Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 2-21-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, February 21,, 2019
In My Opinion
'TPaved with good intentions'
here is a quote which has We are currently stuck with me for a long, enjoying the
long time but it seems even best economy in
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
moreaproposastimepasses. The passage is commonly attributed to Nikita Khrushchev in an address at a meeting with Western Ambassadors
at the Polish embassy in Moscow on 18November1956. Thewordsare chilling and, in light of today’s situation in America, seem extremely prescient. I’ve used it before, but today it really fits the political climate.
“We will take the United States without firing a shot...We will bury you! We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism
to Communism, but we can assist the elected leaders in giving them small does of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they haveCommunism. Wedonothave to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.”
Making such a proclamation even more frightening, there are some who say Khruschev made mention of our educational system as part of that re-educating process which would make their form of government even more palatableforyoungpeople. Theyfelt they could grow a revolution in this country from our very own. Since many of today’s leaders matriculated after 1970 and espouse some really strange thoughts, one is left to wonder.
We’ve all heard the old adage about “The road to hell being paved with good intentions.” The paving of that road is continuing to be extended every time
a member of our ruling class dreams
up a wondrous new “entitlement.”
The very first stone was put in place almost 90 years ago during the great depression. Eventheinstigatorof many early programs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said that he feared theycouldbeanarcotic. Webelieve that time has shown that the President wasfrighteninglycorrect. Thereal culprit behind much of this appeared when Congress voted the government power to confiscate wealth derived from personal income from all Americans.
One area where President got it terribly wrong was his authorization for public employees to organize. When public employee unions go to negotiations over salaries and benefits it’s always with people who are using taxpayer money and not their own. The result of that fiasco is obvious when government employees pay and benefits far exceed that which is paid toemployeesintheprivatesector. The tail is indeed wagging the dog! Thanks to the handiwork in negotiations by some bureaucrat the guy or gal who makes less is forced to pay the salary of someone who makes about 150 percent of what private sector makes. But, that’s a discussion for another day.
The 16th amendment was passed on July 3, 1909 by Congress and ratified on February 3, 1913. Prior to that, in 1812 and 1816 there were short-lived collections of taxes but they had been topayforwars. TheactionofCongress in the early 1900’s, in our opinion, gave the government access to the fruit of thelaborofeveryoneinAmerica. If one ever had any doubt about that, simply chart the growth of the size of our government from that date forward. Trust me, it has grown exponentially.
Guest Column
FSemale presidential candidates are now normal
Fred Hall
America in years. That doesn’t mean one should not be wary of those who advocate every day to roll back everything President Trump has done. Chief among the items on their
wish list is the tax cut. Government types want their money back!
Leading bogeymen on the “most wanted” list of today’s crop of progressive Democrats are millionaires and billionaires. We have to be honest with ourselves and realize that even if government took every dime they had it would not improve our personal lives a whit. To the contrary, it would cost jobs for working Americans with the reallocation of capital.
Ask Mario Cuomo, the Governor
of New York. They have taxed the wealthy to such an extreme that they are exiting the state, leaving Mr. Cuomo and his liberal buddies at City Hall
with a $3 billion deficit in the state’s budget. Where the hell has common sense gone? Gavin Newsom, are you listening?
Anyway, you should think this one
over. After government takes all their
money it would only leave a small
percentage of the taxpaying universe to
pay for your wasteful budgets. Those
millionaires and billionaires have been
the cash cows for years and government
will have effectively eliminated them.
Liberals will be satisfied but nothing
will be gained. A
Implementation of the “Green New Deal” hardly deserves mention once the cost analysis has been completed on the price tag. We simply don’t have enough money in our gross domestic product
to pay for free medical care, free schooling all the way through college, a guaranteed job and a guaranteed salary if one chooses not to work. All of that is supposed to be accomplished within a decade while erasing our carbon footprint. The elimination of all fossil fuel powered vehicles including cars, trucks, airplanes and ships is all that will be required! Not to worry, they will be replaced by electric vehicles, whether you like it or not!
Although we’ve co-mingled a lot of different thoughts in today’s column, the one thing they share in common is that they are indicative of our country’s liberal slouch to the left. Everything we have talked about shows that our liberal political class continues an expedited shift toward the basic elements of socialism. Cooler minds and clearer thoughts are going to have to prevail which can help return this national toward more traditional Americanism.
Contrary to what mainstream media and the Democrat party will tell you, that statement is not racist, xenophobic, sexist or any of the slurs they thrown at us, calling conservatives various forms of “isms.” It’s just plain old common sense, which is completely foreign to their agenda for the country.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
If you hate campaign season, blame money in politics
Guest Column
my Klobuchar could’ve waited for the temperature to rise above 15 degrees before launching her 2020 presidential bid. Instead, she
powerful insiders,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told the crowd at her own frigid campaign launch. She won’t be taking a dime from political action committees (PACs).
Senator Bernie Sanders showed in 2016 that it’s possible to raise large sums from individual donors. His total haul: $228 million.
A proposal by House Democrats would go a long way towards
chose to risk frostbite and make her pitch in the middle of a snowstorm — all for an election more than 600 days away.
The Minnesota senator is just one of around a dozen Democrats who’ve already thrown their hats into the presidential ring or hinted they intend to soon.
What’s the big rush?
People in other countries think we’re insane for having such long political races. By one count, in the timeframe of the 2016 U.S. election, you could’ve fit about four elections in Mexico, seven in Canada, 14 in the UK, and 41 in France.
If lengthy campaigns boosted voter education and turnout, I’d be all for them. But there’s scarce evidence of that. The United States ranks 26th out of 32 industrialized countries in the share of the voting age population that shows up at the polls.
So what can we do to avoid contests that shift politicians’ focus away from governing to endless campaigning?
We could try to compress our interminable primary process. But that wouldn’t make much difference when candidates are launching their bids a full year before the Iowa caucus.
A more effective step would be to slash the cost of competing for higher office. Candidates bolt out of the gates because they know it takes a long time to raise the mega-millions required for a White House run.
Imagine how many phone calls and fundraisers went into amassing the $6.5 billion spent on the 2016 election. A quarter of that huge sum came from donors who contributed at least $100,000.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that it was unconstitutional to place overall limits on federal campaign contributions. But we’re seeing a rise in candidates who voluntarily rebuff deep-pocketed donors.
“We need to end the unwritten rule of politics that says that anyone who wants to run for office has to start by sucking up to a bunch of rich donors on Wall Street and
Sarah Anderson
boosting small contributions as a counter to the mega- donors.
As part of a sweeping anti-corruption initiative, H.R. 1 would grant tax credits for contributions of no more than $50. Candidates could also volunteer for a public financing option through which the federal government would put $6 into their coffers for every $1 raised in small donations (of no more than $200).
The Democratic proposal would also force Super PACs, which can raise unlimited sums to advocate for or against candidates, to make their donors public. This might discourage some of the shadiest forces from attempting to buy elections.
The bill includes a number of other important pro- democracy proposals. It would crack down on partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and corrupt lobbying practices. It would also make Election Day a holiday for federal employees, hoping private sector businesses would also give their workers the day off.
None of these changes, I’m afraid, would have an immediate impact on the duration of U.S. election campaigns. But by making the process more equitable, these reforms might make the 600-plus days at least seem shorter.
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project and co-edits Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies. She tweets at @Anderson_IPS. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
omething new is happening in the 2020 longer merely tokens. Running presidential election cycle. For the first time for president is now a normal ever, running for president is a normal thing thing that women do. It’s even
that women do.
In the past several election cycles, there’s been
a token woman in the running in both major parties. In 2000, Senator Elizabeth Dole ran as a Republican. In 2004, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun ran as a Democrat. Neither was considered a serious candidate with an actual shot at the presidency.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton mounted a serious bid for president but was defeated by Obama in the primaries. That year, John McCain added Sarah Palin to his ticket as his running mate. In 2012, Representative Michele Bachmann ran in the Republican primary.
In 2016, Carly Fiorina ran as a Republican, and Hillary Clinton actually won the popular vote as a Democrat, but lost the electoral college.
In each election cycle, women have gotten increasingly closer to the Oval Office. And it appears there’s been an unspoken quota of one woman per party per election cycle.
This time, that’s changed.
On the Democratic side, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Representative Tulsi Gabbard have all officially declared as candidates for president. (So have a number of men, of course.)
My excitement at this stage isn’t over any one specific candidate; it’s simply over the fact that there are five women running. Women are no
Jill Richardson
a normal thing that women
of color do, since the field of candidates isn’t limited to white women.
Gender isn’t a qualification for serving as president, of course.
I still hope the best candidate
wins, regardless of gender.
The problem is that, in the past, gender was
a qualification for serving as president. Power, authority, and expertise were seen as traits of
men. Women were seen as better suited to making dinner than making foreign policy. If you wanted to be president, you had to be a man.
Our nation was founded with overtly patriarchal norms and laws. Married women couldn’t own property. Women couldn’t vote until well into the 20th century. Until the 1990s, in some states it was still legal for men to rape their wives.
We’ve been working our way toward gender equality since the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. We’re not fully there yet. But a field of candidates that includes five women shows we’re headed in the right direction.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
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