Conservatives Win Again!!

Much of the Left today celebrates the latest in a string of special election victories by Democrats in conservative, formerly Republican districts. And, truth be told, the tidings are not great for the GOP. The country, at this juncture, remains monumentally unhappy with the Republican Party. They’re not happy about the economy; they’re not happy about Iraq. They see the price of gasoline skyrocketing and, more importantly, the price of food following suit. Couple that with the unremittingly negative drumbeat of the liberal media, the mood looks dark for the GOP.

But not, necessarily, for conservatives.

Consider the recent string of electoral losses in formerly Republican, solidly conservative districts. In the most recent races in Louisiana and Mississippi, the prevailing Democrats are both staunch pro-life, pro-Second Amendment conservatives. For conservatives, who care less about party affiliation than they do about the policies eventually adopted, it was a win-win situation. If the Democrats believe that they can win seats only nominating candidates to the right of Scott Garrett, great.

The new crop of Democrats are already driving policy, sometimes in good directions, sometimes otherwise. On the negative side, the Journal reports that the desire to protect the seats of 30 freshman Democrats from rural districts led to the creation of the egregious farm bill, which provides tens of billions in taxpayer handouts for wealthy agribusiness. So much for the so-called "Blue Dog" Democratic claims about fiscal responsibility. (President Bush promises a veto which should provoke some interesting local commentary from local "progressive" Democrats: "send me to Congress, instead of Scott Garrett, and I’ll support the Democratic Leadership position by providing corporate welfare to agribusiness millionaires"? Or, "I’ll go to DC and be even more vociferous that Scott Garrett in my support of President Bush in his fight against the irresponsible corporate welfare policies of Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats"?)

Consider, too, that Health Shuler, one of the stars of the Dem Freshman class, has proposed that all employers verify the immigration status of their employees through an expanded instant-verification system. Hardly the stuff likely to make it into a BlueJersey.com puff piece. Indeed, his REPUBLICAN colleagues have been pushing a discharge petition on that proposal, which has 185, mostly Republican signatures. Query whether the new Democratic Congressman from Mississippi will affix his name to that petition?

The lesson that liberal bigwigs learned over the course of the last few election cycles is that it’s more important to elect Democrats than it is to elect liberals. They harken back to the good old days of the 1960's, when an uneasy coalition of staunchly conservative, mostly Southern Democrats, and fringe-left, most coastal liberals, lorded over Congress. Back then, most of the ideological battles occurred within the Democratic Party – and the conservatives, with huge seniority, often won. If the Democrats wish to recast themselves as a party with room therein for pro-life, pro-gun, pro-freedom conservatives, God bless.

Conservatives, after all, don’t oppose Democrats; they oppose liberals. If the Left wishes to count new Congressman Childers as "one of them", great! Indeed, if the Democrats want to start running candidates in NJ just like him, wonderful! Conservatives care about policy, not the Party which advances it. If the Democrats choose to elect lots of folks who would be considered too right wing to win a Republican primary in NJ, who’s to complain?

Speaker Pelosi, indeed, may have said it best:

"As I tell every new Member of Congress, 'your title Representative is your job escription.' Travis Childers earned the votes of the people of Mississippi's First Congressional District because he reflects their values and shares their hopes and dreams for the future."

The fact that those "values" are 180 degrees separated from Pelosi’s don’t seem to matter to her. She will, for the time being, keep her job as Speaker with the votes of Democratic conservatives, but as they amass seniority, and in order to keep their seats, they will expect – and they will receive – concessions to those "values". Will Congress be supporting anti-freedom restrictions on firearms? T’aint likely. Advancing the leftist agenda on abortion? Not with Childer’s vote. Anyone think gay marriage will be high on Childers’ to-do list?

Childers website attacks Congress for "spending as the deficit and national debt hit all time highs". Does he sound like a reliable vote for Barack Obama’s platform to double federal spending on ... everything? (Indeed, he, and the other Democratic victors, vociferously denied that they had the support of, or wanted anything to do with, national Democrats). While his web-site is issues-lite, he clearly made every effort to avoid being seen as leftist. If Childer’s represents the future of Blue America, fantastic. He’s wrong on pork, Social Security, and SCHIP, but, then again, so are most Republicans.

Conservatives learned a baleful lesson here in NJ when they supported Democrat-lite Republican candidates for office due simply to the ‘R’ after their names, only to have them adopt policies which contributed to the bankruptcy of the State. If so-called progressives find comfort in the victory of pro-life, pro-gun conservatives, we’ve moved a long way toward solving the problems the state and the country face in the way conservatives always said they should be solved.

And there are traps aplenty waiting for these conservative Democrats as they try to explain to those at home, who do not share the San Francisco "values" of the Pelosi Democrats, why they support those folks. The Congressional Dems just proposed a (non-binding) budget resolution which calls for increasing spending at 4% per annum, would permit the largest tax increase in American history, and which – in a typical display of political courage – does precisely nothing to address exploding entitlement costs. In short, the same fiscal irresponsibility we’ve come to expect from non-conservatives, of either party. Will conservative Democrats be able to explain supporting such insanity to the folks back home?

Folks worried about rising gas prices? The only way to address that is to increase supplies, and "progressives" absolutely refuse to seek new domestic supplies. Folks worried about jobs? Unemployment’s up .5% since the Dems took control, and their protectionist proposals are worse than useless. Spending outrageous now? Just wait until Mr. Double Everything (except the military) takes office! Your taxes bad now? You ain’t seen nothing yet; wait til Obama gets to town. The proposed farm bill will actually increase food prices. Given that the policies of the national Democrats are wholly divorced from the values of the folks in the districts which elected conservative Democrats, their tenure may be very short.

That having been said, people get tired of single party rule, and there’s no particular rhyme or reason to their predilections in any given year. Germany and France just became more conservative; Australia moved the other way. Labour in Britain runs the risk of being reduced to holding their party caucuses in one of the fast disappearing red phone booths.

The Dems will likely benefit from the electorate’s Bush fatigue, although Obama may be simply too far out on the left-wing fringes for the people to stomach, even in a Democratic year. When virtually all of the local Dem victories came to pass by nominating staunch conservatives, will a presidential nominee to the left of George McGovern appeal to those constituencies?

To "progressives" celebrating the recent electoral victories, consider this thought: Speaker Childers. Who would likely be more upset by the resulting policies: Mike Carroll or Reed Gusciora? If he represents the new face of the Democratic Party, the Country will be a much better place.

Efficiency and Immigration

Today’s Times editorializes that the Social Security bureaucracy (you know, the same folks that the Left tells us administer Medicare for a minuscule fraction of what it costs the private sector to administer private health insurance plans) lacks the means to expand E-Verify to ensure that all employers in the county possess the ability to immediately check the employability of their workers. Immigration enforcement, the Times opines, would constitute a "harmful diversion" from the agency’s "core mission", thereby compromising the well-being of – of course, who else? – the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

The editorial points out a huge backlog in disability cases: 500,000 pending cases as well as three-quarters-of-a-million pending appeals and opposes imposing any additional responsibilities.

Apparently, these exemplars of governmental efficiency (1% administrative costs at Social Security, 2% at Medicare, according to The New Republic) are so incompetent that they can’t handle their present responsibilities in a timely fashion and, faced with the task of ensuring that people who are contributing to the system actually exist, would completely fall apart.

Oh, and there would be costs, too: $40 billion per annum, the Times avers, a combination of actual administrative costs "... and falling tax revenue as workers are driven off the books". Come again? About what group of "workers" does the Times speak? Presumably the only folks "driven off the books" would be illegals; if they’re paying a paltry $4 billion per annum in taxes, the sooner they go "off the books" – and home – the better for the taxpayers. In New Jersey alone, some estimates of governmental expenditures on illegal aliens run into the billions of dollars.

Or consider this gem:

"Because the Social Security database is rotten with errors, the crackdown could force millions of Americans to battle a computerized bureaucracy that tells them, unjustly, that they cannot work."

Hmm. The IRS seems to make do with the same information. But take the assertion at its face value: if this model of governmental efficiency presides over a data base "rotten with errors", are these the folks to whom we should be considering entrusting the entire national health care system?

Amusing, isn’t it? To a Leftist, Government is, at once, wholly incapable of policing the borders, checking employment status, or discerning who might properly register to vote. (Another Times editorial ... , er, news story, today reports on the baleful effects that keeping non-citizens out of the voting booth would have upon (yup, you guessed right again), the poor, the elderly, and minorities) and, yet, this same government is fully competent to handle the entire health care system. There would, of course, be no "battles with a computerized bureaucracy" when government takes over health care; everything would run smoothly and efficiently.

Indeed, per the Times, enforcing the law as it presently exists constitutes a grave error. The Gray Lady harumphs:

"Such a system cannot be imposed without other immigration reforms, including a path to legalization for undocumented workers who would otherwise be pushed permanently into the shadows by a plan that gives them no way to work or to get right with the law."

Illegal aliens always possess a simple way "to get right with the law": go home. A "path to legalization" already exists: go home and apply to come here legally.

As it happens, the Times is (partially) correct: government does nothing efficiently. The idea of entrusting the entire national health care system to the same folks who presided over the spectacularly successful Hurricane Katrina relief efforts ought to terrify any rational adult.

But while private folks can, and, do, easily attend to their own health care, they cannot police the borders. As bad and inefficient as government might be, no alternative exists to reliance upon it for law enforcement. The fact that some folks might have to wrestle with this "efficient" bureaucracy before they receive their taxpayer subsidies should not preclude using the best means possible to exclude those who don’t belong here.

Rich Liberals -- in Florida

A few decades back, an assertedly conservative columnist – fond of opining that Americans were undertaxed (a curious philosophy for a conservative – got snagged in a tax shelter scam. I remember chuckling; Americans might be undertaxed, but he wasn’t.

Americans, a forgiving lot, will excuse just about any sin, save hypocrisy. Such is the reason sex scandals tend to hurt conservatives more than liberals (Eliot Spitzer to the contrary notwithstanding). The electorate expects no better of the Bill Clintons; it expects those who assert fealty to "traditional values" to adhere to them personally.

Liberals often adopt the do-as-I-say philosophy, acting unapologetic when caught in the flagrant contradiction. Recall Carl Rowan, liberal scribe extraordinaire, scourge of the NRA, supporter of just about every gun restriction ever conceived. But when confronted by an intruder in his Washington, DC, home, guess who blazed away with an illegal pistol? Unrepentant, he asserted that as long as the criminals had guns, he reserved that right for himself. The news reports never indicated whether he paid his NRA membership, having just made their case.

Now, consider the observation by OpinionJournal.com today. It seems that liberal lion Howard Metzenbaum, erstwhile Senator from the great state of Ohio, who died in March, at the age of 90.

In Florida.

Curious, that, no? A doctrinaire lefitst, Metzenbaum never met the tax he didn’t love – when, apparently, other people paid them. But facing Ohio’s almost-New-Jerseyish 7% income tax, and knowing that, approaching 90, that he would shortly go to his reward – thereby subjecting his heirs to Ohio’s 7% death tax – he suddenly discovered the merits of a jurisdiction without either an income tax or a death tax. For a man of his wealth, his savings while alive, and his family’s savings upon his death, probably totaled many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or more.

But, of course, the tax benefits to a man of his station must be a complete coincidence. We all know that people don’t move from one state to another based upon something as trivial as tax rates. We have Jon Shure’s word on it, and Jon Shure is an honorable man.

That same publication noted, earlier this week, that erstwhile Maryland Governor Ehrlich has taken to calling PA "North Maryland", due to the ever burgeoning exodus of MD resident’s fleeing that state’s increasingly confiscatory taxes. Given PA’s long time status as "West New Jersey" – hosting hundreds of thousands of NJ expats similarly seeking a modicum of tax sanity unavailable in their former home – one wonders: will PA become increasingly Red, as Maryland and New Jersey increasing hemorrhage shed taxaphobic residents?

Or will the "progressives" – who continue to strive to turn NJ (and MD) into socialist paradises, in which only rich liberals, governmental employees, and the poor can afford to live – eventually awaken to the fact that the laws of economics are not subject to political repeal?

Nah.

NJ's Bad Rap

According to the Bergen Record, Corzine Administration officials stand prepared to address the difficulties associated with a weak economy, through the vehicle of a five point plan.

And, according to the report, here is how NJ goverbnment will produce a brighter economic future: better commercials.

The Record reports on the testimony of the Chief of the State Office of Economic Growth:

"Among the initiatives being pursued to help make the state appeal more to businesses is a marketing campaign designed to turn around New Jersey's negative image, Rose said."
"‘We think we have a much more convincing story to tell, but we think we are being tarred by the old New Jersey image," he said. "We want to put out a much more positive story.’"

So, NJ does not really deserve it’s reputation as a tax and regulatory hell, and a better marketing campaign will show those benighted businesses and residents – who have beaten a path to PA – the error of their ways. No more Jim McGreevey walking on the beach (there was always a certain irony in that anyway). No more Brendan Byrne offering "New Jersey’s Got It". (As one sage noted, that provoked the question: "what will make ‘it’ go away?"). No more Tom Kean (Sr.) Brahmining, "New Jersey and You, Puhhhfect Togethuh".

Yup, what NJ really needs is some good PR. That’ll do the trick. Maybe NJ natives (and expats) Kirsten Dunst and Queen Latifah – maybe even Bruce Springsteen – all telling the world what a great place NJ is to live:

"Come to NJ where you can pay the highest property, sales, and income taxes in the country. Where you can live in a state which shutters its parks while wasting billions on urban areas. Where you can live in a bankrupt state about to bury itself under another mountain of debt. Where we’ll force you to purchase health insurance and let your employees take off 42 days a year – with pay – and forbid you from building on that small portion of your property we don’t seize through eminent domain. But come here anyway, because we’re all smart enough not to care about trivialities like confiscatory taxation."

This is the Jon Shure view of economics: NJ offers so many advantages that people will flock here because " ... a skilled workforce, good proximity to the marketplace and a general high quality of life can overcome the tax issue," as the Administration folks put it. Of course. Who are you going to believe? The Administration or the evidence of your own eyes?

As the Record reports, the Growth folks continue:

"Some businesses may be leaving for tax- and toll-friendly Pennsylvania, but New Jersey can stay competitive, particularly in North Jersey, with its reasonable occupancy rates."

Of course!! All those businesses fleeing NJ must have freed up scads of office/business space, and we’ll use that to our advantage!! Why didn’t we think of that before?

There is one – and only one – way to turn NJ’s reputation around: eliminate it’s well-founded causes.

Massive tax cuts – and accompanying massive spending cuts – are clearly necessary, but insufficient. Idiocy – like paid family leave and mandatory health insurance – will do nothing but drive further nails into the coffin of NJ’s reputation. Government must stop trying to "help"; all it does is harm the folks it purports to assist.

So. How to do it? Where to cut? What reforms to embrace?

Obviously, when faced with a spending problem, one cuts spending. The biggest money pits are no secret. Consider a few modest proposals:

First, instead of cutting back aid to small towns, zero it out altogether. NO municipal aid whatsoever. Just as the people of Randolph should decide for themselves how many cops they need – and can afford – so the people of Newark should decide whether their Mayor is worth more than $200K per annum. Each municipality gets the government it wants – and can afford – nothing more, and the local pols answer to the local electorate for their priorities.

Second, instead of shuttering state parks, eliminate COAH. If the Supremes get uppity again, pass a constitutional amendment evicting them from making housing policy.

Third, reform education aid, so that every child receives an equal share of state funding. If the people of Newark want to pay teachers half-again the state average, that’s their call, but not on someone else’s dime. If Newark public schools can’t deliver a quality education on what folks in Boonton spend, private schools can, and vouchers should be expressly permitted. Again, if the Court decides to intervene, it should be politely invited to leave the arena.

Fourth, abolish all public employee pensions for new hires; everyone gets a 401(k). Abolish all health insurance after retirement. Not much present savings, but it defuses a long-term fiscal time bomb. At the same time, proscribe public employee involvement in, and contributions to, partisan politics.

Fifth, stringently enforce the requirements that people show ID to work here. As illegals cannot find work, they’ll leave, thereby saving the taxpayers billions per year.

Sixth, either abolish elected Boards of Education altogether or move their elections to November, when people actually show up at the polls.

Seventh, zero-out NJN’s taxpayer subsidy and sell of its property; the license, too, if we can. Why do we need taxpayer financed TV?

Eighth, abolish cost-generating frills – like prevailing wage laws – which cost taxpayers hundreds of millions extra on necessary infrastructure projects.

These suggestions are just of the tip of a huge governmental iceberg. The point being the state government should do a few things and do them as inexpensively as possible, while removing the incentive – and the ability – on the part of anyone to vote themselves other people’s money.

Making NJ economically competitive again requires no governmental study, no governmental programs, no governmental subsidies, no governmental commissions. It simply requires government to do less, be less expensive, and impose fewer mandates. That is, it requires a wholesale repudiation of leftist philosophy.

Which, of course, is why the prospects look bleak.

Two Random Thoughts

Blurb one: Reports indicate – and a trip to the Acme confirms – that food prices are soaring and that farmers are now making money hand over fist. Combine high demand for foodstuffs with the increasing demand for agricultural products as the basis for fuel and – voila! – record prices.

So. Would now not be a great time to zero out all federal (and state) farm subsidies?

Blurb two: The political dictionary defines "gaffe" as "inadvertently telling a politically incorrect truth". Comes now Geraldine Ferraro, veteran token, averring that Barack Obama would not be where he is today were he a white male.

Ferraro notes, accurately, that if she had been named "Gerald", she’d be historically anonymous; Mondale never would have chosen a little-known, unaccomplished white male Member of Congress as his running mate.

Just so, today, were Barack Obama the same in every way, excepting that his paternal line hailed from Dublin rather than Kenya, he’d been a complete political non-entity. He never would have been chosen to address the DNC in 2004; he never would have been elected to the Senate. And if, as a white male, first term Senator, he’d dared to run for President, he’d get the same respect John Edwards got: a cute, well-spoken neophyte, who won nowhere (to be fair to Edwards, he’d been in office three times as long as Obama when he sought the Presidency).

For telling the truth, Ferraro finds herself vilified. Obama, for his part, condemned her as a "slice and dice" politician , advancing a "... politics that's about race and about gender and about this and that, and that's what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can't solve problems." (Not exactly sound bite quality work from this famously articulate pol)

THAT’S truly funny. The Democratic Party positively revels in "slice and dice" politics and considers identity absolutely crucial. Only a Republican – and a conservative Republican at that – denies the relevance of characteristics like race, sex, and ethnicity (in matters political). Hillary draws huge support from feminists, who believe gender is (political) destiny, while Obama routinely racks up 95% of the black vote, numbers inexplicable except as based upon race.

It would be nice if Obama truly meant what he said. When he announces his support for the abolition of all "affirmative action" programs and demands that his Party foreswear its express quota system for choosing delegates, then he can be taken seriously.