We the People

By Ron Meyer

Obama Stares into the Eyes of his Teleprompter

WTP Exclusive

President Barack Obama is trying to pull a ‘Bill Clinton.’ After failing to pass health-care,  he is attempting to pose as a moderate conservative.

I couldn’t help thinking about Bill Clinton’s quote, “the era of big government is over,” when Mr. Obama proposed the veto-enforced discretionary spending freeze starting in 2011. He also promised to invest in nuclear and clean coal power — a total flip on his part — and then promised to cut capital gains taxes for small businesses.

First off, it’s about time. Secondly, talk about some blatant political posturing. After campaigning specifically against spending freezes, drilling, and tax cuts, he now wants to embrace them. Hmm. I wonder if Senator-Elect Scott Brown’s election has anything to do with this sudden about-face.

Well, maybe he realizes “it’s the economy, stupid.” It’s not health-care, not cap-and-trade, and not bank taxes. It’s jobs.

While he is still in denial when it comes to the bailouts and the stimulus package, I think he finally gets that if he wants any chance of winning in 2012, he must give fiscal relief to small businesses. To be honest, we should have gotten rid of the capital gains tax on small businesses a long time ago. Cutting these taxes frees up capital for businesses to use on new employees.

As Mr. Obama giveth, so he taketh away. In an act that would certainly cut jobs, Mr. Obama also promised to tax big business and big banks; this policy will take away capital and make it harder for any business to get loans. But hey, maybe he’ll get some political points for taking it to the fat cats — even if they are the one who provide jobs for numerous American workers.

Concerning Gov. Bob McDonnell’s response: great messaging and a solid delivery. It was rather refreshing to see a Republican clearly articulate free market economics and lay out a path for job growth.

Mr. McDonnell gave a terse speech in defense of liberty and of the founding father’s intent for our government. I was taken aback to actually hear a Republican use the word “federalism” in a large-scale address.

This quote says it all: “Top-down one-size fits all decision making should not replace the personal choices of free people in a free market, nor undermine the proper role of state and local governments in our system of federalism. As our Founders clearly stated, and we Governors understand, government closest to the people governs best.”

This is exactly the fresh outlook on government the country has been seeking. America has never liked centralized power or long lectures. Mr. McDonnell offered a short, punchy rebuttal of the centralized model proposed by the Democrats. Most importantly, Mr. McDonnell looked America in the eyes — not in the teleprompter.

By Ron Meyer

WTP Commentary

Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press

One of the most popular topics for letters to the News-Press has been gang violence. Santa Barbara and Santa Maria residents seem to be growing more concerned on this issue, and I want to present a couple policies I think could help both of these cities.

The first major step would be to implement gang injunctions.

A gang injunction is a restraining order against a group filed through a civil suit; these injunctions create strict rules directed at the gang’s public behavior and activities. Oftentimes, these injunctions have proven to reduce the number of felonies in the areas they are implemented.

Police and residents in Los Angeles, and more locally in Lompoc, love the gang injunction policies they’ve adopted. They have proven to be extremely effective. The LAPD reports that it has been able to destroy gang activity in small areas and significantly reduce activity in the large, gang-entrenched areas.

One big concern about gang injunctions is that they will be too expensive. The LAPD has found a way to enforce injunctions in even the toughest of areas with a “small team of law enforcement officers.” Santa Maria and Santa Barbara may have to spend a little more money, but if they look at the LAPD model, they should be able to enact this program rather inexpensively.

While fighting the gangs above ground with injunctions, we should also address a root cause for gang involvement in the first place: poor public school systems. Parents and children need to have the choice to opt out of gang-infested schools.

Our children are mandated to attend school; if parents cannot afford private schools or home-schooling, these kids have to go to their local public school.

The problem is that gangs have taken over the social scene at many of the public schools in our cities. For students, sometimes the only way not to be threatened, harassed or hurt by a gang is to become a member. Gangs rely on this intimidation to build numbers. This is a pressure that should never be forced on our children.

No child should ever fear going to school, but unfortunately this has become the harsh reality for many students whose parents cannot afford better schooling.

We need to offer these kids a ladder out.

Some form of a school voucher program would be the most effective way to help these children. A voucher program gives parents a government-issued certificate that they can use to pay for their kid’s education at the school of their choice.

Instead of school funding going directly to public schools, part of this funding would go to these vouchers. Parents would then decide if they should send their child to any public, private or charter school in the area. The vouchers may not completely cover the cost of private school, but it would certainly help a lot of families.

Many folks are skeptical about these programs; they fear public schools will lose all their funding because not enough parents choose to send their kids there. For one, this should motivate public schools to be more competitive; and secondly, a voucher program could still allocate a mandatory amount to public schools before dividing the rest of the funding for vouchers.

Another substitute for vouchers is a tax credit that would allow parents to deduct the costs of sending their children to private school. This program is not as effective as vouchers because parents would have to pay the costs up front, leaving out many low-income families that cannot pay the initial tuition. The tax credits would also be predictably more expensive for the cities, but it is still a viable option.

With both vouchers and tax credits, the same principle applies: Give parents more freedom to choose where to educate their children.

Once parents and children are given this freedom, the cornerstone in the gangs’ infrastructure will be removed. The first day a parent finds out about gang activity, they can have the means to move their kids out of harm’s way. Not only that, this reform would allow these children to access a better education and gives them reasons and incentives not to join a gang.

If we mix vouchers/tax credits with new gang injunctions, we will start strangling gangs from both the inside and the outside. Residents of Santa Maria and Santa Barbara — who have been searching for solutions — should demand these proposed changes be implemented by our city councils. We can be the new standard for how to fight gangs in California and across the country.

To drill or not to drill...

By Ron Meyer

Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press

Finding tar on your feet after a scenic beach walk is something Santa Barbarans are used to, but I was a bit shocked when it first happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I frantically asked the people I was with if it was because of a leak from a platform or the result of a spill. I was surprised to find out it was natural oil seeps.

In fact, this natural seepage is the most abundant source of pollution on the Santa Barbara coast. The Santa Barbara County Energy Division reported that Coal Oil Point’s seepage rate is between 150 and 200 barrels per day. The 6-mile stretch around Coal Oil point produces approximately 10,000 gallons each day.

My knee-jerk reaction was that if there’s oil just gushing out of the sea floor, we ought to drill. If there is an abundance of liquid gold out there just hurting the environment, why not remove it and boost our economy?

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple — but almost. While drilling doesn’t completely stop the seepage, it significantly decreases it.

A UCSB report showed a 50 percent decline in seepage when they tested the area around Platform Holly. Similar studies across the world have shown drilling removes pressure from the reservoirs that cause seepage.

Considering every year this area seeps about 86,000 barrels of oil into the ocean — the equivalent of the infamous 1969 oil spill — drilling could definitely cut pollution.

Not only are offshore seeps the largest air polluter in the county, these seeps negatively impact the sensitive wildlife in the area. Seals, sea otters, whales and birds are just some of the animals affected.

These adverse impacts have brought oil companies and environmentalists in Santa Barbara together to address this issue. While some of the more radical environmental groups refuse to drill no matter what, others have been quite willing to negotiate.

The Tranquillion Ridge (T-Ridge) Project is a great example. This project would give new leases to oil company Plains Exploration and Production Co. (PXP) in exchange for dismantling four of its platforms by 2022.

Every local environmental organization has endorsed the T-Ridge project and made statements to the state Lands Commission in support of it. They like that PXP will be using existing infrastructure because pollution would be limited. More importantly, these organizations agreed that slant drilling could be done safely from these structures.

As I’ve spoken to locals, their biggest concern is having another big spill. After looking at the pictures and stories, I can’t blame them. But things have changed since 1969.

New and improved slant drilling technology, combined with other upgrades like spring-loaded valves that automatically shut down oil flow if a leak develops in the pipes, and caging that goes deeper into the bedrock as a protection against major blow-outs have revolutionized the drilling process.

PXP went through the proper steps locally, and while both sides have come to a deal, the T-Ridge project has been held up for now in the state’s bureaucracy. The California Legislature needs to act, but we all know how quickly things move in Sacramento.

On Monday, Carpinteria’s City Council put another project, Venoco’s Paredon Oil and Gas Development Initiative, on the ballot for next June. Venoco proposes to use 35 acres in Carpinteria, bordered by Dump Road, City Hall, the ocean and the bluffs, for the exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas from both offshore and onshore fields using slant drilling.

Paredon would bring in revenue and jobs for the city and county, while reducing seeps. However, the locals point out — and I agree — that the specifics of this plan take away too much regulatory control from Carpinteria and give it to the state.

Venoco needs to learn how to negotiate with locals and environmentalists like PXP did with T-Ridge. Folks in Carpinteria want to be able to make sure the oil companies don’t harm their city. Venoco needs to do a better job convincing these people that not only will they do no harm, they will help the local environment and the city coffers.

If more companies like Venoco follow the T-Ridge model, more drilling sites may be able to be opened in the area. If we can use new, safer technology to extract the oil polluting our waters, while making way for a transition to renewable fuels, it would be in the best interests of everyone in the county.

Some still may be resistant to drilling because they live in the illusion that the world can and should immediately switch to renewable energy. The fact is, we still need a bridge to renewable fuel. A cheap and abundant alternative to oil has yet to be completely developed. I hope one comes soon.

We still will need oil for this transitional period, and we can either get that oil from California — bringing jobs and revenues to the state and cities along the coast — or we can keep getting it from Russia and OPEC. Especially in tough economic times, we cannot afford to keep shipping money overseas to people who don’t have our best interests at heart.

All levels of government ought to consider allowing offshore and slant drilling in California. Localities know their area and environment the best, so any major decision should be allowed to be made by them. Sacramento and Washington shouldn’t be making this choice for us.

In Santa Barbara County, we should advocate for smart drilling in areas of high seepage. We should have the freedom to access this resource and gain the benefits from its removal.

CA Drowning in Red Ink

By Ron Meyer

Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press

Young people have an obvious stake in our future: We are the future. More importantly, we are the generation that will have to deal with the long-term problems currently being created by our local, state and national governments.

How many U.S. Congress members are there under 30 years old? One: Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who is 28. People under 30 are the most underrepresented demographic in the U.S. Congress, state legislatures and city councils across the nation.

What’s wrong with that? People with more life experience should be our leaders, right? I would normally agree, but unfortunately these folks with more experience have been loading up my generation with their debt.

People my age can no longer afford to be apathetic, especially in Santa Barbara.

Last week I wrote about how city salaries and pensions have forced the city to precipitously withdraw money from our city’s rainy-day fund. We have $1 million left; that’s enough to cover 1 percent of the annual budget.

Once that fund is gone, we have three options: raise taxes, cut union-backed positions, or borrow money. We know option No. 2 is probably off the table.

Paying down the deficits the city accumulates and the subsequent tax hikes will hurt Santa Barbara’s economy. The current politicians aren’t going to be motivated to act because these problems will not come to the forefront until after their terms have expired.

Future generations will be stuck paying for current excesses. This has become an unfortunate theme in American government. While Santa Barbara’s fate isn’t exactly desirable, the city’s future deficits and taxes seem rather minor when compared to the debt piled up by the federal and state governments.

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that California — the token welfare state — will accumulate more than $100 billion in budget deficits between now and 2015. California’s spending has grown by an astounding 50 percent in the last five years, and the state has shown no sign of stopping anytime soon.

The federal government is even worse. Our national debt has reached a record $12 trillion; that’s almost $40,000 per person in America, and the future looks even dimmer. In 10 years, the interest on the debt alone will be $500 billion and in 2030 the debt will surpass GDP.

These numbers are tough to grasp, but in real terms this means tons of future taxes. We have had to sell bonds to pay for our debt, and many of these bonds are short-term bonds with reasonably low interest. Unless we figure out how to miraculously pay for these bonds in the next couple of years, this debt will have to be rolled over into higher-interest bonds.

The hard part will come when we can no longer roll over our debt because we have so much that no one will buy our bonds. Then we have to pay for it with tax revenues, and this is where my generation will have to come in.

We get to fork over these future taxes — that is, unless we do something about it.

To stop this rapacity, we must address the third rail of politics: entitlements.

In Santa Barbara, this means addressing pensions; we can only promise to pay current employees what we know we can afford in the future. The city needs to take the first step and make long-term budget projections so people know what’s coming.

In California, binge spending and revenue shortfalls have been dangerously mixed with a growth in entitlement spending. Illegal immigration is causing some of this growth and is consequentially costing the state billions of dollars. California needs to get serious about illegal immigration, but let’s face it, the budget issues run deeper than that.

California has unraveled the welfare reform of the 1970s and 1990s and has built a state that is once again encouraging government reliance instead of individual responsibility. New welfare reform is in order.

The federal government’s challenges are almost insurmountable. Welfare reform is just the first step. Social Security and Medicare are the definition of unsustainable.

Current workers pay for the current retirees; in 1940, there were 42 workers per retiree, but today there are about three. In 20 years ,there will be two workers per retiree, creating a $2 trillion deficit for these programs. It only gets worse after that.

Current and near-retirees should be given what they were promised, but we need to phase out these programs and put in place something that we can afford in the future.

Deficit and debt reduction will require action from the youth of this nation. More young people need to get informed, vote on election days, run for public office, and, yes, even write opinions for a local newspaper.

Older folks can advocate for us, but it’s about time we speak for ourselves.

Ron Meyer Jr. attends Principia College in St. Louis. He is interning at the News-Press.

Price Controls in the Public Option

BY RON MEYER

I have yet to see a comprehensive article completely dismantling the public option. The mainstream media seems to have missed another key issue in this health-care debate which puts all the pieces of the discussion together.

The missing-link in this debate – the role of price controls – paints a clear picture of the problems with the public option. It shows why the public option will lead to a single-payer system, and why a single-payer system would be bad for America.

Rahm Emmanuel and Barney Frankhave already admitted that the public option was designed to lead to a single-payer system. However, some liberals are still trying to hoodwink the American people by telling them they can keep their current insurance plans and their doctor.

The fact is — as Democrats will happily admit – this plan is designed to hurt insurance companies and will drive them out of business.

If the government demands that insurance companies cover anyone who applies without charging a higher rate, their costs will go up. Covering individuals with preexisting conditions is logically more expensive than covering a regular insured person. Insurance companies will charge everyone more to make up for these costs, raising everyone else’s rates.

Private insurance rates will go up even further because of the other price controls the public option will induce into the market. As it is already well-known, Medicare and Medicaid pay doctors at a rate set by the federal government. This rate is set well below what private costumers would pay and, in order to break even, doctors charge their private costumers more to make up for the lost revenue.

The public option would multiply this practice significantly. Once the government offers a free or heavily subsidized public option, many people would rather take the free insurance over their private plan. Therefore, doctors would be forced to take the public rate from many more costumers and would have no choice but to raise their private rates.

Another twist may arise when, in order to keep costs for the public option low, the federal government demands that doctors take even less for their services. In turn they will raise the private rates even more.

The public option really isn’t an option at all. I suppose in the end you may be able to keep your private insurance – if you’re willing to pay at least two or three times more than what you do now. The more likely scenario is that these government-initiated higher costs of private insurance will force us all onto the government plan and drive private insurance out of business.

Once we’re all on the government program, the big problem once again is price controls. If everyone is covered by the federal government, bureaucrats and politicians, just like in our current Medicare/Medcaid system now, would set all the prices for doctors’ services and medicine.

Most politicians believe that doctors and drug companies make too much money. Profit is a four-letter word to these people. Once the politicians control the prices, they will undoubtedly try to purge this “evil.”

This is one reason that government has never been effective at guessing market prices. The government does not know how to allocate resources the way prices do in a free market system. Doctors have high salaries for a reason. Medical school and other training takes time and lots of money. However, many people remain willing to go to medical school because of the financial security the profession offers.

Who in their right mind is going to go to medical school and fork over $100K in tuition (plus what they paid for their undergraduate degree) to make a government salary? We already have a shortage of doctors today, and when the government begins to pay doctors even less the shortage will worsen and quality will fall. At this point, rationing will be inevitable.

The same is true for pharmaceutical companies. Above and beyond the profit required of them by their shareholders, the risky investment required to do research for new drugs and ground-breaking procedures is not cheap. When the government removes the profit motive for these services, we will see a dramatic fall in medical technology.

This problem will not only hurt Americans, it will affect everyone. No longer will socialized Europe be able to lean on our medical technology. If we, by socializing our system, stop developing medicine, to whom will the world turn?

Free prices create competition, lowering prices and raising quality. Government mandates and price controls create a monopoly, raising costs and lowering quality. Americans are and should be rejecting a government take-over of health-care. The next step is to seek real reform with free enterprise.

Matt’s Media Madhouse – Week 7

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Week 7 of Matt’s Media Madhouse focuses on 2nd Amendment rights, including Concealed Carry Rights, and the Constitutional protection of these and other gun rights. In the studio this week was Ron Meyer, Austin Picha, Ross Pearce, Christian Hagenlocher, Pat Nichols, and Gil Donatelli.

Certain audio clips used within the show are copyrighted to the NRA.