Hard Work Pays Off, Gilchrest is Gone
Feb 13, 2008 Political
The polls in Maryland closed 90 minutes late to allow people affected by an ice storm the opportunity to vote so results were late coming in. As it looks right now, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland’s 1st Congressional District has been defeated by State Senator Andy Harris. The absentee and provisional ballots need to be counted but I do not think there are enough of them in total to make a difference.
Regular readers will remember that I have not been happy with Congressman Gilchrest and that I had regularly corresponded with him in the last two years. I found some of his letters to me to be condescending and came off as if I did not understand the issues or how hard the job is. I made up my mind that I had had enough of him and that I would actively work to defeat him in the primaries if there was a better person challenging him. Andy Harris was that person. For his part, Mr. Gilchrest blew off the challenge in the early going by indicating that he has had challenges before. When it became apparent that he had a fight on his hands he started accepting PAC money to fight back.
This time, he lost. Andy Harris ran a good campaign though I believe all of the people vying for the seat embellished (or outright lied) a bit in their ads. I have not had the time to check each and every claim but out of those that I did, Harris was the most accurate. I made sure that all my contacts in the District knew about Andy and I made sure that my family all voted for him as well. Yesterday those efforts paid off.
I wish Mr. Gilchrest well. I thank him for his service to our country in both the Congress and in the US Marine Corps (he fought in Vietnam). He seems like a likable guy but his time has come. He spent too much time in DC and he voted with the Pelosi crowd far too often to be ignored. He claims that he always voted his conscience but it was obvious to me that he voted against the wishes of his constituents more often than not. As a Representative, his job was to represent and it seemed he stopped doing that.
Change is good and our next hurdle will be to get Harris elected in the general election. He will be a great asset to the District and he will conduct his work based on sound conservative principles.
Now, if the rest of the country can start turning over the long serving members and get some fresh blood in there we might be on a path to a better government. It is beyond me how so many people can run around praising the Barack star and his message of change and then vote for the same old moldy members of Congress.
People, change starts in the Congress and if we change them out every once in a while our system will be much better. A little grassroots work can get this accomplished. The 1st Congressional District in Maryland is proof that we can truly effect change if we set our minds to it.
Congratulations Mr. Harris. Now, on to the general election.
UPDATE: I have waited for Mr. Gilchrest to concede before posting this but he has yet to do so even though Mr. Harris has a 10 point (>7000 vote) lead. I am certain there will be no change in the outcome and can no longer wait for Mr. Gilchrest.
ILLEGALS Kill Border Guard
Jan 20, 2008 Immigration, Political
Those of us who believe in the rule of law want the borders of this country, particularly the southern border, closed down so that ILLEGALS cannot sneak across. People like Ted Kennedy and John McCain (and every Democrat) like to characterize these people as honest and hard working. I have no doubt they are hard working people (I doubt they only do jobs Americans won’t) but they are not HONEST. When a person breaks the law by crossing our border ILLEGALLY and then lives here under false pretenses then that is anything but honesty. This is criminal behavior and our government has sanctioned it for decades. The people in our Congress have turned a blind eye to border patrol agents who were thrown in jail for doing their duties, agents who received more time in jail for protecting us than any of the ILLEGALS get for invading us.
Now we have word that a border patrol agent in California was run over by a vehicle that he tried to stop after it entered this country ILLEGALLY. The area where this took place is popular among off road enthusiasts as well as drug runners entering the US ILLEGALLY. Our government is responsible for the death of this agent. The failure of the President and the Congress to secure our borders has allowed a vehicle to enter ILLEGALLY and run over an agent.
The way our government treats these things it might be a blessing that the agent died. If he had lived the government would have locked him up for a decade because he bothered an honest, hard working invader.
Story:
Fox News
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Tags: agent death, border crossing, Congress, drug runners, illegal aliens, President
Congress Should be Paid for Performance
Jan 13, 2008 Political
Some parts of the Federal Government have gone to a new pay system called the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) and it is supposed to be a pay for performance program where performers are paid more and non performers are laid less or even dismissed from service. From what I have read it is nothing more than a revised old boy system where those who have connections get great ratings and those who are not so well connected get an average rating. Despite being called pay for performance, my sources tell me it is only as good as the ability of the supervisor to understand what his employees do and how their actions equate to performance. Regardless, Congress allowed NSPS to take place and I think pay for performance is a good idea as long as they don’t change the rules a million times or lie about how it works, which seems to be the way government programs take place.
Congress should be on the same kind of system. The Congress just received a $4,100 cost of living pay raise that raises the average salary to over $169,000. When one considers the dismal performance of Congress it is not hard to see why they not only do not deserve the increase in pay but they should be giving money back. The last Congress had only 180 items signed into law and most were real important items like naming buildings such as post offices. If they ever rename the Capitol they can use the name Dewey, Cheatum and Howell building of corruption and inactivity.
Congress was good at adding earmarks and loading bills with pork. They added nearly 10,000 earmarks to the omnibus spending bill to steer our money toward pet projects in their home states. They have no idea of what fiscal responsibility is and they have no concept of being prudent with our money. Couple this with the fact that they work about 100 days a year and it is not hard to see that they are grossly overpaid for what they do. They take off for weeks at a time around every holiday and they take the entire month of August off. They have extended time off during elections and there are quite a number of members who have missed nearly a year of work because they have been on the campaign trail. We are paying them a salary to campaign.
Pay for performance is a good idea. Congress has this sneaky little method of receiving increases in pay. If they do not vote to stop the increase it is automatic. Then they can say they never voted to increase their pay. I think we should tie Congressional pay to performance. My first performance indicator is the budget. Congress receives absolutely no pay increase until the budget is balanced without raising taxes at all. In any year the budget is not balanced (and that means passed on time) they would not receive a raise. They would also not receive the raise until the end of the year so we could assess their performance. If you pay these schmucks up front you will never get good work out of them.
Next year needs to be the year where we get rid of all incumbents. In primaries people need to vote for the other person to represent the party so that incumbents are knocked out early. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland should be a casualty of the primary but if he makes it through I and hundreds of my associates will be voting for the Democrat who runs against him. Why? Because he, like all others there, has become irresponsible. We need to rid ourselves of all of them.
I think we need to start over with fresh faces and fresh ideas. Until we can make that happen we should limit their pay and ensure they are not rewarded for the dismal performance we have seen.
Sources:
Townhall 1
Townhall 2
Tags: Congress, do nothing congress, failure, pay raise
The AMT, a Congressional Tax Scam
Dec 22, 2007 Political
The Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, was enacted in 1969 to force millionaires to pay a “minimum” amount of taxes. The law was specifically aimed at the fewer than 200 millionaires in this country. I am sure Congress did not consider that there would be many more millionaires over the years with a few billionaires sprinkled in. They also never figured what would happen to this archaic law over the years. Since Congress failed to index the AMT for inflation, this law has been affecting people who are no where near being millionaires and it has done so for years. People who make a little as $150,000 can be hit by the AMT (and some with lower incomes depending on circumstances). There are people who would argue that $150,000 is a very good salary, and it is, but that in no way makes a person a millionaire.
Nearly 40 years after the AMT was enacted Congress has decided to do something about the way that it is affecting non-millionaires. But this comes with great concerns to our esteemed members of the criminal club in Congress because they are trying to figure out how to make up the revenue that will be lost by fixing the AMT. They want to do this by raising taxes on the rich (who else) but the AMT was a tax that was designed to only affect the rich in the first place. Charlie Rangel is beside himself because of all the money the government will lose if they fix the AMT without replacing the revenue source. Rangel says this as if the money belongs to the government instead of the people.
What I want Rangel and others to do is abolish the AMT completely. It is antiquated and has no place in our system. There are a lot of rich people and they pay a great deal in taxes. Then, I want Rangel and the other members of Congress to find a way to refund the money that they have received illegally over the years. The AMT was designed to impact millionaires. It has resulted in non-millionaires paying a fortune in extra taxes over the years so Congress owes people money back. Their law affected people it was not supposed to touch so the reality of the situation is, Congress will not be losing money, as Rangel claims but rather it will be no longer getting money to which it is not entitled.
My opinion is that Congress has never been entitled to the money the AMT has raised from non-millionaires because this is contrary to the law they enacted in 1969. Congress has been ignoring this for nearly four decades because they liked taking in extra money that they had not planned on getting. This allows them to waste even more. The problem is, the AMT has not reached down to the middle class of America and the middle class is not too happy. Congress might kiss the rears of lobbyists and rich people for campaign money but the middle class is a larger voting block and they do not want to tick everyone off. So they put up a little patch to keep the AMT from getting even more people this year while they work on a way to make the rich pay for a mistake that was only supposed to affect the rich in the first place.
The desire of the Democrats in Congress to always tax the hell out of the rich is one of the reasons many businesses decide to move their efforts out of the country. It is why many rich people have investments that are not subject to the US tax system and it is why rich people hire armies of lawyers to keep them from being raked over the coals. Next time one of you bleeding heart liberals cries about some big company (like Heinz) outsourcing to another country don’t cry about the company and how evil and greedy it is. Instead, focus your anger toward a body that thinks it is OK to rape people because they are successful. The actions of Congress cause people to react.
People who have paid the AMT over the years (and who are not millionaires) should write a letter to their members of Congress demanding their money back. They should assert it was taken by fraud and should be returned.
The AMT does not make millionaires pay a minimum tax. It forces ordinary wage earners to find ways to reduce the burden of taxes by getting higher cost health insurance and making larger contributions to retirement plans. These reduce the amount of income that is actually taxed. Of course, there are plenty of ways to avoid taxes, as the rich in this country (like members of Congress) have found out.
We need a tax code that is no more than 10 pages long. It should include a flat tax that cannot be raised above a certain number without the vote of the people. The flat tax will eliminate the need for the pithy class warfare Democrats love to play and it will eliminate the need for many other tax schemes such as the AMT. It should also reduce the need for an IRS (the Gestapo of the Congress) and it will reduce the cost associated with running the tax scheme of this country.
One thing we should make sure of is that Rangel and the rest of his bandits are not allowed to rape the rich to fix a problem that should never have happened and only happened due the the incompetence of the Congress.
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Tags: amt, Congress, crimes, Democrats, incompetence, tax and spend, tax the rich, taxes
Democrats Break Work-Week Promise
Dec 4, 2007 Political
The Democrats promised that they would work 5 days a week and that they would do more than the do-nothing Republicans. They started out like a ball of fire and worked nearly 5 full days while members from both parties complained about not being home (here is a clue. If you don’t like it get out). Then the work weeks started slipping and poof, they are gone. Next year the Democratically controlled Congress will only work a few 5 day weeks and they will be off for about 2 weeks every time a holiday pops up and of course, they will be off the entire month of August. I know that it is tough working all those days in DC when they have families and constituents at home but they are the ones who said they would do it.
As for this idea being floated around that they did more than the Republican led Congresses ever did, it is hogwash. They might have been there more days than when the Republicans are in charge but they have not done much of anything. They have not passed a budget and it is months overdue. Their irresponsibility will soon cause government workers to be furloughed (no one from Congress will miss a paycheck though) and our military will not have the things they need to fight the war. The Democrats have not done anything about the Alternative Minimum Tax which will bite a lot of people it was never intended to touch. The Democrats did pass a minimum wage increase by adding it to a DEFENSE bill and they have been pretty good at naming post offices. Other than that, they have done little.
I realize that it is hard for these folks to be away from their home districts and that it causes them problems. I have no sympathy for them because they ran for office of their own free will and if it were actually as terrible as they make it seem they would not keep running. Fact is, they keep running because they have a lot of power and do very little to earn a paycheck. Our military, on the other hand, has to be away from their families for a very long time and they are in constant danger and they sure as hell do not make anywhere near as much money as a member of Congress. However, there is no excuse for the members of Congress to get 2 weeks off every time a holiday rolls around and they certainly do not need the entire month of August off. They say they are working in their districts but it seems to me that their districts are not in Iraq, Israel, Syria or other places that they trek off to. Those who stay in their districts have a strange way of working. Must be difficult to get things done while standing on skis or sailing in a boat.
However, there is a solution to this. A commenter at The Politico mentioned it and I had thought of it before. Why do these people need to be in DC to do their jobs. We have some of the most sophisticated equipment in the world. Certainly they should be able to cast votes from their district offices. Congress could be in DC for two weeks (including the weekends) and then be in their districts for the next two. They can work on the committee stuff while in DC and their staff can put it all together. They can hold confirmation hearings and other things that require them all to be there at that time. Then, they can go home and work in their district offices where they would be in communication with other members when votes were taken. I am sure that it could be set up so they could vote electronically and I know it could be done via roll call.
They should use modern technology to alleviate the burden, and cost, of traveling all over the country. This would also ensure they are actually working during the 2 week holiday breaks and would negate the need to have all of August off. It would also put the members of Congress with their constituents instead of DC with the lobbyists. This would allow the people who the members should be listening to greater access and curb the access that lobbyists currently enjoy. It is not necessary for them to be in DC all the time they spend there and it is a waste of money to let them have off all the time. The rest of us have to go to work everyday or we don’t get paid.
There is one thing that the Democrats have shown with their latest work schedule. This country needs a smaller, less intrusive government. The work schedule shows that they believe they do not need to work more than a few hundred days a year and that they can take off a lot. Surely, they are showing we do not need them all the time and that a part time government would be satisfactory.
In any event, the Democrats broke the promise they made. I don’t care about all the circumstances, they made the promise. They knew they could not (or would not) keep it but they made it anyway. Seems the donks have broken a lot of promises this past year.
Is anyone surprised?
As an aside, since they are late with the budget and have not fixed the AMT shouldn’t we be able to file our taxes later this year? If they don’t have to do anything on time, why should we?
Tags: broken promises, Congress, Democrats, taxes, work week
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