An Island in the Midst of an Ocean

Posted on 2009-10-16 by David

When I complained about the tone of the Sean Hannity show a couple of weeks ago Frank Staheli pointed me towards the Neal Boortz show broadcast on Freedom 570. Over the last couple of weeks I have been listening to the station. I have heard many of the shows as I have listened at various times and found that I was really enjoying the tone of the shows being broadcast – it was an essentially civil island in the midst of  the ocean of conservative talk radio. Neal Boortz  is not my favorite of their shows, but his tone was so much nicer than Hannity.

Today I discovered a mud puddle in the midst of the Freedom 570 lineup. I drove home earlier than usual today and heard the Todd Schnitt show for the first time which had more of a Hannity tone. While it may not be fully representative of the show I was disappointed to hear Schnitt’s coverage of the apparent uproar over a picture of Meghan McCain that got posted on the internet (by Meghan apparently). Schnitt had to take the time to rave about Meghan’s physique and insist that the picture get a more prominent place on his website.

I have not seen the picture, but I have enough information from what I head from Schnitt before turning the show off to comment on the situation. Schnitt has demonstrated his immaturity and lack of class by the types of comments he felt compelled to make. Meghan has shown her naivety by even posting the image and acting as if the uproar was not predictable. Apparently some have called her a slut – without even going to see the picture I think it’s safe to say that she was just plain foolish. The only good that came out of it is that I now know to pass on opportunities to listen to Schnitt.

Posted in culture, National | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Fundraising Tells Us a Story

Posted on 2009-10-16 by David

The third quarter just ended which means its time that the public can start learning how candidates have done on fundraising for the last quarter. The fundraising reports are pretty dry and generally boring. They always result in reports about which opponents in any given race are getting the most cash such as Bennett outpaces Shurtleff in fundraising, but the fundraising reports also tell us stories about the state of politics in general and specific races in particular.

The big race in Utah right now is the 2010 race for the senate seat currently held by Bennett. The story on that particular race is that Bennett is raising more money than Shurtleff or any of his other challengers. This should hardly surprise anyone because of his incumbency. Money spent on a challenger is a sign of support and hopes for what that challenger will do in the future if they win. It might also be a bit of a statement against the incumbent, but disappointment with the incumbent does not tend to appear as a large campaign donation to a challenger this early in the race. Money spent on an incumbent is support for the future and an opportunity in the present to weigh in on the issues between now and election day next year – that extra year of getting an actual legislator to listen to you is bound to attract more cash.

Bennett’s only Democratic challenger raised “about $19,600 in the third quarter” demonstrating that Utah is still solidly Republican and few people are even looking to the Democrats for serious consideration.

Another story in that particular rage is this:

A shotgun shooting event raised $88,600 for the Shurtleff Joint Fund. That total includes $25,000 from Provo-based company Success Multimedia, $20,000 from Nu Skin, and $10,000 each from EnergySolutions and USANA Health Sciences.

The fact that Shurtleff raises large chunks of cash from a few organizations for individual events tells us that Shurtleff is almost guaranteed to be the same type of politician as Bennett no matter how different he claims to be on the campaign trail. Some people will like that, others will not, but that’s the story told by the money. Hopefully nobody expects more than cosmetic change if Shurtleff succeeds in replacing Bennett.

It was a later portion of the article that tells the story of the state of politics generally:

The Hatch campaign traded in an old Cadillac for a newer, but still used, Cadillac, spending $36,900 at Young Chevrolet. The senator will use the car when he is in the state.

I doubt that there is anything unusual about this for a sitting member of Congress – which is what irks me. Do I have any reason to complain about how Hatch spends money that is not taken from taxpayers by force? No, but the story this tells is instructive.

I have no problem with Hatch buying a Cadillac. I have no problem with him spending more on a used car that I have spent on cars in the whole of my life. (I’ve purchased 3 cars myself and if you added those prices together plus all my repairs and gas purchased for the last 10 years it still probably comes out to less than $36K.) The thing I have a problem with is that we pay this man $180,000 a year – which should be enough to afford a car for D.C. and a car for Utah – and on top of that salary he still gets to use his campaign fundraising money as a permanent expense account. If he’s getting a $600,000 per year expense account (notice that his election is 3 years away right now and he’s still taking in over half a million per year) why are we paying him another $180,000? Is it any wonder that sitting members of Congress can so easily get completely out of touch with reality when we pay them that much and still allow them to take many of their basic expenses out of a completely separate fund?

If I believed that was an honest way to make a living I would start permanently campaigning for high profile offices as soon as I believed that I could attract even a fraction of the donations that Hatch receives in perpetuity.

The moral of the story about politics generally is that freeloading is alive and well at all levels of society – we give our leaders precisely what many people in society wish they had.

Posted in National, State | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Make a Commitment

Posted on 2009-10-15 by David

photo credit: doctor paradox

On Wednesday I caught perhaps 10 minutes of the Jason Lewis Show but in that short window Jason captured for about 60 seconds exactly what is wrong with this country and how it can be fixed. (Here’s a link to that hour of his show.) Here is my transcript of the relevant statement (starting at 30:03 in the audio file):

We are consumed by things that don’t matter because we don’t have the intellectual discipline to stay focused, we make excuses.

You know really, if you wanted to make a statement, if you were truly upset and you wanted to make a statement: A) You would be bright enough to understand what’s going on, most people are too obtuse to realize that, most people are more concerned about X-Box than they are about what’s happening in Washington and so, frankly, we’re a nation of dolts. But if you could get people to think and to study and to realize what’s going on and that they knew economics and civics, that would be the first step.

The second step would be – everybody in the year 2010 would simply devote, make a commitment right now that they are going to spend two hours a week, three hours a week, four hours a week on campaigns. They’re going to take back their city council, they’re going to take back their party, they’re going to take back their county commission, they’re going to take back their state legislature, they’re going to take back Congress. Their going to find a candidate or two and they are going to work harder than they ever have, they’re going to spread the word, they might write a check for thirty bucks or three thousand bucks, but they’re going to do something.

There’s no substitute for commitment and hard work and that’s what needs to take place. Am I certain it will? No I’m not at all.

I’m absolutely sure that Jason is right about that. In fact I would go further and say that this nation would change drastically within two years if 60% of eligible voters would take just three hours per week to take the actions he suggested – that includes the fact that all those voters would come to a wide variety of conclusions about the proper course of action to deal with the problems we face.

Continue reading →

Posted in culture, National | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

A Tale of Two Vice Presidents

Posted on 2009-10-15 by David

photo credit: BlatantNews.com

Once upon a time there was a young president who had campaigned on a platform of using the military more conservatively than his predecessor (who happened to be in the other party). During the campaign he had chosen a more experienced man as his running mate in an effort to soothe those voters who might be uncomfortable with his youth an lack of extensive experience.

Once in office an opportunity for military action presented itself and his vice president was among those who were keen to take the opportunity. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the president heeded the advice of his hawkish vice president and took the necessary steps to expand his use of the military  contrary to his campaign rhetoric.

Of course I am talking about George Bush here and his vice president, Dick Cheney. The trick is that the first paragraph applies word for word to Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden.

Continue reading →

Posted in National | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Freedom OF Religion

Posted on 2009-10-14 by David

[quote]By now everybody in Utah at least has heard about the speech given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks at the BYU-Idaho devotional yesterday on the subject of freedom of religion. It will surprise nobody who knows anything about me to hear that I agree 100% with everything he said.

Considering that I could not hope to add insights beyond those of Elder Oaks some might question why I would bother to write anything about his speech. There are two reasons – first, this subject of our freedom of religion (for any atheists I could comfortably call it “freedom of conscience”) is important to every American who cares about preserving a viable nation where we enjoy any amount of liberty whatsoever and thus I could not pass up the chance to promote that message; and second, when I saw that some of what he said was being misunderstood (as shown in a poll where 2 in 3 respondents disagreed with his  assertion that the retaliation and intimidation against supporters of Prop. 8 was similar in nature to the voter-intimidation of blacks in the South) I knew that it was necessary for people who understood what he said to stand up and declare their understanding.

Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Budget Hero Revisited

Posted on 2009-10-14 by David

A post from last year that came up in my daily archive caught my attention with its title, A Budgetary Hat-Trick, I had a look to remind myself and rediscovered Budget Hero. When I played last year the budget was projected to go bust in 2033 barring any changes and I managed to balance the budget, increase security, achieve energy independence, and eliminate government waste at the same time so that the budget bust date was pushed back to sometime after 2070. When I looked this year I saw that the game had been updated after the stimulus and bailouts of the past year. The budget is now scheduled to go bust in 2028 without changes. That made me curious about whether I could still balance the budget. Remembering that all of this is completely dependent on the assumptions built into the game, here are the results I got.

I was able to balance the budget and run huge surpluses within 9 years by cutting virtually everything I could think of and jacking up the taxes on everything under the sun. Being a bit more reasonable I was able, like last year, to push the budget bust date into the indefinite future and achieve the goals of increasing national security, cutting government waste, and becoming energy independent.

Besides changing the starting numbers for the federal government fiscal situation the game was also updated to include new priorities to pursue (at least my memory tells me that “Health and Wellness” and “Economic Stimulus” are new since last year). I decided to see if it was even possible to increase national security, reduce government waste, and promote health and wellness simultaneously. It took more work than achieving energy independence and it was absolutely necessary to pass the Cap and Tax to get it done, but I was able achieve these goals.

It should be noted that I only achieved a very modest reduction in the deficit with these goals and I barely managed to earn the “Efficient Government” badge when trying to also get “Health and Wellness” but I did figure it out. I am absolutely confident that if the game were to allow players to choose 4 goals rather than 3 it would be impossible to get “Health and Wellness” and “Energy Independence” while still increasing national security and making government more efficient – something would have to give. (There are other sets of four badges that could probably be accomplished simultaneously.)

Posted in National | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Groundwork for a Campaign

Posted on 2009-10-13 by David

In a recent comment I said:

. . . as a non-celebrity there is a long road of groundwork that I would have to lay before I could hope to run a campaign with any chance of being taken seriously. If I ever feel that I have laid that groundwork you can bet that I will run . . .

Today in Utah Policy I discovered Local Victory from a link in their Campaign Tips section. Honestly I have not paid particular attention to that section before, but this looked like a great resource. As I poked around the site I found “Getting Ready to Run for Office – 8 Steps to Take Today” which helps potential candidates prepare and claims to be applicable “whether that campaign is next year or ‘some year’.” I really liked the list and saw much of what I had seen as necessary preliminary steps but with a bunch more detail and listed in a way that makes me believe that I could actually make a plan to get that groundwork laid. I did notice however that some of the steps would be much easier to take after deciding on something more solid than “some office.”

I’m absolutely confident that I will be spending more time on that site gathering ideas and information to get more prepared, to gauge how prepared I am, and to plan when and if I am ready to launch a campaign.

Posted in General | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Legislator as Communicator

Posted on 2009-10-12 by David

The job of being a legislator demands that anyone who hopes to fill the role be a capable communicator. I’m not talking about the ability to speak in sound-bitese (although there is a place for that). I am talking about the ability to send and receive messages to voters and to other public officials they are called to work with (both outside and within the legislative body they are or hope to be members of).

Sending messages requires the ability both to craft a message and to deliver it in a way that it will be understood. That’s easy to say, but doing it is tricky as the message must be understood across a variety of media. The message must be understandable when it is delivered in written articles, interviews, town halls, sound bites, and in the various abbreviated forms that dominate the realms of advertising. Publishing is very easy in this age (just ask me, I’ve been publishing thoughts for years on many subjects), but some people realize that and seem to forget that actual communication is much more complicated.

Receiving messages  requires the ability to listen, read, or observe without filtering the input to remove any data that contradicts expectations. It also requires a willingness to be open to input from all sides and to make people aware of that willingness. That openness and ability to productively engage with detractors as well as supporters is crucial for a legislator to be effective and to have the necessary information to represent their constituents.

The skills of communication are one of the qualifications of a legislator that are crucial as part of the campaign and the actual job. In fact, the skills of communication should be vastly more important in re-election campaigns than fund raising (this is less true when first campaigning for an office). The only ability that should be as necessary as communicating in a re-election is the ability to work tirelessly.

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Davis School District Bond Election

Posted on 2009-10-09 by David

When I first heard about the Davis School District bond election I started with my default position of not being anxious to give any public entity an open line of credit – certainly not a quarter of a billion dollars in open credit that could cost me hundreds of extra dollars per year in taxes – without solid justification for why it was necessary and a plan for how it would be used.

After doing some more research I can see that this is not “just in case” money as it first appeared and although the wording of the issue on the ballots is such that they can raise taxes to pay for the bonds they have shown through past performance that they do not desire to raise taxes and very well may be able to pay for the bonds without increasing taxes. Courtesy of that history of their commitment to bond frugally and the fact that there is a need for school infrastructure growth in the district I am willing to support this bond issue.

Posted in Local | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

How Economies Work

Posted on 2009-10-07 by David

photo credit: unforth

When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he was not writing about how economies and markets should work, he was writing about how they do work. Anyone who wants to know how they do work must read that book. Be prepared – it’s long and very detailed and you must be committed to doing a good deal of intellectual work if you are going to really understand it. The copy I have been reading is over 400 pages of small print and it is completely lacking in filler material.

I could not even pretend to give a summary of the book (as Wikipedia does) but I would like to point out one crucial detail that few people seem to realize and which shreds virtually every economic move our government makes. Money is a representation of value. Value is a representation of work and the only accurate determiner of price. Price controls and subsidies cannot alter the actual value of goods and services – all they can do is distort the representation of value and confuse the consumer by manipulating the data. Anytime there is a manipulative force in an economy the economy will respond, it will conform to the manipulation, but it still operates on the same universal laws.

I can easily understand how people today would be confused about the laws of economics because we have pundits, professionals, and even many economists who talk about the forces of economics as if they were under the control of men. The fact is that men can operate in accordance with those laws or they can try to manipulate them, but regardless of what we may observe the laws of economics will be obeyed and we will receive the consequences of our actions even if we are not sophisticated enough or have long enough lives to recognize those consequences. No matter how hard or how high we throw a ball – even into (or out of) orbit, it still must obey the laws of gravity.

The laws of economics are exactly as universal as the laws of physics. You can stand around all day arguing with a physicist about how gravity operates but at the end of the argument gravity will be unchanged. In your argument you can propose many great new ideas about how gravity should work, but gravity will be unchanged. If you have a misunderstanding of how gravity does work and operate based on that misunderstanding it will not preclude the possibility that you could design an airplane that flies, but designing an airplane that has not crashed yet does not prove that your understanding of gravity is correct and odds are pretty good that if your understanding is flawed the plane will have a flaw in its design that will either cause a crash or make the plane less functional than a plane designed by someone who understands the laws of physics.

What we have today in Washington – among both political parties – are a bunch of people most of whom grossly misunderstand the laws of economics and who believe that the laws of economics are no less subject to revision than the speed limit on an interstate highway. They mistake the reference to an invisible hand and believe that it refers to sleight of hand. The do not recognize the fact that there is nothing tricky or supernatural about the laws that Smith explained centuries ago. He did not make them up, he simply wrote them down after decades of study and observation – like any good scientist. In fact, the name of the book is “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.”

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments