The Republican Club of Sun City
N E W S L E T T E R
August 2016 Everett Schmidt, Editor Sun City Texas
(Club Website: rcsctx.com)
(Subjects in this newsletter: border wall, government poverty programs)
VICE PRESIDENT OF T. P. P. F. TO ADDRESS CLUB
(Note: Alan Graham, founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, was originally scheduled to speak at this meeting; however, he has been re-scheduled for November with Bill Peacock speaking at the August meeting.)
Bill Peacock, vice president of research and director of the Center for Economic Freedom of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), will address the club during its dinner meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 11 in the ballroom of the Social Center in Sun City. His responsibilities include directing the research of the Foundation to ensure its accuracy, integrity and application of free market principles to the issues facing Texas and the nation. He has gained valuable insights into the working of state government by having served in the office of Commissioner Jerry Patterson in the Texas General Land Office, as Deputy Assistant Commissioner for intergovernmental affairs when Rick Perry was Commissioner at the Texas Department of Agriculture, as aid to Rep. John Culberson, and in other capacities in state government.
He will discuss America’s electrical grid system, the high-voltage transmission system that interconnects the nation’s generating plants. That interconnection began in the late 1920s when electrical utilities began to integrate their operations to improve reliability and reduce costs. There are now about 3,200 utilities, all of which operate a portion of the electrical grid. He will also discuss the vulnerability of this system to cyber-attacks, an important topic given the fact that America has enemies who want to incapacitate or destroy us. Our speaker will therefore have an important message for all of us.
BEGINNING TIMES: Social Hour – 6:00 PM; Dinner – 6:30 PM; Program – 7:00 PM (approx.)
MENU: Edamame salad, egg rolls, sesame ginger meatballs, beef & broccoli, Asian medley veggie, Pork fried rice, white rice, sodas, iced tea, raspberry lemonade, water, regular and decaf coffee.
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, 1530 Sun City Blvd., Suite 120, Box 227, Georgetown, TX 78633, or left in a special drop box located on the front porch of the home of club treasurer, Bill Harron, at 125 Stetson Trail. For information, contact Bill at 512-864-0965 or Bharron@aol.com The deadline for payment or reservations is Friday, August 5.
VISITORS ARE WELCOME! (Non-members may attend a maximum of two meetings per year – as attendees for the dinner or as observers for the program – without having to pay membership dues.)
HEAD OF CHARTER SCHOOL TO ADDRESS CLUB IN SEPTEMBER
Dr. Kathleen O’Toole, founding headmaster of Founders Classical Academy in Leander, a tuition-free charter school, will address the club during its dinner meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 8. This educational institution was created as a result of a collaboration between Hillsdale College and ResponsiveEd, a charter school holder. Her address will be of special interest because of the increasing desire in the state for parents to have choice in the type of education the state is to provide for its children.
More information about this meeting will be provided in the September newsletter.
OTHER CLUB NEWS
Nominating Committee. Club president Meredith Chiles reports that she is presently selecting members to serve on the Nominating Committee which is to recommend a slate of officers for 2017. She asks that any member willing to serve on that committee or wishing to recommend someone for that assignment to contact her. She also asks that anyone interested in serving as an officer or wishing to recommend someone for an officer position to contact her. She can be contacted at 512-868-1391 of chilesmm@gmail.com
Statistics. Club VP Cathy Cody reports that as of this writing the club has 359 members. Club treasurer Bill Harron reports there were 117 attendees for the July dinner meeting, with an additional 12-14 individuals attending as observers.
AN EXPRESSION GAINING INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE:
“GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS”
Foreword. America has been divided a long time on the question of whether a wall should be built on the border separating the U. S. and Mexico. The history of attempts to build a section of the wall is instructive. President George W. Bush, in 2006, signed the Secure Fence Act, which Congress passed with the support of many Democrats, including then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But in the 10 years since Bush signed that law, the government has actually built only 36 miles of secure double fencing instead of the 700 miles authorized by that bipartisan law.
Some of the main reasons why the nation has not been able to establish a meaningful immigration policy which would include the erection of a wall are, by now, well known. One is that business lobbyists and the Chamber of Commerce don’t want interference with their continued exploitation of cheap labor – even at the expense of the American worker. Another is that Democrats look at the influx of Latinos as voters for Democrat candidates. Then there are ominous reasons for resisting construction of the wall, such as the smuggling of illegal drugs across the border to satisfy an ever-increasing number of drug addicts in our country, and the human trafficking carried out with the help of Mexican cartels which have become rich, brutal and powerful. And even more ominous are the recent reports of aliens with incurable or infectious diseases crossing our borders, often to receive medical treatment at taxpayer expense. There are also reports of some of the nation’s dedicated enemies, such as ISIS, also crossing our borders.
Despite these violations of our borders, the nation has seemed indifferent to or oblivious of the dangers of a porous border. That is until Donald Trump made it a campaign issue which resonated with a surprisingly large number of people. One unexpected manifestation of this resonance was the survey of Texas voters conducted by a recent University of Texas/Texas Politics Project which found that fifty-two percent of all Texans and more than 80 percent of Texas Republicans support building a wall. And more support surfaced at the recent Republican National Convention.
The GOP 2016 Party Platform. At the 2016 national GOP convention, the delegates adopted a plank which could not have been imagined before. This plank not only provides unqualified support for the wall, it also provides a philosophical basis for a strong and comprehensive immigration policy, including the border wall. Following are excerpts from that plank:
America’s immigration policy must serve the national interest of the United States, and the interests of American workers must be protected over the claims of foreign nationals seeking the same jobs. With our fellow citizens, we have watched, in anger and disgust, the mocking of our immigration laws by a president who made himself superior to the will of the nation. We stand with the victims of his policies, especially the families of murdered innocents. Illegal immigration endangers everyone, exploits the taxpayers, and insults all who aspire to enter America legally. We oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by breaking the law, have disadvantaged those who have obeyed it. The executive amnesties of 2012 and 2014 are a direct violation of federal law and usurp the powers of Congress as outlined in Article I of the Constitution. These unlawful amnesties must be immediately rescinded by a Republican president. In a time of terrorism, drug cartels, human trafficking, and criminal gangs, the presence of millions of unidentified individuals in this country possess grave risks to the safety and sovereignty of the United States. Our highest priority, therefore, must be to secure our borders and all ports of entry and to enforce our immigration laws.
That is why we support building a wall along our southern border and protecting all ports of entry. The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
How Do Other Countries Control Their Borders? Other countries, like America, have had to control their borders against a large influx of individuals who wish to gain access to those countries, often for nefarious purposes – as is the case with respect to our borders. What some countries have done in response is instructive. Israel, for example, having to cope with large numbers of terrorists wishing to do harm there, built a wall separating Israel from the West Bank, the result of which was a rapid decline in the number of suicide bombings. Saudia Arabia is building a 600-mile fence on its border with Iraq to cope with the ISIS threat. China has constructed an 880-mile fence on its border with North Korea. Other examples could be cited.
While Democrats are generally inclined to promote open borders, it should be noted that even they found it necessary to erect a four-mile fence, estimated to be 8 feet tall, around their convention site, thereby confirming that even leftists can see the need for a wall to cope with certain situations.
Cost Factors. Columnist Phyllis Schlafley notes that a border wall could result in savings by a state or nation because they can avoid some of the costs which come about because of poor border enforcement. In particular, she contends, “The federal, state and local costs of criminal justice to process and incarcerate criminal aliens is at least $15 billion a year.”
As to the cost of building a wall, Trump contends it will be in the $5 – $10-billion-dollar range – which is within the range of savings reported by Schlafley above. He states he will have Mexico pay for the costs of the wall. If they refuse to pay, the U. S. government would invoke a revised Patriot Act to begin prohibiting aliens from wiring money back to Mexico. This scheme, however, is rejected by a number of knowledgeable observers.
While this rejection may exist, other practices are suggested by William Gheen of the A
WILL AMERICA REVISE ITS FAILING POVERTY PROGRAM?
Foreword. When Lyndon Johnson conceived of the Great Society some 50 years ago, he made it clear that the War on Poverty component was not to be an endless struggle on the part of participants in government poverty programs. His stated his goal was “not to make the poor more secure in their poverty but to reach down and to help them lift themselves out of the ruts of poverty and move with the large majority along the high road of hope and prosperity.”
But given society’s experience in the past 50 years, Johnson’s stated goal now seems naive and unrealistic – assuming it was sincere. He may, however, have had another goal in mind: keep people dependent so that government can redistribute income, so Democrats can get their votes.
The Question of Constitutionality. While the involvement of the federal government in welfare may now be like water over the dam because that involvement has gone on so long and is so deeply entrenched in society’s thinking, the fact is that there is no enumerated power provided in the Constitution for that involvement by the federal government. There is, however, no prohibition for states to become so involved unless state constitutions prohibit such.
The Basic Question of Morality. Columnist Walter Williams poses some hypothetical situations to address the question of morality when one person’s money is confiscated for the benefit of another person, the current paradigm:
To help [an elderly, hungry] woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality?
An Evaluation of the War on Poverty. The comments of Brooke Rollins, president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), about Johnson’s poverty program may be uniquely insightful inasmuch as she describes, in a 2014 Austin American-Statesman op-ed piece, how her mother, a single mom raising Brooke in a small Texas town, was not able to make ends meet, so she started a flower shop which proved to be successful. She thus maintained her dignity and avoided dependence on government. Brooke, when a child, was able to observe the effects of near-poverty (or according to today’s standards, actual poverty). She thus gained insights into what works and what doesn’t work in poverty programs.
Some of her comments are worth considering. For example, she contends, “The Great Society has transferred America by permanently expanding the size and scope of government, redefining the relationship between the state and the citizens it was meant to serve.”
She also observes that, “Instead of helping the poor improve their lot and enter the middle class, welfare trapped them in dependence. Not only has the Great Society failed to eradicate poverty, it has undermined the ability of the poor to pull themselves up out of poverty.”
It should be noted here that the club’s November program will be about “Mobile Loaves and Fishes” which is an outreach program for the homeless, and is an alternative to a government-funded program. The fact that it is not government funded means that donors who voluntarily contribute funds can receive satisfaction of knowing they are helping another human being they often personally know, with some assurance what they contribute will not lead to dependency on the part of recipients. Three of the club officers who recently visited the site of the “Community First!” project, where tiny, but inviting, homes have been built as an adjunct project, were effusive in their praise of that project, noting the warm feelings between donors and recipients.
The GOP Platform Statement on Poverty. The 2016 GOP platform contains the following pertinent description of the deplorable and counterproductive state of the federal poverty program:
We have been fighting the War on Poverty for 50 years and poverty is winning. Our social safety net – about 80 separate means-tested programs costing over $1 trillion every year – is designed to help people born into or falling into poverty. It rarely lifts them out. Its apologists judge success by the amount of money spent to keep people in the system. That is a cruel measurement. Republicans propose to evaluate a poverty program by whether it actually reduces poverty and increases the personal independence of its participants. The results are damning: intergenerational poverty has persisted and worsened since 1966. This year marks another important anniversary: it has been 20 years since the landmark Republican welfare reform of 1996 broke away from the discredited Great Society model. By making welfare a benefit instead of an entitlement, it put millions of recipients on a transition from dependence to independence. Welfare rolls declined by half as recipients and prospective recipients discovered a better way to reach their goals. Best of all, about 3 million children moved out of poverty. Today that progress has been lost. Defying the law as it was plainly written, the current Administration has nullified any meaningful work requirement and made TANF a mockery of the name we gave it:Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. This decision ensures that those families will remain needy and cut off from the economic mainstream of American society.
NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
(Some random observations on this crazy world in which we live)
The Burden Carried by the Dallas Police Chief. Although Dallas Police Chief David Brown was frequently interviewed by the media in the wake of the recent shootings of Dallas police officers and thus became widely known, the personal tragedies he has had to bear have gained little attention. Following are some of them: his son (reported to have mental problems) killed a Lancaster police officer and another man before being shot more than a dozen times and killed; Chief Brown visited with the victims of his son’s killings to express condolences and to say his son was not raised that way; while working on a case at a crime scene to obtain evidence, he saw a pair of glasses on the ground, and suddenly realized they belonged to his former partner on the police force who had just been killed; his younger brother was killed by drug dealers in 1991.
The Opponent of GOP Sen. Mike Lee (UT). Sen. Mike Lee, strong conservative, will face a man who now goes by the name “Misty K. Snow” (D.- UT) for the November election. Snow is a transgendered woman. (Source: Restore the Constitution)
US. Army Smallest Since 1940. At the end of March 2016, the Army numbered just over 479,000 active soldiers. The only time the U. S. has had a smaller army in recent history was in 1940, with 269,000 soldiers prior to entering World War II. The Army is projected to shrink to 450,000 by 2018. Reducing the size of the Army has been part of President Barack Obama’s administrative policy. (Source: onenewsnow)
Sen. Sanders to Complete Term as Independent. Despite running for president as a Democrat, Bernie Sanders said he plans to return to the Senate as an independent, despite winning 13 million votes in the Democrat Party’s primary contest. “I was elected as an independent; I’ll stay two years more as an independent,” Sanders said.
Speaking at a Bloomberg Politics breakfast, Sanders also said the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee doesn’t go far enough in fixing the situation and that more staff members need to leave following embarrassing disclosures of thousands of internal emails.
Guard Arrested After Removing Man from Ladies’ Restroom. On May 16, a female security guard at Giant Grocery Store in Washington, D. C. was arrested because she physically escorted a man out of the ladies’ restroom after he refused to leave. The young man, who identifies as a woman, said the security guard told him, “You guys cannot keep coming in here and using our women’s restroom. They did not pass the law yet.”
The young man nevertheless called the police to report the incident. He claimed he was emotionally traumatized by the incident. The security guard has been charged with simple assault, and D. C. police are treating the incident as a “suspected hate crime.” (Source: dailycaller)
