Are Democrats really Tax and Spend?

The Republicans certainly showed us that they are all about spending this past decade.   At least they didn't raise taxes.  Now we have the Democrats in power and they have been spending voraciously.  Will they live up to the moniker Tax and Spend Democrats?

The CBO has announced that for fiscal year 2010 the deficit will be $1.35 trillion dollars.  The deficit in 2009 was $1.4 trillion and that is before corrections.  We are running seriously in the red and with difficulties in selling our paper to foreign investors we MUST do something about it.  The recent announcement to freeze non-security discretionary spending is a drop in the bucket.  We need to either cut defense or reduce mandatory spending - entitlements - or both.  Or we can raise taxes.

The conventional wisdom may be starting to say that the Dems will raise taxes.  It is too difficult to cut defense in this environment of being committed to Iraq and Afghanistan.   No way are Dems going to open the Pandora's Box of reducing entitlements - those are Democratic voters.   Of course, higher taxes will slow growth and recovery efforts.  I guess it depends on who will see their taxes go up.

Sigh.

As a Whig, I would like to see entitlements brought under control.  We have to do it and everyone knows it.  We cannot continue to operate with the steadily increasing costs of entitlements that slowly push aside our ability to do other things with the National Government.  We are being forced to consider defense reductions as a result.  Guns and butter.   Too much butter.  Many entitlements belong at the state level.   Let's move them there.

Virginia considers Marijuana decriminalization

Virginia Legislature Considers Decriminalizing Marijuana

NORML is pleased to announce that House Bill 1134 (ViewHere), which seeks to amend marijuana possession and cultivation offenses, has been pre-filed for the 2010 legislative session. This measure amends present criminal marijuana penalties in several ways.

1. The bill would reduce minor marijuana possession penalties from a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, to a civil infraction punishable by a fine-only.

2. The bill would create a rebuttable presumption that a person who grows no more than five marijuana plants grows marijuana for personal use and not for distribution, an offense punishable by a $500 civil penalty. Under present law, marijuana cultivation in any amount is classified as a felony offense, punishable by between 5 and 30 years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

3. The bill removes the two-year mandatory sentence for those found guilty of the distribution of less than one ounce of marijuana.  House Bill 1134 also removes the the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for those found guilty of the distribution of more than one ounce of marijuana.

4. The bill also raises the quantities necessary for punishment of possession with intent to distribute so as not to punish amounts that may be possessed for personal use.

Tea Partiers work to take over GOP machinery

The Tea Partiers have evidently found an outlet for the activism.  They are taking over the GOP party.  Specifically, they are taking over the machinery in the form of precinct leaders, often vacant, but which comes with the ability to vote for the party executives who endorse candidates, approve platforms and decides where the party spends money.  This is something we should keep an eye on as Whigs.

 In Power Push, Movement Sees Base in G.O.P.

Across the country, they are signing up to be Republican precinct leaders, a position so low-level that it often remains vacant, but which comes with the ability to vote for the party executives who endorse candidates, approve platforms and decide where the party spends money.

A new group called the National Precinct Alliance says it has a coordinator in nearly every state to recruit Tea Party activists to fill the positions and has already swelled the number of like-minded members inRepublican Party committees in Arizona and Nevada. Its mantra is this: take the precinct, take the state, take the party — and force it to nominate conservatives rather than people they see as liberals in Republican clothing.

...

 The precinct strategy, like the Tea Party movement itself, has spread via the Internet, on sites like Resistnet.com. ANational Tea Party Convention in Nashville next month will feature seminars on how to take over starting at the precinct level.

Advocates hold up the example of Las Vegas, where a group of about 30 people who had become friendly at Tea Party events last spring met to discuss how they could turn their crowds into political influence. One mentioned that there were about 500 open precinct committee positions in the local Republican Party.

They recruited other activists and flooded the committee — the Republican Party says it now has 780 committee people, up from about 300. In July, they approved a new executive committee, and Tony Warren, one of the organizers and a new precinct committeeman himself, said six out of seven executives are “constitutional conservatives,” in keeping with Tea Party ideology.

With the bulk of Nevada’s population in the Las Vegas area, the local committee was able to elect a conservative slate to the state party in December, including a state chairman who has said he wants to make the party “safe” for conservatives.

As recently as last spring, Mr. Warren said, “we didn’t even know how the darn party worked.”

Reform Ballot Access

Virginia has some funny rules concerning ballot access.  By law, there can only be 2 parties in the state, the Democrats and the Republicans.  All other "parties" running candidates have to get the each candidate on the ballot separately with signatures.  Each "party" must declare a Political Action Committee (PAC) to accept and spend donations.  This is certainly skewed to the two party system.  Perhaps that should be our first promise as 3rd party members - change this situation.

This was inspired by the following post:  Call to Reform Ballot Access

But the barriers faced by members of the Big Two are nothing compared to those faced by minor party and independent candidates, due to the fact that ballot access laws are generally structured to favor established political parties. In some states, minor party and independent petitioners are handcuffed by laws that prohibit people who have either voted in a party’s primary or registered as party member from signing ballot petitions. Democrats and Republicans have done such an effective job gaming the system against minor parties that no third party since 1920 has been able to place candidates on the ballot in half or more of congressional races in any given election cycle.

The ballot access barrier isn't the only tool that the Republican/Democratic duopoly has used to maintain its hold on political power, but it has been one of the most important and effective tools in their arsenal. And their control over the workings of the American political system has had an observable degrading effect on democracy in this country: what was once a relatively robust political system with viable minor parties has devolved into a dysfunctional mess plagued by low voter turnout, low turnover, and gridlock.