Vote Sensibly
   by Curt Wikstrom

     They can't balance their budget, they have messed up the economy, the educational system, and the moral base of our country.  Now they want to take over and destroy our health insurance and health care system.  Do we really want to give Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama more control over our lives than they already have?
     The most arrogant and dangerous notion in politics is that the Congress or the President can "run" the economy.  They are completely incapable of doing that.  But they can truly mess it up with their overspending, over taxing, mandates, interference, and manipulation.
     The current financial bailout fiasco is just one more proof of the incompetence of our Congress.  Their laws which bullied and encouraged the banking system to lend money at interest rates lower than the real rate of interest were enacted several years ago (prior to President Bush's term). The quasi governmental agencies Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae pushed and guaranteed trillions of dollars of flexible interest loans when the government had set interest rates far below the real rate of interest.  When the Federal Reserve pushed the interest rate back up to a more reasonable level, the people could no longer make their payments.  Encouraging people to get into debt over their heads is  terrible fiscal policy.  And it also drove down the so called "value" of housing.  People usually are willing to pay what they can afford to buy the best house they can.  If they have $2,000 to make principal and interest payments at 3%, they will pay 474,500 for a house, and those selling the house will be asking that.  When the interest rate changes to 6%, they can only pay 333,500 for a house.  When flexible interest rates go up to 6%, at $474,500 their payments go up to $2,845.  They can't afford to make those payments, so they have to sell the house.  However, the next person who wants the house can only pay $2,000 per month also.  So the "value" of the house has gone down by $141,000.  The first person can't afford to take that loss.  That is why we have so many problems with mortgages in our country today.
     But why did the Federal reserve lower the interest rate beyond reason several years ago?  Because Congress got us so far into debt that they can no longer afford reasonable interest rates.  Interest rates were lowered to keep the payments on the debt low, and to "spur" on the "economy".  Well that created a bubble of bad decisions that eventually had to be recognized as losses.  Now Congress is planning on a new "stimulus" package to "spur" on the economy.  It is these stimulus packages that are the cause of the ups and downs in the economy.  Many Congressmen and women like to talk about it as if it were a business cycle.  But it is not.  It is a government interference cycle.  Tax incentives given and then taken away are another form of "stimulus" that creates many bad decisions by people. When these incentives are taken away, the value of the investments in once tax favored property goes down, as it did during the government created savings and loan crises many years ago.
     Now we have a pied piper leading us down the primrose path with promises of "change" and "hope".  If we just follow and trust him, everything will supposedly "change" for the better.  But that is deceptive.  The truth is that he will lead us into even more government interference and increased government control over our lives in almost every respect.   His life's work has been to increase government control and interference.  The groups that he has been involved in and the people that he has associated with are groups and people that have been working all of their lives to change our country into a more socialistic country.  He and they want to substantially increase taxes and increase the size and scope of government at all levels.  And they want to destroy the moral underpinnings of our society.  The black liberation theology that Obama embraces is certainly not the world view espoused in the gospels.  It is much more in line with the writings of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky.
     The most important reform that we need in this country is for the Federal and State governments to substantially reduce government spending.   It has gotten completely out of control.  But what is Obama's solution?  It is to increase taxes on those who provide jobs, and to increase spending on welfare programs and pet projects. 
     Who is going to pay all of these new taxes?  Our pension plan will be one of the major payers.  Pension plans are the largest holders of corporate shares.  When those corporations pay more taxes, our pension plan makes less money.
     Your employers will pay a lot of those taxes.  Guess where all of the best jobs are in our region, the jobs that have good pay and benefits?  It is those small businesses that make more than the $250,000 (or is it now $200,000, or $150,000?) that Obama promises to tax more.  Those are the businesses that have bonuses at the end of the year, and reinvest their profits in the local region.  When Obama takes that money out of our local region, it will not come back in the form of new and expanded business. A little will come back in the form of grants to risky enterprises that are unable to survive in the private economy on money that they borrow from the local bank.  They will last for a few years, get bailed out a couple of times, then fold. A little will come back to those good at getting government grants.  Most of it will never come back at all.  It will be gone from our local region forever.
     All of us will pay more inflation taxes.  We pay that when our money depreciates and the value of our savings goes down in real terms. When the government overspends, the federal reserve creates more money and credit in order to finance all of the deficits and promote all of the stimulus Congress demands.  This results in money being worth less, which means people have to charge more for things in order to make a living.  Since the federal reserve was created in 1913, the value of the dollar has gone to 1/20th of what is was.  What cost $100 then, now costs $2029.  There is now no longer any alternative to inflation.  Our government debt is so huge that it can never be paid off.  The only solution is to make our money worth less, destroying our savings.
     When government interference and manipulation cause many people to make mistaken decisions in the economy, the correct cure is to stand aside and let the economy recognize its losses and get back to normalcy.  Those investors who put money into the sectors that government encouraged need to take their losses, and we need to move on.  It should not be the taxpayer who covers those loses.  The government has gotten into the habit of bailing everyone out.  This will eventually destroy the free enterprise system.  Businesses are only healthy when they are subject to the discipline of the marketplace.  When they understand and deal with the risks involved, they are much more conservative.  When government removes that discipline, like it did in the case of Freddie Mack,  Fannie Mae, and mortgage lending institutions, those institutions take risks that they would not otherwise take.
     The truth of the matter is that the free enterprise economy is what rescues our government.  A free economy is able to recover from the foolishness of government mismanagement and spending, even though it may be painful. The government can make things bad for many years, however.  In the late 1920's and early 1930's the Federal Reserve created a long period of monetary deflation.   Congress passed a number of protectionist bills which severely reduced foreign trade, throwing many people out of work.  Encouraged by both Hoover and Roosevelt, Congress dramatically increased taxes on the so called "wealthy", or the job producers among us.  The result was the great depression.  In 1941, after 8 years of high taxes on businesses and a number of "stimulus" packages, the unemployment rate was worse than it was in 1933.  It was neither the new deal nor the war that brought us out of the depression.  It was an outbreak of new entrepreneurial activity by people rising above the obstacles that they faced, and the burdens placed upon them. 
     In 1980 we had another stock market crash, and interest rates had climbed to 24%.  But then Ronald Reagan became President.  He did not try to rescue the economy with a bunch of wage and price controls and bailouts.  Instead he got congress to reduced taxes substantially, and brought stability to the money supply.  Reagan steered us away from the kind of government interference that would have led to a prolong Depression.  Reagan showed us how to let the free economy recover from the latest government interference cycle. Obama now promises us the same sorts of policies that led to the last great depression.  That is "change" that we can live without.
     Our health insurance will also be attacked by the Obama administration.  Right now 85% of us have decent health insurance, and those who don't are taken care of by a host of federal, state, local, and private programs.  The least expensive way for government to assure that everyone has health care is to let those who can take care of themselves do so, then simply pay the bill for those who can't. But it is not universal health care that Obama, Clinton, and others in Congress want.  They want control. Obama's plan will provide rewards and punishments to employers so that everyone has to have a plan approved and controlled by the government.  As a result, many very good private plans will go away in favor of the subsidized plans.  And when the financial burden gets extremely high, services will be cut, and choices taken away.  (That is what has happened in other countries like Great Britain, where even the socialist Labor government has had to take steps to bring some freedom to practice medicine back into the system.) The end result will be that individuals will have less and less control over their health care.  Our health care will be controlled by a huge 435 person committee called Congress, the same committee that can't balance it's budget, control our borders, or keep our forests from burning down.
      True reform would re-introduce competition in the health care markets, driving costs down, and letting people make more decisions for themselves.  What we really want is more control over our health care decisions, not less.
     We don't have the best choices in the national elections next Tuesday.  But it is important for us to choose the better of the candidates, or those who will do the least amount of harm.  We don't need any more of the expertise of the supposedly sophisticated people who have so profoundly messed with our free economy.  We need people in office with some common sense, and enough humility to know that it is their job to get the government under control, and stay out of the economy.  I would rather put my trust in someone like Governor Palin, who has a lot of common sense and can balance a budget, than all of the sophisticates in Washington who think they know it all, but have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they don't.  Governor Palin's reformist nature has been clearly demonstrated by her taking on the politicians in her own state.  They would really like to take her down any way they could, as would the arrogant pundits that dominate our airwaves.  Senator McCain also has a longstanding record of opposing the profligate spending and growth of entitlements. 
     For there to be any chance of bringing government under control,  we need to keep people like Senator Coleman from Minnesota as well.  The alternative will make congress even worse than it is now.   It was not "greed" that caused the financial crises, even though that is a common commodity.  It was overspending and manipulation by Congress.  And it was not the "Republicans".  Most Republicans are conservative, but not enough of them.   So a combination of  Democrats and Republicans who are not conservative has been in control for many years even though Republicans had nominal control for a few years, and Democrats have control now.  The problem is that there are not enough conservative people in Congress.  But we don't have enough conservative people in Congress because that is how the people have voted.  When we keep demanding more and more grants, entitlements, and benefits from government, we get what we ask for.  We get more spending, more taxes, more control over our lives in almost every respect.  When we don't vote for the most conservative candidates we also get all of the social problems that come with the destruction of marriage, the promotion of deviant sexual behavior in our schools, the slaughter of the unborn, and a philosophy in our schools that teaches our kids to reject those values that bring decency, stability, and common sense to our lives.
     Vote sensibly on election day.  Don't follow the pied piper.