I'm going to be traveling off and on a bit over the next few days so some of my posts may be from other spots and on the twitter account. But I did want to comment on the Tea Party rally taking place on the Fourth of July.
A good lineup of conservative speakers and I hope that many folks can attend. I can tell the tea party movement is working since when I was looking at the comments online concerning the story about the rally... well, if the phrase "you can tell the rightness of an idea by the confederacy of dunces arrayed against it"means anything, then the tea party guys have really got something going on.
It's surprising how just a group of conservatives having a meeting sets the members of some groups all a quiver. If all of this anger and fear is awakened by just having a few speeches -- think what happens when conservative candidates win elections.
All of this chatter on the Sentinel website about how the tea parties are dominated by Republicans seems to be a canard. In this area we are generally lucky enough to have fairly conservative politicians and for the most part they belong to the Republican Party.
This is mainly because the local Republican Party has not been so polluted as the national one by fiscal irresponsibility. Personally, I would love to see some more truly conservative individuals that identify themselves as Democrats join the movement. Most of the people I've talked to at these rallies are Americans first, conservative second and whatever other affiliation they're interested in third.
Based on the reaction, all I can say to the tea party organizers is --must be doing a good job.
I wanted to take a minute to call attention to a story that was in today's USA Today about the relative fortunes of the automobile manufacturers.
The story points out that Ford Motor Company is managing to slow the bleeding of its losses and clearly looks as though it will be in a stronger position fairly quickly.
Chrysler, on the other hand, despite its enormous and in this authors view wrongheaded federal bailout and takeover, is still sailing about as high as a lead balloon. There may be a number of reasons why this is so but a large part has to be the lack of confidence in the new government overlords ability to operate a motor car company. General Motors is at a standstill in their sales as the rest of their remaking is being processed.
The USA Today story points out "Chrysler, just weeks after exiting bankruptcy protection, reported a 42% drop in sales, hurt by a big cut in fleet sales and declines in all its models except the Dodge Challenger muscle car."
So in the midst of this sea of problems, the only car that buyers are interested in going out on a limb and purchasing, is a brawny and powerful vehicle that is in most ways the antithesis to the fragile rollerskates that the present administration seems to think their new experiments in manufacturing need to build.
The readers of this blog are intelligent and I'm certain they can see the reason why this is sadly ironic. Go to story by clicking here.
Many were surprised and the head of the National Retail Federation reportedly was "flabbergasted", at the news that the nation's largest employer would support a measure that was so burdensome on industry.
The answer is not really all that hard to find when you consider that Wal-Mart has been in the sights of many on Capitol Hill as the target of specialized legislation aimed at so-called low-wage employers which is specifically referring to Wal-Mart even though it doesn't use the name.
This drastic shift in policy could forestall legislation aimed at large multistate employers of fairly low wage positions and spread the burden of employer mandated health care amongst Wal-Mart competitors, most of whom are not nearly as well-equipped to spread out the costs.
Wal-Mart's philosophy is fairly simple: when you think you see the train coming, pay the fare to get on it, even if it's expensive and let the train roll over the other guys.
You can read the story in the Wall Street Journal by clicking here.
As most of you know, the city has been dragooned into trying to find some way to make the Avalon Theatre pull in some kind of revenue to match the cost of its upkeep.
While I understand the attachment many have to these buildings, their functionality was grounded in past entertainment pursuits so they always present a problem.
The City of Grand Junction, as is their usual tact, have tried to fold the Avalon into layers of other departments so the resources might be shared intermittently and hide the true cost by spreading labor and materials over the other departments.
But here's a couple of quotes from a recent Daily Sentinel story on the project and if something doesn't seem amiss about them and you are considering starting your own business, you should immediately rethink that position.
"The nonprofit Cinema at the Avalon last fall was forced to fold after not bringing in enough revenue with its daily showings of independent films. Now under city leadership, and thanks to the popular movies and other creative productions, the Avalon this year is showing a marginal profit in its first quarter, something that hasn’t happened in years, Wade said."
"Being run by the city has helped the theater save on personnel costs by being able to transfer employees from Two River’s Convention Center."
I have to agree that this type of business operation has been called "creative" in the past. But not generally in a positive way; if you honestly think transferring personnel costs to another department is making money... well, we all see the problem.
The Denver Post published an article this weekend that has a surprisingly balanced analysis of the deep financial hole the state of Colorado has dug itself.
This is a bit surprising since the Post has been fairly relentlessly in favor of almost all of the governor and Legislature's spending initiatives. There is even some allusion in the piece that TABOR may have acted as a clear brake on state spending in a way that prevented a much deeper fiscal crisis. You can read the article by clicking on this post.
What should be clear, is that this state, like the federal government, has been on a spending spree that many with cooler heads had warned against over the last three years.
A large portion of the problem comes from the economic forecasts of the state itself. It's not just that they have a hard time estimating how much things will end up costing, which we all know is a continuing problem with government since it has our pockets to reach into instead of its own, but their understanding of ordinary citizens response to economic problems is usually cockeyed.
Those in government have positions that are hard to lose and as such never quite understand the heightened level of concern that the average person has over losing their job and never seem to be able to anticipate a quick cut back the average person will make in their spending when they feel like job cutbacks or layoffs might be in the offing.
As we can see, it takes a fairly massive problem before government begins to lose employees so their response to economic stress is usually less pronounced and they inevitably miss the mark on the depth and swiftness of consumer response.
They also have a tendency to beat the drums sometimes even louder than necessary as a way to alarm the voting public so they might be stampeded towards programs, spending or tax increases- and then they wonder why the consumer is afraid and cuts back more than they anticipated.
3rd Congressional District U.S. Representative: John T. Salazar, D-Colo., 225 N. Fifth St., Suite 702, Grand Junction, CO, 81501; 245-7107, fax: 245-2194; When Congress is in session: 1531 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-4761, fax: 202-226-9669
SENATORS Mark Udall, D-Colo., B40E Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5941
Michael Bennet, D-Colo., 702 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5852
In case you wonder about the Constitution-This guy knows a bit.
...But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.
The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.
But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
