D6Coalition

I have been attending candidate nights throughout District 6. There is a word I keep hearing that seems to slide by unnoticed and every time I hear it I cringe. COMPROMISE. Compromise is when you give a little to get a little, a good concept if you get to go last.

The way it has been actually working, the Progressives get their piece of the legislation, then slowly peel off any compromising measures they might have agreed to.

   The Community Reinvestment Act  is a good example of this. It originated in 1977 under Carter and was not touched again until Bush 1, when legislation was put in to allow  interstate banking in regard to the CRA . From 92 through 2000 it was revised 6 times, with many of these revisions resulting in looser lending practices or worse (paving the way for activist groups like ACORN to horas banks, leading some banks to hand out hefty donations to these groups in hopes of catching less flak from them, which would not bode well for them at required CRA assessment times.

  Compromise is not the way out of this and neither is swinging for the fences (to use an old baseball term). The important issues Spending , Jobs , Family and Borders need to chunked up into small portions, putting each bill on display for the American people to pressure their reps. into voting correctly and honestly . The wars need to be handled the same way WIN THEM, give the world a bill for our troubles and come home.

I attended a meeting last night in Wellsville. The residents are looking for ways to revitalize their town and draw people in. There were a good many well thought out ideas from an enthusiastic crowd. I wish them well.

On a side note: as a builder I love looking at architecture in the cities and villiages I visit and Wellsville has some beautiful buildings. There should be a draw in that alone .

Here’s a link if anyone has an idea for Wellsville. I’m sure they could use volunteers for some of the work that lies ahead www.wellsvilleohio.net/

- Jim

The whole idea behind Earmarks is to see to it that the districts with the least, districts that are taking the brunt of any economical downturn or policy change (ie., Obamas pledge to bankrupt the coal industry) should at a minimum get an equal share of the funds set aside. That is not what we have in District 6.

Instead, we have a handful of politicians dominating the weaker ones and taking a lions share of the funds back to their districts. The top ten took home 40% of the total funds available (33,776,348,340 was the total).   13,660,247,340 went home with the top ten in 2009. Another $8 billion went home with the next ten, or roughly 21 %. The next ten took home roughly 12 %. So the top 30 take home  73 % of the funds available, leaving the rest to be divided between the other 464 members of Congress.

Every man, woman, and child in America paid $96.50 just to fund the earmarks. District 6 got 2.27 cents of that back. As a district, earmarks will cost us close to 80 million dollars. We got only $7,987,643 of that back.

Maybe it’s time to do things differently.

You would think we were in an election year with all the scrambling to create a “JOBS BILL”. They have even put HEALTHCARE on hold. WOW! They must be serious .

            It’s hard to even watch these guys. There is talk of suspending employer Social Security payments for new hires.  They have calculated the number of jobs this alone will produce (I was unaware that we have prophets in D.C.). Oh, and we’ll pay for it with the cuts to the waste in the budget , that way S.S. won’t be hurt at all. They haven’t looked at the waste yet or determined what is waste, but they are certain there is more than enough without cutting any of their pet projects. It will mean cutting some of the other guys’ pet projects though.

             Now that’s a plan.

             I’m sorry, but maybe we should have thought about jobs before : The 787 billion $ Stimulus package , The 410 billion $ Omnibus {with 9000 + earmarks } or the blank check we gave to Fanny & Freddy for Christmas estimated to cost us over a Trillion$. How about the 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill passed in Dec, { with 5500 earmarks }.

              A real jobs bill might look something like this: Repeal what is left of the stimulus. Lose the 14,550 earmarks in the two Omnibus bills and limit future earmarks – even rewarding those who don’t use any. Take back our blank check to Fanny & Freddy – reinstate our federal overseer for these two – Launch an investigation into Rahm Emanuel, remove him from office pending outcome. And, finally, give individuals  along with sole-propriators a one year tax holiday followed by a six month tax holiday for business with further tax incentives for contributions toward community business incubators.

               Just a thought !