|||| A New Day by Mike Piper ||||
Registered candidate, MN House District 25B, 2010
Today and its challenges
The economy is in the worst fall since 1982. And in Washington, D.C., the Democrats, now firmly in charge of the federal government, once known as the party of “tax and spend” criticized the last Republican administration as “borrow and spend.” Now the Democrats are doing both!
If the root causes of the present economic difficulties are borrowing and spending often unwisely and beyond reasonable limits, the Democrats answer is to borrow and spend more, and, in keeping with their tradition – believe this – to increase taxes. Throw in that the government is doing some things that it shouldn’t, and is doing poorly some things that it should.
There are problems enough. Many have lost their jobs and homes. Many lack access to health care; many don’t know if they can afford to provide post high school education for their children and for their own retirement. Many roads, bridges, cyber interconnectivity, and schools need repaired and built. Loans were made that shouldn’t have been made to people who couldn’t afford them. Prices were significantly inflated beyond reason. There was risk taking and speculation beyond value and prudence. Many in charge of financial institutions lined their pockets while the effects of their actions will empty ours. We all learned the term “Ponzi scheme.” Many industries were poorly managed; many workers sought compensation that would make their employers noncompetitive.
It’s hard to out-promise the Democrats. They seem to say that the government will provide all that everyone wants, now — regardless of the cost to you and your children. How do you think that they are going to pay for this? They will tax the rich, and when that isn’t enough, decrease exemptions and raise taxes for everyone else, for you and your children. Then, borrow money from China (for example), print money, and default on debt. And then, following closely behind, inflation, depression, and social unrest.
It’s a new day, on our way to a golden future
Today, effects quickly follow causes. The massive federal debt and its overpowering interest payments, some feel, will surely cause significant inflation. States and the federal government could be broke and we could see, as inflation and unemployment cripple the economy, significant unrest, not in generations to come, but in a short time.
This is what Minnesota needs to be the kind of state we should be – We need freedom; we need economic and political freedom. We need intelligent and honest financial institutions, we need workers and consumers with realistic expectations, and we need intelligent and heads-up management in our industries and government. We need to encourage risk taking because that is how we retain and create jobs and provide competitive products. We need tax reform for individuals, families, and businesses. We need jobs; we need good schools, access to health care and education, and good retirement provisions. For the future, to be competitive, we need to encourage research. We need to strengthen our education in science, technology, engineering, math, agriculture, health care, liberal arts, public safety, and teaching. We need to encourage and capitalize upon innovation, now moving at warp speed. We need good teachers. We need stable families. We need serious students. We need a society of confidence and responsibility. We need a society that is healthy and safe. Although we need to be as self-sufficient as possible and reasonable, we need to be connected with each other by good roads and bridges and data lines. We need to make things and grow food. We need to protect our environment and conserve our farmland, minerals, water, and air. We need a way of life that is sustainable. All are required to participate in the accomplishment of these objectives – individuals, communities, businesses, and governments. Defining the mix of responsibilities and enabling their success is the ticket. It is the capability that separates competence from the current dominant political/economic mentality that says “more of the same regardless of the cost even if we need future generations to pay for it.”
What we don’t need is massive debt, inflation, and high taxes. What we don’t need are foreclosures and health care and education problems because people are not working. What we need are jobs. What we need is a government that knows how to enable the retention and growth of jobs and to live within its means. We need to cap and then cut spending and taxes.
Republicans understand and can implement the path from we are to where we should be. The missions of the Republican Party are to enable the retention and growth of private sector jobs for Minnesotans, and to take care of the public’s business economically and efficiently without punishing debt and taxation for you or your children. We understand the kind of employers that could thrive in our District and in Minnesota. We also know how to attract those job-creating businesses.
I have been talking with the folks in our District – with home owners, business people, educators, engineers, physicians, employers, employees, farmers, elected officials, law enforcement officers, students, and retirees. They understand that the way out of debt is not more debt. They understand that we must live within our means. We are an industrious and educated people, we have work to do, and our people need jobs. We need the type of leadership that Republicans can provide. We need jobs! Here we are, today, on the way to tomorrow. Let’s make it a golden future! Vote Republican in twenty-ten, and get Minnesota working again.
Postscript: Acting with intelligence, integrity, and responsibility [1]
(Note: I am calling the voters of this District, especially the young voters who in the future, when they look back to 2010, will realize that “the World was all before them.” [2] All of us are here in the now on the verge of the future. What kind of a future will it be? Will it be peaceful and prosperous? Each of us can be players in that outcome. We should chose the politics of sanity which must surely include the mature handling of finances, investment, and debt; the role of government; conservation of limited natural resources; and a reverence for life. In Chapter 1 of his General Theory, published in 1935, Keynes, in contrasting his arguments and conclusion with the classical theory, says “the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience.” [3] So we face economic and political challenges which require thinking different from those implemented during the Great Depression era. For us, the path to peace and prosperity is the Constitution of the United States, sound conservative analysis and synthesis, and all acting with intelligence, morality, and responsibility. It will be a great journey: join us.)
Our nation and form of government were founded to escape excessive, concentrated and arbitrary political power. Since the intent was to minimize government authority, the purpose was to maximize individual liberty. A republic was formed with its government and institutions that would secure “equality … life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Our national history shows the steady realization of these rights. What have always been required of the American people are intelligence, integrity and responsibility.
To act with intelligence — to see clearly challenges and to define just and effective solutions; to plan based on reasonable expectations, not wishful thinking; to be willing to spend and invest what we have not what we would like to have; to live within our means and not the means of future generations; to leave our country, environment and economy better than we found them; and to leave our liberties more secure.
To act with integrity, with morality — to do what we ought, not what we can get away with, and to accept that our actions affect not just ourselves but also others about us and future generations.
To act with responsibility — to act individually and collectively doing our part and being willing to make sacrifices. So, in these difficult times, we see that we have spent and borrowed too much, often unwisely. That we cannot spend our way out of debt, even if we spend all of our money and much of our children’s. That good earth and clean water are limited resources. That individual liberty is the path to freedom and prosperity just as it was at the beginning of this nation. That everyone can’t have everything they want now; that all must be willing to sacrifice. That by acting with intelligence, integrity and responsibility we will survive and prevail.
In Stephen Vincent Benet’s words, “We’ve ridden out storms before and we’ll ride out this one.” And that the work will be done by “the proud walker, Democracy” — by free American people “Plowed by their suffering, harrowed by their hope/ Tall with their endless future.”
In 2010 say “no” to the discarded notions of the past that would have you believe that the government knows better than you do and that it can do your work better than you can; say “yes” to our endless future which could be, if we are intelligent, moral and responsible, peaceful and prosperous.
[1] Reprinted, Northfield News, August 8, 2009
[2] Milton, Paradise Lost, XII, line 646
[3] The General Theory, John Maynard Keynes, First Harvest/Harcourt, Inc. edition, 1964, page 3. Italics are mine.
