Recently in Democracy In Action Category

Now that we've made it past the first of the year, the focus here in New Hampshire turns in two directions: the upcoming Presidential Primaries and annual town/state budgets. Of the two, the primaries are receiving the most attention by both the populace and the media.

With the New Hampshire primaries scheduled for January 10^th, the media attention has been cranked up to "11". The various presidential wannabes have been spending every free moment in the Granite State, minus time in Iowa in preparation for tomorrow's Iowa Caucuses. (The one exception seems to be Jon Huntsman, who sees New Hampshire as the key to his moving forward.) There will be one last 'big' debate amongst the GOP candidates on the 7^th, with national coverage by ABC.

It's going to be intense for the next eight days.

The lesser of the two events, the annual battle of budgeting for the towns also start in earnest. Not that there hasn't been a lot of behind the scenes work on assembling proposed budgets for the various departments and schools.

Here in my small town the town and school budgets have been undergoing a lot of scrutiny by the board of selectmen, school board, and the budget committee. Everyone wants to cut spending, but of course it's always "someone else" who should cut their budgetary requests. It's never a pretty process and at times emotion can get in the way of logic and reason. When a position is cut in one of the town departments, many of us realize it means that someone we know, perhaps a friend, will lose their job. (That's happened to a friend of mine in the planning department. Her full time position - with benefits - was cut to part time. She couldn't justify staying there under those conditions and left for another job.) In some cases open positions have been eliminated for the time being, leaving some departments short staffed. But those are the choices that have to be made in order to keep spending in check when everyone is having a difficult time making ends meet, particularly those on fixed incomes within our town.

Once the various boards and committees have done their thing it will be up to the voters in each town to vote on them, either at town meeting or during the town elections in March. (A few towns hold their town meetings in April or May.) Towns with a board of selectman/town meeting form of government fall in to two categories: traditional town meeting and SB2.

The traditional town meeting is usually held in some time in March, and all registered voters are encouraged to attend. The voters will discuss and vote on all of the articles presented on the town warrant, some covering budgetary items and other with changes in zoning ordinances (assuming a town has any zoning at all). A second town meeting, usually called the school district meeting, deals will warrants pertaining to the towns school expenditures.

SB2 towns do things a little differently, with two different sessions for both the town and school portions of the warrants. The first session deals solely with discussion and amendments to the town and school warrant articles. The second session of each meeting takes place on election day in March, with the voters deciding whether to approve the various warrant articles discussed the previous session.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems, but they seem to work pretty well. In any case, the tax money that will be spent in the upcoming fiscal year is vetted by the very people that will be paying those taxes. (There are a few taxes which the town voters have no control, those being the county and state assessments levied upon them to run county operations and for some education funding, respectively.)

The state will be dealing with some supplemental budget items during the upcoming legislative session (the state runs on a two-year budget cycle). Sometimes adjustments are made if there's an unexpected expenditure needed to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes it's the other way around, with some line item that was approved but never implemented, meaning there are surplus funds that can go to other purposes to fill shortfalls someplace else. Sometimes the surplus goes towards the state's so-called rainy day fund, a savings account that can be used to fill revenue shortfalls under very specific circumstances.

All we can do is hope they folks in the state capitol don't go on some kind of a mindless spending binge. But then it does help that the GOP holds supermajorities in the state Senate and Executive Council and a majority in the state House.

Is the UK on the verge of abandoning the EU? It's looking more like a more attractive option as the monetary/finance crisis deepens and threatens to pull the UK irrevocably into a bankrupt and less democratic European superstate.

What options does it have to preclude this out come? Only two variations on a theme, that being withdrawal from the EU. That leave them with two possible options once they've done so: Go it alone or seek alliance elsewhere. Going it alone may seem attractive at first, but it does leave them open the vagaries of the world market with no one else backstopping them. So perhaps they should seek an alliance elsewhere. But with whom?

Well, how about NAFTA? After all, the UK has far more in common with Canada and the US than they do with France, Germany, or Belgium.

Britain does have other choices. To find the country's new role, British leaders should look to North America.

Alone among EEC members, Britain narrowed some of its major trade networks when it joined. It also traded ordinary Britons' right to virtually bureaucracy-free movement, temporary or permanent, between the U.K. and British Commonwealth nations.

--snip--

While much trust was lost between Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth because of this move, strong personal, cultural and economic ties remain and could be revived. Ask the average Briton where he'd feel more at home, Paris or Toronto.

Canada and Australia have well-managed, vibrant economies. Both countries sit on huge deposits of natural resources of ever-increasing value. Britain's top-tier financial sector and still-excellent technical capabilities already play a role in Canada's economy. These ties could be much strengthened.

Britons also feel at home south of the Canadian border. Contrary to an oft-repeated myth, links between Britain and the United States are not reducible to the personal relationships between presidents and prime ministers. The U.S. and the U.K. have always been each other's primary financial partners. A few simple measures could substantially deepen this relationship, especially once Britain no longer needs to adhere to EU rules.

The only thing the UK has in common with the rest of Europe these days is proximity and a centuries long history of armed conflict with a number of countries there. Perhaps it's time for Britain to remember the rest of the Anglosphere and to consider re-aligning itself it with it. I have no doubt it would help both the UK and the other nations of the Anglosphere.

And the UK's trade with the rest of the EU? I have reason to believe that while there would be some fall off in trade, in the end it won't be all that much. And increased trade and relations with the rest of the Anglosphere would certainly help make up any shortfall from the rest of Europe.

Frankly I see little if any downside to the UK withdrawing from the EU and realigning itself with its former colonies and Commonwealth members.

The pols in Washington are still going at it hammer and thongs, and after weeks of debate and rhetoric they have been unable to come up with a workable compromise about the debt ceiling, out of control government spending, and a push to raise taxes.

But a group of five ordinary citizens were able to work out how to solve the problem in only an hour.


It seems to me we've been looking in the wrong place to find the answers needed to fix this problem. Some will claim their solutions are overly simplistic and overlook the nuances and complexities of the problem. But that is the problem. Those 'nuances and complexities' are what make it seem impossible to solve the problems. The folks in Washington tend to forget that no matter what they do, someone somewhere is going to be inconvenienced or hurt. The trick is that maybe we have to ignore that situation or any solution will be impossible. And then everyone will be hurt, possibly to a level not seen since the Great Depression. That is no solution.

What say you?

I've just returned from an exercise in small town democracy.

While most of our town's deliberations and voting on spending for municipal functions and education take place in February and March, an education issue going back to the March voting has come to a head and our school board decided it had to meet this head on rather than continuing an ongoing fight in the local papers, with heated point/counterpoint letters to the editor creating some of the best local gossip seen around here in some time.

It all came down to what is called a petition warrant article, in this case dealing with one specific petition warrant article that was aimed at eliminating an administrative position the petitioners believed was never authorized when our school district broke away from a larger school administrative unit (or SAU) 13 years ago. The warrant article passed by a 2 to 1 margin, but the school board ignored it, claiming it was "advisory only." That didn't sit well with a lot of folks in our town.

On top of that, the school board announced the day before the vote in March that they had hired a replacement to fill administrative position being vacated due to the retirement of the person occupying that position. Quite a few people saw that as a slap in the face, taking it as arrogance on the part of board by flaunting their decision ahead of the vote as if to say "We don't care what you want, we going to do it our way."

But was it arrogance? Or was it poor timing on their part? It doesn't matter, the reason being that perception is reality. (If the voters see it as arrogance then it is arrogance, motives not withstanding.)

A lot of people showed up for this 'special' school board meeting, held at the our high school auditorium, and a lot of people spoke up, not pleased with the way the board handled the matter. There had been a lot of name calling in the letters to the editor published in our two local papers. Some of the anger displayed in those letters was evident at the meeting as person after person took the opportunity to address their comments and questions to the board. There was plenty of fancy footwork (figuratively speaking) displayed by the board and the school district's attorney. A lot of people left the meeting feeling nothing had been accomplished.

Some questions did get answered. The one I asked dealt with what criteria is used to determine whether a petition warrant article is advisory or binding. (If the petition deals with a specific action, such as adding or cutting funding for a specific purpose, such as a job or activity within the town or school district, then it's binding. If it doesn't address a specific action, then it's advisory.)

One thing is certain, the people got involved in how our school board is performing its function. Another thing that's certain is that a number of school board members will be seeing some serious competition come the next election in March.

And so it goes in small town New Hampshire.

Nothing more need be said about this one.

On Wednesday an important vote takes place in the New Hampshire House, one that may well change the course the Granite State been following the previous 4 years.

Some time tomorrow the House is supposed to vote on overriding Governor John Lynch's veto of House Bill 474, the Right To Work bill. The bill originally passed in both the House and the Senate with overwhelming majorities, though the original House vote was just 14 votes shy of a veto-proof majority.

However, House Majority leader William O'Brien may delay Wednesday's vote long enough to lock in the last votes he'll need to override the veto.

HB 474 supporters say the state will see a burst of job growth if the bill becomes law, and point to other right-to-work states as proof. Critics say right-to-work brings lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits, and that it sticks the nose of government into contract talks between labor and management.

If HB 474 becomes law, New Hampshire would be the 23rd state, and the first in the Northeast, to adopt the principle.

A lot of pro-union folks point to the "lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits" canard as if that explains everything and no further discussion is required. However, most of the 22 Right To Work states have a lower cost of living, so unless that factor is taken into account, which union supporters choose to ignore, the comparison is meaningless. As I've mentioned before, a perfect example of this factor can be seen in the battle between the NLRB and the state of South Carolina and Boeing.

The unions in Washington State claim Boeing's new plant is denying the working men and women a living wage. While the pay for those employees in South Carolina is less than the pay of the union workers in Washington, the cost of living in South Carolina is also lower (as is the cost of doing business), which implies that taken as a whole, the workers in South Carolina are receiving comparable pay to those in Washington State.

And so it might be here in New Hampshire as well. If it helps lower the cost of doing business, then Right To Work will help lure more businesses from high cost states like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, just to name a few. (It doesn't hurt that New Hampshire also has no sales or income tax.)

The days of forced financial support of unions by those not wishing to do so must come to an end. As the reasons for the existence of unions no longer exist, maybe it's time for them to fade away into history.

I've seen this on at least one other occasion, but it's still as powerful as when it was first published back in 1985, and again in both 1995 and 2008 (with some additions and changes).

"This" is an editorial written by Charley Reese and it rightly attributes all of this country's problems to the 545 people in Washington who are, at the heart of it, responsible for the ills we've suffered for decades (and particularly the past few years). Reese doesn't play the partisan card, blasting both Democrats and Republicans for the troubles they've caused.

The portion quoted below is from the 1995 version.

Politicians, as I have always said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything on the Republican contract ( Newt Gingrich's Contract With America - ed.) is a problem created by Congress.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress.

Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World ratholes on stupid UN missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits? Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion debt (now $14 trillion -ed.)? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S Constitution. If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Though a little dated, the points Reese brings up are just as valid today as they were 16 years ago.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

The budget battles have started ay both the state and federal level. In Washington, Congress is dealing with the soon-to-expire continuing resolution that has funded government operations up till now. The GOP representatives are trying to trim $100 billion from budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, and moving to trim the bloated budget proposed by President Obama for the coming fiscal year.

Here in New Hampshire the governor put forth a budget that will bring spending down to pre-2008 levels in FY2012, trims the state workforce by 1100 jobs (10%), though only 255 jobs actual will be lost (the balance are jobs unfilled due to a hiring freeze), lowers the amount of state aid to towns and cities, pushes back the retirement age for state employees, and delays funding for hospital expansions. The new proposed two-year budget is $800 million lower than the present biennial budget, which helps fill the $800 million deficit created by the formerly Democrat majority legislature over the past 4 years.

To read some of the comments about the slimmer budget, you'd think the governor and the legislature is proposing stealing bread from the mouths of the poor at the behest of the rich. Some are proposing a state income tax or sales tax to fill the budget gap despite plenty of history showing the tax monies raised would only be wasted and, in the end, leave the state even more vulnerable to economic downturns. (All one needs to do is look at the states with such taxes to see what an unmitigated financial disaster was created by dependence on those taxes.) Far too many of the economic ignoramuses seem to thing we have a revenue problem when the truth is we've had a spending problem. As one commenter put it, "This is less than a 10% reduction in state spending. I know families that have reduced their spending by 10%, and some by as much as 40%." If we can do it, so can the state.

Other states, like Wisconsin and Ohio are seeing pushback by their state employees despite the fact that both states are facing huge budget deficits and raising taxes any further would cause far more economic harm.

In Wisconsin, state employees protested at the state capitol building, decrying Governor Scott Walker's push to limit the public employees unions' grip on state payrolls in an effort to deal with an $8.3 billion budget shortfall. Listening to some of the protesters you'd think they believe they have the right to a job for life and that the state's taxpayers had better come up with the cash to pay their salaries and benefits, or else. They complain about measures the state has taken that private businesses have had to take in the recent past in order to survive, like increasing the the amount employees pay towards their health insurance. What makes them think they are somehow immune from the effects of a bad economy and state cash flow problems? As if that isn't bad enough, Wisconsin State Senate Democrats have fled the state and hidden themselves in Illinois in order to prevent any further legislative action from being taken on the matter.

Similar scenes are taking place in Ohio as well, where the state faces a similar $8 billion budget shortfall.

The question is, when will the state legislatures and employees start listening to the taxpayers, who have said "Enough! We can't afford any more!" The answer? Not any time soon.

As I wrote here, town meeting is American democracy writ small. Our town meeting was this past Tuesday evening, but it wasn't the end all and be all in regards to how our town is going to spend the taxpayer's money. (The biggest controversy was probably the addition of $750 to the budget for the community band.) The second part took place tonight when we had our school district meeting, which echoes the town meeting in that the voters in our town debated how much money will be spent on our schools over the coming fiscal year.

While there weren't nearly as many warrant articles to debate, they were more important because the school portion of our town's budget is two-thirds of all the monies that will be spent. And, unlike the town meeting, there was a lot of lively debate over two of the three warrant articles presented. In fact, the school district meeting lasted longer than the town meeting even though the town meeting had 20 warrant articles to address.

In the end, the final decision will be made by the voters on March 8th when all the warrant articles will be on the ballot and the voters will have their final say on the direction our town will take during the coming fiscal year.

Michael Medved has the scripture to say personal charity, good, gubmit redistribution based on appeals to envy, bad. Remember democracy is powered by such appeals to the green-eyed monster.

I don't think you people, the two or three readers of this entry, understand the chasm of the stupidity coming out of Washington versus the wisdom of Caroline Glick.  HT.

Here in a paragraph is more wisdom than you'll find in the White House and the Dept. of State. Put together.

But [Bush's] belief that free elections would solve the problem of Arab radicalism and instability was completely wrong. At base, Bush's belief was based on a narcissistic view of Western values as universal.

Interesting blog entry on this topic, referencing my Glock 17 (reference) of blogs, Lawrence Auster's.

Take theft. Today, huge numbers of Westerners live their lives as thieves in that they demand and take money extracted by force from others. They believe, immorally, that what would be armed robbery on the street if performed by a private person is quite moral so long as there is a majority vote in a legislature to authorize the same transaction if the private person is instead a tax collector. This is the two-wolves-and-a-sheep-voting-on-what's-for-lunch situation. Theft that's run through the legislature is still theft....

The covetousness of socialism, race reparations garbage, and tax the rich rhetoric is clear.

It's undeniably both, but I think at root we have a moral problem made worse by democracy. We have widespread theft that's sanctioned by the electoral system.

Democracy ratchets feelings of ressentiment (Bertrand de Jouvenel's phrase) or envy, as I've quoted Bertrand Russell as saying. Amazing, that. This left-wing atheist saying the driving force in democracy is envy. But there you have it.

And who takes responsibility for anything these days outside mid-level officers in the Army? Was anyone fired for letting 9/11 happen? Bankers who blew a trillion dollar hole in the economy? Have we become a guilt-free society?

Except, I guess, for the smokers. But really their earlier deaths save money on the other end, making the cost argument mute.

In yet another First-In-The-Nation moment, the New Hampshire GOP selected Tea party activist Jack Kimball as its new chairman, replacing outgoing chairman former governor John H. Sununu.

After a sweeping GOP victory in state-wide elections this past November with both chambers of the state legislature seating GOP super-majorities and the Executive Council being 100% Republican, Tea party supporters worked had to seat Kimball as the new chairman, hoping to make sure New Hampshire returns to it's traditional fiscal frugality after 4 years of deficit-ridden rule by Democrats.

What had been only a slim chance turned instead into a rout, with Tea party backed candidates winning a number of seats in both the US House and Senate. And today those candidates took office.

What had once been derided (and still is) as a fringe "astroturf" political cult became a force to be reckoned with as more Americans, disgusted with the way both Congress and the White House ignored them, took to the streets and the polls to register their disgust and mistrust with their representatives in statehouses around the country and in Washington DC. Both the states and the federal government went on spending binges and those who would be stuck with the bill said "Enough! No more!"

This group so changed the political landscape that Front Page named the Tea party their Person of the Year.

Over the past few years, while atrophy of the welfare state system has spurred violent protests in Western Europe, the United States has experienced a parallel, but remarkably distinct phenomenon. In early 2009, desperate Greeks rioted in the streets to demand that their overextended government do more for them in the face of financial crisis. Americans, at the same time, rallied across the nation for their government to do less. More than any one individual alone in 2010, this movement, the Tea Party movement, wrought tremendous change over the political landscape, realizing a historic election and revitalizing the American zeitgeist. The title of FrontPage Magazine's Person of the Year, therefore, must be bestowed collectively on these individuals, the formidable torchbearers of our beloved liberty and prosperity.

And they aren't the only ones paying close attention to the new Tea party members of Congress. ABC News ran stories about them and interviewed ten of them just before they took office.

Something that caught Diane Sawyer off guard was their answer when asked about their future in Congress:

Whether these new members survive the next election cycle remains to be seen. Not a single one, however, said they expect to be in Congress 10 years from now, a remarkable statement given Congress's ability, with all its power and perks, to make a career politician out of just about anyone.

What I think is remarkable is Diane's disbelief that these ten legislators just want to do their jobs and go home. (This is not a new precedent. Two previous members of the US Senate from New Hampshire, Gordon Humphrey and Warren Rudman, promised to serve only two terms and go home. They kept their promises.)
 
What makes the Tea party even more interesting is that its 10 basic beliefs as laid out in the Contract from America have spurred citizens in other countries to follow their lead, working to restore fiscal sanity to the governments of their nations. The Gadsden flag, a Revolutionary War era flag carrying the image of a rattlesnake coiled to spring and the words "Don't Tread On Me", became a symbol of the Tea party movement and has appeared in the UK and Australia.

Basically the hardworking taxpaying people have had enough of the profligate spending and economy-killing policies embraced by government and are saying "Enough!" and doing something about it. When a movement crosses borders and garners support from small businessmen and working families, you have to start taking it seriously. Unless one considers these people fringe elements -a claim hard to make after the November mid-term elections - the Tea party has become mainstream. It is "fringe" no more.

Bill Whittle addresses American Exceptionalism, something we know our present President doesn't like and has been working hard to destroy. But I think Obama will find that while he may dent it a bit, he doesn't have the wherewithal to overcome the sheer inertia of American Exceptionalism. American know-how and those providing it will always find a way around those in this country working hard to bring about its downfall.

One thing I found interesting: With only 5% of the world's population, American produces 24% of the world's GDP, which is 3 times more than China produces even though it has over 4 times as many people.

Far too many people really have little understanding of the Second Amendment and why the Framers of the Constitution included it. And many of those same people have the mistaken belief that disarming a law abiding citizenry will somehow lead to less crime and violence despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

In the next is his series, Bill Whittle explains why 'they' are mistaken and why so many of the rest of us own and carry guns.


As the old saying goes when it comes to dealing with violent criminal miscreants, "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."

One of the great tenets of the Left is that wealth is a zero-sum game, meaning they believe that in order for one person to become wealthy that someone else had to become poor.

Those of us who support the Tea party know that belief to be a canard, an excuse to steal wealth from those who created it.

If you aren't sure you believe that, then Bill Whittle has a little lesson about wealth, how it's created, and who benefits. (A hint: Everyone benefits.)

In this rather timely WSJ opinion piece, Peter Berkowitz delves into more reasons why liberals don't (or can't) understand the Tea party movement.

What's worse, they don't even understand the basis or the basics of our form of government, nor do they want to.

Highly educated people say the darndest things, these days particularly about the tea party movement. Vast numbers of other highly educated people read and hear these dubious pronouncements, smile knowingly, and nod their heads in agreement. University educations and advanced degrees notwithstanding, they lack a basic understanding of the contours of American constitutional government.

In their ignorance they see the bliss of a totalitarian state, where they make the decisions for the rest of us poor benighted souls incapable of understanding their superiority.

Yeah. Right.

Unfortunately it is these very same liberals who are the benighted souls incapable of understanding their inferiority to a incredibly large majority of Americans, a majority that understand what can make or break a business, who see the direct effects of poor government and ever more onerous taxes and regulations. In other words, they cannot understand why the Tea parties have been garnering so much support. It comes down a simple concept:

The Tea parties understand the inferiority of the liberal mind set and their inability to see that which is right in front of them - the country can't keep spending money it doesn't have on government programs that don't work run by people who are barely competent enough to run their own lives, let alone anyone else's.

It's easy for liberals to disparage Tea partiers as a resurrection of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850's, but they have shown themselves to be the modern day Know-Nothings, particularly when it comes to the origin of the Tea party moniker.

That lack was shown quite publicly when the liberals tore into Tea party favorite Sarah Palin for her comment "Party like it's 1773."

When Sarah Palin told a Tea Party crowd last Monday that it wasn't time yet to "party like it's 1773," segments of the left such as Kos's founder Markos Moulitsas chortled at her supposed stupidity. Their kneejerk assumption was that Palin was so ignorant that she didn't even know the date of early events in the American Revolution. But since it was actually the Boston Tea Party (1773) to which she was referring, it was Sarah who had the last laugh.

Commenters and lefty bloggers galore echoed Markos Moulitsas's post. Of course if they'd spent about 30 seconds Googling "Tea Party" and "1773" they would have come across the Boston Tea Party - which took place on December 16, 1773 - they wouldn't have sounded like the smug idiots they proved themselves to be.

So who is it who's misinformed about the modern day Tea parties and spreading myths about its motivations, beliefs, and origins?

You only get one guess....

There are some videos that one can't easily forget. But I'm not surprised. Even the most intelligent progressives I've run into don't bother worrying about what the Constitution says or doesn't say. They're just in favor of income redistribution. By my prospective that's mobilizing the green-eyed monster of envy to have the state steal from the industrious and thrifty.

HT: Neal Boortz

I couldn't resist posting just one more item about Governor Christie. Or in this case another video of him explaining to a media pinhead about his "confrontational tone" with the entrenched interests infesting the Garden State.


'Nuff said.