Wind farm, CAFO rule changes await Woodward's vote

Page 4 • The News-Banner • SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2013
Today in History
By The Associated Press
Today is Saturday,
March 2, the 61st day of
2013. There are 304 days
left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 2, 1943, the
three-day Battle of the Bismarck
Sea began in the
southwest Pacific during
World War II; U.S. and Australian
warplanes were able
to inflict heavy damage on
an Imperial Japanese convoy.
On this date:
In 1793, the first president
of the Republic of
Texas, Sam Houston, was
born near Lexington, Va.
In 1861, the state of
Texas, having seceded from
the Union, was admitted to
the Confederacy.
In 1877, Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes was
declared the winner of the
1876 presidential election
over Democrat Samuel J.
Tilden, even though Tilden
had won the popular vote.
In 1917, Puerto Ricans
were granted U.S. citizenship
as President Woodrow
Wilson signed the Jones-
Shafroth Act.
In 1933, the motion picture
“King Kong” had its
Telephone
Number
260-824-0224
Things I don’t know but
maybe I will. Someday
Saturday’s Sub
One of my
favorite Bible
verses is 1
Corinthians 13. Known as the “love
chapter,” it is read often at weddings.
But my line has nothing to do with
that.
Verse 12: “For now we see only a
reflection as in a mirror; then we shall
see face to face. Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully, even as I am
fully known.”
Mark Miller
There are lots of things in this
world we do not understand, God’s grace being perhaps
at the top of the list. What this verse says to me is
that someday, everything will be explained to me. And
frankly, there’s a lot of explaining to do.
Let’s start with electricity. Sure, I did the 7th Grade
experiments: completed a circuit; lit the bulb.
I didn’t do well at high school physics. Never did
grasp just how protons and neutrons and electrons work,
but I always wondered: If there are protons and neutrons,
shouldn’t there be contons?
But how does electricity work on the grand scale?
How is a circuit completed with all of these high-power
lines on the huge towers and the medium size poles and
then all the lines that criss-cross the city and come to
our homes and businesses? And just what do all those
gizmos and transformers do at all those substations?
Wouldn’t it be interesting, when you flip that switch
in your bedroom, to be able to trace the path and find
the origin of that electron that just lit up your life?
In my own weird way, I look forward to understanding
that.
And I have other questions.
If Mitt Romney had won the election and then nominated
fellow Republican Chuck Hagel for Secretary
of Defense, what would have been the reaction of the
Republicans in Congress?
Another thing: Way back when I first cared about the
price of gas, “Regular” sold for 29 cents, “Mid-Grade”
for 39 cents, and “Premium” for 49 cents per gallon.
Now, when regular is $3.79, mid-grade is still just 10
cents more per gallon and premium sells for $3.99.
Explain that.
You may want to know how the universe works. You
might have a few questions about Adam and Eve and
Noah’s Ark and whether we’re put here for a purpose or
if things just happen. Not me. My mundane mind wants
the more mundane answered.
Just exactly how are schools funded? How are my
property taxes figured?
I think it was a couple months ago when it became
news that Kate was pregnant — the Kate who married
Prince William, of course — one of the news shows
had some comments by a person who was labeled as a
“Royals Watcher.”
Do they get paid for that? How do you get a title like
that?
It is a fun exercise: enumerating things you would
like to have explained to you. I have contemplated keeping
a list handy; you never know when you might be
introduced to St. Peter. But I don’t know that he’ll have
the answers anyway. Hopefully though, he will have the
key.
Another mystery to be solved. Someday.
miller@news-banner.com
world premiere at New
York’s Radio City Music
Hall and the Roxy.
In 1939, Roman Catholic
Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli
was elected pope on his
63rd birthday; he took the
name Pius XII.
In 1942, the original
Stage Door Canteen, a wartime
club for U.S. servicemen,
officially opened its
doors in New York’s Broadway
theater district.
In 1951, the East beat
the West, 111-94, in the first
NBA All-Star Game, which
took place at Boston Garden.
In 1962, Wilt Chamberlain
scored 100 points
for the Philadelphia Warriors
in a game against the
New York Knicks, an NBA
record that still stands.
(Philadelphia won, 169-
147.)
In 1972, the United
States launched the Pioneer
10 space probe, which flew
past Jupiter in late 1973,
sending back images and
scientific data.
In 1989, representatives
from the 12 European Community
nations agreed to
ban all production of CFCs
(chlorofluorocarbons) by
the end of the 20th century.
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Responding to the Obama administration’s operatic
warnings of catastrophe for Meals on Wheels for
the elderly, Head Start, meat inspections, air traffic
controllers, and police, fire, and 911 operators if the
government reduces the rate of increase of federal
spending by 2 percent, radio host Chris Plante
offered the following suggestion: “Since this two
percent obviously covers all essential government
spending, let’s cut the other 98 percent!”
Even if these “draconian cuts” are implemented,
the federal government will spend more this year
than it did last year.
Another way to think about it is this: In 2007, the
government was 40 percent smaller than it is today.
Were poor people sleeping under bridges? Were the
elderly starving? Were planes grounded? Was food
unsafe to eat?
Here’s another question: Are Americans really
this gullible? The president’s doom saying is so
absurd that a mature country would hoot him off the
stage. As it is, the housebroken media credulously
report his obviously partisan scare mongering as
fact.
As the sequester has loomed, the president and
even many Republicans have argued that these
“across the board” spending cuts (they’re actually
just reductions in the rate of increase) are “stupid”
and “destructive” and so forth. This raises (it doesn’t
beg) the question: if cutting spending across the
board is so stupid, what does that say about the
priorities of the congress and president who passed
these spending bills in the first place? If our spending
priorities are so out of whack that cutting everything
equally is unthinkable, why hasn’t the government
adjusted those programs before now?
Isn’t it the job of elected representatives to pass
laws, oversee their execution and adjust accordingly?
There is a rumor that the U.S. has two Houses of
Congress, but the Senate hasn’t been heard from in
years. While the Republican House has passed budgets
that would slowly reduce the levels of federal
debt over 10 years, the Democratically-controlled
Senate has played see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, but alas
not speak-no-evil. In any case, that body has not
passed a budget in nearly four years.
Democrats like to pretend that every last penny
of government spending is wise, benevolent and
essential. My guess is that perhaps 15 percent of discretionary
spending meets all three of those criteria,
It is not just the winter
of Republican discontent. It
will in all likelihood be the
spring, summer and fall, as
well.
The national party is
leaderless and nearly issueless,
but besides that, is
thriving and in fine fighting
trim.
It used to be that the
Republicans were nasty
people because they
exploited “wedge issues,”
which was the pejorative
way to describe issues that were popular
with the public but made Democrats
uncomfortable. The phrase has
been retired. Even if it weren’t, it’s
not clear what Republican issue it
would apply to anymore.
Once, taxes and national security
were the party’s pillars, supplemented
by domestic issues like welfare
reform and crime and by symbolic
issues like the Pledge of
Allegiance and flag burning.
Now, the pillars are in
disrepair.
Cuts in income taxes
don’t have the same resonance
because rates are so
much lower than 30 years
ago. Republicans formerly
had success with acrossthe-board
tax cuts that
reduced rates at the top
and for everyone else. By
focusing on raising rates
on the top, Obama has
forced them into almost
exclusively defending “tax
cuts for the rich.”
In theory, national security
is still a Republican
strength, but it doesn’t have as much
resonance as in the years after Sept.
11.
The party’s premier new idea during
the past few years is Medicare
premium support, a worthy and creative
proposal and, as it happens, an
unpopular one.
A gullible nation
but we’ll never know because government
programs are rarely evaluated for effectiveness,
efficiency or necessity. According
to the Government Accountability Office,
the government runs 50 different programs
for the homeless across eight agencies,
23 programs for housing aid in four agencies,
26 programs for food and nutrition aid
among six agencies, 27 programs on teen
pregnancy, 130 programs for at-risk youth,
10 agencies to promote exports and 342
programs for economic development. The
federal government runs 47 different jobtraining
programs at a cost to the taxpayer
of $18 billion annually. The GAO found that “Only
5 of the 47 programs ... examined had done detailed
impact studies” and that among those “the effects of
participation were not consistent across programs,
with only some demonstrating positive impacts that
tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to
short-term impacts.”
Entitlements eat up two-thirds of federal spending
and are excluded from sequestration, which is too
bad because an estimated $20 billion is wasted on
Medicare fraud every year. As for Medicaid, a New
York Times investigation found that between 10 and
40 percent of New York’s spending was lost to fraud
and theft yearly. Other estimates suggest that 33 percent
of Earned Income Tax Credits (about $9 billion
annually) are erroneous or fraudulent.
Sure, the government performs some necessary
functions, but it is also vulnerable to abuse because
nobody is watching. Consider the example of Al
Gore. Upon leaving the vice presidency, Mr. Gore’s
net worth was estimated at $2 million. But with
the advent of Mr. Obama’s “investments” in green
energy, Mr. Gore has profited handsomely. His company,
General Investment Management, invested in
a number of companies that received “green” subsidies.
Gore’s net worth (before the sale of Current TV
to Al Jazeera) was estimated by the Washington Post
to be $100 million. The Obama economy has been
awful for average Americans but exceedingly profitable
for the well connected.
Some government spending is necessary, much
is sinfully wasteful, and the remainder is corrupt. If
Americans have stopped believing that then a key
aspect of the American character is dead.
The unpopular party
Rich
Lowry
The latest NBC News/Wall
Street Journal poll has Democrats
leading on: looking out
for the middle class, Medicare,
health care, reducing
gun violence, Social Security,
immigration, taxes and the
economy. The good news for
Republicans is that they lead
on everything else. The bad
news is that everything else is
only spending, the deficit and
national security.
The problem with the deficit
as an issue is that people
care about economic growth more,
and the problem with spending cuts
is that people like them more in the
abstract than in reality.
At times, “we have a $16 trillion
debt” seems the sum total of the
party’s argumentation. When party
leaders say that they have to become
the party of growth again, the policy
they invariably advance to that end ...
is reducing the $16 trillion debt.
This necessary, but hardly sufficient
message is almost all we hear
from Republicans in Congress, where
their majority in the House gives
them responsibility without decisive
influence. The House Republicans
mainly have blocking power. Woe to
OPINION
© 2013 CREATORS.COM
Mona
Charen
the republic if they didn’t. But if you
block things, you’re easily labeled
an obstructionist, and wouldn’t you
know it, people don’t like obstructionists.
Their only hope to deflect the
nation from its profligate budgetary
path is confrontations coinciding with
key fiscal inflection points, like the
March 1 deadline for the sequester.
They always ride into these fights
badly outgunned.
The John McCain ad dubbing
Barack Obama the biggest celebrity
in the world back in 2008 was
accurate. What Republicans didn’t
consider is that being a celebrity is
a priceless asset in contemporary
America. Two hundred and thirty
members of the House don’t have a
chance against a president, let alone a
celebrity-president.
This won’t change soon. It is too
early to have a presidential candidate
or even a presidential field, so the
GOP lacks a head and therefore
a unified voice.
Of course, it wasn’t long
ago that Democrats seemed
to be in dire straits. The party
agonized over appealing to
“values voters” after 2004.
Little did they know that eight
years later, they would run a
successful re-election campaign
on limitless abortion and
free contraception. The Bushera
Democrats benefited from
serial Republican debacles,
from Jack Abramoff to the
financial crisis.
Events will again take a
hand, as they always do. And
since last fall’s election, top
Republicans from Bobby
Jindal to Marco Rubio have been
talking about a more bread-and-butter
economic agenda. Fleshing that out,
though, is a longer-term proposition.
In the meantime, Republicans should
prepare themselves for more discontent.
comments.lowry@nationalreview.com