Sibby Online

More on transparency need

Again, the point here is that we need transparency on no-bid contracts, not to make them illegal or to say that they automatically represent "Pay to Play":

Many state governments allow goods and services to be purchased without asking for competitive bids. But some good-government groups say South Dakota is behind the curve in the ways it makes information on such contracts available to the public.

Firms awarded such contracts should have to disclose any campaign contributions and should be barred from making more contributions during the contract and possibly for a year afterward, Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association, based in Chicago, told the Rapid City Journal.

Also, information on contracts and contractors should be easily available and searchable online for the public and other firms that might want to compete for state business, Stewart said.

IM10 would have done that. The MSM is finally catching up.

And for those who want to blame only the governor (and for those who want to bel;ieve the governor’s denials), the problem is that the governor may not even know about the arrangements:

In South Dakota, if a state agency determines and can verify there is "only one source for the required service or item," it can award a contract without permission from the governor or another official.

It also can award contracts without bids when the contract amount is less than $50,000 for the construction or remodeling of a building, less than $25,000 for any other public improvement, and less than $25,000 for the purchase of materials, supplies or equipment.

And here is more on professional services:

Professional services such as legal, financial or advertising often are described as services that don’t lend themselves well to the lowest bid.

"The argument is, they’re not making widgets, so you can’t compare the widgets, because it’s a service, not a product," Stewart said. "Otherwise you’ll have the cheapest lawyers, the cheapest accountants, and do we really want that?"

When such contracts are not put up for bid, they’re called "no-bid" or "sole-source" contracts.

The arguments against bidding make sense, Stewart said. But the problem is, "it’s exploited like crazy," he added

Without bidding, Stewart said government officials can award contracts to anyone — friends, big donors or even less qualified providers.

Connecticut, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Hawaii and New Jersey restrict campaign contributions from government contractors, and Illinois and Colorado have similar laws just taking effect.

Will the South Dakota legislature have enough courage to implement these reforms? Here are the benefits:

Jack Gallt, director of the National Association of State Procurement Officials, said accountability and a tracking system are important.

"Public procurement, the whole cornerstone of the profession is competition," Gallt said.

"It keeps prices down, it opens up the marketplace to new and innovative companies. It’s a win-win for everyone. It’s prudent, acting in the public interest, to get the lowest possible price."

States that ban "pay to play" practices also are opening their records. And Stewart said the public expects it.

It should not be expensive or burdensome to states, he said. "They’re already writing things on electronic documents," Stewart said. "Converting it and slapping it up on the Internet is not that big of a deal."

Sounds like a wonderful way to reduce government spending without reducing services. When will Pat Powers jump on the bandwagon?

RNC calls Bush a socialist, its about time

Could the conservative movement be back on track in the GOP:

Republican Party officials say they will try next month to pass a resolution accusing President Bush and congressional Republican leaders of embracing "socialism," underscoring deep dissension within the party at the end of Mr. Bush's administration.

Those pushing the resolution, which will come before the Republican National Committee at its January meeting, say elected leaders need to be reminded of core principles. They said the RNC must take the dramatic step of wading into policy debates, which traditionally have been left to lawmakers.

"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," said Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of a resolution that criticizes the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Republican National Committee Vice Chairman James Bopp Jr. wrote the resolution and asked the rest of the 168 voting members to sign it.

"The resolution also opposes President-elect Obama's proposed public works program and supports conservative alternatives," while encouraging the RNC "to engage in vigorous public policy debates consistent with our party platform," said Mr. Bopp, a leading attorney for pro-life groups who has also challenged the campaign finance legislation that Mr. Bush signed.

And since we are on the subject of RINOs and campaign finance legislation, here is what Pat Powers is advocating:

My suggestion is that South Dakota create and pass a "significant contributor" law for ballot committees. Never heard of it before? That’s because I came up with it while shaking off the vestiges of sleep this AM. I was inspired enough, I got out of bed at about 5:30 and started typing this.

What I’m suggesting is that when ballot committees accept donations (Individual or aggregate) of $50,000 or more, within 48 hours, they have to file a "significant contributor notice." This notice will contain the source of the funds - AND - if coming from other than an organization registered as a political committee in South Dakota, they must also file with this notice the identity of who is providing these funds to the source committee. If they can’t (or won’t) provide this, the ballot committee organization must return the donation or face penalties.

And while Pat Powers wants to attack the private citizen, he is apologetic to "pay to play":

Because at least from what I saw, I don’t think any accusations of "pay to play" on state contracts is going to find purchase.

You don’t suppose Pat Powers has a no-bid contract from the state government to blog do you? We won’t know unless there is full transparency. And if there are no problems, then why would transparency be such a big deal? By simply asking for full transparency, why do private citizens get accused of making accusations that there is something fishy going on in Pierre? And instead of agreeing to government transparency, Pat Powers wants to put the government’s microscope on the citizens. That does not fit the conservative principles of individual liberty and limited government. It is the exact opposite.

I also find it troubling that Pat Powers is itching to get his hands on the SDCAC donors list, put was protective of the SD GOP donors list to justify the firing of a finance director. I also find it troubling that he would assume wrong doing, but then whine like a baby when he thinks others maybe assuming possible wrong doing.

We have government using taxpayers funds to bailout the private sector and to form public/private partnerships. It is bad enough that we have gone down the path of socialism, but it is really pathetic if we think we have to go down the road of socialism without transparency. If transparency and holding government officials accountable are detrimental to state government and to the GOP, then things are in far worse shape than I thought.

New Deal reforms stifled recovery

Now John Stossel goes after the "New Deal" myth:

Barack Obama wants to use the recession to remake the U.S. economy.

"Painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people," Obama said.

His designated chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is more direct: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste".

So they will "transform our economy." Obama's nearly trillion-dollar plan will not merely repair bridges, fill potholes and fix up schools; it will also impose a utopian vision based on the belief that an economy is a thing to be planned from above. But this is an arrogant conceit. No one can possibly know enough to redesign something as complex as "an economy," which really is people engaging in exchanges to achieve their goals. Planning it means planning them.

Obama and Emanuel want us to believe that their blueprint for reform will bring recovery from the recession. Yet we have recovered from past recessions without undertaking a radical social and economic transformation.

In fact, reform would impede recovery.

This is not the first time a president chose reform over recovery. Franklin Roosevelt did it with his New Deal, and the result was long years of depression and deprivation. Roosevelt's priorities were criticized not just by opponents of big government but by none other than John Maynard Keynes, the British economist whose theories rationalized big government. Before FDR had been in office a year, Keynes wrote him an open letter, which was printed in The New York Times:

"You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform; — recovery from the slump and the passage of those business and social reforms which are long overdue. For the first, speed and quick results are essential. The second may be urgent, too; but haste will be injurious. ... [E]ven wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action. ... Now I am not clear, looking back over the last nine months, that the order of urgency between measures of Recovery and measures of Reform has been duly observed, or that the latter has not sometimes been mistaken for the former".

Note Keynes's concern. Government interventions, such as the cartelizing of industry through the National Recovery Administration, "will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action." In other words, investors will not take the risks necessary for recovery if their profits and freedom are subject to unpredictable government action. Economic historian Roberts Higgs calls this phenomenon "regime uncertainty".

Obamessiah to the rescue

From Warner Todd Huston:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has launched a wonderful little feature that will run until Barack Obama takes the oath of office next month. They are calling it "Dear Mr. Obama" and it is a heartwarming exercise in child indoctrination and brainwashing. The Post-Gazette will be publishing letters from local students to Obama asking him for all sorts of global warming fixes, Iraq war enders, and big government programs.

Sadly, it appears that the government schools these kids have been subjected to have failed to teach their charges about anything like the American system, federalism, even science seems neglected. But they SURE taught their kiddies that government is there to spend, spend, spend, that government is to be treated like our collective parents, and that the war in Iraq is obviously an evil venture. Obviously.

And, yes little kiddies, The One, your very own Obamessiah, is flying to the rescue like a super hero. Cue the theme music — I'd suggest the theme to 2001, like Elvis used, is appropriate for the sentiment here. The Obamessiah has entered the building!

The tykes are all about the alternative energy these days. They are full of exhortations to The One that he should force upon us all a reliance on wind power and solar cells. Obviously these youngsters have not been taught that no alternative energy source has thus far been found that is cheaper than oil and the fossil fuels. These kids are under the illusion that just instituting a government program is all it takes to overcome the science of the matter and make them cost effective and feasible. Yes, all we need is a word from our new religious icon in Washington DC cum Obamalot.

Pay to Play in South Dakota?

The Mitchell Daily Republic is now on the no-bid contract controversy:

What some critics might try to call "pay-to-play" contracts are simply good business deals that operate separate and apart from political contributions, Gov. Mike Rounds says.

A review by the Rapid City Journal found many South Dakota companies that get contracts, often without competitive bids, also made donations to the governor.

Some of the most prominent contracts are with law firms that provide legal services to state agencies through no-bid contracts.

A Pierre law firm — May, Adam, Gerdes & Thompson — has a $350,000 no-bid contract to provide the state with legal services in tort cases. The firm donated $18,500 to Rounds’ 2006 re-election campaign.

A former partner in the firm, Neil Fulton, donated an additional $3,000. He was named Rounds’ chief of staff last year.

A Sioux Falls advertising agency, Lawrence & Schiller, has received million of dollars in no-bid state contracts during Rounds’ terms while donating thousands to his campaign.

"I would hope pay-to-play is not taking place here," said Lee Breard of Pierre, a state government reform activist. "But I will let the taxpayers of South Dakota draw their own conclusions."

Here are more details on Lawrence & Schiller:

Lawrence & Schiller has had more than $23 million in state contracts, most with tourism on a no-bid basis since Rounds took office in 2003.

"My comment would simply be the facts," Breard told the Rapid City Journal in an e-mail. "L&S donated less than $500 to Rounds for governor in the 2002 election cycle. After L&S got the tourism contract back, they donated $12,000 plus for the 2006 election cycle and another $6,000 to the lieutenant governor."

And it is not like there are not others who are willing to provide the service:

John Fiksdal, president of the Media One agency in Sioux Falls, didn’t mince words.

"I’m professionally and personally offended by the no-bid contract that Lawrence & Schiller holds," Fiksdal said. "The assumption that no one else is suitable to handle this business is absurd."

This issue certainly has legs. And don’t get me wrong, the Democrats have the Educrats for their special interests. Remember the National Education Association funded the gag law lies against IM10. This is about bringing the government back to the people.

More legal fees

More property taxes, higher license plate fees, and now higher fees for court filings:

Members of the South Dakota Commission on Equal Access To Our Courts plan to write legislation that would impose a fee on certain legal filings to fund two legal service agencies for the poor, the group said Monday.

A bill expected this legislative session would attach a $50 fee to court filings that modify alimony, child support, child visitation and child custody matters. The fees would go to the commission, which would distribute the money to legal aid and pro bono legal programs such as East River Legal Services and Dakota Plains Legal Services.

Those programs handled more than 2,000 of such cases in fiscal year 2008, and had fees been imposed on those filings, it would have generated about $113,000, the commission estimated.

"I think that is ample money to fund at least two additional attorney positions," said Cheryl Hanna, director of Access to Justice, a statewide program that lines up volunteer lawyers with prospective clients.

Budget problems have threatened legal aid programs in recent years.

You mean the budget that has grown an average of 6%? When will the SD MSM infrom its readers about the fact that the state budget is going up, not down. But now we have a Democrat promoting higher fees:

State Sen. Scott Heidepriem, D-Sioux Falls and Senate minority leader, said he long has supported fees to help legal services. He has proposed and supported legislation in the past to direct fees to such services, but those bills repeatedly were defeated or vetoed.

Heidepriem said he probably would support the commission's measure for fees on certain filings because there is tremendous demand for legal services.

So in South Dakota, bigger government is bi-partisan.

GOP promoting higher license plates

More property taxes and more license plate fees as South Dakota state government continues to grow:

The bill would scrap that 30 percent discount for non-commercial cars as well as a 10 percent discount for commercial vehicles and trucks that also are five years old or older.

Licensing fees for trucks and cars are based on their weight. The heavier the vehicle, the more it costs to license, because heavier vehicles exact a greater toll of wear and tear on highways and roads.

Eliminating the discounts for older vehicles would generate an extra $12 million a year that counties could use to build and maintain roads, said Rep. Shantel Krebs, R-Sioux Falls. Krebs is one of the lawmakers supporting the measure.

That measure originates from a study group this summer. Faced with a potential $90 million a year shortfall in money for highways and bridge maintenance, the group looked for alternative funding sources. Another proposal would increase the excise tax on the purchase of cars from 3 percent to 4 percent.

Eliminating the discount for older cars makes sense, Krebs said. Older cars still weigh the same as they did when they were new, so it doesn't make sense to charge owners less. About 76 percent of all noncommercial vehicles in South Dakota are five years or older.

"That's a big, significant portion," Krebs said.

Constituents and the business community support the proposal, Krebs said. Licensing fees have not kept pace with inflation, and finding more money for road maintenance makes "good public policy."

District 20 GOP Senator Mike Vehle is also a sponsor.

Obama’s change; The New World Order

Obama said it, not me:

When Candidate Barack Obama declared himself a "citizen of the world" before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged to "rejoin the World Community," those weren't just his usual platitudes about "change." Those words sounded the trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda.

Obama plans to use his presidential power to get the Democratic-majority Senate to ratify a series of treaties that would take us a long way toward global rule over our money, our laws, our military, our courts, our customs, our trade, and even our use of energy. Here are the treaties he says he wants.

Here are the ones explained:

The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)

Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Global Warming Treaty

And here are details on more:

Like all UN treaties, the UN Treaty on Women creates a monitoring commission of so-called "experts" to ensure compliance. The monitors of the Treaty on Women have already singled out Mother's Day as a stereotype that must be eliminated.

Another UN Treaty on the list is the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child, which was signed in 1995 by Bill Clinton but wisely never ratified by our Senate. This is a pet project of the people who believe that the "village" (i.e., the government or UN "experts") should raise children rather than their parents.

This treaty would give children rights against their parents and society to express their own views "freely in all matters," to receive information of all kinds through "media of the child's choice," to use their "own language," and to have the right to "rest and leisure." This treaty even orders our schools to teach respect for "the Charter of the United Nations."

These Obama-endorsed treaties, every one of which would be a dramatic encroachment on U.S. sovereignty, would be supplemented by trade agreements negotiated by Obama's Trade Representative, Ron Kirk. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the "global economic community" (which means open borders for "free" trade), of NAFTA, and even of the NAFTA SuperHighway, which he calls the "true river of trade between our communities."

Kirk's work to lock us into the global economy will be bolstered by Obama's Secretary of Commerce, Bill Richardson, another aggressive promoter of "free" trade.

Every UN treaty would interfere with self-government over some aspect of our lives and would transfer significant power to foreign bureaucrats, many of whom hate and envy America. Obama's UN treaties are the enemy of U.S. political and social independence, and Kirk's global economic community is the enemy of good middle-class American jobs.

Aren’t UN’s helicopters white?

Obama versus Lincoln

Several times I have corrected those who think Barack Obama is the next Abraham Lincoln by using the Copperheads. Now Doug Powers does the same:

I've never seen any real connection between Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama as far as "leadership" goes. If anything, Obama has more in common with the Copperheads who were against the Civil War and wanted a negotiated peace with the Confederacy than he has in common with Lincoln. At some point after the Civil War, the Copperheads changed their name to "Jimmy Carter."

So what exactly are the Obama and Lincoln comparisons? Obama and Lincoln are both from Illinois? Too vague. Jack Benny and Quincy Jones also came from Illinois – does that make them Lincolnesque?

Lincoln and Obama both rose politically in Chicago. Not a bad deal when Lincoln was climbing the political ladder in the Windy City, but for the past several decades, bragging that you ascended through the ranks in the Chicago political machine is like saying you were the best swimmer at the city sewer.

They're both lawyers? Sure, but that would mean that nearly half of Congress is Lincolnesque. Stop laughing – although Nancy Pelosi is only two facelifts away from dredging up a particular resemblance to the 16th president.

Where are the real comparisons? Unless Abraham Lincoln had a wacky, anti-American pastor and once announced his candidacy for Illinois Congress in the home of William Quantrill and later denied knowing anything about him, I'm not seeing any serious similarities.

And did you know the words "hope" and "change" were not uttered one single time in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

Just about the only valid comparisons I can find between Lincoln and Obama is that Abraham Lincoln didn't have a middle name, and for a long time the Obama campaign and the media pretended Obama didn't have one either.

Christians sacrificing children in public education

Now there is a movement geared to safe Christian children from the public education system:

You've heard all about the disputes: "Silent Night" banned at the "holiday" program, artistic references to the Bible censored and faith-inclusive children's programs facing discrimination.

Now some people are fed up with public school treatment of Christianity and have launched a campaign calling for a rescue of kids from government education programs – a "Call to Dunkirk."

The name Dunkirk is famous for the hundreds of thousands of World War II allies saved in May 1940 when a flotilla of pleasure boats, fishing craft and others rescued the soldiers from the beaches near Dunkirk, France, where they were trapped by an advancing German army.

Author David J. Knowles, who wrote a book on the rescue that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called a miracle, said volunteers including boat owners, fishermen – ordinary people instead of trained soldiers and sailors – crossed the English Channel to effect the rescue of about 340,000 people.

Now, officials with Exodus Mandate have launched their "Call to Dunkirk" to advocate a departure from public schools.

Several officials have created a YouTube video on their plan, and it is embedded here:

Organization chief Chaplain E. Ray Moore, a retired military officer, said that at Dunkirk, "total disaster (was) averted by bold leadership and ordinary citizens answering the call."

But he said in America, three-quarters or more of the Christian children, "are trapped in the state-run public schools."

Bruce Shortt, the author of "The Harsh Truth about Public Schools," said, "culture is shaped by how we're educated."

"Why should we be surprised we're losing culturally and politically when we continue to offer up our children as living sacrifices to the Molech of government schools?" he said.

Voddie Baucham, Jr., author of "Family Driven Faith," noted children spend about 14,000 hours in public schools.

"Whoever controls those 14,000 hours controls our children's worldview," he said, citing Charles Francis Potter, a signer of the Humanist Manifesto. He wrote, "What can theistic Sunday school meeting for an hour once a week do to stem the tide of a five day program of humanist teaching?"

"The left knows that whoever controls the children owns the future. That's why so many '60s radicals like Bill Ayers went into education. Now they effectively control the government school system and its curriculum. But worse, we give them our children," Shortt said.

Moore said his plan is simple:

"That all families, churches, pastors, major Christian ministries and organizations, concentrate for one year on extracting Christian children from the pagan, godless public schools."

"State-run public schools have become destructive to our children's Christian faith. They no longer educate but rather indoctrinate. Not only morally corrupt, public schools are unsafe because of the violence and crime that occurs in them on a regular basis," the campaign says.