Ricky Bishop

Guest Columnist

Shortly after the historic last November elections I began to focus on the 2011 elections and to decide which candidate to focus my efforts on and help. I looked at the Governor’s and Lieutenant Governor’s races and decided I did not want to spend almost half the year dealing with an internal party struggle for a nomination. As I turned my attention away from the Governor and Lieutenant Governor races I began to track back to the mindset I had as the statewide election season began four years ago, and that was the need to focus on electing a Republican Attorney General and a Republican or very Conservative Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives.

Governor Kirk Fordice and Governor Haley Barbour had a similar thorn in their sides while serving as Governor and that thorn was a Democratic Attorney General who would not follow the wishes of the Governor. The Attorney General has the power to turn our state, legally, in a direction that the Governor never intended it to go and that is why we need a Governor and Attorney General of the same party, the Republican Party. I really believe this needs to be an issue this year and hope it happens, but I have decided to turn my focus on the possibility of electing a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican or very Conservative Speaker.

After several conversations with Frank Corder, a Pascagoula native, I found that he had the same passion that I had in this effort and we both felt it was the right place and time to turn electing a Republican House and Conservative Speaker into a movement. Shortly after that I registered www.FireMcCoy.com and began working, with Frank, to move the Speaker’s race to the forefront of this election cycle. At FireMcCoy.com you can read our daily blog detailing why we need to change course from the antics of Speaker Billy McCoy and turn to a true Conservative Speaker of the House. FireMcCoy.com also allows for candidates for the Mississippi House of Representatives to download a “Candidate Pledge” and sign the pledge to Fire McCoy and elect a true Conservative as Speaker in the next legislative session.

I now ask you to help us with this movement to Fire McCoy by spreading the word, calling into talk radio and voicing support, and tracking down your House candidates and asking them to sign the Candidate Pledge. NOW IS THE TIME!

Ricky Bishop resides in Starkville and is co-author of The Friendly Fire Blog, www.thefriendlyfire.info. You can email him at rickybishop00@gmail.com and follow him on twitter at @rickybishop.

His column does not reflect the views of Starkville-Now.

Daniel L. Gardner

Guest Columnist

Rand Paul and the TEA Party are having a significant impact on business as usual in Washington.

Brand new Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has proposed cutting $500 billion over one year! IF – and it’s a big IF – Paul’s legislation is passed, we would still see more than $1 trillion deficit this year and probably another $1 trillion next year adding more than $2 trillion to our current $14.1 trillion debt.

Congress has imposed a $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and will vote in March or April whether to raise the ceiling so we can continue to borrow $4 of every $10 we spend.

The big question from the left and the right is what does Paul propose cutting? Paul proposes cutting the Department of Education saving $80 billion per year, noting our students are ranked lower in subjects like math and science than they were in 1979 when the Department was formed.

Paul’s bill would “roll back almost all federal spending to 2008 levels, then initiate reductions at various levels nearly across the board.” He proposes cutting $42 billion each from departments of Agriculture and Transportation, as well as $50 billion each from Energy, Housing, and Urban Development. Paul also proposes cutting Commerce Department 54-percent and “wasteful spending” in Defense.

Before we go further, let’s note Paul’s legislation cuts neither Social Security nor Medicare and leaves 85-percent of federal spending intact.

Some Progressives are completely baffled by proposed spending cuts, noting that Obama’s 2009 trillion-dollar stimulus bill plus Treasury’s more than $2 trillion injected stimulus “saved” America from utter economic disaster. They fear cuts will send us back into an economic tailspin and are proposing more “investments” to shore up our struggling economic recovery.

On the other hand conservative economists have argued government spending has actually weakened our economy as well as our standing in the world.

Technically, we are in a weak economic recovery. The American voters, in part charged up by TEA Parties across the nation, sent a strong message to Washington to cut spending. TEA Party candidates like Rand Paul are putting their careers where their rhetoric and supporters are.

Meanwhile, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is drafting a budget cutting $58 billion from current baseline spending. Critics on the left and the right are squealing that amount is $42 billion short of what Republicans originally pledged to cut ($100 billion).

Interesting to note that Mr. Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats have created $1.48 trillion deficit this year and federal spending at 25-percent of GDP, both near record highs. So much for any hopes Progressives in Washington will ever cut deficits…or the rising national debt.

Sixteen years after President Clinton famously said, “The era of big government is over,” we’re $10 trillion deeper in debt! Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have ended the era of big government.

I applaud Rand Paul’s initiative and his wherewithal to put something on the table. Cynical Progressives and skeptical pundits have wondered out loud whether TEA Party candidates could govern or make any impact in DC’s business as usual. They are already making quite a significant impact.

Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com, or interact with him on the Clarion-Ledger feature blog site http://www.clarionledger.com/section/blogs06 . Gardner’s columns are also featured on http://dannygardner.opinioneditorial.com/

His column does not reflect the views of Starkville-Now.

Daniel L. Gardner

Guest Columnist

Out of control spending in Washington is causing deficits and debt to rise beyond our ability to pay off the debt in our generation leaving future generations of Americans with a big bill and maybe much worse.

January 20, 2009, the U.S. national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08 according to treasurydirect.gov. January 24, 2011, the U.S. national debt was $14,056,313,474,932.58.

Who’s to blame? Washington D.C.

Many want to blame either President Obama or President Bush. The blame game is the least of our worries. We need solutions. More federal spending (called investments by Progressives) only makes our deficit/debt problems worse.

Progressives want to raise taxes particularly on the “rich” to cut deficits and lower our debt. Is it time for the “rich” to pay their fair share? Consider IRS numbers from 2006:

Top 1-percent of taxpayers paid 39.9-percent of all income taxes. Top 10-percent of taxpayers paid 71-percent of all income taxes. Those are pretty hefty percentages!

On the other end of the spectrum, taxpayers in the bottom 50-percent paid less than 3-percent of all income taxes, or said another way, the top 50-percent of taxpayers paid more than 97-percent of all income taxes.

Interestingly, Progressives are against deficit spending. No, you read that correctly. Consider these quotes from three leading Progressives:

“When it comes to deficits, this president owns all the records. The three largest deficits in our nation’s history have all occurred under this administration’s watch.” Harry Reid, 2006, speaking about George W. Bush. So far, no similar comments about President Obama.

Nancy Pelosi in 2007 said, “After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”

When Ms. Pelosi made that promise, the national debt was $8,673,152,446,066.83. How’s that “pay-as-you-go” thingy working out for you, Nancy?

February 23, 2009, President Obama said, “In 2008 alone we paid $250 billion on interest on our debt – one in every ten taxpayer dollars. That is more than three times what we spent on education that year. That’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”

In case you are wondering, the U.S. has paid $148,238,982,913.81 in interest on our debt during the first three months of fiscal 2011.

More recently (July 22, 2010) the top Progressive in Chief (Obama) said, “When we continue to spend as if deficits don’t matter, that means our kids and our grandkids may windup saddled with debt that they’ll never be able to repay.”

Obviously, politicians of all stripes and ideologies make silly comments that are not even remotely related to real life on planet Earth as we know it. These are just a few from the Progressive side of the aisle.

Here’s the bottom line: Federal spending is increasing our annual deficit and national debt. Increasing federal spending will raise the deficit and debt even higher.

When you hear any politician using a code word like “investing,” think “spending,” because that’s what he or she is really saying. When the federal government “invests” in anything, it’s spending taxpayer dollars and increasing the deficit.

Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com, or interact with him on the Clarion-Ledger feature blog site http://www.clarionledger.com/section/blogs06 . Gardner’s columns are also featured on http://dannygardner.opinioneditorial.com/

His column does not reflect the views of Starkville-Now.

Daniel L. Gardner

Guest Columnist

America has seen a lot of hope and change since JFK voiced historic words for a new generation of Americans.

January 20, 1961, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy spoke these enduring words: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Those may be the most memorable words from the speech, but JFK offered several other memorable words. For example, Mr. Kennedy acknowledged, “I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.”

That oath is stipulated in the Constitution, Article II, Section 1: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Kennedy ended his oath with the customary “so help me God.”

I’m glad our Founding Fathers clarified the most important element to be preserved, protected, and defended within our founding document. The U.S. Constitution is not fundamentally flawed, inadequate, or analogous to a piece of moldy cheese as Progressives have iterated, but is worthy of being preserved and defended.

Unfortunately many in DC merely give lip service to the oath, imagining their own ideologies are somehow superior to rules of governance plainly stated in the Constitution.

Mr. Kennedy also stated what was nearly universally recognized in America in 1961: “the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe – the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Today’s Progressive/liberal media, politicians, and academics would have a field day dissecting such a statement in light of the doctrine of separation of church and state. Back then Americans knew the separation doctrine was to protect churches from the state and not vice versa as is popularly supposed today.

What about the genesis of “the rights of man?”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

For the past two years Progressives in Washington have trampled our rights under the guise of doing what’s best for all the people. Their trampling inspired voters to send historic numbers of new representatives to DC calling for a return to responsible and Constitutional governance.

One of their first acts will be voting to repeal so-called Obamacare, the unconstitutional legislation Progressives crammed down the people’s throats. They’ll also make serious efforts to cut outrageous deficit spending ($3 Trillion the past two years), cap the debt ceiling, and call for a balanced budget amendment.

We the voters are not asking what our country can do for us. We’re asking for Constitutional and responsible governance. We’ve done what we could to restore sanity in Washington.

Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com, or interact with him on the Clarion-Ledger feature blog site http://www.clarionledger.com/section/blogs06 . Gardner’s columns are also featured on http://dannygardner.opinioneditorial.com/

His column does not reflect the views of Starkville-Now.