DOWNSIZE GOVERNMENT!
By Steve Fair

Oklahoma State Senate Co-President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee- R, Oklahoma City has three bills that will be voted on this session that will work to streamline and modernize Oklahoma government. Senate Bill 1865 would create the Office of Accountability and Innovation within the Legislative Service Bureau. This office would conduct regular performance audits of agencies, recommend best practices to improve efficiencies in government, review the effectiveness of tax incentives, and bring new innovations to government to make it more effective for taxpayers. Now there’s a unique thought- innovation in government. In Oklahoma, the government is the state’s largest employer, so innovation and accountability is long overdue in the bloated bureaucracy.

Another bill Coffee was able to get past committee was Senate Bill 1698 which would merge the Criminal Justice Resource Center into the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The OCJRC is a division of the Legislative Service Bureau with its director appointed by the Oklahoma Sentencing Commission (OSC). Its primary responsibility is to provide crime statistics for local, state and federal agencies. The agency itself is less than twenty years old, and only has about twenty employees. Coffee’s proposal to merge the agency into the state’s crime agency is both efficient and logical. To have a crime statistics agency reporting to the legislature doesn’t make any sense since the Republicans took control of the House (ha ha).

A third bill that Coffee has presented is Senate Bill 1709 that would merge the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner into the OSBI. According to their website, the mission of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is “to protect the public health and safety of Oklahomans through the scientific investigation of deaths as defined by state statutes. This process involves scene investigation and medicolegal autopsy (including radiology, toxicology, histology, and microbiology) complementing the activities of law enforcement agencies, district attorneys and public health officials.” The agency is about forty years old, has a board of directors and about a hundred employees. Many states have their ME office under the jurisdiction of state law enforcement agencies, but watch for a fight on this proposal.

When you consider that Oklahoma state and local government is outpacing the private sector in growth by a two to one margin, it’s time we get a handle on state agencies. According to a report by the University of Central Oklahoma’s Policy Institute, from 1992-2002 Oklahoma state tax revenues increased by 60.75%, slightly less than the growth in personal income. Using the ratio of tax revenue growth to personal income growth, that ranked Oklahoma as the 19th fastest growing state government in the nation.

When was the last time you heard about a state agency having a layoff or downsizing or shutting down? It doesn’t happen, yet in the private sector, companies that are not viable close their doors everyday- they lay off people- they reorganize. That just doesn’t happen in government- at any level. Why? Because in the private sector, an employee has to produce a good or service at a cost that will return a profit to his employer. His employer has to stay competitive in the free market economy, but in government, the agency just cries and whines to elected officials until they get the budget they had last year increased and we the taxpayers write the check. Ronald Reagan said, “the closest thing to eternal life on the earth is a governmental agency.”

If Coffee wants to take his accountability/efficiency crusade to the next level, he should consider zero-based budgeting. That is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified each new period. Zero based budgeting starts from a –0- base and every function within an agency or organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed for the year, regardless of whether the budget is higher or lower than last years. Most agency heads don’t subscribe to zero based budgeting. They contend the whole process would be too time consuming and cumbersome and take time away from their Solitare and Free Cell games, but it’s our money and they should have to justify every nickel.


The biggest problem with America today is that the government is too large- at all levels, but particularly at federal and state level. With an ever-growing appetite, government leaves us with increasingly complex rules and regulations that are virtually impossible to understand. And then it raises our taxes so that it has enough money to keep on growing.

Think about this: “The Lord’s(model) Prayer" is only sixty six words and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is just 286 words and the entire Declaration of Independence is just 1,322 words. But the government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911. That’s a lot of cabbage and you and I are writing the check.

NATIONAL COMMITTEEMAN RACE!

I have not endorsed either James Dunn or Steve Curry in the National Committeeman race. I understand there is a rumor to the contrary going around the state in GOP circles. If you have heard it, it is inaccurate. If you have questions, you can contact me, but I have no intentions to "endorse" in this race. Let the best man win!

Steve Fair

OBAMA BACKER BECOMES TONGUE-TIED!

You have to see this video- a State Senator from Texas who is an Obama backer can't list one legislative accomplishment of Barrick, citing instead HIS INSPIRING MESSAGE. Chris Matthews is a "Hillary" guy, but he won't let the guy off the hook. A must see:

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=50264

WHERE'S IVAN'S OUTRAGE?

Is Dr. Holmes going to comment on Lloyd Field's drunken stunt?

By Steve Fair

In 2006, former five term State Representative Lloyd Fields, aided by some Republicans who were mad at Brenda Reneau, was elected Labor Commissioner. No one in their right mind believes the state is better off having a Democrat in the Labor Commissioner slot. Until Reneau was elected, the Labor Department was an office controlled by organized labor. In fact, Reneau exposed organized labor's attempts to use the office for their own personal gain during her first term. But as they say- No good deal goes unpunished.

Due a number of factors, including Reneau's own missteps, the office was handed back to the Dems in 2006. To Lloyd Fields credit, he ran a grassroots campaign that was headed by now Democrat State Party Chairman Ivan Holmes. Homes is a journalist by profession and has an earned PhD from Tulsa University. In over his head from day one, Holmes has been an attack dog on Republican corruption. In fact, many of his remarks concerning corruption in government have been over the top. Take for example his attack on former Speaker of the House Lance Cargill for not filing his tax returns on time. Cargill's mistake did not cost the taxpayers of Oklahoma ONE RED CENT unlike the Jeff McMahan scandal.

But Ivan has been unwilling to go after Jeff McMahan or the three Democrat lawmakers who filed their tax returns late. To anyone paying attention, the inconsistency was very apparent, but now scandal hits closer to home- it's IVAN'S candidate- his friend who is accused of stealing a guitar while drunk and generally displaying behavior that is more appropriate at a frat house than in a public restaurant. And it appears Fields was given preferential treatment by the cops during this incident- at least the OKC police are looking into that possibility. But where is IVAN? Why is he not talking about this moral corruption? I seriously doubt that Holmes has the courage to condemn either Fields or McMahan. If that's the case, then EVERY time there is a corruption scandal in Oklahoma, no matter what side of the aisle is involved, Dr. Holmes should sit down and shut up. His inconsistency has undermined his creditability and creditability is the first thing a journalist learns is important.

J.C. WATTS FOR VICE PRESIDENT?

There is an online petition to draft J.C. Watts for John McCain's Vice President. Access it at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/draftjcwattsforvp2008/

FIELDS SPENDS TEN HOURS IN DRUNK TANK?

Lloyd Fields, Oklahoma's DEMOCRAT Labor Commissioner allegedly stole a bull riders guitar while drunk and was held ten hours in a drunk tank. That's according to Newsok.com. Read the entire story at http://newsok.com/article/3206129/1203429080

Are Consumers willing to pay more for food to be energy independent?

RISING FOOD PRICES LINKED TO ENERGY POLICY
by Steve Fair

In the December 14th edition of The Economist, the cover story was “The End of Cheap Food.” The article cited rising incomes in Asia and the ethanol subsidies in the U.S. as a reason American consumers are paying more for food. Large emerging markets like China and India have increasing per capita incomes and the first thing people start buying when their income increases is better food. We really don’t appreciate how good we have it in the U.S. when it comes to food.

In 1970, the average American family spent 13.8% of their income on food, but almost two decades later; the average American family spends less than 10% of their income on food. When you consider that in poor countries, over half of their income is spent on food, Americans have it pretty good. U.S. consumers can thank American farmers and ranchers and efficient food processors, in large part, for that bargain.

According to Brent Searle of the Oregon Department of Ag, "There are few other places in the world where you can get the diversity and the amount of food for the dollar you spend than the United States.” But that may be changing.

"The world eats more than it produces currently, and over the last five or six years that is reflected in the decline in stocks and storage levels. That cannot go on, and exhaustion of stocks will be reached soon," Joachim von Braun of the International Food Policy Research Institute said a recent conference in Beijing. Von Braun predicts the end of cheap food. He says, "The days of falling food prices may be over." "Surging demand for food, feed and fuel have recently led to drastic price increases.” What’s fueling these increases?

What most consumers don’t know is that food consumption and prices are determined by the complex interaction of supply and demand. In the short run, supplies are relatively fixed and inflexible, and prices adjust so products clear the market. What is produced is consumed. When supplies go up, price goes down and consumers buy more. Conversely, smaller supplies bring higher prices and smaller purchases. In the long run, farmers and ranchers adjust production in response to market prices, producing more of higher priced goods and less of lower priced goods.

With oil prices hovering around $90 a barrel, this is bad news for the poor, who have already suffered major impacts from a tripling in wheat prices and near doubling in rice prices since 2000. And it’s not just wheat and rice. In the past year, soybean oil, peanuts, mustard seed, and eggs have doubled in price. Part of the problem is the government’s interference into the free market system.

As The Economist article states, “the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.” Maize is pressed and refined to produce high frutose corn sweetner that is in virtually every food product that is sweet. Are Americans willing to pay more for their favorite carbonated beverage or cereal in order to become energy independent as a country? Perhaps, but unfortuntely most don’t know they are footing the bill.

The reason we have higher prices at the grocers shelf is partially due to the farm subsidities program, which supplements over two dozen crops at a price tag of $16 billion annually to American taxpayers. Proponents of subsidity programs argue that over production results in lower prices at the grocery shelf, but if the government were to subsidize car manufacturers, there would be more cars than buyers, and the price would come down, but it would be the taxpayers who would be funding the price reduction. A free market system where a manufacturer simply lowers their price until they are at a point of maximum profitability is better than propping up a segment of the economy with taxpayer money. The government needs to get out of the subsidity business and allow the free market to work. It’s the most fair and equitable way for both the buyer and the seller.

Are consumers willing to pay more for their food in order to have alternative fuels such as ethanol? The politicians believe that to be the case and have bet your wallet on their hunch. Of course, it’s not like they are taking food out of your mouth.