Election Day Saw a Nation's Rebirth
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Seventh of a Series
This is the seventh of a series in which Moore County’s Republican and Democratic party chairmen will address various political issues. Today's issue deals with the recent Election Day results. Jim Heim is chairman of the Moore County Democratic Party. Robert M. Levy is chairman of the Moore County Republican Party. Click here for Heim's take on the issue.
The greatest memories for any parent are the moments of his or her children’s birth. To see the beginning of life is to witness a microcosm of every prayer that is present in all humanity. Even if the birth has not been easy, even if the child is not perfect, at the moment of birth, every parent is an optimist.
So, too, was it on Nov. 2, 2010. Our nation and our state were reborn with the promise of less government, lower taxes and greater liberty for all our children to come.
As we sat in a room with the usual chicken wings and crudités, watching returns trickle in, everyone present was smiling with the expectation that a more conservative, Republican government, listening to the will of its people, would return our economy to prosperity and keep its covenant to promote the individual over the collective.
It certainly will not be easy. About one in every 10 Americans is looking for work. Many more are so discouraged that they do not even search. Before the 2010 election, the consensus in Washington and Raleigh was that the government would expand to employ those looking for work. Their salaries would be paid by borrowing money from China and taxing individual wealth.
The solution was to replace unemployment with a welfare state built upon foreign credit. On Nov. 2, 2010, America rejected that template.
Not many of this writer’s friends have talked to welfare recipients. This writer has and does. Many of the friends of this chairman’s youngest daughter come from homes where government assistance is crucial to survival. Yet each parent would prefer an honest wage to a government debit card.
It is for these people that our party worked so hard for a conservative rebirth.
When we rely upon government to create jobs or anything else, the result is life barely above subsistence. It is guided and designed by elite bureaucrats with fat pensions whose gift to the nation is simply their ability to manipulate paper.
But when a plumber is hired by a home builder or when a loom “fixer” is hired by a cloth manufacturer, the plumber buys a car that helps to send the dealer’s kid to college. The “fixer” buys the house the plumber helped build so the builder can build yet another house and help send the plumber’s kid to college too.
In the end, government is not the great engine of societal advancement. That role is exclusive to the free enterprise system.
On Nov. 2, 2010, surely the Republicans won, but so did the plumber, the loom fixer, the builder, the car dealer and their college-bound children soon to be divided by their loyalty to either Carolina or State.
The winners on Nov. 2 were surely the business people who may not have to pay pre-Bush taxes, but they were also their employees whose health care might cost less if “Obamacare” is replaced by a free-enterprise model of insurance that lets a New York employer buy a more reasonable policy from an insurer based in Nebraska not mandated to cover hair transplants.
Yet, after the birth of any child or the rebirth of any political party, optimism soon gives way to doubt and uncertainty. Will my child study hard or will she run with a crowd that embraces failure? Will my party surround itself with the same parasites that have followed the Democrats, seeking laws favorable to government worker unions? Will the powers that created a monopoly for government schools simply move their wallets to the new kids in town ? And will the new kids take the bribe?
That answer comes from our former experience as the national majority party. In 1994, our party was hired by the American people to lower taxes and shrink government. We did neither, and the American people told us so with their votes for our opposition.
Again, the American people have requested the services of the nation’s conservative party. But if we propose amnesty for illegals or advocate more government entitlements, we must know that members of the tea party will not hesitate to seek other leaders. If we begin to equivocate on the importance of life at every stage of its existence, our evangelical friends will not rally to our cause.
And if we find it more important to line the pockets of our contributors than to give taxes back to our constituents, then we will again be placed on the margins of government, and our supporters will be abandoned to the “I told you so” phrases of the “tax collectors for the welfare state.”
Was this November our nation’s second chance at a “new birth of freedom”? Our party now knows it may be our last chance. So we will always remember Nov. 2, 2010. On that day, our nation was reborn. Today we are all optimists. But for our many tomorrows, we must all work hard to validate that optimism and make our fall dream a reality come next spring.
Robert M. Levy is chairman of the Moore County Republican Party. Contact him at law52@prodigy.net.
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Comments
Arestorer 1 year, 6 months ago
Problem being that all that were sent to fix Raliegh and Washington are politicians, so most likely,much of nothing will get done. THEY DONT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS.
sgmartin 1 year, 6 months ago
Oh yeah, rebirth. I see it now. More like gridlock. Please remember you did not get 100% of the vote. Plenty of people who voted against your candidates. Your party does not represent me in any way.
deidretg 1 year, 6 months ago
As you were sitting and eating your chicken wings and crudite's, gloriously expecting a more conservative, Republican government, listening to the will of its people, which would return our economy to prosperity, my children and I were sitting eating crackers and water and discussing the $50+ million dollar Moore County financial tarbaby that just received an injection of $teroids with that glorious vote that you so voluminously expound upon as our national second coming. You do present a laser focus on Nebraska insurance, New York employers, Washington DC, and Raleigh. However, I and my children can't see your vision because of this $50+ million dollar financial monster staring us straight in the face. We can not really enter into your "new nation" euphoria. Now nothing will be restrained from that Moore County crowd that denies the people its ancient right in this country to personally decide its financial future. No amount of euphoria is going to save our financial meltdown on a national level. Even if we stopped the financial bleeding tomorrow it will take my children's lifetime to pay the current debt. It is fiscally obscene for your 3 representatives in Carthage to shut us up and ram this $50+ million dollars down our throats in light of the worst economy in this lifetime. I guess you should raise a plaque on the Carthage Square that says "LET THEM EAT CAKE".
coffecreme 1 year, 6 months ago
Yeah right, they saw a rebirth in 2008 too. The american voters are fickle, spoiled and looking for instant gratification.
marathonman 1 year, 6 months ago
Well, SGMartin, ostrich comes to mind when I read your comments. Here is what you should soul search with respect to the rebirth that Bob was speaking of: "Will my child study hard or will he/she run with a crowd that embraces failure? Will my party surround itself with the same parasites that have followed the Democrats, seeking laws favorable to government worker unions? Will the powers that created a monopoly for government schools simply move their wallets to the new kids in town ? And will the new kids take the bribe?" Read some about Hitler's Jugend, Lenin's Bolseviks youth and Mao's Red Guard. Then objectively take a look at what we have done and are continuing to do to the youth of our country. And that is just for starters. The TEA Party is not a political party, but it does represent the majority view for the country. We do need to step back from partisan bickering and move the country toward self reliance rather than socialized/nationalized anything. We need smaller effective government, not one that controls all aspects of life. We need lower and fewer taxes for everyone. This allows those who have a good idea to pursue it without the govenment penalizing them for success. Success of small business bodes well for all of us; more employees paying taxes, more competitive in the world markets. Effective smaller government to provide oversight when mauraders plunder, those with fraud on their minds gouge consumers, profiteers in financial institutions creat black holes and entice the unwary investor, monopolies set on fleecing the sheep - or the sheperd, etc... No, we do not want to continue along the way of socialism. Sometimes we do need to go to war to right wrong. However, not since WWII have we had an affective campaign to right wrong. Politics entered the battlefield and we have slowly lost the confidence of those smaller emerging/developing Nations and eroded our standing as the bastion against those who would try to rule the world. We must regain that status at all costs. Communism will rear its ugly head again, and maybe has already under a new name and with a new agenda, if we fail. And finally, we have to put God back into all aspects of our lives.
None 1 year, 6 months ago
"at the moment of birth, every parent is an optimist.
So, too, was it on Nov. 2, 2010. Our nation and our state were reborn with the promise of less government, lower taxes and greater liberty for all our children to come."
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Comparing child labor and birth with government. You are obviously clueless...have you ever heard of lobbyists? Pork barrel spending? Please Mr. "big money" Levy, point out which Republicans' that have NOT engaged in Pork Barrel Spending?
Just one perhaps?
None 1 year, 6 months ago
deidretg => perhaps the chair of the Poorer County GOP can explain away why Picerno chose not to look at other property that would have saved the taxpayers 11.4 million dollars?
"Mr. Mace indicated he had spoken previously with Mr. Bordeaux and asked him if they built a Harnett-type facility on a different site in Moore County what the cost might be. Mr. Bordeaux had indicated he could do it for 20% less than the Harnett County facility, so under $20M (not accounting for property acquisition and assuming suitable site). Mr. Mace stated that his fee for design of the Moore County site (like Harnett’s design) would be half of the Harnett design fee. He again stated that he believed the County’s site dictated its solution."
September 15, 2010 Notes on Meeting with Moseley Architects and Bordeaux Construction
Present: Commissioner Tim Lea, Commissioner Nick Picerno, County Manager Cary McSwain, Assistant County Manager Ken Larking, Public Works Director Dennis Brobst, Clerk to the Board Laura Williams, Dan Mace (Moseley Architects), Tom Bordeaux (Bordeaux Construction)
But does anyone in Carthage really care what anything costs taxpayers...NO!
More "mysterious" documents...
None 1 year, 6 months ago
"Will the powers that created a monopoly for government schools simply move their wallets to the new kids in town?"
Not sure but when those federal dollars dry up next year that the GOP is so adamantly opposed to, it will be interesting to see how Boles and Blake address school funding. Wouldn't the New Courthouse make a good school - the new detention center will take precedence over education?
They could increase taxes and add more to the Value Added Tax here in Poorer County. And for those who will jump squarely on the VAT...check your receipts on every dollar you spend in Poorer County!
Arestorer 1 year, 6 months ago
I may be a Dumb@$$, but how do people expect the USA to continue without taxes. We dont really just need lower taxes,we need FAIR taxes. The average man should not have to pay 3to5 thousand in taxes yearly because he doest make enough $$ to hire lawyers and accountants and move his millions around so that their tax bill is the same as mine. Cant be right. Why do people with money think they should not pay their fair share of taxes. Dont give me the junk about the top percentage of earners pay most of the taxes in the US,I took math classes,and was not born last night.
None 1 year, 6 months ago
Arestorer says...And you nailed it. Out of almost 68 thousand pages of tax code the director of the IRS stated before Congress that he doesn't understand it. Why is it still in place? Big Money who purchases Congressman with lobby money, may need a single word changed to the code so they have a loophole. Plain and simple.
Ever wonder why HR 25 has never been brought before the floor for a vote?
The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 296) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.
The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.
The FairTax:
But your congressional representitives who are going back to Washington oppose a FairTax...Why to go straight - ticket voters!
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Go figure!
JimHeim 1 year, 6 months ago
Toda,
FairTax is a fraud. It would simply raise taxes and shift the cost to working Americans. It will never even get out of congressional committees.
None 1 year, 6 months ago
JimHeim => What? Have you not read Neal Boortz's The Fair Tax Book? How will paying taxes on what we spend as opposed to what we earn will place an unfair burden on the working class?
"It will never even get out of congressional committees." you are correct ~ as long as the Republicans have their way!
moonchild7 1 year, 6 months ago
If they could make it happen members of the Republican Party would absolutely do away with all taxes, own serfs to do all the work and let Anarchy have at it. They have no mental capacity for compassion, compromise or cooperation. Who do you think you're trying to kid? The TEA PARTY does not represent the majority of Americans. Mostly older, richer, and YES conservative people bothered to vote on Nov. 2nd, and they do not make up the majority of Americans. President Obama's favorability rating has in fact gone up to 47% since then and he would now win an election over any other Republican(Gallup).
Bflat 1 year, 6 months ago
VAT...now that is a good abbreviation. The VAT may not gather as much when the recession doesn't go away as quickly as expected.
marathonman 1 year, 6 months ago
The problem(s) with changing any entrenched laws, agencies, employment disruption is that most will object since it challenges the 'way we have always done things'. The Fair Tax makes sense to most who are not engaged in the income tax process. It does not make sense to those who use the current system to their advantage. Education, as in most things, is essential. For those of us who lived overseas and were burdened by the VAT, (value added tax), would understand we want no part of that here since it is imposed on top of all other taxes. So for Jim Heim, discredited in his vane attempt to explain the November 03 slide of Dems from power in most of the country, continues his slide from any intellectual interchange with his comment: "Fair Tax is a fraud". And further more, we have far to few folks working in America for it to be detrimental to those who are employed: back to work America and off of Welfare and Unemployment Compensation. Once we get all of America back to work and off the backs of those who do pay taxes, we can better assess how we should procede with any tax overhaul or reform. And don't give me that 'all the jobs were sent overseas'. That changes the argument back to unions and overvaluation of everything in this country. Second to that argument is the glaring fact that Americans no longer are willing to work. They are crying, for example, for those willing to work in North Dakota and the upper reaches of NW Penna, they will even ply those willing with incentives. Guess who will show up to work........that guess is correct: illegals. And now we introduce still another argument for free enterprise, lower taxes, fewer entitlements, self reliance, smaller government, enforcement of existing immigration laws, etc....
JimHeim 1 year, 6 months ago
Oh, yeah, millions of formerly working Americans suddenly got lazy. Somehow the most superior people on the planet just can't be bothered to work. I guess it's time to give the mantle of superiority to some other country.
I'm sure the problem isn't that there are six or more people for every job opening out there.
Bflat 1 year, 6 months ago
@marathonman You might want to look into what kind of VAT you are already paying in Moore County that you haven't noticed.
None 1 year, 6 months ago
marathonman => I'm really not sure where Jim Heim is coming from regarding point-of-sale tax as opposed to a tax on earnings. Congressman John Linder proposed a FairTax and submitted a bill to congress - The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 296), the bill would impose a straight 23% tax at the point-of-sale, as opposed to 28 - 32% on earned income. The bill has been tabled for several years now. http://www.fairtax.org
Paying on what one spends as opposed to what we earn would eliminate tax loopholes you mentioned for corporations and 2%'ers. Drug dealers, illegal activities, and undocumented workers would all pay on what they spend as opposed to adding their revenue to a laundry list. Neal Boortz and Congressman Linder wrote a very intriguing book on the FairTax.
Speaking of VAT here in Poorer County - I took time to contact Caroline Xiong with the county. I specifically asked about revenue streams. Each dollar spent in Poorer County has a tax paid to the county. What brought this to my attention was twofold: First liberal proponents’ for the 55.2 Million Dollar Detention Center uses the tax base to reflect how low the county's tax rate is base on surrounding counties; Secondly, I saw on my Time Warner Cable Statement a fee for E-911...when I had my vehicles inspected the same taxes I pay to the county was paid as a fee as well. To broaden my inquiring mind, I asked a simple question and received a simple answer: Is there any point of sale or dollar spent in Poorer County that the county does not receive revenue? The answer was no. One can refer to the subliminal tax anyway they feel comfortable - to me it is a Value Added Tax - plain and simple. Some revenue streams like lodging is a double-dipper so to speak.
None 1 year, 6 months ago
JimHeim says..."that there are six or more people for every job opening out there." My understanding from our local JobLink Service it's more like 120 applicants for each job listing - I called and asked.
Wait until next year when the schools start laying off teachers and anyone without a PHD behind their name...the one's making the big bucks will still make the big bucks. Teachers will have to teach more students like 50 to a classroom....
Psychodad72 1 year, 6 months ago
American wealth is slowly being drained in a bipartisan effort to expand "free trade" and lower the value of the dollar. The tax system is irrelevant as is government spending. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA and Obama is negotiating lower tariffs with India and Korea.
While everyone is arguing about taxes and gridlock, the government is lowering the value of the dollar causing prices to rise and wages to fall in competition with Asian manufacturers. At the same time our economy is running on foreign credit which will soon dry up as Asian consumer demand rises using local currencies replacing dollars loaned to Americans
The recession you see started with a crash of housing, but that is not the cause. American wealth is declining because we have constantly devalued the dollar since WWII.
America's real rebirth can only come when manufacturing is reborn and federal policy begins to support a strong dollar, not chase the value of the peso.
Amerca's problem is that we have given away our wealth. We now must earn it back. That work well be hard.
Ross 1 year, 6 months ago
Psychodad72 - free trade was inevitable. Face it - product prices are MUCH lower now than they could ever be with an "isolation" policy you espouse.
But your response is typical of people who spout the same tired rhetoric blaming NAFTA etc, for this countries woes.