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4A – Daily News – Monday, February 7, 2011 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 The answer to balance imbalance is simple math It is true that incomprehensibly Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 complex shenanigans have become norms of the financial ser- vices industry but simple math still applies to budgeting and account management. Total revenue minus total expenses over a period of time equals the change in account balances. The time value of money yields premiums that increase pos- itive balances, while interest is charged to cover negative bal- ances. Hence account managers are rewarded for ensuring that rev- enues exceed expenditures and penalized if the opposite is true. When government expenses exceed revenues our first response should increase revenues as we use contingency funds and explore ways to reduce expenditures. Once contingency funds are restored we can then reduce rev- enues by cutting tax rates and fees. Sadly our government representa- tives have not employed this sim- ple math and plunged public accounts into massive debt. Cali- fornia now is $6 billion in the red and has a projected imbalance exceeding $25 billion for 2011. As I write this column the U.S. treasury overdraft exceeds $14 tril- lion making each citizen's share a whopping $45,535.87. Without tangible action your portion of national debt increases an average of $13.50 every day, all with com- pounded interest. The fiscally prudent course of action is to progressively increase fees and tax rates so adequate fees and portions of profits are collect- ed to replenish contingency funds and maintain account balance. At the same time we should continue our efforts to identify unnecessary expenditures and minimize waste and inefficiency. To do otherwise adds debt and jeopardizes the abil- ity of state and nation to educate, care for, and protect the citizenry. Herein is the basic flaw of unbridled capitalism as a way of life. In the absence of responsible democratic action to equitably provide for public education, health, and protection our human fears and self-interests create classes of those that live in luxury and those that struggle to survive. It is both morally and practically incumbent upon those that profit to bear the burdens of funding local, state, and national gover- nance that protects all and seeks to eradicate disease, ignorance, and poverty. Sadly we have been neg- ligent in this regard as evidenced by our huge deficits and the fol- lowing demographic facts: 1) in 2008 an additional 800,000 Amer- ican households found they had to live on less than $25,000 per year, bringing the total to nearly 29 mil- lion, 2) in 2005 households in the bottom 20% had an average income of $10,655, while the top 20% aver- aged $159,583 – a dis- parity of 1,500%, 3) in 2007 the top 10% pock- eted almost half of all the money earned in America, the highest recorded since 1917, 4) between 2000 and 2008, the poverty rate in the suburbs of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. grew by 25% mak- ing them the country’s biggest and most rapidly expanding segment of the poor. home care of the elderly and dis- abled, and medical treatment through Medical are certain to fol- low. Contrary to conser- vative rhetoric, all these actions put more Amer- icans out of work, erode quality of life, and com- pound domestic prob- lems. Their claims that taxes stymie job devel- opment are nothing more than a sham to rationalize fiscal negli- gence. Richard If Assemblyman Jim Nielsen and his Repub- lican cohorts have their way California will not be able to increase revenues and must further cut education, public safety, health, and financial assis- tance programs when they are most needed. Already CalWorks cuts have adversely affected over 1.4 million Californians, two- thirds of whom are children. Addi- tional cuts to primary and sec- ondary education, police and fire protection, prisons and correc- tions, mental health programs, in Mazzucchi Positive Point All this comes to pass while the wealthi- est among us, not coin- cidentally including our Assemblyman Jim Nielsen and his Repub- lican allies, continue to benefit from a buoyant stock market, low tax and capital gain rates, and all forms of tax avoidance to stash away cash as our nation plunges into debt and our citizenry suffers. To deny the people a right to vote to increase revenue is the height of arrogance, adds insult to injury, and belies the fact that the answer to balance imbalance is simple math. Richard Mazzucchi can be reached at living-green@att.net. Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Tea Party move; California’s Gov. Reagan Commentary Please note the changed loca- tion for the Tehama County Tea Party Patriots: The Westside Grange on the north side of Wal- nut, about a quarter mile west of Baker Road. The time for weekly meetings remains 6 PM on Tues- days. Current areas of interest that you should check out: Smart Meters, new attempts at establish- ing national monuments in our backyard by presidential decree, timeless principles of liberty. See ya’ there. There’ll be considerable atten- tion to the legacy of President Ronald Reagan on his 100th birth- day, through the prism of his national and international accom- plishments. This column is focused on the more relevant (to us as Cal- ifornians) record of Ronald Rea- gan, Governor of California. After spending some time at Reaganli- brary.com, infoplease.com, Wikipedia.org and perusing his speeches, I find Reagan’s actions and words echo to today. Ronald Reagan’s elevation to his first governor’s race began, however, with a memorable appearance on the national stage when he gave a 1964 stump speech for Republican presidential candi- date Barry Goldwater. "California Republicans were impressed with Reagan’s political views and charisma after his ‘Time for Choosing’ speech." (Wikipedia) These words of philosophical beliefs bear on current state and national issues: "It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the free- doms intended for us by the Founding Fathers … This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man … This is the issue: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. "Regardless of their (advocates for economic security, redistribu- tion and entitlements) sincerity and their humanitarian motives – those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, ‘The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.’ "The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the econ- omy without controlling people. And they knew when a govern- ment sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose." Ronald Reagan unseated Cali- fornia’s Democratic governor, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, by a landslide margin of nearly a mil- lion votes and carried all but 3 counties of the state. His campaign "emphasized two main themes: ‘to send the welfare bums back to work’ and, regarding the burgeon- ing anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at the University of California at Berkeley, ‘to clean up the mess at Berkeley.’" Reagan wanted to reform wel- fare from a dependency-inducing system, what FDR had called the narcotic of welfare. His plan: sup- port for those who truly couldn’t provide for themselves, but work requirements for the able-bodied, restoring the dignity that comes from productivity. The California Welfare Reform Act was signed in Reagan’s second term, in August of 1971, and "was called probably the most com- prehensive such initia- tive in American history … (It) had a major impact nationwide on future welfare policy in other states, and was the forerunner to eventual reforms at the federal level as well." (Reagan- library.com) It bears mentioning that liberals fought those efforts at reform all the way to Washington, DC, until President Clinton reluctantly signed Republican wel- fare reform legislation in the face of wide- to taxpayers through tax breaks and rebates. While Reagan had a brief Republican majority, "they were able to pass forty anti-crime measures that had been previously buried in (Democrat) commit- tees." There were good reasons why Democrats earned the "soft on crime" label. Don Polson The way I see it spread public support for reform. Liberals to this day decry the removal of the entitlement aspect of public benefits and have, appar- ently, found a way to try to restore it through unemployment benefits. While the left continues to play the guilt-trip on us over the downtrod- den poor, the tax-paying public remains opposed to ever-increas- ing taxes for transfer to the non- productive current generation of "welfare bums." Reagan found a deficit in Sacra- mento that was larger than expect- ed because Democrats had hidden the size through budgetary manip- ulation. He froze state employee hiring, line-item-vetoed expenses, agreed to some tax increases (to levels below current ones), and eventually returned surpluses back Reagan dealt with student unrest and riots – a sober reminder of cur- rent leftist violence (left wing riots at trade meet- ings, student violence over tuitions hikes, leftist violence in European countries, and American socialists like Frances Fox Pivens and Barbara Ehrenreich advocating Greek style riots and protests in America). Legitimate complaints evolved into dangerous upheaval, as Berke- ley experienced eight bombings and attempted bombings over eleven months. "Police had confiscated more than two hundred rifles, pistols, shotguns, and nearly a thousand sticks of dynamite and dozens of Molotov cocktails. In the spring of 1969, more than 2,000 rioters charged down a street in Berkeley toward a line of policemen, literal- ly trampling them underfoot and sending 47 of them to the hospital with injuries." Reagan declared a state of emergency, deployed the National Guard, and restored law and order. Don Polson can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.