Rice County Republicans

Our own Kathy Dodds has a letter to the editor,  “Obama has too many shortcomings to lead U.S.” and it has stirred up some spirited debate.

With such an important choice to be made on Nov. 4, for a president who will be the most powerful person in the free world, I’m very concerned with the push to put Barack Obama in that position. Having served in the Senate for 143 days, he felt ready to offer himself as the person to lead our country. What business, let alone country thinks 143 days on the job qualifies a person to run the entire organization? He has not authored any legislation in the Senate, nor led any investigations or championed any cause. His lack of credentials frightens me greatly.

We also see that the Faribault Daily News has endorsed Mike Piper, a solid friend of the conservative who has also embraced caution and conservation the way only a thoughtful person can …

Plaisance and Piper right choices to be commissioners.

his plan surrounds complementing our agricultural roots with strategic industries that would fit well here, such as data farms and agricultural research facilities. He has a strong identification with farming and calls it “a patriotic thing,” and he supports voluntary preservation programs to help those who want to work the land to continue to be able to work the land and earn a living.

This maps well with our contention that the most important part of the definition of “sustainable farming” is keeping farmland affordable to people who want to farm (not speculate). Anything less is just “stalling till the developer shows up”, a strategy that will leave us hungry in a few years.

The Scottish historian Alexander Tyler framed the end of democracies in the starkest of terms …

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.“

- Alexander Tyler, 1787
(disputed reference)

The Republican party understands this at the deepest levels.  It is part of our creed.  It is sometimes expressed simplistically as “no new taxes” but it is operationalized by our Senators and Congressmen who stand firm between the mob and the treasury.

Last week we watched as the guardians stood firm briefly, and we hoped we were watching the Battle of the Bulge, which initially looked very bad for the Allies but eventually was turned into a defeat for the forces of Nationalist Socialism (Nazis).  Unfortunately, we instead saw the Battle of Thermopylae, as the forces stood briefly Monday, but by Friday had been betrayed and routed.

Monday we stood firm on principles of the free market, but in what has become standard behavior in these sorts of emergencies, we attached enough earmarks to hide the wolf underneath, and the bill was passed.

Some of the earmarks masqueraded as reduced taxes, but in a byzantine twist of logic, these are not seen as earmarks. Basically this confuses “earmarks” with giveaways.  It is not the giveaway that makes earmarks insidious.  It is the granting of special dispensations to one group at the expense of the rest.  It could be argued that tax relief is really more of a “not taking away”.  This is a subtle point, but since the real crime is the use of tax codes to reward selected sectors by not taxing them the re-labeling is a semantic argument that only a lawyer could love.  There is no free market in that strategy.

I would argue that socialism is nothing more than the intermediate transition between freedom and serfdom. In 2000 we had a mere 1.46% of taxation stood between us and the tipping point predicted by Dr. Tyler (admittedly an ad hoc measure, but instructive none the less). I fear that in the short time between Monday and Friday we may have actually seen the beginning of the final end to our economic freedoms and, by study of history, of our prosperity. Mark the tape, we should at least know when we have crossed this Rubicon. Alae iacta est.

Continue reading…

The Bailout has become a buy-out as Congress has attempted to dress up this pig with enough “sweeteners” (their term) to make it palatable (read, PROFITABLE) to enough special interests to make it irresistable. This is the worst sort of vote-buying pandering and it is only so visible because it is (for once) tied to a bill that is only a few hundred pages. In the past, Rep. John Kline has opposed such pork. From MPR (hardly a bastion of conservatism) we see

Lawmakers filling up bailout bill

Posted at 4:39 PM on October 2, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has had a look at the bailout plan that the House will vote on on Friday.

Among the items added to sweeten the deal, according to the report:

• • Current law allows taxpayers to write-off 50% of the cost of any facility placed in service before January 1, 2013 that produces cellulosic ethanol. This provision expands the types of facilities that may be written-off to include production of other cellulosic biofuels in addition to cellulosic ethanol.

  • Allows employers to provide a benefit to employees for costs associated with bicycle commuting, including purchase and repair of a bicycle, bicycle improvements, and bicycle storage. This provision was proposed in 2007 in the Senate by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and in the House by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). This provision is estimated to cost $10 million.

  • Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children Current law places an excise tax of 39 cents on the first sale by the manufacturer, producer, or importer of any shaft of a type used to produce certain types of arrows. This proposal would exempt from the excise tax any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means to enhance the spine of the shaft used in the manufacture of an arrow that measures 5/16 of an inch or less and is unsuited for use with a bow with a peak draw weight of 30 pounds or more. The proposal is effective for shafts first sold after the date of enactment. The estimated cost of the proposal is $2 million over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

    The Oregon senators were the initial sponsors of the provisions. According to Bloomberg News, the provision would be worth $200,000 to Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon.

• • The bill also allows people who live in states where there isn’t an income tax, to deduct their state sales tax off their federal income instead. This was a sweetie for Texas, Nevada, Florida, Washington and Wyoming and will cost taxpayers $3.3 billion.

[emphasis added].

Sure hope Rep. Kline returns to his roots and votes against this pig. Its not the money, its the principle.