THREATENING TO INCREASE TAX BURDEN ON THOSE WHO EMPLOY PEOPLE IS NOT A GOOD PLAN

Posted 9/23/11

SOME SCHOOLS SIMPLY FALLING SHORT OF STANDARDS THEY SET FOR THEMSELVES

Posted 9/16/11

WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION, YOU GET OUT OF IT WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT

Posted 9/9/11

THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO USE A LITTLE OF GRANDMA'S COMMON SENSE

Posted 9/2/11

SUCCESSFUL REAGAN RANCH EVENT PROVES GOP HAS MOTIVATED GROUP

Posted 8/26/11

DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT TO COOPERATE IN REDISTRICTING EFFORT

Posted 8/19/11

“Why do the credit rating agencies have so much power?” That is the stupidest question I have heard during the debate over raising the debt ceiling. And, I have heard this comment by both liberal and conservative politicians and talking heads in the media.

Watching the debt ceiling debacle in Washington has given all of us a ring-side seat for the messy legislative process. I have had a firsthand experience with this sort of messy process by serving on the House Redistricting Commission, which is charged with redrawing the State Representative districts in Missouri to reflect the changes in population.

It has been frustrating because most of the Democrats have shown an unwillingness to work together. The stonewalling by the Democrats caused the Commission to reach an impasse and let the process move to a judicial panel.

I have substantial experience in negotiations. I frequently negotiate business transactions from a small scale to multi-million dollar business acquisitions. Although these negotiations are often difficult, occasionally heated and sometimes unsuccessful, the parties are always trying to reach some common ground. Most of the Democrats on the Redistricting Commission had no interest in negotiating a map. This uncooperativeness was frustrating.

The representatives on the Redistricting Commission were chosen by Congressional District. My counterpart was Trent Skaggs. Our proposals for redrawing the State House district boundaries were wildly divergent. Our differing proposals for Platte County provide an example of this divergence.

Currently Platte County has two full State Rep Districts, the 30th and 32nd, and gives a small portion of its population to the 29th District, which is mostly in Buchanan County. The 30th and 32nd have grown in population by 5,000 to 6,000 each.

I proposed that the 32nd give Parkville to the 30th to get the 32nd within 0.2% of the target population. I then proposed that the 30th give up northeast Platte County to a new district that crosses over with Clay County to get it within 0.7% people of the target population. This proposal to link the northeastern part of Platte County to a new district that was partly in Clay County made sense because the neighboring district in Clay County needed to lose over 20,000 people.

Skaggs proposed to carve up Platte County into five districts. Only one district was wholly within Platte County. Three of the districts crossed over into Clay County. These crossover districts did not simply cross over as rectangles. Instead, Skaggs proposed long squiggly lines that stretched at an angle.

When the commission met on July 18, Skaggs politely listened to my concerns – in particular that I wanted two districts fully within Platte County -- and offered to send me a proposed revision to his map. Despite my contacting Skaggs multiple times, he made no efforts to cooperate.

Now there were a few Democrats who really were trying. The Commissioners from the 1st and 4th Congressional Districts were working with their Republican counterparts to try to agree on a map. I really felt bad for the Democrat Commissioner from the 1st. On Thursday she worked for many hours with her Republican counterpart. She was very close to reaching a consensus. However, our Friday morning meeting her fellow Democrats had put an end to her efforts and told her that they would not support her.

When I lamented to a Democrat commissioner that I thought Skaggs was the most to blame for not developing a proposed map, he simply said “We [the Democrats] just proved again that we can't agree on anything.” That is a sad and frustrating statement.

(Local Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

BLAME FOR RATING DROP LIES WITH POLICYMAKERS IN GOVERNMENT

Posted 8/14/11

“Why do the credit rating agencies have so much power?” That is the stupidest question I have heard during the debate over raising the debt ceiling. And, I have heard this comment by both liberal and conservative politicians and talking heads in the media.

The reason this comment is so stupid and irritating is that it is so blatantly incorrect. The credit rating agencies do NOT have the power. The power rests with the President and Congress in how they choose to conduct the financial affairs of the federal government.

If the federal government's budgeting practices are reckless and irresponsible, it is not the fault of the credit agencies when they say the federal government is spending so much more than it takes in and has so much debt that the federal government is not as creditworthy as it once was. The blame for a drop in the federal government's credit rating lies with the policymakers in government.

Considering these concepts from a governmental standpoint is sometimes hard to comprehend because it so massive. So, let's look at a simpler example.

Let's say a married couple has an income of $24,000 per year. However, they have a spending habit of $36,000 per year. So, they are basically overspending to the tune of $12,000 every year. Also, they have been overspending for decades. So, their accumulated credit card debt is $140,000 or nearly six times their annual income. (Keep in mind that this is credit card debt and not debt secured by a home or other collateral.) They go to their banker and say they intend to keep up this $12,000 per year deficit spending for the next ten years and want the banker to increase their credit card limit by another $120,000.

Two questions: First, what do you think the banker is going to say? How about “Are you people crazy? Why in the world would I loan you another $120,000 of unsecured debt?” Second, if these folks have a terrible credit score is that the fault of credit rating agency or the fault of this couple's poor budgeting habits?

As anyone with any common sense can see, the bad credit rating of this couple is the result of their massive unsecured debt and their spending habits relative to their income. The poor credit score is not the responsibility of the credit rating agency.

Now take this example and replace the couple with the federal government then multiply the numbers by 100 MILLION. That gives you the magnitude of what we are talking about with the federal government's spending problem.

Now, whose fault is it that the federal government has run up $14.3 Trillion in debt? And whose fault is it that Obama and the Democrats want to keep spending more than $1 Trillion (with a “T”) than the government takes in each year? (In all fairness, Obama and the Democrats are not the only ones who have engaged in overspending. However, the last Republican deficit of $380 billion makes Republicans look like “girly-men” next to Obama's nearly $1.7 Trillion deficit in his first budget alone.)

It certainly isn't the fault of any credit rating agency. It is the fault of the elected officials in Washington. So, stop pointing the finger and start working on getting your spending under control.

Local Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

HYPOCRISY OF THE POLITICIANS NEEDS TO BE POINTED OUT

Posted 8/8/11

I was reminded of two things this weekend. First, there is no reason to ever watch the news on TV. Second, Democrats in Congress are nothing but a bunch of lying sacks of baloney. (I had to clean that second one up a little bit because my mother and kids sometimes read my column.)

On Friday night I was relaxing on the sofa and participating in that most important of man sports – channel surfing. In doing so, I violated one of the most important rules of channel surfing and did not jump directly from 39 to 62. This caused me to flip past a news channel. There was a banner on the screen saying that the Democrats were about to give a press conference about the debt ceiling negotiations so I stopped surfing and waited for the press conference to start.

Once the Democrats took the podium the lies and disingenuous comments began. The Senate had just voted to table the proposed debt ceiling legislation that had come over from the House earlier in the day. The Democrats then accused the Republicans of not working on the debt ceiling legislation. WHAT?!?!? The Democrats had just refused to consider the Republican proposal, which is actually just the latest of several Republican proposals, and were now accusing the Republicans of doing nothing to avert a financial crisis. Were they drunk?!?!?

Republicans have been the only ones making any proposals to curb the massive growth of spending and get the federal budget under control. For over 800 days (i.e., MORE THAN TWO YEARS) the Senate has failed to pass a federal budget. And these disingenuous, lying dirt bags have the gall to claim that Republicans are making no effort to address the issue!?!?!

It gets worse. The Democrats said they were opposed to a Balanced Budget Amendment because it would cause federal judges to make spending decisions in the future. No it wouldn't! The only way the courts would be involved is if the do-nothing Democrats in the Senate continue to fail to do their job. After the Democrats left the stage, the talking heads reappeared on the TV screen. Did they bother to point out the lies or hypocrisy of the statements just made by the Democrats? No!

Now don't get me wrong. I am not in favor of the media putting its spin on the news. However, when factually inaccurate statements are made, the media needs to point out the falsehoods. This is one of the things I hate the most about many in media. Most in the media generally just report the “he said/she said,” but rarely bother to actually investigate and see who is telling the truth and then share the truth with the public. Of course, that would require members of the media to do a little research. Instead, they take the easy course and just parrot what has been said by someone else with no consideration of whether the statements are accurate.

Just remember, if you see a Democrat on your TV, he's probably lying and the talking heads aren't likely to point out the fraud. So, follow the channel surfing rules and skip the news channels. There is little if any accurate factual information there any way. Maybe you can find a re-run of Gilligan's Island.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

THE RIGHT FIGHT SHOULD BE ABOUT THE ACTUAL BUDGET

Posted 7/29/11

No one seems to clearly understand what it means if the federal government debt ceiling is not raised. This was emphasized for me when I was listening to one of those investment advisor programs on talk radio on Saturday morning. The host of the program said that if the debt ceiling is not raised that the U.S. will default on its treasury bonds. That is not true.
Just because the debt ceiling is not raised does not mean that the federal government has no cash available to pay the interest on the federal debt. Individuals and businesses will still be sending in tax payments. So, the government will still have cash coming in to pay the required interest payments.

No. The failure to raise the debt ceiling does not necessarily mean the federal government will default on U.S. Treasury bonds. Unless the Obama Administration chooses to pay other bills before paying the federal government's debt obligations, the government will still have the money to keep paying the interest due on the treasury bonds. Of course, it is possible that the Obama Administration would allow the federal government to default on the U.S. Treasury bonds just to try to make the Republicans out to be the bad guys.

If the debt ceiling is not raised, then the federal government will have to start making tough choices. The federal government will go from having a credit card with no limit to a credit card that is maxed out. Decisions will have to start being made about what priorities to spend a finite amount of money on rather than sliding the big government credit card through the machine at the counter and ignoring the fact that the government is spending money it doesn't have and also ignoring that this debt will eventually have to be paid back.

So far, the Obama Administration seems unwilling to set any priorities. A little more than a week ago a senior Obama Administration official said that the Obama Administration is not willing to set priorities on what bills to pay with the limited resources the government has available without an increase in the debt ceiling. The Obama Administration should have the resources to pay the interest on the U.S. Treasuries and certain other bills (e.g., Social Security checks, payments for national defense and health care reimbursements). However, the position of the Obama Administration appears to be that if the debt ceiling is not raised, it will allow the federal government to default on all its obligations and try to blame the Republicans. How childish.

My biggest complaint is that we are not fighting about the right issue. The ultimate fight should not be over the debt ceiling. The fight should be over the actual budget. (The amount of “over-spending” that the budget allows impacts the debt ceiling, but the more comprehensive battle should be over the budget.) The next fiscal year begins October 1. The budget for 2011-2012 should set priorities for spending and identify any agreed increase in the national debt. There should be no patchwork spending resolutions. Federal law needs to be clarified to provide that if there is no budget adopted, then there can be no government spending with the exception that any interest on the national debt still has to be paid.

(James Thomas is one of the most influential members of the Republican party in Platte County. He can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

WILL OBAMA TAKE THE FALL FOR REFUSING TO DO HIS JOB?

Posted 7/22/11

The biggest issue facing America and possibly the world right now is what happens on the debt ceiling fight in Washington. No one really knows what it means to the global economy. This is also a defining moment for fiscally-responsible government and--to the extent that fiscal responsibility is linked to the Republican Part-- the Republican Party.

The Democrats are on the losing side of this debate if you look at the polls and at common sense. However, the real question is whether anyone is actually listening to what is being said.

Here is what White House press secretary Jay Carney said about the plan of House Republicans to cut, cap and balance the budget: "What we are witnessing here with this measure is classic Washington posturing, kabuki theater.” Carney added that the measure would "dismantle ... our social safety net: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

What exactly are Obama and his fellow Democrats against? They are against a plan to cut current spending levels, to cap federal spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product and to send a Balance Budget Amendment to the states for ratification. If you are applying even the smallest degree of common sense and fiscal responsibility, how could you be against a plan that involves the government not spending more than it takes in? (But who said the Democrats had any common sense?)

One of my fears as I have watched this unfold is that the Republicans will claim victory after negotiating spending cuts that are not really spending cuts. For example, there has been talk of agreeing to a debt ceiling increase in connection with reducing spending by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. At first blush, this would appear to be a victory. However, it is not necessarily a victory. It really depends on what cuts you are talking about.

Since Obama has taken office, he has proposed budgets that have increased spending by massive amounts. Obama's proposed spending for fiscal year 2011 was $920 billion higher than Bush's proposed spending for fiscal year 2008. So, if Republicans agree to $400 billion in cuts they are really just slowing down the growth in spending and not really getting the spending back under control.

In part the idea that the federal government will run out of money when the debt ceiling is reached in early August is a misnomer. Tax revenues will still be coming in that could be used to pay certain bills. However, that would require the Obama Administration to set priorities. According to an interview of a senior administration official that I heard replayed on the radio, the current position of Obama and friends is to NOT set priorities. For example, the interviewer asked if as money comes in it could be used to send out Social Security checks and payments for national defense items and similar priorities. The official refused to say that priorities can be set. Instead, Obama and the Democrats plan to hold old people, health care providers and our military as hostages in an effort to blame Republicans for the crisis. Clinton got away with making Republicans the scapegoats in 1995. We'll know in a few weeks if Obama takes the fall for refusing to do his job or whether fiscally-responsible Republicans are again made out to be the fall guys.

(James Thomas is a local Republican Party leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

ELITISM IS A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRATS

Posted 7/15/11

The next to last chapter of Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, is entitled “The Big Sort” campaign. This chapter describes how the 2004 Bush campaign designed the winning strategy by focusing on “like-minded” voters and driving out turnout among supporters instead of focusing on trying to persuade undecided voters.

This concept is really nothing new. I have heard attributed to Abraham Lincoln that the way to win elections is to “identify your supporters and turn them out on Election Day.” The 2004 campaign just happened to use various micro-targeting techniques to identify supporters that are common to businesses, but which have not generally been used in political campaigns. Those of us on the ground in 2004 were somewhat frustrated because the national Republicans wanted to use some of these micro-targeting techniques, such as magazine subscriptions, to identify likely supporters when the Platte County GOP had already spent thousands of dollars to develop better data than the RNC had. The basic concept was a good one and it worked very effectively.

In looking back at the election Bishop also points out several things that John Kerry and the Democrats did wrong. Bishop's quote from Crook County Democrat Steve Bucknum most accurately described the Democrat's problem: “The problem with Democratic Party is elitism.”

The editors of Seattle's alternative newspaper, the Stranger, made this elitism problem very clear when it published “The Urban Archipelago.” They said “Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism and compassion . . .And we are the real Americans. They --- rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs – are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools and hate-mongers.”

The concept of “The Urban Archipelago” is exactly why I don't want to live around or be associated with most liberals. They talk about tolerance and acceptance. However, that tolerance and acceptance only applies when you are agreeing with them. If people happen to express contrary positions, they are “rubes, fools and hate-mongers.” If it wasn't so disgusting, it might actually be funny that people who claim to be so tolerant are in reality so intolerant.

There are a few exceptions in America where the areas with liberals are growing – e.g., Austin and Boulder. However, the generally true reality was summarized in a quote that got then-Governor Matt Blunt in trouble in February of 2005 when he said “The only places Democrats are winning elections are the places where no one wants to live.”

In Missouri that is especially true. For example, the 12 state legislative districts in western Jackson County that are currently held by Democrats have lost approximately 48,000 people. That is a loss of over 10% of their population in the last 10 years. During this same time period the 35th Legislative District, which is a very Republican district in northern Clay County, has grown by more than 50%.

Although the “elitism” of those in the Democrat Party is disappointing and irritating, it is good for Republicans. It keeps driving people away from the Democrats to the Republican Party. As far as I'm concerned the snooty liberals can stay all lumped together on their “islands.” I prefer to live with “real” people. If that means hanging out with a bunch of camo-wearing, gun-totin', Bible thumpin' folks, that is great!

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

FUNDAMENTALISTS VS. BIBLE MINIMALISTS

Posted 7/8/11

One topic discussed in Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, is how a voter's position on one issue will dictate his or her position on many others.

I found this to be true a long time ago. I have always been “pro-life,” but I did not realize how significant this position was until I became actively involved in Republican politics. What I quickly discovered is that a candidate's position on abortion is a litmus test issue that will indicate that candidate's position on many other issues. I have noticed that anyone who would self-describe one's self as pro-life tended to be pro-gun, pro-business and anti-tax. To the contrary, if a candidate was self-described as “pro choice,” they were opposed to private gun ownership, viewed government and not private industry as the answer to every problem and supported every tax increase to ever be proposed. Now there were occasional exceptions, but in my experience these exceptions have been very few.

Bishop actually discussed a different question, but one that had a very similar pattern to the abortion question.

Before discussing this question, Bishop broke down church membership into two segments. One segment is what he calls Private Protestantism, which “promoted individual salvation and promised that personal morality would be rewarded in the next life.” The other segment is Public Protestantism, which said that “the way to God required the transformation of society.” Bishop notes that those who are Private Protestants essentially are Republicans and those who are Public Protestants are essentially Democrats.

Bishop refers to a study of the 2004 presidential election results by a political scientist at East Carolina University that indicates sorting people by their beliefs about the Bible is one of the most telling things about those persons' position on political issues. Bishop uses certain definitions. “Fundamentalists” are those that believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Fundamentalists accounted for nearly half of the voters in red states and only 28% of the voters in blue states. “Bible Minimalists” are those who believe that the Bible was the work of men and not God. The Bible Minimalists accounted for 12% of the voters in red states and 18% in blue states. “Moderates” are those who believe that the Bible was the Word of God, but shouldn't be taken literally. The Moderates accounted for 38% of the voters in red states and 53% of the voters in blue states.

The study didn't just look at whether Fundamentalists, Bible Minimalists or Moderates lived in red or blue states. The study looked at certain issues. For example, 80% of Fundamentalists opposed spending any government money on abortions. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored government spending for abortions. Nine out of ten Fundamentalists in red states opposed gay marriage. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored gay marriage.

The tracking of Biblical views and political issues was not limited to political issues that are tied to “faith” like abortion and gay marriage. The study also found that Fundamentalist supported the Republican agenda (e.g., a strong military and jobs over the environment) while Biblical Minimalists supported the Democrat agenda (e.g., less support a strong military and favoring the environment over jobs).

The study concluded that the 2004 election was “. . . not a culture war between red states and blue states, but rather a war between Fundamentalists and Biblical Minimalists within both red and blue states.” The study is not a surprise. It is something that I have seen for nearly two decades of participating in politics.

Next week will likely be the last week discussing The Big Sort. The topic is the Democrats’ primary problem: elitism.

PARTISANS ARE THE ONES WHO VOTE, DONATE AND WORK

Posted 7/2/11

In Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, Bishop notes that over the last 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so nearly half of all Americans live, socialize and worship with people of similar political ideologies. Bishop blames this “sorting” for what he sees as an ever increasing partisanship, whether Democrat or Republican, and extremism, whether liberal or conservative, in America.

Bishop traces significant influences for this sorting to the summer of 1965. Numerous events occurred in this time frame. Lyndon Johnson pushed Congress to create Medicare and Medicaid, the war in Vietnam escalated significantly, there were dramatic accomplishments and tragedies with the civil rights movement followed by the racial disaster of the Watts Riot. Bishop notes how all of these events led to a dramatic decline in the public's trust of government and of political parties.

Following the summer of 1965 Bishop notes that individuals began to shift their places of residence, church memberships and political allegiances to “like-minded” people. The fact that Bishop finds part of this odd is surprising to me. I would contend that clear differences between political parties is important to the viability and success of political parties. I know that many of my Republican allies became disenchanted and quit donating and volunteering when they felt that Republicans were simply becoming “watered-down” versions of the Democrats. (At the time it seemed they were right. However, after four years of a Democrat-controlled Congress hopefully everyone will remember that big spending Republicans can't even come close to Democrats in spending.)

Bishop complains that “sorting” is causing political parties to adopt more extreme positions. In part he is right. However, I would argue the difference is between “more distinct” positions rather than more “extreme” positions. For example, it would be very difficult for a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-tax candidate to survive in the Republican Party. Likewise, it would be very difficult for a pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-tax Democrat to survive in his party.
Before the 2008 election a friend and I were having lunch one day and he expressed concern that the Republican Party was too dominated by the pro-life forces. (He himself is a pro-life Catholic. He just happens to be a businessman who is more concerned with fiscal issues than social issues.) I quickly asked him how many dollars and how much time he had given to Republican candidates in the last election cycle. The answer to both was “None.” I told him he just proved my point.

After a hard-working candidate the next two most important things for a successful political campaign are volunteers and cash. As someone who helps raise money and who works with volunteers, I told him that the pro-life advocates are some of the best donors and the hardest workers in the Party. I agree with the position of the pro-life advocates, but even if I didn't, the Republican Party could not survive without their time and money.

I told my friend if he wanted to reduce the influence of the pro-life advocates he could do so by writing a check and volunteering his time.

Bishop reminisces that our “ninth-grade civics version of American democracy may have told us that as citizens come to understand both sides of an issue, they're emboldened by knowledge and set off to engage in the exciting work of self-government.” However, Bishop admits “that's not the way it works.” He notes that “hearing both sides of an issue – and seeing the gray in most questions – is the ticket to withdrawal.” As scientific studies have shown “partisans are the ones who vote and who donate to and work on campaigns.”

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

STUDY: PEOPLE OF A PARTY WILL ADOPT POSITIONS OF A PARTY

Posted 6/24/11

I already finished the book I started last week: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. Even though the author was clearly an “off the deep end” liberal, he was a very good writer and his bias only came through on a few occasions. As I mentioned in last week's column, the basic premise of Bishop's book is that over the past 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so that by 2004 nearly half of all Americans lived in “landslide counties,” which Bishop defines as counties where the voters go for one presidential candidate or the other by over 20 percentage points.

Bishop's concern with this “sorting” is reflected in the subtitle to his book “Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.” One of Bishop's themes is that there is an ever disappearing “middle.” Instead there is an “Us” and a “Them.” This separation into various “camps” and actually living around and socializing with only like-minded people is creating an ever more partisan approach to politics. Bishop views this partisanship as destructive to well-reasoned political discourse and the developing of solutions to society's problems.

Bishop doesn't just rely on antidotal evidence. He discusses several scientifically conducted studies. These studies found that where a people are grouped together with other like-minded people they will arrive at a more extreme, whether more liberal or more conservative, group position than the average position of the individual members of the group. The studies indicate where a group of like-minded people are put together for the purpose of discussing an issue, they seem to “over adopt” the position of the group. This may be an effort to fit in or it may be that the more extreme participants are able to pull more people closer to their position when the members of the group start on the same general side of an issue.

Bishop also discusses studies that show that people of a particular party will adopt the positions of their party even if these positions were not previously held. I am reminded of a story that former U.S. Senator Jim Talent once told me about former Congress Dick Gephardt. Talent and Gephardt apparently grew up not far from each other. They came from families with similar values. Talent also said that Gephardt used to be “pro-life.” However, when Gephardt wanted to rise to a position of prominence in the Democrat Party, he switched to the “pro-abortion” position of the national Democrat party. The reverse happened with our former State Representative/Senator Charlie Shields. He was originally pro-abortion, but early in his political career switched to being pro-life. This may have been a moment of enlightenment or simply an important strategic move for political survival. Regardless of the reason, Shields shifted to conform to his party's position.

I have personally experienced this “shifting” in ideology. I have always believed that the Second Amendment had meaning and importance, but it did not used to be a “hot button” issue for me. However, during my years of being involved in politics the importance of the Second Amendment to me as a political issue has dramatically increased. I now truly appreciate the risk of liberals trying to take away the guns and freedoms of hard-working honest Americans. (In reality my attitudes probably didn't actually “shift,” but instead I simply developed a deeper appreciation of this particular issue.)

The place where Bishop's liberal bias slips out is where he refers to Congress as “do nothing” because it has failed to increase the minimum wage, address global warming and other liberal causes. Bishop blames the “sorting” for the “deepening pool of discord” that has prevented Congress from passing legislation on these issues. As a conservative, I actually see it as a victory that Congress has not passed new laws to deal with these issues.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DO FOLKS VOLUNTARILY MOVE TO AREAS OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE?

Posted 6/18/11

This weekend I started a new book: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. I was very interested in reading this book because I had already read a few excerpts from the book on-line. The basic premise of Bishop is that housing patterns over the last 30 years have shown that Democrats are moving into Democrat neighborhoods and Republicans are moving into Republican neighborhoods.

When I first started the book, I was not sure I was going to like it. The author made it clear that he was an “off the deep end” liberal. He described his house hunting exercise when he relocated to Austin. Things that appeal to him in his neighborhood would be disturbing to someone like me. For example, soon after the beginning of the Iraq War Bishop's neighborhood protested by printing t-shirts and bumper stickers. The “off the deep end” liberal demographic makeup of his neighborhood was reflected at the polls in the 2000 presidential election. Bush won Texas with 60% of the vote. However, in Bishop's neighborhood Bush finished third behind both Gore and Nader. When I created a mental picture of the area where Bishop lived, I pictured something like Brookside on steroids.
Bishop pointed out that when he initially chose his neighborhood he was not looking to live around like-minded liberals. It just happened to work out that way.

It was a few years after Bishop had moved to Austin that he began to consider the issue of whether people were voluntarily sorting themselves into Democrat and Republican neighborhoods. In fact, his initial study did not actually begin as a political analysis. He was initially considering “why some communities develop vibrant economies and others stagnate.”

I could easily answer the question for him. The areas that are run by Democrats are “going in the toilet” and the areas run by Republicans are expanding and improving their economies. Now my conclusions are based upon observation without the benefit of statistical analysis, but that is what I have been able to observe. For example, Platte County has been experiencing a steady boom over the last two decades while the Jackson County portion of Kansas City keeps going downhill. The same is true in urban areas all over the country. These urban areas where Democrats are the strongest are generally experiencing serious difficulties while suburban areas that are able to escape the failed Democrat policies are able to grow and expand.

Some may attempt to argue that many portions of Platte County that have experienced a boom are within the city limits of Kansas City. That is true. However, I would argue that if these areas were free of the poor management and financial drain of what Yale Abouhalkah of the KC Star calls “Kansas City proper” that the success would be far more than what we have actually experienced.

Soon after Bishop started his analysis, he stumbled on a 30-year trend in housing patterns. He found that areas of the country were becoming more Democrat or more Republican over time. A central aspect of this analysis was a study of presidential election results from 1976 or 2004. He separated counties as “competitive” based upon whether there was a margin of less than 20 points in the presidential election. Counties with a margin of 20 points or more were considered landslide counties. In 1976 just over 26% of the voters lived in landslide counties. By 2004 48.3% of voters lived in landslide counties.

Bishop has extensive statistical data to support his conclusions that people are voluntarily moving near like-minded people. He offers a much more in depth analysis that expands beyond the results of presidential elections. I'll likely share some of that in later columns. However, if you can't wait, go out and order his book. I found it on Amazon.com. Bishop may be an “off the deep end” liberal, but he is certainly a good writer.

HOW MUCH IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON A PER-PERSON BASIS?

Posted 6/11/11

Unless you are a crazy liberal like Obama or Pelosi, you would probably say that the current levels of spending by the federal government are out of control. (You can see my Jan. 12 and Feb. 16 column for quotes from Obama and Pelosi that show a disconnection of their sense of reality from the actual math of the federal budget.) In considering how much money the federal government is spending, I wanted to consider the problem from a different perspective. How much is the federal government spending on a per person basis?

I looked up a few numbers and did some simple calculations. Obama's proposed budget for next year calls for spending of $3.73 trillion. (Never mind that that number happens to be over $1.1 trillion more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.) When you divide that $3.73 trillion in spending by the approximately 330 million people in this country that calculates to spending just over $11,300 per person.

Let's put that in perspective. The income level identified as being the poverty level for a single person by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2011 is $10,890. What that means is that a person who precisely hits the top income for the HHS' definition of poverty does not have enough income to fund his or her share of government spending if that person gave every nickel to the government. (Keep in mind that we are talking about poverty on a “per person” basis and not a household basis. A family of four is below the poverty level at $22,350.)

Think about that a different way. A family of four would need to contribute $45,200 to fund its share of the Obama's proposed annual government spending. What income level does a family of four earn to hit this level of taxation? If a married couple has a husband and a wife who EACH make $100,000, they would EACH pay $7,650 in Social Security and Medicare Taxes. If they have approximately $50,000 of itemized deductions and personal exemptions, they would pay another approximately $30,000 in income taxes. This would roughly equal this family's share of the per capita cost of government.

Of course, the average American family does not have two $100,000 per year incomes. In reality the average income is $39,527. This generates nowhere near the needed per person level of taxation. (Of course, not all the cost of government is funded from taxes that come from individuals.)

The current level of spending is just crazy. The budgeting process comes down to a simple question of setting priorities.

In building a budget, the federal government must start with a different question. Instead of asking “how much does the government want to spend?” the first question MUST be “How much does the government have available to spend?” (This number is projected to be $2.63 trillion for the next fiscal year.) Then the federal government needs to work through a list of priorities on what it is going to fund. Some really good projects and programs may be left unfunded. However, the government simply cannot spend money it does not have.

I would like Obama and Congress to act like grown-ups and do their job of setting priorities and balancing the budget. However, if they can't, there is a simple solution. The 2008 budget proposed by Bush included projected spending of $2.9 trillion. We could start by cutting every department back to that level of spending. That would create 90% of the cuts that are needed. Then we can start looking for the other 10% in cuts that are needed. Sadly, Obama and Pelosi actually think over $1 trillion per year in deficits make them deficit hawks.

DESPITE HICCUPS, MARTIN LUTHER ACADEMY HAS BEEN GREAT EXPERIENCE

Posted 5/28/11

My oldest daughter, Shannon, is graduating from Martin Luther Academy this week. (MLA only goes to the 8th grade.) MLA has provided a great learning environment for Shannon and her younger sister, Anne.

The birth of MLA began in early 1997. Shannon was born that year. Todd Graves' oldest child, Katie, was born just three weeks before Shannon. In early 1997, Todd came to me and said “What do you think about starting a private school?” It seemed like a great idea to me, but we needed to study the concept. A steering committee was formed for that purpose by the three Lutheran churches in Platte County.

The steering committee had focus groups and did various analysis of the potential demand for a private school. The data indicated there was a great demand, but it seemed like a bigger project than three churches could take on. Then we met Steve Ewert. He was also interested in starting a school in the Northland. So, we joined forces, created an association and expanded the project to Clay and Platte Counties.

MLA initially opened in a leased building in the fall of 2003, but at the end of the lease MLA had to “temporarily” move to Christ Lutheran Church in Platte Woods. MLA was there for six and half years.

MLA has had ups and downs along with way. In 2002 land just north of 108th Street was purchased. This property was eventually traded for land just south of 108th Street.

However, the neighboring developer went under without completing the improvements he was required to make to his property to provide better access to the property. So MLA still can't use the property the way it would like.

Last year the association bought a church building at 7112 N. Overland Drive. The association renovated the building and added a gym. MLA moved in to the new building over Christmas break.

Despite the hiccups along the way, the school has been a great experience. There are hundreds of people who have worked to make the school a reality and who continue to work to make it an on-going success. I wish I could thank all of them by name, but the list is just too long. So, let me just thank a few.

First, thank you to Todd Graves. It was his idea in the first place. Without his inspiration, we would have never taken the first steps. Thank you to Pastor Krueger, who if he had nixed the idea at the outset it would have likely died right then. Thank you to Steve Ewert who was MLA's first board president. He provided a positive attitude even as the school went through some of its most challenging times. Also, MLA would not have gotten into its new building on budget without his efforts as “construction supervisor.” Thank you to Mary Smith. She served on the school's first board of directors. She stepped down this year after 11 years of service. She has been MLA's longest serving board member. She has provided strong leadership and a historical perspective for all of MLA's endeavors. Thank you to all of those who have donated time and talent to MLA. Without their perseverance, MLA would have never made it to this point.

Thanks especially to MLA's faculty and staff who have done so much to educate our children. MLA offers an exceptional academic product in a loving, Christian environment. In fact, the scores of MLA's student's national testing put MLA in the 97th Percentile. That's great!

Now don't get me wrong. I am an advocate of all forms education – public, private and home schooling. However, as my oldest daughter moves on to high school, I am especially thankful for the educational experience that MLA has been for her. I wish Shannon and all her friends well as they embark on the next chapter in their lives.

(James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S UP TO INDIVIDUALS TO ADDRESS THEIR OWN SITUATIONS

Posted 5/20/11

Plato, Missouri was the site of a big celebration this week. The U.S. Census Bureau has announced that Plato is the population center of the United States. Plato -- with a population of 109 -- is located in Texas County, which is in southern Missouri about halfway between Cape Girardeau and Springfield.

What caught my interest was not something from the speeches of Governor Jay Nixon or Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson. No. What caught my interest was an editorial from St. Louis Today entitled “What does Plato tell us about the state of poverty in nation?”

The premise of the article is that Plato, Texas County and much of rural Missouri is poor. In its analysis the article points to median household income figures of Texas County compared to the U.S. as a whole and Missouri as a whole. Some of this analysis is misplaced. The cost of living in other parts of the country and even other parts of Missouri is dramatically different. It costs a lot less to live in small town Missouri than other places.

The editorial also fails to consider that whether or not you are “rich” or “poor” is not necessarily something that can be measured in dollars. I grew up on a farm. It is a great place to raise a family. Money was something we were short of, but the quality of life was great even without the big dollars. However, the editorial does have a valid point that the folks in Plato are less well off financially than people in other parts of Missouri and other parts of America.

The concluding statements of the editorial are what bothered me. It said “Poverty is real. Our children are at risk. What are we willing to do about it?”

My objection to the concluding question is the emphasis on who is doing the acting: “What are we willing to do about it?” Once again the liberals on the editorial board of St. Louis Today miss the point. It is not up to us to address individual poverty. It is up to individuals to address their own situation.

The day after I read this editorial, I received my daily e-mail from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In it was a quote from Les Brown. Brown said, “If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”

Brown has it right. Achieving wealth or happiness, whether measured in dollars or by something else, is not up to someone else. It is up to each individual. Now I appreciate that the editorial board may point out that there are a lot of children who live in poverty through no fault of their own. However, the persons who are responsible for that situation are the parents of those children. These parents must accept responsibility for their situation and take steps to change it. Of course, these individuals may not want to take the steps to change their situation. If these individuals are not willing to take the steps to change their own situation, there is really little we can do for them.

The one thing we absolutely should not do is supplement the lifestyle of these individuals with government handouts with no expectation of them doing some sort of work for that financial support. I am a strong advocate for giving someone a “hand up” to help them through hard times. However, we can't let that “hand up” become a “handout” that essentially becomes a lifestyle choice funded by others. If we do that, we are not doing these individuals any favors. Instead we are dooming them to a life of dependency with little hope of that changing in their lifetimes or even their children's lifetimes. That is a disservice to these individuals. Also, it will not give them the American dream. Instead it will make them the American nightmare.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CHANGING DISTRICT BOUNDARIES WON'T SAVE THE DEMOCRATS

Posted 5/13/11

The Missouri General Assembly has completed its redrawing of the Congressional District boundaries. (Redistricting for the State House and State Senate is just getting started.) The General Assembly passed a map and sent it to the Governor. The Governor vetoed the map. However, the map was quickly overridden by the General Assembly after the Republicans got four Democrat members of the House – with encouragement from Democrat Congressmen Cleaver and Clay -- to support the override.

Democrats are crying because Congressman Carnahan has been drawn into the same district with Clay. However, as a result of the new census figures, Missouri is dropping from nine Congressmen to eight Congressmen. So, at least two incumbent Congressmen were going to have to be drawn into the same district. Also, Clay's district was about 20% short of its population target. Clay did not want the district to look to the Republican-leaning areas to the north or west of his district for more people so he gladly accepted Democrat-leaning areas from Carnahan's district. Carnahan was already about 20% short of people. The loss of another 20% to Clay left him about 40% short of people. So, it makes sense that the remainder of Carnahan's under-sized district was divided up among the other districts to reach their population target.

The Democrat leaders in the General Assembly are also whining because they claim the new districts supposedly create six Republican and only two Democrat district. However, when applying the proper redistricting principles of “communities of interest,” where people with common interests are grouped into the same districts, the maps are appropriate because Missouri's Democrat voters seem to be heavily concentrated.

The problem for Democrats in Missouri is a national trend analyzed by Bill Bishop in his 2008 book entitled The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of America is Tearing Us Apart. Bishop has analyzed housing trends over the last three decades and concludes that Americans have been voluntarily separating themselves into more homogenous communities of like-minded people. The result is that Republicans and Democrats are clustering together. This is creating a trend of areas that consistently vote overwhelming for one party or the other.
This trend is clearly present in Missouri. Just look at the red and blue maps from the 2010 state-wide elections. (You can find these maps on the Missouri Secretary of State's website.) The map from the 2010 U.S. Senate race shows that the only counties that were won by the Democrat candidate were the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. The rest of the map is red.

The Democrats want to point to the close presidential election of 2008 as a basis for why a supposedly 6-2 map is unfair. Well they need to actually study the election results more carefully. Yes. McCain won Missouri by only 3,903 votes. However, Missouri was still geographically a very red state with Obama only winning the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, St. Louis City and Boone, Buchanan, Jefferson, St. Louis, St. Genevieve and Washington Counties. The other 108 counties were red. So, when you draw a constitutionally-mandated map that is “contiguous” and “compact as possible,” the Democrats have so heavily grouped themselves into the same general areas that they have voluntarily created the situation.

Of course, the real problem is that the ideas of the national Democrat party just don't sell well in Missouri. So, changing district boundaries wouldn't really save the Democrats. They need to change their platform to win.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S TIME TO STOP THE FLOW OF RED INK

Posted 5/5/11

There are moments that can change the course of history: a spring day in 1775 when a bunch of farmers and small townsfolk stood in a field in opposition to the most powerful military in the world, a hot summer in 1776 at a convention hall in Pennsylvania when the Declaration of Independence was hammered out, a few years later at another convention hall where the U.S. Constitution was drafted. We have a chance for another one of those historic moments this spring. There is an opportunity for America's greatness to be protected for the future.

What is that potential historic moment? It is the decision on whether to raise the debt ceiling for the federal government and what strings, if any, are tied to any increase in the debt ceiling.

I would prefer that no increase of the debt ceiling be allowed. However, I am also a pragmatist. I accept the reality of the difficulty in immediately cutting the current out-of-control spending by the federal government and the sudden jolt it might give to the weakened economy if Congress really would make the hard decisions that it needs to make about spending in a single fiscal year. Given this reality, I understand that some increase of the debt ceiling is regrettably necessary. However, even though some modest increase may be necessary to avoid too dramatic of a shock to the economy, any agreement to an increase of the debt ceiling should come with strings and limitations.

My first limitation would be that the first year's increase in the debt ceiling should be limited to the 2008 budget deficit, which was about $1 trillion less than the budget deficit for Obama's first year in office. Thereafter, small increases in the debt ceiling might be allowed for the next few years, but eventually no further increases should be allowed. In fact, we should probably have a requirement that the debt ceiling has to start shrinking.

The most important limitation is that no vote on the increase of the debt ceiling will occur until a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by Congress as provided for under Article V of the Constitution. This balanced budget amendment might have a clause that permits the provisions of the balanced budget amendment to be ignored by Congress upon a two-thirds majority vote of Congress. This would allow flexibility for when an overwhelming majority in Congress believes that a crisis requires the federal government to borrow more money.

The political hypocrisy simply has to stop. For example, a couple of weeks ago a clip was played on the radio of the then-Sen. Obama being critical of increasing the debt ceiling as part of approving one of Bush's proposed budgets. I wanted to scream. Obama's proposed budgets for his first two years in office have increased the federal debt by more than all eight years of Bush's presidency.

Don't get me wrong. I'm mad at Bush and prior Congressmen for spending too much. However, their annual deficits are dwarfed by Obama's most recent plan to spend over 50% more than the government takes in.

I hope Congress takes this opportunity to “make history” and stop the flow of red ink. This is a huge deal! I truly believe that if the deficit spending does not stop that America will no longer be the greatest nation on earth. This single vote could determine whether America will remain a great nation or whether it will eventually go the way of the Greeks, the Romans and all the other collapsed civilizations. Regardless, history will be made.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DON'T LET EMOTIONS OVERWHELM JUDGMENT

Posted 4/29/11

The “Prime Directive” from Star Trek prohibits interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. This concept is not just one of modern science fiction. The idea is a concept dating back to the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty from 1648 that had as one of its essential principles the non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state. The principles of the Prime Directive and/or the Peace of Westphalia are important concepts when considering the appropriateness of the U.S.'s involvement in Libya and its role earlier this year in regime change in Egypt.

Libya has never been our friend. Under Khadafi's rule, Libya has been a sponsor of terrorism. However, when President Bush announced America's War on Terror and a policy to hold nations that harbor or support terrorists accountable, Khadafi fell in line and opened his country to UN inspectors and acted like he was changing his ways.

In Egypt, Mubarak was an elected leader. Mubarak was an ally to the U.S. in the first Gulf War and the War on Terror. We may not agree with how he operates his country domestically, but he has been a friend of the U.S.

Although the media frequently described the protesters in Egypt and the rebels in Libya as heroes, if you read between the lines, the media noted that many of the protesters were “unemployed youth,” which sounds a lot like unemployed rebel rousers. Also, although there were lots of protestors in the streets of Egypt and Libya, these protesters were still a very small part of the population. And, at least in Egypt, there were elections scheduled to be held in less than two years to choose new leaders.

Let's look at the situation in Egypt and Libya from a different perspective. Let's look at the anti-ObamaCare and Tea Party protesters as in the same role as the protesters in Egypt and Libya. Would we condone these protesters resorting to violence to get their way? Would we condone foreign support of these protesters including military strikes into our country in support of these protesters? I don't think so.

I will quickly concede that the unleashing of modern military power on a civilian population would have devastating consequences. It should not happen. As a husband and father, I would have a problem sitting on the sidelines and watching this happen if I had the full capacity of the most powerful military force in the world available at my beck and call to prevent it. However, let's ignore the emotional aspects for a minute. The question is whether the U.S. government should intervene based upon appropriate standards of international conduct?

Once again, I don't think so. Individual countries have a right to determine their own internal affairs. We should not interfere with the domestic matters of other countries if these countries are not threatening their neighbors. (I know at some point, Bush's invasion of Iraq was labeled as an effort to liberate the Iraqi people. I always viewed the invasion under its original purpose of sending in 250,000 weapons inspectors because Saddam was refusing to comply with the inspection requirements).

Khadafi and to a lesser extent Mubarak have not treated their people the way they should. I certainly do not want Khadafi slaughtering innocent civilians in the course of putting down a rebel uprising. An argument might be made that protecting innocent civilians is a legitimate exception to the Peace of Westphalia/Prime Directive. Maybe this is like when Kirk or Picard ignores the Prime Directive and risks court martial to pursue a “greater good” notwithstanding the legal question marks surrounding his actions. However, as Picard argues in the “Pen Pals” episode, “the Prime Directive is meant to prevent us from letting our emotions overwhelm our judgment.” Food for thought.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA COATS HIS TOILET PLAN IN A WRAPPER OF 'HOPE'

Posted 4/22/11

Obama went into full campaign mode last week when he gave a speech at George Washington University on Wednesday. He needed to do so.

Obama and the Democrats are under enormous pressure from all of their potential voters. The freeloaders that live off the rest of us are crying about potentially losing some of their freebies and having to work for a living like the rest of us. The hard working middle class folks who sometimes vote for Democrats because they are deceived by the erroneous Democrat mantra that the Republican Party is for the rich people have figured out that the out of control spending by Obama is unsustainable and will eventually lead to the downfall of America.

Faced with all this pressure, Obama gave a very well crafted speech in which he appears optimistic about America, opposed to budget deficits while being opposed to cutting any “essential” spending.

Obama referred to some historical efforts at compromise. He referred to a compromise reached between the senior George Bush and the Democrats in Congress to raise taxes to keep the funding in place for our troops during the first Gulf War. [Of course, Obama fails to point out that those tax increases are the primary reason the senior Bush was a one term president.]

Obama blames Bush for the soaring deficits. Once again, Obama ignores the facts. The collective deficits run up during Bush's eight years in office are less than the deficits that Obama has run up in his first two years in office. Also, while saying he wants to cut spending, Obama actually proposes over $1 trillion (WITH A T!!) in deficits in his next budgets for multiple years into the future. Don't get me wrong. Bush and the Republicans who controlled Congress from 2001 – 2006 are not without blame. However, their out of control spending is dwarfed by what Obama has done in his first two years.

My fear is that Obama might just get away with it. I see it as very possible that Obama gets a second term. Obama is a brilliant campaigner. He can tell people he's going to spend America into a deep hole that will eventually destroy our country, but he has the ability to say it with such charm and poise that those voters that make up the squishy middle may just fall for his claims to want to cut the deficit.

One thing that will help him get away with it is his carefully chosen words. When he talks about raising taxes, he claims to only want to raise taxes on “the rich” or “millionaires and billionaires.” Of course, his plan is to raise taxes on anyone who makes over $200,000.

If you really listen carefully to what Obama is saying, he lays out his plan to make America a much more socialistic or even communistic country. He wants to take money from one group of people and give it to another. He said the same things in the 2008 campaign and crazy freeloaders flocked to him because “Obama is going to pay my mortgage and pay for my groceries.” (Do you remember the interview with the near-orgasmic woman from the big event right before the election?) He coats this plan to flush America down the toilet in a wrapper of “hope.” Unless people really pay attention, he just might achieve his goal.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S NOT A 'CUT' SINCE 'IT' WAS NEVER IN PLACE

Posted 4/15/11

As usual the “big” media outlets are inaccurately describing a political issue when they are “reporting” on the federal government's budget crisis. They continue to fail to identify the real culprits in this crisis and fail to accurately describe what they are calling “cuts.”

The federal budget cycle runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. So, the current budget year began on Oct. 1 of last year and is set to expire on Sept. 30 of this year. Of course, the media does not want to point this out because that would squarely put the blame on this crisis where it belongs.

The current budget year began before the 2010 elections. Congress should have adopted a budget early in 2010. However, even if Congress didn't adopt a budget until the last day of the prior budget year, the budget should have been adopted more than a month before the 2010 elections.

Why was the budget not adopted before the current budget year began? The answer is simple. The Democrats in control of Congress failed to do their most basic function--adopt a budget. Of course, the Democrats didn't want to adopt a budget. The reason is that if they did, they would have likely been beaten up even worse in the November election cycle.
The media needs to be accurate about placing blame for why there is not a budget. When the Democrats controlled Congress they failed to adopt a budget. The Democrats had a significant majority in the House. Democrats in the Senate were just shy of a filibuster proof majority. And, no filibuster was attempted to block the budget. No. The failure to adopt a budget falls entirely at the feet of former Speaker Pelosi and former Senate Majority Leader Reid and their Congressional majorities. The media needs to make this clear.

The media is also mislabeling the process of what is going on now with the various continuing resolutions to keep the government in operation without actually adopting a budget for the full fiscal year. The media is continuously referring to “cuts” being made. This is completely inaccurate. There is no budget so nothing can possibly be ‘cut!’ It may be that the continuing resolution approves less money for spending on particular items than was in Obama's proposed budget for this budget year or for that same item in the prior year's budget. However, nothing is being cut if it has not been approved yet.

This whole situation is outrageous to me! The most basic function of the legislature is to adopt a budget for the current fiscal year. The legislature can argue about guns, gays, abortion or other “hot button” political issues. However, no resolution of these issues has to be reached in any given year. The one piece of business that absolutely must be addressed each year is the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And, it should be required that this is resolved before the fiscal year begins or the government does not have authority to spend any money.

The short term resolution reached last week on the budget is only a stop gap measure. The budget fight will continue. Although I am passionate about many of the social issues, this budgetary fight will decide whether America continues to be a great nation or whether it declines into oblivion.

The first question is a simple one. Is the government going to continuing to spend more than it takes in? If it does, the federal government and the nation will eventually collapse. It is simple math. Unlimited deficits are not sustainable. But, as this debate goes on, don't be misled by the “not so mainstream” media's explanation of who is to blame for the current crisis and whether anything is actually a “cut.”

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

VOTING BY MAIL SYSTEM WOULD BE A BAD IDEA

Posted 4/7/11

The talk continues for the prospect of early voting and/or voting by mail. This idea is based on good intentions, but it is a really bad idea.

First, such a system has a tremendous prospect for fraud. Without photo ID it is hard to control fraud when people physically show up to vote. Just imagine how bad it would be if the voters didn't even have to show up at the polls.

Second, early voting will dramatically disrupt political campaigns. People pushing such an idea must have no concept of how political campaign works. Let's focus on a “little” campaign (i.e., something well below a major state-wide campaign). If you are running for county clerk or some similar office, you start your campaign nine months to a year before election day. About six to eight months before the election you start going door to door and hitting every parade and chili supper in your district that comes along. As the election gets closer you hit up all your friends and family to run a phone bank in the few weeks right before the election. One purpose of those phone calls is to find yard sign locations. Two weeks to 10 days before election day you go out and put up your hard signs. You don't have much money so you only can send one piece of mail and you may have to target your voters because you can't send it to every household. You generally send that piece of mail sometime during the last week before the election. The whole campaign is a crescendo that ends on election day. If the early voting advocates get their way, the mail for these candidates would not reach voters before they vote. That is simply wrong.

I will admit that early voting for something like president or a major state-wide office could occur with a minimal disruption of the campaign process. However, these campaigns are designed to reach a crescendo on election day. Even well funded below-governor statewide campaigns often only have enough money for one or two weeks of TV advertising. So, even these statewide candidates could be virtually unknown to the voters.

If the desire is to address the inconvenience of voting, then the number of election days could be reduced. There are too many “secret” elections at this point. Elections could be limited to April, August and November. No more secret February, June or October elections that few voters know about. (The Kansas City primary might be the one exception to this voting schedule.)

On occasion, some folks have trouble getting to the polls.That is what absentee ballots are for.I got called out of town at the last minute for business one April and realized I was going to miss the election. I just ran by the election board's office and cast my ballot on the way out of town. Or just this week I had to go to Jeff City on Tuesday. I just went to vote soon after the polls opened at 6 a.m. and then headed out of town. It really wasn't that difficult.
When I go vote it never adds more than 20 minutes to my morning.I take my girls to school in the morning. I make them be ready a little earlier than usual. We go to our polling place, which is actually in the opposite direction of the school, cast a ballot and still get to school in plenty of time. This trip to the polls before school is actually an important training experience for my girls.

I know the early voting advocates mean well, but they need to quit complaining about the convenience of voting. It is a privilege to vote. It is our civic duty. It really isn't that hard for all of us to vote on the same day. Just go and cast your ballot and stop complaining.

(James Thomas is an active Republican who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

RECRUITING IS KEY TO SUCCESS IN LOCAL POLITICS

Posted 4/1/11

Let me throw out a radical idea: Local elections should be partisan.

I'll be the first to admit that pot holes and waterlines are not Democrat or Republican. Law enforcement is not and never should be administered based upon whether the victim or the criminal is a Democrat or a Republican. Reading, writing and arithmetic are universally necessary objectives of our public schools regardless of party affiliation.

All of that is true. However, there is something that is severely missing when there are no organized parties involved in the process of recruiting and electing candidates for the elected positions that will deal with pot holes, waterlines, law enforcement and education.

I have told people for years that the most important work the Republican Party does to win elections is not done during the last few weeks before the election. The most important work we do is done a year or more before the actual election. That most important work is recruiting.

Not all political parties approach it the same way, but the Platte County Republican Party has generally taken a very deliberate approach to recruiting. For most of the election cycles for the last 16 years, the local party has had an active recruiting effort. We typically start working on recruiting for the next election cycle even before the current election cycle is over. It is not an easy task. It is really hard to find well qualified people who are willing to give up much better paying positions in the private sector to serve their community. (The difference for Democrat recruiters is that the kind of candidates they look for actually get a pay raise by going to work for the government.) We have to find people at the right stage of their lives that can run for office (e.g., no children at home or a spouse who can financially supplement their public service). It is even more difficult to find people willing to deal with the challenges that often come up during the campaign.

Sometimes our recruiting efforts don't produce the best candidates. Sometimes the best candidate just “comes out of the blue” and volunteers. However, the point is that the local Republican party does have an on-going effort to recruit high quality candidates for office. That is why Platte County has become more and more Republican. We have been able to recruit better people to run on our ticket.

The lack of recruiting not the partisanship is what is missing in local elections. Although this was before my time, I have read the history of the breaking of the Pendergast machine. A local group of citizens got together and recruited candidates to run for city elections. This organization didn't stop with recruiting. It then supported the candidates it chose.

These types of political organizations continue today. The Citizens Association and Forward Kansas City, a Northland specific group, are examples of these types of organizations. However, there is one major difference. These organizations do not actually recruit candidates and raise their own money to help their slate win. Instead they generally just screen candidates and make recommendations.

That is the missing piece. There need to be political organizations that recruit for local elections, like city council and school board, and then provide resources to get those candidates elected. These organizations need to be made up of the “good government, civic leader” types that used to play a prominent role in local politics many years ago.

So, while I am not advocating that we have “Ds” and “Rs” on the ballots for candidates for city council, water district and school board, there is a great need for a return of the active political organizations that function like political parties in the recruitment and support of candidates. Otherwise, we’ll continue to get generally weak candidates those of us in KC had in this last election cycle.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

EARNINGS TAX SUPPORTERS BASICALLY SAYING 'TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT'

Posted 3/25/11

There is an old country song with a line that goes “Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.” That song should be the theme song for those supporting the earnings tax in Kansas City since that is what the advocates of the tax are saying to people who may want to work in Kansas City but who don't like paying the earnings tax.

In November a statewide ballot initiative prohibited any additional cities from imposing an earnings tax and required the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings taxes to be reconsidered by the voters every five years. In Kansas City the earnings tax is a 1% tax on the gross wages of individuals or 1% of the net profits earned by a business in Kansas City.

The first vote on whether or not to retain the earnings tax in Kansas City will be held on April 5. If the earnings tax is eliminated, it will be phased out over five years.

If you believe the proponents of the earnings tax, the world will come to an end if the earnings tax is not extended for five years. They have tried to scare people with threats of cutting services like no snow removal. (Those of you who live in the city limits are probably chuckling right now as you think “What snow removal?”)

Let's look at some real numbers from the City's website. The 2010-11 budget projects earnings taxes of $189 million out of a $1.225 billion budget. So, contrary to the claims of earnings tax proponents, the earnings tax is only a little more than 15% of the total budget. The proponents will say that the total budget is the wrong number to look at and say that you need to only look at general revenue. General revenue is $520 million. The earnings tax is 38% of this number.

In fairness to the tax lovers, the elimination of the earnings would have a significant impact on the budget. However, what we are really talking about is reducing overall spending by 3% for each of the next five years. So, while this would be a challenge, it certainly would not be the end of the world.

A key complaint about the earnings tax is that it discourages people from living and working in Kansas City. A real life example comes from my first year as a lawyer over 20 years ago. At the time, the highest first year lawyer salary in Kansas City was $52,000. Of the lawyers in my class, the ones who worked in the Johnson County office had a higher net income. They didn't have to pay $520 in earnings tax and almost $1,000 for parking that those of us in the Crown Center office had to pay. This approximately $1,500 in additional net income was a 3% difference in net pay. While this isn't a huge deal, it is certainly a reason to not want to work in Kansas City. Furthermore, when you can work 10 minutes from your nice home in the suburbs and don't have to fight the traffic to come to the “big city,” working outside the city limits of Kansas City is an added plus.

The advocates for the earnings tax have actually made the opponents' argument for them. Dan Confran, one of the advocates' spokesmen, said on more than one occasion that if someone doesn't want to pay the earnings tax then “don't work here.”

Point made. If you don't like the earnings tax, then don't work in Kansas City. So, advocates of the earnings tax are saying “Take your job and shove it” (or move it) to anyone who is considering working in Kansas City. It sure makes Platte City, Parkville, Riverside, Platte Woods and anywhere else in our community outside the city limits of Kansas City even more appealing.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

IN KANSAS CITY, GOOD LUCK PICKING THE 'LEAST BAD' CANDIDATES

Posted 3/18/11

For those who live within the city limits of Kansas City, it is very disappointing to go vote. When voting in the City primary, there were a few races where I stopped and asked myself, “Do I really have to vote for one of these losers?”

In one of the at-large council races I had met one of the candidates the week before. He was obviously in over his head and had very limited knowledge of how Kansas City government operates. However, I still voted for him because the other candidate did know how city government worked and I did not like the things this person was doing on the council.

After the primary, Alan Dillingham, a candidate for the Second District At-Large seat, visited the Greater Kansas City Pachyderm Club. He gave a great presentation and talked about his goal of restoring appropriate conduct at City Hall. I commented to him after the meeting that it is humorous to consider that if he is elected he would probably be the youngest councilman currently serving, but he would still be the most adult-like in the group.

We talked about why he would want to be involved with City politics since you have to “work with children.” He said that good people have to get involved or else only the bad people will run the city. Dillingham was right. However, the problem is that you actually have to be able to win the election.

Kansas City is really a one party town. Although the races are technically non-partisan, they are dominated by Democrats or at least unaffiliated tax and spend liberals. There are six in-district council positions that are only voted on by the voters in that district. There are six at-large council positions that are voted on by the whole city. So, all of the at-large candidates have to win in the very-Democrat south of the river areas. I predict that Dillingham will win north of the river, but lose south of the river where his fiscally responsible “grown up” message will not appeal to the Democrat-dominated precincts.

I am really torn between Mike Burke and Sly James in the mayor's race. Mike Burke is a Northlander. That is a plus. Also, when I served with him on the City's Public Improvements Advisory Committee, he did a good job of running the meetings. However, I am little puzzled about why the City's Port Authority has felt the need to pay Burke's law firm over $3.3 million in fees over the last 11 years. Furthermore, he is cut from the same mold and even endorsed by Kay Barnes. Barnes was bad for Kansas City. She ran up huge amounts of debt on big ticket items that we didn't really need. Burke would likely be more of the same.

On the other hand,James said at a candidate forum that he doesn't really know much about the Northland and only really comes north of the river to go to the airport. So, while his fresh ideas would be great for the city, his total lack of knowledge of the Northland could be a serious problem for those of us who live in the “good” part of Kansas City. (I use “good” to refer to our part of Kansas City in part because it is true and also because Yael Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star refers to the south of the river portion of Kansas City as “Kansas City proper.”)

Of course, there is a solution for us. We could de-annex the portion of Kansas City that is north of the river and become “The Northland.” Of course, those in “Kansas City proper” will never let us go. They like our money too much.

So, good luck picking the best (or least bad) candidates on March 22. With a few exceptions, like Dillingham, it is slim pickin's.

(Email local Republican leader James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CUT TO HEAD START SHOULDN'T BE LABELED AS 'OUTRAGEOUS'

Posted 3/11/11

A column by E.J. Dioinne Jr. in the Washington Post on Monday caught my eye. If you get a chance to read it, you should take it. You can find it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030602925.html.

The point of Dioinne's column is that House Speaker Boehner is in a great negotiating position when it comes to the budget. He can go to budget meetings with the Democrats and give the outward appearance of being the calm person in the room while blaming the freshman Republicans, which have been referred to as “a band of wild-eyed bomb-throwing freshman,” for his need to hold a stronger negotiating position. This is not a new way of negotiating. There are many instances where one party holds themselves out as the reasonable party while another party on the same side of the negotiation makes ridiculous demands to get the party on the other side of the negotiation to come to some sort of common ground.

What is disturbing about Dioinne's column is that he seems so willing to label some of the proposed cuts as “outrageous” without further consideration as to how the money is being spent. His specific quote is:

Begin with the outrageous $1.1 billion, 15 percent cut from Head Start, a program that offers preschool education to roughly 965,000 poor children. According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, this would knock 218,000 kids out of Head Start and force 16,000 classrooms to close.

Let's break this down. A 15% cut to the Head Start budget of $1.1 billion would mean that the budget for Head Start is $7.33 billion. ($1.1 billion divided by 15%.) If this $7.33 billion budget funds the participation of 965,000 children, then that means that Head Start is spending $7,671 per child in the program. ($7.33 billion divided by 965,000 children.)

My belief is that education and a loving and supportive home are the two most important things to help people avoid poverty and live meaningful and productive lives as adults. I taught my own children to read before they went to Kindergarten because I know that reading is so important. I accept that I am “smarter than your average bear” and that I also had the resources to buy my kids books and other materials to help them learn to read. I know that everyone is not as fortunate yet. So I whole-heartedly support programs that focus on educating children so they can “lift themselves up by their bootstraps” and make their own lives better and their future children's lives better. That means that even a conservative like me feels “warm and fuzzy” about programs like Head Start.

Although I strongly endorse the stated goal of Head Start, I really have concerns about the cost per student for this program. Does it really take $7,671 per child? I mean my kids' private school spends less than that for elementary school deduction. My daughter's high school tuition is only going to be $7,000 next year. Even the big spending Park Hill and Platte County school districts will only spend about twice that figure for their full time education programs.

Mr. Dionne is wrong to so quickly label the $1.1 billion cut as “outrageous.” Sure Head Start has a great stated purpose. I don't really think the federal government should be in the education business. However, let's ignore that for a minute that education is something that should be left to the states. The real question is should it really cost $7,671 per child for the Head Start program? I don't think so. That is an excessive amount to be spending even though this is certainly a worthy although probably not constitutionally appropriate mission for the federal government to pursue.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

MISSOURI WILL BE LOSING ONE OF ITS CONGRESSIONAL SEATS

Posted 3/3/11

Last week the Census Bureau released population for five more states, including Missouri. As has been anticipated, Missouri's population did not grow as quickly as some other states so it will be losing one of its nine Congressional seats.

When you take Missouri's population of just under six million and divide by eight, it means that the new Congressional districts will need to include approximately 750,000 people. To be more precise, the actual number target population number is 748,616. This is a dramatic increase in size from the approximate 622,000 population per district from when the lines were re-drawn after the 2000 census.

Here is a breakdown of the current population of each Congressional District and the change in population that will be needed:

Right now the 1st, 3rd and 5th Districts are held by Democrats. The 1st and 3rd are in St. Louis. The 5th is a substantial portion of Jackson County and a little bit of Cass County. The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th are all held by Republicans.

The speculation is that the 3rd District is the district that will be drawn out of existence. (The districts will obviously be renumbered after being redrawn so that our own 6th District could very likely have a different number in the future.) Russ Carnahan currently is the Congressman from the 3rd District. The speculation that this district will be drawn out of existence is in part because the Republicans have greater control when it comes to drawing the lines. However, there is also a very practical reason that the 3rd District is probably the one to be eliminated. The 3rd District is 123,365 people short of the target. The 1st District is 161,547 people short of its target. The thought is that the 1st District will be expanded into the third to address its population shortfall. Then the rest of the 3rd district will be carved up between the 2nd, 8th and 9th to get to the right population numbers.

Since the per district size of each Congressional District has jumped so dramatically, our own 6th District will need another 54,642 people. Currently the 6th District reaches into Jackson County. If the boundaries of the 5th District were to begin with all of Jackson County, then the 6th would have to pick up what it loses in Jackson County as well as this 54,642. Since the 6th currently takes in all of northwest Missouri, the 6th would have to move eastward.

The challenge for those of us in Platte and Clay Counties is how does the 5th District get redrawn. This district needs to pick up 114,729 more people. Even if the 5th District is expanded to include all of Jackson County, which has a population of 647,000 people, the 5th will still need to find another 100,000 people. The line drawers could look north of the river for these additional people. Let's hope not. I sure like having Sam Graves as my Congressman.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

'NORMAL' PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING LESS SPENDING

Posted 2/24/11

I would like to direct you to a column entitled “The Politics of the New Middle America” by E. J. Dionne published on February 15, 2011 by The American Prospect. You can find the article on-line at http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_politics_of_the_new_middle_america. The article is subtitled: “In 2010, disaffected voters didn't embrace the Republican vision. They looked in vain for the Democratic one.”

I don't believe the subtitle is entirely true. I don't believe that voters “looked in vain” for the Democratic vision. To the contrary, I think voters ran away from the Democratic vision of out of control spending, government takeover of major components of the health care system, more government regulation and higher taxes. I do agree that voters probably didn't “embrace the Republican vision.”The voters probably did embrace the espoused Republican vision, but I'm not sure the voters really believed that Republicans would fully deliver on that vision.

I would be one of the first to express frustration with Republicans in Washington and elsewhere over the last few years. Congressional Republicans “talked the talk” about cutting spending in the early to mid-2000s, but continued to rack up big deficits. For example, the last budget adopted by a Republican-controlled Congress was the fiscal 2007 budget that included a $342 billion deficit. That means the Republican budget spent $342 billion more than the government collected. However, this pales by comparison to the Democrats spending $1.6 trillion (with a T!) more the budgeted revenue in the most recent budget.

Just look at what the Democrat-controlled Congress did to the national debt. When the Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 elections, the national debt was just under $8.7 trillion. Four years later when the Republicans re-took control of the U.S. House, the national debt had ballooned to almost $13.9 trillion. That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

“The Politics of the New Middle America” explores the Democrats efforts to put together a winning coalition made up of a new majority on the basis of well-educated middle- and upper-middle-income white voters allied with African Americans, Hispanics, and the young. This coalition is really a linking of the two opposite ends of the socio-economic ladder. On one end are the limousine liberals who think they know more than other people and should make decisions for the benefit of others. On the other end are the financially less well-off. What is missing from the new Democrat model is the huge chunk of “normal folks” in the middle.

The article blames the shifting in the election outcomes from 2006 and 2008 to 2010 upon Democrats losses among “white working-class voters” shifting from a 10% loss to a 30% loss. These folks are the folks that Obama would say are “bitter” and “clinging to their guns and their religion.” Obama is right. There is clearly a component of the electorate who are dissatisfied with the direction he and his Democrat buddies are taking this country. They do not want the government spending 73% more than what it collects in a given year. These folks are not the Ivy League-educated snooty-types, but they are still smart people that can do basic math. You cannot spend more money than you take in year after year. It simply won't work. Eventually, you have to pay for that over spending.

Hard-working Americans, “white working-class voters,” the “normal” people have not abandoned the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has simply adopted policies that are contrary to common sense and everything these people believe in. Now Republicans must deliver on their promises of less spending to keep these “normal” people as part of their election-winning coalition. All I can say is, they'd better.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA'S STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BUDGET ARE FRAUDULENT

Posted 2/18/11

Just five weeks ago I wrote that former Speaker of the House and now Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was either “. . . seriously 'math challenged' or . . . simply delusional.” This was my response to Pelosi's statement that “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go . . .” even though the Pelosi-led Congress raised the national debt by nearly $5.2 trillion (with a T!) or almost 60% in just four years. President Obama seems to be suffering from the same disorder that is afflicting Pelosi.

In his weekly Saturday address, Obama had the audacity to use a reference to a Missouri teacher's personal sacrifices to fund her daughter's education during the economic downturn to say that the government must now make difficult decision to reduce its debt, while still investing in education for a better future. These are great words. I agree with them. However, you actually have to look at the reality of what Obama is proposing rather than the flowery language he uses to describe his proposed 2012 budget.

Obama's Saturday speech was a prelude to the release of Obama's proposed budget for 2012 on Monday. The federal deficit is expected to increase to $1.65 trillion this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010-Sept. 30, 2011), according to the Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 that was scheduled to be released on Monday. This is an even bigger deficit than the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate of $1.48 trillion. Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 (Oct. 1, 2011--Sept. 30, 2012) calls for $3.73 trillion in government spending in fiscal 2012, which is $1.1 trillion (with a T!) more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.

In his speech on Saturday Obama said, ““So, after a decade of rising deficits, this budget asks Washington to live within its means, while at the same time investing in our future. It cuts what we can't afford to pay for what we cannot do without. That's what families do in hard times. And that's what our country has to do too.”

Living within its means?!?!? Spending $1.1 trillion more than the projected revenues of $2.63 trillion is deficit spending of 42% for the current year. That is cutting what we can’t afford to pay for?!?!?!

Let's state this in terms that we can all understand. Let's say I give each of my daughters $100 to go spend on clothing. They go shopping and each spend $142. To Obama, my daughters would be living within their means. That's crazy!

We are long overdue for a balanced budget amendment. If Obama really wants the federal government to do “what families do,” then he needs to get on board with a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to operate with a balance budget. Republicans pushed a balanced budget amendment after taking control of the U.S. House after the 1994 elections. The proposed amendment actually was passed by the House before dying in the Senate.

I would like to pretend that our elected leaders in Congress can act like grownups and not spend money we don't have. However, they can't. So, there needs to be a balanced budget amendment to keep them from spending the future generations into insurmountable debt.
At the same time the American people and the media need to refuse to accept the ridiculous rhetoric of politicians who speak of the government “living within its means” and “cutting what we can't afford to pay for” when they are proposing massive deficit spending.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

REAGAN AND HIS '77 SPEECH AN INSPIRATION TO MANY TODAY

Posted 2/11/11

Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan! If he were still living, Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 on Sunday, February 6. As I have written before, Ronald Reagan is probably my favorite president of all time. He has inspired me and so many of my friends.

I was in sixth grade when Reagan ran for president in 1976. That year the convention was in Kansas City. My mom and I stayed up watching the tally for the presidential nomination. I kept hoping that somehow Reagan would be able to find the votes he needed to win. He narrowly lost the nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford. After the vote, Reagan was strongly encouraged to come to the floor to give a speech. There have been many reports of convention delegates saying “We just nominated the wrong guy” after hearing that speech. ord, of course, ended up losing to Jimmy Carter in November.

Reagan didn't give up after 1976. In fact, one of his most famous speeches is a speech he gave in 1977. I've heard it referred to as “The New Republican Party.”You can read it for yourself at reagan2020.us/speeches/The_New_Republican_Party.asp. In the speech Reagan talks about how a majority of Americans are conservatives. e advocates for uniting the “economic conservatives” and the “social conservatives” to present a united front on conservatism. I have read the speech many times. The concluding lines of that speech have provided great inspiration to me:

“Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home. We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it.

“The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when?

“Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

“Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. Any organization is in actuality only the lengthened shadow of its members. A political party is a mechanical structure created to further a cause. The cause, not the mechanism, brings and holds the members together. And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America's spiritual heritage to our national affairs.

“Then with God's help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us.”

This February 1977 speech is seen as the foundation of the New Republican Party.
There are many inspiring aspects of Ronald Reagan, his accomplishments and his service to our country. However, the things Reagan talked about in this speech are the principles that motivate so many of us and are the reason that so many of us are active in the Republican Party.

I was going to write about all the great accomplishments of Reagan and his policies. Instead, I think it is enough to say he inspired me and so many of my friends to service. Thank you and happy birthday, Mr. President!

(James Thomas is a Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA NOW TRYING TO MIMIC CLINTON'S POLITICAL STRATEGY

Posted 2/5/11

With the winners of the 2010 elections having only taken the oath of office less than a month ago, attention has already turned to the 2012 elections. I predict that Obama will be very tough to unseat in 2012.

One reason Obama will be tough to beat is that he seems to have learned something from the 2010 elections and something from President Clinton's third and fourth years in office. Obama himself admitted that the Democrats took a shellacking in the 2010 elections. Obama could have simply ignored the public statement provided by the election results the same way he ignored the very vocal public objections to ObamaCare. Obama's approach to ObamaCare in the face of a huge public opposition: full speed ahead. Obama's response to the tax cut fight shows that he is willing to adjust his approach to get reelected.

When Obama first took office, he made statements about cooperating with Republicans on policy issues that went something like “Republicans are free to come along for the ride, but they will have to sit at the back of the bus.” After the 2010 elections, Obama quickly caved on the temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. This was probably a strategic decision. If Obama had blocked the temporary extension of the tax cuts until after the new Congress was seated, the Republicans would have passed them any way, forced Obama to veto them and then he would be the “bad guy.” Even worse for Obama, if he had stood in the way, the Republicans would have probably pushed through a permanent extension of the tax cuts instead of a temporary one. Also, if the tax cuts had expired, it would have sucked billions of dollars out of the economy. This would almost certainly have led to a double dip recession, which would have likely doomed Obama's re-election chances. By postponing the expiration of the tax cuts, Obama has delayed the negative impact on the economy of the expiration of these tax cuts until after the next election cycle.

Obama has also been modifying his political rhetoric. Even though Obama is still advocating for massive amounts of new government spending, he at least is giving that spending a kinder, gentler label of “investment.” Don't be fooled. Obama is still a tax and spend liberal. He still believes in government mandated wealth re-distribution. He is just trying to re-form his public image from being an open socialist/communist. Obama even talks about reducing the deficit. Of course, these statements are made at the same time that he proposes massive spending increases so I'm not sure how he actually hopes to reduce the deficit.

After the Republican Revolution in 1994, Bill Clinton sufficiently reformed his public image to allow him to win a second term. Obama seems to be trying to follow that part of the Clinton strategy.

Clinton had something else going for him. Like Republicans often do, we nominated a presidential candidate because it was “his turn” to be the nominee for president even though he was the wrong person for that particular election cycle. If history teaches us anything, Obama can likely count on Republicans to do that again. The one hope is that the new conservative energy provided by the Tea Party movement will push the Republican Party to pick a solid and reliable conservative as its presidential candidate.

Sadly, the biggest challenge for all Republicans in 2012 will be whether the voters will support conservatives when it comes to making tough decisions on spending. The “squishy middle” abandoned Republicans when they tried to hold the line of spending in 1995. Will that happen again? I hope not. If the government doesn't stop spending so much money, we will all be doomed.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

EVEN GOVERNORS SHOULD BUCKLE THEIR SEAT BELTS

Posted 1/28/2011

A few days ago Governor Jay Nixon was in a car accident. The car he was riding in was rear-ended by another driver. (Imagine the embarrassment/concern of the driver of the other car when he found out that he not only hit a car that was driven by a highway patrolman, but that car also had the governor inside.) Nixon was taken to the hospital for some neck pain, but was released.

I was in a car accident right before Thanksgiving. The other driver was going too fast on a slick, narrow road when he popped over a small hill and found that his lane was blocked by a car attempting to turn left. He slammed on his brakes, skidded across the center line and banged in to me. My recent experience would make me feel sorry for the governor except for one thing: The governor was not wearing his seat belt.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe in the mandatory seat belt law. (The governor did not technically violate the seat belt law because he was in the rear seat of the vehicle so apparently he was not required to be wearing a seatbelt.) I think you should be free to not wear a seat belt. However, if you are a prudent and responsible person you wear your seatbelt at all times.

This isn't a difficult thing to address. My kids get it. Right before we leave the house, there are two questions that are asked. First, do you have everything you need for school/basketball/volleyball or whatever? Second, are you buckled? Only then do we back out of the garage and head down the road. On occasion, I will be messing with something in the front seat as we are heading down the driveway and be momentarily unbuckled or on the way home I might unbuckle about 200 feet before getting to the driveway because I am going to pull up to the mailbox and reach out to get the mail. I immediately get objections from my kids for not being buckled.

I 'm glad my kids were listening when I explained to them the importance of wearing a seatbelt. I have told them about Derrick Thomas' accident on that icy January Sunday. Thomas was driving his Suburban too fast and he and one of his two passengers were not wearing seatbelts. The passenger who was not wearing a seatbelt was thrown from the vehicle and killed. As we all know, Thomas eventually died from injuries suffered in the accident. The guy I point out to my kids is the passenger who was wearing his seatbelt. He was reportedly a little banged up, but walked away from the accident.

Even though I think you are an idiot if you don't wear your seatbelt, I don't think the government should make you. However, I would be fine with there being a legal rule that says if a party is injured in an accident and is not wearing a seatbelt, then that party cannot recover for his or her injuries from that accident unless the party can prove that the injuries could not have been avoided even by wearing a seatbelt.

It is the same idea that I have about motorcycle helmets. I think you would be crazy to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. However, I don't think we should have a law that says you have to wear one. The law should be that if you splatter your brains out on the pavement because you are not wearing a helmet then the party who caused the accident and the taxpayers should not have to pay for your medical bills or your disability unless it can be shown that the helmet would not have prevented your injuries.

I'm not a fan of Governor Nixon's policies, but I don't want to see anyone killed in an accident. So buckle up, Governor!

(Buckle your seat belt and email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

COUNTY MAKING RIGHT MOVES WITH 2011 BUDGET

Posted 1/21/2011

“There is a new sheriff in town.” No. Not really. But there is a new presiding commissioner in the Platte County Administration Building.

I knew that Jason Brown had conservative values. However, I was very concerned that, like other “allegedly” conservative commissioner candidates before him, Brown would not be able to be true to those conservative principles when he actually embarked upon the difficult task of governing and felt the pressure of everyone asking for money. Brown shows early signs of staying true to his conservative principles.

Monday night Brown and fellow commissioner Jim Plunkett came to the Platte County Republican Central Committee meeting to talk about the county's 2011 budget that will be adopted later this month.

Platte County can only budget to spend the amount of money it estimates it will receive for the year. It is true that the “guesstimation” of revenue is simply a guess. However, the idea is to make the best guess possible based upon the information that is available. For 2010 the sales tax revenues came in 3.3% over budget and the use tax revenues came in 10% under budget. The commissioners were nervous because the money they received from the Missouri Department of Revenue in January for sales taxes collected in November actually showed a 13% drop from last year's November sales tax collections. This put the commissioners scrambling to keep the budget under control.

Brown and Plunkett explained that the proposed 2011 budget calls for a reduction in general revenue spending. The 2011 budget projects a 5% decline in sales tax revenue and a 10% decline in use tax revenue. This meant that the 2011 budget had to be less than the 2011 budget by several hundred thousand dollars. Brown and Plunkett explained that the all of the officeholders were very cooperative with the budget cutting process. When the situation was explained to the officeholders they each came forward with items that could be trimmed from their budgets.

After delivering the budget cutting news Brown and Plunkett said “after the bad news, now for the good news.” There was a collective chuckle from the PCRCC members because for nearly all of them the idea that the county would spend less money in 2011 than in 2010 was good news. So, from a conservative perspective, the commissioners actually offered more good news. The commissioners explained that through under control spending in prior years, the budget called for placing $3 million into a narrowband radio fund to begin to fund the cost of the federally-mandated new emergency radio system. This unfunded mandate is going to become a huge issue. Commissioners are trying to get a jump on the anticipated budget burden.

This was the exact opposite of a PCRCC meeting I attended in January of 2004 when the then-commissioners were poised to adopt a budget that included a 17% increase in sales tax revenue despite the auditor's projection of only a 7% increase. The bloated revenue projection was necessary to cover all the anticipated spending so the then-commissioners ignored the auditor's projections. The PCRCC objected to the overly-optimistic revenue projections, but the then-commissioners ignored the PCRCC's feedback. The budget projections sparked a political war that resulted in the two junior commissioners up for election that year being replaced. (The actual sales tax figure for 2004 was a 7.7% increase over 2003.)

Less than a month into his term as presiding commissioner it is too early to tell if Brown will be able to stay true to his conservative principles. However, this action on the budget is certainly a good start.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

NANCY PELOSI IS EITHER MATH-CHALLENGED OR DELUSIONAL

Posted 1/13/2011

Democrats are crazy. Okay. Okay. That is an over-generalization. However, given last week's comments by Nancy Pelosi and the fact that Democrats have re-elected her as their leader, you do have to wonder about the sanity of Democrats who serve in Congress.

At her final press conference as Speaker of the House, Pelosi said “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? Pelosi is either an unashamed liar or she has no connection to reality.

Pelosi became Speaker in January 2007 following the 2006 election cycle, which gave the Democrats control of the House. When Pelosi became Speaker, the national debt was $8,670,589,242.973.04 (i.e., almost $8.7 trillion). On Dec. 22, 2010 (i.e., the last day of the 111th Congress), the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 (i.e., almost $13.9 trillion). That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

The ballooning of the debt is easy to explain. For fiscal 2007 the budget deficit for the year was $342 billion. For fiscal year 2010, the budget deficit was $1.6 trillion. So we went from a place where the Republican-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $342 billion more than it should to a place where the Democrat-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $1.6 trillion more than it should. That means Pelosi and her pals were over spending to the tune of nearly five times the rate of overspending by the Republican-controlled Congress.

There are only two possible explanations to Pelosi's comments. Either she is seriously “math challenged” or she is simply delusional.

When you look at her comments on ObamaCare, it leads one to think it may be a little of both. Pelosi still claims that ObamaCare will result in savings and reduce the deficit. There are some huge tax increases that are part of ObamaCare. These massive tax increases will offset some of the cost of ObamaCare. However, only in a delusional dream are even these huge tax increases enough to cover the increase costs of ObamaCare.

I know a lot of former Democrats, including my friend and fellow columnist Russ Purvis, who have chosen to leave the Democrat Party and become either independents or Republicans. These former Democrats just couldn't stand the insanity and/or stupidity of the leadership of the Democrat Party. I encourage those of you who have conservative values, but who are clinging to the Democrat label to do one of two things: Either leave your party and join us or get rid of the crazy people who are the leaders of your party.

If you do neither of those things and keep the same crazy leadership that promotes crazy liberal policies, you are actually doing me a favor as a Republican activist. As long as a nut-job like Nancy Pelosi is the spokesperson for your party, it improves the prospects for my team to keep on winning.

Even though keeping the crazy liberals that lead your party makes it easier for my team to keeping winning elections, please replace your delusional leadership. These liberal policies are bad for America. The federal government cannot keep spending money it doesn't have. Deficit spending can exist for short periods, but it cannot go on indefinitely. And pretending that you are a deficit hawk when you have actually ballooned the national debt by 60% in four years and the annual deficit by almost fivefold will not help America's economy or restore America's greatness. We--and more importantly, our children-- deserve better.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

HERE’S WHAT THE VOTERS
ARE INTERESTED IN, AND
IT’S NOT COMPROMISE

Posted 1/10/2011

To start the New Year, political columnists often look into their crystal balls to predict the future. I would be the first to tell you that is very difficult to do in politics. Anticipating the outcome of the 2012 elections nearly two years out is extremely difficult.

For one thing, we don't know who the candidates will be. I'm fairly confident that Obama lead the national ticket for the Democrats. I don't have the slightest idea who will lead the Republican ticket.

There are lots of prospective candidates. Sarah Palin probably has bigger “star appeal” than anyone. The conservative grassroots folks would work their tails off for her. However, she has been bashed horrendously by the media so that she may not be an effective candidate. Also, her stepping down as governor in the middle of her term probably hurt her tremendously. alin is probably in the perfect spot right now. She is in a position to make a little money. She can influence elections and remain politically relevant by throwing her support behind select candidates without actually being the candidate. That may be the best place for her.

There are the “also rans” from 2008: Huckabee and Romney. Neither of them could overcome a lackluster McCain campaign in the primaries so I'm not sure how strong either of them is. Haley Barbour would make a great president. He did a great job as chairman of the RNC and has been an excellent governor. However, Barbour spent a few years as a lobbyist so that might hurt his chances. The rumor is that Next Gingrich is toying with the idea of getting in the race. I am a huge Newt fan. What he did with GOPAC and then with the whole “Contract with America” campaign was exceptional. I have read his books and he has a lot of great policy ideas. However, he has a number of skeletons in his closet so he is probably not electable. Hopefully, whoever is the candidate would include Gingrich on a policy team to help develop effective ideas for governing.

A couple of “lesser knowns” would make great candidates: Senator John Thune from South Dakota and Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Both of these guys have some great ideas. However, their name ID is still very low.

Whether Republicans are successful in 2012 is subject to several other things that are out of their control. The economy is sure to have a significant impact. My prediction is that the economy will have recovered from the deep slump during the beginning of Obama's term in office. However, I don't think the economy will be clipping along at full speed. The temporary fix of the new tax law should prevent a double dip recession. However, since the fix was only temporary, I predict that employers will slowly begin to hire back workers, but they will not hire all the workers they might need until there is more certainty with the tax law.

Another important factor is how do Republicans act and how do the voters react to how the Republicans act. In 1995 Republicans stood up against big spending. The spending fight reached an impasse that led to a government shutdown. Stopping big spending is what the voters said they wanted. However, the voters viewed Republicans as the bad guys when they tried to hold the line on spending. This public reaction is probably why so many Republicans lost their conservative roots and went on spending sprees to please their constituents. If the Republicans try to hold the line on spending again and the voters act this way in response, that will be very damaging to the fiscal conservative movement.

Then there is the most important factor. The Republicans have a history of nominating the wrong candidate (e.g., Ford, Dole and McCain). If history repeats itself, we will have another four years of Obama.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

For earlier columns click here.

DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT TO COOPERATE IN REDISTRICTING EFFORT

Posted 8/19/11

BLAME FOR RATING DROP LIES WITH POLICYMAKERS IN GOVERNMENT

Posted 8/14/11

“Why do the credit rating agencies have so much power?” That is the stupidest question I have heard during the debate over raising the debt ceiling. And, I have heard this comment by both liberal and conservative politicians and talking heads in the media.

The reason this comment is so stupid and irritating is that it is so blatantly incorrect. The credit rating agencies do NOT have the power. The power rests with the President and Congress in how they choose to conduct the financial affairs of the federal government.
If the federal government's budgeting practices are reckless and irresponsible, it is not the fault of the credit agencies when they say the federal government is spending so much more than it takes in and has so much debt that the federal government is not as creditworthy as it once was. The blame for a drop in the federal government's credit rating lies with the policymakers in government.

Considering these concepts from a governmental standpoint is sometimes hard to comprehend because it so massive. So, let's look at a simpler example.

Let's say a married couple has an income of $24,000 per year. However, they have a spending habit of $36,000 per year. So, they are basically overspending to the tune of $12,000 every year. Also, they have been overspending for decades. So, their accumulated credit card debt is $140,000 or nearly six times their annual income. (Keep in mind that this is credit card debt and not debt secured by a home or other collateral.) They go to their banker and say they intend to keep up this $12,000 per year deficit spending for the next ten years and want the banker to increase their credit card limit by another $120,000.

Two questions: First, what do you think the banker is going to say? How about “Are you people crazy? Why in the world would I loan you another $120,000 of unsecured debt?” Second, if these folks have a terrible credit score is that the fault of credit rating agency or the fault of this couple's poor budgeting habits?

As anyone with any common sense can see, the bad credit rating of this couple is the result of their massive unsecured debt and their spending habits relative to their income. The poor credit score is not the responsibility of the credit rating agency.

Now take this example and replace the couple with the federal government then multiply the numbers by 100 MILLION. That gives you the magnitude of what we are talking about with the federal government's spending problem.

Now, whose fault is it that the federal government has run up $14.3 Trillion in debt? And whose fault is it that Obama and the Democrats want to keep spending more than $1 Trillion (with a “T”) than the government takes in each year? (In all fairness, Obama and the Democrats are not the only ones who have engaged in overspending. However, the last Republican deficit of $380 billion makes Republicans look like “girly-men” next to Obama's nearly $1.7 Trillion deficit in his first budget alone.)

It certainly isn't the fault of any credit rating agency. It is the fault of the elected officials in Washington. So, stop pointing the finger and start working on getting your spending under control.

Local Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

HYPOCRISY OF THE POLITICIANS NEEDS TO BE POINTED OUT

Posted 8/8/11

I was reminded of two things this weekend. First, there is no reason to ever watch the news on TV. Second, Democrats in Congress are nothing but a bunch of lying sacks of baloney. (I had to clean that second one up a little bit because my mother and kids sometimes read my column.)

On Friday night I was relaxing on the sofa and participating in that most important of man sports – channel surfing. In doing so, I violated one of the most important rules of channel surfing and did not jump directly from 39 to 62. This caused me to flip past a news channel. There was a banner on the screen saying that the Democrats were about to give a press conference about the debt ceiling negotiations so I stopped surfing and waited for the press conference to start.

Once the Democrats took the podium the lies and disingenuous comments began. The Senate had just voted to table the proposed debt ceiling legislation that had come over from the House earlier in the day. The Democrats then accused the Republicans of not working on the debt ceiling legislation. WHAT?!?!? The Democrats had just refused to consider the Republican proposal, which is actually just the latest of several Republican proposals, and were now accusing the Republicans of doing nothing to avert a financial crisis. Were they drunk?!?!?

Republicans have been the only ones making any proposals to curb the massive growth of spending and get the federal budget under control. For over 800 days (i.e., MORE THAN TWO YEARS) the Senate has failed to pass a federal budget. And these disingenuous, lying dirt bags have the gall to claim that Republicans are making no effort to address the issue!?!?!

It gets worse. The Democrats said they were opposed to a Balanced Budget Amendment because it would cause federal judges to make spending decisions in the future. No it wouldn't! The only way the courts would be involved is if the do-nothing Democrats in the Senate continue to fail to do their job. After the Democrats left the stage, the talking heads reappeared on the TV screen. Did they bother to point out the lies or hypocrisy of the statements just made by the Democrats? No!

Now don't get me wrong. I am not in favor of the media putting its spin on the news. However, when factually inaccurate statements are made, the media needs to point out the falsehoods. This is one of the things I hate the most about many in media. Most in the media generally just report the “he said/she said,” but rarely bother to actually investigate and see who is telling the truth and then share the truth with the public. Of course, that would require members of the media to do a little research. Instead, they take the easy course and just parrot what has been said by someone else with no consideration of whether the statements are accurate.

Just remember, if you see a Democrat on your TV, he's probably lying and the talking heads aren't likely to point out the fraud. So, follow the channel surfing rules and skip the news channels. There is little if any accurate factual information there any way. Maybe you can find a re-run of Gilligan's Island.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

THE RIGHT FIGHT SHOULD BE ABOUT THE ACTUAL BUDGET

Posted 7/29/11

No one seems to clearly understand what it means if the federal government debt ceiling is not raised. This was emphasized for me when I was listening to one of those investment advisor programs on talk radio on Saturday morning. The host of the program said that if the debt ceiling is not raised that the U.S. will default on its treasury bonds. That is not true.
Just because the debt ceiling is not raised does not mean that the federal government has no cash available to pay the interest on the federal debt. Individuals and businesses will still be sending in tax payments. So, the government will still have cash coming in to pay the required interest payments.

No. The failure to raise the debt ceiling does not necessarily mean the federal government will default on U.S. Treasury bonds. Unless the Obama Administration chooses to pay other bills before paying the federal government's debt obligations, the government will still have the money to keep paying the interest due on the treasury bonds. Of course, it is possible that the Obama Administration would allow the federal government to default on the U.S. Treasury bonds just to try to make the Republicans out to be the bad guys.

If the debt ceiling is not raised, then the federal government will have to start making tough choices. The federal government will go from having a credit card with no limit to a credit card that is maxed out. Decisions will have to start being made about what priorities to spend a finite amount of money on rather than sliding the big government credit card through the machine at the counter and ignoring the fact that the government is spending money it doesn't have and also ignoring that this debt will eventually have to be paid back.

So far, the Obama Administration seems unwilling to set any priorities. A little more than a week ago a senior Obama Administration official said that the Obama Administration is not willing to set priorities on what bills to pay with the limited resources the government has available without an increase in the debt ceiling. The Obama Administration should have the resources to pay the interest on the U.S. Treasuries and certain other bills (e.g., Social Security checks, payments for national defense and health care reimbursements). However, the position of the Obama Administration appears to be that if the debt ceiling is not raised, it will allow the federal government to default on all its obligations and try to blame the Republicans. How childish.

My biggest complaint is that we are not fighting about the right issue. The ultimate fight should not be over the debt ceiling. The fight should be over the actual budget. (The amount of “over-spending” that the budget allows impacts the debt ceiling, but the more comprehensive battle should be over the budget.) The next fiscal year begins October 1. The budget for 2011-2012 should set priorities for spending and identify any agreed increase in the national debt. There should be no patchwork spending resolutions. Federal law needs to be clarified to provide that if there is no budget adopted, then there can be no government spending with the exception that any interest on the national debt still has to be paid.

(James Thomas is one of the most influential members of the Republican party in Platte County. He can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

WILL OBAMA TAKE THE FALL FOR REFUSING TO DO HIS JOB?

Posted 7/22/11

The biggest issue facing America and possibly the world right now is what happens on the debt ceiling fight in Washington. No one really knows what it means to the global economy. This is also a defining moment for fiscally-responsible government and--to the extent that fiscal responsibility is linked to the Republican Part-- the Republican Party.

The Democrats are on the losing side of this debate if you look at the polls and at common sense. However, the real question is whether anyone is actually listening to what is being said.

Here is what White House press secretary Jay Carney said about the plan of House Republicans to cut, cap and balance the budget: "What we are witnessing here with this measure is classic Washington posturing, kabuki theater.” Carney added that the measure would "dismantle ... our social safety net: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

What exactly are Obama and his fellow Democrats against? They are against a plan to cut current spending levels, to cap federal spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product and to send a Balance Budget Amendment to the states for ratification. If you are applying even the smallest degree of common sense and fiscal responsibility, how could you be against a plan that involves the government not spending more than it takes in? (But who said the Democrats had any common sense?)

One of my fears as I have watched this unfold is that the Republicans will claim victory after negotiating spending cuts that are not really spending cuts. For example, there has been talk of agreeing to a debt ceiling increase in connection with reducing spending by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. At first blush, this would appear to be a victory. However, it is not necessarily a victory. It really depends on what cuts you are talking about.

Since Obama has taken office, he has proposed budgets that have increased spending by massive amounts. Obama's proposed spending for fiscal year 2011 was $920 billion higher than Bush's proposed spending for fiscal year 2008. So, if Republicans agree to $400 billion in cuts they are really just slowing down the growth in spending and not really getting the spending back under control.

In part the idea that the federal government will run out of money when the debt ceiling is reached in early August is a misnomer. Tax revenues will still be coming in that could be used to pay certain bills. However, that would require the Obama Administration to set priorities. According to an interview of a senior administration official that I heard replayed on the radio, the current position of Obama and friends is to NOT set priorities. For example, the interviewer asked if as money comes in it could be used to send out Social Security checks and payments for national defense items and similar priorities. The official refused to say that priorities can be set. Instead, Obama and the Democrats plan to hold old people, health care providers and our military as hostages in an effort to blame Republicans for the crisis. Clinton got away with making Republicans the scapegoats in 1995. We'll know in a few weeks if Obama takes the fall for refusing to do his job or whether fiscally-responsible Republicans are again made out to be the fall guys.

(James Thomas is a local Republican Party leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

ELITISM IS A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRATS

Posted 7/15/11

The next to last chapter of Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, is entitled “The Big Sort” campaign. This chapter describes how the 2004 Bush campaign designed the winning strategy by focusing on “like-minded” voters and driving out turnout among supporters instead of focusing on trying to persuade undecided voters.

This concept is really nothing new. I have heard attributed to Abraham Lincoln that the way to win elections is to “identify your supporters and turn them out on Election Day.” The 2004 campaign just happened to use various micro-targeting techniques to identify supporters that are common to businesses, but which have not generally been used in political campaigns. Those of us on the ground in 2004 were somewhat frustrated because the national Republicans wanted to use some of these micro-targeting techniques, such as magazine subscriptions, to identify likely supporters when the Platte County GOP had already spent thousands of dollars to develop better data than the RNC had. The basic concept was a good one and it worked very effectively.

In looking back at the election Bishop also points out several things that John Kerry and the Democrats did wrong. Bishop's quote from Crook County Democrat Steve Bucknum most accurately described the Democrat's problem: “The problem with Democratic Party is elitism.”

The editors of Seattle's alternative newspaper, the Stranger, made this elitism problem very clear when it published “The Urban Archipelago.” They said “Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism and compassion . . .And we are the real Americans. They --- rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs – are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools and hate-mongers.”

The concept of “The Urban Archipelago” is exactly why I don't want to live around or be associated with most liberals. They talk about tolerance and acceptance. However, that tolerance and acceptance only applies when you are agreeing with them. If people happen to express contrary positions, they are “rubes, fools and hate-mongers.” If it wasn't so disgusting, it might actually be funny that people who claim to be so tolerant are in reality so intolerant.

There are a few exceptions in America where the areas with liberals are growing – e.g., Austin and Boulder. However, the generally true reality was summarized in a quote that got then-Governor Matt Blunt in trouble in February of 2005 when he said “The only places Democrats are winning elections are the places where no one wants to live.”

In Missouri that is especially true. For example, the 12 state legislative districts in western Jackson County that are currently held by Democrats have lost approximately 48,000 people. That is a loss of over 10% of their population in the last 10 years. During this same time period the 35th Legislative District, which is a very Republican district in northern Clay County, has grown by more than 50%.

Although the “elitism” of those in the Democrat Party is disappointing and irritating, it is good for Republicans. It keeps driving people away from the Democrats to the Republican Party. As far as I'm concerned the snooty liberals can stay all lumped together on their “islands.” I prefer to live with “real” people. If that means hanging out with a bunch of camo-wearing, gun-totin', Bible thumpin' folks, that is great!

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

FUNDAMENTALISTS VS. BIBLE MINIMALISTS

Posted 7/8/11

One topic discussed in Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, is how a voter's position on one issue will dictate his or her position on many others.

I found this to be true a long time ago. I have always been “pro-life,” but I did not realize how significant this position was until I became actively involved in Republican politics. What I quickly discovered is that a candidate's position on abortion is a litmus test issue that will indicate that candidate's position on many other issues. I have noticed that anyone who would self-describe one's self as pro-life tended to be pro-gun, pro-business and anti-tax. To the contrary, if a candidate was self-described as “pro choice,” they were opposed to private gun ownership, viewed government and not private industry as the answer to every problem and supported every tax increase to ever be proposed. Now there were occasional exceptions, but in my experience these exceptions have been very few.

Bishop actually discussed a different question, but one that had a very similar pattern to the abortion question.

Before discussing this question, Bishop broke down church membership into two segments. One segment is what he calls Private Protestantism, which “promoted individual salvation and promised that personal morality would be rewarded in the next life.” The other segment is Public Protestantism, which said that “the way to God required the transformation of society.” Bishop notes that those who are Private Protestants essentially are Republicans and those who are Public Protestants are essentially Democrats.

Bishop refers to a study of the 2004 presidential election results by a political scientist at East Carolina University that indicates sorting people by their beliefs about the Bible is one of the most telling things about those persons' position on political issues. Bishop uses certain definitions. “Fundamentalists” are those that believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Fundamentalists accounted for nearly half of the voters in red states and only 28% of the voters in blue states. “Bible Minimalists” are those who believe that the Bible was the work of men and not God. The Bible Minimalists accounted for 12% of the voters in red states and 18% in blue states. “Moderates” are those who believe that the Bible was the Word of God, but shouldn't be taken literally. The Moderates accounted for 38% of the voters in red states and 53% of the voters in blue states.

The study didn't just look at whether Fundamentalists, Bible Minimalists or Moderates lived in red or blue states. The study looked at certain issues. For example, 80% of Fundamentalists opposed spending any government money on abortions. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored government spending for abortions. Nine out of ten Fundamentalists in red states opposed gay marriage. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored gay marriage.

The tracking of Biblical views and political issues was not limited to political issues that are tied to “faith” like abortion and gay marriage. The study also found that Fundamentalist supported the Republican agenda (e.g., a strong military and jobs over the environment) while Biblical Minimalists supported the Democrat agenda (e.g., less support a strong military and favoring the environment over jobs).

The study concluded that the 2004 election was “. . . not a culture war between red states and blue states, but rather a war between Fundamentalists and Biblical Minimalists within both red and blue states.” The study is not a surprise. It is something that I have seen for nearly two decades of participating in politics.

Next week will likely be the last week discussing The Big Sort. The topic is the Democrats’ primary problem: elitism.

PARTISANS ARE THE ONES WHO VOTE, DONATE AND WORK

Posted 7/2/11

In Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, Bishop notes that over the last 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so nearly half of all Americans live, socialize and worship with people of similar political ideologies. Bishop blames this “sorting” for what he sees as an ever increasing partisanship, whether Democrat or Republican, and extremism, whether liberal or conservative, in America.

Bishop traces significant influences for this sorting to the summer of 1965. Numerous events occurred in this time frame. Lyndon Johnson pushed Congress to create Medicare and Medicaid, the war in Vietnam escalated significantly, there were dramatic accomplishments and tragedies with the civil rights movement followed by the racial disaster of the Watts Riot. Bishop notes how all of these events led to a dramatic decline in the public's trust of government and of political parties.

Following the summer of 1965 Bishop notes that individuals began to shift their places of residence, church memberships and political allegiances to “like-minded” people. The fact that Bishop finds part of this odd is surprising to me. I would contend that clear differences between political parties is important to the viability and success of political parties. I know that many of my Republican allies became disenchanted and quit donating and volunteering when they felt that Republicans were simply becoming “watered-down” versions of the Democrats. (At the time it seemed they were right. However, after four years of a Democrat-controlled Congress hopefully everyone will remember that big spending Republicans can't even come close to Democrats in spending.)

Bishop complains that “sorting” is causing political parties to adopt more extreme positions. In part he is right. However, I would argue the difference is between “more distinct” positions rather than more “extreme” positions. For example, it would be very difficult for a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-tax candidate to survive in the Republican Party. Likewise, it would be very difficult for a pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-tax Democrat to survive in his party.
Before the 2008 election a friend and I were having lunch one day and he expressed concern that the Republican Party was too dominated by the pro-life forces. (He himself is a pro-life Catholic. He just happens to be a businessman who is more concerned with fiscal issues than social issues.) I quickly asked him how many dollars and how much time he had given to Republican candidates in the last election cycle. The answer to both was “None.” I told him he just proved my point.

After a hard-working candidate the next two most important things for a successful political campaign are volunteers and cash. As someone who helps raise money and who works with volunteers, I told him that the pro-life advocates are some of the best donors and the hardest workers in the Party. I agree with the position of the pro-life advocates, but even if I didn't, the Republican Party could not survive without their time and money.

I told my friend if he wanted to reduce the influence of the pro-life advocates he could do so by writing a check and volunteering his time.

Bishop reminisces that our “ninth-grade civics version of American democracy may have told us that as citizens come to understand both sides of an issue, they're emboldened by knowledge and set off to engage in the exciting work of self-government.” However, Bishop admits “that's not the way it works.” He notes that “hearing both sides of an issue – and seeing the gray in most questions – is the ticket to withdrawal.” As scientific studies have shown “partisans are the ones who vote and who donate to and work on campaigns.”

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

STUDY: PEOPLE OF A PARTY WILL ADOPT POSITIONS OF A PARTY

Posted 6/24/11

I already finished the book I started last week: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. Even though the author was clearly an “off the deep end” liberal, he was a very good writer and his bias only came through on a few occasions. As I mentioned in last week's column, the basic premise of Bishop's book is that over the past 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so that by 2004 nearly half of all Americans lived in “landslide counties,” which Bishop defines as counties where the voters go for one presidential candidate or the other by over 20 percentage points.

Bishop's concern with this “sorting” is reflected in the subtitle to his book “Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.” One of Bishop's themes is that there is an ever disappearing “middle.” Instead there is an “Us” and a “Them.” This separation into various “camps” and actually living around and socializing with only like-minded people is creating an ever more partisan approach to politics. Bishop views this partisanship as destructive to well-reasoned political discourse and the developing of solutions to society's problems.

Bishop doesn't just rely on antidotal evidence. He discusses several scientifically conducted studies. These studies found that where a people are grouped together with other like-minded people they will arrive at a more extreme, whether more liberal or more conservative, group position than the average position of the individual members of the group. The studies indicate where a group of like-minded people are put together for the purpose of discussing an issue, they seem to “over adopt” the position of the group. This may be an effort to fit in or it may be that the more extreme participants are able to pull more people closer to their position when the members of the group start on the same general side of an issue.

Bishop also discusses studies that show that people of a particular party will adopt the positions of their party even if these positions were not previously held. I am reminded of a story that former U.S. Senator Jim Talent once told me about former Congress Dick Gephardt. Talent and Gephardt apparently grew up not far from each other. They came from families with similar values. Talent also said that Gephardt used to be “pro-life.” However, when Gephardt wanted to rise to a position of prominence in the Democrat Party, he switched to the “pro-abortion” position of the national Democrat party. The reverse happened with our former State Representative/Senator Charlie Shields. He was originally pro-abortion, but early in his political career switched to being pro-life. This may have been a moment of enlightenment or simply an important strategic move for political survival. Regardless of the reason, Shields shifted to conform to his party's position.

I have personally experienced this “shifting” in ideology. I have always believed that the Second Amendment had meaning and importance, but it did not used to be a “hot button” issue for me. However, during my years of being involved in politics the importance of the Second Amendment to me as a political issue has dramatically increased. I now truly appreciate the risk of liberals trying to take away the guns and freedoms of hard-working honest Americans. (In reality my attitudes probably didn't actually “shift,” but instead I simply developed a deeper appreciation of this particular issue.)

The place where Bishop's liberal bias slips out is where he refers to Congress as “do nothing” because it has failed to increase the minimum wage, address global warming and other liberal causes. Bishop blames the “sorting” for the “deepening pool of discord” that has prevented Congress from passing legislation on these issues. As a conservative, I actually see it as a victory that Congress has not passed new laws to deal with these issues.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DO FOLKS VOLUNTARILY MOVE TO AREAS OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE?

Posted 6/18/11

This weekend I started a new book: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. I was very interested in reading this book because I had already read a few excerpts from the book on-line. The basic premise of Bishop is that housing patterns over the last 30 years have shown that Democrats are moving into Democrat neighborhoods and Republicans are moving into Republican neighborhoods.

When I first started the book, I was not sure I was going to like it. The author made it clear that he was an “off the deep end” liberal. He described his house hunting exercise when he relocated to Austin. Things that appeal to him in his neighborhood would be disturbing to someone like me. For example, soon after the beginning of the Iraq War Bishop's neighborhood protested by printing t-shirts and bumper stickers. The “off the deep end” liberal demographic makeup of his neighborhood was reflected at the polls in the 2000 presidential election. Bush won Texas with 60% of the vote. However, in Bishop's neighborhood Bush finished third behind both Gore and Nader. When I created a mental picture of the area where Bishop lived, I pictured something like Brookside on steroids.
Bishop pointed out that when he initially chose his neighborhood he was not looking to live around like-minded liberals. It just happened to work out that way.

It was a few years after Bishop had moved to Austin that he began to consider the issue of whether people were voluntarily sorting themselves into Democrat and Republican neighborhoods. In fact, his initial study did not actually begin as a political analysis. He was initially considering “why some communities develop vibrant economies and others stagnate.”

I could easily answer the question for him. The areas that are run by Democrats are “going in the toilet” and the areas run by Republicans are expanding and improving their economies. Now my conclusions are based upon observation without the benefit of statistical analysis, but that is what I have been able to observe. For example, Platte County has been experiencing a steady boom over the last two decades while the Jackson County portion of Kansas City keeps going downhill. The same is true in urban areas all over the country. These urban areas where Democrats are the strongest are generally experiencing serious difficulties while suburban areas that are able to escape the failed Democrat policies are able to grow and expand.

Some may attempt to argue that many portions of Platte County that have experienced a boom are within the city limits of Kansas City. That is true. However, I would argue that if these areas were free of the poor management and financial drain of what Yale Abouhalkah of the KC Star calls “Kansas City proper” that the success would be far more than what we have actually experienced.

Soon after Bishop started his analysis, he stumbled on a 30-year trend in housing patterns. He found that areas of the country were becoming more Democrat or more Republican over time. A central aspect of this analysis was a study of presidential election results from 1976 or 2004. He separated counties as “competitive” based upon whether there was a margin of less than 20 points in the presidential election. Counties with a margin of 20 points or more were considered landslide counties. In 1976 just over 26% of the voters lived in landslide counties. By 2004 48.3% of voters lived in landslide counties.

Bishop has extensive statistical data to support his conclusions that people are voluntarily moving near like-minded people. He offers a much more in depth analysis that expands beyond the results of presidential elections. I'll likely share some of that in later columns. However, if you can't wait, go out and order his book. I found it on Amazon.com. Bishop may be an “off the deep end” liberal, but he is certainly a good writer.

HOW MUCH IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON A PER-PERSON BASIS?

Posted 6/11/11

Unless you are a crazy liberal like Obama or Pelosi, you would probably say that the current levels of spending by the federal government are out of control. (You can see my Jan. 12 and Feb. 16 column for quotes from Obama and Pelosi that show a disconnection of their sense of reality from the actual math of the federal budget.) In considering how much money the federal government is spending, I wanted to consider the problem from a different perspective. How much is the federal government spending on a per person basis?

I looked up a few numbers and did some simple calculations. Obama's proposed budget for next year calls for spending of $3.73 trillion. (Never mind that that number happens to be over $1.1 trillion more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.) When you divide that $3.73 trillion in spending by the approximately 330 million people in this country that calculates to spending just over $11,300 per person.

Let's put that in perspective. The income level identified as being the poverty level for a single person by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2011 is $10,890. What that means is that a person who precisely hits the top income for the HHS' definition of poverty does not have enough income to fund his or her share of government spending if that person gave every nickel to the government. (Keep in mind that we are talking about poverty on a “per person” basis and not a household basis. A family of four is below the poverty level at $22,350.)

Think about that a different way. A family of four would need to contribute $45,200 to fund its share of the Obama's proposed annual government spending. What income level does a family of four earn to hit this level of taxation? If a married couple has a husband and a wife who EACH make $100,000, they would EACH pay $7,650 in Social Security and Medicare Taxes. If they have approximately $50,000 of itemized deductions and personal exemptions, they would pay another approximately $30,000 in income taxes. This would roughly equal this family's share of the per capita cost of government.

Of course, the average American family does not have two $100,000 per year incomes. In reality the average income is $39,527. This generates nowhere near the needed per person level of taxation. (Of course, not all the cost of government is funded from taxes that come from individuals.)

The current level of spending is just crazy. The budgeting process comes down to a simple question of setting priorities.

In building a budget, the federal government must start with a different question. Instead of asking “how much does the government want to spend?” the first question MUST be “How much does the government have available to spend?” (This number is projected to be $2.63 trillion for the next fiscal year.) Then the federal government needs to work through a list of priorities on what it is going to fund. Some really good projects and programs may be left unfunded. However, the government simply cannot spend money it does not have.

I would like Obama and Congress to act like grown-ups and do their job of setting priorities and balancing the budget. However, if they can't, there is a simple solution. The 2008 budget proposed by Bush included projected spending of $2.9 trillion. We could start by cutting every department back to that level of spending. That would create 90% of the cuts that are needed. Then we can start looking for the other 10% in cuts that are needed. Sadly, Obama and Pelosi actually think over $1 trillion per year in deficits make them deficit hawks.

DESPITE HICCUPS, MARTIN LUTHER ACADEMY HAS BEEN GREAT EXPERIENCE

Posted 5/28/11

My oldest daughter, Shannon, is graduating from Martin Luther Academy this week. (MLA only goes to the 8th grade.) MLA has provided a great learning environment for Shannon and her younger sister, Anne.

The birth of MLA began in early 1997. Shannon was born that year. Todd Graves' oldest child, Katie, was born just three weeks before Shannon. In early 1997, Todd came to me and said “What do you think about starting a private school?” It seemed like a great idea to me, but we needed to study the concept. A steering committee was formed for that purpose by the three Lutheran churches in Platte County.

The steering committee had focus groups and did various analysis of the potential demand for a private school. The data indicated there was a great demand, but it seemed like a bigger project than three churches could take on. Then we met Steve Ewert. He was also interested in starting a school in the Northland. So, we joined forces, created an association and expanded the project to Clay and Platte Counties.

MLA initially opened in a leased building in the fall of 2003, but at the end of the lease MLA had to “temporarily” move to Christ Lutheran Church in Platte Woods. MLA was there for six and half years.

MLA has had ups and downs along with way. In 2002 land just north of 108th Street was purchased. This property was eventually traded for land just south of 108th Street.

However, the neighboring developer went under without completing the improvements he was required to make to his property to provide better access to the property. So MLA still can't use the property the way it would like.

Last year the association bought a church building at 7112 N. Overland Drive. The association renovated the building and added a gym. MLA moved in to the new building over Christmas break.

Despite the hiccups along the way, the school has been a great experience. There are hundreds of people who have worked to make the school a reality and who continue to work to make it an on-going success. I wish I could thank all of them by name, but the list is just too long. So, let me just thank a few.

First, thank you to Todd Graves. It was his idea in the first place. Without his inspiration, we would have never taken the first steps. Thank you to Pastor Krueger, who if he had nixed the idea at the outset it would have likely died right then. Thank you to Steve Ewert who was MLA's first board president. He provided a positive attitude even as the school went through some of its most challenging times. Also, MLA would not have gotten into its new building on budget without his efforts as “construction supervisor.” Thank you to Mary Smith. She served on the school's first board of directors. She stepped down this year after 11 years of service. She has been MLA's longest serving board member. She has provided strong leadership and a historical perspective for all of MLA's endeavors. Thank you to all of those who have donated time and talent to MLA. Without their perseverance, MLA would have never made it to this point.

Thanks especially to MLA's faculty and staff who have done so much to educate our children. MLA offers an exceptional academic product in a loving, Christian environment. In fact, the scores of MLA's student's national testing put MLA in the 97th Percentile. That's great!

Now don't get me wrong. I am an advocate of all forms education – public, private and home schooling. However, as my oldest daughter moves on to high school, I am especially thankful for the educational experience that MLA has been for her. I wish Shannon and all her friends well as they embark on the next chapter in their lives.

(James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S UP TO INDIVIDUALS TO ADDRESS THEIR OWN SITUATIONS

Posted 5/20/11

Plato, Missouri was the site of a big celebration this week. The U.S. Census Bureau has announced that Plato is the population center of the United States. Plato -- with a population of 109 -- is located in Texas County, which is in southern Missouri about halfway between Cape Girardeau and Springfield.

What caught my interest was not something from the speeches of Governor Jay Nixon or Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson. No. What caught my interest was an editorial from St. Louis Today entitled “What does Plato tell us about the state of poverty in nation?”

The premise of the article is that Plato, Texas County and much of rural Missouri is poor. In its analysis the article points to median household income figures of Texas County compared to the U.S. as a whole and Missouri as a whole. Some of this analysis is misplaced. The cost of living in other parts of the country and even other parts of Missouri is dramatically different. It costs a lot less to live in small town Missouri than other places.

The editorial also fails to consider that whether or not you are “rich” or “poor” is not necessarily something that can be measured in dollars. I grew up on a farm. It is a great place to raise a family. Money was something we were short of, but the quality of life was great even without the big dollars. However, the editorial does have a valid point that the folks in Plato are less well off financially than people in other parts of Missouri and other parts of America.

The concluding statements of the editorial are what bothered me. It said “Poverty is real. Our children are at risk. What are we willing to do about it?”

My objection to the concluding question is the emphasis on who is doing the acting: “What are we willing to do about it?” Once again the liberals on the editorial board of St. Louis Today miss the point. It is not up to us to address individual poverty. It is up to individuals to address their own situation.

The day after I read this editorial, I received my daily e-mail from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In it was a quote from Les Brown. Brown said, “If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”

Brown has it right. Achieving wealth or happiness, whether measured in dollars or by something else, is not up to someone else. It is up to each individual. Now I appreciate that the editorial board may point out that there are a lot of children who live in poverty through no fault of their own. However, the persons who are responsible for that situation are the parents of those children. These parents must accept responsibility for their situation and take steps to change it. Of course, these individuals may not want to take the steps to change their situation. If these individuals are not willing to take the steps to change their own situation, there is really little we can do for them.

The one thing we absolutely should not do is supplement the lifestyle of these individuals with government handouts with no expectation of them doing some sort of work for that financial support. I am a strong advocate for giving someone a “hand up” to help them through hard times. However, we can't let that “hand up” become a “handout” that essentially becomes a lifestyle choice funded by others. If we do that, we are not doing these individuals any favors. Instead we are dooming them to a life of dependency with little hope of that changing in their lifetimes or even their children's lifetimes. That is a disservice to these individuals. Also, it will not give them the American dream. Instead it will make them the American nightmare.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CHANGING DISTRICT BOUNDARIES WON'T SAVE THE DEMOCRATS

Posted 5/13/11

The Missouri General Assembly has completed its redrawing of the Congressional District boundaries. (Redistricting for the State House and State Senate is just getting started.) The General Assembly passed a map and sent it to the Governor. The Governor vetoed the map. However, the map was quickly overridden by the General Assembly after the Republicans got four Democrat members of the House – with encouragement from Democrat Congressmen Cleaver and Clay -- to support the override.

Democrats are crying because Congressman Carnahan has been drawn into the same district with Clay. However, as a result of the new census figures, Missouri is dropping from nine Congressmen to eight Congressmen. So, at least two incumbent Congressmen were going to have to be drawn into the same district. Also, Clay's district was about 20% short of its population target. Clay did not want the district to look to the Republican-leaning areas to the north or west of his district for more people so he gladly accepted Democrat-leaning areas from Carnahan's district. Carnahan was already about 20% short of people. The loss of another 20% to Clay left him about 40% short of people. So, it makes sense that the remainder of Carnahan's under-sized district was divided up among the other districts to reach their population target.

The Democrat leaders in the General Assembly are also whining because they claim the new districts supposedly create six Republican and only two Democrat district. However, when applying the proper redistricting principles of “communities of interest,” where people with common interests are grouped into the same districts, the maps are appropriate because Missouri's Democrat voters seem to be heavily concentrated.

The problem for Democrats in Missouri is a national trend analyzed by Bill Bishop in his 2008 book entitled The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of America is Tearing Us Apart. Bishop has analyzed housing trends over the last three decades and concludes that Americans have been voluntarily separating themselves into more homogenous communities of like-minded people. The result is that Republicans and Democrats are clustering together. This is creating a trend of areas that consistently vote overwhelming for one party or the other.
This trend is clearly present in Missouri. Just look at the red and blue maps from the 2010 state-wide elections. (You can find these maps on the Missouri Secretary of State's website.) The map from the 2010 U.S. Senate race shows that the only counties that were won by the Democrat candidate were the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. The rest of the map is red.

The Democrats want to point to the close presidential election of 2008 as a basis for why a supposedly 6-2 map is unfair. Well they need to actually study the election results more carefully. Yes. McCain won Missouri by only 3,903 votes. However, Missouri was still geographically a very red state with Obama only winning the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, St. Louis City and Boone, Buchanan, Jefferson, St. Louis, St. Genevieve and Washington Counties. The other 108 counties were red. So, when you draw a constitutionally-mandated map that is “contiguous” and “compact as possible,” the Democrats have so heavily grouped themselves into the same general areas that they have voluntarily created the situation.

Of course, the real problem is that the ideas of the national Democrat party just don't sell well in Missouri. So, changing district boundaries wouldn't really save the Democrats. They need to change their platform to win.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S TIME TO STOP THE FLOW OF RED INK

Posted 5/5/11

There are moments that can change the course of history: a spring day in 1775 when a bunch of farmers and small townsfolk stood in a field in opposition to the most powerful military in the world, a hot summer in 1776 at a convention hall in Pennsylvania when the Declaration of Independence was hammered out, a few years later at another convention hall where the U.S. Constitution was drafted. We have a chance for another one of those historic moments this spring. There is an opportunity for America's greatness to be protected for the future.

What is that potential historic moment? It is the decision on whether to raise the debt ceiling for the federal government and what strings, if any, are tied to any increase in the debt ceiling.

I would prefer that no increase of the debt ceiling be allowed. However, I am also a pragmatist. I accept the reality of the difficulty in immediately cutting the current out-of-control spending by the federal government and the sudden jolt it might give to the weakened economy if Congress really would make the hard decisions that it needs to make about spending in a single fiscal year. Given this reality, I understand that some increase of the debt ceiling is regrettably necessary. However, even though some modest increase may be necessary to avoid too dramatic of a shock to the economy, any agreement to an increase of the debt ceiling should come with strings and limitations.

My first limitation would be that the first year's increase in the debt ceiling should be limited to the 2008 budget deficit, which was about $1 trillion less than the budget deficit for Obama's first year in office. Thereafter, small increases in the debt ceiling might be allowed for the next few years, but eventually no further increases should be allowed. In fact, we should probably have a requirement that the debt ceiling has to start shrinking.

The most important limitation is that no vote on the increase of the debt ceiling will occur until a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by Congress as provided for under Article V of the Constitution. This balanced budget amendment might have a clause that permits the provisions of the balanced budget amendment to be ignored by Congress upon a two-thirds majority vote of Congress. This would allow flexibility for when an overwhelming majority in Congress believes that a crisis requires the federal government to borrow more money.

The political hypocrisy simply has to stop. For example, a couple of weeks ago a clip was played on the radio of the then-Sen. Obama being critical of increasing the debt ceiling as part of approving one of Bush's proposed budgets. I wanted to scream. Obama's proposed budgets for his first two years in office have increased the federal debt by more than all eight years of Bush's presidency.

Don't get me wrong. I'm mad at Bush and prior Congressmen for spending too much. However, their annual deficits are dwarfed by Obama's most recent plan to spend over 50% more than the government takes in.

I hope Congress takes this opportunity to “make history” and stop the flow of red ink. This is a huge deal! I truly believe that if the deficit spending does not stop that America will no longer be the greatest nation on earth. This single vote could determine whether America will remain a great nation or whether it will eventually go the way of the Greeks, the Romans and all the other collapsed civilizations. Regardless, history will be made.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DON'T LET EMOTIONS OVERWHELM JUDGMENT

Posted 4/29/11

The “Prime Directive” from Star Trek prohibits interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. This concept is not just one of modern science fiction. The idea is a concept dating back to the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty from 1648 that had as one of its essential principles the non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state. The principles of the Prime Directive and/or the Peace of Westphalia are important concepts when considering the appropriateness of the U.S.'s involvement in Libya and its role earlier this year in regime change in Egypt.

Libya has never been our friend. Under Khadafi's rule, Libya has been a sponsor of terrorism. However, when President Bush announced America's War on Terror and a policy to hold nations that harbor or support terrorists accountable, Khadafi fell in line and opened his country to UN inspectors and acted like he was changing his ways.

In Egypt, Mubarak was an elected leader. Mubarak was an ally to the U.S. in the first Gulf War and the War on Terror. We may not agree with how he operates his country domestically, but he has been a friend of the U.S.

Although the media frequently described the protesters in Egypt and the rebels in Libya as heroes, if you read between the lines, the media noted that many of the protesters were “unemployed youth,” which sounds a lot like unemployed rebel rousers. Also, although there were lots of protestors in the streets of Egypt and Libya, these protesters were still a very small part of the population. And, at least in Egypt, there were elections scheduled to be held in less than two years to choose new leaders.

Let's look at the situation in Egypt and Libya from a different perspective. Let's look at the anti-ObamaCare and Tea Party protesters as in the same role as the protesters in Egypt and Libya. Would we condone these protesters resorting to violence to get their way? Would we condone foreign support of these protesters including military strikes into our country in support of these protesters? I don't think so.

I will quickly concede that the unleashing of modern military power on a civilian population would have devastating consequences. It should not happen. As a husband and father, I would have a problem sitting on the sidelines and watching this happen if I had the full capacity of the most powerful military force in the world available at my beck and call to prevent it. However, let's ignore the emotional aspects for a minute. The question is whether the U.S. government should intervene based upon appropriate standards of international conduct?

Once again, I don't think so. Individual countries have a right to determine their own internal affairs. We should not interfere with the domestic matters of other countries if these countries are not threatening their neighbors. (I know at some point, Bush's invasion of Iraq was labeled as an effort to liberate the Iraqi people. I always viewed the invasion under its original purpose of sending in 250,000 weapons inspectors because Saddam was refusing to comply with the inspection requirements).

Khadafi and to a lesser extent Mubarak have not treated their people the way they should. I certainly do not want Khadafi slaughtering innocent civilians in the course of putting down a rebel uprising. An argument might be made that protecting innocent civilians is a legitimate exception to the Peace of Westphalia/Prime Directive. Maybe this is like when Kirk or Picard ignores the Prime Directive and risks court martial to pursue a “greater good” notwithstanding the legal question marks surrounding his actions. However, as Picard argues in the “Pen Pals” episode, “the Prime Directive is meant to prevent us from letting our emotions overwhelm our judgment.” Food for thought.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA COATS HIS TOILET PLAN IN A WRAPPER OF 'HOPE'

Posted 4/22/11

Obama went into full campaign mode last week when he gave a speech at George Washington University on Wednesday. He needed to do so.

Obama and the Democrats are under enormous pressure from all of their potential voters. The freeloaders that live off the rest of us are crying about potentially losing some of their freebies and having to work for a living like the rest of us. The hard working middle class folks who sometimes vote for Democrats because they are deceived by the erroneous Democrat mantra that the Republican Party is for the rich people have figured out that the out of control spending by Obama is unsustainable and will eventually lead to the downfall of America.

Faced with all this pressure, Obama gave a very well crafted speech in which he appears optimistic about America, opposed to budget deficits while being opposed to cutting any “essential” spending.

Obama referred to some historical efforts at compromise. He referred to a compromise reached between the senior George Bush and the Democrats in Congress to raise taxes to keep the funding in place for our troops during the first Gulf War. [Of course, Obama fails to point out that those tax increases are the primary reason the senior Bush was a one term president.]

Obama blames Bush for the soaring deficits. Once again, Obama ignores the facts. The collective deficits run up during Bush's eight years in office are less than the deficits that Obama has run up in his first two years in office. Also, while saying he wants to cut spending, Obama actually proposes over $1 trillion (WITH A T!!) in deficits in his next budgets for multiple years into the future. Don't get me wrong. Bush and the Republicans who controlled Congress from 2001 – 2006 are not without blame. However, their out of control spending is dwarfed by what Obama has done in his first two years.

My fear is that Obama might just get away with it. I see it as very possible that Obama gets a second term. Obama is a brilliant campaigner. He can tell people he's going to spend America into a deep hole that will eventually destroy our country, but he has the ability to say it with such charm and poise that those voters that make up the squishy middle may just fall for his claims to want to cut the deficit.

One thing that will help him get away with it is his carefully chosen words. When he talks about raising taxes, he claims to only want to raise taxes on “the rich” or “millionaires and billionaires.” Of course, his plan is to raise taxes on anyone who makes over $200,000.

If you really listen carefully to what Obama is saying, he lays out his plan to make America a much more socialistic or even communistic country. He wants to take money from one group of people and give it to another. He said the same things in the 2008 campaign and crazy freeloaders flocked to him because “Obama is going to pay my mortgage and pay for my groceries.” (Do you remember the interview with the near-orgasmic woman from the big event right before the election?) He coats this plan to flush America down the toilet in a wrapper of “hope.” Unless people really pay attention, he just might achieve his goal.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S NOT A 'CUT' SINCE 'IT' WAS NEVER IN PLACE

Posted 4/15/11

As usual the “big” media outlets are inaccurately describing a political issue when they are “reporting” on the federal government's budget crisis. They continue to fail to identify the real culprits in this crisis and fail to accurately describe what they are calling “cuts.”

The federal budget cycle runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. So, the current budget year began on Oct. 1 of last year and is set to expire on Sept. 30 of this year. Of course, the media does not want to point this out because that would squarely put the blame on this crisis where it belongs.

The current budget year began before the 2010 elections. Congress should have adopted a budget early in 2010. However, even if Congress didn't adopt a budget until the last day of the prior budget year, the budget should have been adopted more than a month before the 2010 elections.

Why was the budget not adopted before the current budget year began? The answer is simple. The Democrats in control of Congress failed to do their most basic function--adopt a budget. Of course, the Democrats didn't want to adopt a budget. The reason is that if they did, they would have likely been beaten up even worse in the November election cycle.
The media needs to be accurate about placing blame for why there is not a budget. When the Democrats controlled Congress they failed to adopt a budget. The Democrats had a significant majority in the House. Democrats in the Senate were just shy of a filibuster proof majority. And, no filibuster was attempted to block the budget. No. The failure to adopt a budget falls entirely at the feet of former Speaker Pelosi and former Senate Majority Leader Reid and their Congressional majorities. The media needs to make this clear.

The media is also mislabeling the process of what is going on now with the various continuing resolutions to keep the government in operation without actually adopting a budget for the full fiscal year. The media is continuously referring to “cuts” being made. This is completely inaccurate. There is no budget so nothing can possibly be ‘cut!’ It may be that the continuing resolution approves less money for spending on particular items than was in Obama's proposed budget for this budget year or for that same item in the prior year's budget. However, nothing is being cut if it has not been approved yet.

This whole situation is outrageous to me! The most basic function of the legislature is to adopt a budget for the current fiscal year. The legislature can argue about guns, gays, abortion or other “hot button” political issues. However, no resolution of these issues has to be reached in any given year. The one piece of business that absolutely must be addressed each year is the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And, it should be required that this is resolved before the fiscal year begins or the government does not have authority to spend any money.

The short term resolution reached last week on the budget is only a stop gap measure. The budget fight will continue. Although I am passionate about many of the social issues, this budgetary fight will decide whether America continues to be a great nation or whether it declines into oblivion.

The first question is a simple one. Is the government going to continuing to spend more than it takes in? If it does, the federal government and the nation will eventually collapse. It is simple math. Unlimited deficits are not sustainable. But, as this debate goes on, don't be misled by the “not so mainstream” media's explanation of who is to blame for the current crisis and whether anything is actually a “cut.”

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

VOTING BY MAIL SYSTEM WOULD BE A BAD IDEA

Posted 4/7/11

The talk continues for the prospect of early voting and/or voting by mail. This idea is based on good intentions, but it is a really bad idea.

First, such a system has a tremendous prospect for fraud. Without photo ID it is hard to control fraud when people physically show up to vote. Just imagine how bad it would be if the voters didn't even have to show up at the polls.

Second, early voting will dramatically disrupt political campaigns. People pushing such an idea must have no concept of how political campaign works. Let's focus on a “little” campaign (i.e., something well below a major state-wide campaign). If you are running for county clerk or some similar office, you start your campaign nine months to a year before election day. About six to eight months before the election you start going door to door and hitting every parade and chili supper in your district that comes along. As the election gets closer you hit up all your friends and family to run a phone bank in the few weeks right before the election. One purpose of those phone calls is to find yard sign locations. Two weeks to 10 days before election day you go out and put up your hard signs. You don't have much money so you only can send one piece of mail and you may have to target your voters because you can't send it to every household. You generally send that piece of mail sometime during the last week before the election. The whole campaign is a crescendo that ends on election day. If the early voting advocates get their way, the mail for these candidates would not reach voters before they vote. That is simply wrong.

I will admit that early voting for something like president or a major state-wide office could occur with a minimal disruption of the campaign process. However, these campaigns are designed to reach a crescendo on election day. Even well funded below-governor statewide campaigns often only have enough money for one or two weeks of TV advertising. So, even these statewide candidates could be virtually unknown to the voters.

If the desire is to address the inconvenience of voting, then the number of election days could be reduced. There are too many “secret” elections at this point. Elections could be limited to April, August and November. No more secret February, June or October elections that few voters know about. (The Kansas City primary might be the one exception to this voting schedule.)

On occasion, some folks have trouble getting to the polls.That is what absentee ballots are for.I got called out of town at the last minute for business one April and realized I was going to miss the election. I just ran by the election board's office and cast my ballot on the way out of town. Or just this week I had to go to Jeff City on Tuesday. I just went to vote soon after the polls opened at 6 a.m. and then headed out of town. It really wasn't that difficult.
When I go vote it never adds more than 20 minutes to my morning.I take my girls to school in the morning. I make them be ready a little earlier than usual. We go to our polling place, which is actually in the opposite direction of the school, cast a ballot and still get to school in plenty of time. This trip to the polls before school is actually an important training experience for my girls.

I know the early voting advocates mean well, but they need to quit complaining about the convenience of voting. It is a privilege to vote. It is our civic duty. It really isn't that hard for all of us to vote on the same day. Just go and cast your ballot and stop complaining.

(James Thomas is an active Republican who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

RECRUITING IS KEY TO SUCCESS IN LOCAL POLITICS

Posted 4/1/11

Let me throw out a radical idea: Local elections should be partisan.

I'll be the first to admit that pot holes and waterlines are not Democrat or Republican. Law enforcement is not and never should be administered based upon whether the victim or the criminal is a Democrat or a Republican. Reading, writing and arithmetic are universally necessary objectives of our public schools regardless of party affiliation.

All of that is true. However, there is something that is severely missing when there are no organized parties involved in the process of recruiting and electing candidates for the elected positions that will deal with pot holes, waterlines, law enforcement and education.

I have told people for years that the most important work the Republican Party does to win elections is not done during the last few weeks before the election. The most important work we do is done a year or more before the actual election. That most important work is recruiting.

Not all political parties approach it the same way, but the Platte County Republican Party has generally taken a very deliberate approach to recruiting. For most of the election cycles for the last 16 years, the local party has had an active recruiting effort. We typically start working on recruiting for the next election cycle even before the current election cycle is over. It is not an easy task. It is really hard to find well qualified people who are willing to give up much better paying positions in the private sector to serve their community. (The difference for Democrat recruiters is that the kind of candidates they look for actually get a pay raise by going to work for the government.) We have to find people at the right stage of their lives that can run for office (e.g., no children at home or a spouse who can financially supplement their public service). It is even more difficult to find people willing to deal with the challenges that often come up during the campaign.

Sometimes our recruiting efforts don't produce the best candidates. Sometimes the best candidate just “comes out of the blue” and volunteers. However, the point is that the local Republican party does have an on-going effort to recruit high quality candidates for office. That is why Platte County has become more and more Republican. We have been able to recruit better people to run on our ticket.

The lack of recruiting not the partisanship is what is missing in local elections. Although this was before my time, I have read the history of the breaking of the Pendergast machine. A local group of citizens got together and recruited candidates to run for city elections. This organization didn't stop with recruiting. It then supported the candidates it chose.

These types of political organizations continue today. The Citizens Association and Forward Kansas City, a Northland specific group, are examples of these types of organizations. However, there is one major difference. These organizations do not actually recruit candidates and raise their own money to help their slate win. Instead they generally just screen candidates and make recommendations.

That is the missing piece. There need to be political organizations that recruit for local elections, like city council and school board, and then provide resources to get those candidates elected. These organizations need to be made up of the “good government, civic leader” types that used to play a prominent role in local politics many years ago.

So, while I am not advocating that we have “Ds” and “Rs” on the ballots for candidates for city council, water district and school board, there is a great need for a return of the active political organizations that function like political parties in the recruitment and support of candidates. Otherwise, we’ll continue to get generally weak candidates those of us in KC had in this last election cycle.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

EARNINGS TAX SUPPORTERS BASICALLY SAYING 'TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT'

Posted 3/25/11

There is an old country song with a line that goes “Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.” That song should be the theme song for those supporting the earnings tax in Kansas City since that is what the advocates of the tax are saying to people who may want to work in Kansas City but who don't like paying the earnings tax.

In November a statewide ballot initiative prohibited any additional cities from imposing an earnings tax and required the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings taxes to be reconsidered by the voters every five years. In Kansas City the earnings tax is a 1% tax on the gross wages of individuals or 1% of the net profits earned by a business in Kansas City.

The first vote on whether or not to retain the earnings tax in Kansas City will be held on April 5. If the earnings tax is eliminated, it will be phased out over five years.

If you believe the proponents of the earnings tax, the world will come to an end if the earnings tax is not extended for five years. They have tried to scare people with threats of cutting services like no snow removal. (Those of you who live in the city limits are probably chuckling right now as you think “What snow removal?”)

Let's look at some real numbers from the City's website. The 2010-11 budget projects earnings taxes of $189 million out of a $1.225 billion budget. So, contrary to the claims of earnings tax proponents, the earnings tax is only a little more than 15% of the total budget. The proponents will say that the total budget is the wrong number to look at and say that you need to only look at general revenue. General revenue is $520 million. The earnings tax is 38% of this number.

In fairness to the tax lovers, the elimination of the earnings would have a significant impact on the budget. However, what we are really talking about is reducing overall spending by 3% for each of the next five years. So, while this would be a challenge, it certainly would not be the end of the world.

A key complaint about the earnings tax is that it discourages people from living and working in Kansas City. A real life example comes from my first year as a lawyer over 20 years ago. At the time, the highest first year lawyer salary in Kansas City was $52,000. Of the lawyers in my class, the ones who worked in the Johnson County office had a higher net income. They didn't have to pay $520 in earnings tax and almost $1,000 for parking that those of us in the Crown Center office had to pay. This approximately $1,500 in additional net income was a 3% difference in net pay. While this isn't a huge deal, it is certainly a reason to not want to work in Kansas City. Furthermore, when you can work 10 minutes from your nice home in the suburbs and don't have to fight the traffic to come to the “big city,” working outside the city limits of Kansas City is an added plus.

The advocates for the earnings tax have actually made the opponents' argument for them. Dan Confran, one of the advocates' spokesmen, said on more than one occasion that if someone doesn't want to pay the earnings tax then “don't work here.”

Point made. If you don't like the earnings tax, then don't work in Kansas City. So, advocates of the earnings tax are saying “Take your job and shove it” (or move it) to anyone who is considering working in Kansas City. It sure makes Platte City, Parkville, Riverside, Platte Woods and anywhere else in our community outside the city limits of Kansas City even more appealing.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

IN KANSAS CITY, GOOD LUCK PICKING THE 'LEAST BAD' CANDIDATES

Posted 3/18/11

For those who live within the city limits of Kansas City, it is very disappointing to go vote. When voting in the City primary, there were a few races where I stopped and asked myself, “Do I really have to vote for one of these losers?”

In one of the at-large council races I had met one of the candidates the week before. He was obviously in over his head and had very limited knowledge of how Kansas City government operates. However, I still voted for him because the other candidate did know how city government worked and I did not like the things this person was doing on the council.

After the primary, Alan Dillingham, a candidate for the Second District At-Large seat, visited the Greater Kansas City Pachyderm Club. He gave a great presentation and talked about his goal of restoring appropriate conduct at City Hall. I commented to him after the meeting that it is humorous to consider that if he is elected he would probably be the youngest councilman currently serving, but he would still be the most adult-like in the group.

We talked about why he would want to be involved with City politics since you have to “work with children.” He said that good people have to get involved or else only the bad people will run the city. Dillingham was right. However, the problem is that you actually have to be able to win the election.

Kansas City is really a one party town. Although the races are technically non-partisan, they are dominated by Democrats or at least unaffiliated tax and spend liberals. There are six in-district council positions that are only voted on by the voters in that district. There are six at-large council positions that are voted on by the whole city. So, all of the at-large candidates have to win in the very-Democrat south of the river areas. I predict that Dillingham will win north of the river, but lose south of the river where his fiscally responsible “grown up” message will not appeal to the Democrat-dominated precincts.

I am really torn between Mike Burke and Sly James in the mayor's race. Mike Burke is a Northlander. That is a plus. Also, when I served with him on the City's Public Improvements Advisory Committee, he did a good job of running the meetings. However, I am little puzzled about why the City's Port Authority has felt the need to pay Burke's law firm over $3.3 million in fees over the last 11 years. Furthermore, he is cut from the same mold and even endorsed by Kay Barnes. Barnes was bad for Kansas City. She ran up huge amounts of debt on big ticket items that we didn't really need. Burke would likely be more of the same.

On the other hand,James said at a candidate forum that he doesn't really know much about the Northland and only really comes north of the river to go to the airport. So, while his fresh ideas would be great for the city, his total lack of knowledge of the Northland could be a serious problem for those of us who live in the “good” part of Kansas City. (I use “good” to refer to our part of Kansas City in part because it is true and also because Yael Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star refers to the south of the river portion of Kansas City as “Kansas City proper.”)

Of course, there is a solution for us. We could de-annex the portion of Kansas City that is north of the river and become “The Northland.” Of course, those in “Kansas City proper” will never let us go. They like our money too much.

So, good luck picking the best (or least bad) candidates on March 22. With a few exceptions, like Dillingham, it is slim pickin's.

(Email local Republican leader James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CUT TO HEAD START SHOULDN'T BE LABELED AS 'OUTRAGEOUS'

Posted 3/11/11

A column by E.J. Dioinne Jr. in the Washington Post on Monday caught my eye. If you get a chance to read it, you should take it. You can find it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030602925.html.

The point of Dioinne's column is that House Speaker Boehner is in a great negotiating position when it comes to the budget. He can go to budget meetings with the Democrats and give the outward appearance of being the calm person in the room while blaming the freshman Republicans, which have been referred to as “a band of wild-eyed bomb-throwing freshman,” for his need to hold a stronger negotiating position. This is not a new way of negotiating. There are many instances where one party holds themselves out as the reasonable party while another party on the same side of the negotiation makes ridiculous demands to get the party on the other side of the negotiation to come to some sort of common ground.

What is disturbing about Dioinne's column is that he seems so willing to label some of the proposed cuts as “outrageous” without further consideration as to how the money is being spent. His specific quote is:

Begin with the outrageous $1.1 billion, 15 percent cut from Head Start, a program that offers preschool education to roughly 965,000 poor children. According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, this would knock 218,000 kids out of Head Start and force 16,000 classrooms to close.

Let's break this down. A 15% cut to the Head Start budget of $1.1 billion would mean that the budget for Head Start is $7.33 billion. ($1.1 billion divided by 15%.) If this $7.33 billion budget funds the participation of 965,000 children, then that means that Head Start is spending $7,671 per child in the program. ($7.33 billion divided by 965,000 children.)

My belief is that education and a loving and supportive home are the two most important things to help people avoid poverty and live meaningful and productive lives as adults. I taught my own children to read before they went to Kindergarten because I know that reading is so important. I accept that I am “smarter than your average bear” and that I also had the resources to buy my kids books and other materials to help them learn to read. I know that everyone is not as fortunate yet. So I whole-heartedly support programs that focus on educating children so they can “lift themselves up by their bootstraps” and make their own lives better and their future children's lives better. That means that even a conservative like me feels “warm and fuzzy” about programs like Head Start.

Although I strongly endorse the stated goal of Head Start, I really have concerns about the cost per student for this program. Does it really take $7,671 per child? I mean my kids' private school spends less than that for elementary school deduction. My daughter's high school tuition is only going to be $7,000 next year. Even the big spending Park Hill and Platte County school districts will only spend about twice that figure for their full time education programs.

Mr. Dionne is wrong to so quickly label the $1.1 billion cut as “outrageous.” Sure Head Start has a great stated purpose. I don't really think the federal government should be in the education business. However, let's ignore that for a minute that education is something that should be left to the states. The real question is should it really cost $7,671 per child for the Head Start program? I don't think so. That is an excessive amount to be spending even though this is certainly a worthy although probably not constitutionally appropriate mission for the federal government to pursue.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

MISSOURI WILL BE LOSING ONE OF ITS CONGRESSIONAL SEATS

Posted 3/3/11

Last week the Census Bureau released population for five more states, including Missouri. As has been anticipated, Missouri's population did not grow as quickly as some other states so it will be losing one of its nine Congressional seats.

When you take Missouri's population of just under six million and divide by eight, it means that the new Congressional districts will need to include approximately 750,000 people. To be more precise, the actual number target population number is 748,616. This is a dramatic increase in size from the approximate 622,000 population per district from when the lines were re-drawn after the 2000 census.

Here is a breakdown of the current population of each Congressional District and the change in population that will be needed:

Right now the 1st, 3rd and 5th Districts are held by Democrats. The 1st and 3rd are in St. Louis. The 5th is a substantial portion of Jackson County and a little bit of Cass County. The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th are all held by Republicans.

The speculation is that the 3rd District is the district that will be drawn out of existence. (The districts will obviously be renumbered after being redrawn so that our own 6th District could very likely have a different number in the future.) Russ Carnahan currently is the Congressman from the 3rd District. The speculation that this district will be drawn out of existence is in part because the Republicans have greater control when it comes to drawing the lines. However, there is also a very practical reason that the 3rd District is probably the one to be eliminated. The 3rd District is 123,365 people short of the target. The 1st District is 161,547 people short of its target. The thought is that the 1st District will be expanded into the third to address its population shortfall. Then the rest of the 3rd district will be carved up between the 2nd, 8th and 9th to get to the right population numbers.

Since the per district size of each Congressional District has jumped so dramatically, our own 6th District will need another 54,642 people. Currently the 6th District reaches into Jackson County. If the boundaries of the 5th District were to begin with all of Jackson County, then the 6th would have to pick up what it loses in Jackson County as well as this 54,642. Since the 6th currently takes in all of northwest Missouri, the 6th would have to move eastward.

The challenge for those of us in Platte and Clay Counties is how does the 5th District get redrawn. This district needs to pick up 114,729 more people. Even if the 5th District is expanded to include all of Jackson County, which has a population of 647,000 people, the 5th will still need to find another 100,000 people. The line drawers could look north of the river for these additional people. Let's hope not. I sure like having Sam Graves as my Congressman.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

'NORMAL' PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING LESS SPENDING

Posted 2/24/11

I would like to direct you to a column entitled “The Politics of the New Middle America” by E. J. Dionne published on February 15, 2011 by The American Prospect. You can find the article on-line at http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_politics_of_the_new_middle_america. The article is subtitled: “In 2010, disaffected voters didn't embrace the Republican vision. They looked in vain for the Democratic one.”

I don't believe the subtitle is entirely true. I don't believe that voters “looked in vain” for the Democratic vision. To the contrary, I think voters ran away from the Democratic vision of out of control spending, government takeover of major components of the health care system, more government regulation and higher taxes. I do agree that voters probably didn't “embrace the Republican vision.”The voters probably did embrace the espoused Republican vision, but I'm not sure the voters really believed that Republicans would fully deliver on that vision.

I would be one of the first to express frustration with Republicans in Washington and elsewhere over the last few years. Congressional Republicans “talked the talk” about cutting spending in the early to mid-2000s, but continued to rack up big deficits. For example, the last budget adopted by a Republican-controlled Congress was the fiscal 2007 budget that included a $342 billion deficit. That means the Republican budget spent $342 billion more than the government collected. However, this pales by comparison to the Democrats spending $1.6 trillion (with a T!) more the budgeted revenue in the most recent budget.

Just look at what the Democrat-controlled Congress did to the national debt. When the Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 elections, the national debt was just under $8.7 trillion. Four years later when the Republicans re-took control of the U.S. House, the national debt had ballooned to almost $13.9 trillion. That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

“The Politics of the New Middle America” explores the Democrats efforts to put together a winning coalition made up of a new majority on the basis of well-educated middle- and upper-middle-income white voters allied with African Americans, Hispanics, and the young. This coalition is really a linking of the two opposite ends of the socio-economic ladder. On one end are the limousine liberals who think they know more than other people and should make decisions for the benefit of others. On the other end are the financially less well-off. What is missing from the new Democrat model is the huge chunk of “normal folks” in the middle.

The article blames the shifting in the election outcomes from 2006 and 2008 to 2010 upon Democrats losses among “white working-class voters” shifting from a 10% loss to a 30% loss. These folks are the folks that Obama would say are “bitter” and “clinging to their guns and their religion.” Obama is right. There is clearly a component of the electorate who are dissatisfied with the direction he and his Democrat buddies are taking this country. They do not want the government spending 73% more than what it collects in a given year. These folks are not the Ivy League-educated snooty-types, but they are still smart people that can do basic math. You cannot spend more money than you take in year after year. It simply won't work. Eventually, you have to pay for that over spending.

Hard-working Americans, “white working-class voters,” the “normal” people have not abandoned the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has simply adopted policies that are contrary to common sense and everything these people believe in. Now Republicans must deliver on their promises of less spending to keep these “normal” people as part of their election-winning coalition. All I can say is, they'd better.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA'S STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BUDGET ARE FRAUDULENT

Posted 2/18/11

Just five weeks ago I wrote that former Speaker of the House and now Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was either “. . . seriously 'math challenged' or . . . simply delusional.” This was my response to Pelosi's statement that “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go . . .” even though the Pelosi-led Congress raised the national debt by nearly $5.2 trillion (with a T!) or almost 60% in just four years. President Obama seems to be suffering from the same disorder that is afflicting Pelosi.

In his weekly Saturday address, Obama had the audacity to use a reference to a Missouri teacher's personal sacrifices to fund her daughter's education during the economic downturn to say that the government must now make difficult decision to reduce its debt, while still investing in education for a better future. These are great words. I agree with them. However, you actually have to look at the reality of what Obama is proposing rather than the flowery language he uses to describe his proposed 2012 budget.

Obama's Saturday speech was a prelude to the release of Obama's proposed budget for 2012 on Monday. The federal deficit is expected to increase to $1.65 trillion this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010-Sept. 30, 2011), according to the Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 that was scheduled to be released on Monday. This is an even bigger deficit than the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate of $1.48 trillion. Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 (Oct. 1, 2011--Sept. 30, 2012) calls for $3.73 trillion in government spending in fiscal 2012, which is $1.1 trillion (with a T!) more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.

In his speech on Saturday Obama said, ““So, after a decade of rising deficits, this budget asks Washington to live within its means, while at the same time investing in our future. It cuts what we can't afford to pay for what we cannot do without. That's what families do in hard times. And that's what our country has to do too.”

Living within its means?!?!? Spending $1.1 trillion more than the projected revenues of $2.63 trillion is deficit spending of 42% for the current year. That is cutting what we can’t afford to pay for?!?!?!

Let's state this in terms that we can all understand. Let's say I give each of my daughters $100 to go spend on clothing. They go shopping and each spend $142. To Obama, my daughters would be living within their means. That's crazy!

We are long overdue for a balanced budget amendment. If Obama really wants the federal government to do “what families do,” then he needs to get on board with a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to operate with a balance budget. Republicans pushed a balanced budget amendment after taking control of the U.S. House after the 1994 elections. The proposed amendment actually was passed by the House before dying in the Senate.

I would like to pretend that our elected leaders in Congress can act like grownups and not spend money we don't have. However, they can't. So, there needs to be a balanced budget amendment to keep them from spending the future generations into insurmountable debt.
At the same time the American people and the media need to refuse to accept the ridiculous rhetoric of politicians who speak of the government “living within its means” and “cutting what we can't afford to pay for” when they are proposing massive deficit spending.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

REAGAN AND HIS '77 SPEECH AN INSPIRATION TO MANY TODAY

Posted 2/11/11

Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan! If he were still living, Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 on Sunday, February 6. As I have written before, Ronald Reagan is probably my favorite president of all time. He has inspired me and so many of my friends.

I was in sixth grade when Reagan ran for president in 1976. That year the convention was in Kansas City. My mom and I stayed up watching the tally for the presidential nomination. I kept hoping that somehow Reagan would be able to find the votes he needed to win. He narrowly lost the nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford. After the vote, Reagan was strongly encouraged to come to the floor to give a speech. There have been many reports of convention delegates saying “We just nominated the wrong guy” after hearing that speech. ord, of course, ended up losing to Jimmy Carter in November.

Reagan didn't give up after 1976. In fact, one of his most famous speeches is a speech he gave in 1977. I've heard it referred to as “The New Republican Party.”You can read it for yourself at reagan2020.us/speeches/The_New_Republican_Party.asp. In the speech Reagan talks about how a majority of Americans are conservatives. e advocates for uniting the “economic conservatives” and the “social conservatives” to present a united front on conservatism. I have read the speech many times. The concluding lines of that speech have provided great inspiration to me:

“Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home. We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it.

“The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when?

“Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

“Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. Any organization is in actuality only the lengthened shadow of its members. A political party is a mechanical structure created to further a cause. The cause, not the mechanism, brings and holds the members together. And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America's spiritual heritage to our national affairs.

“Then with God's help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us.”

This February 1977 speech is seen as the foundation of the New Republican Party.
There are many inspiring aspects of Ronald Reagan, his accomplishments and his service to our country. However, the things Reagan talked about in this speech are the principles that motivate so many of us and are the reason that so many of us are active in the Republican Party.

I was going to write about all the great accomplishments of Reagan and his policies. Instead, I think it is enough to say he inspired me and so many of my friends to service. Thank you and happy birthday, Mr. President!

(James Thomas is a Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA NOW TRYING TO MIMIC CLINTON'S POLITICAL STRATEGY

Posted 2/5/11

With the winners of the 2010 elections having only taken the oath of office less than a month ago, attention has already turned to the 2012 elections. I predict that Obama will be very tough to unseat in 2012.

One reason Obama will be tough to beat is that he seems to have learned something from the 2010 elections and something from President Clinton's third and fourth years in office. Obama himself admitted that the Democrats took a shellacking in the 2010 elections. Obama could have simply ignored the public statement provided by the election results the same way he ignored the very vocal public objections to ObamaCare. Obama's approach to ObamaCare in the face of a huge public opposition: full speed ahead. Obama's response to the tax cut fight shows that he is willing to adjust his approach to get reelected.

When Obama first took office, he made statements about cooperating with Republicans on policy issues that went something like “Republicans are free to come along for the ride, but they will have to sit at the back of the bus.” After the 2010 elections, Obama quickly caved on the temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. This was probably a strategic decision. If Obama had blocked the temporary extension of the tax cuts until after the new Congress was seated, the Republicans would have passed them any way, forced Obama to veto them and then he would be the “bad guy.” Even worse for Obama, if he had stood in the way, the Republicans would have probably pushed through a permanent extension of the tax cuts instead of a temporary one. Also, if the tax cuts had expired, it would have sucked billions of dollars out of the economy. This would almost certainly have led to a double dip recession, which would have likely doomed Obama's re-election chances. By postponing the expiration of the tax cuts, Obama has delayed the negative impact on the economy of the expiration of these tax cuts until after the next election cycle.

Obama has also been modifying his political rhetoric. Even though Obama is still advocating for massive amounts of new government spending, he at least is giving that spending a kinder, gentler label of “investment.” Don't be fooled. Obama is still a tax and spend liberal. He still believes in government mandated wealth re-distribution. He is just trying to re-form his public image from being an open socialist/communist. Obama even talks about reducing the deficit. Of course, these statements are made at the same time that he proposes massive spending increases so I'm not sure how he actually hopes to reduce the deficit.

After the Republican Revolution in 1994, Bill Clinton sufficiently reformed his public image to allow him to win a second term. Obama seems to be trying to follow that part of the Clinton strategy.

Clinton had something else going for him. Like Republicans often do, we nominated a presidential candidate because it was “his turn” to be the nominee for president even though he was the wrong person for that particular election cycle. If history teaches us anything, Obama can likely count on Republicans to do that again. The one hope is that the new conservative energy provided by the Tea Party movement will push the Republican Party to pick a solid and reliable conservative as its presidential candidate.

Sadly, the biggest challenge for all Republicans in 2012 will be whether the voters will support conservatives when it comes to making tough decisions on spending. The “squishy middle” abandoned Republicans when they tried to hold the line of spending in 1995. Will that happen again? I hope not. If the government doesn't stop spending so much money, we will all be doomed.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

EVEN GOVERNORS SHOULD BUCKLE THEIR SEAT BELTS

Posted 1/28/2011

A few days ago Governor Jay Nixon was in a car accident. The car he was riding in was rear-ended by another driver. (Imagine the embarrassment/concern of the driver of the other car when he found out that he not only hit a car that was driven by a highway patrolman, but that car also had the governor inside.) Nixon was taken to the hospital for some neck pain, but was released.

I was in a car accident right before Thanksgiving. The other driver was going too fast on a slick, narrow road when he popped over a small hill and found that his lane was blocked by a car attempting to turn left. He slammed on his brakes, skidded across the center line and banged in to me. My recent experience would make me feel sorry for the governor except for one thing: The governor was not wearing his seat belt.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe in the mandatory seat belt law. (The governor did not technically violate the seat belt law because he was in the rear seat of the vehicle so apparently he was not required to be wearing a seatbelt.) I think you should be free to not wear a seat belt. However, if you are a prudent and responsible person you wear your seatbelt at all times.

This isn't a difficult thing to address. My kids get it. Right before we leave the house, there are two questions that are asked. First, do you have everything you need for school/basketball/volleyball or whatever? Second, are you buckled? Only then do we back out of the garage and head down the road. On occasion, I will be messing with something in the front seat as we are heading down the driveway and be momentarily unbuckled or on the way home I might unbuckle about 200 feet before getting to the driveway because I am going to pull up to the mailbox and reach out to get the mail. I immediately get objections from my kids for not being buckled.

I 'm glad my kids were listening when I explained to them the importance of wearing a seatbelt. I have told them about Derrick Thomas' accident on that icy January Sunday. Thomas was driving his Suburban too fast and he and one of his two passengers were not wearing seatbelts. The passenger who was not wearing a seatbelt was thrown from the vehicle and killed. As we all know, Thomas eventually died from injuries suffered in the accident. The guy I point out to my kids is the passenger who was wearing his seatbelt. He was reportedly a little banged up, but walked away from the accident.

Even though I think you are an idiot if you don't wear your seatbelt, I don't think the government should make you. However, I would be fine with there being a legal rule that says if a party is injured in an accident and is not wearing a seatbelt, then that party cannot recover for his or her injuries from that accident unless the party can prove that the injuries could not have been avoided even by wearing a seatbelt.

It is the same idea that I have about motorcycle helmets. I think you would be crazy to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. However, I don't think we should have a law that says you have to wear one. The law should be that if you splatter your brains out on the pavement because you are not wearing a helmet then the party who caused the accident and the taxpayers should not have to pay for your medical bills or your disability unless it can be shown that the helmet would not have prevented your injuries.

I'm not a fan of Governor Nixon's policies, but I don't want to see anyone killed in an accident. So buckle up, Governor!

(Buckle your seat belt and email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

COUNTY MAKING RIGHT MOVES WITH 2011 BUDGET

Posted 1/21/2011

“There is a new sheriff in town.” No. Not really. But there is a new presiding commissioner in the Platte County Administration Building.

I knew that Jason Brown had conservative values. However, I was very concerned that, like other “allegedly” conservative commissioner candidates before him, Brown would not be able to be true to those conservative principles when he actually embarked upon the difficult task of governing and felt the pressure of everyone asking for money. Brown shows early signs of staying true to his conservative principles.

Monday night Brown and fellow commissioner Jim Plunkett came to the Platte County Republican Central Committee meeting to talk about the county's 2011 budget that will be adopted later this month.

Platte County can only budget to spend the amount of money it estimates it will receive for the year. It is true that the “guesstimation” of revenue is simply a guess. However, the idea is to make the best guess possible based upon the information that is available. For 2010 the sales tax revenues came in 3.3% over budget and the use tax revenues came in 10% under budget. The commissioners were nervous because the money they received from the Missouri Department of Revenue in January for sales taxes collected in November actually showed a 13% drop from last year's November sales tax collections. This put the commissioners scrambling to keep the budget under control.

Brown and Plunkett explained that the proposed 2011 budget calls for a reduction in general revenue spending. The 2011 budget projects a 5% decline in sales tax revenue and a 10% decline in use tax revenue. This meant that the 2011 budget had to be less than the 2011 budget by several hundred thousand dollars. Brown and Plunkett explained that the all of the officeholders were very cooperative with the budget cutting process. When the situation was explained to the officeholders they each came forward with items that could be trimmed from their budgets.

After delivering the budget cutting news Brown and Plunkett said “after the bad news, now for the good news.” There was a collective chuckle from the PCRCC members because for nearly all of them the idea that the county would spend less money in 2011 than in 2010 was good news. So, from a conservative perspective, the commissioners actually offered more good news. The commissioners explained that through under control spending in prior years, the budget called for placing $3 million into a narrowband radio fund to begin to fund the cost of the federally-mandated new emergency radio system. This unfunded mandate is going to become a huge issue. Commissioners are trying to get a jump on the anticipated budget burden.

This was the exact opposite of a PCRCC meeting I attended in January of 2004 when the then-commissioners were poised to adopt a budget that included a 17% increase in sales tax revenue despite the auditor's projection of only a 7% increase. The bloated revenue projection was necessary to cover all the anticipated spending so the then-commissioners ignored the auditor's projections. The PCRCC objected to the overly-optimistic revenue projections, but the then-commissioners ignored the PCRCC's feedback. The budget projections sparked a political war that resulted in the two junior commissioners up for election that year being replaced. (The actual sales tax figure for 2004 was a 7.7% increase over 2003.)

Less than a month into his term as presiding commissioner it is too early to tell if Brown will be able to stay true to his conservative principles. However, this action on the budget is certainly a good start.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

NANCY PELOSI IS EITHER MATH-CHALLENGED OR DELUSIONAL

Posted 1/13/2011

Democrats are crazy. Okay. Okay. That is an over-generalization. However, given last week's comments by Nancy Pelosi and the fact that Democrats have re-elected her as their leader, you do have to wonder about the sanity of Democrats who serve in Congress.

At her final press conference as Speaker of the House, Pelosi said “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? Pelosi is either an unashamed liar or she has no connection to reality.

Pelosi became Speaker in January 2007 following the 2006 election cycle, which gave the Democrats control of the House. When Pelosi became Speaker, the national debt was $8,670,589,242.973.04 (i.e., almost $8.7 trillion). On Dec. 22, 2010 (i.e., the last day of the 111th Congress), the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 (i.e., almost $13.9 trillion). That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

The ballooning of the debt is easy to explain. For fiscal 2007 the budget deficit for the year was $342 billion. For fiscal year 2010, the budget deficit was $1.6 trillion. So we went from a place where the Republican-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $342 billion more than it should to a place where the Democrat-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $1.6 trillion more than it should. That means Pelosi and her pals were over spending to the tune of nearly five times the rate of overspending by the Republican-controlled Congress.

There are only two possible explanations to Pelosi's comments. Either she is seriously “math challenged” or she is simply delusional.

When you look at her comments on ObamaCare, it leads one to think it may be a little of both. Pelosi still claims that ObamaCare will result in savings and reduce the deficit. There are some huge tax increases that are part of ObamaCare. These massive tax increases will offset some of the cost of ObamaCare. However, only in a delusional dream are even these huge tax increases enough to cover the increase costs of ObamaCare.

I know a lot of former Democrats, including my friend and fellow columnist Russ Purvis, who have chosen to leave the Democrat Party and become either independents or Republicans. These former Democrats just couldn't stand the insanity and/or stupidity of the leadership of the Democrat Party. I encourage those of you who have conservative values, but who are clinging to the Democrat label to do one of two things: Either leave your party and join us or get rid of the crazy people who are the leaders of your party.

If you do neither of those things and keep the same crazy leadership that promotes crazy liberal policies, you are actually doing me a favor as a Republican activist. As long as a nut-job like Nancy Pelosi is the spokesperson for your party, it improves the prospects for my team to keep on winning.

Even though keeping the crazy liberals that lead your party makes it easier for my team to keeping winning elections, please replace your delusional leadership. These liberal policies are bad for America. The federal government cannot keep spending money it doesn't have. Deficit spending can exist for short periods, but it cannot go on indefinitely. And pretending that you are a deficit hawk when you have actually ballooned the national debt by 60% in four years and the annual deficit by almost fivefold will not help America's economy or restore America's greatness. We--and more importantly, our children-- deserve better.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

HERE’S WHAT THE VOTERS
ARE INTERESTED IN, AND
IT’S NOT COMPROMISE

Posted 1/10/2011

To start the New Year, political columnists often look into their crystal balls to predict the future. I would be the first to tell you that is very difficult to do in politics. Anticipating the outcome of the 2012 elections nearly two years out is extremely difficult.

For one thing, we don't know who the candidates will be. I'm fairly confident that Obama lead the national ticket for the Democrats. I don't have the slightest idea who will lead the Republican ticket.

There are lots of prospective candidates. Sarah Palin probably has bigger “star appeal” than anyone. The conservative grassroots folks would work their tails off for her. However, she has been bashed horrendously by the media so that she may not be an effective candidate. Also, her stepping down as governor in the middle of her term probably hurt her tremendously. alin is probably in the perfect spot right now. She is in a position to make a little money. She can influence elections and remain politically relevant by throwing her support behind select candidates without actually being the candidate. That may be the best place for her.

There are the “also rans” from 2008: Huckabee and Romney. Neither of them could overcome a lackluster McCain campaign in the primaries so I'm not sure how strong either of them is. Haley Barbour would make a great president. He did a great job as chairman of the RNC and has been an excellent governor. However, Barbour spent a few years as a lobbyist so that might hurt his chances. The rumor is that Next Gingrich is toying with the idea of getting in the race. I am a huge Newt fan. What he did with GOPAC and then with the whole “Contract with America” campaign was exceptional. I have read his books and he has a lot of great policy ideas. However, he has a number of skeletons in his closet so he is probably not electable. Hopefully, whoever is the candidate would include Gingrich on a policy team to help develop effective ideas for governing.

A couple of “lesser knowns” would make great candidates: Senator John Thune from South Dakota and Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Both of these guys have some great ideas. However, their name ID is still very low.

Whether Republicans are successful in 2012 is subject to several other things that are out of their control. The economy is sure to have a significant impact. My prediction is that the economy will have recovered from the deep slump during the beginning of Obama's term in office. However, I don't think the economy will be clipping along at full speed. The temporary fix of the new tax law should prevent a double dip recession. However, since the fix was only temporary, I predict that employers will slowly begin to hire back workers, but they will not hire all the workers they might need until there is more certainty with the tax law.

Another important factor is how do Republicans act and how do the voters react to how the Republicans act. In 1995 Republicans stood up against big spending. The spending fight reached an impasse that led to a government shutdown. Stopping big spending is what the voters said they wanted. However, the voters viewed Republicans as the bad guys when they tried to hold the line on spending. This public reaction is probably why so many Republicans lost their conservative roots and went on spending sprees to please their constituents. If the Republicans try to hold the line on spending again and the voters act this way in response, that will be very damaging to the fiscal conservative movement.

Then there is the most important factor. The Republicans have a history of nominating the wrong candidate (e.g., Ford, Dole and McCain). If history repeats itself, we will have another four years of Obama.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

For earlier columns click here.

FUNDAMENTALISTS VS. BIBLE MINIMALISTS

Posted 7/8/11

FUNDAMENTALISTS VS. BIBLE MINIMALISTS

Posted 7/8/11

One topic discussed in Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, is how a voter's position on one issue will dictate his or her position on many others.

I found this to be true a long time ago. I have always been “pro-life,” but I did not realize how significant this position was until I became actively involved in Republican politics. What I quickly discovered is that a candidate's position on abortion is a litmus test issue that will indicate that candidate's position on many other issues. I have noticed that anyone who would self-describe one's self as pro-life tended to be pro-gun, pro-business and anti-tax. To the contrary, if a candidate was self-described as “pro choice,” they were opposed to private gun ownership, viewed government and not private industry as the answer to every problem and supported every tax increase to ever be proposed. Now there were occasional exceptions, but in my experience these exceptions have been very few.

Bishop actually discussed a different question, but one that had a very similar pattern to the abortion question.

Before discussing this question, Bishop broke down church membership into two segments. One segment is what he calls Private Protestantism, which “promoted individual salvation and promised that personal morality would be rewarded in the next life.” The other segment is Public Protestantism, which said that “the way to God required the transformation of society.” Bishop notes that those who are Private Protestants essentially are Republicans and those who are Public Protestants are essentially Democrats.

Bishop refers to a study of the 2004 presidential election results by a political scientist at East Carolina University that indicates sorting people by their beliefs about the Bible is one of the most telling things about those persons' position on political issues. Bishop uses certain definitions. “Fundamentalists” are those that believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Fundamentalists accounted for nearly half of the voters in red states and only 28% of the voters in blue states. “Bible Minimalists” are those who believe that the Bible was the work of men and not God. The Bible Minimalists accounted for 12% of the voters in red states and 18% in blue states. “Moderates” are those who believe that the Bible was the Word of God, but shouldn't be taken literally. The Moderates accounted for 38% of the voters in red states and 53% of the voters in blue states.

The study didn't just look at whether Fundamentalists, Bible Minimalists or Moderates lived in red or blue states. The study looked at certain issues. For example, 80% of Fundamentalists opposed spending any government money on abortions. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored government spending for abortions. Nine out of ten Fundamentalists in red states opposed gay marriage. Three-fourths of Biblical Minimalists in blue states favored gay marriage.

The tracking of Biblical views and political issues was not limited to political issues that are tied to “faith” like abortion and gay marriage. The study also found that Fundamentalist supported the Republican agenda (e.g., a strong military and jobs over the environment) while Biblical Minimalists supported the Democrat agenda (e.g., less support a strong military and favoring the environment over jobs).

The study concluded that the 2004 election was “. . . not a culture war between red states and blue states, but rather a war between Fundamentalists and Biblical Minimalists within both red and blue states.” The study is not a surprise. It is something that I have seen for nearly two decades of participating in politics.

Next week will likely be the last week discussing The Big Sort. The topic is the Democrats’ primary problem: elitism.

PARTISANS ARE THE ONES WHO VOTE, DONATE AND WORK

Posted 7/2/11

In Bill Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, Bishop notes that over the last 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so nearly half of all Americans live, socialize and worship with people of similar political ideologies. Bishop blames this “sorting” for what he sees as an ever increasing partisanship, whether Democrat or Republican, and extremism, whether liberal or conservative, in America.

Bishop traces significant influences for this sorting to the summer of 1965. Numerous events occurred in this time frame. Lyndon Johnson pushed Congress to create Medicare and Medicaid, the war in Vietnam escalated significantly, there were dramatic accomplishments and tragedies with the civil rights movement followed by the racial disaster of the Watts Riot. Bishop notes how all of these events led to a dramatic decline in the public's trust of government and of political parties.

Following the summer of 1965 Bishop notes that individuals began to shift their places of residence, church memberships and political allegiances to “like-minded” people. The fact that Bishop finds part of this odd is surprising to me. I would contend that clear differences between political parties is important to the viability and success of political parties. I know that many of my Republican allies became disenchanted and quit donating and volunteering when they felt that Republicans were simply becoming “watered-down” versions of the Democrats. (At the time it seemed they were right. However, after four years of a Democrat-controlled Congress hopefully everyone will remember that big spending Republicans can't even come close to Democrats in spending.)

Bishop complains that “sorting” is causing political parties to adopt more extreme positions. In part he is right. However, I would argue the difference is between “more distinct” positions rather than more “extreme” positions. For example, it would be very difficult for a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-tax candidate to survive in the Republican Party. Likewise, it would be very difficult for a pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-tax Democrat to survive in his party.
Before the 2008 election a friend and I were having lunch one day and he expressed concern that the Republican Party was too dominated by the pro-life forces. (He himself is a pro-life Catholic. He just happens to be a businessman who is more concerned with fiscal issues than social issues.) I quickly asked him how many dollars and how much time he had given to Republican candidates in the last election cycle. The answer to both was “None.” I told him he just proved my point.

After a hard-working candidate the next two most important things for a successful political campaign are volunteers and cash. As someone who helps raise money and who works with volunteers, I told him that the pro-life advocates are some of the best donors and the hardest workers in the Party. I agree with the position of the pro-life advocates, but even if I didn't, the Republican Party could not survive without their time and money.

I told my friend if he wanted to reduce the influence of the pro-life advocates he could do so by writing a check and volunteering his time.

Bishop reminisces that our “ninth-grade civics version of American democracy may have told us that as citizens come to understand both sides of an issue, they're emboldened by knowledge and set off to engage in the exciting work of self-government.” However, Bishop admits “that's not the way it works.” He notes that “hearing both sides of an issue – and seeing the gray in most questions – is the ticket to withdrawal.” As scientific studies have shown “partisans are the ones who vote and who donate to and work on campaigns.”

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

STUDY: PEOPLE OF A PARTY WILL ADOPT POSITIONS OF A PARTY

Posted 6/24/11

I already finished the book I started last week: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. Even though the author was clearly an “off the deep end” liberal, he was a very good writer and his bias only came through on a few occasions. As I mentioned in last week's column, the basic premise of Bishop's book is that over the past 30 years Americans have voluntarily “sorted” themselves into “like-minded” communities so that by 2004 nearly half of all Americans lived in “landslide counties,” which Bishop defines as counties where the voters go for one presidential candidate or the other by over 20 percentage points.

Bishop's concern with this “sorting” is reflected in the subtitle to his book “Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.” One of Bishop's themes is that there is an ever disappearing “middle.” Instead there is an “Us” and a “Them.” This separation into various “camps” and actually living around and socializing with only like-minded people is creating an ever more partisan approach to politics. Bishop views this partisanship as destructive to well-reasoned political discourse and the developing of solutions to society's problems.

Bishop doesn't just rely on antidotal evidence. He discusses several scientifically conducted studies. These studies found that where a people are grouped together with other like-minded people they will arrive at a more extreme, whether more liberal or more conservative, group position than the average position of the individual members of the group. The studies indicate where a group of like-minded people are put together for the purpose of discussing an issue, they seem to “over adopt” the position of the group. This may be an effort to fit in or it may be that the more extreme participants are able to pull more people closer to their position when the members of the group start on the same general side of an issue.

Bishop also discusses studies that show that people of a particular party will adopt the positions of their party even if these positions were not previously held. I am reminded of a story that former U.S. Senator Jim Talent once told me about former Congress Dick Gephardt. Talent and Gephardt apparently grew up not far from each other. They came from families with similar values. Talent also said that Gephardt used to be “pro-life.” However, when Gephardt wanted to rise to a position of prominence in the Democrat Party, he switched to the “pro-abortion” position of the national Democrat party. The reverse happened with our former State Representative/Senator Charlie Shields. He was originally pro-abortion, but early in his political career switched to being pro-life. This may have been a moment of enlightenment or simply an important strategic move for political survival. Regardless of the reason, Shields shifted to conform to his party's position.

I have personally experienced this “shifting” in ideology. I have always believed that the Second Amendment had meaning and importance, but it did not used to be a “hot button” issue for me. However, during my years of being involved in politics the importance of the Second Amendment to me as a political issue has dramatically increased. I now truly appreciate the risk of liberals trying to take away the guns and freedoms of hard-working honest Americans. (In reality my attitudes probably didn't actually “shift,” but instead I simply developed a deeper appreciation of this particular issue.)

The place where Bishop's liberal bias slips out is where he refers to Congress as “do nothing” because it has failed to increase the minimum wage, address global warming and other liberal causes. Bishop blames the “sorting” for the “deepening pool of discord” that has prevented Congress from passing legislation on these issues. As a conservative, I actually see it as a victory that Congress has not passed new laws to deal with these issues.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DO FOLKS VOLUNTARILY MOVE TO AREAS OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE?

Posted 6/18/11

This weekend I started a new book: The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. I was very interested in reading this book because I had already read a few excerpts from the book on-line. The basic premise of Bishop is that housing patterns over the last 30 years have shown that Democrats are moving into Democrat neighborhoods and Republicans are moving into Republican neighborhoods.

When I first started the book, I was not sure I was going to like it. The author made it clear that he was an “off the deep end” liberal. He described his house hunting exercise when he relocated to Austin. Things that appeal to him in his neighborhood would be disturbing to someone like me. For example, soon after the beginning of the Iraq War Bishop's neighborhood protested by printing t-shirts and bumper stickers. The “off the deep end” liberal demographic makeup of his neighborhood was reflected at the polls in the 2000 presidential election. Bush won Texas with 60% of the vote. However, in Bishop's neighborhood Bush finished third behind both Gore and Nader. When I created a mental picture of the area where Bishop lived, I pictured something like Brookside on steroids.
Bishop pointed out that when he initially chose his neighborhood he was not looking to live around like-minded liberals. It just happened to work out that way.

It was a few years after Bishop had moved to Austin that he began to consider the issue of whether people were voluntarily sorting themselves into Democrat and Republican neighborhoods. In fact, his initial study did not actually begin as a political analysis. He was initially considering “why some communities develop vibrant economies and others stagnate.”

I could easily answer the question for him. The areas that are run by Democrats are “going in the toilet” and the areas run by Republicans are expanding and improving their economies. Now my conclusions are based upon observation without the benefit of statistical analysis, but that is what I have been able to observe. For example, Platte County has been experiencing a steady boom over the last two decades while the Jackson County portion of Kansas City keeps going downhill. The same is true in urban areas all over the country. These urban areas where Democrats are the strongest are generally experiencing serious difficulties while suburban areas that are able to escape the failed Democrat policies are able to grow and expand.

Some may attempt to argue that many portions of Platte County that have experienced a boom are within the city limits of Kansas City. That is true. However, I would argue that if these areas were free of the poor management and financial drain of what Yale Abouhalkah of the KC Star calls “Kansas City proper” that the success would be far more than what we have actually experienced.

Soon after Bishop started his analysis, he stumbled on a 30-year trend in housing patterns. He found that areas of the country were becoming more Democrat or more Republican over time. A central aspect of this analysis was a study of presidential election results from 1976 or 2004. He separated counties as “competitive” based upon whether there was a margin of less than 20 points in the presidential election. Counties with a margin of 20 points or more were considered landslide counties. In 1976 just over 26% of the voters lived in landslide counties. By 2004 48.3% of voters lived in landslide counties.

Bishop has extensive statistical data to support his conclusions that people are voluntarily moving near like-minded people. He offers a much more in depth analysis that expands beyond the results of presidential elections. I'll likely share some of that in later columns. However, if you can't wait, go out and order his book. I found it on Amazon.com. Bishop may be an “off the deep end” liberal, but he is certainly a good writer.

HOW MUCH IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON A PER-PERSON BASIS?

Posted 6/11/11

Unless you are a crazy liberal like Obama or Pelosi, you would probably say that the current levels of spending by the federal government are out of control. (You can see my Jan. 12 and Feb. 16 column for quotes from Obama and Pelosi that show a disconnection of their sense of reality from the actual math of the federal budget.) In considering how much money the federal government is spending, I wanted to consider the problem from a different perspective. How much is the federal government spending on a per person basis?

I looked up a few numbers and did some simple calculations. Obama's proposed budget for next year calls for spending of $3.73 trillion. (Never mind that that number happens to be over $1.1 trillion more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.) When you divide that $3.73 trillion in spending by the approximately 330 million people in this country that calculates to spending just over $11,300 per person.

Let's put that in perspective. The income level identified as being the poverty level for a single person by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2011 is $10,890. What that means is that a person who precisely hits the top income for the HHS' definition of poverty does not have enough income to fund his or her share of government spending if that person gave every nickel to the government. (Keep in mind that we are talking about poverty on a “per person” basis and not a household basis. A family of four is below the poverty level at $22,350.)

Think about that a different way. A family of four would need to contribute $45,200 to fund its share of the Obama's proposed annual government spending. What income level does a family of four earn to hit this level of taxation? If a married couple has a husband and a wife who EACH make $100,000, they would EACH pay $7,650 in Social Security and Medicare Taxes. If they have approximately $50,000 of itemized deductions and personal exemptions, they would pay another approximately $30,000 in income taxes. This would roughly equal this family's share of the per capita cost of government.

Of course, the average American family does not have two $100,000 per year incomes. In reality the average income is $39,527. This generates nowhere near the needed per person level of taxation. (Of course, not all the cost of government is funded from taxes that come from individuals.)

The current level of spending is just crazy. The budgeting process comes down to a simple question of setting priorities.

In building a budget, the federal government must start with a different question. Instead of asking “how much does the government want to spend?” the first question MUST be “How much does the government have available to spend?” (This number is projected to be $2.63 trillion for the next fiscal year.) Then the federal government needs to work through a list of priorities on what it is going to fund. Some really good projects and programs may be left unfunded. However, the government simply cannot spend money it does not have.

I would like Obama and Congress to act like grown-ups and do their job of setting priorities and balancing the budget. However, if they can't, there is a simple solution. The 2008 budget proposed by Bush included projected spending of $2.9 trillion. We could start by cutting every department back to that level of spending. That would create 90% of the cuts that are needed. Then we can start looking for the other 10% in cuts that are needed. Sadly, Obama and Pelosi actually think over $1 trillion per year in deficits make them deficit hawks.

DESPITE HICCUPS, MARTIN LUTHER ACADEMY HAS BEEN GREAT EXPERIENCE

Posted 5/28/11

My oldest daughter, Shannon, is graduating from Martin Luther Academy this week. (MLA only goes to the 8th grade.) MLA has provided a great learning environment for Shannon and her younger sister, Anne.

The birth of MLA began in early 1997. Shannon was born that year. Todd Graves' oldest child, Katie, was born just three weeks before Shannon. In early 1997, Todd came to me and said “What do you think about starting a private school?” It seemed like a great idea to me, but we needed to study the concept. A steering committee was formed for that purpose by the three Lutheran churches in Platte County.

The steering committee had focus groups and did various analysis of the potential demand for a private school. The data indicated there was a great demand, but it seemed like a bigger project than three churches could take on. Then we met Steve Ewert. He was also interested in starting a school in the Northland. So, we joined forces, created an association and expanded the project to Clay and Platte Counties.

MLA initially opened in a leased building in the fall of 2003, but at the end of the lease MLA had to “temporarily” move to Christ Lutheran Church in Platte Woods. MLA was there for six and half years.

MLA has had ups and downs along with way. In 2002 land just north of 108th Street was purchased. This property was eventually traded for land just south of 108th Street.

However, the neighboring developer went under without completing the improvements he was required to make to his property to provide better access to the property. So MLA still can't use the property the way it would like.

Last year the association bought a church building at 7112 N. Overland Drive. The association renovated the building and added a gym. MLA moved in to the new building over Christmas break.

Despite the hiccups along the way, the school has been a great experience. There are hundreds of people who have worked to make the school a reality and who continue to work to make it an on-going success. I wish I could thank all of them by name, but the list is just too long. So, let me just thank a few.

First, thank you to Todd Graves. It was his idea in the first place. Without his inspiration, we would have never taken the first steps. Thank you to Pastor Krueger, who if he had nixed the idea at the outset it would have likely died right then. Thank you to Steve Ewert who was MLA's first board president. He provided a positive attitude even as the school went through some of its most challenging times. Also, MLA would not have gotten into its new building on budget without his efforts as “construction supervisor.” Thank you to Mary Smith. She served on the school's first board of directors. She stepped down this year after 11 years of service. She has been MLA's longest serving board member. She has provided strong leadership and a historical perspective for all of MLA's endeavors. Thank you to all of those who have donated time and talent to MLA. Without their perseverance, MLA would have never made it to this point.

Thanks especially to MLA's faculty and staff who have done so much to educate our children. MLA offers an exceptional academic product in a loving, Christian environment. In fact, the scores of MLA's student's national testing put MLA in the 97th Percentile. That's great!

Now don't get me wrong. I am an advocate of all forms education – public, private and home schooling. However, as my oldest daughter moves on to high school, I am especially thankful for the educational experience that MLA has been for her. I wish Shannon and all her friends well as they embark on the next chapter in their lives.

(James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S UP TO INDIVIDUALS TO ADDRESS THEIR OWN SITUATIONS

Posted 5/20/11

Plato, Missouri was the site of a big celebration this week. The U.S. Census Bureau has announced that Plato is the population center of the United States. Plato -- with a population of 109 -- is located in Texas County, which is in southern Missouri about halfway between Cape Girardeau and Springfield.

What caught my interest was not something from the speeches of Governor Jay Nixon or Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson. No. What caught my interest was an editorial from St. Louis Today entitled “What does Plato tell us about the state of poverty in nation?”

The premise of the article is that Plato, Texas County and much of rural Missouri is poor. In its analysis the article points to median household income figures of Texas County compared to the U.S. as a whole and Missouri as a whole. Some of this analysis is misplaced. The cost of living in other parts of the country and even other parts of Missouri is dramatically different. It costs a lot less to live in small town Missouri than other places.

The editorial also fails to consider that whether or not you are “rich” or “poor” is not necessarily something that can be measured in dollars. I grew up on a farm. It is a great place to raise a family. Money was something we were short of, but the quality of life was great even without the big dollars. However, the editorial does have a valid point that the folks in Plato are less well off financially than people in other parts of Missouri and other parts of America.

The concluding statements of the editorial are what bothered me. It said “Poverty is real. Our children are at risk. What are we willing to do about it?”

My objection to the concluding question is the emphasis on who is doing the acting: “What are we willing to do about it?” Once again the liberals on the editorial board of St. Louis Today miss the point. It is not up to us to address individual poverty. It is up to individuals to address their own situation.

The day after I read this editorial, I received my daily e-mail from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In it was a quote from Les Brown. Brown said, “If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”

Brown has it right. Achieving wealth or happiness, whether measured in dollars or by something else, is not up to someone else. It is up to each individual. Now I appreciate that the editorial board may point out that there are a lot of children who live in poverty through no fault of their own. However, the persons who are responsible for that situation are the parents of those children. These parents must accept responsibility for their situation and take steps to change it. Of course, these individuals may not want to take the steps to change their situation. If these individuals are not willing to take the steps to change their own situation, there is really little we can do for them.

The one thing we absolutely should not do is supplement the lifestyle of these individuals with government handouts with no expectation of them doing some sort of work for that financial support. I am a strong advocate for giving someone a “hand up” to help them through hard times. However, we can't let that “hand up” become a “handout” that essentially becomes a lifestyle choice funded by others. If we do that, we are not doing these individuals any favors. Instead we are dooming them to a life of dependency with little hope of that changing in their lifetimes or even their children's lifetimes. That is a disservice to these individuals. Also, it will not give them the American dream. Instead it will make them the American nightmare.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CHANGING DISTRICT BOUNDARIES WON'T SAVE THE DEMOCRATS

Posted 5/13/11

The Missouri General Assembly has completed its redrawing of the Congressional District boundaries. (Redistricting for the State House and State Senate is just getting started.) The General Assembly passed a map and sent it to the Governor. The Governor vetoed the map. However, the map was quickly overridden by the General Assembly after the Republicans got four Democrat members of the House – with encouragement from Democrat Congressmen Cleaver and Clay -- to support the override.

Democrats are crying because Congressman Carnahan has been drawn into the same district with Clay. However, as a result of the new census figures, Missouri is dropping from nine Congressmen to eight Congressmen. So, at least two incumbent Congressmen were going to have to be drawn into the same district. Also, Clay's district was about 20% short of its population target. Clay did not want the district to look to the Republican-leaning areas to the north or west of his district for more people so he gladly accepted Democrat-leaning areas from Carnahan's district. Carnahan was already about 20% short of people. The loss of another 20% to Clay left him about 40% short of people. So, it makes sense that the remainder of Carnahan's under-sized district was divided up among the other districts to reach their population target.

The Democrat leaders in the General Assembly are also whining because they claim the new districts supposedly create six Republican and only two Democrat district. However, when applying the proper redistricting principles of “communities of interest,” where people with common interests are grouped into the same districts, the maps are appropriate because Missouri's Democrat voters seem to be heavily concentrated.

The problem for Democrats in Missouri is a national trend analyzed by Bill Bishop in his 2008 book entitled The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of America is Tearing Us Apart. Bishop has analyzed housing trends over the last three decades and concludes that Americans have been voluntarily separating themselves into more homogenous communities of like-minded people. The result is that Republicans and Democrats are clustering together. This is creating a trend of areas that consistently vote overwhelming for one party or the other.
This trend is clearly present in Missouri. Just look at the red and blue maps from the 2010 state-wide elections. (You can find these maps on the Missouri Secretary of State's website.) The map from the 2010 U.S. Senate race shows that the only counties that were won by the Democrat candidate were the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. The rest of the map is red.

The Democrats want to point to the close presidential election of 2008 as a basis for why a supposedly 6-2 map is unfair. Well they need to actually study the election results more carefully. Yes. McCain won Missouri by only 3,903 votes. However, Missouri was still geographically a very red state with Obama only winning the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, St. Louis City and Boone, Buchanan, Jefferson, St. Louis, St. Genevieve and Washington Counties. The other 108 counties were red. So, when you draw a constitutionally-mandated map that is “contiguous” and “compact as possible,” the Democrats have so heavily grouped themselves into the same general areas that they have voluntarily created the situation.

Of course, the real problem is that the ideas of the national Democrat party just don't sell well in Missouri. So, changing district boundaries wouldn't really save the Democrats. They need to change their platform to win.

Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S TIME TO STOP THE FLOW OF RED INK

Posted 5/5/11

There are moments that can change the course of history: a spring day in 1775 when a bunch of farmers and small townsfolk stood in a field in opposition to the most powerful military in the world, a hot summer in 1776 at a convention hall in Pennsylvania when the Declaration of Independence was hammered out, a few years later at another convention hall where the U.S. Constitution was drafted. We have a chance for another one of those historic moments this spring. There is an opportunity for America's greatness to be protected for the future.

What is that potential historic moment? It is the decision on whether to raise the debt ceiling for the federal government and what strings, if any, are tied to any increase in the debt ceiling.

I would prefer that no increase of the debt ceiling be allowed. However, I am also a pragmatist. I accept the reality of the difficulty in immediately cutting the current out-of-control spending by the federal government and the sudden jolt it might give to the weakened economy if Congress really would make the hard decisions that it needs to make about spending in a single fiscal year. Given this reality, I understand that some increase of the debt ceiling is regrettably necessary. However, even though some modest increase may be necessary to avoid too dramatic of a shock to the economy, any agreement to an increase of the debt ceiling should come with strings and limitations.

My first limitation would be that the first year's increase in the debt ceiling should be limited to the 2008 budget deficit, which was about $1 trillion less than the budget deficit for Obama's first year in office. Thereafter, small increases in the debt ceiling might be allowed for the next few years, but eventually no further increases should be allowed. In fact, we should probably have a requirement that the debt ceiling has to start shrinking.

The most important limitation is that no vote on the increase of the debt ceiling will occur until a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by Congress as provided for under Article V of the Constitution. This balanced budget amendment might have a clause that permits the provisions of the balanced budget amendment to be ignored by Congress upon a two-thirds majority vote of Congress. This would allow flexibility for when an overwhelming majority in Congress believes that a crisis requires the federal government to borrow more money.

The political hypocrisy simply has to stop. For example, a couple of weeks ago a clip was played on the radio of the then-Sen. Obama being critical of increasing the debt ceiling as part of approving one of Bush's proposed budgets. I wanted to scream. Obama's proposed budgets for his first two years in office have increased the federal debt by more than all eight years of Bush's presidency.

Don't get me wrong. I'm mad at Bush and prior Congressmen for spending too much. However, their annual deficits are dwarfed by Obama's most recent plan to spend over 50% more than the government takes in.

I hope Congress takes this opportunity to “make history” and stop the flow of red ink. This is a huge deal! I truly believe that if the deficit spending does not stop that America will no longer be the greatest nation on earth. This single vote could determine whether America will remain a great nation or whether it will eventually go the way of the Greeks, the Romans and all the other collapsed civilizations. Regardless, history will be made.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

DON'T LET EMOTIONS OVERWHELM JUDGMENT

Posted 4/29/11

The “Prime Directive” from Star Trek prohibits interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. This concept is not just one of modern science fiction. The idea is a concept dating back to the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty from 1648 that had as one of its essential principles the non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state. The principles of the Prime Directive and/or the Peace of Westphalia are important concepts when considering the appropriateness of the U.S.'s involvement in Libya and its role earlier this year in regime change in Egypt.

Libya has never been our friend. Under Khadafi's rule, Libya has been a sponsor of terrorism. However, when President Bush announced America's War on Terror and a policy to hold nations that harbor or support terrorists accountable, Khadafi fell in line and opened his country to UN inspectors and acted like he was changing his ways.

In Egypt, Mubarak was an elected leader. Mubarak was an ally to the U.S. in the first Gulf War and the War on Terror. We may not agree with how he operates his country domestically, but he has been a friend of the U.S.

Although the media frequently described the protesters in Egypt and the rebels in Libya as heroes, if you read between the lines, the media noted that many of the protesters were “unemployed youth,” which sounds a lot like unemployed rebel rousers. Also, although there were lots of protestors in the streets of Egypt and Libya, these protesters were still a very small part of the population. And, at least in Egypt, there were elections scheduled to be held in less than two years to choose new leaders.

Let's look at the situation in Egypt and Libya from a different perspective. Let's look at the anti-ObamaCare and Tea Party protesters as in the same role as the protesters in Egypt and Libya. Would we condone these protesters resorting to violence to get their way? Would we condone foreign support of these protesters including military strikes into our country in support of these protesters? I don't think so.

I will quickly concede that the unleashing of modern military power on a civilian population would have devastating consequences. It should not happen. As a husband and father, I would have a problem sitting on the sidelines and watching this happen if I had the full capacity of the most powerful military force in the world available at my beck and call to prevent it. However, let's ignore the emotional aspects for a minute. The question is whether the U.S. government should intervene based upon appropriate standards of international conduct?

Once again, I don't think so. Individual countries have a right to determine their own internal affairs. We should not interfere with the domestic matters of other countries if these countries are not threatening their neighbors. (I know at some point, Bush's invasion of Iraq was labeled as an effort to liberate the Iraqi people. I always viewed the invasion under its original purpose of sending in 250,000 weapons inspectors because Saddam was refusing to comply with the inspection requirements).

Khadafi and to a lesser extent Mubarak have not treated their people the way they should. I certainly do not want Khadafi slaughtering innocent civilians in the course of putting down a rebel uprising. An argument might be made that protecting innocent civilians is a legitimate exception to the Peace of Westphalia/Prime Directive. Maybe this is like when Kirk or Picard ignores the Prime Directive and risks court martial to pursue a “greater good” notwithstanding the legal question marks surrounding his actions. However, as Picard argues in the “Pen Pals” episode, “the Prime Directive is meant to prevent us from letting our emotions overwhelm our judgment.” Food for thought.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA COATS HIS TOILET PLAN IN A WRAPPER OF 'HOPE'

Posted 4/22/11

Obama went into full campaign mode last week when he gave a speech at George Washington University on Wednesday. He needed to do so.

Obama and the Democrats are under enormous pressure from all of their potential voters. The freeloaders that live off the rest of us are crying about potentially losing some of their freebies and having to work for a living like the rest of us. The hard working middle class folks who sometimes vote for Democrats because they are deceived by the erroneous Democrat mantra that the Republican Party is for the rich people have figured out that the out of control spending by Obama is unsustainable and will eventually lead to the downfall of America.

Faced with all this pressure, Obama gave a very well crafted speech in which he appears optimistic about America, opposed to budget deficits while being opposed to cutting any “essential” spending.

Obama referred to some historical efforts at compromise. He referred to a compromise reached between the senior George Bush and the Democrats in Congress to raise taxes to keep the funding in place for our troops during the first Gulf War. [Of course, Obama fails to point out that those tax increases are the primary reason the senior Bush was a one term president.]

Obama blames Bush for the soaring deficits. Once again, Obama ignores the facts. The collective deficits run up during Bush's eight years in office are less than the deficits that Obama has run up in his first two years in office. Also, while saying he wants to cut spending, Obama actually proposes over $1 trillion (WITH A T!!) in deficits in his next budgets for multiple years into the future. Don't get me wrong. Bush and the Republicans who controlled Congress from 2001 – 2006 are not without blame. However, their out of control spending is dwarfed by what Obama has done in his first two years.

My fear is that Obama might just get away with it. I see it as very possible that Obama gets a second term. Obama is a brilliant campaigner. He can tell people he's going to spend America into a deep hole that will eventually destroy our country, but he has the ability to say it with such charm and poise that those voters that make up the squishy middle may just fall for his claims to want to cut the deficit.

One thing that will help him get away with it is his carefully chosen words. When he talks about raising taxes, he claims to only want to raise taxes on “the rich” or “millionaires and billionaires.” Of course, his plan is to raise taxes on anyone who makes over $200,000.

If you really listen carefully to what Obama is saying, he lays out his plan to make America a much more socialistic or even communistic country. He wants to take money from one group of people and give it to another. He said the same things in the 2008 campaign and crazy freeloaders flocked to him because “Obama is going to pay my mortgage and pay for my groceries.” (Do you remember the interview with the near-orgasmic woman from the big event right before the election?) He coats this plan to flush America down the toilet in a wrapper of “hope.” Unless people really pay attention, he just might achieve his goal.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

IT'S NOT A 'CUT' SINCE 'IT' WAS NEVER IN PLACE

Posted 4/15/11

As usual the “big” media outlets are inaccurately describing a political issue when they are “reporting” on the federal government's budget crisis. They continue to fail to identify the real culprits in this crisis and fail to accurately describe what they are calling “cuts.”

The federal budget cycle runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. So, the current budget year began on Oct. 1 of last year and is set to expire on Sept. 30 of this year. Of course, the media does not want to point this out because that would squarely put the blame on this crisis where it belongs.

The current budget year began before the 2010 elections. Congress should have adopted a budget early in 2010. However, even if Congress didn't adopt a budget until the last day of the prior budget year, the budget should have been adopted more than a month before the 2010 elections.

Why was the budget not adopted before the current budget year began? The answer is simple. The Democrats in control of Congress failed to do their most basic function--adopt a budget. Of course, the Democrats didn't want to adopt a budget. The reason is that if they did, they would have likely been beaten up even worse in the November election cycle.
The media needs to be accurate about placing blame for why there is not a budget. When the Democrats controlled Congress they failed to adopt a budget. The Democrats had a significant majority in the House. Democrats in the Senate were just shy of a filibuster proof majority. And, no filibuster was attempted to block the budget. No. The failure to adopt a budget falls entirely at the feet of former Speaker Pelosi and former Senate Majority Leader Reid and their Congressional majorities. The media needs to make this clear.

The media is also mislabeling the process of what is going on now with the various continuing resolutions to keep the government in operation without actually adopting a budget for the full fiscal year. The media is continuously referring to “cuts” being made. This is completely inaccurate. There is no budget so nothing can possibly be ‘cut!’ It may be that the continuing resolution approves less money for spending on particular items than was in Obama's proposed budget for this budget year or for that same item in the prior year's budget. However, nothing is being cut if it has not been approved yet.

This whole situation is outrageous to me! The most basic function of the legislature is to adopt a budget for the current fiscal year. The legislature can argue about guns, gays, abortion or other “hot button” political issues. However, no resolution of these issues has to be reached in any given year. The one piece of business that absolutely must be addressed each year is the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And, it should be required that this is resolved before the fiscal year begins or the government does not have authority to spend any money.

The short term resolution reached last week on the budget is only a stop gap measure. The budget fight will continue. Although I am passionate about many of the social issues, this budgetary fight will decide whether America continues to be a great nation or whether it declines into oblivion.

The first question is a simple one. Is the government going to continuing to spend more than it takes in? If it does, the federal government and the nation will eventually collapse. It is simple math. Unlimited deficits are not sustainable. But, as this debate goes on, don't be misled by the “not so mainstream” media's explanation of who is to blame for the current crisis and whether anything is actually a “cut.”

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

VOTING BY MAIL SYSTEM WOULD BE A BAD IDEA

Posted 4/7/11

The talk continues for the prospect of early voting and/or voting by mail. This idea is based on good intentions, but it is a really bad idea.

First, such a system has a tremendous prospect for fraud. Without photo ID it is hard to control fraud when people physically show up to vote. Just imagine how bad it would be if the voters didn't even have to show up at the polls.

Second, early voting will dramatically disrupt political campaigns. People pushing such an idea must have no concept of how political campaign works. Let's focus on a “little” campaign (i.e., something well below a major state-wide campaign). If you are running for county clerk or some similar office, you start your campaign nine months to a year before election day. About six to eight months before the election you start going door to door and hitting every parade and chili supper in your district that comes along. As the election gets closer you hit up all your friends and family to run a phone bank in the few weeks right before the election. One purpose of those phone calls is to find yard sign locations. Two weeks to 10 days before election day you go out and put up your hard signs. You don't have much money so you only can send one piece of mail and you may have to target your voters because you can't send it to every household. You generally send that piece of mail sometime during the last week before the election. The whole campaign is a crescendo that ends on election day. If the early voting advocates get their way, the mail for these candidates would not reach voters before they vote. That is simply wrong.

I will admit that early voting for something like president or a major state-wide office could occur with a minimal disruption of the campaign process. However, these campaigns are designed to reach a crescendo on election day. Even well funded below-governor statewide campaigns often only have enough money for one or two weeks of TV advertising. So, even these statewide candidates could be virtually unknown to the voters.

If the desire is to address the inconvenience of voting, then the number of election days could be reduced. There are too many “secret” elections at this point. Elections could be limited to April, August and November. No more secret February, June or October elections that few voters know about. (The Kansas City primary might be the one exception to this voting schedule.)

On occasion, some folks have trouble getting to the polls.That is what absentee ballots are for.I got called out of town at the last minute for business one April and realized I was going to miss the election. I just ran by the election board's office and cast my ballot on the way out of town. Or just this week I had to go to Jeff City on Tuesday. I just went to vote soon after the polls opened at 6 a.m. and then headed out of town. It really wasn't that difficult.
When I go vote it never adds more than 20 minutes to my morning.I take my girls to school in the morning. I make them be ready a little earlier than usual. We go to our polling place, which is actually in the opposite direction of the school, cast a ballot and still get to school in plenty of time. This trip to the polls before school is actually an important training experience for my girls.

I know the early voting advocates mean well, but they need to quit complaining about the convenience of voting. It is a privilege to vote. It is our civic duty. It really isn't that hard for all of us to vote on the same day. Just go and cast your ballot and stop complaining.

(James Thomas is an active Republican who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

RECRUITING IS KEY TO SUCCESS IN LOCAL POLITICS

Posted 4/1/11

Let me throw out a radical idea: Local elections should be partisan.

I'll be the first to admit that pot holes and waterlines are not Democrat or Republican. Law enforcement is not and never should be administered based upon whether the victim or the criminal is a Democrat or a Republican. Reading, writing and arithmetic are universally necessary objectives of our public schools regardless of party affiliation.

All of that is true. However, there is something that is severely missing when there are no organized parties involved in the process of recruiting and electing candidates for the elected positions that will deal with pot holes, waterlines, law enforcement and education.

I have told people for years that the most important work the Republican Party does to win elections is not done during the last few weeks before the election. The most important work we do is done a year or more before the actual election. That most important work is recruiting.

Not all political parties approach it the same way, but the Platte County Republican Party has generally taken a very deliberate approach to recruiting. For most of the election cycles for the last 16 years, the local party has had an active recruiting effort. We typically start working on recruiting for the next election cycle even before the current election cycle is over. It is not an easy task. It is really hard to find well qualified people who are willing to give up much better paying positions in the private sector to serve their community. (The difference for Democrat recruiters is that the kind of candidates they look for actually get a pay raise by going to work for the government.) We have to find people at the right stage of their lives that can run for office (e.g., no children at home or a spouse who can financially supplement their public service). It is even more difficult to find people willing to deal with the challenges that often come up during the campaign.

Sometimes our recruiting efforts don't produce the best candidates. Sometimes the best candidate just “comes out of the blue” and volunteers. However, the point is that the local Republican party does have an on-going effort to recruit high quality candidates for office. That is why Platte County has become more and more Republican. We have been able to recruit better people to run on our ticket.

The lack of recruiting not the partisanship is what is missing in local elections. Although this was before my time, I have read the history of the breaking of the Pendergast machine. A local group of citizens got together and recruited candidates to run for city elections. This organization didn't stop with recruiting. It then supported the candidates it chose.

These types of political organizations continue today. The Citizens Association and Forward Kansas City, a Northland specific group, are examples of these types of organizations. However, there is one major difference. These organizations do not actually recruit candidates and raise their own money to help their slate win. Instead they generally just screen candidates and make recommendations.

That is the missing piece. There need to be political organizations that recruit for local elections, like city council and school board, and then provide resources to get those candidates elected. These organizations need to be made up of the “good government, civic leader” types that used to play a prominent role in local politics many years ago.

So, while I am not advocating that we have “Ds” and “Rs” on the ballots for candidates for city council, water district and school board, there is a great need for a return of the active political organizations that function like political parties in the recruitment and support of candidates. Otherwise, we’ll continue to get generally weak candidates those of us in KC had in this last election cycle.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

EARNINGS TAX SUPPORTERS BASICALLY SAYING 'TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT'

Posted 3/25/11

There is an old country song with a line that goes “Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.” That song should be the theme song for those supporting the earnings tax in Kansas City since that is what the advocates of the tax are saying to people who may want to work in Kansas City but who don't like paying the earnings tax.

In November a statewide ballot initiative prohibited any additional cities from imposing an earnings tax and required the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings taxes to be reconsidered by the voters every five years. In Kansas City the earnings tax is a 1% tax on the gross wages of individuals or 1% of the net profits earned by a business in Kansas City.

The first vote on whether or not to retain the earnings tax in Kansas City will be held on April 5. If the earnings tax is eliminated, it will be phased out over five years.

If you believe the proponents of the earnings tax, the world will come to an end if the earnings tax is not extended for five years. They have tried to scare people with threats of cutting services like no snow removal. (Those of you who live in the city limits are probably chuckling right now as you think “What snow removal?”)

Let's look at some real numbers from the City's website. The 2010-11 budget projects earnings taxes of $189 million out of a $1.225 billion budget. So, contrary to the claims of earnings tax proponents, the earnings tax is only a little more than 15% of the total budget. The proponents will say that the total budget is the wrong number to look at and say that you need to only look at general revenue. General revenue is $520 million. The earnings tax is 38% of this number.

In fairness to the tax lovers, the elimination of the earnings would have a significant impact on the budget. However, what we are really talking about is reducing overall spending by 3% for each of the next five years. So, while this would be a challenge, it certainly would not be the end of the world.

A key complaint about the earnings tax is that it discourages people from living and working in Kansas City. A real life example comes from my first year as a lawyer over 20 years ago. At the time, the highest first year lawyer salary in Kansas City was $52,000. Of the lawyers in my class, the ones who worked in the Johnson County office had a higher net income. They didn't have to pay $520 in earnings tax and almost $1,000 for parking that those of us in the Crown Center office had to pay. This approximately $1,500 in additional net income was a 3% difference in net pay. While this isn't a huge deal, it is certainly a reason to not want to work in Kansas City. Furthermore, when you can work 10 minutes from your nice home in the suburbs and don't have to fight the traffic to come to the “big city,” working outside the city limits of Kansas City is an added plus.

The advocates for the earnings tax have actually made the opponents' argument for them. Dan Confran, one of the advocates' spokesmen, said on more than one occasion that if someone doesn't want to pay the earnings tax then “don't work here.”

Point made. If you don't like the earnings tax, then don't work in Kansas City. So, advocates of the earnings tax are saying “Take your job and shove it” (or move it) to anyone who is considering working in Kansas City. It sure makes Platte City, Parkville, Riverside, Platte Woods and anywhere else in our community outside the city limits of Kansas City even more appealing.

(James Thomas is a local Republican leader. Email him at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com

IN KANSAS CITY, GOOD LUCK PICKING THE 'LEAST BAD' CANDIDATES

Posted 3/18/11

For those who live within the city limits of Kansas City, it is very disappointing to go vote. When voting in the City primary, there were a few races where I stopped and asked myself, “Do I really have to vote for one of these losers?”

In one of the at-large council races I had met one of the candidates the week before. He was obviously in over his head and had very limited knowledge of how Kansas City government operates. However, I still voted for him because the other candidate did know how city government worked and I did not like the things this person was doing on the council.

After the primary, Alan Dillingham, a candidate for the Second District At-Large seat, visited the Greater Kansas City Pachyderm Club. He gave a great presentation and talked about his goal of restoring appropriate conduct at City Hall. I commented to him after the meeting that it is humorous to consider that if he is elected he would probably be the youngest councilman currently serving, but he would still be the most adult-like in the group.

We talked about why he would want to be involved with City politics since you have to “work with children.” He said that good people have to get involved or else only the bad people will run the city. Dillingham was right. However, the problem is that you actually have to be able to win the election.

Kansas City is really a one party town. Although the races are technically non-partisan, they are dominated by Democrats or at least unaffiliated tax and spend liberals. There are six in-district council positions that are only voted on by the voters in that district. There are six at-large council positions that are voted on by the whole city. So, all of the at-large candidates have to win in the very-Democrat south of the river areas. I predict that Dillingham will win north of the river, but lose south of the river where his fiscally responsible “grown up” message will not appeal to the Democrat-dominated precincts.

I am really torn between Mike Burke and Sly James in the mayor's race. Mike Burke is a Northlander. That is a plus. Also, when I served with him on the City's Public Improvements Advisory Committee, he did a good job of running the meetings. However, I am little puzzled about why the City's Port Authority has felt the need to pay Burke's law firm over $3.3 million in fees over the last 11 years. Furthermore, he is cut from the same mold and even endorsed by Kay Barnes. Barnes was bad for Kansas City. She ran up huge amounts of debt on big ticket items that we didn't really need. Burke would likely be more of the same.

On the other hand,James said at a candidate forum that he doesn't really know much about the Northland and only really comes north of the river to go to the airport. So, while his fresh ideas would be great for the city, his total lack of knowledge of the Northland could be a serious problem for those of us who live in the “good” part of Kansas City. (I use “good” to refer to our part of Kansas City in part because it is true and also because Yael Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star refers to the south of the river portion of Kansas City as “Kansas City proper.”)

Of course, there is a solution for us. We could de-annex the portion of Kansas City that is north of the river and become “The Northland.” Of course, those in “Kansas City proper” will never let us go. They like our money too much.

So, good luck picking the best (or least bad) candidates on March 22. With a few exceptions, like Dillingham, it is slim pickin's.

(Email local Republican leader James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

CUT TO HEAD START SHOULDN'T BE LABELED AS 'OUTRAGEOUS'

Posted 3/11/11

A column by E.J. Dioinne Jr. in the Washington Post on Monday caught my eye. If you get a chance to read it, you should take it. You can find it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030602925.html.

The point of Dioinne's column is that House Speaker Boehner is in a great negotiating position when it comes to the budget. He can go to budget meetings with the Democrats and give the outward appearance of being the calm person in the room while blaming the freshman Republicans, which have been referred to as “a band of wild-eyed bomb-throwing freshman,” for his need to hold a stronger negotiating position. This is not a new way of negotiating. There are many instances where one party holds themselves out as the reasonable party while another party on the same side of the negotiation makes ridiculous demands to get the party on the other side of the negotiation to come to some sort of common ground.

What is disturbing about Dioinne's column is that he seems so willing to label some of the proposed cuts as “outrageous” without further consideration as to how the money is being spent. His specific quote is:

Begin with the outrageous $1.1 billion, 15 percent cut from Head Start, a program that offers preschool education to roughly 965,000 poor children. According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, this would knock 218,000 kids out of Head Start and force 16,000 classrooms to close.

Let's break this down. A 15% cut to the Head Start budget of $1.1 billion would mean that the budget for Head Start is $7.33 billion. ($1.1 billion divided by 15%.) If this $7.33 billion budget funds the participation of 965,000 children, then that means that Head Start is spending $7,671 per child in the program. ($7.33 billion divided by 965,000 children.)

My belief is that education and a loving and supportive home are the two most important things to help people avoid poverty and live meaningful and productive lives as adults. I taught my own children to read before they went to Kindergarten because I know that reading is so important. I accept that I am “smarter than your average bear” and that I also had the resources to buy my kids books and other materials to help them learn to read. I know that everyone is not as fortunate yet. So I whole-heartedly support programs that focus on educating children so they can “lift themselves up by their bootstraps” and make their own lives better and their future children's lives better. That means that even a conservative like me feels “warm and fuzzy” about programs like Head Start.

Although I strongly endorse the stated goal of Head Start, I really have concerns about the cost per student for this program. Does it really take $7,671 per child? I mean my kids' private school spends less than that for elementary school deduction. My daughter's high school tuition is only going to be $7,000 next year. Even the big spending Park Hill and Platte County school districts will only spend about twice that figure for their full time education programs.

Mr. Dionne is wrong to so quickly label the $1.1 billion cut as “outrageous.” Sure Head Start has a great stated purpose. I don't really think the federal government should be in the education business. However, let's ignore that for a minute that education is something that should be left to the states. The real question is should it really cost $7,671 per child for the Head Start program? I don't think so. That is an excessive amount to be spending even though this is certainly a worthy although probably not constitutionally appropriate mission for the federal government to pursue.

(Send email to jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

MISSOURI WILL BE LOSING ONE OF ITS CONGRESSIONAL SEATS

Posted 3/3/11

Last week the Census Bureau released population for five more states, including Missouri. As has been anticipated, Missouri's population did not grow as quickly as some other states so it will be losing one of its nine Congressional seats.

When you take Missouri's population of just under six million and divide by eight, it means that the new Congressional districts will need to include approximately 750,000 people. To be more precise, the actual number target population number is 748,616. This is a dramatic increase in size from the approximate 622,000 population per district from when the lines were re-drawn after the 2000 census.

Here is a breakdown of the current population of each Congressional District and the change in population that will be needed:

Right now the 1st, 3rd and 5th Districts are held by Democrats. The 1st and 3rd are in St. Louis. The 5th is a substantial portion of Jackson County and a little bit of Cass County. The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th are all held by Republicans.

The speculation is that the 3rd District is the district that will be drawn out of existence. (The districts will obviously be renumbered after being redrawn so that our own 6th District could very likely have a different number in the future.) Russ Carnahan currently is the Congressman from the 3rd District. The speculation that this district will be drawn out of existence is in part because the Republicans have greater control when it comes to drawing the lines. However, there is also a very practical reason that the 3rd District is probably the one to be eliminated. The 3rd District is 123,365 people short of the target. The 1st District is 161,547 people short of its target. The thought is that the 1st District will be expanded into the third to address its population shortfall. Then the rest of the 3rd district will be carved up between the 2nd, 8th and 9th to get to the right population numbers.

Since the per district size of each Congressional District has jumped so dramatically, our own 6th District will need another 54,642 people. Currently the 6th District reaches into Jackson County. If the boundaries of the 5th District were to begin with all of Jackson County, then the 6th would have to pick up what it loses in Jackson County as well as this 54,642. Since the 6th currently takes in all of northwest Missouri, the 6th would have to move eastward.

The challenge for those of us in Platte and Clay Counties is how does the 5th District get redrawn. This district needs to pick up 114,729 more people. Even if the 5th District is expanded to include all of Jackson County, which has a population of 647,000 people, the 5th will still need to find another 100,000 people. The line drawers could look north of the river for these additional people. Let's hope not. I sure like having Sam Graves as my Congressman.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

'NORMAL' PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING LESS SPENDING

Posted 2/24/11

I would like to direct you to a column entitled “The Politics of the New Middle America” by E. J. Dionne published on February 15, 2011 by The American Prospect. You can find the article on-line at http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_politics_of_the_new_middle_america. The article is subtitled: “In 2010, disaffected voters didn't embrace the Republican vision. They looked in vain for the Democratic one.”

I don't believe the subtitle is entirely true. I don't believe that voters “looked in vain” for the Democratic vision. To the contrary, I think voters ran away from the Democratic vision of out of control spending, government takeover of major components of the health care system, more government regulation and higher taxes. I do agree that voters probably didn't “embrace the Republican vision.”The voters probably did embrace the espoused Republican vision, but I'm not sure the voters really believed that Republicans would fully deliver on that vision.

I would be one of the first to express frustration with Republicans in Washington and elsewhere over the last few years. Congressional Republicans “talked the talk” about cutting spending in the early to mid-2000s, but continued to rack up big deficits. For example, the last budget adopted by a Republican-controlled Congress was the fiscal 2007 budget that included a $342 billion deficit. That means the Republican budget spent $342 billion more than the government collected. However, this pales by comparison to the Democrats spending $1.6 trillion (with a T!) more the budgeted revenue in the most recent budget.

Just look at what the Democrat-controlled Congress did to the national debt. When the Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 elections, the national debt was just under $8.7 trillion. Four years later when the Republicans re-took control of the U.S. House, the national debt had ballooned to almost $13.9 trillion. That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

“The Politics of the New Middle America” explores the Democrats efforts to put together a winning coalition made up of a new majority on the basis of well-educated middle- and upper-middle-income white voters allied with African Americans, Hispanics, and the young. This coalition is really a linking of the two opposite ends of the socio-economic ladder. On one end are the limousine liberals who think they know more than other people and should make decisions for the benefit of others. On the other end are the financially less well-off. What is missing from the new Democrat model is the huge chunk of “normal folks” in the middle.

The article blames the shifting in the election outcomes from 2006 and 2008 to 2010 upon Democrats losses among “white working-class voters” shifting from a 10% loss to a 30% loss. These folks are the folks that Obama would say are “bitter” and “clinging to their guns and their religion.” Obama is right. There is clearly a component of the electorate who are dissatisfied with the direction he and his Democrat buddies are taking this country. They do not want the government spending 73% more than what it collects in a given year. These folks are not the Ivy League-educated snooty-types, but they are still smart people that can do basic math. You cannot spend more money than you take in year after year. It simply won't work. Eventually, you have to pay for that over spending.

Hard-working Americans, “white working-class voters,” the “normal” people have not abandoned the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has simply adopted policies that are contrary to common sense and everything these people believe in. Now Republicans must deliver on their promises of less spending to keep these “normal” people as part of their election-winning coalition. All I can say is, they'd better.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA'S STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BUDGET ARE FRAUDULENT

Posted 2/18/11

Just five weeks ago I wrote that former Speaker of the House and now Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was either “. . . seriously 'math challenged' or . . . simply delusional.” This was my response to Pelosi's statement that “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go . . .” even though the Pelosi-led Congress raised the national debt by nearly $5.2 trillion (with a T!) or almost 60% in just four years. President Obama seems to be suffering from the same disorder that is afflicting Pelosi.

In his weekly Saturday address, Obama had the audacity to use a reference to a Missouri teacher's personal sacrifices to fund her daughter's education during the economic downturn to say that the government must now make difficult decision to reduce its debt, while still investing in education for a better future. These are great words. I agree with them. However, you actually have to look at the reality of what Obama is proposing rather than the flowery language he uses to describe his proposed 2012 budget.

Obama's Saturday speech was a prelude to the release of Obama's proposed budget for 2012 on Monday. The federal deficit is expected to increase to $1.65 trillion this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010-Sept. 30, 2011), according to the Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 that was scheduled to be released on Monday. This is an even bigger deficit than the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate of $1.48 trillion. Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2012 (Oct. 1, 2011--Sept. 30, 2012) calls for $3.73 trillion in government spending in fiscal 2012, which is $1.1 trillion (with a T!) more than projected revenues for fiscal year 2012.

In his speech on Saturday Obama said, ““So, after a decade of rising deficits, this budget asks Washington to live within its means, while at the same time investing in our future. It cuts what we can't afford to pay for what we cannot do without. That's what families do in hard times. And that's what our country has to do too.”

Living within its means?!?!? Spending $1.1 trillion more than the projected revenues of $2.63 trillion is deficit spending of 42% for the current year. That is cutting what we can’t afford to pay for?!?!?!

Let's state this in terms that we can all understand. Let's say I give each of my daughters $100 to go spend on clothing. They go shopping and each spend $142. To Obama, my daughters would be living within their means. That's crazy!

We are long overdue for a balanced budget amendment. If Obama really wants the federal government to do “what families do,” then he needs to get on board with a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to operate with a balance budget. Republicans pushed a balanced budget amendment after taking control of the U.S. House after the 1994 elections. The proposed amendment actually was passed by the House before dying in the Senate.

I would like to pretend that our elected leaders in Congress can act like grownups and not spend money we don't have. However, they can't. So, there needs to be a balanced budget amendment to keep them from spending the future generations into insurmountable debt.
At the same time the American people and the media need to refuse to accept the ridiculous rhetoric of politicians who speak of the government “living within its means” and “cutting what we can't afford to pay for” when they are proposing massive deficit spending.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

REAGAN AND HIS '77 SPEECH AN INSPIRATION TO MANY TODAY

Posted 2/11/11

Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan! If he were still living, Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 on Sunday, February 6. As I have written before, Ronald Reagan is probably my favorite president of all time. He has inspired me and so many of my friends.

I was in sixth grade when Reagan ran for president in 1976. That year the convention was in Kansas City. My mom and I stayed up watching the tally for the presidential nomination. I kept hoping that somehow Reagan would be able to find the votes he needed to win. He narrowly lost the nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford. After the vote, Reagan was strongly encouraged to come to the floor to give a speech. There have been many reports of convention delegates saying “We just nominated the wrong guy” after hearing that speech. ord, of course, ended up losing to Jimmy Carter in November.

Reagan didn't give up after 1976. In fact, one of his most famous speeches is a speech he gave in 1977. I've heard it referred to as “The New Republican Party.”You can read it for yourself at reagan2020.us/speeches/The_New_Republican_Party.asp. In the speech Reagan talks about how a majority of Americans are conservatives. e advocates for uniting the “economic conservatives” and the “social conservatives” to present a united front on conservatism. I have read the speech many times. The concluding lines of that speech have provided great inspiration to me:

“Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home. We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it.

“The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when?

“Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

“Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. Any organization is in actuality only the lengthened shadow of its members. A political party is a mechanical structure created to further a cause. The cause, not the mechanism, brings and holds the members together. And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America's spiritual heritage to our national affairs.

“Then with God's help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us.”

This February 1977 speech is seen as the foundation of the New Republican Party.
There are many inspiring aspects of Ronald Reagan, his accomplishments and his service to our country. However, the things Reagan talked about in this speech are the principles that motivate so many of us and are the reason that so many of us are active in the Republican Party.

I was going to write about all the great accomplishments of Reagan and his policies. Instead, I think it is enough to say he inspired me and so many of my friends to service. Thank you and happy birthday, Mr. President!

(James Thomas is a Republican leader who can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

OBAMA NOW TRYING TO MIMIC CLINTON'S POLITICAL STRATEGY

Posted 2/5/11

With the winners of the 2010 elections having only taken the oath of office less than a month ago, attention has already turned to the 2012 elections. I predict that Obama will be very tough to unseat in 2012.

One reason Obama will be tough to beat is that he seems to have learned something from the 2010 elections and something from President Clinton's third and fourth years in office. Obama himself admitted that the Democrats took a shellacking in the 2010 elections. Obama could have simply ignored the public statement provided by the election results the same way he ignored the very vocal public objections to ObamaCare. Obama's approach to ObamaCare in the face of a huge public opposition: full speed ahead. Obama's response to the tax cut fight shows that he is willing to adjust his approach to get reelected.

When Obama first took office, he made statements about cooperating with Republicans on policy issues that went something like “Republicans are free to come along for the ride, but they will have to sit at the back of the bus.” After the 2010 elections, Obama quickly caved on the temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. This was probably a strategic decision. If Obama had blocked the temporary extension of the tax cuts until after the new Congress was seated, the Republicans would have passed them any way, forced Obama to veto them and then he would be the “bad guy.” Even worse for Obama, if he had stood in the way, the Republicans would have probably pushed through a permanent extension of the tax cuts instead of a temporary one. Also, if the tax cuts had expired, it would have sucked billions of dollars out of the economy. This would almost certainly have led to a double dip recession, which would have likely doomed Obama's re-election chances. By postponing the expiration of the tax cuts, Obama has delayed the negative impact on the economy of the expiration of these tax cuts until after the next election cycle.

Obama has also been modifying his political rhetoric. Even though Obama is still advocating for massive amounts of new government spending, he at least is giving that spending a kinder, gentler label of “investment.” Don't be fooled. Obama is still a tax and spend liberal. He still believes in government mandated wealth re-distribution. He is just trying to re-form his public image from being an open socialist/communist. Obama even talks about reducing the deficit. Of course, these statements are made at the same time that he proposes massive spending increases so I'm not sure how he actually hopes to reduce the deficit.

After the Republican Revolution in 1994, Bill Clinton sufficiently reformed his public image to allow him to win a second term. Obama seems to be trying to follow that part of the Clinton strategy.

Clinton had something else going for him. Like Republicans often do, we nominated a presidential candidate because it was “his turn” to be the nominee for president even though he was the wrong person for that particular election cycle. If history teaches us anything, Obama can likely count on Republicans to do that again. The one hope is that the new conservative energy provided by the Tea Party movement will push the Republican Party to pick a solid and reliable conservative as its presidential candidate.

Sadly, the biggest challenge for all Republicans in 2012 will be whether the voters will support conservatives when it comes to making tough decisions on spending. The “squishy middle” abandoned Republicans when they tried to hold the line of spending in 1995. Will that happen again? I hope not. If the government doesn't stop spending so much money, we will all be doomed.

(Email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

EVEN GOVERNORS SHOULD BUCKLE THEIR SEAT BELTS

Posted 1/28/2011

A few days ago Governor Jay Nixon was in a car accident. The car he was riding in was rear-ended by another driver. (Imagine the embarrassment/concern of the driver of the other car when he found out that he not only hit a car that was driven by a highway patrolman, but that car also had the governor inside.) Nixon was taken to the hospital for some neck pain, but was released.

I was in a car accident right before Thanksgiving. The other driver was going too fast on a slick, narrow road when he popped over a small hill and found that his lane was blocked by a car attempting to turn left. He slammed on his brakes, skidded across the center line and banged in to me. My recent experience would make me feel sorry for the governor except for one thing: The governor was not wearing his seat belt.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe in the mandatory seat belt law. (The governor did not technically violate the seat belt law because he was in the rear seat of the vehicle so apparently he was not required to be wearing a seatbelt.) I think you should be free to not wear a seat belt. However, if you are a prudent and responsible person you wear your seatbelt at all times.

This isn't a difficult thing to address. My kids get it. Right before we leave the house, there are two questions that are asked. First, do you have everything you need for school/basketball/volleyball or whatever? Second, are you buckled? Only then do we back out of the garage and head down the road. On occasion, I will be messing with something in the front seat as we are heading down the driveway and be momentarily unbuckled or on the way home I might unbuckle about 200 feet before getting to the driveway because I am going to pull up to the mailbox and reach out to get the mail. I immediately get objections from my kids for not being buckled.

I 'm glad my kids were listening when I explained to them the importance of wearing a seatbelt. I have told them about Derrick Thomas' accident on that icy January Sunday. Thomas was driving his Suburban too fast and he and one of his two passengers were not wearing seatbelts. The passenger who was not wearing a seatbelt was thrown from the vehicle and killed. As we all know, Thomas eventually died from injuries suffered in the accident. The guy I point out to my kids is the passenger who was wearing his seatbelt. He was reportedly a little banged up, but walked away from the accident.

Even though I think you are an idiot if you don't wear your seatbelt, I don't think the government should make you. However, I would be fine with there being a legal rule that says if a party is injured in an accident and is not wearing a seatbelt, then that party cannot recover for his or her injuries from that accident unless the party can prove that the injuries could not have been avoided even by wearing a seatbelt.

It is the same idea that I have about motorcycle helmets. I think you would be crazy to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. However, I don't think we should have a law that says you have to wear one. The law should be that if you splatter your brains out on the pavement because you are not wearing a helmet then the party who caused the accident and the taxpayers should not have to pay for your medical bills or your disability unless it can be shown that the helmet would not have prevented your injuries.

I'm not a fan of Governor Nixon's policies, but I don't want to see anyone killed in an accident. So buckle up, Governor!

(Buckle your seat belt and email James at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

COUNTY MAKING RIGHT MOVES WITH 2011 BUDGET

Posted 1/21/2011

“There is a new sheriff in town.” No. Not really. But there is a new presiding commissioner in the Platte County Administration Building.

I knew that Jason Brown had conservative values. However, I was very concerned that, like other “allegedly” conservative commissioner candidates before him, Brown would not be able to be true to those conservative principles when he actually embarked upon the difficult task of governing and felt the pressure of everyone asking for money. Brown shows early signs of staying true to his conservative principles.

Monday night Brown and fellow commissioner Jim Plunkett came to the Platte County Republican Central Committee meeting to talk about the county's 2011 budget that will be adopted later this month.

Platte County can only budget to spend the amount of money it estimates it will receive for the year. It is true that the “guesstimation” of revenue is simply a guess. However, the idea is to make the best guess possible based upon the information that is available. For 2010 the sales tax revenues came in 3.3% over budget and the use tax revenues came in 10% under budget. The commissioners were nervous because the money they received from the Missouri Department of Revenue in January for sales taxes collected in November actually showed a 13% drop from last year's November sales tax collections. This put the commissioners scrambling to keep the budget under control.

Brown and Plunkett explained that the proposed 2011 budget calls for a reduction in general revenue spending. The 2011 budget projects a 5% decline in sales tax revenue and a 10% decline in use tax revenue. This meant that the 2011 budget had to be less than the 2011 budget by several hundred thousand dollars. Brown and Plunkett explained that the all of the officeholders were very cooperative with the budget cutting process. When the situation was explained to the officeholders they each came forward with items that could be trimmed from their budgets.

After delivering the budget cutting news Brown and Plunkett said “after the bad news, now for the good news.” There was a collective chuckle from the PCRCC members because for nearly all of them the idea that the county would spend less money in 2011 than in 2010 was good news. So, from a conservative perspective, the commissioners actually offered more good news. The commissioners explained that through under control spending in prior years, the budget called for placing $3 million into a narrowband radio fund to begin to fund the cost of the federally-mandated new emergency radio system. This unfunded mandate is going to become a huge issue. Commissioners are trying to get a jump on the anticipated budget burden.

This was the exact opposite of a PCRCC meeting I attended in January of 2004 when the then-commissioners were poised to adopt a budget that included a 17% increase in sales tax revenue despite the auditor's projection of only a 7% increase. The bloated revenue projection was necessary to cover all the anticipated spending so the then-commissioners ignored the auditor's projections. The PCRCC objected to the overly-optimistic revenue projections, but the then-commissioners ignored the PCRCC's feedback. The budget projections sparked a political war that resulted in the two junior commissioners up for election that year being replaced. (The actual sales tax figure for 2004 was a 7.7% increase over 2003.)

Less than a month into his term as presiding commissioner it is too early to tell if Brown will be able to stay true to his conservative principles. However, this action on the budget is certainly a good start.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

NANCY PELOSI IS EITHER MATH-CHALLENGED OR DELUSIONAL

Posted 1/13/2011

Democrats are crazy. Okay. Okay. That is an over-generalization. However, given last week's comments by Nancy Pelosi and the fact that Democrats have re-elected her as their leader, you do have to wonder about the sanity of Democrats who serve in Congress.

At her final press conference as Speaker of the House, Pelosi said “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? Pelosi is either an unashamed liar or she has no connection to reality.

Pelosi became Speaker in January 2007 following the 2006 election cycle, which gave the Democrats control of the House. When Pelosi became Speaker, the national debt was $8,670,589,242.973.04 (i.e., almost $8.7 trillion). On Dec. 22, 2010 (i.e., the last day of the 111th Congress), the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 (i.e., almost $13.9 trillion). That is a jump in the national debt of almost $5.2 trillion or almost 60% in just four years.

The ballooning of the debt is easy to explain. For fiscal 2007 the budget deficit for the year was $342 billion. For fiscal year 2010, the budget deficit was $1.6 trillion. So we went from a place where the Republican-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $342 billion more than it should to a place where the Democrat-controlled Congress was spending (at least) $1.6 trillion more than it should. That means Pelosi and her pals were over spending to the tune of nearly five times the rate of overspending by the Republican-controlled Congress.

There are only two possible explanations to Pelosi's comments. Either she is seriously “math challenged” or she is simply delusional.

When you look at her comments on ObamaCare, it leads one to think it may be a little of both. Pelosi still claims that ObamaCare will result in savings and reduce the deficit. There are some huge tax increases that are part of ObamaCare. These massive tax increases will offset some of the cost of ObamaCare. However, only in a delusional dream are even these huge tax increases enough to cover the increase costs of ObamaCare.

I know a lot of former Democrats, including my friend and fellow columnist Russ Purvis, who have chosen to leave the Democrat Party and become either independents or Republicans. These former Democrats just couldn't stand the insanity and/or stupidity of the leadership of the Democrat Party. I encourage those of you who have conservative values, but who are clinging to the Democrat label to do one of two things: Either leave your party and join us or get rid of the crazy people who are the leaders of your party.

If you do neither of those things and keep the same crazy leadership that promotes crazy liberal policies, you are actually doing me a favor as a Republican activist. As long as a nut-job like Nancy Pelosi is the spokesperson for your party, it improves the prospects for my team to keep on winning.

Even though keeping the crazy liberals that lead your party makes it easier for my team to keeping winning elections, please replace your delusional leadership. These liberal policies are bad for America. The federal government cannot keep spending money it doesn't have. Deficit spending can exist for short periods, but it cannot go on indefinitely. And pretending that you are a deficit hawk when you have actually ballooned the national debt by 60% in four years and the annual deficit by almost fivefold will not help America's economy or restore America's greatness. We--and more importantly, our children-- deserve better.

(Republican leader James Thomas can be reached at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

HERE’S WHAT THE VOTERS
ARE INTERESTED IN, AND
IT’S NOT COMPROMISE

Posted 1/10/2011

To start the New Year, political columnists often look into their crystal balls to predict the future. I would be the first to tell you that is very difficult to do in politics. Anticipating the outcome of the 2012 elections nearly two years out is extremely difficult.

For one thing, we don't know who the candidates will be. I'm fairly confident that Obama lead the national ticket for the Democrats. I don't have the slightest idea who will lead the Republican ticket.

There are lots of prospective candidates. Sarah Palin probably has bigger “star appeal” than anyone. The conservative grassroots folks would work their tails off for her. However, she has been bashed horrendously by the media so that she may not be an effective candidate. Also, her stepping down as governor in the middle of her term probably hurt her tremendously. alin is probably in the perfect spot right now. She is in a position to make a little money. She can influence elections and remain politically relevant by throwing her support behind select candidates without actually being the candidate. That may be the best place for her.

There are the “also rans” from 2008: Huckabee and Romney. Neither of them could overcome a lackluster McCain campaign in the primaries so I'm not sure how strong either of them is. Haley Barbour would make a great president. He did a great job as chairman of the RNC and has been an excellent governor. However, Barbour spent a few years as a lobbyist so that might hurt his chances. The rumor is that Next Gingrich is toying with the idea of getting in the race. I am a huge Newt fan. What he did with GOPAC and then with the whole “Contract with America” campaign was exceptional. I have read his books and he has a lot of great policy ideas. However, he has a number of skeletons in his closet so he is probably not electable. Hopefully, whoever is the candidate would include Gingrich on a policy team to help develop effective ideas for governing.

A couple of “lesser knowns” would make great candidates: Senator John Thune from South Dakota and Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Both of these guys have some great ideas. However, their name ID is still very low.

Whether Republicans are successful in 2012 is subject to several other things that are out of their control. The economy is sure to have a significant impact. My prediction is that the economy will have recovered from the deep slump during the beginning of Obama's term in office. However, I don't think the economy will be clipping along at full speed. The temporary fix of the new tax law should prevent a double dip recession. However, since the fix was only temporary, I predict that employers will slowly begin to hire back workers, but they will not hire all the workers they might need until there is more certainty with the tax law.

Another important factor is how do Republicans act and how do the voters react to how the Republicans act. In 1995 Republicans stood up against big spending. The spending fight reached an impasse that led to a government shutdown. Stopping big spending is what the voters said they wanted. However, the voters viewed Republicans as the bad guys when they tried to hold the line on spending. This public reaction is probably why so many Republicans lost their conservative roots and went on spending sprees to please their constituents. If the Republicans try to hold the line on spending again and the voters act this way in response, that will be very damaging to the fiscal conservative movement.

Then there is the most important factor. The Republicans have a history of nominating the wrong candidate (e.g., Ford, Dole and McCain). If history repeats itself, we will have another four years of Obama.

(Email James Thomas at jamesiiiandsandra@kc.rr.com)

For earlier columns click here.