Are you happy with how government is functioning?  Are you in favor of a progressive, totalitarian government that determines what is best for the people even when it violates the rights of the individual?  Do you value individual achievement and individual accountability?  What do you want government to be? 

Our government is of course a republic, but for far too many years now, our government has been controlled by two political parties whose differences are far fewer than their similarities.  Political parties that resemble exclusive private clubs whose elitist members are expected to vote the party line and promote the progressive agenda of both parties.  These individual members are selected not for their ideals or values, but instead for their devotion and dedication to the club, be it the Republican or Democratic Party.  As long as these members are willing to support the agenda of the party, no matter what the cost and even to the detriment of their constituents, they are rewarded through the support of special interest groups and their political party.  This incestuous relationship has left Americans with little choice at the voting booth.  The progressive agenda of both parties is creating a larger, more invasive government that forces those agendas upon us without regard to our rights.  Meanwhile, Americans blindly argue which party’s progressive path is better, not seeing that the destination is the same for both parties.  Both parties have shown a fondness for large, invasive government at all levels.  The Democrats openly admit that more government is needed to control the economy, education, health care, manufacturing, and every other aspect of our lives.  The Republicans are not as up front about their desire for the growth of government, but the signs are there if you look.  When Democrats are in power, Republicans cry out for reduced spending, they shout from mountain tops for all to hear how Americans are losing their freedoms, how the Democrats are increasing spending and raising taxes.  The less power the Republicans have, the louder and more conservative they become.  The problem comes when the Republicans are in power and have the ability to enact these conservative principles; they fail to propose or to act on them.  Right now at the federal and state levels, Republicans are criticizing the Democrat’s agenda and they are proposing conservative alternatives; but where were these ideas and solutions when they were the party in power and could have gotten a conservative agenda passed?  I believe that the Republicans are using the Democrats as useful idiots, letting them grow government but being careful not to position themselves to be blamed.  The current example of this in Ohio is the budget.  The governor and Democrats want to use the lure of gambling revenue to help balance the budget and eliminate the need for a serious look of cutting the size of government.  They want the Republicans to support slot machines so that Democrats will not bear all of the blame.  Republicans claim that if the governor wants to put slot machines at race tracks he can unilaterally approve it without the support of the Republicans, thereby putting all political risk at the feet of the governor and Democrats.  The Republicans are now saying to put it on the ballot and let the voters decide.  This is a back door way for the Republicans to get slot machines into Ohio without any culpability to the Republican Party.  Neither party is willing to do what is necessary to balance the budget and get Ohio’s economy growing.  Neither party is willing to redesign or right size government in Ohio.  Ohioans have been bombarded with threats of draconian cuts to all state and local services.  Politicians on both sides know that many voters are so accustomed to our nanny state government that they are willing to accept anything if it will avoid service cuts, so allowing the voters to decide on the slots is a viable way for Republicans to allow the slots without subjecting the party to the scrutiny of true conservatives.

 If you are satisfied with your government, with increased government control of our industries; if you believe that government should protect us from ourselves because the government experts have spoken so there is no reason for debate or discussion; if you believe that the government should be our provider, then continue to faithfully support the two party system, continue to vote for those candidates that put the Party’s priorities above yours.  Continue to elect candidates that tell you what you want to hear, only to vote the Party line when elected, if that is what you want from your government.

 If on the other hand you believe in a limited government, that rugged individualism, personal choice and accountability are what allowed this nation to become great, that we the people know what is best for ourselves and our communities then use your vote to support the candidates that believe as you do.  Vote based upon your beliefs, not some elitist club disguised as a political party.  Seek out those candidates that share your values and ideals, candidates that are willing to stand by their convictions, and in the light of truth to be held accountable for their choices and actions. 

If you are happy with how government is working in Ohio and across the nation, then continue doing what you are doing.  However, if you think that government is out of control, that government no longer works for the people, then it is time to stand up and vote your convictions.  It is still our government, they still work for us, and we have no one to blame but ourselves if we continue to support politicians and candidates that lie to us, steal from us and our children, and generally act like royalty that is above the law.

            For the past five months each week has been a surprise, each week we see our federal government get larger and more invasive.  Are we on the right path?  This discussion is not about left and right, republican or democrat, this discussion should be about up and down.  Are our actions and the actions of our elected representatives elevating our society to the ultimate freedoms our founding fathers envisioned, or are we being dragged down under an ever more controlling government toward totalitarianism? 

            In the past few weeks we have witnessed government take control of our banking industry, our insurance industry, the automobile manufacturing industry, and the credit card industry.  Proposals have been made to artificially and intentionally greatly increase the cost of energy for the express purpose of making our current way of life unaffordable to the majority of Americans, thereby changing behaviors and giving the illusion that alternative energy sources are more affordable.  The president announced new draconian CAFÉ standards for all American manufactured automobiles.  This legislation serves to force the auto industry to limit the type of cars they make to very small, very dangerous econo-boxes that Americans would not otherwise purchase.  Once again taking away our ability to choose how we want to live our lives.  Now we are facing another assault on our health care system.  An assault that, if successful, will cost trillions of dollars and destroy the best health care system that currently exists anywhere.

            Currently there are 6 million people in this country collecting unemployment benefits.  While they are collecting those benefits, they are purchasing goods and services and paying their bills.  What will happen when those benefits run out?  As the benefits expire, fewer goods and services will be purchased, more homes will be foreclosed on, and more bankruptcies will be filed.  Meanwhile we are adding 600,000 new jobless Americans to that list each month.  Our economy is just in the beginning stages of spinning out of control.  As fewer people are spending fewer dollars, more and more layoffs will occur as the cycle feeds on itself.  Lately the media and economists have been trying to tell us that while the economy is still bad and getting worse, it is getting worse at a slower rate, so therefore things are getting better.  Our weekly jobless numbers remain dismal, unemployment rates for the nation and individual states are continuing to worsen, so why are we being told not to worry?  These economists point to the number of Americans collecting unemployment and how that trend is starting to flatten, implying that it means fewer Americans are unemployed.  Actually, we are seeing people that no longer qualify for unemployment fall out of this statistic. 

            The solution to our current plight will not be easy.  We as Americans must demand from our politicians that they stop spending our money wastefully.  We must demand that they stop nationalizing our industries.  As a nation, we must stop borrowing money from around the world, stop printing new money at unprecedented rates, and learn to live within our means.  Taxes must be lowered to allow people to keep what they earn so that we the people can have the ability to rejuvenate our economy. 

            Government does not create wealth.  By taking wealth from those who earn it and redistributing that wealth, we are reducing people’s and businesses ability to grow and create the wealth that is required to grow our economy.

As many Americans rightfully express their displeasure with congress for exponentially growing the size of government through bailouts and interference of the free market, we need only to examine government’s role in funding our universities to understand the blueprint for this relationship. 

Our founding fathers understood the importance of an educated populace, realizing that was essential for the survival of the republic.  To that end, government involvement was vital in establishing our system of higher education.  This was a noble and just use of public monies at that time, however, since then our society and our universities have grown beyond this need as universities have become essentially private businesses rather than social entities.  As a result of government involvement, our universities have become increasingly costly and inefficient.  The cost of a college education has dramatically risen despite the billions of tax dollars Ohioans have contributed.  Our university officials defend seven figure salaries for the administrators and coaches because they provide an essential service and bring revenue to the university.  They compare the president to a corporate CEO and justify professor’s salaries because of a need to compete with other universities to get the best talent.  These are all metrics of a private industry business model not of a government entity.  University enrollment is limited by classroom and housing space available, so the numerous qualified applicants must be culled in some manner.  Like any other business, if demand exceeds supply, either supply must be increased or the price must be increased to balance supply and demand.  Why do universities charge so much for a college degree?  Because they can; college administrators are essentially auctioning off college admissions by steadily increasing tuition in an effort to balance supply and demand.  Until applications for enrollment decrease, the price of a college degree will only increase regardless of the amount of tax dollars given.  Instead of making a college degree more affordable, our taxes are merely contributing to the inefficiencies of our universities, much the same as our tax dollars will perpetuate the inefficiencies of the automobile and other industries.

Many pro-government individuals think that the government can override the basic laws of supply and demand.  Just as they ineffectively try to reduce the cost of college, they believe that government can and should prop up failing industries.  We have seen hundreds of billions of our dollars committed to the banking industry, with no apparent positive results.  The latest bailout attempt is to the auto industry.  No one wants to see anyone lose their job; however, the billions of dollars being requested by the auto manufacturers will not save them.  The airline industry went through much the same situation just a few years ago.  The basic problems with the airlines, as with the auto manufacturers, are the legacy costs and the ability to compete with non-legacy companies within that industry.  Aloha, Frontier, US Airways, America West, and ATA all asked for and received infusions of government money.  Other airlines, such as United Airlines, applied but were denied.  As a result, United filed for bankruptcy, reorganized, and became more competitive.  Those carriers that received the government backed “loans”, did not change how they operated and did not become more competitive.  Aloha and ATA dissolved, Frontier is currently in bankruptcy, US Airways went in and out of bankruptcy and only survived by a merger with America West; a merger that was necessary to save both companies.  The important point is that even with a government infusion of cash, the basic laws of the free market will always prevail.  For the auto industry to survive, they must produce a product that the consumer wants to buy and offer that product at a price that the consumer is willing to pay.  There are many strings attached to the proposed bailout money, one of which is that government will dictate what type of vehicles the manufactures will produce.  Essentially government will be designing our automobiles rather than allowing the consumer to dictate the types of vehicles they want to buy.  No matter how many billions of dollars our government provides to the auto industry, if they fail to produce a vehicle that consumers are willing to buy, they will still fail. 

Some refer to the bailout of Chrysler in the eighties as a symbol of success and justification for the current bailout.  The fact that Chrysler not only repaid the government loan with interest, but paid it off early would seem to provide some reassurance for supporting another industry bailout.  However, had the government not bailed out Chrysler in the eighties, the industry may not be in this situation now.  Had Chrysler become leaner and more competitive through reorganization, it would have forced GM and Ford to become more efficient as well, leaving them better positioned for the current economy.

The most effective and practical course of action for the auto industry is bankruptcy protection.  This will allow the manufacturers to reduce long term costs, retool and resize the company to become more efficient and competitive.  The end result will be a stronger auto industry that benefits all Americans.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch”; “You can’t get something for nothing”. We have all heard and recited these phrases many times, these words may have never been truer than today. Whether we are talking about individuals, schools, small businesses, or major corporations, whenever the government offers money in the form of welfare, subsidies, or bailouts, there is a price to pay. This price is steep and it is paid by us all. Our social spending, the war on poverty and the New Deal, has cost this nation billions of taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it. If poverty were simply a situation of having no money, we would have eradicated poverty years ago. Agriculture subsidies come with regulations that restrict what farming practices farmers can use. It limits what they can grow and where they can grow it. Our administrators have lost local control of our schools since accepting increased federal and state funds, exponentially increasing the cost to operate our schools. Individually, when we accept government payments there are also restrictions and expectations placed upon us. State and federally funded universal health care will come with the expectation of modified behaviors; tobacco products, fast food, and foods considered unhealthy will all be heavily taxed, restricted and in some instances even outlawed. Risky behaviors will be restricted and more regulations will be enacted, all for “our own good”. Helmets will be required for motorcycle riders, all passengers in an automobile or bus will be required to use seatbelts, gun ownership and even carrying a pocket knife will be restricted and banned. These advancements in regulation upon the citizenry have already occurred in Great Britain since adopting Universal Health Care.

Our current “economic crisis” is another prime example of paying dearly for a “free lunch” as government tries to inject itself into the free market. Capitalism, lack of regulation, or oversight is not to blame for our current situation. Our current problems started with the New Deal but were greatly exacerbated over ten years ago with the creation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These are government run agencies that determined success not by merit or real earnings, but by a social agenda for the purpose of giving loans to individuals that could not qualify for traditional loans and were high risk for repayment of those loans. This type of subversion of the free capitalist market skewed the market, artificially elevating home and stock values. Home owners as well as investors saw their portfolios grow seemingly overnight because of this “free lunch”. What we are now facing is nothing more than a necessary correction of these markets. Unfortunately, so many financial institutions, businesses, and individuals are so heavily leveraged that they cannot survive these devaluations and are becoming financially insolvent. As this happens, banks don’t know who next will default on a loan or declare bankruptcy; therefore banks have tightened the flow of money and are limiting loans to other banks, businesses, and individuals. Even responsible businesses and individuals cannot borrow money no matter how good their credit rating is. Now, the same government that thought injecting itself into the banking industry was a good idea wants to apply even greater controls over all aspects of not only the financial industry, but to all businesses and individuals. Instead of having to live through this “bitter pill” for several months, our government wants to extend this misery for several years. The Great Depression was brought about by a very similar type of government intervention and it lingered for ten years because of government interference. Government intrusion will not prevent the correction; in trying to control and soften the blow of the correction, government will simply cause the effects to be felt for a much longer period of time and costing us all even more money in the long run.

In the event of this bailout, there will be no accountability. The market will not be cleansed of those entities that utilized bad business practices; those entities will still exist and will continue to apply the same bad business principles that put them in this very predicament. In my judgment, we need to allow the marketplace to determine the winners and losers; we need to allow the losers to fade into the history books while allowing the winners to grow and newcomers to the market to be allowed to compete. Those businesses that apply sound business practices should be allowed to succeed and not be held down by the losers that are being artificially supported by an intrusive government at the taxpayers’ expense. The apparent economy of the 1990’s may have been a wonderful feast, but as we taxpayers will soon find out, there is no free lunch.

            Since the inception of the Great Society, we have been increasingly conditioned and expected to turn to government for the answers to the ills of society.  Government is not the answer to the state’s problems, it is the problem.  There are really only three things that citizens should expect from their government at any level.  We should expect the government to protect and secure our freedoms, to create an environment where the economy is allowed to grow, and enforcement of our laws.

            As the size of government grows, an ever increasing amount of money is removed from our economy to support that government in the form of ever greater taxation; taxes on our income, on our property, on our investments, on our expenditures, on businesses, on utilities, on fuel, on inheritances, and on our savings.  In nearly every aspect of our daily lives the government is taking money in the form of taxes out of the hands of its citizens, money that otherwise would have been available for people to spend, save, or invest as they see fit; assets that are no longer available for industry to reinvest in the form of research, development, and expansion.  This, in conjunction with excess regulation and red tape restricts our economic growth.

            Our freedoms are not given to us by our government, only to be taken back when they become inconvenient.  Our freedoms are inalienable rights given to us by God, our Creator and cannot be taken from us unless we willingly surrender them.  If we allow our rights and freedoms to be taken from us in exchange for perceived physical or financial security, we shall in the end, have neither.

            Government does not create jobs nor create a robust economy.  Government on its own has nothing; it only has what we, its citizens, give to it.  Government does not create wealth or goods; it only redistributes the assets it has taken.  People, through their ingenuity, labor and risk create our economy and wealth. 

            Our laws, our constitution is not based upon the laws of man, they are based upon natural law, the laws of God.  As such these laws must be upheld in a consistent manner for all citizens.  No one can be above the law, and no one can select which laws we choose to enforce and which we choose to ignore.

            Rather than turn to government, we must turn back to what made America great.  We must look to the people for the solutions to the ills that we now face.  Individual ruggedness, innovation, accountability and risk taking will provide more sound solutions to our current social and economic plights.

            Our communities are confronting an economic affliction of great proportion.  Inflation fueled by escalating energy costs distort our economic decisions, penalize thrift, and crush our struggling youth and fixed income elderly alike.

            Idle industries have cast our workers into unemployment.  Those who do work are denied fair compensation for their labor by a tax system that penalizes personal achievement.  President Reagan made these statements over 20 years ago, and they are just as true today.

            As great as our total tax burden is, it has not kept pace with our public spending.  As individuals we can only live beyond our means for a short time by borrowing.  Why then should we think that our state should not be bound by the same limitations? 

We are facing an estimated state deficit of nearly $1.8 billion.  Some will say we simply need to increase taxes, but we have reached and exceeded the public’s tolerance for and ability to pay for more taxes.  Some have suggested increasing taxes on business and industry.  But business does not pay taxes.  Businesses are being taxed, so much so that they are unable to compete on the global market and are being forced to relocate and shift production to plants beyond our borders.  Business must pass its costs, including taxes, on to the consumer.  Only people pay taxes.

For years we have talked of reducing government spending in order to decrease taxes, and at times we have made feeble attempts at it.  There are those that say we cannot reduce taxes until after we have reduced spending.  Well, we can lecture our children about their wasteful spending habits until we are out of breath, or we can change their spending habits by reducing their allowance.

Spending cuts should not be at the expense of the truly needy.  We can continue to meet our responsibility to those who, through no fault of their own, need our help; as well as meet the other legitimate needs of the state.  We cannot continue our wasteful ways at the expense of our workers and economy.  Our goal should be to increase wealth so all will have more, not just to redistribute what we already have.  We must again reward hard work and risk taking by forcing government to live within its means.  For years we have been in denial of our self destructive economic structure, but we no longer have that luxury.

I believe we can address school funding issues without further raising taxes and maintaining local control of our schools. Ten years ago the Ohio Supreme court determined that our schools rely too heavily on local property taxes. Many people think the state should contribute more money to our schools. Unfortunately, this would only increase our taxes and ultimately take away local control of our schools. Eliminating property taxes and using local earned income taxes would help to greatly reduce the need for additional levies, address inflationary issues of the schools, protect those on fixed incomes from rising taxes, and maintain local control of our schools.

I believe that we should reduce the tax burden on Ohioans and businesses to expand the local economy and attract new industries back into our communities.