Louisiana, Earmarks, Standing, & President Bush
By Jim Beers
Recently, I was interviewed on a radio program about some proposals I made, to
make more than a billion dollars available for hunting, fishing and trapping
programs nationwide, over the next two years. Additionally, my proposals
would have made more than $100 Million available each year for hunting, fishing,
and trapping programs. The interviewer was dumbfounded that these proposals
received no notice from the state agencies, or the hunting, fishing, and
trapping organizations, or from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - all of
whom profess support for these programs - and are always crying for "more"
money. One of those proposals was to stop the $80 Million taken from the
sport fishing excise taxes that is "earmarked" for the state of Louisiana
for "wetland restoration" and make those funds available to all states for
sport fish restoration. This perpetual "earmark" was placed into an
amendment of the law passed in the early 1990s by the amendment's sponsor,
Senator Breaux of (you guessed it) Louisiana. These "wetland restoration"
dollars have never been audited, and have (based on a reliable source) simply
been doled out to County politicians, for whatever mischief they can come up
with.
The morning of this radio interview, the Washington papers were full of the story of corruption in the new Governor of Maryland's administration. He had just fired a state employee for mentioning that the state was buying a "farm", for more than a million dollars above the appraisal. It turns out the farm's "owner" worked on the Governor's election campaign, and the "new" State Secretary of Natural Resources was a business partner of the guy also. But the thing that caught my eye was the sentence that read, "The commissioners agreed to purchase the Kudner Farm from the U.S. Land Alliance."
So the deed is signed off on by "the U.S. Land Alliance". Like the un-audited $80 M per year (more than a Billion dollars, by now) "earmarked" for Louisiana out of the sport fish excise taxes, the purchase of this farm remains un-audited. Care to bet that "the U.S. Land Alliance" got state and federal tax breaks, as they took the "easement" or some "development agreement" that put them in the position of "signing off" on this sale? Care to bet that the landowner got tax breaks for giving "the U.S. Land Alliance" whatever it was that put them on the deed? Care to bet that there was some state and federal "cost-sharing" (funding) and "partnering" with "the U.S. Land Alliance" - before the property was bought for a million dollars above appraisal?
Since it was a state appraisal for a state purchase, anyone with a brain should suspect that the appraisal was already inflated, simply to protect the state appraisers from the fate of the fired employee.
As Louisiana and New Orleans whine about how inept the rest of us are about their post-Katrina plight, corruption and ineptitude continue apace. The Louisiana Governor shows the same lack of leadership as she has to date. The people of New Orleans re-elect the same Mayor, who failed to evacuate the city while administering a corrupt police force made up of phantom officers for many years, in order to get "federal dollars". The U.S. Senator (Landrieu) "earmarks" supposedly "vitally needed" federal dollars for "recovery" for canal lock work for her political benefit, something the nation has no business funding. In the midst of this, the state bans cockfighting, a popular and long-standing family tradition extending back in Louisiana history, to before the Louisiana Purchase.
So, why don't "they" do something about this? Diverted federal excise taxes into County coffers; Federal/State/Non-Government "Trusts, Conservancies, Alliances, etc." using billions of dollars for their own benefit, as they gobble up the private property that has made this nation great; states blaming the federal government, as they keep their mouths open for "more" like birds in the nest: what can we do?
The answer appears to be: very little. Why? Well to name a few of the reasons: audits are not routine with federal expenditures or federal agencies (even when required, as with the hunting and fishing excise taxes going to state fish and wildlife agencies - the audits are postponed, conducted in a slipshod manner, uncooperative auditors are fired, and reports are rewritten by bureaucrats, without any consequences); the politicians we elect to run the country in line with Constitutional mandates are, too often, simply looking out after each other, in order to extend their own "rule"; things like the "need" for police, or to "restore wetlands" are more and more simply venues for buying power and/or influence; state resource agencies are less and less state entities, and more and more federal agency subsidiaries; and no one has "standing."
Since politicians are unresponsive, because it endangers their re-elections or the money they can control, and bureaucracies - from police to fish and wildlife - are profiting (jobs, promotions, bonuses, power, etc.) from cooperating with the politicians and radical groups; we are forced, in our system of government to appeal to the courts to enforce the Constitution.
However, in order to gain a hearing before a court you must have "standing". Standing means you suffer a direct and tangible impact from the wrong you are trying to right. If you lack standing, you lack the right to appeal to the court.So, who exactly is harmed by the transfer of $1 Billion-plus sport fish restoration dollars to Louisiana counties for other purposes? Who is harmed by a land scheme where state and federal dollars and tax breaks lavish millions on political cronies? Who is harmed by the steady removal of private property nationwide into non-taxpaying and tax draining government ownership? Who is harmed by "phantom" police officers, or a city that knowingly took millions for their "support"? Who is harmed by federal "relief" dollars being diverted to canal locks? Who is harmed by all the "Conservancies" and "Trusts" and "Universities" being steadily funded by tax dollars to undermine our way of life? The answer is, of course, the same folks harmed by all the government fiats and tax expenditures justified by a bird extinct for 60 years (Ivory-billed Woodpecker); and the same folks harmed by the effects to the American timber industry and rural America from false claims surrounding spotted owls and red-cockaded woodpeckers: that is to say: ALL OF US. But NONE OF US has standing before the court.
If the rancher is threatened by wolves eating his stock, killing his dogs, and threatening his children at the bus stop, he is forced to go to court alone, against the politician and the bureaucrats and the deep-pockets radical groups. How could someone like me prove harm from sport fishery money poured down Louisiana rat-holes? How could I fight to stop the thousands of scams, ongoing and past, between bureaucrats and radical land control groups, using my tax dollars to shift the nation from a bastion of private property, to a government fiefdom as seen in Russia or China?
Finding allies in this fight, and it is a fight, is very hard. Money is needed in large amounts. Lawyers committed to your ends are not widely available. University professors or veterinarians opposed to your freedoms and your traditions are widely available, and fees to support them come from both the public (agencies) and private (radical NGOs) sectors. The ultimate hurdle to overcome is the politicians' ace-in-the-hole - diversion.
This is not the diversion of funds; it is the diversion of your ire and attention. You may wonder why I mentioned "cockfighting" earlier in this article. When Governor Richardson of New Mexico decided to run for President, he signed a bill outlawing cockfighting in New Mexico. This historic activity and Hispanic tradition (along with many other ethnic groups) was outlawed to both deflect any criticism in the Presidential race but to also court the animal rights crowd. Likewise, Louisiana politicians "deep-sixed" cockfighting in their state, during all these scandals, to improve their image in times of scandal and to generate outside support. The very same arguments used to justify eliminating cockfighting will eventually be used by the same animal rights crowd, and certain veterinarians to eliminate hunting methods, and then hunting and trapping and fishing, and eventually, the husbandry of livestock and the keeping of pets, but of course, these groups have no standing, and as they disappear. one after the other, who will remember?
Which brings us to President Bush. Nationally we are in a vicious period of political confrontation between the President and the party in charge of Congress. We are in a war that the Congress wants to abandon. The electorate is sharply divided, and the President evokes a level of hate not seen for 35 years. Why 35 years?
Thirty-five years ago, President Nixon was widely despised by a segment of the electorate. The Congress wanted us out of Vietnam, no matter what it meant. We were in similar turmoil and debate, and politicians went to and fro as they tried to ride the waves and still get re-elected. So they "diverted" us with their "concern". The Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Animal Welfare Act all passed - and grew the federal establishment, while seizing state and individual rights. The wordings for the laws came from federal bureaucrats working with U.N. bureaucrats, and the states were quiet, as they sensed the future flow of federal dollars and the inevitability of federal hegemony.
It worked. Nearly all the Congress got re-elected. The President (in spite of his support for this stuff, and other things like price controls) was driven from office. The Party that controlled Congress won the next Presidential election. State agencies and Universities began receiving ever-greater amounts of federal "assistance". Through all of this, no one: not the hunter or fisherman,logger,rancher, or property owner, or pet owner,horse owner, rural resident, or even cockfighter, or so many others ever imagined what lay ahead for them and their way of life, as a result of this feel-good campaign. It was very like Roman Emperors who built public baths and circuses to keep the rabble happy, while conducting persecutions and other outrages. We were all diverted from the true impact of the political decisions that otherwise evoked so much anguish.
Today, the Congress writes laws to ban cockfighting transportation and the slaughter of horses, and the President signs them. The President's Secretary of the Interior proposes "Listing" polar bears because of baseless speculation about ice, decades from now, and the Congress cheers. The U.N. proposes the need to "list" penguins under U.S. laws, even though they do not inhabit U.S. territory, nor are they in any peril, and we all talk about this trivia, rather than the scandals perforating all these feel-good efforts more and more each day. Presidential candidates speak of nothing but doing "more" (environmentally) and vie for which one is "greenest" in both parties. Congressional stalwarts who tried valiantly to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to bring it in line with the Constitution, are driven from office with propaganda and lies generated by tax-exempt radical groups (that "partner" with federal agencies to spread wolves) spending millions to even old scores, via last-minute flyers in church parking lots (illegal) before the election.
All this is not to just be pessimistic. It is intended to remind you of how this upcoming election may be the most important election to rural America and Constitutional freedoms, of any in our lifetime. We are having our freedoms, money, and property taken away, one at a time, one group at a time.
Each time, it is just another small group, that we think we have no interest in, and that we are not like. Each report of scandal seems isolated from each of us, or simply goes unmentioned in the press. The hurdles to forming the necessary alliances to fight this are many, and not insignificant, from money, to standing, to earmarks.
Truly, many bureaucrats and professors and radical groups are eliminating our freedoms - like wolves reducing a flock of sheep, over time. The politicians we elect are supposed to function like shepherds and guard dogs for our freedoms, but they are not doing this. It will only get worse if we do not replace them, especially in this upcoming period of need for political "diversion". To quote an old Kazak Proverb: "When wolves kill sheep, the dogs grow fat."
Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@verizon.net
See biography for Jim Beers
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