6A Daily News – Monday, October 24, 2011
Opinion Partisan pandering for political profit 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 Assemblyman Nielsen's criti-
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
cizes efforts to resolve the overcrowding of Califor- nia prisons that he so egre- giously helped precipitate by pandering to crime vic- tims, denying parole and funding increases for cor- rections, failing to fund adequate rehabilitation and job training, and pro- moting longer and harsher sentences. Now he and his fellow Republicans are producing online videos and a web site to incite the public in defiance of Supreme Court mandates to reduce prison over- crowding while offering no viable alternatives except more of the same. Nielsen has had ample opportu- nity to help craft and implement legislation to address these issues that are so near and dear to his heart but has failed to do so, and now criticizes Governor Jerry Brown's plan that involves keeping some inmates out of state prisons by placing them into county jails. The governor's plan is a good
faith effort to ameliorate unconsti- tutional treatment of state prisoners by sharing the burdens of incarcer- ation with the counties that send the offenders to prison in the first place. This strategy keeps non-
Richard
Mazzucchi Positive Point
violent, non-sex, and non-serious offenders out of more expensive to maintain and construct prison facilities and offers more opportunities for community correc- tions activities such as work release and fire camps. A new Republican video campaign is ratcheting up the fear factor with scary- looking thugs and ominous music. Assembly Republi- cans launched the campaign to get Cali- fornians outraged over Governor Jerry Brown's prisoner-shift
program that began less than a month ago. Former Parole Board Chairman and now-Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber?) is answering critics who claim he's trying to scare people with an ad that could be used later against Brown and Democrats by saying he's simply trying to educate Californians that since there's no room at many county jails for new prisoners, some will be let go. However law enforcement groups point out that a U.S. Supreme Court order is driving this change: California must reduce its prison
population by 34,000 over the next two years, or the court could order a wholesale release. "Is it risky to have the Supreme Court empty the equivalent of three prisons into California cities and counties with no money? Very risky," said Nick Warner, legisla- tive director, Calif. State Sheriff's Association. "There's a lot of opportunity in this model. But it's too soon to say whether it's going to work or not." Predictably it is not too soon for Mr. Nielsen and his partisan colleagues to spin this into campaign rhetoric while deny- ing any accountability or responsi- bility for our sad state of affairs due largely at their behest. Such pan- dering is as disingenuous and con- temptible as Mr. Nielsen's failure to actually live in the district that he represents, but that is another story. A new study by the Public Pol-
icy Institute of California not sur- prisingly concludes that Brown's prisoner-shift plan will likely result in low-level offenders spending less time in a cell and an increase in lower-level criminal offenses, but such is the price we must pay for a legislature failing to provide sufficient funding to address our correctional requirements. "That's the sort of thing that you expect to see increase, not the really heinous stuff. But on the other hand, it's not inconceivable that something more
unpleasant could happen," said Dean Misczynski, adjunct policy fellow, Public Policy Institute of California. Even more unpleasant realities will likely manifest if nothing is done, including the release of thousands of hardened and violent criminals to end the cruel and unusual conditions now evidenced in California prisons due to chronic overcrowding. Wouldn't it be refreshing for Assembly Republicans to offer practical solutions to the problem of prison overcrowding like increasing tax collections and cor- rections budgets, reducing manda- tory minimum sentences, revamp- ing parole and rehabilitation, and suspending the incarceration of drug users and marijuana growers? How about supervised inmate works crews to clean and land- scape highways and public parks that return home at night. Instead the Republicans only complain and alarm the public with scare tactics and launching a new website called California Crime Watch to keep a tally on possible increased criminal activity. What the real residents of the district want is an Assemblyman to live among them and offer solutions rather than partisan pandering for political profit.
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; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454.
Failed theories, falsehoods, and truth
Writing a day early allows a trip to Yreka for a valuable seminar: the inaugural Defend Rural America (DRA) event will feature Northern California sheriffs, including Sher- iff Dave Hencratt, addressing how "state and federal environmental over-regulations and forest shut- downs are hurting public safety." DRA was founded by "north state tea party activists — farmers‚ asso- ciations and other groups protesting the removal of dams along the Kla- math River and federal and state regulators clamping down on irri- gation water use to protect (fish) in the Scott and Shasta rivers‚ water- sheds." I'll take notes and write about it.
Statements, assertions, beliefs and ideology from the left side of this page often wander into the realm of either unproven, or even provably false. Thus, the quote "As more federal dollars are spent domestically, jobs are created, incomes rise, tax payments increase, and overall economic activity increases in a multiplicative effect." That's a fairly accurate rep- resentation of what is called Keyne- sian economic theory. Note the essential word, "theory," which means it is not an economically sci- entific certainty. It is, however, the preferred theory of advocates (often blindly so) for larger, stronger, and more controlling central/federal government, using its influence through spending for the greater economic good of society. Or so the theory goes.
Does such a theory make sense to you? We are told that thinking of the national federal budget in terms of a household budget is erroneous logic. Au contraire, it is exactly comparable when you consider that
individuals, families, businesses, local, state and federal budgets can and often must contain sustainable (accurately used here) levels of debt. Sheer common sense tells us that excessive debt leads to bank- ruptcy on a personal or business level, and default by governments when lenders to states or nations are not repaid under the terms agreed to when the loans, through bond purchases, were initially made.
Many people took loans to pur- chase homes, loans that they knew, or should have known, they could not service or pay off in the long term. Imprudence and, yes, greed prevailed over fiscal sense; ever- greater levels of indebtedness were incurred through home equity loans to inflate the owners‚ lifestyles. Likewise for companies whose income and profit proved insuffi- cient to repay their loans. The obvi- ous end result we see before us through foreclosures, loss of assets and lifestyle toys. Similarly, states like California
have sold bonds (meaning bor- rowed money) to build things, sim- ply stated. Lenders demand a mar- ket interest rate, which is deter- mined by the credit rating assigned to that state — credit ratings not unlike those given individuals based on their payment history — and that borrowed money becomes more expensive as those ratings decline. Would you loan money to someone whose past financial irre- sponsibility was well known, or whose future income likely to decline?
A nation, like the United States, has only so many ways to repay what is borrowed: sell national assets, like land or buildings; inflate
the currency; devalue the dollar; or raise everyone‚s taxes (I do mean everyone because the numbers and income of the so-called „rich‰ are insufficient for that level of debt repayment). Keynesian theory, i.e.
government spending as economic stimulus, was a failure during the Great Depression. President Roosevelt‚s own Trea- sury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, testified to Congress that the mas- sive amounts of govern- ment spending had failed to improve unemploy- ment or America‚s econ- omy. We have had stimu- lus and spending binges, starting under President Bush, through Obama‚s 2009 trillion dollar (w/interest) stimulus, to car buying and home mortgage incentives, including multiple trillions of deficit spend- ing. Unbelievably, liberal advocates like the above columnist insist we need more spending. If that were curative to our sagging economy, we‚d be in financial „high cotton." We‚re not; it‚s been a failure because it defies common financial sense. Laws like ObamaCare and Dodd/Frank do nothing, worse than nothing, to inspire businesses to expand hiring or plan expansion. So then the writer, supremely, arrogantly confident that more gov- ernment spending will create jobs, raise incomes and the economy (against all evidence), descends to demonization of, and falsehoods about, Republicans. The shameless narrative seems to be "Obama/Democrats great, Repub-
Don
Polson The way I see it
licans baaad, really bad." Well, to succinctly correct some falsehoods: The goal of both parties has always been to unseat oppo- nents; Republicans did not create the credit downgrade — govern- ment debt (mostly creat- ed by Democrats), approaching 100 percent of our GDP, did. Nor are Republicans "posturing to again force a fabricat- ed financial crisis." High unemployment, a sput- tering economy and suf- fering Americans have not resulted from 9 months of a Republican House of Representa- tives, but from 5 years of Democrat Congresses, nearly 3 years under
President Obama, and two and a half years of pathetic recovery completely due to Obama econom- ic policies. Remember the writer's advocacy of failed theories and fab- rications in the future. Note: We would have enjoyed the Jim Nielsen/Tehama Republi- can fundraiser at Jim's Gerber home, with marvelous tri tip by Cattle Country Catering and Bar- B-Que, even more if we had known what a victory the Assemblyman would have in court against Don Bird last Friday.
Correction: The movie "Net-
work" made in 1976, was set in a 1970s recession, not the Great Depression.
Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.
