Balloon Boy, Universal Healthcare Inevitability, and other Hoaxes

Balloon Boy, Universal Healthcare Inevitability, and other Hoaxes
By Senator Pamela Gorman, (R-AZ)

I will admit it. I watched the silver saucer balloon in horror for an hour. I prayed. I worried. I squinted at the still image with the smudge hanging below the balloon to see if it looked like a falling object. I monitored the Twitter public feed for updated news… Then, I caught wind of some cracks in the story with this thing and started doing some research online while I waited to see if the little boy would be safe when the balloon landed. I discovered the family’s rather unusual behaviors captured on video and uploaded to YouTube (by them?). The characters involved here subjected themselves and their children to being contestants in a reality show, they chose “Wife Swap” as their chance to shine for all of America, they produced a profanity-rich rap video with the six year old lost boy and his brothers, they host a fringe pseudo-science TV show, and they chase deadly storms as a fun family hobby. Ozzie and Harriet, they are not. My cynical instinct told me that there is a good chance the kid was never in the belly of the backyard science project. I start to think that this is possibly a rouse, but more likely a very common kid thing and “Falcon” is likely fine and either hiding or hanging out somewhere completely unaware of his new fame. I am not so far gone in my cynicism, however, that I immediately thought it was a publicity stunt hoax.

Yet the mainstream press ignored all of this weirdness that Internet users were easily discovering and passing around through social media in real time… They droned on and on, continuing to build the hype that there was a 6 year old boy in peril, high above the Colorado landscape. They talked about random and distantly related things, but never invited their viewers to stray far from the story of their choosing and the video feed of a balloon in the air (only slightly less exciting to watch than a white Ford Bronco driving on a freeway). In fact, even when the boy was found alive and hiding in his own home, CNN didn’t interrupt ‘ol Wolfe Blitzer’s banter to inform their viewers. No, I learned that bit of breaking news on Twitter’s public feed first. Roughly 250 strangers “told me” the truth before CNN got around to admitting the kid was fine and was never in harms way and that this part of the ratings-boosting storyline was over. Later, we learned the little boy did it because his screwball parents had told him to do it “for the show” (the kid blurted out the admittance on national TV- oops- from the mouths of babes, as they say). It was a total hoax.

Hoaxes are interesting. They work. They are created to capture our attention and cause us to take interest in and believe in something we otherwise would not. I am surprised there aren’t more big ones like this to point to in history. Mostly they are for fun or for garnering 15 minutes of fame or to kick off a promotion with a big splashy marketing campaign. But, what if there was a hoax created to change your behavior and attitudes about current events? What if one side of a major policy change created the hoax?

I believe the current message of “Olympia Snowe voted with the Democrats for the Healthcare bill, now they will have their 60 votes to push it through on the floor, it is over, go home, nice try, thanks for coming” is a hoax.

Folks, this is not the time to admit defeat and start cutting your losses and spending time doing evaluations of what went wrong in your activism attempt so you can do better next time. On the contrary, THIS IS GO TIME and you should be stepping up your efforts as this bill makes its way through conference committee and then possibly to the floor for a final vote. The press is all talking about how it is all over but the shouting. Where do you think they are getting that message? Why, in the world, would intelligent engaged people who have seen the Obama machine work the press with skillful finesse for years, suddenly start believing the message? Admittedly, even impressive insiders in Washington seem to have lost their faith. But, maybe they really just don’t have faith in the likelihood of the American people to turn it up a notch here in the final seconds of the game clock…

Picture this. A bunch of political strategists are sitting around a table strewn with soda cans and coffee cups among the stacks of polling data and focus group reports. One particularly agitated team member cuts through the chatter with, “Ok, people. We need to focus here. We are losing this damn healthcare debate and we shouldn’t be. We have the press. We have Hollywood. We have the bully pulpits everywhere it matters in federal government. We are losing because of otherwise disengaged Americans who suddenly have decided to put down their fish sticks and Xbox controls and pay attention to public policy. They are playing this game with us using the internet, a technology we CAN’T control (yet), and we have no way to make them stop. What are we going to do to get these people off the backs of our weaker Democrats so we can get this thing done?!” Then, the generally-quiet-but-often-profound PR genius says, “These people just need to decide to stop trying. They need to believe it is pointless and a waste of their time. They will go back to doing whatever it was they did before they started paying attention to public policy debates and that will be that.” Bada-bing. A hoax is born. The hoax is the false reality that” you have lost this battle because it is all over anyway because of one Senate Committee vote. Go home. Nothing to see here, folks.”

I implore you, do not be duped. It isn’t hopeless until the ink is dry on the bill on the president’s desk after the bill has gone a long way from where it is now. You should definitely be sensing an urgency, though, and fighting louder and harder! This is like 22 seconds on game the clock, you are 4th and goal, and you need a touchdown followed by the recovery of an on-side kick, followed by a field goal … It isn’t easy, maybe statistically unlikely, but there is a chance! It is your game to lose, at this point. You still have the ball. Are you going to try and score? Or are you going to accept defeat before the game ends and just start shaking hands with the other team and thinking about what you are going to order for take out on the way home from the game? I think you should stay and fight for the score. But, that’s just me. This actually matters to me a great deal. How much does your freedom matter to you?

This game isn’t over. The idea that it is somehow “over” is little more than a hoax created by a historically proven very savvy group of White House strategists. Or, perhaps it is just a mirage, unintentionally created, but benefitting the Obama administration nonetheless. In any case, don’t fall for it. The “balloon boy” hoax was a nuisance and a huge waste of our time. But the “go home and give up hoax” is much more dangerous for America’s future. That is because when THIS feel-good-yes-we-can-free-healthcare-for-all balloon finally hits the ground, America will gasp when they realize once again that the thing they were hoping to find inside was never really there. And, the joke will be on us. All of us.

"Free" Roads

I heard a funny comment in debate the other day. An otherwise intelligent person said they prefer "free" roads over those paid for and maintained through user fees (i.e. the dreaded toll). First I stifled my laugh at the ridiculous nature of this comment, then, I pondered how frighteningly common it is for folks to assume that anything they aren't paying for right now, with cash, is somehow "free." There are no "free" roads.

It costs a lot of money to build a highway. It costs a lot of money to maintain that same highway to keep it safe for travel. That money will come to the builders and maintainers of the roadways in one of two ways. Either the money will be taken from you in the form of widespread taxation, or it will be collected from you locally when you use the road. The obvious difference is that in the second case, the person actually benefiting from the road is going to fork out the cash (yes, including winter visitors).

In Arizona, we were already struggling just to maintain our roadways with our current funding streams (read: taxes that you already pay) and that was before recession. The idea of being able to pay for enough new roadways to keep up with the growth in population is so far out in fantasy thought that few even seem to want to think about it, much less collaborate and talk about it.

The question is... How do we want to pay for them and who should decide where they go and what incentive should there be to plan, build, and maintain roads well? Ok, to be fair, that is really several questions. But one answer that has become fashionable is to allow private companies to figure it out and compete for our business as savvy driving shoppers. Roads built privately will pop up where they are needed most (that is called "demand") and will be the most pleasant to drive on (that is called "competitive advantage"). In order to attract us to cough up our 75 cents, the private road will have to give us a smooth, fast, safe driving experience that we consider to be a good value.

And, remember, there are no "free" roads.

Napolitano wants to be Your Big Brother... err, Big Sister

Napolitano wants to be Your Big Brother… err, Big Sister

In the Gov’s State of the State address, there were many fantastical ideas thrown about.  Most will never see the light of day because they are just that, a fantasy.  Some of them we are happy to know will remain in the 9th floor chuckles archive titled “Can you believe they fall for this stuff?”  But, at least one of her ideas mentioned has already quietly taken flight through the previously appropriated budget for her Department of Public Safety (DPS).  It is the license plate recognition program.  The Gov pitched it as a way she plans to crack down on car thieves and catch criminals on our roads.  What she didn’t mention is the enormous sacrifice law-abiding citizens will make of their privacy and that the State of Arizona has effectively become your Big Brother.

I caught wind of this during a meeting with DPS regarding a completely different issue over the interim.  The agency representative was apparently excited by the idea that they would be taking a picture of every passing vehicle at various locations around the state and keeping that data for future review.  I suggested immediately that they may have trouble with this program, seeing as how many of us down at the legislature still believe in the American citizen’s constitutionally-protected right to privacy…

Fast forward to post-election and the introduction of the “One Arizona” by the Gov. and this frightening idea is now moved beyond a little pilot project by an agency without oversight.  Now this “government is watching you” program has been jettisoned into the heady atmosphere of the Governor’s priority programs, specifically mentioned in her State of the State address.  

This is why I recently introduced a bill that would prohibit your state and local governments from recording and then storing information on the whereabouts of law-abiding citizens (which in America, you are all presumed to be, least ‘til proven otherwise).  My bill allows law enforcement agencies to view passing vehicles via their cameras, as I understand they need to find criminals. But they cannot store the image or the data collected there beyond 24 hours if they do not have information showing it is a stolen vehicle or was used in a crime.  

I realize it sounds easier to find criminals by requiring each of us to report our whereabouts hourly, give a drop of blood for DNA testing to the government, have cameras with facial recognition software installed throughout the state in public and private locations, submit identifying information every time you complete a financial transaction, etc.  But at what cost?  How “free” would you really be, even as a law-abiding citizen?  If in trying to track down the miniscule percentage of people that make trouble, all people must live under the constant scrutiny of “Big Brother” government and her ongoing political agenda, we have given up far too much.

Our freedom is the core of what makes us Americans, after all.  

The Games We Play

You may have read with interest the many news stories about a $750 million dollar "surplus" in our state coffers. I was very interested in this, as well. To that end, I spent a good deal of time this summer exploring our budget history and the various "techniques" (read: gimmicks) used by prior legislative bodies before my time. Dismayed is not a strong enough word to describe how our Budget Reform Working Group felt when we went through page after page of accounting tricks previously used to create what you all would believe to be a balanced budget.

As you know, a balanced budget is required in Arizona, and state debt cannot exceed $350,000 by our constitutional law. News flash, folks... We have routinely ignored both through a series of accounting tricks and the creation of new words to describe what would, by anyone's estimation, be considered "debt" in a real household. I believe it is time we get real with how we handle your money down at the capitol, and anything left that we don't absolutely need should be yours to keep. I would like to reduce your personal income taxes and let you decide what to do with the money you earn, if it is truly above what is needed to provide basic government services.

You may wonder what this has to do with the surplus. Fair enough. Let's look specifically at one gimmick used last year that helped to create an appearance of a surplus. Ever heard of a "fund sweep?" This is a process by where you pay a fee for a specific purpose, to support a specific function of government, but in order to make our books look better we have to transfer or "sweep" the fees paid by you all into the general fund. Essentially, this is legal but probably not all that ethical in the long run. This practice leaves the agency or fund low, sometimes triggering fee increases to you all but always leaving the fund in a predicament of how to continue to offer the services you paid for with your fees. Ever heard of the State Highway Fund? Probably not. But, you have probably driven on roads in the state that are built and maintained with money in this fund that is partially funded through the Vehicle License Tax fund, which was robbed of $118,000,000.00 last year. That's right... The state took $118 million designated for roads, put it in the state's coffers and then announces it has a "surplus" of revenues. If you live in an area that needs road improvement, this should really hit home with you.

When we sweep funds to create a better bottom line in the general fund, we have essentially tricked the system into looking like we have a surplus when the tax revenues roll in beyond our expectations. However, we still need to pay back the "sweep" in order to hold these agencies and funds (and by extension, the taxpayers who utilize those services) harmless in the long run. I am about to disclose some raw data that may seem shocking, so turn away if government deception is nauseating to you... Our total fund sweeps, starting in 2002 through last year totaled $545,817,600.00.

Then, there are other gimmicks like the use of "Contracts of Purchase" which would be considered something like a mortgage in your real world. In government world? They are nothing more than a paper agreement and therefore we conveniently don't call them "debt"... even though they are committing future revenues to pay for goodies we just couldn't wait for. I heard a number the other day about this outstanding debt-that-we-can't-legally-call-debt and it was in the hundreds of millions (far beyond the afore-mentioned $350 thousand limit set in our constitution). So, if we are honest about that surplus, we would have to immediately reduce it by the amount we "borrowed" from around the state and by these outstanding amounts, right?

You see, the "surplus" is not extra money above what it costs to maintain your state government at current levels. Rather, it is the amount of tax revenue that came in above what we had expected when we created the budget. By use of various methods of debt (the governor likes to just skip payments or "take holidays" from them, which sounds so much nicer), we make our budget look balanced. Simply not paying your bills and then having money left over when you get your next paycheck would never be considered a "surplus" in your home, would it? No. And I don't believe you can look at our state budgeting process any differently, if you are to be intellectually honest.

True, it's not that much fun at home to get a bonus then have to spend it on credit card bills. We kind of feel the same down at the capitol. But, that is called being responsible adults. Bummer.

Representative Gorman joins Heartland Institute Advisory Board

State Representative Pamela Gorman (R-6) has accepted a position on the Legislative Advisory Board of The Heartland Institute, a 21-year-old national nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank headquartered in Chicago Illinois.

Rep. Gorman will advise Heartland on topics to address and serve as a source for the think tank’s scholars and reporters. Heartland Legislative Advisors also submit essays and news reports for Heartland publications, meet with counterparts from other states at seminars and conferences, and receive priority treatment of their research requests.

“I am honored to be able to represent the concerns of my constituents by working with The Heartland Institute and my colleagues from other states,” Rep. Gorman said. For more information about The Heartland Institute, visit its Web site at www.heartland.org.

Portable Power

There are generally two competing ideas on how centralized or localized our government should be. The "left" likes things centralized and the "right" prefers things are handled locally. If you have spent any time reading here, you may have surmised that I am to the right on most (if not all) issues. This one is no different.

When you move towards centralizing government, it means you are essentially placing more and more of the decision making power in the hands of a small group of folks at the top. When you localize government, you are diversifying and delegating that decision-making to the smaller local jurisdictions (i.e. city councils, county governments, school districts, etc.).

When the decision making is local, the average citizen has a great amount of input and the potential for impact on those decisions. Also, there are a whole lot more minds working on the problems and the solutions are locally based and specific for a community. When the decision making is centralized, there are only a handful of people making decisions who can't possibly spread themselves around to all of the citizens whose lives are affected by their decisions at the top. The biggest problem I see with this, though, is the idea that only a few folks hold the reigns for the whole population. That leaves an awful lot of power in those hands and creates a real risk for abuse and/or simply stupid ideas being thrust upon the common man.

It may seem like a good idea to let one or two key people who are known to be moral, honorable, intelligent, and magnanimous to come up with solutions to all of society's ills. After all, their decision making would be quality and therefore good. The problem is, that if you do centralize to these good folks, the power you have given them is huge and they can easily be replaced by folks who are not as good either personally or professionally. This is what I like to call "portable power." Once all of the decision-making power is bundled up to the central authority, and none of the messy local decision-making any longer encumbers the process, it becomes a real danger for the population that sits under that central authority. There could come a time when people of ill repute manage to seize that power and then all of the decisions for all of our lives will be made by these ill-equipped or ill-mannered new leaders.

So, when you hear people say that the state should be in charge of something through some new state office, be wary. One size does not fit all in Arizona's varied communities. But, more importantly, you will be at the mercy of the quality and the agenda of the person appointed to that state office. Today's appointment might be brilliant and good. The next replacement, however, could be a disaster. If the power is made portable through centralization, we would be at the mercy of the new power keepers in one swift shift of personnel. Portable power is dangerous. A bad local decision affects a few people. A bad statewide decision affects us all.

Say "NO" to a balanced budget? What?!

I sat in disbelief as I watched a bill go down that would have made it illegal for the legislature to pass an unbalanced budget. The bill was actually not a normal bill, it was a referendum. This means that if successful in the house and senate, then it would be up to the voters to decide at the next election if they wanted to approve this new law. And, this bill had lost before and was up for a reconsideration. So, to lose a second time meant it was deep dead. Gone until next year at the earliest.

The reason this bill was being reconsidered was because many people had "said" they voted against it the first time around out of confusion. They said they thought it was TABOR (Taxpayers Bill of Rights), which is arguably one of the most aggressive pieces of fiscally conservative legislation out there these days. In actuality, though, this bill was all of the really obviously good things about TABOR without all of the "out there" super conservative stuff. So, someone made a motion to hear it again. Naturally, everyone expected it to pass the second time now that everyone understood that this was more of a "TABOR-lite" (my own pet term for it).

In other words, this was a very reasonable piece of legislation that the voters should have had a chance to vote on. I was shocked to see that we couldn't find 31 Republicans willing to even give the voters the chance to insist we give them a balanced budget. What is so bad about letting the voters choose to have a balanced budget?! Shocking. Discouraging. Sad. Borderline disgusting, to be honest.