Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 26, 2009 Page: 4 of 18
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OPINIONS
PAGE 4A
THE POLK COUNTY ENTERPRISE
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY ZB, 200»
Lawmakers, executives
must decide how to spend
federal stimulus dollars
AUSTIN - President Barack
Obama on Feb. 17 signed H.R. 1,
the economic stimulus package,
and Gov. Perry took pen in hand
to write the president a letter that
made it clear he was against the
stimulus before he was for it.
Other Republican governors
expressed misgivings about
accepting the money, but it appears
most state chief executives will
accept their states' share of the
$787 billion package after all.
Texas’ share is estimated at $17
billion, which includes about $5
billion for Medicaid and almost
$4 billion for public and higher
education.
"On behalf of the people of
Texas,” Perry wrote, “please allow
this letter to certify that we will
accept the funds in H.R. 1 and
use them to promote economic
growth and create jobs in a fiscally
responsible manner that is in the
best interest of Texas taxpayers. I
remain opposed to using these funds
to expand existing government
programs, burdening the state with
ongoing expenditures long after the
funding has dried up.”
Perry went on to express
pleasure in meeting President
Barak Obama in Philadelphia, and
said, “I appreciate your concern for
the Texans displaced by Hurricane
Ike."
On the subject of Hurricane
Ike recovery, Perry on Feb. 17
announced he asked the Federal
Emergency Management Agency
to waive or extend for 180 days
the deadline to file proof of loss
requirements for flood insurance
policyholders whose homes were
damaged by Hurricane Ike.
Perry said that currently,
policyholders are required to file
proof of loss by March 12, but an
extension would allow Texans the
same amount of time to file their
claims as was allowed following
Hurricane Rita in late summer
2005.
“With so many Texas homes
suffering flood damage related to
Hurricane Ike and so many families
who have not yet been able to
rebuild, a deadline of March 12 is
unrealistic,” Gov. Perry said. “I
urge FEMA to waive or extend the
deadline so that Texans with flood
insurance have adequate time to
file their claims.”
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on
Feb. 18 said he and his staff have
started looking at the federal
economic stimulus bill, a 1,100
page document. He said lawmakers
should be wary about relying on
one-time payments from the federal
government.
Speaker Joe Straus appointed a
House Select Committee on Federal
Economic Stabilization Funding.
Child protection bills are filed
Texas Attorney General Greg
Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Comyn and
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith on Feb.
TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION
State . Capital
1
W
HIGHLIGHTS
By Ed Sterling
19 joined forces to advance state
and federal legislative efforts to
protect young Texans from child
predators.
“With sexual predators
increasingly using new technology
to prey upon children, it is critical
that law enforcement stay ahead of
the criminals,” Abbott said.
“Innovative legislative responses
to high tech crimes are vital to the
ongoing success of our crackdown
on cyber predators and online child
pornographers. Thanks to creative
legislative initiatives at both
the state and federal levels, law
enforcement will have the legal
tools we need to help protect Texas
children.”
Abbott expressed support for
SB 689 by state Sen. Florence
Shapiro and HB 1239 state Rep.
Aaron Pena, legislation embodying
recommendations he made last
fall. The bills would require that
convictedsexoffenders provide their
e-mail addresses, mobile telephone
numbers, social networking aliases
and other electronic identification
information to the Department
of Public Safety’s sex offender
registry.
Cornyn, Abbott’s predecessor
as attorney general, sponsored
the Internet Stopping Adults
Facilitating the Exploitation of
Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act
of 2009 in the U.S. Senate and
Smith, a former Texas legislator,
sponsored companion legislation
in the U.S. House.
Health agency takes over recall
The Texas Department of
State Health Services on Feb. 20
announced would take over the
recall of products shipped from
Peanut Corporation of America’s
Plainview plant after getting no
response from the company to a
Feb. 12 recall order.
Manufacturers, distributors and
retailers believed to have received
products from the company in 2008
are being notified of the recall by
DSHS food safety personnel and
asked to take appropriate action to
protect consumers.
DSHS is hoping to find additional
customer lists from prior years in
the company’s records.
Letters to the Editor Policy
The Polk County Enterprise encourages readers to submit letters ex-
pressing their views and opinions. The letters will be published in the
Enterprise’s “Letters to the editor” column on Thursday or Sunday.
The letters may be written on any subject or issue of general inter-
est.
Letters must be accompanied by a name and mailing address and will
be subject to editing for grammar, punctuation, spelling and length.
Letters must include a telephone number for verification. We will not
publish the telephone number.
Readers should keep their letters brief and to the point. Each letter
should contain no more than 650 words. Letters exceeding that length
will be .subject to editing or withheld from publication. Letters will also
be subject to editing for libelous statements and commercialism.
This column is not meant as a forum for political candidates, although
we welcome comments from the public concerning campaign issues.
During election campaigns, we will not allow reference to specific local
candidates.
Letters may be submitted in person; mailed to “Letters to the editor,”
Polk County Enterprise, P.O. Box 1276, Livingston, TX 77351; sent by
fax to (936) 327-7156 or sent via e-mail to polknews@gmail.com.
Deadline for letters is 5 p.m. Tuesday for Thursday’s newspaper and
noon Friday for Sunday’s newspaper.
POLK COUNTY
ENTERPRISE
ALVIN HOLLEY. PUBLISHER
Telephone Number 936-327-4357
(USPS 437-340)
WEBSITE: www.EaitTexuNew8.Coni
BACKS’ SOW,
URUNE
In economic scorebook how do you show a 'saved' job
TTow will we know if
I—I President Obama's must-
X Ahave “stimulus" program
succeeds? Politicians grab credit
for everything, so we should come
up with a way to measure success.
Obama said, “I expect to be judged
by results.” Let's oblige him.
It won’t be easy. Obama promises
to “save or create" 3.5 million
jobs, but if the unemploy ment rate
is unchanged in four years, do we
credit Obama for saving 3.5 million
jobs that would have been lost?
If new jobs are created, should
stimulus get the credit? If the gain
is in the government sector or in
areas fed by taxpayer money, how
do we know that the job creation
didn’t crowd out the creation of
more and more productive jobs
(http://tinyurl.com/da3666)?
If the gain is in the private
sector, Obama’s boosters will
claim credit on the basis of the
“multiplier effect.” It’s a favorite
theory of politicians and their
court economists that government
spending has a bigger economic
jolt than cutting marginal tax
rates does. But not everyone is so
sure. (Harvard economist Gregory
Mankiw, for one (http://tinyurl.
com/aox2hf).)
The bottom line is that a lower
unemployment rate will not prove
that Obama’s “stimulus” worked.
Given time, the economy,
unless totally crippled by
government intervention, will
JOHN STOSSEL
regenerate itself. That’s because
an economy is not a machine that
needs jumpstarting. It is people
who have objectives they want
to achieve. They will not sit
on their hands forever waiting
for government to “fix” things.
Instead, they work to overcome
obstacles to get what they want.
Some banks are struggling, but
there are still people who want to
lend money and people who want
to borrow it. They will find each
other without government help.
During the Great Depression,
many Americans kept producing
in spite of the burdens imposed
by the FDR’s New Deal. (Amity
Shlaes calls these “the forgotten
man” (http://tinyurl.com/ac95au).)
Likewise today, economist Steven
Horvvitz writes (http://tinyurl.com/
a9nhop), “|T)he American people
are already doing something
to create wealth and hasten the
recovery, even if we are the ones
forgotten in the battle over what
Washington should do. Americans
are going to work every day and
providing for their families ...
increasing their savings rates,
making much needed capital
available to the private sector ...
imagining new and more efficient
ways to use valuable resources.”
We should make sure that
President Obama and his
congressional colleagues don’t take
credit for what we do. It wouldn’t
be the first time a “leader” ran in
front of a crowd and claimed to
have led the way.
What if the economy is still
in bad shape a year or two from
now? Will we get apologies from
Obama and the stimulus advocates
in Congress? Not a chance. Their
excuse is already prepared: The
stimulus was too small.
On the day Obama signed the
bill, his aides put out the word that
another may be needed. The blame
will not be put on the folly of
stimulus, only on the meagerness
of the spending.
Heads — big government wins.
Tails — free people lose. I don’t
want to play that game.
It’s important to remember that
government has no resources it
hasn’t first commandeered from
the private economy. Anything it
does to stimulate economic activity
necessarily preempts private
activity. Where is the gain? j j
Worse: Since monopoly)!
bureaucracies are not as efficient
as competitive businesse:
government efforts won’t get a:
much bang for the buck as privati
efforts. They will likely destro;
wealth.
Ah, say the Keynesians, peopltj
aren’t buying, and that’s why
businesses aren’t investing and
hiring. Only government cai)j
jumpstart the economy.
But people didn’t just wake up j
one day and decide not to consume j
and invest. They hold back
because the economy is uncertain:
Then they hold back more becausi
they don’t know what activist
government will do next. Will i
prop up housing or other prices')
Will it nationalize the banks? 1 j
The way to get private activity |
going again is to let markets adjust!
to reality and set prices accordingly i
Only then will economic activity
resume and unemployment recede)
If, through your perseverance,
things begin looking up, credit;
belongs not to President Obama
and Congress. It belongs to you.
John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC
News' "20/20” and the author
of “Myth, Lies, and Downright.
Stupidity." COPYRIGHT2008 BY
JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS’
SYNDICATE, INC.
Is the nation on a fatal trajectory?
B-MAILi AdvertMng/CirculalJon: polknewieijvingilofl.net Newsroom: polknewie(m*il.com
Entered u Poiodictl Matter at the Post Office at Livingston. TX 77351
Any erroneous reflection upon the character, standing or reputation of any person, firm or corporation which
may ypsor in this newspaper will be gladly corrected upon being brought to the attention of the publisher.
Opinions expressed in columns ate those of the writer and not necessarily those of this newspaper. Opinions
expressed in editorial are those at the Enterprise. POSTMASTER: Periodical postage paid at Livingston, TX.
Please tend address changes to PO. Box 1276. Livingston. Texas 77351._ _
In rcpnrl .i tl.im.itittl/iiils'iiil! |i.i)>i r nr In repurl a lirukin undine niathim tall ext. III?
A n increasing number of
recent letters and e-'mails
L Xfrom readers strike a
note, not only of unhappiness with
the way things are going in our
society, but a note of despair.
Those of us who are pessimists
are only a step away from despair
ourselves, so we may not be the
ones to offer the best antidote to
the view that America has seen
its best days and is degenerating
toward what may well be its worst.
Yet what hope remains is no less
precious nor any less worthy of
being preserved.
First of all, the day-to-day life of
most Americans in these times is
nowhere near as dire as that of the
band of cold, ragged and hungry
men who gathered around George
Washington in the winter at Valley
Forge, to which they had been
driven by defeat after defeat.
Only the most reckless gambler
would have bet on them to win.
Only an optimist would have
expected them to survive.
Against the background of those
and other desperate times that
this country has been through, we
cannot whine today because the
stocks in our pension plans have
gone down or the inflated value
that our houses had just a few years
ago has now evaporated.
In another sense, however,
looming ahead of us — and our
THOMAS SOWELL
children and their children — are
dangers that can utterly destroy
American society. Worse yet,
there are moral corrosions within
ourselves that weaken our ability
to face the chal lenges ahead.
One of the many symptoms of
this decay from within is that we
are preoccupied with the pay of
corporate executives while the
leading terrorist-sponsoring nation
on earth is moving steadily toward
creating nuclear bombs.
Does anyone imagine that we
will care what anyone’s paycheck
is when we see an American city in
radioactive ruins?
Yet the only serious obstacle to
that happening is that the Israelis
may disregard the lofty blather
coming out of the White House
and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities
before the Iranian fanatics can
destroy Israel.
If by some miracle we manage to
avoid the fatal dangers of a nuclear
Iran, there will no doubt be others,
including a nuclear North Korea.
Although, in some sense, the
United States of America is still the
militarily strongest nation on earth,
that means absolutely nothing if
our enemies are willing to die and
we are not.
It took only two nuclear bombs
to get Japan to surrender — and
the Japanese of that era were far
tougher than most Americans
today. Just one bomb — dropped
on New York, Chicago or Los
Angeles — might be enough to get
us to surrender.
If we are still made of sterner
stuff than it looks like, then it might
take two or maybe even three or
four nuclear bombs, but we will
surrender.
lt doesn’t matter if we retaliate
and kill millions of innocent Iranian
civilians— at least it will not
matter to the fanatics in charge of
Iran or the fanatics in charge of the
international terrorist organizations
that Iran supplies.
Ultimately, it all comes down
to who is willing to die and who
is not.
How did we get to this point? It
was no single thing.
The dumbing down of our
education, the undermining of
moral values with the fad of “non-
judgmental” affectations, the
denigration of our nation through
poisonous propaganda from the
movies to the universities. The lisl
goes on and on.
The trajectory of our course leads
to a fate that would fully justify
despair. The only saving grace is
that even the trajectory of a bullei
can be changed by the wind.
We have been saved b\
miraculous good fortune befort
in our history. The overwhelming
military and naval expeditior
that Britain sent to New York tc
annihilate George Washington’s
army was totally immobilized by <
vast impenetrable fog that allowec
the Americans to escape. Tha
is how they ended up in Valle)
Forge.
In the World War II naval battlt
of Midway, if things had no
happened just the way they did, a
just the time they did, the Americai
naval force would not only havi
lost, but could have been wiped ou
by the far larger Japanese fleet.
Over the years, we have had ou
share of miraculous deliverances
But that our fate today depend
on yet another miracle is what cai
turn pessimism to despair.
Thomas Sowell is a senior felloji
at the Hoover Institution, Stanfon
University, Stanford, CA 9430
His Web site is www.tsowell.corK
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Reddell, Valerie. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 26, 2009, newspaper, February 26, 2009; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth820702/m1/4/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.