Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 2-15-18 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, February 15, 2018 Editorial & Opinions
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Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Jon Earnest — Editor
Chris Aguirre — Sports Editor Felicia Cousart Matlosz — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“I haven’t the slightest idea how to change people, but I still keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.”
— David Sedaris
It would be a huge overstatement if I were to tell you that I eagerly anticipate the Winter Olympics every four years, but it is true that these are traditionally enjoyable athletic events. They are a pleasant meld of athletic skills with artistic presentation.
As with all athletic competitions on an in- ternational level, it seems that they can’t be al- lowed to pass without politics being interjected into an otherwise pleasant meeting of dedicated young competitors.
Top names absent, but RC forum still showcases 4 congressional candidates
Fred Hall
Midterm elections for state and national offices are scheduled in 2018, and the congressional district that includes Reedley will be spotlighted in a community forum on Thursday, Feb. 15, at Reedley College.
“Issues in 22” will highlight the 22nd Congressional District race, where Republican incumbent Devin Nunes is being challenged by at least four other announced candidates. The forum – free and open to the public — runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the col- lege’s Forum Hall on the east end of campus.
It would be easy to blow off the forum since Nunes himself and Dem- ocratic challenger Andrew Janz will miss the event. Nunes — chairman of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and subject of national spotlight and controversy involving his release of a classified memo regarding Russian involvement with the 2016 presidential election — is in Washington, D.C. as Congress is in session. Janz, a Tulare County prosecutor who is the top fundraising Democratic challenger, is attending a Young Democrats forum.
But the Reedley College forum gives the public an opportunity to meet and question other declared can- didates in the race: Democrats Bobby Bliatout and Ricardo Franco, Liber- tarian Bill Merryman and American Solidarity candidate Brian Carroll. Organizers say the forum is designed for candidates to speak to issues im- portant to the district.
Nunes represents a district that still holds for him an advantage of
registered Republican voters. But it could become an interesting race to follow if the topic of Russian collusion in U.S> elections continues to hang in the collective minds of 22nd District voters.
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Central La Familia advocacy
services invites the public and com- munity members to participate in a “Day of Action” starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21 at the Reedley College student center. Organizers of the event — called “Conozca Sus Derechos!” or “Know your Rights!” — say it is designed to support im- migrants’ rights and demand action to protect “Dreamers” before March 5. That’s the deadline that President Donald Trump set for Congress to pass legislation dealing with young imdpci,meted immigrants.
Reedley College students, fac- ulty, staff and community members will participate. A call-a-thon from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. will have volunteers calling congressional representatives. A Know Your Rights workshop will be from3to5p.m.,andfrom6to7:30 p.m. will be a panel presentation fea- turing college and State Center Com- munity College District leadership. Information is avaiable on legal ser- vices and immigration advocacy or- ganizations.
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The Exponent has received de-
tails about a Celebration of Life ser- vice for Paul Mitchell, the longtime teacher and “Voice of the Tigers” for Reedley College who died Jan. 13 at age 87 after a long battle with cancer.
The service will be at 1 p.m. on Satur- day, March 3, at the Unitarian Uni- versalist Church in Fresno. The church is located at 2672 E. Alliuvial Ave.
Mitchell was a
longtime teacher Jon Earnest and coach at Reedley High School. He coached until 1986 and retired from teaching in 1992. Mitchell’s longest stint was at Reedley College. where he did public address at Tigers foot- ball and basketball games for 61 years until 2014.
The public is invited to the Cel- ebration of Life. After his death, Mitchell received numerous tributes on social media from former students and athletes.
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This week’s annual World Ag Expo
in Tulare again exhibited new cutting edge equipment and agricultural tech- nology from national and international companies. The event take place in the middle of what’s looking to be an exceptionally dry winter. Rain has been scarce since last spring, and pre- cious water that was able to recharge groundwater basins will likely be tapped back to the surface this spring and summer.
Barring another “March miracle,” don’t be surprised to see California cit- ies and counties re-instituting drought policies and restrictions as the weath- er heats up for summer.
One can’t help but notice the glorification of North Korean lead- er Kim Jong Un’s sister by the media for her appearance at the 2018 Winter Games in Seoul, South Korea. Hatred of the Trump Administration apparently knows no bounds by the major players in American media. The New York Times, Washington Post and oth- ers have virtually nominated this woman for a Nobel Peace Prize, all at the expense of our own vice president. The word I would use is “shameful.”
We all know that there traditionally have been some really strange recipients of that award but to feel that a member of the world’s most oppressive regime should be considered for such a honor when her subjects are starving and have absolutely no rights is disgusting.
Some may blame our president for the undermining of the cred- ibility of American media but that wound has been self-inflicted by many of those who report the news and interpret its meaning for all among the great unwashed. This “free press”, which is a constitution- ally mandated by our forefathers, has completely gone off the rails! Just report the news and we’ll figure out what it means.
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With the current California political culture of tax and spend —
then go back to the taxpayer for more — it should surprise no one that some of the cities where the most stressed citizens — tax wise — live are right here in Central California. Visalia ranks number two in the nation and Fresno is a solid number five.
The “tax-stressed” index ranks those cities where its citizens owe the most for additional taxation at year’s end. It should surprise no one that four of the top 10 locations nationwide are right here in the Central Valley, especially when those folks in Sacramento don’t seem to give a damn!
There are, indeed, two states of California, at least in terms of economics. Those living the sheltered, liberal lives along our coast have no idea of what the hell it takes to support a household 100 miles inland — nor do they seem to care. The dystopian existence displayed in Sacramento is all the proof one needs.
Making a mockery of the entire Democratic mess at the State- house is the recently released notification that the state of Califor- nia has so much money on hand that spending it all has become a problem. Take my word for it, the task of wasting taxpayer money on pet projects has never been a problem for those folks. Right now, some of my favorite government officials are getting newly remodeled offices, complete with bloated staffs, new carpet and new furniture just to make sure they are completely comfortable. There is nothing — as far as I know — against a refund to tax- payers of the excess money which has been extracted from the paychecks of hard-working Californians. Remember that a lot of them live right here in the Valley. That might even be more of an incentive than lavishly remodeling offices for state workers at our expense.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Another budget deal tainted by politics
By Mark Hendrickson
Guest columnist
Back in September I wrote about our “ethically challenged” democratic system. I said, “We are caught in a downward, self- destructive [debt] spiral.”
If you doubted me then, those doubts should have been exploded last week. Congressional leaders agreed to increase federal spending by nearly $300 billion above the already- rising limits stipulated by the Budget Control Act of 2011, and President Donald Trump signed the deal into law on Feb. 9.
We’ve seen this picture before: Congress and the White House feel a twinge of conscience, enact a law to end deficit spending, and struggle to adhere to it for a few years. Inevitably, though, political pressures to spend more become too great, the floodgates of fed- eral spending are opened wider, and the anti-deficit law is swept away.
Following are several earlier versions of this pro- cess:
1) Congress passed Pub- lic Law #95-435, The Bret- ton Woods Agreement Act, on Oct. 10, 1978. Intended originally to amend the U.S. Treasury’s collabora- tions with the International Monetary Fund, Congress added Section 7. It explic- itly states, “Beginning with fiscal year 1981, the total budget outlays of the Fed-
eral Government shall not exceed its receipts.” Voilà! End of deficits, right? Alas, if only. The actual federal government deficit for fis- cal year 1981 was nearly $79 billion. That was the last year until 1997 that the federal deficit was less than $100 billion.
2) Congress tried to legislate itself into fiscal responsibility again in the mid-1980s. It passed the verbosely named “Gramm- Rudman-Hollings Balance Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985,” followed by the “Bal- ance Budget and Emer- gency Deficit Control Re- affirmation Act of 1987.” As already noted, those long-abandoned laws never succeeded in getting annual federal deficits below $100 billion.
3) The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (alternatively known as the “Deficit Reduction Act of 1993”) is sometimes given credit for the four-year interlude from red ink in fiscal years 1998-2001. Ac- tually, there were only two small on-budget surpluses in those years. In the other two years, the “surplus” appeared only by adding the Social Security surplus to the regular federal bud- get.) However, it wasn’t the 1993 act that achieved a short-lived reprieve from massive deficits. Instead, it was a one-time, never-to-be- repeated “perfect storm”
of confluent events that I have explained elsewhere.
4) Another anti-deficit law was the plainly labeled Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Although the federal deficit did decrease for three years after the pas- sage of this law, bottoming out at $160 billion in FY 2007, the financial crisis that started that year blew that law to smithereens as federal spending and defi- cits skyrocketed to as high as $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009 (the year of the Obama “stimulus” plan).
5) The 2011 law that last week’s law supersedes did not even pretend to be working toward a balanced budget. It had the more modest goal of reducing annual deficits. Yes, the growth of federal spend- ing slowed for a few years after fiscal year 2011, and with the slow but steady economic recovery, federal revenues increased enough to reduce deficits. The def- icit bottomed out at $438 billion in fiscal year 2015. Now, with last week’s law, both parties have consent- ed to burgeoning deficits that could soon approach $1 trillion again.
The lessons are clear:
First, no law, or even constitution, has the power to thwart the will of a peo- ple who don’t want to abide by that law.
Second, the political reality is that deficits are here to stay — at least, un-
less the financial system (and possibly the political system) blow up from the accumulating financial stress, although as hyper- indebted Japan has shown, such an absurd situation can persist for a surpris- ingly long time.
Third, neither of the two major parties can be counted on for fiscal re- sponsibility. Democrats be- lieve that the government should oversee economic activity, and so there is no limit to what they want to spend. Some Republicans understand there are eco- nomic and ethical reasons for limiting government spending, but ever since the Nixon presidency over 40 years ago, they’ve learned that the American electorate has no stomach for “austerity” or “belt- tightening.” Thus, when push comes to shove, their political survival instinct kicks in and enough Repub- licans will cave to public pressure and give the vot- ers what they want—more spending and the large def- icits that go with it.
Given those partisan dynamics, red ink is here to stay and the mountain of national debt will continue to grow.
Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City (Pa.) College.
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