Making Strides

Ame, Isabel, & I... and even our dog Shasta, participated in this morning's annual American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, in downtown Indianapolis.














My grandmother, Mary Kole, was afflicted with this disease, as was my good friend and one-time radio co-host Shelly, plus a co-worker. I think my experience is typical. We all have important women in our lives. This disease afflicts too many of them. When you have a wife and a daughter as I do, this hits home for you.

The turn-out was excellent, and I'm confident a lot of money was raised for important research. I urge my fellow Libertarians to participate in future events, including this one next year, and the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, next Spring.

Great Blog Reading

It's not the first time I'll make this recommendation, and probably not the last either: Check out Rob Beck's blog, Shall Not Perish.

As I am a candidate for statewide office, I tend not to get too deeply involved in Federal or international issues. Rob takes care of that for me, and with a subtly biting wit.

Daily Times Letter

The Noblesville Daily Times ran another one of my letters on the GOP and the abandoment of fiscally conservative principles.

Republicans showing they are not fiscal conservatives

There is a drumbeat of discontent with the Republican Party and the performance of its elected official building to a crescendo on the issue of taxes and spending.

Articles in the Noblesville Daily Times by small business guru Raymond Keating and popular radio host Greg Garrison, Republican supporters both, point out the latest spending sprees and express concern for the damage out-of-control spending promises to bring to our economy. The editorial cartoon with the offended drunken sailor pretty well sums it up.

Voters have come to expect that Republican officials will cut spending and taxes. This is not their track record, at any level of office. From President Bush’s failure to use the veto even once, to Governor Daniels recommending a tax hike in his first 10 days, to the all-Republican County and municipal councils in Carmel, Noblesville and Westfield voting for tax increases — it all adds up to dissatisfaction for fiscal conservatives.

Sooner or later, fiscal conservatives have to face the reality of this track record: If you voted Republican because you wanted smaller government, you wasted your vote. In order to get what you want, you have to vote Libertarian.

Mike Kole, Fishers

Mike Kole is a Libertarian candidate for Indiana Secretary of State, and is the former chair of the Libertarian Party of Hamilton County.

The placement was especially nice, with a suck-up column from GOP State Chair Jim Kittle on how conservatives should be thrilled with Bush's latest nomination, right above my letter. It's great because social conservatives are not thrilled, and they're eyes will go from Kittle's column to my letter and they'll be thoroughly aware that they are thoroughly dissatisfied with the Republican Party.

Friday's Drunken Sailor Report

If you read a news report that contained text such as the next paragraph does, do you think the Senate would be approving or rejecting a bill that calls for more money? From an AP report:

...public support for Bush and the Iraq fighting has slipped, U.S. casualties have climbed and Congress has grown increasingly frustrated with the direction of the conflict.

The President's recent speech on Iraq and his War on Terror was not given for no reason. The Senate approved another $50 billion for efforts in Iraq & Afganistan.

Before my friends on the Left point the finger across the aisle, you have to understand the score on the vote.

97-0

That's unanimous, and it's incredible.

My Republican friends, you have to talk to your team about the spending, or at long last come over to the Libertarians, who mean what they say about cutting spending. You aren't getting what you vote for.

My Democratic friends, you have to talk to your team about their position on the war. They're glad to exploit Cindy Sheehan while she exploits her son, but all of your Senators voted essentially to extend the war. Come over to the Libertarians. You aren't getting what you vote for.

Hat tip: Gregg Puls. Thanks!

Ah, the NHL

I was so dismayed at the idea that I might not get to watch any hockey action last night, outside of the highlights on SportsCenter. ESPN dropped the NHL contract, and the NHL Center Ice package is not being carried by Insight. It had been some 500+ days since I watched the 2004 Stanley Cup finals, and I positively missed the NHL.

So, big thumbs up to my local cable operator, Insight. For reasons unknown to me, Insight carries the St. Louis feed for FSN. Why not the feeds from closer cities like Chicago, Detroit, or Columbus, OH? Who knows, but FSN St. Louis carries Blues games, and at least for last night, it was completely satisfying to watch a Blues-Red Wings game. I'll at least get the four Blues-Sharks games, and that will be excellent. It's not the same watching the Blues lose without Chris Pronger there anymore.

You Own Yourself

This is the simple, three-word philosophy that is libertarianism. I've never found a single person who would express to me that he or she did not hold this notion to apply to themself. Of course, it's not an absolute. Libertarians believe that you should be the ones who make the decisions that affect your life, with the exception being that you cannot initiate force or fraud against another person. Do that, and the aggrieved party can rightly call on the government for protection against you.

The problem is, most people have a streak of anti-libertarian in him: authoritarianism, which is the idea that you can tell other people how to live their lives, even in areas that do not affect them.

Authoritarianism is winning the battle across the United States, unfortunately. This was made astonishingly plain to anyone who has put eyes on some hideous legislation proposed by Pat Miller, regarding reproductive rights.

I'm not talking about abortion here. Miller drafted law that would make it illegal to have a child out of wedlock, without a permit.

It's bad enough that you have to get a license to marry, but this is getting ridiculous. A permit? If you own yourself?

I understand that there a lot of lousy parents out there. Many of them are married, straight, church-going, the lot... and yet beat or molest their kids. Is this preferable to a single mother who raises kids to be respectful and studious? Is it better than a lesbian couple that raises kids in a loving, caring household? Why do we want government overseeing any of this anyway? Government fails at anything it touches, from preventing levees from bursting to producing high school graduates, with the notable exception of making war. That government does pretty well.

Fortunately, we do not want this. Miller has since withdrawn the legislation, under a ton of well-deserved heat. While obviously eager to throw the social conservative base a bone, there is enough libertarianism left in this state to kill this thing before it got out of committee. Nuvo ran a major article. Liberal blog Daily Kos posted on it, with comments generally trashing Indiana to follow.

Let's make sure to run somebody against Miller the next time her State Senate seat comes up. She was sorely underchallenged in 2004. While this could be the result of district gerrymandering, her positions on self-ownership and the right to reproduce regardless of marital status is reason enough to put up a serious challenge. She obviously needs to learn that there is more to governing than throwing your party's social conservative base the kind of bone that would make some people's lives unnecessarily miserable.

At Last, The NHL

Tonight is the night I have been waiting for. The NHL gets back to what it does- playing hockey. As a San Jose Sharks fan, I was greatly tempted to drive to Nashville for tonight's season opener, but it's a four-hour drive, and there's a County Council meeting I'd rather sit in. You never know when they might propose a new tax or a new spending package. The Council is all-Republican, after all.

NHL's opening night schedule.

More Drumbeat

Q: How do you set up the Republicans with minority party status?
A: Give them the majority and wait a while.

From Clark County Libertarian Debbie Harbeson on local Republicans in today's Jeffersonville Evening News:

Time To Really Control Spending

In September 2004 I received a campaign flyer from the local Republican Party. I still have it. The flyer contains signatures of local candidates pledging to oppose frivolous spending. I remember wondering how they defined frivolous. After the Clark County Council's recent budget process, I bet constituents are wondering too.

From small business guru Raymond Keating, in today's Noblesville Daily Times:

Discontent rises over out-of-control government spending. In fact, frustrations can even be detected in our nation's capital. Now that's saying something, and might even be a bit unnerving to some.
...
Some have thought over the years that Republicans were for limited government. But little evidence can be found today of such principles. Unfortunately, though, this is not too surprising. Since taking over both the White House and Congress, Republicans have been on a spending binge.

Consider that total outlays grew by an annual average of 7.1 percent from fiscal year 2002 through fiscal year 2004. That was more than three times the rate of inflation.

The GOP has been alienating its fiscal conservative base for some time. The list could be exceedingly long, but just consider:

• The President has not issued a single veto
• The GOP-dominated Congress has raised spending at levels greater than LBJ ever dreamed of
• Gov. Mitch Daniels' offered an income tax hike within his first 10 days in office
• Daniels swiped the Colts stadium deal from Mayor Peterson and publicly funding what should have been private
• Tax hikes on food & beverages were approved by all-Republican County Councils in Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, and Shelby Counties
• Likewise these taxes passed by all-GOP councils in Carmel, Martinsville, Noblesville, and Westfield.

Then the GOP alienated its socially conservative base with the tepid nomination of Harriet Miers, when the base wanted the knock-down, drag-out fight on abortion.

I know that most of the socially conservative Republicans won't be joining the Libertarian Party over this. They're spitting nails right now, but they haven't been trashed as relentlessly as the fiscal conservatives have.

If you are a fiscal conservative and you voted Republican in 2004, you wasted your vote. It's time to get what you want- smaller government, lower taxes and lower spending- by voting Libertarian in 2006.

Tuesday Morning Radio Note

Brad Klopfenstein will be filling for Abdul in the 8am hour of WXNT's "Abdul In The Morning" show on Tuesday morning. Be sure to tune it to hear the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. You may even hear me for a few minutes!

Freudian Slip?

I was doing my morning blog surf, and while at Alchemy For Dummies, I noticed a link to the US Constitution, so I thought I'd click it and refresh the memory on some of those you don't think of much, like the 9th or 12th Amendments.

It was gone. The link turned up a, "this item has been removed" message. The host site is the National Archives! How can the US Constitution be gone?! Is this some kind of gag?

Then I remembered what year it is, and how far our country has wandered from the vision of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe... heck- even Hamilton looks like Ludwig von Mises in retrospect.

Yes, maybe the Constitution is gone. Most people would never miss it. Even the ACLU, who self-bills as a defender of the Bill of Rights, isn't interested in several Amendments, such as the 2nd. From the ACLU's site:

Majority power is limited by the Constitution's Bill of Rights, which consists of the original ten amendments ratified in 1791

Oh yeah- the Bill of Rights is also gone from the National Archives site. *Sigh*

More Political Cartoons

I've been familiar with Chip Bok's work for better than 10 years, and was delighted when he signed on to the Akron Beacon Journal as their political cartoonist. Check out this link to his recent cartoon on what kind of filling it will take to rebuild New Orleans.

I'd clip the cartoon for you to see here, but the Beacon Journal requires permission to republish. Here's the master link to all of Bok's stuff.

Blog To Check Out

Fiscal conservatives will enjoy having their blood pressure elevated by reading Indy Tax Dollars, a blog that has recently been relentless on the public funding of the stadium & convention center. I don't believe the writer is a Capital 'L' libertarian, but definitely a fiscal conservative... which is to say, he should be a Libertarian.

Drumbeat Continues to Continue

Today's Indy Star editorial calls the GOP out on ethics and out-of-control spending. From the editorial:

Republicans have reason to worry

Our position: House leadership increasingly shows signs that it's arrogant and out of touch. The word from Washington is that Republicans who have been in control of the U.S. House for the past 11 years are worried about their prospects in next year's midterm elections. They should be.

And not only because Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted this week on charges that he violated Texas election laws.
...
House Republicans' problems, however, neither start nor end with DeLay. The leadership in particular has been sending the same type of arrogant and out-of-touch signals that cost Democrats their majority in 1994. Witness the dressing-down Indiana's Mike Pence recently suffered from House Speaker Dennis Hastert for daring to observe that federal spending is out of control.

Smart Republicans, both in the House and elsewhere, should take the DeLay indictment as a warning. Either live and govern by the principles that supposedly guide the party or prepare to lose power.

People of principle would have done so without requiring the fear of a backlash. Alas. The Pence case shows that the GOP has no commitment to smaller government and restrained spending. Honest fiscal conservatives need to disassociate themselves from the Republican Party in order to remain clean. They need to support the Libertarian Party.

Here's a message to the Star, who is late on this missive. The word across Indiana from fiscal conservatives is deep dissatisfaction with the GOP's misuse- or underuse- of their majorities at the Federal and State levels. These voters have expected tax cuts, spending cuts, even the evaporation of a few levels of bureaucracy. Instead, taxes have gone up, spending has gone up, and new levels of bureaucracy were added.

Libertarians will get the job done.

Drumbeat Continues

Real Clear Politics is merely the latest to chronicle the GOP's shift to the economic left. From Terry Michael's latest article:

Republican "conservatives" have lost their way during the Bush big-spending era.

Now, they've lost their collective mind.

Pigging out at the pork barrel is nothing new for the congressional GOP. They've competed with liberal Democrats to bring home the bacon for years -- though they both went for the whole hog in this year's assault on the treasury.

Useful Junk Mail

In with the cell phone bill was an ad. These usually go straight to the cylindrical file, but the screaming headline, "Tax On Talk!" caught my eye. Here's the text:

The Spanish-American War ended 107 years ago - so why are you still paying a 3% monthly excise tax to help fund it?

In 1898, President McKinley imposed the Federal Excise Tax law, or "Tax on Talk". It was supposed to be a TEMPORARY "luxury tax" on the very wealthy - who were the only ones that had phones at the time.

But a grassroots move is underway to wipe out this unfair and outrageous tax!

There are bills now in Congress to repeal this outdated and unfair tax - and we need your help!!

Two things come to mind:

1. There is nothing quite so permanent as a temporary tax
2. Today's luxury is tomorrow's common staple

Of course, this is in no way a grassroots movement. It's the effort of an industry to make their product marginally less pricey by eliminating a tax that brings no value to the consumer. This is, of course, very commendable and makes me think, "Where have you been the last 25 or 50 years?"

There is an online petition that foes of this tax can sign.

Wither Air America?

The development of a radio network is not an easy thing, it turns out. Programming and show hosts have to develop over time. It isn't a simple as saying, "phooey on that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity! We need a left-Democrat equivalent"! While you can trot out boring ratings-free crap on Federally subsidized NPR, radio on the free market has to actually be entertaining and draw listeners.

Alas, Air America is as entertaining as reading the legal notices in the newspaper. Because nobody listens, they can't sell ads. Because they can't sell ads, they fall back on the NPR model of begging for financial support. From Joe Kovacs' article at World Net Daily:

"We know we can't achieve this next stage of growth without significant help from you, our loyal listeners," said the network in an e-mail to supporters, according to Mediaweek, which said the "unusual move for commercial radio" was "more common to noncommercial stations and political action committees."
...
a California radio station pleaded for advertisers to sponsor the liberal programming of Air America shows it broadcasts, claiming it could not get a single ad.

Supply and demand, as ever. I'd actually like to see it succeed, just for the sake of having unfettered liberal bias on the air. I like a crowded marketplace of ideas. However, I'm afraid the 'talent' and business model are so weak that the thing will die on the vine.

WXNT Poll

My favorite Indy radio station, WXNT 1430-am, has a poll on its webpage.

Which party is worse about pork-barrel projects?

• Democrats
• Republicans
• They're the same, vote Libertarian!

Check out the results. They might surprise you.

Request of my libertarian friends: Don't stuff the ballot box. I know, it's tempting. I also know that these things aren't scientific in anyway, and this poll is skewed just by my sending you to it. I just want to see how libertarian WXNT's audience is.

Latest Russmo

Great stuff from Russmo, as usual. Be sure to keep it in mind when reading Dr. Schansberg's article, below.

Libertarian Disaster Analysis

Dr. Eric Schansberg has summed up many of my own thoughts on government & Katrina in a few short paragraphs, in his latest Libertarian Writers Bureau article.

Afterthoughts on the Aftermath of the New Orleans Flood
by Eric Schansberg

A month after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the debacle of the ineffective levees surrounding New Orleans, and the disappointment with the government's relief efforts, let's look back at the lessons we should have learned from this disaster.

The disaster was much more about the flood than the hurricane. Many people seem to be missing this point. The over-estimation of Hurricane Rita's predicted impact is one symptom. Another side-effect is that, relatively speaking, the damage wrought by Katrina outside of New Orleans was ignored by the media. When we think about the devastation of hurricanes, unfortunately, we're far more likely to remember flooded New Orleans than flattened coastal Mississippi.

The blame game never ends—and rarely takes a break. It was good to see the Democrats and Republicans wait, oh, a few hours before they started blaming each other. Instead of a dispassionate analysis of the debacle after the dust had settled, we were mostly left with partisan hacks throwing mud at each other almost as soon as they could grab a handful.

All levels of government bear some blame for the debacle. The federal government could have responded quicker and better. But state and local plans were woefully inadequate and their implementation was inept. Anyone who tries to ascribe blame to only one level of government is remarkably blind or politically motivated.

The federal government bore too much blame and is now trying to bear too much responsibility. Why do people expect the federal government to be the chief solution to an essentially state and local problem? The federal government is not especially competent; it's out of their jurisdiction; and it's not as if they don't have enough to do already! And not surprisingly, local officials want boatloads of federal taxpayer dollars while being given as much control as possible over how those resources will be spent.

Far too many people depend on government far too much. Let me get this straight: government failed at all levels—before, during, and after the disaster—so the solution is to get the government much more involved. Hmm…Moreover, for the last 40 years, the federal and state governments have been busy subsidizing bad decisions by individuals through public policy. The result: many people have been left unable to make decisions to promote their own well-being—or unwilling to do so, knowing that the government would probably bail them out. Natural disaster plus government ineptitude plus sin nature equals a debacle of biblical proportions.

Politicians really enjoy spending taxpayer money. President Bush has said that he wants to spend $200 billion post-Katrina and cut spending elsewhere so that overall spending does not increase. He might as well say he'd like to see cows fly. The few Republican fiscal conservatives in Congress have run with this charge by proposing 'Operation Offset"— a plan to reduce pork-barrel highway spending and to postpone the recently-passed prescription benefit for seniors. For their efforts, they have already been brow-beaten by the House leadership. And Bush has repeatedly shown that he has no stomach or backbone for fiscal discipline.

Your taxes will rise dramatically. Bush says that he is committed not to raise taxes. If so, this means an increase in the national debt—in other words, higher future taxes. At this point, Congress is now looking to spend $250 billion—over and above the amount that private insurance will pay in claims. This turns out to be more than $3,300 in taxes from the average family of four—and almost $200,000 per person in the New Orleans MSA before the flood. Honesty and candor would require a mention of the spending's impact on taxes. Unfortunately, another Category-5 hurricane is more likely.


D. Eric Schansberg
Professor of Economics
Indiana University (New Albany)
Adjunct Scholar, Indiana Policy
Review and the Acton Institute
Author, Turn Neither to the Right nor to the Left: A Thinking Christian's Guide to Politics and Public Policy

What's In It For The Taxpayers?

The Indy Star ran an article today on the lavish nature of the soon-to-be-built Colts stadium.

Fireplaces in club lounges. Pool tables in the quarterback suites. Wireless Internet access throughout. A little more room in the seat.

The nearly 500-page stadium plan released Monday details how nearly every inch of the new building will look and be used -- from the size of potted plants to the width of the seats.

Why not make it lavish? After all, the taxpayers are paying for it! Interestingly, the article's headline reads, "What's in it for the fans"? The better question is in my headline, "What's in it for the taxpayers"? Certainly not a thank you, as Sam Goldstein pointed out in the Sunday Star.

No thanks for people footing the big bill

I was just watching the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Downtown stadium and I heard Mayor Peterson thank a wide range of people for their support in getting this boondoggle. The only group the mayor forgot to thank was the long-suffering taxpayers of Marion County and now most of the surrounding counties.

We have funded facilities for professional sports teams and still have storm sewers that do not function, and our public safety professionals are in jeopardy of losing their jobs. We have given tax breaks to corporations who leave town without consequence while many homeowners are at risk of losing their property due to outrageous tax increases.

I would ask Mayor Peterson and the tax-and-spend Democrats and Republicans on the City-County Council to keep this in mind. The Libertarian Party of Marion County certainly will over the next two years.

Sam Goldstein
Vice Chair, Libertarian Party of Marion County
Indianapolis