---By Representative Cliff Newton-Rochester
Much is said about high property taxes. As painful as it is, paying a property tax is a constant reminder of the cost of government. Some say a new income tax would ease property tax burdens. Yet no new tax has ever decreased the total tax burden. Always remember, an income tax in good times, gives government more money to spend without asking for it. Most Americans now donate 50 cents of every dollar they earn to taxes and costs incurred by government regulations. Do we really want to add to that burden?
There is the alarm being sounded on the perceived shortage of workforce housing. Smart growth policies, which grew nationwide in the 1990's, encouraged regulations designed to reduce suburban sprawl and control growth. Not surprisingly, housing costs grew as well. Its time to ask if there is a direct correlation between huge increases in housing costs and increased land use restrictions, zoning ordinances and restrictive building codes. And what role should planners play in all this? Wendell Cox said it well: "We need planners who don't aspire to socially engineering our futures. We need planners who help us reach destinations we choose and live in homes of our choosing.
Is the land for private home ownership disappearing in the name of conservation? Conservation easement brokers readily admit that they are no longer interested in swamps or land unsuitable for building homes. Their goal is to get permanent restrictions on as much prime land as possible. The only land that will have value in the future, land that could be developed and where homes of future generations would surely have been built. Think about it. Will this practice of removing property rights forever, or dead-handing, increase or decrease the cost of home ownership?
Will those trusted with finding a solution to affordable home ownership have the political courage to remove obstructions and challenge current politically correct practices?
12.14.2005
12.08.2005
Too much "nice" stifles Christmas
---by Micheal
Too much of a "good thing" has turned Christmas into a time of great stress instead of great joy. Our nation's founding fathers' forefathers -- the Puritans -- frowned on Christmas festivity and merrymaking. They didn't object to marking the birth of Christ so much as they objected to the pagan "saturnalia" traditions of much food, cavorting and revelry. Puritans thought the focus should be on the birth of mankind's savior, not parties.
Ultimately, the Puritans lost that battle. By the mid 1800s even respectable Christmas celebrations were very merry. There was feasting, decorations and carols, but celebrating the birth of Christ was still the focus. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come..." In our era, however, it seems like the joy of Christmas is getting shoved aside.
The culprit, I think, is that we are trying to pack too much "nice" into Christmas. Our excess didn't happen all at once. We added "nice" things one at a time. Decorating our houses was a "nice" thing, so we did that. Hosting festive parties was a "nice" thing, so held parties. Buying a gift for a loved one was "nice", so we added gifts. Family gatherings were a "nice", so we added travel to reunite our dispersed families for the holiday. Sending cards was a "nice" thing, so we started sending cards.
The trouble (perhaps more so for Americans) was that we couldn't scale anything back. We added more "nice" but never dropped anything. On top of that, we tend to push each "nice" to the max. Every nook and cranny of our houses simply had to be decked. Yards fill up with inflatable or electric effigies. We rush around to buy multiple gifts for just about everyone we know and some we don't. One woman was stressing over having to buy a gift for her boss's dog! We write out cards to everyone who is already on our gift list. We plan lavish parties. We traffic-manage and juggle schedules to get family members together. Busy busy busy.
There's so much "nice" stuff being done, that few have any time to really celebrate that "the Lord is come." It's hard to feel real joy when your cards aren't done yet, the extra bedroom isn't ready for guests, the cookies aren't baked, you can't find a gift for your boss's dog and people are expecting you to drop everything and attend their party. Aaarrrgg!
Have we forever ruined Christmas by over stuffing it with "nice"? Are we doomed to endure joyless Christmases? No, not if we're willing to scale back. I know it goes against the American grain, but it can be done. Do it to reclaim the joy.
The remedy comes in three parts. Do less. Expect less. Celebrate.
Phase One: Don't decorate every square inch. Try buying just one gift for immediate family members only. (i.e. Don't shop for your boss's dog.) Mail cards to only distant loved ones you won't see for six months or so. Don't plan a lavish party.
Phase Two: Don't expect "nice" stuff. Don't get all hurt if you don't get a card from your boss's dog. Don't feel disappointed if you get only one gift. Don't book travel. Don't feel unloved because a family member is spending Christmas elsewhere. You're not a bad person if you don't hold a party.
Phase Three: Instead, leave time to sing carols with your locally available family and/or friends. Visit a neighbor. Read the Christmas story in Luke 2. Have time to attend someone else's party. Reflect on the joy inherent in "...the Lord is come".
Maybe the Puritans weren't so far off base. Preoccupation with party can kill the real joy.
Too much of a "good thing" has turned Christmas into a time of great stress instead of great joy. Our nation's founding fathers' forefathers -- the Puritans -- frowned on Christmas festivity and merrymaking. They didn't object to marking the birth of Christ so much as they objected to the pagan "saturnalia" traditions of much food, cavorting and revelry. Puritans thought the focus should be on the birth of mankind's savior, not parties.
Ultimately, the Puritans lost that battle. By the mid 1800s even respectable Christmas celebrations were very merry. There was feasting, decorations and carols, but celebrating the birth of Christ was still the focus. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come..." In our era, however, it seems like the joy of Christmas is getting shoved aside.
The culprit, I think, is that we are trying to pack too much "nice" into Christmas. Our excess didn't happen all at once. We added "nice" things one at a time. Decorating our houses was a "nice" thing, so we did that. Hosting festive parties was a "nice" thing, so held parties. Buying a gift for a loved one was "nice", so we added gifts. Family gatherings were a "nice", so we added travel to reunite our dispersed families for the holiday. Sending cards was a "nice" thing, so we started sending cards.
The trouble (perhaps more so for Americans) was that we couldn't scale anything back. We added more "nice" but never dropped anything. On top of that, we tend to push each "nice" to the max. Every nook and cranny of our houses simply had to be decked. Yards fill up with inflatable or electric effigies. We rush around to buy multiple gifts for just about everyone we know and some we don't. One woman was stressing over having to buy a gift for her boss's dog! We write out cards to everyone who is already on our gift list. We plan lavish parties. We traffic-manage and juggle schedules to get family members together. Busy busy busy.
There's so much "nice" stuff being done, that few have any time to really celebrate that "the Lord is come." It's hard to feel real joy when your cards aren't done yet, the extra bedroom isn't ready for guests, the cookies aren't baked, you can't find a gift for your boss's dog and people are expecting you to drop everything and attend their party. Aaarrrgg!
Have we forever ruined Christmas by over stuffing it with "nice"? Are we doomed to endure joyless Christmases? No, not if we're willing to scale back. I know it goes against the American grain, but it can be done. Do it to reclaim the joy.
The remedy comes in three parts. Do less. Expect less. Celebrate.
Phase One: Don't decorate every square inch. Try buying just one gift for immediate family members only. (i.e. Don't shop for your boss's dog.) Mail cards to only distant loved ones you won't see for six months or so. Don't plan a lavish party.
Phase Two: Don't expect "nice" stuff. Don't get all hurt if you don't get a card from your boss's dog. Don't feel disappointed if you get only one gift. Don't book travel. Don't feel unloved because a family member is spending Christmas elsewhere. You're not a bad person if you don't hold a party.
Phase Three: Instead, leave time to sing carols with your locally available family and/or friends. Visit a neighbor. Read the Christmas story in Luke 2. Have time to attend someone else's party. Reflect on the joy inherent in "...the Lord is come".
Maybe the Puritans weren't so far off base. Preoccupation with party can kill the real joy.
12.02.2005
Signs of excess disposable income
---by Micheal
A surefire early sign that Christmas is coming is that every day, your mailbox is filled with stacks of mail-order catalogs. This year, the influx of catalogs seems thicker than before. Only a few of them have familiar names. Most of them look pretty much alike -- all colorful and slick, with an affected air of sophistication. What they all have in common, is that they are all trying to entice me into buying this gizmo or that bauble.
After leafing through dozens and dozens of this year's full color enticements, a couple of conclusions emerged.
Conclusion Number One: Our industrial base is far too busy building totally pointless and painfully useless products. One catalog proudly offered a life-size animatronic chimpanzee head. It would make different facial expressions and utter four different chimp calls. Only 150 bucks! Another catalog advertised a whole product line of robot dogs that would move about and do tricks. They ranged from $50 to $2,000. Obviously, the more you paid, the more tricks you'd get. Are real dogs not subservient enough?
13-in-1 multi tools. A butter dish that will heat or cool your butter to its optimal spreading temperature for a mere $60. T-shirts with some smart-alecky phrase on it, which if you'd uttered in front of your father, you'd have gotten smacked. Who in blazes "needs" this stuff? Why are factories producing this stuff? Who goes home from a hard day at the factory and proudly says, "Well, honey, I made sixty two boxes of pointless expensive junk today. Let's celebrate!"
Conclusion Number Two: Americans have far too much disposable income. At least, the catalog marketers think we do. Who do you know, that would say to you, "You know, I think I need me one of them two thousand dollar robot dogs."? Or, would say, "My life is just a living hell because my butter is too hard to spread on my toast."
I'm not turning into some closet Marxist or anything, but doesn't it strike you as just a little bit indecent that there are people out there (such as those formerly from New Orleans) who have next to nothing, but there's an army of marketers out there trying to coax us into buying a two thousand dollar robot dog, an animated chimp head, or a heated butter dish? Do we have that much, too much, money?
A surefire early sign that Christmas is coming is that every day, your mailbox is filled with stacks of mail-order catalogs. This year, the influx of catalogs seems thicker than before. Only a few of them have familiar names. Most of them look pretty much alike -- all colorful and slick, with an affected air of sophistication. What they all have in common, is that they are all trying to entice me into buying this gizmo or that bauble.
After leafing through dozens and dozens of this year's full color enticements, a couple of conclusions emerged.
Conclusion Number One: Our industrial base is far too busy building totally pointless and painfully useless products. One catalog proudly offered a life-size animatronic chimpanzee head. It would make different facial expressions and utter four different chimp calls. Only 150 bucks! Another catalog advertised a whole product line of robot dogs that would move about and do tricks. They ranged from $50 to $2,000. Obviously, the more you paid, the more tricks you'd get. Are real dogs not subservient enough?
13-in-1 multi tools. A butter dish that will heat or cool your butter to its optimal spreading temperature for a mere $60. T-shirts with some smart-alecky phrase on it, which if you'd uttered in front of your father, you'd have gotten smacked. Who in blazes "needs" this stuff? Why are factories producing this stuff? Who goes home from a hard day at the factory and proudly says, "Well, honey, I made sixty two boxes of pointless expensive junk today. Let's celebrate!"
Conclusion Number Two: Americans have far too much disposable income. At least, the catalog marketers think we do. Who do you know, that would say to you, "You know, I think I need me one of them two thousand dollar robot dogs."? Or, would say, "My life is just a living hell because my butter is too hard to spread on my toast."
I'm not turning into some closet Marxist or anything, but doesn't it strike you as just a little bit indecent that there are people out there (such as those formerly from New Orleans) who have next to nothing, but there's an army of marketers out there trying to coax us into buying a two thousand dollar robot dog, an animated chimp head, or a heated butter dish? Do we have that much, too much, money?
12.01.2005
The Balkanization of America
---by Micheal
Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, agreed to sell cheap(er) heating oil to Massachusetts. US Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass) took a high profile pose for having brokered the deal, but Venezuelan officials say the deal was already in the works before American politicians got into the limelight.
Bush folks brand the move as a ploy to try and embarrass the Bush administration. Those of a more Democrat leaning (who leap at opportunities to complain about the Bush administration) insist that Chavez is making a purely humanitarian gesture.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Outspoken statesmen have a pretty poor track record of doing things for purely altruistic motives. There's always a self-serving angle.
At first blush, the Venezuela-Massachusetts oil deal looks a positive example of "states rights" in action. Looking a bit further down the road, it looks like the beginning of the Balkanization of America.
In the world arena of nation-states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire or any of the 50 states, are pretty puny stuff. Does anyone think Chavez would care two-hoots about the oil needs of 40,000 poor folks in some backwater third world nation? It's only because of the clout of Washington (i.e. the UNITED states) that he bothered.
If foreign powers can reduce America to a collection of dependent consumer zones, they'll have succeeded in doing the opposite of what the EU has been trying to do in Europe. They'll reduce America to a patchwork of powerless provinces.
United we stand. Divided we'll fall.
Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, agreed to sell cheap(er) heating oil to Massachusetts. US Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass) took a high profile pose for having brokered the deal, but Venezuelan officials say the deal was already in the works before American politicians got into the limelight.
Bush folks brand the move as a ploy to try and embarrass the Bush administration. Those of a more Democrat leaning (who leap at opportunities to complain about the Bush administration) insist that Chavez is making a purely humanitarian gesture.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Outspoken statesmen have a pretty poor track record of doing things for purely altruistic motives. There's always a self-serving angle.
At first blush, the Venezuela-Massachusetts oil deal looks a positive example of "states rights" in action. Looking a bit further down the road, it looks like the beginning of the Balkanization of America.
In the world arena of nation-states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire or any of the 50 states, are pretty puny stuff. Does anyone think Chavez would care two-hoots about the oil needs of 40,000 poor folks in some backwater third world nation? It's only because of the clout of Washington (i.e. the UNITED states) that he bothered.
If foreign powers can reduce America to a collection of dependent consumer zones, they'll have succeeded in doing the opposite of what the EU has been trying to do in Europe. They'll reduce America to a patchwork of powerless provinces.
United we stand. Divided we'll fall.
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