Fifteen Minutes with Heath

Fifteen Minutes with Heath

This past Thursday I joined 25,000 or so of my fellow liberty loving citizens in Washington DC, at a rally to urge Congress to oppose the effort by some in the US government to destroy the greatest health care system in the world. It was a whirlwind --31 hours round trip, over 900 miles and 14 hours in the car.

The trip included some scheduled time to meet with elected officials from North Carolina, and or their representatives. The meetings were intended for the entire Asheville group, but because the schedule for the day was so fluid, none of us knew whether the meetings would actually occur as planned.

The meeting with Heath Shuler was schedule for 1 PM, which was during the middle of the rally. I hated to leave the rally in progress. But I was carrying a letter I had written to Mr. Shuler two weeks ago, for which I had received no response. The lack of response was not unexpected, all things considered. The letter outlined why I believe he and others should vote against the current health care legislation.

At 10 minutes to one I pulled away from the rally. A police officer pointed me toward the Cannon Building, where Shuler's office is located. I walked up the hill, went through the metal detectors, walked up to the 4th floor, found office # 422, and bam, I was in the Congressman's office. Pretty cool I thought.

There was a lot of activity in the office. His staff was friendly and engaging. It was almost 1:15, and at first I was told Shuler was not there. I handed one of them the letter. Then another staffer who appeared to have some seniority told me he was there, but had a meeting at 1:30 he could not break. Because the rest of the Asheville group was stationed almost at the very front of the stage at the rally, I doubted they would be able to get there by 1:30. She asked if I wanted to go ahead and see him by myself, and I said sure. What happened next was both bazaar, informative, and very disappointing.

Have you ever been in a conversation in which you thought you had been insulted, but you weren't sure, because the person had no reason to insult you? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person who was constantly being defensive, so much so the person ends up coming across as immature? Have you ever had someone attempt to beat you with a morality stick, without the credentials to do so? Those three questions characterize my 15 minutes with Heath Shuler.

Toward the end of our time together Shuler said something, that made everything else he had done and said make sense. We were sitting around the coffee table and he leaned forward and said "you're a registered Republican aren't you". I responded yes ( I wish I had responded does it matter?). After my response he said "I knew that, the red tie you are wearing gave you away." (I was honestly unaware, that apparently in Washington and some other places, a red tie is a flag for a Republican. I had worn a suit out of respect for his office, a blue one, and red seemed logical. Who knew?)

I was in shock. I am a tax payer. I had driven over 400 miles to be there. My intent in being there was to express my concern over the size, scope, and direction of the federal government. And to him, a man living off the backs of tax payers, I was nothing more than a red tie. But then it all made sense. He had labeled me less than one second after seeing me. That helped explain why the first 'was that an insult(?) occurred within 60 seconds. At one point during the conversation I told him he had done nothing but label me since I had gotten there. He paused, looked down, said he was sorry, and then continued!

At one point I asked him how many people in his district did he think had inadequate health care. He responded 25%. I asked "so 25% of the population is going to dictate to 75% of the population?" He responded with a smile of his face, "That's America". He had no response when I said "that ain't right". That is NOT America. That IS Washington. By that same math, I should have been talking to Carl Mumpower in that Congressional office, Shuler's challenger in the last election. Again, something else I wish I had said.

I came away convinced he views the federal government as the big charity in the sky. He said many times, "we have to help those people". Apparently a $1.4 trillion deficit in the most recent fiscal year is just a bother. He had no response when I asked who helped those people before the federal government got so big?

The meeting was bazaar in part because I was never offered the most basic of hospitalities. There was never a "welcome to Washington", nor was there an offer of a glass of water. It was informative because I now recognize Shuler as a perfect Washington Democrat--a candidate hand picked for his celebrity rather than his intellect or knowledge of government, with a basic ignorance and or disdain of the Constitution, with a desire to satisfy his charitable desires with someone else's money. It was disappointing because it was one of those very rare occasions when I leave a meeting with less respect for the individual, than I had for them before the meeting.

As a post script, I had a by chance, fortuitous phone conversation on the way home, which made me feel better about the bad feeling I had about the meeting. The conversation was with a self described liberal Democrat from Asheville. I told him of my experience, I heard him laugh, and he said he had had the same type experience with Shuler and his staff. I was shocked. He's on their side, actively involved. He said because he is young and from Asheville, Shuler and his staff have labeled him as a flaming Progressive, and distance themselves from him. He too used the word label, to describe how they have interacted with him.

What if they threw a party, and the owner of the House didn't come?

House Seat, that is.

What do you like to do on Saturday (or just on your day off, if Saturday is not it)? I generally like to spend time with my family. I think that is important. Particularly as our still-at-home children get older, our schedules during the week rarely coincide, so Saturday and Sunday are usually the best days for us all to be together.

Sometimes I work around the house on Saturday. I think that is important too. If you are a homeowner, you know there is always something that needs fixing or maintaining or improving.

I did not do either of these typical things this past Saturday. But what I did do was just as important, probably even more important. This Saturday I joined approximately 150 other Western North Carolinians who love their country, and have an opinion on its current political direction, and I attended a rally at Congressman Heath Shuler's office in Asheville.
I met some really neat people. All kinds of people, all kinds of backgrounds and professions. Shuler's district covers quite a bit of geography, so there were lots of people there who had traveled an hour or more to be there. People like me I suspect, who care enough about their country to forfeit what they would really like to do on a Saturday, and place their voice and their body in a place to hopefully be heard and seen.

Several people had the courage to take the podium and pose a question for the Congressman. Several others added statements about how they believe the current political direction of our country is not wise, or sustainable.

One individual who took the podium expressed views which were 180 degrees in opposition to most or all of the others there. I wish he had been as informed, as he was passionate. I admired his courage for being willing to come to the event, and I think expected to be treated with the same stereotypical attitudes that he was espousing. He was treated with dignity, in spite of the poorly informed basis of his verbal combativeness.

There is one thing though that might have made this event at Congressman Heath Shuler's office even better than it was: Heath Shuler's presence. The Congressman chose not to attend, even though Congress is in recess, even though Asheville is the largest population base in his district, and even though he was given several weeks notice of the event. Does something about his absence not seem right to you, too? Does it seem right to you that Mr. Shuler held zero town hall meetings during the current recess? What value courage, Mr. Shuler? What value the will of the people? What value the influence of out of market campaign contributions?

The event was sponsored by Asheville Tea Party. A year ago, a tea party in Asheville would have involved, well, tea, not political issues. A year ago, I had never attended a political rally. Since April 15th, I've attended three, and I plan to be in Washington DC with my 15 year old son, at our expense, for the National Tax March September 12. Why this change in behavior for me and literally hundreds of thousands of other Americans? Simply and idealistically put, for me, its because I love my country, I recognize arrogant, politically reckless behavior when I see it, and I do not want to have to answer to my children when they ask what did I do when our economic freedoms and life liberties were in the balance.

Is NC's Governor an Alcoholic?

Over the past several months I have tried to become more involved in the political process. Why am I doing this in a non election year? Its because I am greatly concerned about the lack of principled leadership, the lack of fiscal responsibility, and the level of disregard for the Constitution, at both the State and Federal level, in both political parties. I am significantly concerned about how these items, if left unchecked, will affect me, my children, and the country I love.

So I have begun reading various web-sites that are devoted to these issues. Some of them send me email updates periodically. One of the sites I've recently discovered which I am very happy with is Americans For Prosperity. They seem to be well organized, principled, and share the same values I do.

The feature I like the most about AFP is one in which if you type in your zip code, and send an issue specific email, they direct it to the elected officials representing your area. Pretty cool, huh?

This past week I sent an email to the Governor, my local Senator and my local House Representative. The email implored them to not raise state taxes until they are certain all wasteful spending, tax payer dollars going to those in our state illegally, and a couple other items, had been accomplished. No small task.

I actually got a response back from my NC Senator. I'm not sure if she wrote it or not, or if someone on her staff wrote it. But I am convinced a person wrote it, because we went back and forth several times. I was impressed I got a non computer generated response.

I also got a response back from the Governor, sort of. Since I sent her office an email, well they now have MY email address. Guess who is the newest addition to Bev Perdue's email communication list? You got it, me. But that's OK.

This is what leads me to question whether the Governor is an alcoholic. Her email to me included several headline events that happened recently, which she believes some credit is due her office. It also includes a summary of her schedule for the coming week, which I think is a good thing for the public to see. Well, included on her schedule for Monday, the last item for the day, is a "Recovery Meeting". See, see!! Decide for yourself. :)

PS: Its D-Day plus 65 years. Say a Thankful Prayer.

Score one for State!

NC State, that is.

We in North Carolina are blessed to have several Division I colleges who have enjoyed a great deal of success on the field and in the arena, for many years. One does not have to look far for a school to pull for any given Saturday afternoon, or winter evening when roundball season is underway.

When I was a kid, NC State was enjoying a great deal of success, and me and several of my friends became fans of players like Thompson, Towe, Burleson, and a coach named Sloan. Later when I was in high school, a crazy Italian coach with more ties to New York than Tobacco Road led a bunch of role players all the way to victory in the NCAA tournament, over a team from Houston that included two future NBA hall of famers. It was the stuff dreams are made of.

The last several years have been lean for State's big time sports programs, that is until today. The Chancellor, of all people, hit the equivalent of a three point shot when the chips were down, to score a victory for all of us!

In case you are not from North Carolina, and or do not follow politics like it was sport, let me fill you in: Several months ago the First Lady of North Carolina, Mary Easley, was awarded a $170,000 a year job a NC State. Her husband, the governor, was on his way out, having enjoyed his two terms as NC governor with such perks as tax payer paid trips to Italy and Europe, and, a personal real estate deal on the coast, in which he paid a price for a water front lot which was well below tax value, and well below what the people on either side of him paid for theirs. The posting, search, and hiring process for the job the First Lady filled was not handled exactly the way policy requires. The First Lady's job appeared to be a clear case of political pandering.

Fortunately for us the tax payers and other fans of doing the right thing, several newspapers have not let go of this story. Helping fuel their fire has been rumors, now confirmed, that the ex-governor is now under a Federal grand jury probe for multiple irregularities. My hunch is he will be ultimately convicted of tax evasion for the benefit of free travel, but that is a long way out.

Anyway, the newspapers are actually doing their job on this one, and last week two people, not one but two people close to this situation resigned from their taxpayer supported positions as a result of the Mary Easley hiring. The individual who hired Mary Easley resigned, and, the chairman of the NCSU Board of Trustees also resigned.


Those are two resignations that should proably have happened, but we are at least one resignation short: Mary Easley's. In a move that I and I'm sure others cheer today, the Chancellor of the university, James Oblinger, called for Mary Easley to resign, "in the best interest of the University". Way to go James, score one for State, and those of us who are paying the bills!

Look, I do not have a thing against Mary Easley. Maybe she was the best candidate for that job (she actually was the best candidate, since they didn't post it which made her the ONLY candidate!). Seriously, she should resign. If the position is actually necessary, and is going to be filled, let her post along with everyone else who might want a $170k a year state job with benefits.

If you think the Chancellor did the right thing today, do a favor and let him know with an email, or a call to his office. I'm sure the information to do that is on NC State's web site. When people in politics do the right thing, and the Chancellor's position at a major university is certainly a political position, we need to let them know we appreciate it.

The Scam of the Century, which you probably won't read about in your newspaper

Scam: "a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, esp. for making a quick profit; swindle" (dictionary.com).

To understand a scam, you have to be willing to connect the dots. You know, you have to be willing to trust your judgment, and add 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 to get 10, without someone telling you ahead of time 10 is the answer. YOU have to come up with the answer, and trust what you see, not what you are told. By the time conventional wisdom has come to the conclusion the answer is 10, the scam is long since over, and conventional wisdom lost.

OK here comes the first "2" in the Scam of the Century. The term 'bailout' has become synonymous with the TARP program in the media lately. That is really not the correct term, but it sells copy. TARP stands for Troubled Asset Repurchase Program, and simply put, it was designed, in the final days of the Bush administration, to purchase bad loans from banks. Why do that? Because when banks have a bad loans, it becomes more difficult from a regulatory as well as functional standpoint to lend money. Our economy is fueled by credit. So if banks can not or will not lend, that is potentially very bad for our economy.

As the Bush's were packing boxes, and the Obama's were pulling in with the Mayflower truck behind them, someone, I do not know who, decided rather than buy bad loans, which sounds fairly unappealing, to use TARP money to buy preferred stock in the banks who are hurting for capital. And that is what they did. The federal government has purchased billions of dollars worth of stock in mostly the largest US banks. Those of us in the audience who do not blindly trust an organization as large as the US government, were OK with this program, because the stock the government purchased is of a class that does not vote. Bush went on TV before he left to describe this. The government's money was in, but it was silent.

Here's the next "2". Several weeks ago the Feds (read, the current presidential administration) announced new "stress" tests for the banks which have taken TARP money. These were announced under the guise of protecting the American people. This seemed odd to everyone in the banking industry, because banks are already heavily regulated and tested for soundness. Considered on its own, the stress tests made no sense.

The next "2" is the feds alone decided what the components of the stress test would be. No industry input. This allowed the feds to in essence decide which banks need new capital, and how much. Keep in mind, the feds make the rules for the banks. If a bank does not meet those rules, it can be shut down overnight, with no warning.

The next "2" is results were announced recently for the stress tests, and all the biggest banks were deemed to have inadequate capital for a hypothetically created extended recession. Imagine that. All these banks were told to add capital, or else Uncle Sam is going to take over.

Ok here is the final "2", which gets us to 10. One of the ways the feds said the banks could add capital, is by converting the Preferred Stock the feds recently purchased with TARP money, in to Common Stock. This is significant because Preferred Stock does not vote, Common Stock does. If the fed's shares are converted to Common, they immediately become the largest shareholder; they own that bank. This is what Obama and many in Washington want. This makes government bigger, much bigger.

Not convinced this is a Scam yet? Well here is the dead giveaway: If you convert Preferred Stock to Common Stock, how much money does that add to the balance sheet of a bank? I mean, the government is going through all these steps for the sole purpose of making sure banks are sound and have enough capital, right? Wrong. The answer is zero. Converting Preferred to Common is like converting green dollars in to silver dollars. It adds zero new capital, zero new money to a bank's balance sheet. For accounting purposes only, Common Stock counts as capital, Preferred does not. This game has been in the works since Obama was elected. Its only now become visible, and unfortunately, to only a few who are awake and love liberty.

The feds now own Chrysler, they took it over in a similar Scam to this, and gave it to their best friends forever the unions. They now own Citibank, because Citi agreed to convert the fed's preferred shared to common. Is your company next? Is your industry next? Wake up. Trust what you see not what you are told. Contact your local Totalitarian in Washington, and tell him or her enough is enough, before it is too late.

Who is naïve, you or Obama?

Yesterday Sir Taxalot (aka B Hussein Obama) announced a plan to "save" you and me, the American tax payer, over $200 billion over the course of the next 10 years, by raising taxes on certain companies who are participating in legally avoiding taxes. $200 billion over 10 years is $20 billion a year according to my public education math. Let's all be thankful our President, who in the past 100 days has spent trillions more dollars than his predecessors ever thought about, wants to save us $20 billion a year. Be still my beating heart.

By the way, $20 billion a year will almost, almost, cover the interest expense on his $750 billion porkulus, err stimulus plan. The annual interest bill for that, assuming 4% interest, is $30 billion. A year. Every year. For a long time.

$20 billion a year is the approximate amount of my state's, North Carolina's, annual budget. It is hard to believe that the interest expense on only a portion of this president's deficit spending is larger than my state's budget. I hope that helps you understand the size of some of these numbers, and how hard it is going to be to pay all this debt off.

Maybe you are OK with this. Possibly you like seeing large companies having their tax loopholes closed. Its very popular in Washington and with the press to attack big companies and tax loopholes. By the way, do you deduct home mortgage interest on YOUR tax return? Do you deduct for charitable donations, for medical expenses, for education expenses? If you do, then you are engaging in the same kind of "loophole" participation these big companies are. Does that change the way you look at this?

What Sir Taxalot either does not know, or thinks you do not know, is that those companies he is raising taxes on are not going to just sit there an say OK, we're glad to pay more taxes. No, they will either cut jobs, or raise the price of their products, or both, in order to help fund as much of those tax increases as they can, without hurting their bottom line. Either he is naive, or he is playing you for a sucker, thinking he can continue to divide us in to groups who hate, or at least don't much like, each other. He is not "saving" you anything, he is costing you something.

This is a very calculating, but misguided, man. He knows exactly what he is doing. He is increasing the size of government by raising taxes. That is his #1 objective, make no doubt about that. He is attempting to punish companies who move jobs oversees. He is doing that to potentionally help his best friends, the unions. If that is not his #2 objective, its close. Finally, he is continuing to attempt to exploit what he sees as a naive US population, by hoping you do not realize tax increases on companies eventually cost you, the customer, in the form of higher prices. Don't be a sucker. And don't forget.

Trust what you see, not what you hear.

People in politics (and business, and life, and school, and etc) can I think be lumped in to two groups. One group wants to be evaluated or judged on the basis of what they say. These people tend to have wonderful ideas. Unfortunately, many times somewhere between idea generation, and implementation, it just does not work out right, and the results are just not there. Other people want, and expect, to be judged on outcomes. They realize a good idea is a really good thing, but the proof is in the pudding. Talk is cheap, results are priceless.

One of the things this blog is dedicated to doing, is helping point out that many times our government, particularly at the state and federal levels, is more about saying what they think you want to hear, rather than actually doing something, accomplishing something, that actually makes a positive difference or makes progress. And I really might not care whether they accomplished something or not, except part of those $3.5 trillion dollars that will be spent by the federal government this year are mine. And, part of those dollars will be borrowed, and my children's children will pay for those.

A great example of this great idea/lack of execution happened last week. A friend of mine attended a meeting in which a US House Representative spoke. It was a lunch meeting, and the sole purpose of the meeting was to allow the people who pay the bills for the US government, to hear the US Representative talk.

I was not able to attend, so I asked my friend what she thought of the meeting. The two themes that stuck with her most about the meeting were the need for us to all get healthier, in order to help keep insurance costs down, and, the need to go Green with our energy consumption, lives, etc.

Lunch, by the way, was pizza. Beverages were primarily soda pop, in cans. So much for going healthy. There were no recycling receptacles for the aluminum cans, only trash cans. Ditto for the card board boxes. So much for going green. Talk really is cheap. Except it really isn't, because you and I are paying for the talk. Ouch!

My fellow citizens, this is a microcosm of how ridiculously irrelevant our government has become. You and I are being scammed. And we will continue to be scammed until enough of us say no more. You and I are paying the bills for a government that is so big, so intrusive, that it has far since passed the point of being effective. Read the writings of our founding fathers, which are the blueprint for our system of governance. They never in their wildness nightmares would have imagined a federal government this big. We must make a change.