GOVERNMENT ON THE SNEAK

By Dave Buhlman

When a government is operating in the shadows to institute dramatic changes in government activity and structure, it is time to accept that the American people are simply no longer an important part of the equation in decision making.

In early September, the first Mexican truck rolled over the border en route to North Carolina. The permission for this was given by an obscure federal bureaucracy based on alleged agreements in the 1993 law (not treaty) known as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by President Bill Clinton. NAFTA was the source of Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” comment during the 1992 presidential campaign. Perot rightly predicted that NAFTA would cause a major loss of American jobs. A US senator has put in an amendment to end this practice because Mexican trucks and drivers are not subjected to anywhere near what is require for America-based trucks and truck drivers. That’s good news, and it might pass. But the Mex-truck pushers will be back another day. They never give up.

Back in June, the amnesty bill supported by President Bush, Senators McCain and Kennedy, and other proponents of illegal immigration, such as the racist La Raza, was defeated in the Senate after a major effort by regular Americans, led by pro-law groups such as ALIPAC. American citizens were forced to call, fax, beg and plead with their US Senators not to condone this lawbreaking. But now the DREAM amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill
seeks to institute what they could not get in June via the back door, sneaky maneuver of a non-germane amendment. Big business wants amnesty and the Senate is being bent and twisted again to get it for them. The DREAM amendment may be defeated, but the forces of lawlessness will be back again to institute amnesty for illegal immigrants, with no shame.

In mid-September, President Bush was asked a question about the setting up of the Security and Prosperity Partnership/North American Union. He ridiculed the “conspiracy” mongers who believe in this, while his administration is going full bore to implement it. There have been numerous meetings of bureaucrats from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, for the purpose of streamlining the thousands of bureaucratic rules of the three countries in order to make melding them together and erasing the borders easier. Maybe President Bush also still believes that mountains of WMDs were found in Iraq.

About six months ago, congressional hearings were held to uncover the predatory lending procedures put in place by most banks. This is where, based on the gift Congress gave to the financial emperors a couple of years ago in the Bankruptcy reform bill, banks are allowed to charge usurious interest rates on credit cards. These rates can kick in even if the borrower’s record with that particular institution is flawless. The banks are allowed (encouraged?) to forage through our financial records for some minor failure, somewhere, with someone and use this as a basis to boost the rates to twenty to thirty percent or more. When loan sharks do this they are prosecuted for charging high rates known as vigorish (the vig). Too bad loan sharks don’t have better lobbyists in Congress. There was supposed to be a bill put in to get the greedy lenders under control, but that hasn’t quite happened yet. Maybe after Congress gets finished selling us out to amnesty, they’ll get this bill done and signed into law. Or, maybe not.

Dave Buhlman is a published author, a former N.H. State Rep. and a Weekly contributer to IMHO-NH