Don't Support the Bailout

Today I wrote an email to my Senators. I'm incline to include the bulk of it here:

"I want to make sure you're clear on where I stand on a couple of very important issues. I say this not because I feel like my view is of any particular importance or significance but because I feel like my point of view is very much in line with that of most Georgians.

I support FairTax and want to see more done to move us in that direction. Perhaps this economic slump is just what we need to put a sense of urgency to this. FairTax would certainly spur economic growth. It’s great to hear this talked about on a state level in a state that both Congressman Linder and Neal Boortz call home but I want to hear this talked about more on a national level. Georgia can’t get this passed. It’s going to be something that requires involvement of the elected officials from across the nation.

FairTax is a passion of mine because it appeals to my concept of fairness. By no stretch of the imagination am I rich, but I earn a respectable income that allows my wife to stay at home and raise our four young children. My single biggest expenditure every single month is not my car payment or my mortgage payment or anything like that. It’s my federal tax burden! I have withholdings of over 20% for federal taxes including Social Security and Medicare from every check I get. This is simply too much. By the time I figure in my mortgage and my giving to my local church, over half of my monthly income is accounted for. Over half!

I’d like to see a little bit more equality in the realm of taxation. Rather than spreading the wealth around as some have advocated recently, I’d like to see the responsibility spread around. I want to see everyone paying the same percentage of federal taxes and get rid of the progressive tax system. I’m well aware that several tax brackets exist above my income bracket and they only have higher tax rates. I’m also aware that many people that would fall into those brackets don’t derive most of their income the same way I do. Rather than coming directly from an employer on a W2 and being taxed at the published tax rates, their incomes come via dividends from stock holdings or corporations that are set up for the explicit purpose of distributing those earnings at a substantial tax savings. I’d love to do something like that for myself but having been a small business owner, I recognize the times, costs, and risks associated with that. It’s simply not something that’s feasible for someone in my position to do.

The inequities in the current system result in the lower income earners paying no taxes, the rich looking for tax shelters to avoid paying too high a percentage, and the middle class being squeezed. Middle class earners like me are being pinched between those that aren’t paying the same percentage in taxes that we are. I don’t think that meets anyone’s definition of fair. When coupled with falling home prices and increased costs of living – although the drop in gas prices recently has been a welcome sight – it’s a tough time to be middle class. While FairTax isn’t going to magically fix the situation, it would certainly help both from a financial standpoint as well as from an equality standpoint. If you felt like everyone else was pitching in and doing their part as well it wouldn’t seem like such an injustice.

Another big advantage that I see to FairTax that I hear seldom mentioned is the emphasis on savings. Like most Americans, I’ve spent more than I should at times. FairTax would be a nice, friendly, ever-present reminder to think about those unnecessary purchases. It would be a call to us all to do a better job of having a little bit of cash on hand to make it easier to weather declining home values or a layoff or whatever curveball life may throw at our pocketbook. If Americans were doing a better job at saving I’m not going to say the current financial situation could have been averted but having savings available would certainly serve as a safety net against it and hopefully make the current situation shallow and short-lived.

There’s one other thing I want to mention and that’s the proposed bailout of the automotive industry. As you may have guessed from my stated opposition to the mortgage bailout, I’m very much against another bailout. The federal government is today writing checks that I’ll be continuing to have to cash years from now along with my children and possibly my grandchildren. The answer isn’t throwing more money at a problem. It never is. The real question confronting the auto industry isn’t how to fix the current problem but how the situation existed for this long before needing to be addressed? As a corporation, how can you expect to remain viable if you’re costs are higher and your products in many instances inferior to that of your competitors? That’s the question facing the American auto industry today.

I don’t want to see a “car czar.” I don’t want to see new regulations on this industry. I want to see Detroit figure its way out of this current predicament. They certainly can. To think that they can’t do that without the help of federal money is just complete nonsense. Not only that but it’s an insult to the many hardworking and forward thinking Americans that these companies employ. The auto industry needs to be told that they’re not going to get a short cut out of the problem. They’re going to have to deal with the problems they’ve created for themselves the same way anyone else would have to deal with it. If I make poor financial decisions, the government isn’t rushing to my aid with a bailout. It’s my problem to deal with and figure out. Rewarding bad behavior (or in this case poor financial decisions) only reinforces that behavior and removes the only thing capitalism has to dissuade it and that’s the fear of failure and the financial penalties that accompany it.

I know a lot of people will be affected if the auto industry fails. I know a lot of people could lose their jobs and on and on and on. I understand that it’s a trickle down affect that impacts suppliers, parts makers, tire dealers, and so very many people. But look for a moment at how many people are affected by not addressing the problem? Everyone is affected by higher taxes. Higher taxes for many means they can’t buy the new car they had in mind. Selling fewer cars given the current state of auto sales could mean the very same things for the auto industry. At best all this bailout does is delay fixing the core problems within the industry until the next economic bump in the road. Then we’re faced with making yet another bailout or finally letting the industry struggle to deal with their own problems at a time when the impact will be far deeper and more widespread than it is now.

Please show some responsibility, show some restraint, show some fiscal conservatism and let these industry problems remain industry problems rather than making them all of our problems by getting the government more involved in the situation. Ronald Reagan once said that “Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.” That I fear is the situation that we’re currently faced with. Please don’t be blinded by the power we’ve entrusted you with.

Thank you and God bless."

Trick or Treat

I'm just not a "spread it around" kinda guy. I'm all for helping other people but people also have to be willing to help themselves. If I leave it up to the government to decide who should be helped then there's major problems with inefficiency, waste, and sometimes downright corruption. Those same things can happen with charities as well but with charities I can reward those that distribute my money more effectively. I can't do that when government is my charity.

When government is the charity and people are legally compelled to give, I also lose any moral benefit from giving and helping others. If you've ever sarificed to help someone else, you know what I'm talking about. It feels good to feel like you're making a change to better someone else's life and situation. When my money is forcibly taken by the government there's no feel good sense from having done the right thing and helped someone else. When there is no choice, there is no benefit to having made the right choice.

There's also the issue of practicing what you preach. If Obama is such a big fan of spreading it around, why doesn't he do it in his personal life? According to Bloomberg the Obama's donated a total - a TOTAL - of $10,772 from 2000 - 2004. Now it did jump in subsequent years but still amounted to only about 5% of their total income. I'm certainly no standard of charitable giving or philantrophist in the making but I give a far larger percentage of my income to charity than does Obama. A FAR larger. Just last year my charitable giving was larger than Obama's total giving from 2000 - 2004. There's just something wrong with someone wanting to spread your money around but not being willing to do the same with his.

War Is an Ugly Thing

I came across this quote this weekend. I wanted to seek it out in a slightly greater context and record it here. It speaks a lot to me. It's certainly not a glorification of war but the recognition of it as a necessary evil to stop injustice sometimes.

"But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), “The Contest in America.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 143, page 683-684. Harper & Bros., New York, April 1862.

Mike Anderson's BBQ

I had the beef brisket and ribs. The brisket was some of the best I've had in a while. The ribs weren't exactly my fare. They were a dry rub with a strong smokey taste but weren't the most tender or flavorful I've ever had. The sides were outstanding, though. I had the cheezy cornbake which is like a cornbread dressing with whole kernel corn, onions, peppers, and lots of cheese stuffed inside and the double-breaded fried okra. Both were just top notch. I'd love to find the recipe for the cheezy cornbake to make at home sometime. The website claims that all their sides are homemade daily and after tasting them, I believe it. They had the standard tomato-based, Texas-style sauce and they had a jalapeno sauce. It was basically their regular sauce spiced up a bit with pickled jalapenos floating. It was quite good - and quite spicy.

Other random thoughts... the guy behind the counter was quite nice. He noticed I wasn't familiar with the way they do things there. He asked if it was my first time and where I was from. When I told him Atlanta he immediately replied that next time I come I should bring some Brunswick stew and he and I can work out a trade. I don't think it was Mike Anderson I spoke with but the guy was extremely nice. Another nice plus that I didn't notice until I was on my way out was they also have a soft serve machine that's free for all customers. That along with the available outdoor seating area (covered with a lattice type structure around it) were both very cool.

Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse

I'm traveling tonight on business in Dallas and I'm thinking about where I want to go to dinner. I decide to try BBQ because I love BBQ. I look up on Citisearch to find the best BBQ in Dallas is at a place not too far from where I'm staying called Sonny Bryan's. On my way there I'm thinking about all the BBQ I've had and decided I'm something of an informal connoisseur of BBQ. I decided to do two things.

First, I've created a reference of all of the different BBQ places I can recall that I've eaten at. I'm sure I've eaten at a number of other places, but these are the ones I can positively recall. You can view the listing here.

The other thing I did is that I decided in the future when I visit a BBQ place that I'll try to write up a review here for your viewing pleasure. Without further adieu, here's my visit to Sonny Bryan's...

I tried going to the original Sonny Bryan's but neglected to read that it closed at 4pm. Fortunately I remembered from looking at the locations that there was another one just a couple of miles away on Lover's Lane. I had the ribs, brisket, and sausage combo. According to other reviews, the brisket is the way to go. I had to try the ribs because I'm a rib guy. They had a 3 meat combo and the guy behind the counter recommended the sausage. The sausage was ok, the brisket was good, and the ribs were surprisingly good. The brisket was very tender but didn't have a whole lot of flavor other than the sauce I dumped on it. The ribs were full of a deep smoky flavor, though. Quite tasty. I finished it off with mac and cheese, spicy beans, and a Dr. Pepper (I figured, I'm in Dallas... why not?).

The sauce was good - the typical Texas fare. Tomato based but not as bitter as what you often find. The mac and cheese and beans were average. The atmosphere was ok. Quite surprising for a BBQ place in a strip mall, actually. The blues playing in the background added a nice touch. The price was very reasonable; I was out $15 and left full. I'll try to post a copy of the receipt later.

Other random thoughts... They didn't just have beans, they also had spicy beans which I thought was cool. The onion rings are supposed to be outstanding but I forgot to try them.

Thanks, Favre

Growing up in south Mississippi I can remember watching this guy named Favre play for the University of Southern Mississippi. I couldn't understand why his name was far-vuh instead of fav-ree. Later I remember watching him not play for the Atlanta Falcons. They had Prime Time (Deion Sanders), Show Time (Andre Rison), and Country Time (Brett Favre). I was never really a Green Bay Packers fan, but when they traded for the guy from south Mississippi and let him throw the ball, I became a fan.

I can remember those around me becoming fans, too. My brother who wasn't even really a sports fan was suddenly wearing a Packers jacket. We all watched and marvelled. Favre was an incredibly gifted athlete, to be certain. That wasn't what drew us to him, though. As Tom Curran describes here, it was Favre's human side. He was confident, but not just confident enough to be cool. He was confident enough that cool wasn't enough. He had to be real. He had to be human. He had to be just like we would be but so much more than we could ever be.

I can remember meeting him a couple of times in Hattiesburg. Most recently was I believe during the summer of 2007. We were standing in line at Longhorn Steakhouse and I'm watching this couple stroll across the parking lot after getting out of their truck and I'm thinking to myself, "Man, does this guy look familiar. How do I know him?" Then it hits me, "It's him. It's Favre." You can hear a wave of recognition ripple through those standing outside in the warm evening but no one bothers him. He and his wife walk inside, are seated immediately, and from what I could tell enjoyed a quiet dinner to themselves. I guess that's part of the reason Favre loves south Mississippi.

My most vivid memory of him during a game was much earlier in his career. He'd just been leveled by one of the defensive players. Just completely buried. The guy leaned in and told Favre a little bit more than he wanted to hear about it as he's getting up. Favre then reaches up with one hand, grabs the huge defenseman's facemask and pulls him back down and proceeds to pound his helmet with his other hand as hard as he possibly could. At this point players from both teams are jumping in and trying to separate them. I just remember thinking... how cool is this dude not to take any crap from someone twice his size or worry about hurting his throwing hand or anything else. He's one bad dude that I'd take on my team any day and at any game.

Curran says it far better. He writes (with my editing):

“That’s how I’d do it.” How many times did those words pass through the minds of men harboring dreams of playing in the NFL but not the ability as they watched Favre?

He was Huck Finn in shoulder pads, rasslin’ with his brothers down in Kiln, Mississippi, ... performing with barely containable glee when he won the Packers starting job.

He wasn’t like Montana, Unitas or Brady – face placid with a season on the line. He felt the crucial moments and they registered on his face. He cried. He skipped. He jumped. Maybe that prevented him from being as great a quarterback as those three but it made him more revered. He was the most human of the great quarterbacks, a graying buzzcut and the trace of a wise grin on his face by the time he was done.

And the human side? You felt Favre’s pain. You knew the ache and nausea that hit Favre in a wave when it sank in that he’d screwed up and you watched for it to register on his face. You knew the feeling of having flushed everyone else’s work down the crapper because of a bad decision and how you would feel. You knew the resignation that hits like an anvil when it comes clear that you have to start all … over … again.

It was that last – the human side – that made the legend, wasn’t it?

Georgia for Huckabee

I don't actually know that Huckabee is going to win Georgia, but I voted for him. I stand by what I said last week, I don't think Huckabee has much of a shot at the nomination anymore. I was surprised that he won WV (even if it was McCain supporters attempting to block Romney) and Alabama. I'm even more suprised that in early polling he's leading in GA (currently leading McCain 37-33 with 18% reporting). We'll see what happens. Stay tuned.

Mid-Election Predictions

In the past couple of weeks, McCain has won New Hampshire and South Carolina. Mitt Romney finished a close second in NH and a distant 3rd in SC. He also won Nevada. Huckabee finished a very close second in SC. What does all of this mean?

I don't realy know but I've got a couple of predictions.

- McCain or Romney will be the nominee, most likely McCain. If McCain can win Florida then he's not swapping victories with Huckabee like I had previously said he risked doing. The only other person that stands a chance is Romney.
- Rudy is done and should drop out if he doesn't win FL. He's currently polling a close second but neck in neck with Romney and Huckabee isn't far behind.
- Huckabee, as much as I hate to admit it, doesn't stand much of a chance. His only potential game is to be a running mate choice for McCain to try to energize the conservative base.
- Huckabee may no be McCain's best choice as running mate, though. McCain's best choice may be Romney. He's got the money and the economic clout. That's why he won Michigan and then economy is becoming more and more of a factor in the election. Romney has arguably more experience economically than all of the other candidates combined. That may make for an attractive ticket.
- If McCain doesn't win the nomination then he'll still be on the ticket. That's right, if Romney wins, then McCain is his running mate. If, that is, McCain can swallow the pride of the attacks Romney has thrown his way for a spot on the ticket. McCain gives Romney the one thing he sorely lacks: foreign policy experience. Again, this combination makes for a very attractive ticket and is what it'll most likely be if they can not kill one another on the way to one of them winning the nomination.

I have no idea if any of this is accurate or not but it sounds reasonable to me right now based on the way things are shaping up. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Things That Make You Go... Ugh.

I generally pay attention to the news. I like being in the know on what's happening in the world around me. I see the headlines and the continual news coverage of all the big stories and a lot of the smaller ones. I think OJ probably did it and he's a sick and very stupid individual. Scott Peterson's guilty too and quite a moron. None of those cases really catches my attention, though. They're passing headlines that I absorb information from but quickly dismiss and all but forget about. They draw no real emotion from me. They're distant and I'm callous.

The past week or so I've been watching and reading the story unfold of Meredith Emerson. She's a 24 year old woman who was out hiking in the North Georgia mountains who turned up missing. A few days later a man was arresting trying to wash blood out of his van. He led police to a hidden body in the woods. The results of an autopsy revealed this woman was alive for 3 day after she was first reporting missing and was found beheaded.

This whole situation makes me so angry my blood could just boil. I can't tell you exactly why. I've never been to Vogel State Park. I don't know this woman or the 61 year old man that is now being accused of murdering her. But I do love the North Georgia mountains. I try to get up there at least once a month or so to do some mountain biking. It's not hard to see how something like this could happen. Some of the places I've been biking I can travel 10-15 miles over 3 or 4 hours and never see another soul except the guys I'm biking with. It's just desolate.

I feel almost like I've somehow been violated. These are my mountains for me to enjoy and someone has gone and done such a terrible and unspeakable thing in my mountains. I have no sympathy for this guy. He seems to show no remorse. A lot of information is coming forward now that he may be related to other similar murders. Unless this guy has some seriously good explanation as to why he's seen hiking with this woman, later washing blood out of his van, and then is able to lead police to a hidden, beheaded body then this is the case where the guy should be shot and have his family billed for the bullet.

I haven't mentioned the guy's name because he doesn't deserve to have his name mentioned. He deserves nothing but to be immediately removed from our society. I know that does nothing to bring back this woman or help or hurting family. It's not even going to make me feel any better. It will make the rest of the world safer, though. And that'll make me feel better.

I think the only time I've felt such an intense emotional reaction to something so disastrous was after Hurricane Katrina. I remember watching the news coverage on TV as shot after shot of destroyed homes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast appeared. My heart was just so broken. I wanted to do so much more than what I was able to do to help. That's where I was from, those were my people hurting and I ached with them.

I don't know how else to explain it. For the last few years of my adult life I've felt a strong desire to stay in touch with "my roots." I feel like I need to remember where I came from and what's really important. I'm not sure if that's something everyone feels at some point or something that I'm going through or exactly what. In some ways it wasn't a surprise that I felt the way I did about watching my fellow Mississippians suffer after Katrina. Mississippi has always been where I was from and will always be a place I call home. It's interesting that I now feel that way about Georgia to a degree, though. Those are my mountains.

Huckabee-McCain '08?

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Both Mike Huckabee and John McCain have been blasted in recent ads by Mitt Romney. Huckabee went on to win in Iowa in spite of the criticism. McCain may do the same in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

That's all good and well but can they continue to split the vote and hope to have either of them outlast the mountains of money that Romney has on his side when the larger states start voting in another few weeks? I'm not sure. I think in order for someone to realistically be a viable candidate they've got to have either momentum or money. If the likes of Huckabee and McCain are trading victories early on I question whether either can gain true momentum. And it's a known fact that neither of them have the kind of money that Romney and Rudy Giuliani have.

So what's the alternative? What if Huckabee and McCain paired up early? I know it's not until after the primaries have all been determined and a nominee is in waiting that a running mate is chosen but what if Huckabee or McCain one bowed out of the primaries early and endorsed the other candidate with a pledge to be the running mate?

I think that makes a lot of sense on a couple of different levels. One, they need something and as I prefaced this post, necessity is the mother of invention. It's certainly an unorthodox approach but why not? They may not have anything to lose. On another level, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and Romney certainly seems to be the common enemy that Huckabee and McCain have had as of late. Whether their apparent friendship goes deeper than that is for someone with more insight than I have to discuss but it certainly seems that there's some sort of synergy there. McCain was the first to call and congratulate Huckabee after he won in Iowa. Huckabee was defending McCain in New Hampshire from Romney's attacks. Doesn't that have to mean something?

Those things are really only surface deep. There are some deeper reasons. Both Huckabee and McCain fashion themselves as something of Washington outsiders. They both draw ire on occasion from the base. Them teaming up may be the only way to unite the base, though. Huckabee is the smiling face with the quick wit and funny phrase. McCain is the hard-nosed one that's been there, done that, and has the foreign policy experience.

Why couldn't such a partnership work? Is it just me or is this something reminiscent of Bush-Cheney?