President Vicente Fox is going to Sacramento where he will address the State Legislature, and he will dine with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 
The Governor has a real opportunity here to make a point, privately and publicly, with President Fox that the United States, and California specifically resents the Mexican President’s steadfast opposition to our efforts to secure our borders.  President Fox has called the proposed wall ‘shameful’ and has drawn analogies to a U.S./Mexico border wall to the Berlin wall – which makes no sense.  But if you wanted to take his analogy and run with it, instead of Fox decrying a wall, why doesn’t he ask why so many of his citizens want to sneak into our country?  Perhaps Fox and his fellow public policy leaders want to look into a mirror, they can ask themselves why they aren’t taking the actions to create a thriving economy in their own nation.  That having been said, my personal opinion is that the Governor should just cancel his meeting with Fox, to make a very overt statement that as long as the President of Mexico does not join with the United States in trying to stem illegal immigration to America from his nation, then we simply will not dine with him.  The problem has risen to such an alarming point that it simply will not do to ignore it, or just treat it as a ‘facet’ of the complex relationship between two countries.  If Fox will not support U.S. efforts to curt illegal immigration, then the United States and California should be making sure that Fox, and his country, get a very loud message that they are working towards ending a cooperative relationship with us.  Skipping on dinner should be the least the Governor does to send this message.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of free-trade and economic development — but Fox’s support of illegal emigration from his country to ours is a direct assault on this nation — and should not be shrugged off.  Roll up the red carpet!

EARMARKING – Pork spending has to GO!
I have been a lively debate with a few GOP friends on Capitol Hill about the practice of earmarking.  The argument that is being used to defend earmarks is that it makes more sense, in a democratic republic, for elected lawmakers to direct funds than nameless, faceless bureaucrats?  I would say that the big problem that we have right now is that most of the earmarks are for things for which the Federal government should not even be paying.  So I say this:  1) Every request for an earmark by a member should be made public.  2) Every request for an earmark should be transparent, in writing, and made known to every committee member and to every Congressman before votes in committees or on the floor.  3) Earmarks that are pork, and outside of the role of the federal government as envisioned by its framers should be stopped.
 
Below is a list of ‘earmarks’ that are attached to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill that is coming before the House.  The Republican Study Committee (the ‘conservative caucus’ within the GOP) will move to strip this pork from the bill, which will probably not be successful.  But it will help us to understand which California Congressmen are serious about cracking down out out-of-control federal spending.
 
A great example of a ‘pork’ earmark that should be cut from the bill is the largest on the list below, which is clearly a "California" earmark — $20 million "for eradication and control for glassy-winged sharpshooters/Pierce’s disease." 
 
Now I consider myself a wine enthusiast, and have opined plenty on this page about my support for the right of all Americans to have the freedom to order wine via the internet and have it directly shipped to their home.  Pierce’s disease is a complicated issue, but for our purposes, I will say that it is a disease that attacks grape vines, and kills them.  It is spreading around California, and threatens to cause irreparable harm to an important California business – the wine industry. 
 
That having been said, the wine industry is a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR industry.  If there is a disease that is endangering the livelihood of winemakers, then they should all pony up the funds necessary to fight it.  In this case, the $20 million they are getting via ear-mark in this bill is nothing to them.  But the point is this — Members of Congress should eliminate this earmark and replace it with a reduction in the federal tax on wine.  Let’s get the government OUT of the idea that because people pay taxes, "the GOVERNMENT" should redistribute those dollars in some sort of ‘just’ way.
 
We need a whole reorientation about how Congressmen approach their jobs.  The sad part is that someone, probably a Republican, is somehow cheering that the biggest earmark in the bill is for California.  The reality is that California Republicans should lead the nation and all 19 of them should vote to remove the $20 million line-item from the bill.

Anyways, take a look down this pork list, and call your Member of Congress — and tell them to support the proposals from Congressman Jeff Flake, on behalf of the RSC, to strip these from the bill…

**There is more – click the link**

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.