An anecdote

I have been negligent to write over the past two weeks, thank the Lord I finally have returned to work in my field of expertise, commercial construction plumbing. I just want to offer an anecdotal suggestion that speaks to the debt ceiling debate in Washington.

Three years a go I finished up at a pharmaceutical job in Frederick Md. A great job that I was able to ride from the underground to start up; when it ended all the talk was that a huge job at Ft. Dietrich was about to start and that with a little luck we could jump right from one to the other. Three years later that job is finally under way with some seriousness but is still subject to delays and controversies. Ft Dietrich is where the army does much of its research into a lot of ugly stuff (a Ft Dietrich scientist was suspected in the anthrax mailings following 9/11) and naturally has a somewhat uneasy relation with the residents of Frederick. Still it is a vital facility and defense is a constitutional role of government so of course it takes forever to do any thing.

With Ft Dietrich on hold I tried to get on to a supermarket job but that fell through in a permit dispute, so then came a high school, one of the largest in the state of West Virginia and a local job to boot, but again delay delay delay. Again most would agree that education is a legitimate function of government and this high school is needed but trying to get it built is problematic even if the state has the money.

So for nearly three years I’ve gotten by on small jobs and side work. I prayerfully refused to continue on Federal extended unemployment as I would have been hypocritical to oppose extending those benefits for God knows how long and then to jump on them when I needed them. One of those small jobs was at the NCTC, (national conservation training center) which sits on the old Hendricks Farm about 2 miles from where I grew up. There many thousands of your tax dollars went to replace c-fold paper towel dispensers with environmentally friendly rolled ones and install water conserving faucets and flush meters on toilets and urinals. Thank goodness the government isn’t broke or anything. When you hear of green jobs created remember 4 guys working for 6 weeks is as good as it gets. Meanwhile in the Robert C Byrd auditorium of the same facility severe water damage from a burst pipe goes unfixed as it has no funding.

Finally though Macy’s decided to build a distribution center in our area, they acquired the property, cleared the property and now we are working 6 10 hour days just to get done ahead of the iron workers. My helper and I laid 600 ft of 8 inch pipe in 2 days and boy did if feel great! I come home tired hot and dirty not to mention a little scraped up and I love it! When this job is done, Macy’s will employ over a thousand people full time and another 500 or so seasonally. Not 4 people for 6 weeks like the stimulus, and it will add to the economy not suck treasure out of it.

What has this to do with the debt ceiling? Simply this: the roll and scope of government is too big and is wrought with economic killing inefficiencies in the end the talk of 1.2 trillion in cuts is cosmetic as in DC a cut is really just a slow down in the rate of growth. I don’t believe we can settle for any thing that doesn’t change the system of spending fundamentally. Government spending can’t grow at 9% a year forever; government has to be placed in the background of life not the fore front. Right now if the debt ceiling is not raised, would it be so bad? If government could only do its fundamental needs but had to lay off some EPA officials who are trying to devastate the coal industry in WV what would the harm be? I am willing to support any plan that requires a balanced budget and willing to reject any plan that does not and I will urge m representatives to do the same. We conservatives are on the cusp of victory but we can’t put our trust in Boehner’s and McConnell’s chamberlinesque negotiating skills, its up to us the American people the conservatives, the tea party patriots to save our country and its future and we will not be deterred.   Let us all pray for our country, that it can hold out for one more election, than we will have our turn to finish what we started last November.

Until next time keep on the firing line.

An anecdote

I have been negligent to write over the past two weeks, thank the Lord I finally have returned to work in my field of expertise, commercial construction plumbing. I just want to offer an anecdotal suggestion that speaks to the debt ceiling debate in Washington.

Three years a go I finished up at a pharmaceutical job in Frederick Md. A great job that I was able to ride from the underground to start up; when it ended all the talk was that a huge job at Ft. Dietrich was about to start and that with a little luck we could jump right from one to the other. Three years later that job is finally under way with some seriousness but is still subject to delays and controversies. Ft Dietrich is where the army does much of its research into a lot of ugly stuff (a Ft Dietrich scientist was suspected in the anthrax mailings following 9/11) and naturally has a somewhat uneasy relation with the residents of Frederick. Still it is a vital facility and defense is a constitutional role of government so of course it takes forever to do any thing.

With Ft Dietrich on hold I tried to get on to a supermarket job but that fell through in a permit dispute, so then came a high school, one of the largest in the state of West Virginia and a local job to boot, but again delay delay delay. Again most would agree that education is a legitimate function of government and this high school is needed but trying to get it built is problematic even if the state has the money.

So for nearly three years I’ve gotten by on small jobs and side work. I prayerfully refused to continue on Federal extended unemployment as I would have been hypocritical to oppose extending those benefits for God knows how long and then to jump on them when I needed them. One of those small jobs was at the NCTC, (national conservation training center) which sits on the old Hendricks Farm about 2 miles from where I grew up. There many thousands of your tax dollars went to replace c-fold paper towel dispensers with environmentally friendly rolled ones and install water conserving faucets and flush meters on toilets and urinals. Thank goodness the government isn’t broke or anything. When you hear of green jobs created remember 4 guys working for 6 weeks is as good as it gets. Meanwhile in the Robert C Byrd auditorium of the same facility severe water damage from a burst pipe goes unfixed as it has no funding.

Finally though Macy’s decided to build a distribution center in our area, they acquired the property, cleared the property and now we are working 6 10 hour days just to get done ahead of the iron workers. My helper and I laid 600 ft of 8 inch pipe in 2 days and boy did if feel great! I come home tired hot and dirty not to mention a little scraped up and I love it! When this job is done, Macy’s will employ over a thousand people full time and another 500 or so seasonally. Not 4 people for 6 weeks like the stimulus, and it will add to the economy not suck treasure out of it.

What has this to do with the debt ceiling? Simply this: the roll and scope of government is too big and is wrought with economic killing inefficiencies in the end the talk of 1.2 trillion in cuts is cosmetic as in DC a cut is really just a slow down in the rate of growth. I don’t believe we can settle for any thing that doesn’t change the system of spending fundamentally. Government spending can’t grow at 9% a year forever; government has to be placed in the background of life not the fore front. Right now if the debt ceiling is not raised, would it be so bad? If government could only do its fundamental needs but had to lay off some EPA officials who are trying to devastate the coal industry in WV what would the harm be? I am willing to support any plan that requires a balanced budget and willing to reject any plan that does not and I will urge m representatives to do the same. We conservatives are on the cusp of victory but we can’t put our trust in Boehner’s and McConnell’s chamberlinesque negotiating skills, its up to us the American people the conservatives, the tea party patriots to save our country and its future and we will not be deterred.   Let us all pray for our country, that it can hold out for one more election, than we will have our turn to finish what we started last November.

Until next time keep on the firing line.

CUT CAP AND BALANCE

I pledge to urge my Senators and Member of the House of Representatives to oppose any debt limit increase unless all three of the following conditions have been met:

1.                     Cut - Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.

2.                     Cap - Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.

3.                     Balance - Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.

Two weeks ago I shared a copy of a letter to the honorable Shelley Moore Capito urging the support of a balanced budget amendment. I feel I should do due diligence and go into more detail about the plan I support. A number of conservative pro-growth and pro fiscal sanity groups have combined to author the above pledge. Let me tell you why I support it and why my unsolicited advice to you is to do the same.

CUT- buzz words in DC right now are balanced approach and shared sacrifice. We can’t just cut spending we must raise revenue as well. What they really mean is that the libs want tax increases now in exchange for phantom cuts later. D… those corporate jet owners anyway! When the real truth is told however, tax cuts and not tax increases spur economic activity and lead to increased gross revenue. A smaller percent paid by a broader base and it has worked every time it was tried.  The dirty little secret, the President knows this, in his debate with Hillary April of ’08 he said that capitol gains tax rates should be raised “for the purpose of fairness” despite the fact that such increases have always resulted in less revenue.  The truth is you can take every dime of all the wealthiest people in the country including those D…. corporate jets and those accursed yachts and fund the government for…. A COUPLE OF MONTHS! Then you couldn’t do it again, just as when you tax a business out of existence they suddenly produce $0.00 in tax revenue. We call this killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Cutting spending NOW not promising to do it later is not the best way to lower the deficit it is the only way.

CAP- the only way to keep the politicians hands out of the public fund cookie jar is to padlock the darned thing. Discretionary, defense and entitlement spending must have a ceiling just as the debt does. I like the idea of a specific percent of gross domestic product, say 18% or so, with an allowance for war and defense emergencies. Politicians will spend every dime they can as long as they can rather we have it or not if it helps reelection. Why not? Its not their money why not spend it with abandon? They will unless we the people don’t let them any more.

BALANCE- the constitutional amendment is the only thing that will prevent this cycle from repeating. Can't spend more than you make, can’t raise taxes willy-nilly and a limit on what percent of the nations wealth can be flushed down the bureaucratic toilet in DC! Amending the constitution is difficult and should only be undertaken in extreme situations, but this counts as that. Incumbent can buy reelection by spending the wealth of a generation yet born. I suspect that wasn't in the founders plan, and should be eliminated from ours.

If you agree with me, go to http://cutcapbalancepledge.com/pledge.php and join me in signing the pledge.

Until next time, keep on the firing line.

America’s birth certificate

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

One sentence of the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental congress on July 4, 1776, perhaps the most famous line, but it only begins to tell of the marvelous work that is the birth certificate of our great nation. While others can give a far more scholarly view, I simply wish to tell you exactly what these words say to me.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,  

Certain things are true just because they are. This is called by some natural law or moral absolutes by others. In some of the early states no law exists to make murder a crime, only to prescribe the penalty. It was superfluous to make a law against what God had so clearly set his stamp against. Moral absolutes in a Christian nation are Biblically based but natural law, the ideas of right and wrong precede even the books of Moses; they were hardwired into the human soul at the moment Adam arose from the sand, a part of the breath which God breathed in his nostrils.  (Romans 1)

that all men are created equal,

This too is a Biblical concept. Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10: 33,34)   this was a monumental application of truth. To this time the will of God, or so it was supposed, resided in the hands of kings and noblemen and the concept of divine right was widely accepted; now these revolutionaries had decided to revisit the fundamental relationship between, government and Providence. One law equal for all. Sadly it would be some time before all Americans in all states were free, but with these words defining our very existence it was destined to be so.

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

Inalienable rights granted by God. Even in the Magna Cartra, as historic and bold as it was, the rights granted were granted by the “dread sovereign King John”  the continental congress proclaimed God and not the king as the source of all rights, this was as revolutionary theologically as it was politically.

that among these are

These rights listed are not the sum total of all rights. This foreshadows a government where only the specific enumerated powers fall to the purview of government.

Life

It is the most basic of all rights. Only in certain very limited cases has one man the right to take the life of another. Yet in our society the life of the unborn can be taken on a whim, yet in the health care law rationing will take the inalienable right to life out of the hand of God and put it in the hands of bureaucrats. It is no surprise that those who deny God, and deny moral absolutes and natural law would also deny the sacredness of life. If we do not restore our respect for life, our society will collapse and the same God who so richly blessed our founding will leave us to the wailing and gnashing of teethe that is the fate of all nations who abandon the just principles of their founding.   

    

Liberty

  Liberty is defined as- freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction,hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking,speaking, etc., according to choice.

That we and not the king or the president, or the first lady’s commission on nutrition can dictate our personal choices better than we can. The concept that we may pursue our lives according to our will and our conscience seems distant at times when our government wishes to dictate for us our toilets, our light bulbs,  rather we have to purchase health insurance or not. Still we have the power of the vote so if liberty is lost it was not stolen it was ceded. If we act now, I believe it still can be restored.

and the pursuit of Happiness

From these five words spring the American dream, that we can improve our lot and build a better future for each generation. From these five words has arisen the freest most prosperous society in the history of the world, and these five words imply the unbreakable link between the attainment of happiness and a free market system that affords those opportunities for rich and poor alike.

My friend from one sentence we gleaned so much, my advice to you between cookout and fireworks, take time to read the whole document, read it aloud, discuss it, grasp its meaning!

  

Until next time, happy Independence Day!