The Republican Club of Sun City NEWSLETTER

May 2012 Everett Schmidt, Editor Sun City Texas

CANDIDATES FOR RAILROAD COMMISSION TO ADDRESS CLUB

Eight candidates for two positions on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission will address the club during its meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 16 in the ballroom of the Social Center in Sun City. (NOTE: Because the ballroom was not available on a Thursday night in May, the meeting is scheduled for a Wednesday night.)

There are two contested races for positions on the Railroad Commission. One race is for an unexpired term and includes the following candidates who will participate in the program: Al Lee, Barry Smitherman (incumbent) and Elizabeth Murray-Kolb. (One candidate, Greg Parker, will not be present)

The other race is for a full term position and includes the following candidates who will participate in the program: Warren Chisum, Roland Sledge, Joe Cotton, Becky Berger, and Christi Craddick. (One candidate, Beryl Burgess, will not be present)

In a separate news article below is a brief report on the history of the Commission and how its responsibilities have evolved over the years.

The Social Period, Dinner and Program. A social period will begin at 6:00 PM. The dinner will begin at 6:30 PM and will be followed by the program. The dinner will consist of chicken and beef fajitas with beans and trimmings.

Cost. Cost is $16 per person. Checks made out to The Republican Club of Sun City should be mailed to The Republican Club of Sun City, Attention: Treasurer, 1530 Sun City Blvd., Suite 120, Box 227, Georgetown, TX 78633 by no later than Friday, May 11. Treasurer Dorothy Carlyle has set up a special collection box on her front porch at 173 Whispering Wind for individuals wishing to hand-deliver payments, provided delivery is made by the Friday deadline. For information about reservations contact Dorothy at 864- 0353 or dcarlyle@suddenlink.net

CLUB WILL MEET IN JUNE

The next meeting of the club (following the May meeting) is scheduled for Thursday, June 7. Club vice president/program chairman Robert Fears indicates the participants in that meeting may be candidates involved in runoffs subsequent to the May 29 election.

OTHER CLUB NEWS

Club vice president Brenda Leisey reports that the current 2012 membership is 240.

Club treasurer Dorothy Carlyle reports that the number of attendees at the dinner of the March meeting was 133. (An estimated 15 individuals were present for the program only)

THE TEXAS RAILROAD COMMISSION

For the reader who would like more information about the history of The Texas Railroad Commission and the evolution of its initial responsibilities involving the regulation of railroads to its current responsibilities involving energy, the environment and related matters, the following report, slightly edited, from the Handbook of Texas Online/Texas State Historical Association is presented:

Although it is only a state agency, the Texas Railroad Commission has been historically one of the most important regulatory bodies in the nation. This is because for much of the twentieth century it has strongly influenced the supply and price of oil and natural gas throughout the United States. As its name implies, the commission was originally established to oversee railroads . . .In 1891 the legislature established the commission, giving it jurisdiction over rates and operations of railroads, terminals, wharves and express companies. In 1894 the legislature made the agency elective, the three commissioners henceforth serving six- year, overlapping terms in Austin.

Despite the fact that the federal Interstate Commerce Commission preempted the regulation of interstate transportation, and despite inadequate funding and occasionally hostile court decisions, the Railroad Commission in its first years had some success in restraining intrastate freight rates. In the twentieth century the commission has continued to regulate intrastate railroads, and has had buses and trucks added to its transportation responsibilities.

Its importance to the state and nation, however, has rested on its authority over the energy industry. In 1917 the legislature granted the commission the authority to see that petroleum pipelines remained “common carriers” – that is, that they did not refuse to transport anyone’s oil or gas. Two years later, commissioners received responsibility for promulgating well-spacing rules. In the early 1920s the agency accepted jurisdiction over gas utilities. This gradually growing responsibility prepared the way for the enormous expansion of commission activity during the next decade.

In the early 1930s unrestrained production from the huge East Texas Oilfield caused the price of crude to plummet worldwide and created consternation in the industry. To stabilize oil prices and to help conserve the valuable resource, a coalition consisting of parts of the industry, scientists, and public officials attempted to have oil regulated. After an involved, protracted, and occasionally violent struggle, the Railroad Commission won the authority to prorate, that is, to set the rate at which every oil well in Texas might produce. By limiting production in East Texas and elsewhere, commissioners succeeded both in supporting oil prices and in conserving the state’s resources.

With the decline of Texas oil reserves, the great increase in world demand, and the rise of OPEC, however, the commission’s influence over oil has dwindled. Today, its responsibilities in this area consists mainly of enforcing cleanliness in the fields and maintaining equity among producers.

If its influence over oil has declined, however, the commission’s responsibility for natural gas has greatly expanded. There were abstruse and locally intense conflicts over gas in the l930s. Because gas was of relatively lower value than oil, however, commission policies in this area were less developed and of less interest within the industry and to outsiders. This changed in the following decade. Because gas was so relatively valueless, oil operators in that era commonly burned (“flared”) the casinghead gas that they inevitably produced with their oil. By the mid-1940s, about a billion and a half cubic feet of natural gas a day was being lost statewide. In 1947, under the prodding of a new member with a petroleum engineering background, the commission issued orders that effectively forbade the flaring of casinghead gas. This action not only preserved an irreplaceable natural resource, but, by forcing producers to return gas to reservoirs, sustained their pressure, thus significantly in- creasing the recovery of oil.

Gas acquired considerable importance again in the l970s. The federal Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 imposed a complex regulatory framework on Texas producers, yet required the state to assume responsibility for implementation. Railroad commissioners are consequently faced with the unappealing prospect of enforcing a multitude of ambiguous rules on a resistant state industry, while fending off criticism from Washington.

One illustration of the commission’s involvement in current affairs was the highly publicized report that it found, after reviewing scientific evidence, that a gas well proposed for Parker County was not contributing to the contamination of water wells in that county. The EPA had determined otherwise, but the commission prevailed.

In addition to regulating the various industries identified above, the commission, according to its News Release, “promotes research and education on the use of alternative fuels and has jurisdiction over gas utility, surface mining and pipeline industries. Our mission is to serve Texas by our stewardship of natural resources and the environment, our concern for personal and community safety, and our support of enhanced development and economic vitality for the benefit of Texans.”

STATE PARTY PROPOSITIONS TO APPEAR ON PRIMARY BALLOT

The State Republican Executive Committee (SREC), on December 3, passed the following resolutions which will appear on the Republican Primary ballot for the purpose of obtaining the views of Republican voters on certain issues:

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SCHOOL CHOICE. The state should fund education by allowing dollars to follow the child instead of the bureaucracy, through a program which allows parents the freedom to choose their child’s school, public or private, while also saving significant taxpayer dollars. Yes or No.
REPEALING OBAMACARE. Congress should immediately repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) and reject the rationing of healthcare by government or the intrusion by government into the doctor – patient relationship. Yes or No.

PUBLIC PRAYER. Government should be prohibited from restricting the content of public prayer. Yes or No.
BALANCED BUDGET/CONTROLLING GOVERNMENT GROWTH. Out-of-control spending should be stopped at all levels of federal and state government through constitutional amendments limiting any increase in government spending to the combined increase of population and inflation, requiring voter approval. Yes or No.

REDISTRICTING. The Texas Legislature should redraw the court-imposed lines for Congress and State legislative districts in its upcoming session in order to remedy inequities. Yes or No.

HUGE TAX INCREASES TO TAKE EFFECT JANUARY 1 (Unless Congress Acts)

Foreword. Heritage Foundation writer Curtis Dubay contends that unless Congress does something to mitigate potential tax hikes effective by 2013, the tax increase for just one year is “simply unprecedented . . .it is $500 billion just for 2013.” He notes that the potential tax increase is made up of seven different tax hikes set to expire in January, and six tax hikes from the health care law, hikes which are to kick in “as soon as the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.”

Dubay cites some specific ways Americans can be affected by those potential tax hikes: • Every household in America would face an average tax increase of $3,800.

Americans would be much more likely to pay the Alternate Minimum Tax.
• Seventy percent of the tax hike would fall directly on middle- and low-income families.

Congressional Delay. Dubay notes that Congress has been notoriously tardy in providing tax relief. In 2010, it waited until the very end of December to stop the first expiration of the Bush tax cuts. In 2011, it waited until the last minute to put off the expiration of the payroll tax cut.

That kind of tardiness can adversely affect the economy. “The possibility of stinging tax hikes is a large part of the Washington-created uncertainty holding the economy back from full recovery,” asserts Dubay.

The 2013 Tax Hikes. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, provides the following chart which reveals the tax hikes which will go into effect in 2013 unless Congress intervenes:

*Tax Rates Rise from Range of 10 – 35 Percent Up to 15 – 39.5 Percent

*Capital Gains Tax Rises from 15 to 23.8 Percent

*Dividend Tax Rises from 15 to 43.4 Percent

*Tax on Majority of Small Employer Profits Rises from 35 to 43.4 Percent

*Death Tax Rate Rises from 35 to 55 Percent

*Death Tax “Standard Deduction” Falls from $10 million to $1 million

*Employee Social Security Tax Rate Rises from 4.2 to 6.2 Percent

*Households Affected by Alternative Minimum Tax Rises from 4 Million to 30 Million Households

*Research and Development Tax Credit Disappears

*Marriage Penalty Returns for All Taxpayers; Child Tax Credit Cut in Half from $1000 to $500

Amount of Taxes Paid, by Category. In view of the class warfare instigated by Democrats, and their pious assertions that the rich “should pay their fair share,” Norquist, in an effort to provide some context to the debate on tax burden, reveals in the following chart how much of the federal income tax burden is borne by various categories of Americans:

Category of Earners

Top 1%
Top 5%
Top 10% Top 20% Bottom 40%

Percent of All Federal Income Taxes Paid

39.5%
61.0%
72.7%
86.0%
Received IRS checks from the government greater than any income tax paid. The tax system paid them

The growing number of citizens who pay no taxes but who receive largess from the government brings to mind the following quotation which is being increasingly noted by citizens because of its relevancy to the present state of the country:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed

by dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” -Alexander Fraser Tyler

REASONS FOR OPTIMISM ABOUT AMERICA’S FUTURE: TECHNOLOGY AND DEMOGRAPHICS

In hindsight it seems obvious that emerging technologies circa 1912 – electrification, telephone, the dawn of the automobile age, the invention of stainless steel and radio amplifier – would foster phenomenal economic growth. Yet observers of that era failed to recognize the economic growth which technology could provide.

And now, in 2012, contend Wall Street Journal writers Mark Mills and Julio Ottino, “we sit again on the cusp of three grand technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the past century. All find their epicenters in America: (1) big data, (2) smart manufacturing, and (3) the wireless revolution.” Those writers then explains those epicenters:

• BIG DATA. Processing power and data storage are virtually free. A hand-held device, the iPhone, has computing power that shames the 1970s-era IBM mainframe. The Internet is evolving into the “cloud” – a network of thousands of data centers any one of which makes a 1990 supercomputer look antediluvian. From social media to medical revolutions anchored in metadata analyses, wherein astronomical feats of data crunching enable heretofore unimaginable services and businesses, we are on the cup of unimaginable new markets.
• SMART MANUFACTURING. We are just entering an era where the very fabrication of physical things is revolutionized by emerging materials science. Engineers will soon design and build from the molecular level, optimizing features and even creating new materials, radically improving quality and reducing waste.Devices and products are already appearing based on computationally engineered materials that literally did not exist a few years ago: novel metal alloys, graphene instead of silicon transistors, and meta- materials that possess properties not possible in nature; e.g., rendering an object invisible.This era of new materials will be economically explosive when combined with 3-D printing, also

known as direct-digital manufacturing – literally “printing” parts and devices using computational power, lasers and basic powered metals and plastics. Already emerging are printed parts for high-value applications like patient-specific implants and hip joints or teeth, or lighter and stronger aircraft parts.

• WIRELESS REVOLUTION. Finally, there is the unfolding communications revolution where soon most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly. Never before have a billion people – soon billions more – been able to communicate, socialize and trade in real time.

The implications of the radical collapse in the cost of wireless connectivity are as big as those following the dawn of telegraphy/telephony. Coupled with the cloud, the wireless world provides cheap connectivity, information and processing power to nearly everyone, everywhere. Again: both the launch and epicenter of this technology reside in America.

Demographics. While the potential benefits of technology provide optimism about the country’s future, so too do some demographics – particularly when compared with the rest of the world.

The United States, says political consultant and commentator Dick Morris, is now the only major industrialized country in the whole world that is not shrinking away to nothingness because of the aging of its population. Most of Europe, he claims, is just plain disappearing. Italy’s 75 million people 10 years ago are now just 65 million, and will dwindle to 50 million by the year 2050. Spain is dropping from 43 million to 33 million. Japan has shrunk over the last 10 years from 125 million to 115 million and is heading to 100 million 10 years from now. “The Japanese race is dying out.”

The main point, though, is that this devastating shrinkage is happening almost everywhere – in virtually every industrialized country of the world. Except in the United States.

The Fertility Factor. Columnist Joel Belz reports on the importance of a nation’s fertility rate. If the average woman in a nation has at least 2.1 babies in her lifetime, those babies will fulfill what is sometimes called the “replacement rate,” and that nation is likely to keep growing. The U. S. rate has for some years hovered right around that 2.1 mark.

Elsewhere in the “developed” world, though, that rate lags far behind replacement. France is at 1.9, the United kingdom is 1.8, Canada at 1.5, Switzerland, Germany and Italy at 1.4, Hungary at 1.3, South Korea at 1.2, and Hong Kong at a suicidal 1.0.

Belz also points to the over-65 age rate. He reports the differences between the U. S. and other countries is startling: The over-65 set in the United States is an almost uniquely low 13.5 percent – compared to a budget busting 25 percent or so in places like Japan, China, and most European countries.

In contrast with the pessimism, disillusionment, apathy and cynicism gripping much of the nation, Belz offers this welcome perspective: “Let’s count our blessing. Let’s understand that the optimism that has stimulated us in the past can still unite us and be the strength of this great country.”

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
(Some random observations on this crazy world in which we live)

Anyone Remember George Beverly Shea? On February 1, George Beverly Shea, the Canadian-born singer best known for performing at practically every Billy Graham crusade since 1947, turned 103.

Understanding the Federal Budget. Talk show host Kirby Anderson contends that “most Americans don’t really understand how much the government spends.” A 3.8 trillion federal budget is hard to grasp.

Chuck Bently of Crown Financial has found a way to put such numbers in perspective by simply removing the zeros from the trillions and billions and then pretending the numbers are your own family budget. For example:

Your annual income is $21,500. Your household spending is $38,000. That means that your new debt this year is $16,500. And your credit card debt is $150,000. Your recent budget cut is $385.

Any household that spends $38,500 each year when the family income is only $21,500 is going to be in trouble. And if your credit debt is $150,000, you know you are really in trouble, especially if you were only willing to cut $385 from your family budget.

Illegal Aliens Get Billions in Tax Credits. Illegal aliens, even though forbidden by law to even be in the U. S., collected more than $4.2 billion in so-called “tax credits” from the U. S. Treasury last year, thereby pocketing cash that rightfully belongs to American taxpayers and contributing to America’s huge federal budget deficit, according to a report from the department’s own inspector general.

The report said tax filers not authorized to work in the U. S. were collecting cash under the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) provision of federal tax law. The child tax credit, which is worth as much as $1,000 for each qualifying child, is paid out to tax filers who end up with a negative amount of taxes due.

By law, illegal aliens are not entitled to federal welfare benefits. But because they do not qualify for legitimate Social Security numbers when filing income tax returns, the IRS allows illegal aliens to apply for what is calls an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)

The Treasury’s inspector general discovered that tax filers using ITINs – who are almost all illegal aliens – were paid 4.2 billion in refundable credits for the 2010 tax year.

(Source: Middle American News)

“Public Advocate” Created for Illegal Aliens. As part of the American left’s strategy to energize Hispanic voters in time for the November elections, the Obama regime [recently] slapped U. S. law enforcement agencies in the face with the announcement it has created a taxpayer-funded “Public Advocate” within the Department of Homeland Security to help illegal aliens lobby the government for their interests and resolve problems they have with police.

The U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the advocate will “serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings . . . and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or other issues they would like to raise.”

The National Border Patrol Council, which represents some 17,000 non-supervisory U. S. Border Patrol Agents, said the new public advocate for illegal aliens makes “a mockery of the laws of the United States.”

(Source: New American News)

Coping With Misbehaving Teens in Public Places. For years retailers and city leaders have used classical music to chase away loiterers and cut crime. That approach works because teenagers and young adults who are most likely to commit crimes tend not to like classical music. . . Police and others have played Mozart, Bach and Beethoven and broadcast opera at busy transit stations and urban hotspots. They’ve seen declines in shootings, assaults, drug deals, and robbery.

Schools, parks, and retailers are finding they can get the same result by using a device called the Mosquito. Invented in Wales, the device emits an annoying, high-frequency sound that only people between the ages of 13 and 25 can hear. Older people can’t hear it because of the natural hearing loss that occurs with age.

Civil liberties groups in Europe and the UK have protested the device, saying it discriminates against young people.

(Source: World)