Low Cash Flow

Now how on earth am I going to stay off Medicaid?  Obamacare says that everyone under an income level of about $30,000 a year MUST go on Medicaid, the poor people’s insurance.  The last 3 years I was in business, I made $29K a year and that got me curious.  How much would I have made had I not continuously taken money out of savings to help my businesses?  Answer is that for 2 decades I averaged $29,000 a year.  Rats!  Do I have to be on poorhouse insurance now?  Medicaid hardly has any doctors accepting patients.  They all look like Gosnell.  And under Obamacare, the program is going to be Death By Bureaucracy.

            How does this Low Cash Flow come about?  Well, many small businessmen are like many farmers.  They show very little cash flow but their assets continue to increase in value.  That’s why almost half the Millionaires Next Door are farmers who own valuable land. When a quarter section of grass brings $200,000 around here yet only generates $3500 in annual income—a little less than 2% return—you can see how hard it is to make a living.  But that is what farmers, small businessmen and ranchers do.  They learn to live on less than $20K a year and enjoy it.  Imagine a socialist economy where everyone is paid $40K a year.  If 49 out of 50 people spend all they make, they have nothing but social security to retire on.  But say, that last guy who gets his 40 thou can live on 30.  He saves $10,000 a year and winds up the Millionaire Next Door.  And since the above-mentioned careers have such frightening financial ups and downs, this is precisely what these guys do just to not go broke. “If you can just break even when hogs are sellin’ bad—then you can make big money as a hog man.”

            If you are one of these kinds of folks, you tend to laugh at the TV journalists who cry about “the poor”. They treat the entire universe as if people are salaried and can’t control their spending.  Even if you aren’t a millionaire (many businessmen have had bad health, horrid struggles, and other problems that short circuit their wealth building) but are still in business for yourself—and there are 11million of us, 10% of the population—you shake your head in confusion over media stories and figures of speech.  I know all sorts of wealthy people today who spent most of their lives living below the poverty line.  And still they live a rich life full of grandkids and friends.

            So are we going on Medicaid, as dictated by Uncle Sugar?  Uncle can’t figure out what is wrong with us, the people who build America’s businesses.  He has offered states a big sugar tit of federal funding, at least for a couple years for states to expand Medicaid.  Who could refuse?  Well, half the states evidently.  Oklahoma is determined to pay our own Medicaid and has set aside an extra $40 million to handle the people Obamacare is going to threaten with fines or jail time if they don’t buy insurance or go on Medicaid.  But by funding ourselves, the Medicaid rolls retain the old limits and are going to expand about 20% instead of doubling like Obama wants. 

            It is as if the Oklahoma Peronistas are telling Peron to go back to his lousy Nazi villa. Stop trying to ram your healthcare down our throats!  We will take care of our own.  But don’t underestimate Peron.  His healthcare is going to try to demand that all policies conform to what Uncle Sugar requires.  No more insurance policies with a large deductibles to make them affordable for small businesses and farmers.  They will require very low deductibles like the no-assets-no-nothing poor can only afford. Of course the whole intent is to drive Oh Ye of Little Budget into the arms of government bureaucrats.  We are here from the government to help you.  (Reagan’s “Nine most terrifying words of the English language.”)

            Still, I take comfort in the resolve of our Oklahoma legislature and Governor and Insurance Commissioner.  Seems like almost all these people are resistant to Federal Dole.  Obamacare may collapse before it really manages to corner me and put the Medicaid Star of David on my chest. And why would OK pols be so resistant?  It’s because almost all of ‘em are former farmers and small businessmen who learned to live on low cash flow.

Make sense?   

            

Levin for Special Prosecutor

Remember 1992, when the week before the Presidential election, Leonard Walsh who was special prosecutor for Iran-Contra announced his list of people to be prosecuted.  The result was that Bush 41 went from 3 points ahead in polls to 2 points down.  That was because Walsh was a partisan hack who chose the date to make his announcement to maximize effect—the October Surprise.  And then do you remember how in the succeeding months, all the accused folks beat their raps in courts.  Even Ollie North, supposedly the ringleader, who had 11 charges against him won on 9 counts and the judge dismissed the other 2. 

 

I’m thinking of this because they are calling for a special prosecutor for the IRS scandal.  When over 500 Tea Party organizations claim they were singled out by the IRS and no liberal groups were, it looks a bit fishy.  I say we nominate Mark Levin, a superb constitutional lawyer, to be special prosecutor.  He could turn this administration every which way but loose. 

 

Of course, if the Republicans can’t pin the tail on jackass Obama, then he gets by scot-free with big approval ratings.  For this reason, I think the R’s would do themselves a good turn by not going after Obama specifically, but rather to raise the rebellion against big government.  Which is what the Tea Parties are trying to do anyway.  Any government large enough to give you everything you want is also large enough to take it all away.  We need to hammer and hammer the point that big government isn’t helping.  Say, wasn’t the big government stimulus supposed to fix all the infrastructure?  Roads, bridges, potholes, free wi-fi, fast trains from LA to Los Vegas were supposed to appear as Shovel-Ready Projects, were they not? So why did that bridge fall down in Washington? Wasn’t it fixed? Never happened, because the feds gave the moolah to the states for keeping the pro-Obama union government workers hired and secure.  Did doubling the national debt help our economy?  Well, the new normal in recoveries is now 1% growth instead of 4% since government crowds out the private sector.  Fewer jobs but lots of entitlements until government figures out that they can’t afford such stuff. 

 

Big government with no responsibility has given us the EU.  The Economist says that the European leaders think they are now doing a well-managed reform but Economist says they are sleepwalking through an economic wasteland. Nothing is growing.  No jobs are being created.  More and more countries slip into recession.  The EU’s unemployment in a recovery is 12% (post-war high)and Spain’s is 27%.  Instead of Europe talking about emulating America, it’s the other way around.  Well, if that’s the case, I want voucher education like Scandinavia (which has some of the best education in the world.).

 

The worst offense of big government isn’t the economic stagnation.  It’s the loss of freedom.  The original Tea Party stunt was against unfair taxation. But the Declaration of Independence buries “no taxation without representation” in the middle of 22 other abuses of power. We should concentrate on the abuses too.  That’s what rouses people up.  IRS abuses will not be looked upon lightly.  Churches, told who they can have as ministers and what they can believe, will stand up in faith.  EPA killing small family businesses with regulation are stories with more legs. 

 

And concerning the traditional social issues there needs to be some new talk.  Why, oh why, when the Koran requires Muslims to “Pursue the infidels and beleaguer them. Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” (Sura 9:3) Why don’t we have a moratorium on Muslim immigration?  If jihadic Islam is normative Islam and all this talk about the peaceful religion is a concocted fake Islam--as the mullahs have been saying since that British soldier was killed, the Boston bombings, and the Swedish riots---then is it not a political movement intertwined with a religious fanaticism?  Shouldn’t we give Chechen rebels about as much immigration approval as say, a radical communist or a Nazi?

 

Why doesn’t Congress pass hard-hitting resolutions decrying loss of freedom when churches are told what to believe?  When czars are put in place with no advice and consent of Congress?  When the Justice Department refuses to uphold the laws of the land like DOMA?  When the federal government tries to tell a private company they cannot move a plant to S. Carolina?  When bankruptcy laws were trashed and the auto companies were gifted to the UAW?  This is indeed the tyranny  around the corner.  Just wait.  When a government that thinks, no one is watching, and it can get away with these kinds of things, will violate unreasonable seizure  of the 4^th Amendment and take part of your 401K.  They’ll propose making political opinion radio conform to “equal time”.  They’ll label evangelical Christians in the Army as religious extremists.  Ooops! They’ve already proposed these things. Gosh, I dunno, they might try to take your ammunition supplies.

 

Well, if Congress won't do it, Levin would.  We need somebody to talk plain.

Demolish Oblamer with ju jitsu

Obama’s secret is now becoming clear.  He scaremongers and crab-asses from the sidelines.  Amazingly he has turned the tables on the party out of power and managed to mimic their game of critiquing from the back row.  What should the R’s do when we have a President who seems to content himself with bashing them for not doing his job--leading the country?  After all, the Republicans have no power to lead. They have only a slim majority in the House. 

Ju-jitsu is how the Republicans win it. 

First of all, this swell game of Obama’s is not playing so well over the last two weeks.  He is beset with scandals.  Here’s the chance to flip the tables on Obama’s arguments.  No matter what the explanation, it is clear that tax officials singled out the president’s opponents for abuse.  How can he then persuade Americans of the virtues of bigger government if the IRS is politically biased? Hence his chief argument is wearing thin.  Realizing this, Obama is trying to say that he is disdainful of what the IRS did.  But in the coming weeks there will be testimony showing that the IRS has a built-in distrust of conservatives, that the scope of targeting which the administration claimed is far wider and more insidious, and that he didn’t do a darned thing to stop it.  This  isn’t going to play well for him.  And unlike Bengazi where he might make a few drone strikes against the consulate attackers (and proudly say ‘we got Al Anser Sharia’ just like he proudly said, ‘we got bin Ladn.”) there is no fix of the IRS without a massive reform that Congress might demand.  So that’s item 1: Demand massive IRS changes be made—or even tax reform to a fair tax-- perhaps holding Obamacare hostage to the assurance that IRS become fair in their assessments.  Secondly, use Bengazi and AP scandals to harass. Flip the tables on him.

 

By making Obama’s scandals the headlines and tying them to his lack of leadership, he is forced out of his catbird seat of Non-leadership Critic in Chief.   Ju-jitsu point #2 : Make him propose something to fix the messes.  This is what Obama apparently doesn’t do or hates doing.  He rarely creates a solution.  He never wrote legislation as a Senator.  He let others write Obamacare.  He didn’t do an immigration reform.  He talks a big act about all these things including entitlement reform, but never proposes his own solutions.  Now it may be that Obama thinks he can’t work with Republicans, but his legacy depends on him trying.  And the longer he delays, the more leverage he loses.  I predict that he will do only the minimal. He is a man without solutions.  His game is to blame R’s for everything. 

 

So what do you do with a leader who won’t lead but just criticizes?  Be patient and offer your own solutions even though doomed in passage.  Patience.  Wait for a crisis to strike. Our debt will either cause no-growth or inflation.  Make sure Obama is in charge of this, by reminding the American people that a Republican House passed a budget every year that would have led to balanced budgets within a few years.  Foreign crisis or a 9/11 event?  Remind the public that Republicans had policies of containment of certain dangerous countries.  Obama pronounced the war on terror over like Mission Accomplished and it led to a mess. Obamacare?  Refuse to amend it or fix it.  Let it stand or fail on it’s own merits.  Tie it around the Democrat’s necks.  Point out that R’s had passed numerous repeals.  Here’s the salient point.  When times are good, people don’t like to think about policies.  But when times are bad, they clamour for each side to tell what they are going to do. If something bad happens to a guy in power, he has a hard time explaining how he will fix it since he’s already in charge.

 

And what of the 3 big issues that need addressing in Congress—immigration, entitlements, tax reform?  Ju-jitsu #3.  Pass a House plan in each case but don’t compromise on key parts.  On immigration reform, don’t compromise the border security or Visa overstaying strictures.  Those must come first, ahead of citizenship.  On entitlement reform, offer to raise retirement age but not payroll taxes and point out that the political gimmick of lowering payroll taxes for one year made the system less solvent.  On tax reform, the Dems want all sorts of money grabs to raise more revenue.  Value added taxes will kill business.  Corporate taxes already make it hard for US businesses to compete.  Taxing everyone’s IRA or 401k is an fascist asset grab.  And raising taxes of the rich did pitifully nothing to help our deficits.  All the Dems use them for is to soften up the middle class for a tax hike that is coming unless we cut spending.  Here’s the point.  Don’t let Oblamer blame you.  Point out your solutions and show how you tried to work with him but he was AWOL.

 

And that reminds me, the R’s need to reclaim the role of the opposition party out of power.  Boil down their rhetoric into more understandable terms.  Do the American people realize that an average health care policy costs $5000 per worker and has gone up $3000 since Obamacare was passed, and will likely go to $10,000 by 2016 and all because of government mandates?  Who is going to pay for this?  Do the people realize that 16% of small businesses think the tax system is fair and 89% of us pay for help doing our taxes spending $168 billion each year?  It’s a too-complicated  mess when the IRS collects only 8 times that much. Time for a fairer system. Do the people realize that Muslim Brotherhood, which now runs Egypt, is the parent organization that oversees Al Qaeda?  Why are we giving them aid? Do they know that the Quran, not radicalization, demands jihad and maybe we need a moratorium on Muslim immigration? 

 

We need a plain-spoken spokesman who connects with real people the way Sarah Palin did. 

Watching the squirming

Okay, call me perverse, but I love to watch MSNBC and Rachel Madcow when the Democrats are squirming about something.  This week has been classic with Bengazi, IRS targeting and AP phones.  So what are the Dems saying?  EJ Dione said that it is all a tempest in a tea party pot. That most people support the President.  He says that Obama won decisively (what? 50.3%?) and  that there will always be a disgruntled 20 or 30 percent that don’t adore the Prez, but ‘we aren’t going to allow them to speak’. Whoa! Does that include the AP? 

 The British magazine, The Economist, often sympathetic to our Democrats, sees Obama as longing for his winning majority of the election.  His very capable campaigners managed to get minorities and youth and single mothers to vote where they usually have poor turnout.  But once the election was over, these folks aren't very political and they disappear.  Hence Obama continues to operate his campaign organization, raising money like it was an election year, trying desperately to keep these people inspired to vote for their local Democrat congressional challenger.  But the low-info voters don't even know who their current congressman is.  So Obama faces a dilemma.

            Hardball Matthews had a leading authority in the form of a cub reporter whose name I missed but he looked all of 22 years old.  Breathlessly he explained that someone had told him that the reason Bengazi had gone bad was that Ambassador Stevens had twice told the guys in Washington he needed no help, thank you.   And so that’s why the military was told to stand down twice.  Matthews celebrated this point with a belief void of any skepticism.  He told the young guy to follow up on this story since it surely would exonerate both Hillary and B. Hussein.  Hmm.  Methinks something is rotten in Denmark since we have Steven’s diary complaining loudly about lack of security.  Moreover, if such would have been the case, doesn’t one think that President Out Of The Loop would have immediately jumped on this explanation from the first day? “It was very sad that the Ambassador refused for us to intervene…”

            Representative Joe Crowley (does he get his debate points from Candy?) defended IRS outgoing head honcho Steve Miller saying that the R’s were making partisan mockery of the hearing in asking Miller a lot of hard questions.  “Same o’, same o’” he insisted.  Did Crowley get the memo that Miller was fired by Obama?

Bett Midler, upon learning that IRS had targeted Tea Party groups, said “thank you! Thank You, IRS!” Alec Baldwin said the IRS scandal is “merely a Rovian pushback.”  (Push em back! Push em back! way back!) Bill Mahrer noted, "The IRS targeted people who want to abolish the IRS? Shocking, like getting pulled over more after U put on the F--- the Police bumpersticker." You know, I’ve never had an 'F--- the Police' bumpersticker let alone put one on.

            Now returning from La-la land, I notice that my plumbing supply house, which has had no political postings in several decades of business, now has a picture taped to their cash register.  It is of Obama’s face photoshopped onto Sargeant Schulz and captioned, “I see not’ing, I hear not’ing.” “Everybody is getting a big kick out of it,” Fred insists.  Maybe he should give his poll results to EJ Dione.

            If the IRS management knew about the targeting in 2011, and had a meeting about it in May 2012, and then allowed it to continue, allowed confidential data about the Tea Parties to be handed over to a leftist PAC which specializes in attack ads, then I have a suggestion for House Republicans.  Simply refuse to allocate any funds for the IRS until a Special Prosecutor is appointed by a panel of federal judges.  Stand by the decision when Obama and the Dems scream about government shut-down.  Then refuse to let IRS administer Obamacare until it is cleared by the Prosecutor.  It’ll get their attention.  But then crazy guys like me suggest such things because we like to watch the Dems squirm.

the first conservative

Digging back in my head looking for who I would nominate the first conservative. 

            Crowned queen amid uncertainty.  Her country was broke but at the end of her reign the country was rich and the best credit risk in Europe due to her conservative monetary policies.  The country was defenseless when she ascended the throne, having had years of neglect of both army and navy.  When she left it was supreme on the seas.  Reformed her church, quelled religious strife, leaving a legacy of doctrine. 

            And thus they call her Elizabeth the Great.  Only by the grace of God did she become queen.  Her Grandfather Henry VII was a wily character who married his sons and daughters to gain political alliances.  He married son#1, Arthur, to Katherine of Aargon, hopeful to cement a Spain-England alliance.  (Yes, there really was to be a king-to-be Arthur.)  But Art died young before assuming the throne.  Henry VII, to keep the alliance going, arranged for son#2, Henry, to marry Katherine.  It was a horrid marriage.  Energetic HenryVIII wanted a son as heir and Katherine could only give him a daughter, Mary Tudor.  In 1533, Hank defied the pope and had his own Archbishop of Canterbury annul the  marriage.  He married Ann Bolin, who tried hard to have a son, but only got miscarriages and a little red-haired girl.  Henry accused Ann of infidelity and had her beheaded.  He married third time, Jane Seymour, then a 4^th, 5^th and 6^th time and got a son Edward.    Henry went mad from syphilis he had contracted along the way and died in 1547.  Edward became king.  The two girls had been declared bastards by a complicit Parliament.  But Edward was very, very young and died seven years later. Now who was to be queen-- Mary Tudor or Mary Stuart, who was Queen of Scotland and a cousin? 

            The people were largely Catholic, having been born Catholic, but under Henry, the church was like Catholicism without a pope—the King was declared head of the church in England, hence making it Protestant in name.  Mary Stuart would have been the choice of the majority, but Parliament was Protestant.  When Hank had taken over church lands, he handed them out to supporters who fretted that if Catholicism were re-established in England, they would lose lands and maybe their heads.  Mary Tudor was the chosen as a defender of royal rights over the church but she was also Catholic. “Bloody Mary” became embroiled in theology and began to severely persecute Protestants, putting many to death. But 5 years later she was dead, ironically the victim of a severe feminine disorder misdiagnosed as pregnancy.  Bloody Mary hemorrhaged to death.  Even more ironically, 4 years before, Elizabeth was implicated in a plot of overthrow Mary and was awaiting execution in the Tower, when suddenly Mary had a most unusual change of heart and pardoned her. 

            So in 1558 as Elizabeth’s coronation parade went past the Tower, she saw herself as queen by grace alone.  She was hanging by a thread.  The defenses of England had been neglected for 12 years and the British Isles were ripe for foreign takeover. France had 4 times as many people and strong ties to Scotland.   The currency was rotten, Interest was 14%, the government ran off crown lands (no income taxes then) and they had been mismanaged terribly.  Catholics and Protestants looked to be on the brink of war.  Pauperism was rampant.  England was known for its backwardness, though occupied Ireland, with almost no roads was worse.  But every experience that Elizabeth had encountered had made her survival instincts strong.  Only a strong absolute monarch (it was thought) could provide peace.  Nobody expected to find the heart of an emperor behind the smiles of a 25-year-old girl. 

            She honored her brother and father’s debts.  She appointed commoners, had them knighted. They had particular management skill for the crown lands.  William Cecil had particular genius for wise and conservative policy.  Elizabeth was not given to rapid decisions, but she had the brains, like Ronald Reagan to wait out the consequences and trusted her strong advisors.  Low taxes(fees), flourishing trade, domestic order and peace were her unwaivering goals.  As a diplomat Elizabeth was without peer. 

            She spent practically nothing, except for her gowns.  Realizing that if she could advertize herself as marriageable, she would hold off the suitors and could play them against one another.  And so she held a court as if it was one continuous party.  A mask followed by a ball followed by another mask.  The arts flourished with Shakespeare and hundreds of others.  Ambassadors came with proposals from their kings.  What a prize! A beautiful young girl comes with the dowry of the British Isles!  She ate like a bird, had a fetish to stay youthful, danced like a troubadour, rode horses like the men, and traveled the country from village to village lavishing toasts and kind words on the local barons.  Soon all England loved her—or at least loved the low taxes and flourishing trade.  She was a Protestant but left constant hints about not straying far from Catholicism tempting the Catholic Princes of Europe with designs to bring England back to the fold.  “If she were not a heretic,” said Pope Sixtus V, “she would be worth the whole world.” 

            Virginity was her secret weapon, and modern historians speculate without much proof that she had trysts, or was gay or hemophroditic.  Philip II the great potentate of Catholic Christendom and the Hapsburg dynasty asked her hand in marriage in 1559 but she rejected this device for making England a Catholic dependency of Spain.  Elizabeth was married to England.

            She could cuss like a boar hunter (and did both) and once she had made a decision she was the Iron Lady like Thatcher.  When in danger she was all courage and intelligence.  She spoke French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Greek--speaking directly to foreign envoys without translater. 

            In all governments before 1789, it was taken for granted that some religion was necessary for social order.  Elizabeth liked the Catholic ceremony, had not so much committal to a life of faith,  but Luther’s grace was her issue.  England was Catholic without the pope since Henry VIII.  Protestant refugees from all over Europe had fled to London and brought Calvinism and other versions.  So typically politician, she arranged a Convocation in 1563 for the Protestants who then hammered out 39 Articles.  The new Anglican faith was Lutheran in most doctrine but Reformed in the Eucharist.  Ritual remained almost Catholic.  Masses, Catholicism were abolished and all Brits were to attend church regularly or pay a fine.   Now it was the turn of Catholics to suffer persecution.  Governments of the time considered that theological dissent was a form or political revolt and so about 60 Catholics were executed and a couple hundred imprisoned for their dissent.  This was nothing compared to the other nations of Europe and Elizabeth was tolerant in many ways.  In 1581, the Catholics on the continent, growing impatient with this Anglican queen called for her assassination.  It was foiled and she emerged more beloved by the English than ever—Catholic and Protestant.

            That was also about the time that Hawkins and Drake began to raid Spanish shipping with a vengeance.  The English were pirates. English Channel is well named.  English pirates went after Spain’s New World merchant vessels, and Elizabeth was secretly building ships for the pirates—a share of the loot was the payback.  All the while officially Spain and England were at peace and she claimed she could do little about the renegades.  When Drake and  Hawkins began to raid the Azores and the Caribbean and stole the African Slave Trade from Portugal, the Spanish had had enough.  They began to build an Armada to invade England. Now it may seem to us moderns that slave trade and piracy are disgusting acts, but in 1580 they were practiced by most nations.  Think of Elizabeth trying to break the Spanish and Portugese monopolies.

            1588 was do or die and Elizabeth found the English supporting her in excess of what she asked. Weather was part of the downfall of the Spanish fleet, but so were poor seamanship and tactics.  Spanish tactics were to pull alongside and grapple with hooks to join the boats for a massive hand-to-hand swordfight.  The English used cannons and strafed the Spaniards, and sent floating inferno boats into their fleet . They  defeated the Armada in a series of running battles for 3 weeks in July 1588. Of 130 ships and 27,000 men who had sailed from Spain, 10,000 mostly sick and hurt came home in 54 ships.  England had 82 ships and only a dozen lost.  England now had the way clear to settle in N. America, the greatest navy in the world, a stable currency, and it was insured that Europe would remain half-Protestant.

            Elizabeth was no saint or sage, but a woman of temper and passion, in some ways the wiser counterpart to her father.  She kept succession questions at bay while Mary Stuart was alive. Then Stuart's son James became King of Scotland.  Typically rebellious, he had turned Protestant and snubbed his French relatives.  He would be the new English king to oppose France and authorize the translation of the Bible.   

            Denied husband and child, Elizabeth mothered England, loved it, used herself up serving it.  She is still thought of as the greatest monarch England ever knew.  Low taxes and fees, patriotic, listened to everyone, built a strong national defense, broke the Spanish monopoly on the new world.  Looks like a conservative to me.

Imposing our Sovereignty

Barack Obama, President of the Galaxy, apologized for the USA “imposing our sovereignty” on Mexico yesterday.  I’ve been looking at the news but so far have found nowhere are Americans trying to take over Chihuahua or Sonora.  So then is Barack the Magnificent doing a historical apology?  (Strange apologies.  He always apologizes for the rest of us but never himself.) La Raza, the radical Mexican party has always claimed we took the US Southwest from them.  And nowadays you hear this interpretation more often.  So is Obama thinking of giving back California?  If he does, their debt goes with it. 

            But because I like history and studied Mexican history before we took our Mex foster daughter, it struck me that Barack needs to consult his history books.  Here’s what I remember.

            In 1824, Mexico was trying to get Anglos to emigrate to Tejas.  Mexico’s economy was based on a Spanish medieval model, the plantation, or hacienda model.  In this economy, a big shot was given rights to thousands of acres and ownership rights to all the people who were native to that area, whether they agreed or not.  The Hacienda owner would then induce, with promise of a good beef steak, or convert by the sword, or just round up the natives and make serfs out of them.  This functions somewhat in a heavily populated area, like the Central Mexican Plateau.  But farther north, where the Indians were unsubdued, and the population scarce it didn’t work.  Beginning in the 1820’s Mexico begged US Anglos, Czechs, and Germans to settle in the Hill Country of Texas and thus provide a buffer against the fierce Commanches (some suckers to protect the coastal haciendas).  The new citizens got Santa Anna to sign a treaty in 1824 allowing Tejas to have constitutional government, but Santa Ana was a dictator and reneged on his promise.  Thus Texans rebelled and had claimed independence by 1836.  Everybody recognized the new Republic of Texas except Mexico. 

            The fact that Mexico City didn’t really care much about the northern desert, but still claimed it, is indicated by lack of supplies provided to the Santa Fe area and virtually no population in what is now US Southwest.  California originally had 150,000 Indians and late in the game, the 1700’s, the Spanish sent in missionaries, who, in cahoots with the big shot landclaimers, virtually massacred all of them.  By 1848 there were about 30,000 Europeans in Alta California, 40,000 in Texas, and 10,000 in Neuva Mexico in between.  Most of the new arrivals in Neuva Mexico were Mormons and Anglos who could trade over the Santa Fe Trail with Kansas City easier than with Mexico City.  The reason why the Norte Americanos had successfully flooded this vast and somewhat barren land was capitalism.  Capitalism succeeds because it allows people to make money by serving others and using free markets. Other systems succeed by enslaving people.

            In March 1845 President John Tyler, a Whig, signed a last-act-of-his-term deal to admit Texas as a state.  Mexico was ticked and wanted to go to war.  Then came Democrat Polk who offered to buy Texas and areas west for $5 million.  Britain and France both tried to soothe Mexico and encouraged them to accept the deal. Mexico said nuts and USA subsequently won the war.  In the Treaty of Gwaddaloopie Hidalgo, Mexico was given $15 million and another $3.25 million to settle US citizen debts.  Good deal for Mexico! Got more money even though they lost the war.  And any  person in the the Southwestern area could claim Mex or US citizenship--“Amnesty” if you will.  Though Mexico was humiliated, a lot of people in Mexico thought they had gotten a wonderful deal for this godforsaken land up north.  A few months later, however, gold was discovered east of San Francisco. Within 12 months, the population of California doubled to 60,000.  And ever since then, Mexico has had a change of heart and has been bitching about USA “intervening” and taking what was rightfully theirs.

            But to the Americans from USA, this looked like Mexico sitting on a plot of land without doing much to really occupy it, with a claim to it made by long-lost conquistadors.  Can you just plant a flag, claim something, and then leave?  My Mex daughter, proud American citizen, said the answer is not No, it is Hell No!      

Have you done the math?

I have been hearing all sorts of political angles on immigration reform.  Hannity had Sen. Jeff Sessions on yesterday and he wants absolutely no part of any kind of reform.  Ditto Corker of Tennessee.  But then Limbaugh interviewed Rubio and had a lot of hard questions which Rubio fielded very well, saying that both a secure border and secure Visa management is a must before any pathway to citizenship can take place. And he admits that, done for purely political strategy, reform is likely to hurt Republicans.  Plus you have to worry about Obama cooking the books to claim border is under control when it isn’t.

            I did the math on it.  DHS claims there are 11.1 million illegals.  Let’s say that we can secure our present border problem.  Rubio wants ¼ as many entering but that is still 200,000 a year and I’d like to see numbers like 25,000 a year before we pronounce  the problem solved.  But then where do 11.1 million new citizens leave the Republicans?  Well, consider that about half are working age—16—so slightly fewer are voting age.  But then if you analyze Hispanic voting among citizens today, you discover that only 44% vote.  So the 11.1 million suddenly becomes about 2.5 million actual voters.  If they go 2:1 Democrat, that is a net loss of about 800,000 votes nationwide.  Compared with 138 million votes cast by the rest of us, or 0.6%.  Another way to look at this is that while Hispanics make up 11% of US population, they comprise only 7% of voters—10 million.  Adding another 2.5 million would up the 7% to about 9%.  But then the margin of Democrat gain is 1/3 of this or again 0.6%.  This might make a difference in a very close Kennedy-Nixon contest, but not in most elections.

            The next thing to think about is how loyal these first generation immigrants will be to the Democrats.  In a slack economy, they are least employable due to language and education deficiencies.  Thus they go on welfare, run by those air-headed states who don’t forbid illegals from getting freebies.  But states are running out of money, Hispanics like to work, and by second generation, Hispanics vote only 55% Democrat.  Within 10 years of entry into USA only 68% remain Catholic.  Evidently becoming an American encourages adjustment of thinking.  And that is what Rubio is counting on, ten years after borders close when those folks become citizens.  If the R’s play their cards right, they have a good chance of winning like they do in New Mexico where 40% of the population are Hispanos and long time citizens. 

 

    The jury is still out, but I think there is the possibility of a reform bill if R's in House can make some reasonable demands for structure.