. Do the research on all the candidates and vote the way you believe would be most beneficial not only to your city, county, state, and country, but also vote the way you believe will benefit you the most individually. Because in the end that’s what we are: a nation of individuals.

Kenny’s plaque

For those of you who can’t tell, what it says on the left side is what it says on the right side in Japanese. We finally got to give this to Kenny last night at lunch (3 a.m.). I got a little choked up as I was presenting it to him when I noticed he was about to cry. But I didn’t get tongue-tied and that was all I was worried about. But after two months of planning we finally got to give him his plaque, finally.

Intro to my hopefully upcoming book

Introduction

I think I’m like most of you. I grew up poor, but not so poor that I knew it at the time. My dad is a working man He was a truck driver when I was born, quit for a while to do backhoe & bulldozer work for about a year or two, then went back out on the road. I remember when I would go with him during Summer & Winter breaks. I had a lot of fun but I soon realized I wasn’t cut out to be a truck driver.

Mom was a stay-at-home mom until I was about 8 or 9. That was the time she went back to school to be a teacher. If not for her I probably wouldn’t have done as well as I did. She got out of teaching for a while & went to work at a casual furniture business. She worked there for several years then finally got tired of not being appreciated for the work and hours she put in. That’s when she got back into teaching and still does it to this day.

My parents divorced when I was 17, a senior in high school, and although it was rough for a while I wouldn’t trade them for all the money in the world. I love them both with all my heart and I always will.

When I was in either fifth or sixth grade I started playing little league baseball. I played for about three years (I never swung the bat my first year but I got walked more than most). I had fun but decided not to play when I got to high school.

My family and I used to go camping every year. I loved it. We had a pontoon boat so we were able to go out on the lake and go fishing, skiing, tubing, or just ride around. Those were the happiest times of my life.

These are things we probably have in common. The point where we differ is that I never really knew what I believed, about anything. I would just agree with everyone. That way no one ever got mad at me for disagreeing with them. Things didn’t really change until I was 27.

I’m 29 and I now have a theory. Well, it’s not really my theory. It didn’t originate with me. But it is, I believe, a sound theory. That theory is that the U.S. government has become one giant community organizing group. Some of you might be thinking, “what’s wrong with that?” What I’m going to do is take you back to past attempts by previous presidents, scholars, and others to “organize” America.

For those of you who are like I was, I hope this book can in some small way help you find your voice.

newgibill.org

Health care

People ask me, when I complain about government health care,what I would do to fix the problem. Well, here’s my solution: follow Dr. John Muney and a group of physicians in Seattle. What Dr. Muney started doing was charging a flat rate of $79/month and a one year contract. Dr Muney says he can make more money by doing business that way because he eliminates the middleman. He doesn’t have to deal with insurance companies, for the thousand people who signed his contract. He still accepts insurance from other customers, but prefers the flat rate because there’s no hassle. Unfortunately the insurance companies didn’t like this so they got the state involved. They are forcing Dr. Muney to charge $99/month and if you’re REALLY sick you have to pay an extra $30 (just an example of what’s to come from Obamacare).

A group of doctors in Seattle is doing something slightly more radical: charging based on age – anywhere between $39 & $99. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the state isn’t getting involved… yet.

These practices would curb and even lower costs while increasing access to care. The amount of uninsured going to emergency room would drop dramatically which in turn would lower the cost taxpayers would have to reimburse emergency rooms for lost income from patients who couldn’t pay. Problem solved. Am I wrong? Is Obamacare better (with its $1.5 TRILLION price tag)? Dr. Muney’s concept is simple, and to paraphrase Thomas Paine: the simpler something is, the better it’s likely to be. That’s why he used plain language when he wrote Common Sense. He knew the easier it was to understand the more likely people we’re to agree. Let’s use more common sense solutions like Dr Muney’s health care solution.

What I’ve learned about progressives…so far

So far I’m about 100 pages into American Progressivism and what I’ve learned up to this point is amazing. The central idea behind progressives seems to be society. Our founders believed in individual inherent rights. They believed we were endowed with certain rights by our creator from the moment our lives began. Rights which no man, government, or entity could ever take away. They believed we had the right to life, liberty, and property (which was later changed to the pursuit of happiness for reasons I won’t go into here). Progressives believe that society should determine what rights we have, when we have them, and when they can be taken away.

It occurred to me that this is where the abortion, or right to choose, movement started. If we aren’t endowed by our creator a right to life from the moment our lives begin (which, in my opinion, is at conception), then what right does a fetus have to live? Perhaps that’s too big of a leap for some of you, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Woodrow Wilson once said that in order to understand the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, you shouldn’t read the preface. The biggest problem with that, however, is that the preface is the foundation of our independence. And it’s a solid foundation. Without that, this experiment we call a republic (and what I like to call the greatest nation on Earth) would be built on nothing and would have collapsed long ago. Are not all men created equal? Do we not all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Progressives also promote a “true democracy” while also promoting government control of business. Is it just me or does this seem oxymoronic? I just can’t wrap my head around this idea. How exactly would this work?

They believe that the Constitution was good for its time, but it needs to change as society evolves. That’s what’s known as a “living” Constitution, which I didn’t understand until about a monthago. This is another idea which I disagree with. Our Constitution is and exquisite work of art. It can be amended. Amendments can be repealed. But the foundation on which it was built is still strong, still relevant. It’s also been said that the Constitution was written in such a way as to benefit and protect the framers financially before anyone else. This is just preposterous speculation which cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They don’t believe in our system of checks and balances. Wilson compared our system to the inner workings of our bodies. He said you can’t have one organ working against another. When that happens, you die. It’s a good analogy. It’s completely wrong, but it’s a good analogy. The fact of the matter is that our individual organs can’t become more powerful that the others. Our individual branches of government, however, can. That’s why we need checks and balances (it’s also why we need to stop creating czars, but that’s another story).

Another of their beliefs is that all children need to overcome the “prejudices” of their parents, the prejudices being small government, individual responsibility, natural rights, etc. This is an idea that has been argued recently (to elementary school kids) by Al Gore in regards to the environment. I understand that many parents are set in their ways, which can be bad, but they also have much to teach us. We can’t just turn our backs on them.

They believe in massive government expansion. They compare it to the expansion of the American frontier and how beneficial that was to the country. But I don’t believe that an over-reaching, ever-expanding, nanny-state government is what our founders had in mind. As a matter of fact, I believe that was the whole reason for declaring our independence from Britain.

I started reading this book because I’ve heard many people blame progressives for many problems in this country. I wanted to understand their philosophy before I pointed my finger. Although I’m less than halfway through the book,  I can already see that progressivism is just a pretty word for socialism, borderline fascism. Perhaps as I continue my studies I’ll change that opinion, but not at this time. And just so you know, American Progressivism is a compilation of speeches and writings by early 20th century progressives such as Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, among others. There is no interpretation of their writings by a biased conservative pundit. The writers only voice their arguments in the introduction and explain the importance of each person to the progressive movement at the beginning of each chapter. Other than that it’s open to interpretation by the reader. Also, it’s a resource for students and professors (and anyone else interested) to better understand the beginnings of the progressive movement.

On a side note, an avowed socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, has co-sponsored a bill in the Senate with Republican Jim Demint, S 604, which is a companion bill to H.R. 1207, a House bill which would allow for the audit of the Federal Reserve. When a self-proclaimed Socialist is worried about the power of the fed and wants to make sure they don’t implement policies which would endanger the dollar, we need to listen. Call your senators and representatives and make sure these bills are passed and made into law.