New Year's Resolutions - 2011 (Part I)

The end of the year is fast upon us, and for many of us it's once more time to make those time honored 'resolutions' of expectations that we have for ourselves for the coming year.  

I find myself on the eve of the election year of 2012 looking at the process much as I did in 2009 in a New Year's Resolution effort for the Toledo Free Press, and added to here in Just Blowing Smoke. I find that in the intervening years, I have held surprisingly firm to those resolutions; so perhaps it's time now to offer a few more serious ones and let you who have lost far too many hours reading the nonsense of JBS decide whether they have value, and whether I stick to them in the days ahead.

• I resolve to treat the pronouncements of Republicans and Democrats (and even Libertarians) with equal disdain, knowing such pronouncements can often be little more than the empty noise of political expediency at best and despicable political pandering at worst.
• I resolve to speak out whenever the opportunity arises against the unjust practice of forcing taxpayers to pay for primary elections in this country. If D's and R's require such ballots to pick candidates, let them pay for the process themselves.  If however, taxpayers are going to be forced to pick up the tab for these increasingly irresponsible organizations, let suffrage be universal and not restricted to club membership.
• I resolve to ignore most of what the 'pundits' say most of the time.  Most of this group is becoming just as guilty of self-serving bullshit as the politicians that they attempt to mold opinion on as they build them up, take them down, and pronounce them suitable for election (or not).
• I resolve to similarly ignore the polls, as they have become similarly tainted by their constant repetition and ever-changing results.  Polls may be of some use to candidates in determining their relative position in a given field or the sound bite that will get them the most media attention, but they are no basis for voters to use in choosing a candidate.  In fact, their influence on recent election process has probably done more harm than good  (at least according to my recent polling numbers). 
• I resolve to call out any misuse of the term 'spending cut'.  No longer allowing those in power to call a reduction in the increase in spending a cut. If you're spending more this year than you did last, and if you're planning on spending more next year, you haven't "CUT" anything. 
• I further resolve to call out any of the accounting trickery used to raise revenues (taxes) now in exchange for spending cuts later for the deceit that they are.  It has long been apparent that in this form of 'Wimpy Economics', taxes do increase, though no spending cuts inevitably occur.  Only changes that take effect immediately on both sides of the equation have equality.
• I resolve to highlight and attack any increase in the federal bureaucracy in this country.  Not only does it increasingly place the real power of government in the hands of people who are at no time responsible to the electorate, but the increasing restriction of their mandates is currently the greatest threat to freedom in this country.
• I resolve to continue to highlight the hypocrisy of politicians on both sides of the aisle talk about the reforms required in government union pensions and entitlement programs, while doing absolutely nothing to reduce the costs of their own compensation packages and pension programs.

At the very least, this should keep me busy enough to stay out of trouble in an election year that promises to be a truly 'target rich' environment.

Happy New Year!

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