There is a trial going on in Richmond right now, where a young man has been accused of hitting another young man in the head and then taking his laptop computer. I won't speculate on the outcome of the trial, but I imagine if the accused is found guilty, he will probably spend some time in jail. Most civilized societies take a dim view of assault and theft.

   Most civilized societies take a dim view of theft even without the assault. When the afore mentioned incident took place, apparently there were 2 people that wanted the computer the victim was carrying. I think most people would agree that just because 2 people wanted what one person had, they still didn't have the right to just take it. And if there had been a group of 3 people, or 100 people, or 1000 people that wanted that computer, they still wouldn't have the right to just take it, no matter how much they wanted it.

   I suppose there could be an instance where that same group of people could have hired another group of people to go and just take the computer, but I don't think a civilized society would have stood for that either. As a nation, we have even sometimes went to war to stop someone from just taking something that didn't belong to them, even if they wanted it really bad. (Of course, as a nation, sometimes we've went to war to take something that didn't belong to us, either, but that's for another story.)

   I wasn't surprised or disappointed that I didn't get the Palladium-Item's endorsement for the District 54 seat. I was disappointed in their reason. I have been a strong advocate of eliminating property taxes. I understand that property taxes are a stable source of income for governments. I also understand that a lot of people want parks and museums and football fields and gymnasiums and exercise rooms and fishing ponds in their lobbies. I understand that some people want these things really bad. Some people want them so bad that they elect people to go out and threaten to take other peoples property in order to get the money to pay for them.

  I don't think they have the right to do that.

  Apparently some of the people at the Palladium-Item don't agree with me.

Technorati Tags: Politics Property Taxes

I see they're having another Presidential debate between the Republican and Democratic candidates this Wednesday. I doubt if I watch it. I heard enough in the first two debates to convince me that I had made the right decision when I decided that I couldn't support either one of them.

They certainly have a difference in style, and they claim to have a difference in agendas, but I have also heard enough and seen enough to realize that whether John McCain or Barack Obama is elected, upon leaving office, either one will leave the government more costly and more intrusive than when they took office.

Apparently that doesn't bother a lot of people. But it bothers me. And it bothers Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States of America. Bob Barr favors a Constitutionally limited government. Those Constitutional limits will provide all of the necessary government that we need, while ending most of the outrageous spending and meddlesome interference in our private lives.

Some people contend that voting for Bob Barr amounts to a wasted vote. I'm a firm believer that voting for something you don't want is really a wasted vote.

I don't want higher taxes, or a higher federal debt, or more government in my life.

So I'm not going to vote for them.

If you would like to vote for less government in your life, check out Bob Barr at www.BobBarr2008.com

Technorati Tags: Bob Barr Politics Presidential Debates

The word "trillion" is getting tossed around a lot lately.  If you're like me, a trillion is kind of hard to get your head around. I saw something a couple of years ago that compared a million, a billion, and a trillion. It went something like this:

One million seconds = 11 days

One billion seconds = 32 years

One trillion seconds = 317 centuries

The federal government just added $1 trillion to your debt, and Andrew Davis at the Libertarian Party Headquarters reports these figures:

"One trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) is enough money:

• To buy everybody living in Los Angeles at least one Lamborghini Gallardo. 
• To buy 88,052, 394' custom mega yachts; enough to stretch around ¼ of the world. 
• To buy everyone living in Belize and Malta a Manhattan apartment.
• To get half of the Democratic Party into a fundraiser for Barack Obama at the $28,500 admission price. 
• To give one out of every two men in the United States a Men's Presidential Rolex watch.
• To buy every woman in the United States a Tiffany Diamond Starfish Pendant.
• To get two Mitsubishi 73" HDTVs for every household in America.
• To buy four copies of The Office: Season Four on DVD, to every person on earth.
• To send everybody in America on an all-inclusive vacation to Tahiti (and some people can stay a few extra days).

AND…

$1 trillion is enough money for everyone in Buffalo, NY to buy their own 65-acre island in Panama. 

This is how much the government is going to cost you (roughly $3,278 for every man, woman and child in the United States). 

Barack Obama is for it.  John McCain is for it. 

But, Bob Barr and Libertarian Party are against it."

Most of the people I've talked to are against it also.

Not that that matters.

Technorati Tags: Politics Wall Street Bail Out

I run a small construction company with the help of my brother, my youngest son, and Hank, when he’s not mowing his yard. And Jay when he’s not in school or playing baseball. Or fishing. We try to build a couple of homes a year, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the size and complexity of the project.

As part of the agreement, if the customers are happy with the final product, they pay us and we move on to the next project. Hopefully I have enough to pay everybody, buy my wife and grandkids something for their birthdays, and then put a little back for a rainy day.

That’s how it works, and that’s how it’s supposed to work The homeowners know that I can’t or won’t come back 15 or 20 years from now and ask them to pay me again, or ask their children or grandchildren to pay me again. The job was completed and the job was paid for. Period. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work like that when the government is involved.

Most government employees are promised a pension when they retire, just as many private sector employees are promised a pension when they retire. It’s admirable that a person would plan ahead for their retirement, and if part of their pay consists of their employer contributing to and frugally managing their retirement account, they certainly are better off for it.

However, Hoosier taxpayers are justifiably concerned about the ever rising cost of government, even as government is feverishly trying to justify its ever rising cost. There is seldom a day goes by that we don’t hear of some ridiculous government spending program. A couple of weeks ago, the news was filled with the report of state legislators’ pension funds receiving a $4 to $1 match from taxpayers. As maddening as that program is, the $14 million taxpayers have contributed in the last 16 years is small potatoes compared to other pension contributions they are making.

When government promises a pension to its employees, it’s actually promising that taxpayers will continue to fund that pension. The government doesn’t always set the pension money aside, and even when it does, it doesn’t always leave it set aside. In order to feed its insatiable appetite, government often borrows from the pension funds that taxpayers have supported, leaving a massive debt for present and future taxpayers to settle.

Across Indiana, Hoosiers are on the hook for billions of dollars that have been borrowed from teachers and public employee retirement funds, and a lot of the taxes they are paying now, that should be applied to current services, are instead paying interest on borrowed money and repaying benefits that they or their parents have already paid.

And government doesn’t help things with the generous retirement plans it offers. Some departments offer a healthy retirement to employees after only 20 years of service, and at the age of 50. Sometimes less. Here in Wayne County, some members of the sheriff’s department qualify for nearly $35,000.00 a year retirement after only 8 years of service. It’s likely that a lot of these retirees will be drawing benefits for over 40 years. That means there is a real possibility that your great-grandchildren will be paying for the retirement of the current police force. We get a double whammy when an employee retires from one department, and then goes to work for another department, and ends up drawing a retirement from both.

Certainly government employees that provide essential services should be fairly compensated for their efforts, and that compensation should be adequate to fund a reasonable retirement plan. And certainly if they decide they want the government to administer that retirement plan, they certainly have that right, although in view of its past performance, I would question the wisdom of that decision.

One of the best ways to control government spending is to limit its access to the billions and trillions of dollars that should be in these funds, and let employees control their own accounts. Overall, that is the fairest plan for the taxpayers. And their employees.

Technorati Tags: Government pensions Politics