A modest proposal

A modest proposal

http://washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-get-ready-for-an-immigration-fight-the-public-doesnt-want/article/2542980
"Many Republicans who might be open to some sort of reform will not accept legalization until security measures are not only passed but in place and working. Many Democrats will not accept anything less than immediate legalization. They will accept heightened security measures, but not as a condition for legalization."

I propose we grant immediate legalization in return for a pledge to neither seek nor accept any government support either federal nor state. No free education, no social security, no Medicare or medical. and no path to citizenship. The card issued should be something other than a green card. The card should have rfid or similar chip to allow the tracking at the boarder and any place else the government needs to assure the holder is not violating the terms of legal residence.

To provide a bridge for current illegal residents and to encourage registration, the benefits prohibited would be replaced with a cash award equivalent to the current value benefit, assuming the illegal aliens where currently using available benefits. The cash award would be in the form of prepaid health, education, retirement accounts to replace those benefits. The amount would be prorated based on the years worked in the United States. The benefit would decline with time so that applicant applying in one year, would get no benefit.

On the other hand, rather than paying social security, the equivalent amount would be paid to their medical and retirement accounts. While the card holder could not vote, he would have the constitutional rights of citizens, including speaking out to influence elections.

Since the benefits are so great, citizens should be allowed to voluntarily change to this status, including the cash award for current benefits, and the loss of citizenship.



Dave Farnsworth

What accountability means in the real world

What accountability means in the real world

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/22/the_quality_of_accountability_121317.html

"Benghazi offers an example of both lack of accountability and faux-countability. As Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins pointed out in comments filed with the Senate intelligence committee report, the attack was preventable, yet no one has been disciplined for failing to prevent it. Collins singled out Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, who testified that the threat environment in Benghazi was "flashing red" yet failed to ensure that a facility he approved there had adequate security."

If no breakdown in a system can be identified, that cause a bad outcome, that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. To demand proof that some individual is responsible, is unreasonable. To identify the smallest portion of the organization which contains the responsible person should be sufficient.

The Romans had a way of dealing with such sub units who demonstrated failure. It was to decimate them. That involved breaking the division into units of 10 individuals, and allowing each group to select one of their group to be deemed responsible and to have the other nine beat him to death.

I propose a similar situation for the State department. Rather than killing the selected scape goats (10% of the staff) , he would just be fired with no chance of further Federal employment.

This is practiced in the real-world all the time.




Dave Farnsworth

Will the Elderly Benefit?

Will the Elderly Benefit?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/allowing-home-care-workers-to-organize-benefits-us-all/2014/01/20/41ef6b18-8090-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html

The claim is that if the Supreme Court removes the compulsion for home health care workers to be forced into a union, fewer people will chose to be health care workers.

"Additionally, the home-care workers' status as public employees should be relatively uncontroversial. The elderly and disabled individuals that the home-care workers serve have the right to hire, fire and direct them within certain parameters, but the state pays their wages and benefits and has passed a statute categorizing home-care workers as state employees. Importantly, home-care workers' rights to bargain collectively are limited to those matters that the state controls."

What good is the right to hire and fire (within the limits of the state regulation), if the pool to hire from is filled with slugs. I do not trust the unions to determine who is qualified nor do I trust the state to represent the best interests of the elderly. State control and union control the double whammy.

The elderly are at risk because of their low resistance scams. I don't believe a union lawyer is a person to take advice on what is good for the elderly.



Dave Farnsworth

Liberal haters hate haters (except liberals)

Liberal haters hate haters (except liberals)

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78941809/

"House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had a bad year. Democrats chided him for getting little done but holding 40 meaningless votes to repeal Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Boehner, "A coward! He's a coward!" Tea partyers threatened to dump Boehner as speaker. The three moderate Republicans left just shook their heads. "I'm what you'd call a regular guy with a big job," Boehner said. Later he said disconsolately, "I need this job like I need a hole in the head.""

Normally, this author would have nothing good to say about a republican. Are we to believe his affinity for Boehner is because he is strong or weak? 

"Will the outcome of November's congressional election hinge on the popularity of (or anger about) Obamacare?"
Duh, of course.

"Who knows? But that hasn't stopped people from predicting this is going to be the big decider among midterm voters."
Is it safe to say that if ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster some will be looking for scalps?

"The Republicans have been planning to run against Obamacare since way before its launch turned into one of those tech debacles that take all the air out of the balloon of promise." This understates the disaster that is ObamaCare. To say this is normal is to deny reality.

"But will it work?" ObamaCare? No!

"The big subject will be the same as always in midterm elections when there is no presidential campaign to draw attention, passion and voters." But there is ObamaCare to add Passion to the debate. This could be a presents with pitchforks moment. Should this happen, how many core Democrats will abandon ship. Liberalism is the lazy man's party, they don't do hard.

How many people will actually vote?

That is just so dull compared to all the rhetoric about people despising Obamacare and Democrats (not to mention despising Obama) and hating everything about government and hence, ready to eviscerate anyone on the ticket.

But it just doesn't work that way. Hatred is not as big a problem as indifference.

Remember 2010, when a severely diminished bloc of voters (some 40 million less than in the Obama election two years earlier) showed up and sent a brace of very conservative Republicans to office, launched the myth of inevitability of the tea party and pushed the U.S. House to the far right?

What did we get for that?

First, a gridlocked mess on Capitol Hill that kept most anything of substance from being enacted, along with a series of suicide missions over national debt limits and the like that made the nation look foolish in the eyes of the world.

Shutting the government down a while back didn't help.

The year ended with House Speaker John Boehner slapping his own caucus for its foolishness and its inability to see national need through the far right fog it had pumped onto the political stage.

Lots of other more moderate Republicans took this as a sign it was OK to put your hands over your ears, close your eyes real tight and wear a T-shirt that said, "No tea party here!"

Then there was some progress on a couple of things intended to show progress so the incumbent Republicans would not go into an election looking like they just wanted to sledgehammer everything into oblivion.

How long can that last? About as long as it takes for the true tea partyers to gather their forces and create a lot more noise aimed at their goal of having no federal government at all.

It could be wishful to think the tea party has gone away as an important election day component. One must always remember that nothing changes all at one time, even in politics. It oozes from one thing to the next.

And there may still be enough oozing among tea party types to have an important impact in November's midterm election, when the U.S. House and a chunk of the U.S. Senate is in contest.

Here is how.

If you think of an election as a collection of people in a big room making a decision, one of the most important questions is: How many people are going to be in that room?

Think of tea party behavior as relatively static and still quite passionate despite a few recent debacles. Still, conventional wisdom holds that the fewer non-tea partyers in the room the stronger the tea party; the movement's strength will expand or decrease based on who shows up. Midterm contests being low turnout events, maybe only a dismal number of people will show up. That could make the tea party a very substantial voting bloc.

Which is what I think will happen.

People are always misreading the outcome of midterm elections, so any tea party success will be defined as a resurgence or a measure of how much people actually hate President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

So, how will people measure the midterm's outcome?

Liberals will break into a sweat and ask "How could this happen?" The people on the far right will hop around in tri-corner hats waving their "Don't Tread on Me!" flags, shouting they are back in charge and reviving another endless series of House votes aimed at defunding the programs they hate the most.

It will become no easier to be Speaker Boehner.

Inevitably, someone will write about the importance of voting every time, not just in presidential contests. But we have been there before.

Consecutive Solution to excessive education cost

Consecutive Solution to excessive education cost

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/15/new-school-a-plan-for-state-based-accreditation-of-alternative-higher-education/

Mike Lee and Ben Carson do have solutions
Federalism answers the charge that conservatives just want to eliminate government.

It is our election to Lose

It is our election to Lose

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/17/democrats_midterm_blues_121274.html

"Again, it wasn't supposed to be like this. President Obama's election was supposed to be the start of a "new New Deal." With unstoppable majorities in both the House and Senate, Obama would lift the curtain on a new progressive era where our faith in government would be restored. Now, according to Gallup, the American people consider government itself to be the No. 1 problem facing the country.

Liberals are still convinced that their vision is what America wants and needs and that Obama is the right man to give it to us. Assuming Republicans don't immolate themselves — always a possibility — that vision will receive yet another massive rebuke in November. The interesting question then will be whether liberals question the soundness of their faith or insist that the fault lies entirely with the false prophet who failed to deliver them to the Promised Land. "

Republicans can still lose this. We need to encourage voters to meet with party representatives (republican PC's) for a extended discussion. Not the drive by messaging common from both parties. Republicans have the winning argument and neither we nor the Democrat party seems to realize this.

I would propose independents, especially be invited to the discussion and have them invite Democrat representatives to do similar discussions.

What is remaining is winning the argument. We all need to think through and "focus group" the arguments. The participants will be the voters willing to participate, and can evolve into the in-depth discussion needed. Summaries should be published and links distributed.

Thomas Jefferson said, democracy is not ruled by the majority, but by the majority of the participants.

We need to disavow the argument that the Republicans need to present alternatives to the Democrat programs they oppose. We do, but it should not be necessary. The participating voters should should both present ideas and critique those of others. The republicans need to promote the ideas fed up to them by the voters. The voter should not be a spectator but an active participant. We are not selling soap, but governing as representatives.



Dave Farnsworth

Using the politics of Envy

Using the politics of Envy

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/13/keene-committed-to-shattering-the-american-dream/?page=2

"If the American dream is in trouble, it is because of the policies advanced by those who now argue that it is no longer valid.
Lengthy unemployment benefits that actually encourage people to drop out of the workforce and minimum-wage laws that make it more difficult for the young and poor to reach for the first step on the ladder of success are, like the rhetoric of progressive populists, attacks on the American dream.
To counter the politics of envy, Republicans must urge breaking down the barriers blocking upward mobility by encouraging policies that free the initiative and optimism of a people unique in world history. To do less would amount to the acceptance of a fundamental change in what this nation represents."

Envy is both un American and un Christian. But if people are to be envious, why not be envious of the princes of the governing class? The Washington, D.C. Is thriving, with low un employment and high wages. Why should this be so? Is it fair? In this day of the internet, why not transfer the congressional and executive offices to the higher unemployment areas or the area being represented. The rents are lower, the salaries will be initially lower.

And the lobbyists will need to move also, or rely on teleconferencing.

And in those distributed congressional hearings, archiving the arguments can be automatic. The people represented can participate real time. It should be required that all proposed legislation be available to the people, and any comment effecting legislation should be recorded though not necessarily immediately public. The lobbyists now helping to prepare legislation, should be replaced by a group of the willing. No legislation should go un examined, much less unread.

And we need not bring out the chopping blocks, the displaced princes may do the deed themselves when they realize they are to be treated as regular folks.


Dave Farnsworth

A hopeful thought for conservatives

A hopeful thought for conservatives
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2014/01/09/how-silicon-valley-could-destabilize-the-democratic-party/
"Yet for all the advantages of this burgeoning alliance with tech interests, it threatens to create tensions with the party's traditional base — minorities, labor unions and the public sector — as the party tries accommodate a constituency that combines social liberalism and environmentalist sentiments with vaguely libertarian instincts. "
The idea of the  fat cats turning on Dems, by acting like fat cats is refreshing. Like everyone, they want to be liked, but the ingratitude shown here has to be a turn off. Unlike the majority occupants of the Democratic plantation, these fat cats won't participate in there own destruction.
"Another inevitable flashpoint regards unions, a core progressive constituency. Venture capitalist Mark Andreesen recently declared that "there doesn't seem to be a role" for unions in the modern economy because people are "marketing themselves and their skills." "
Being mugged by the thuggery of unions is something no one except unions like.
The problem is the fat cats ,in this case, expect things to work, and intentions are not sufficient. They are almost like republicans in this respect