Do the Six Tucson Council Members Represent All the Citizens of Tucson?

The Tucson City Council wants to mount a court challenge to stop the new law that redically changes how council elections are held in Tucson.  This is the same council that made no attempt to prevent the law from becoming law.  The excuses as found in the Arizona Daily Star, Sunday August 3, 2009, are: 

“Romero said the city was busy balancing its budget in the past several months and didn’t know about the vote on the bill until the day it occurred. In addition, Romero said the city’s opposition wouldn’t have made a difference.” 

“Councilwoman Karin Uhlich also said the city was busy balancing its budget,…”

What  incredibly lame excuses!  Remember, this is the same council that has turned Tucson into a laughingstock due to Rio Nuevo. 

These people actually oppose non-partisan elections and will use tax money to fight to overturn the new law.  Let’s recap:

• These are the same people who wasted millions on Rio Nuevo.
• They felt it was more important to fund social programs than to fully fund the TPD.
• They promised to rid the city of the water admin fee to get elected and did not get rid of the fee.

While the degree of responsibility does not fall squarely on all the council members, the council as a whole has not fairly represented all of the city.  The Southeast, mostly Ward IV, has been allowed to languish.  Shirley Scott—Ward IV, perhaps should not be lumped with the other five Democrats on the council, because she has operated in a somewhat non-partisan manner.  Yes Tucson has six council members and all are democrats.  While there are areas of the city with heavy republican voter registration, Tucson still has disproportionate representation of six democrats running the City Council. 

It is important to question why each ward cannot elect a representative of its own choosing.  In elections around the country, congressional districts vote for their representative and no other.  In the State Legislature the vote is for your representative and no other.  In presidential elections we use the electoral system to determine how our state wants to be represented. 

As for city elections, what party must you be to provide adequate public safety and to fill pot holes?  What is wrong with being non-partisan and for each ward to send its reprepresentative to the Council?  The last time this method of ward voting was put before the electorate was in 1993—16 years ago and well before the Rio Nuevo debacle.

Giffords Secures Federal Projects in Grijalva’s 7th District — Why?

Today, Representative Gabriel Giffords proudly announced on her 8th Congressional District web site that she  has secured funding of $4.47 Million for four infrastructure projects from the Federal Government.

An extract from her web site is as follows.  

“The four projects for which Giffords secured funding include Tucson’s Modern Streetcar, the light rail transit system that will connect University Medical Center, the University of Arizona, Fourth Avenue, Downtown Tucson and Rio Nuevo. Mayor Bob Walkup was very appreciative of today’s vote.”

As a constituent, I see one very large problem with this fabulous accomplishment.  Apparently Ms. Giffords does not know whom she represents.  These four projects are not in her district.  That’s right , they are in Congressman Raul Grijalva’s district.  Boy do I feel loved.  Perhaps the folks in the 7th will vote for her in the next election.

Hello Arizona!

For some time I have been writing about our national broken government in my Ken Moyes’ Weblog found at http://Brokengovernment.wordpress.com .  I have now decided to spend more time writing about the government and the government players of Arizona, my state.  These players will include representatives to Congress and the State House, along with Pima County and Tucson elected officials.  I hope we all learn something from this experimental excursion through what makes Arizona run.

Fixing Health Care The Smart Way: at the state level, starting with Arizona

With the very questionable and incredibly expensive and poorly though out presidential health care initiative appearing to be in trouble, one state among others remains in a high cost medical environment.  Arizona doctors, especially primary care physicians are leaving for more conducive legal environments.  One state, Texas, has had great success in attracting both primary care physicians and specialists, since it enacted wide-ranging medical tort reform.  Tort reform, however, is only part of the solution. 

What is wrong in Arizona?

1. A shortage of primary care physicians exists – patient to doctor ratio is and has been rising for some time.
   1. Too many Arizona trained doctors opt to leave Arizona.
   2. Too many opt to go into specialties.
2. Health care costs in Arizona and the nation continue to dramatically outpace inflation.
3. Too many tests ordered, too few primary care physicians, too many expensive specialists, too many frivolous malpractice suits, too many dollars awarded as punitive damages.

Why is it wrong?

• Two medical schools in Arizona.
  1. University of Arizona, turning out only 110 doctors per year.
  2. A University of Arizona location in Phoenix will not significantly add to number of physicians output – output may be only and additional 24 doctors per year.
• A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Phoenix will have its first graduating class next year and produce only about 110 each year.
• The cost of medical malpractice insurance forces primary care physicians to order too many tests to protect themselves from malpractice claims.
  1. Damage Caps
     “Arizona does not place a cap on the amount of damages recoverable in a medical malpractice action. Article 2, § 31 of the Arizona constitution prohibits the enactment of any law limiting the damages one may recover for personal injury or death.”
  2. Statutory Cap on Attorneys’ Fees
     “Arizona does not place a limit on the fees recoverable by an attorney in a medical malpractice action.”
         Source for damage caps and attorney fees is McCullough, Campbell, and Lane LLP, attorneys: http://www.mcandl.com/arizona.html
• Physicians opt to become specialists seeking higher income to repay crushing student loans and cope with malpractice insurance premiums.

How does Arizona fix it?

1. Arizona should spend $500 Million annually to pay for the operation of “free” medical training for M.D.’s and D.O.’s.  This should allow for the doubling of doctor output from the 250 per year to 500 per year.  “Free” is not really free.  Doctors agree to work in primary care or community health care for 10 consecutive years in Arizona after becoming doctors.  Each year worked, eliminates 1/10th of the student loan made to the student who attends an Arizona medical school.
2. Quality of enrollees sours.
3. Double the output capacity for the two medical schools in Arizona, an initial expense of $200 Million.
4. Address tort reform in Arizona by seeking to amend the state constitution to:
   • Limit damage caps to actual damages, less contributory negligence from the patient.
   • Cap attorney fees.
   • Require mandatory initial medical arbitration, before referral to the courts.
5. Provide for a loser pays all cumulative attorney and court fees – if partial damages, then partial reimbursement of fees.  No one gets rich on malpractice.

Why will this work?

1. Costs across the board will be reduced.  Health insurance rates drop.
2. Malpractice premiums will drop in Arizona.  Health insurance rates drop.
3. Malpractice suits and awards will be diminished in Arizona.  Health insurance rates drop.
4. The number of new primary care physicians will reduce the current patient load.  More primary care physicians per capita means better health care.  Health insurance rates drop.
5. A higher percentage of D.O.’s become primary care physicians, than do M.D.’s.  More D.O.’s means more primary care physicians.
6. New doctors will not have crushing student loans to repay.
7. Fewer specialists, due to the better financial situation of new primary care physicians, as they no longer need to become specialists to increase earnings to repay loans and pay malpractice insurance.
8. Less need for specialist patient medical referrals to protect against malpractice – fewer higher cost specialists per capita needed.  Health insurance rates drop.
9. Fewer costly tests will be ordered in Arizona, lowering medical costs.  Health insurance rates drop.
10. Tort reform brings even more physicians to Arizona just as the tort reform in Texas has brought physicians to Texas. Supply and damand – Health insurance rates drop.
11. More primary care physicians actually doing hands-on medicine instead of being gate keepers will lower health care costs.  Health insurance rates drop.
12. Health care insurance becomes substantially more affordable to all in Arizona.  Many more people will be covered.
13. More small businesses in Arizona can now afford to provide health care insurance.
14. Small businesses migrate to Arizona, creating Arizona jobs.

Issues to overcome:

1. Malpractice attorneys are unhappy and fight the changes.
2. Progressives and liberals who want to control the population via health care are unhappy.
3. Coming up with the initial $200 Million to increase the capacity of medical schools and $500 million annually to fund the student loan / waiver program.  This equates to $30 per head and $77 per head respectively based on Census 2008 population estimates for Arizona.  Actually if  the federal government gave each state $500 million each year to cover this cost, it would cost only about $2.5 Billion annually and not the Trillions projected by out dysfunctional federal government.

Also included is a link to McCullough, Campbell, and Lane LLP, malpractice attorneys http://www.mcandl.com/arizona.html and a link to the School of Osteopathic Medicine web page explaining the difference between D.O.’s and M.D.’s http://www.atsu.edu/soma/programs/osteopathic_medicine/index.htm.

California is an example of the socialist experiment.

A surprising number of people today are seeking a socialist government because they have a hope that a nanny state will improve their lives.  Many of these people, group one, are of modest income, brought about by modest education, and some early life mistakes.  Let’s not confuse these folks with those who want socialism because it gives them control of how we should all live, group two.  Group two is the alpha group with generally higher education and income levels.  This posting is targeted to those who are of modest means in group one.  There are three types of people: those who don’t know and know they don’t know; those who know and know they know; and those who don’t know and think they know – these are the dangerous ones and a bulk of these people fall into group two.  You will find a lot of these folks in Hollywood and in the Capitol Building.

Group one was provided an education in our schools run by controlling far left educators – group two.  The educators in their wisdom most likely dismissed the in depth teaching of U.S. and world history.  Group one simply does not realize exactly what they are seeking.  They have been sold a Utopian view by the far left of the Democratic Party, members of group two, with nary an explanation that all previous attempts at beneficial socialism worldwide have been abject failures.   China’s people are benefiting from improved prosperity and some limited advances in personal freedom, but these advances and improved prosperity are only brought about by shifts toward capitalism.  I cannot think of one nation that has adopted socialism and has seen economic prosperity and experienced widespread individual freedoms for its people through socialism.  The populace of these nations have no incentive to become wealthy and are generally regulated to death.  The socialist movement deflates any opportunity for a rags to riches rise.

Rather than use one of an unending list of failed socialist foreign nations as an example, I thought I would highlight one of our fifty states that entered into the socialism track years ago.  It is a state that has passed law after law impinging qualified personal freedom to the limit of our U.S. Constitution and has tried to be the most prolific nanny state that it can be.  It is a state where no one is held personally accountable.  I point out that personal freedom is qualified because their definition of freedom is unique to the rest of the country.  Smoking pot is good, but the rules on personal business expansion and prosperity are onerous.  It is a state that is suffering through and sharing the current U.S. and world severe recession, but is also suffering a self imposed economic collapse as a direct result of its attempt to be a nanny state.  It is a state that during a recession, where millions are suffering due to unemployment and rising costs, has decided it is good to increase taxes.  It has chosen to increase a regressive tax, the sales tax, to help solve the budget problem.  This is almost incredulous since they are raising taxes disproportionately on the people who have been weaned to depend on the nanny state.  How brilliant is that?

If you have not guessed as yet, it is the State is California.  This very liberal experiment in creating a nanny state, which included onerous rules on businesses and outrageously high taxes, is tanking faster than a falling meteoroid.  This State is suffering years of debt taken on to achieve the very liberal social programs that are the underpinning of the “nanny state”.  I hope the millions who are seeking the Nanny States of America take a moment to see what will become of the United States of America, if we continue on this path to a national socialistic nanny state.  One look at California and the multi-tentacled sink hole it has become should be enough to demonstrate to those of modest means, that in the long run the nanny state will only bring them abject misery.

This post is not targeted to group two socialism control freaks who truly believe that they know better how we should live and what our culture should look like – these are just misdirected fools and there is nothing you can tell or show them that will change their minds, since it is all about control to them.  They have no problem with constantly repeating history but with an expectation of a different result.  Fortunately for the conservatives and moderates who populate this nation, they cannot accomplish this trek to socialism on their own.  They need the votes of those with modest means.  They try to obtain these votes by promising stuff, lots of stuff.  They get these votes by pounding into these folks just how badly they have it and how dastardly corrupt business types are.

All we need to do is to point out California in detail to these modest means folks over and over again, and maybe we can wakeup some of these folks to the reality that their invitation from group two that says “we would like to have you for dinner” really means that they are the dinner.

Eric Holder's war on guns

Our new Attorney General, Eric Holder, has recently come out against semi-automatic weapons.  He says that our laws permitting semi-automatic weapons are fostering the shipment of these weapons to Mexico for the drug cartels, exacerbating the drug violence at the border.  Thus we must control the sale of these weapons in the United States and restrict ownership to address this crisis.  Boy does this ever sound reasonable.  I personally have no use for semi-automatic weapons, but I think that we do need to agree that the second amendment gives my solid citizen neighbor a right to own these weapons.

The truth, not told by our Attorney General, is that the Mexican drug cartels use not only these semi-automatic weapons, but fully automatic P90’s, hand grenades, and RPG’s as well.  The truth of the matter, not heard from Mr. Holder, is that the semi-automatic weapons are being purchased in the United States in such bulk as to be a currently illegal sale or they are bartered for drugs, also not legal.  The truth of the matter is that the Mexican authorities have not installed the proper detection equipment at the border to catch these weapons coming in to Mexico.  The truth of the matter is that Mr. Holder is using the Obama Administration playbook to “not let a good crisis go to waste”.   As was done with the stimulus bill and with the omnibus spending bill, we are told that an action is needed to solve a crisis, when in reality the bulk of these actions are designed to install their brand of socialism and government control of how we live.   For a very good and informative read on the Mexican gun and drug violence, read Stratfor’s piece: Mexico: Dynamics of the Gun Trade.

Mr. Holder has told us just enough to justify the Administration’s longstanding desire to eliminate gun ownership to fight crime.  Do you really think drug dealers apply for a gun permit before acquiring a gun?  Just how much illicit gun violence is there from permit carrying gun owners?  Mr. Holder would do better to spend his time marshalling his forces to track down and stop the wholesale market for illicit guns going to the drug cartels.   He need not spend his time trying disingenuously to snuff out the second amendment, simply because he and the rest of the Administration do not like it.

There are many people in this country who really want socialism, just read various blog comments on the internet.  Those who want socialism should study up on the effects of socialism.  It is a disease that slowly deprives a populace of freedom, and prosperity, with the non-workable utopian hope that the government can right all ills by bringing economic balance from those who have more to those who have less.   There are also many who open mindedly want to cut the Obama Administration slack because they feel that the Administration is working to solve our problems.  These people should stop and take a very close look at what the Administration is doing, under the guise of fixing a financial crisis.  If they did look under the hood, so to speak, they would find a host of actions that have nothing to do with fixing a financial crisis, and everything to do with installing heavy government control over the citizens. 

We must start to really listen to the Administration when its members speak, and we must really start to look at the people who are chosen to be in this Administration.  We cannot assume that because they say they are fixing our problems, that they are.  We must prevent them from acting like that distant cousin who shows up to stay, acts like he is mowing our lawn and fixing our shingles to help us out, but is really quietly cleaning us out of our silverware and other valuables.  When Erik Holder and other members of this Administration speak, listen very carefully to the actual words used, and you will hear the real agenda.  You will hear the very slick use of the English language to make you believe one thing, while they are doing something else.

Be sure to vote at: Rate the Obama Administration - Vote Here

Why Is Congress The Way It Is?

What’s wrong?

• Gas at the pump soaring!
• Food used as fuel – ethanol – adopted without an understanding of its impact – pushed by lobbyists!
• Oil Companies still receive federal subsidies!
• Food prices soaring!
• Congress intentionally slowing completion of the border fence.
• Earmarks costing the taxpayers billions!
• Congress using earmarks to return favors to campaign contributors.
• Lobbyists / special interests contributing to Congressional campaigns, heavily influencing your Representatives.
• Congress regularly deferring to lobbyists over the voter.
• Seniority system in Congress fueling almost absolute power to a select few Senators and Representatives.
• Congress riddled with ethics violations, both rule violations and moral violations.
• Rampant disregard of the public trust.
• Senators and Representatives entering Congress with little personal wealth and leaving with great personal wealth.
• Partisan politics nearly always trumps what is good for America and good for the American people.
• Funds wasted on earmarks and redundant Federal programs.
• America’s sovereignty and national security at risk due to oil.
• America’s oil independence abdicated by Congress in favor of lobbyists.
• Congress is 38% lawyers.

This list should be enough of an indictment on Congress and how it functions to warrant changes – big changes. Today’s Congress does not run as was intended by the founding fathers. Why should your Representatives be listening to and acting upon requests from constituents of other Districts and States and not you? Why would a Senator or Representative take actions contrary to the well being of their constituent and nation? It is all about money! Money for reelection to perpetuate this non-representation of constituents. Money to be able to leave Congress very wealthy. Congress has become a lure for those who seek power and money from that power. Lobbyists provide the money to power campaigns in all sorts of devious ways. Senators and Representatives repay campaign contributors with un-debated and often weakly disclosed earmarked projects. Congress is almost the definition of broken government or more aptly corrupt government. Our Congress often makes the Iraqi and Mexican Parliaments look like a Boy Scout Jamboree.

Why is it wrong?

The Senate: The founding fathers placed checks and balances in the Constitution for the States to control the Federal Government. This was done to ensure that the States remained an equal partner. It was also done to keep power from being concentrated. In 1913, Congress, after years of trying to make Senate elections direct and not serve the legislatures, with the help of a powerful newspaper chain (Hearst Newspapers – Randolph Hearst felt he could control elections of Senators if they were directly elected, by swaying public opinion about the candidates) pushed through the Seventeenth Amendment – the House Joint Resolution 39 and the Ratification process are still questioned today as whether the Constitution was followed. The Congress with a strong popular movement by the voters due to the wide reaching Hearst chain’s agenda journalism was in an absolute rush to push the amendment through.

What did the amendment change? From the founding of this nation until the Seventeenth in 1913, Senators were elected by the States’ Legislatures and represented the States. Senators were obliged to mind the wishes of the States’ Legislatures. The Senate, the upper house, was the voice of the States in the Federal Government. The only lobby the Senators could really listen to was the lobby that elected them – their legislature. After the Seventeenth Amendment, the Senate was elected by directly by the voter, but this made them subject to the growing threat of lobbyists. Senate campaigns now run between ten million and one hundred million dollars, depending on location. This requires money from people, PAC’s, and corporations, not of your state, seeking to influence future votes on matters concerning them that may be contrary to your state’s needs. The direct election of Senators removed any control your State had over the growth of and the operation of the Federal Government.

The House of Representatives: The founding fathers intended the House to be the lower house, made up of citizen legislators. It was not to be a permanent home for Representatives serving for up to 50 years, as is the case of Representative John Dingell. These citizen legislators were to be the direct representative of the people of their district, serving the needs of the people of their district, and listening only to the people of their district. Today, to run for the House of Representatives, it will cost upwards of $5 Million for both the primary and general elections. This money primarily comes from outside your Congressional District. It comes from lobbyists in devious ways, corporations, again in devious ways, and from political parties. Since most of the money for the campaign does not come from the District, you do not get represented, the contributors do. Someone or some entity in Florida does not contribute to a campaign in a Texas District, without expecting votes in return. Votes often not in your best interest.

What do we do about it?

First, fix the Senate and return checks and balances back to your State. Push, plead with, and prod your State Legislature, through a Constitutional Convention, to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

Second, return your House Representative to his or her role of Citizen Legislator. Take the big money out of the job. Remove the overarching influence on these Representatives away from people and entities not in your District. Push, plead with, and prod your State Legislature to, through that Constitutional Convention, to amend the Constitution to restrict campaign contributions to House candidate campaigns. Require candidates for the House of Representatives to only accept campaign contributions of money, property, or services in kind from INDIVIDUALS PRIMARILY RESIDING in the candidate’s district. No money from lobbyists outside the District, no money from Corporations, and no money from political parties. The cost of a campaign will drop dramatically, creating a level playing field for candidates. The elected representative from your District, will only have you the voter/constituent to serve.

Third, at that Constitutional Convention, push, plead with, and prod your State Legislature to, through the Convention, propose a Constitutional Amendment that restricts all spending bills to be of like nature, military, agriculture, health, etc, and spending provisions may not be including in an amendment – it must be in the main body of the bill and clearly disclose in the bill if it is a targeted expense to one District or to one State and not a broad based spending bill. This will eliminate earmarks.

Fourth, Simply do not vote for an incumbent in November. This will replace 468 sitting Senators and Representatives for the 111th Congress in 2009. How is that for a message to Congress?

Do Corporations Pay Taxes – Yes they do! No they don’t!

Sounds confusing, doesn’t it. The cry around this country to “get those dastardly corporations – they are the cause of all our troubles” is so misplaced that it is almost like saying don’t put prisoners in prisons, because prisons are unsafe because there are too many dangerous people in prison.

Have I now cleared all this up? Okay it is simple, even if Senators Obama and Clinton appear to not get it. Corporations factor in the income tax rate into their cost of sales and thus the price they set on what you buy at the point of sale. So, go ahead and tax the living day lights out of these corporations, they just collect their income tax for the government from you. There is one hiccup with this plan. These corporations are unable to incorporate their income tax into the price on sales overseas or in Canada and Mexico.

Senators Obama and Clinton, please pay attention here as this is important and you act like you have never heard this before. When you tax a corporation and it cannot pass on that tax it either cannot survive internationally or it adapts by closing plants in the United States and opening these plants in another country. Are you still listening? When they do this, they create jobs in other nations and terminate jobs in the United States. This is called free enterprise. We could try to regulate corporations and force them to keep the jobs in the United States, but then they will not make any money and the investment capital will move to a company in another country and not here. It is like squeezing a balloon. Squeeze one end and it gets bigger on the other end – squeeze too hard and it breaks.

Our tax code and the fact that we tax our corporations at the second highest rate internationally may have something to do with out trade deficits and the loss of good paying jobs in this country. So yes, when we tax a corporation they bill us for the tax through domestic sales or sell us merchandise made in another country where the bulk of the profit is taxed at the other country’s favorable rate and the taxes go to the other country.

Senator Obama has a socialist solution for this conundrum. Instead of lowering taxes on domestic corporations so they can manufacture in the United States and create good paying jobs. These are jobs that make you more financially viable, jobs that make our economy healthier, and jobs that help us export to other nations. Senator Obama’s solution is to support the Patriot Employer Act. This act is right out of the socialist play book – we all know that the socialist economic system is failing all over the world. It is the second worst economic system, on how people benefit, only when compared to communism.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Peter Merrill whom they refer to as “…an international tax expert at PriceWaterhouseCoopers…” as saying “…Apparently Mr. Obama believes that by making U.S. Companies less profitable and less competitive world-wide, they will somehow be able to create more jobs in America.” http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120407121574294919-lMyQjAxMDI4MDI0ODAyNzgxWj.html

Honestly, they must have taught international economics at either Columbia or Harvard when Senator Obama attended. If he knows better and is sending us down the wrong path just to get elected, then he does not deserve to be President. If he does not know better, then he does not deserve to be President. The same should apply to Senator Clinton. The solution, Senators Obama and Clinton, is to help these corporations become as competitive as we possibly can and then turn them loose on the world. This will create the right kind of jobs for this nation – we will not have to settle for jobs where you must learn the phrase – Do you want fries with that?

Senator Obama, drop your support of the misnamed Patriot Employment Act which is a form of reverse protectionism – it protects the world from us – and lower or eliminate corporate taxes. Yes, we all will personally pay more income tax which will be offset by lower prices for goods, since the tax will no longer be included in the price. This will stimulate domestic production of all kinds of goods and improve our standard of living by allowing us to hold better jobs. Aren’t you and Senator Clinton about jobs?

Illegal Immigrant Recycling

We should set up a “Deportometer”. It could record the number of times we send someone back to his or her home country. The “Deportometer” can be a little device that mounts on an illegal alien’s belt, just like a pedometer. After all, if we are going to repeatedly spend tax payers dollars on rounding up and deporting someone fourteen (YES 14) times, the least we could do is give that person a “Deportometer.” It appears that there is no penalty beyond deportation for a repeat illegal. So it certainly appears that we have no additional penalties for the recycling of illegals – why would they not keep trying to enter, since there is little down side. Our Congress appears to NOT have fixed this problem, yet they have time to hold hearings on baseball, HGH, and Roger Clemens. Has our President or his Homeland Security Chief requested this stiffer penalty – perhaps, but I cannot find evidence of the request.

You might say, 14 times, impossible. Well according to the DenverPost.Com‘s Howard Pankratz it is possible. The following is an excerpt from his article: A man arrested Monday on Interstate 70 while allegedly transporting illegal aliens has been deported 14 times, Eagle county authorities said today…

The article can be found at:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_8304924

It doesn’t take an immigration wizard to understand that unless penalties get increasingly more severe after each deportation, like some prison time, the problem will continue unabated. This problem of illegal immigration is both nutured and fostered by our political parties. Politicians see that giving citizenship gives the vote, for them hopefully. These politicians will sell out the rest of us to acquire the new votes and for whose benefit? Yes, their own benefit. The impact on this nation and its current citizens is meaningless to them. There actions bely any belief that they are serving for the public good. This includes the office of President. When you look at the cumulative history of our current and past Presidents’ efforts on stopping illegal immigration, you must come to the conclusion that they did not and do not want to stop it. Has there been some sort of deal cut with Presidents Fox and Calderon of Mexico? It would certainly seem so. Three of the four presidential candidates are also on record as being very lenient on illegal aliens to say the least. Am I missing something? Are not controlling who or even knowing who enters your country and allowing a deportation game of cat and mouse to run “ad infinitum” good for this country?

Why bother to have any immigration control at the borders? Let’s just stop all this craziness of trying to enforce the law, dumbly I might add, and save all that money. It really is time for a change in Washington and not just the President. We should put brand new fannies into the 468 Senate and House seats up for re-election. This would be real change and not the repeated soaring rhetoric of our candidates for President. Their words are cheap, our votes at the ballot box on election day cleaning out both Houses of Congress to the limit of the Constitution are valuable.

U.S. Government Fostering Illegal Immigration!

One would think that after years of machination regarding illegal immigration and attempts to seal the borders the Federal Government would understand that improving the LEGAL immigration infrastructure apparatus goes hand in hand with sealing the border. Well they still don’t get it! Why is this? Without doing any research, it would be a good guess that Congress has not provided sufficient funding for the apparatus improvement, either because the funding was not requested by the appropriate agencies or Congress was too busy funding anything else.

Yesterday the Houston Chronicle reported on its web site “Chron.Com” (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5533508.html) that 47,000 applicants for a green card will receive their green cards before their background investigation is complete. The newspaper further reports in the same article “USCIS officials reported an estimated 329,160 applicants for citizenship and green cards were waiting in the FBI name check backlog as of May, the most recent data available. Of those, about 104,600 — or 32 percent — had been in the system for more than three months but less than a year. Sixteen percent, some 51,497 applicants, were pending between one and two years. About 17 percent of applicants had been waiting more than two years.”

The need to set up an adequate legal immigration infrastructure apparatus is so obvious in the fight against illegal immigration that it is incredulous that it has not been done. Someone is not doing their job. Whether the “someone” is a bureaucrat, an Administration official, or a member of Congress – that someone needs to lose his or her job or in the plural sense their jobs. So tell me who are the simpletons here? Is it the Administration? Is it Congress? Despite a national uproar on “Illegal Immigration”, we have not done the one basic step that will encourage legal immigration over illegal immigration. We have not properly set up an infrastructure to manage the legal immigrant entrance process. Are we leaving the running of this country to those who don’t care and only want to take from it what they can or to those who are simply too dumb to know better? I am talking Republican and Democrat. Our federal agencies and Congress possess both. Of course the current Administration also has some answering to do here.