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Many people have heard the saying “War is the mother of all invention”, but I tend to think desperation works just as well. Only when you are backed into a corner and disaster looms inevitably ahead are you willing to consider the most creative solutions to the situation you’re in. As is the case in California, where possibly the worst state budget crisis in the country exists, and drastic cutbacks will be necessary to avoid bankruptcy. It looks like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has got his thinking cap on, and is listening to any money-saving proposal that comes across his desk. We’ve been critical of Gov. Schwarzenegger in the past (in the article Don’t Lay a Finger on my 40″ Plasma), but this time I think he deserves acknowledgement for promoting (or maybe even coming up with) a true Red Seat Idea.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has put forward a plan to send 20,000 illegal immigrant prisoners that are currently housed in California state prisons back to Mexico, and although he has the right to seek deportation for any person that is here illegally, that’s not what’s happening here (read the full story from the AFP here). There isn’t going to be a caravan of buses filled with Mexican criminals showing up at the border, but instead Gov. Schwarzenegger would like to give Mexico the money to build and operate a new prison for it’s citizens that have committed crimes on our soil. Is this genius? You decide. The first benefit of such a proposal is the cost savings. The Governor’s office put out a statement saying that this plan would save close to 1 Billion, because it would half the costs of building and running a prison in the U.S., and when you’ve got a budget deficit of 19.9 billion, every billion helps. The second benefit is that it eases the already overcrowded prison system in California which currently houses 70,000 prisoners over it’s intended capacity. The third foreseeable benefit is that when the prisoners sentences are complete, they are already in Mexico, and can be released into Mexico without any deportation costs or the risk of having them back on the streets of California right away, which can’t hurt the crime rate, and might save them from having to pay to house these prisoners all over again when they become repeat offenders (that would be Mexico’s problem). On a side note, I’m not naive enough to think that some of these inmates won’t make their way back into the U.S. after their release, but it’s still a much more equitable situation, for surely not all of them will, and the alternative is trusting the INS to do their job and send them back to Mexico after they’re released from a prison here. I like the idea of having all of them all start off back in Mexico, and we take our chances.

What’s in it for Mexico? Money and jobs. California gives them the money to build a prison that they get to keep, and that prison is staffed with Mexican citizens, which creates hundreds or maybe even a thousand jobs for a country that could sure use it. I doubt the Mexican government would pass up the opportunity for economic gain, and this could lead to more states trying this option in the future, which brings me to the most important point. This story has great national relevance, because although most states aren’t in as bad a shape as California, they’re on their way, and many more creative ideas will be needed to stem the tide. Maybe your state could implement a similar idea, or maybe something like this will inspire your state’s leaders to not be afraid of trying something unconventional. Either way, coming up with aggressive cost-cutting measures would be prudent in any state right now, before they end up in same hole that California currently resides in. It’s also the right thing for the people. If any level of government is spending tax dollars that it doesn’t need to, it’s stealing from it’s citizens, and in the end, hurting it’s own economy. Sound Familiar?

Six days ago a fairly significant political upset occurred during a special Senate election in the state of Massachusetts. A Republican won the Senate seat previously occupied for 47 years by Sen. Ted Kennedy. The outcome of this election has stirred up a tidal wave of political analysis that threatens to drown us all in its punditry, and frankly, I’ve just been waiting for the dust to settle before weighing in.

Well, that was a waste of six days. As it turns out, there is no definitive answer as to why Republican Scott Brown won, what his win means, or what message the voters were trying to send to Washington. Did Scott brown win because he put his exact views on the table and let you know who he was, or did he win because of who he wasn’t? Did his opponent Martha Coakley lose because she ran a poor campaign, because she took the Democratic voter support for granted, or because an unlikely grassroots effort overwhelmed her (or all of the above)? Does Scott Brown’s win mean health care reform is dead, or does it just need to be different? Will this new senator and his overthrow of the 60 vote majority cause more bipartisan cooperation in Washington or will it further harden the Democrats to get done whatever they can before the 2010 midterm elections? Were the voters of Massachusetts trying to send a message that they’re unhappy with health care reform, Government bailouts for large corporations, Constitutional rights for terrorists and perceived tax hikes, or were they upset that the Democratic majority couldn’t get items from their progressive agenda passed with any haste (or at all)?

As it turns out, you don’t have to go far to find an equal number of people that will come down on either side of those and many other questions surrounding the election of Scott Brown. So I’ve decided to tell you what I do know for sure, and I think it’s every bit as important. As anyone who regularly reads my columns knows, I believe that the right to vote is probably the most sacred right we possess, and that being said, I saw many encouraging things in last Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts. First off, the voter turnout was quite high by any standard, but it was even more impressive when considering that it was a special election with only one item on the ballot, and the weather around the state was cold, snowy and wet (which can often keep people from the polls)(read more about the voter turnout here in an article by the NY Daily News). High voter turnout is always a good thing, because it means people are getting involved, and regardless of the outcome, people have made a personal investment in the direction of the country.

The number of voters who turned out is only a fraction of the reason the voters of Massachusetts deserve a Roar of Approval. The larger reason is how they voted. For anyone who doesn’t reside in Massachusetts let me tell you that getting a competitive political race is no small task. It is a state that has three registered Democrats for every registered Republican, a state where 85% of the state legislature are Democrats, a state where all 10 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are Democrats, and a state that hasn’t had a Republican U.S. Senator since 1979, and where the senate seat won by Scott Brown has be a Democrat since 1952. Taking these facts into account it’s very easy to see why this election was considered such an upset, but more than an upset it was revelatory moment. We saw that the voters aren’t stupid and they aren’t sheep. When a combination of factors that people care about converge, like a poor economy, high unemployment, health care, terrorism, and taxes, people are willing to think and vote with an independent mind. Even I am guilty of not giving the voters enough credit, accusing them (during calmer times) of just going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for either a D or an R, depending on political persuasion, without knowing all that much about the candidates, or worse, not voting at all. My previous criticism of voters may have been fair or unfair, but it clearly was not the case in Massachusetts this time around, as they went against their own political stripe in these uncertain times, and came out in droves.

In my ideal world no political parties would exist, and each candidate would have to tell you what they stand for, and what direction they think the country should go, and the voters would have to pay close attention to elections to know who to vote for, not being able to rely on traditional party affiliation. That will probably never happen, but I feel that the election in Massachusetts is probably as close as we will get, where voters looked hard at the candidates and put party politics aside, voting independently and presumably for who they thought would be the best advocate for them. I can’t lie, I never thought I’d say that about Massachusetts, and to steal a line from all those political talking heads, “If it can happen in Massachusetts it can happen anywhere”…and I hope it does.

I had a minor revelation the other day about how to choose a candidate to vote for in any given election, and I’ve got to say I was really overcomplicating things. When we look into the people that we will potentially vote for we seek out info from news outlets, we watch debates on TV, or we even listen to campaign ads, but what do we hear? If you had asked me that last week I’d have told you that every piece of available information is important, and someone that takes their right to vote seriously will digest as much data about the candidates as they can before coming to a final conclusion. Then I had an eye-opening conversation with a very wise friend of mine, regarding the upcoming special Senate election in Massachusetts on Jan 19th.

For those who don’t know, Massachusetts (where I currently reside) is having a special election on January 19th to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy. The nation has turned its eyes to this race because the crucial 60th Democratic Senate Vote (needed to push through legislation in an unobstructed fashion) hangs in the balance, and the race is closer than people expected. The election features Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley (Democrat) vs. State Senator Scott Brown (Republican). I asked my friend who he’d be voting for, and before I tell you his answer, let me tell you what provoked my question. Earlier this week the final debate between these candidates was held, and during that debate Mrs. Coakley said we should withdraw from Afghanistan because the Taliban and terrorists are no longer there, and that they’ve moved on to other countries like Yemen and Pakistan. This is the same Afghanistan where 8 CIA operatives were killed by terrorists merely 10 days earlier. Oops…

Following this debate Mrs. Coakley took a trip to Washington D.C. where she was hounded by some journalists about her statement regarding Afghanistan. At one point things got ugly and someone on Coakley’s staff pushed one of these reporters into a barrier and to the ground. Coakley was asked about the incident and said she couldn’t comment because she hadn’t seen what had happened. Unfortunately for her someone was shooting video of the incident, and she can be seen looking right at what happened (you can watch the YouTube video here, as well as a video of her comment about the Taliban and Afghanistan here). Heck, let’s pile on while we’re at it and listen to the audio from the radio program “Nightside with Dan Rea” on YouTube, where she calls Red Sox Legend Curt Schilling a Yankee Fan in an effort to discredit his endorsement of opponent Scott Brown (listen here). Clearly Attorney General Coakley has made a few political gaffs in the past two weeks, and this is what prompted me to goad my friend into telling me who he was voting for, as he is a fairly staunch progressive that usually votes for the democrat candidate.

“I’m voting for Martha Coakley, of course.” was his response to me. I asked him how he could be comfortable voting for someone who has just in the last two weeks clearly showed some serious flaws, not to mention her reputation in Massachusetts for being soft on crime, and he told me he was quite comfortable with his decision. I was a bit stunned because at the very least I expected him to either deny the facts about his candidate, or at least defend them with some form of argument, but instead he conceded all my points about Mrs. Coakley and simply told me that they didn’t matter to him. He finished by telling me, “All that matters is how they’re going to vote on key legislation once they get elected”. That was my moment of clarity, when I realized an important truth, and I thanked him for it.

I’m always writing about all the power our Representatives have to change the way we live in a moment, and how important it is to put the right people in place. After all, they can pass legislation to take more money from you, or give more back. They can ban something you love from being legal, or make something legal that was previously unavailable to law-abiding citizens. They can change the way you pay for and receive health care. They can do all these things and much more, and they can do it relatively quickly. These things can effect the very way we live from day to day, and I’m always preaching about that, so you’d think I would’ve come to this conclusion earlier. It doesn’t matter who they are. Some of them will be exposed as liars (see above), others will get caught having extra-marital affairs, still others will show their ineptitude on important issues (again see above), but in the end, when your faced with two candidates in a voting booth, the only thing that matters is how they’re going to vote once they get elected. Are they going to support the things you care about, and vote down the things you abhor?

The best part is that the most transparent thing about most candidates is how they will vote on future issues. Many of them have voting records at lower levels of government (like state and local), and almost all have their views posted right on their website, so there is little question as to which legislation they will support, and which ones they won’t. I would rather vote for a person who lies to me on occasion, makes idiotic statements, sleeps with his secretary and experimented with drugs in college, rather than someone who is a pinnacle of virtue, assuming that the former will vote to lower my taxes, keep us safe, protect my rights and liberties, downsize government and reform health care in a non-socialist way (the things I care about), and that the latter will do the opposite. In the end, if I am true to myself, don’t I have to vote this way.

2010 is here, and the most important thing that may happen this year is the mid-term elections in November. All 435 House seats are up for grabs and 36 of the 100 Senate seats are also being contested. This is an opportunity to express any discontent you may have, and force a nationwide change-of-direction, simply by casting your vote for the candidate that will best represent you. It can also be an opportunity to express your approval for a job well done, if you favor the current direction and policy-making proficiency of our national legislature. However, your vote can only have an impact when it is not cancelled out by an act of voter fraud.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these conspiracy theorists who thinks that every election is being bought and sold behind closed doors, but cases of voter fraud are occurring at a rate that I do find discomforting. There was the famous case of ACORN in 2008, which is an activist group that was caught filing thousands of fake voter registrations in multiple states (read the CNN story from 10/10/08 here). After every election we hear stories of votes being cast by voters that are deceased, have fake names, or have since moved away. How is that possible? Well, the main problem is that only 7 states require a photo ID in order to vote and 25 of the 50 states don’t require any form of identification at all (including my home state of Massachusetts). That sounds like an open invitation for those who are inclined to defraud the system. (See the full list of voter ID requirements by State here).

Since I live in one of the states with no ID requirements, let me tell you what my voting experience is like. I go to my local polling location (usually a high school or public facility) and approach a folding table that is staffed by 2-3 very nice elderly women. They ask me for my name and address, I tell them, they then look up my name on a list and cross me off. I am handed a ballot and guided to a private voting booth. When I’m done, I insert my ballot into a machine and leave. Seems normal enough, except I could have told them I was anyone. I could have told them I was my next door neighbor, my mailman, or my uncle that recently died but is still a registered voter. As long as I know the person’s address I could drive to the different polling places all over town and vote multiple times. The worst part is that the reason I’m able to get away with it is the same reason I would have relatively little fear of being caught. It’s because no form of ID is required. I can vote as anyone I want, and after the fact how could you prove who actually voted since no photo ID was asked for. Does this seem like a problem to anyone else?

Some of you may be thinking that I’m blowing this topic a little out of proportion. After all, most elections are decided by wide margins, and even narrow margins are still thousands of votes, and although voter fraud may occur, it probably isn’t effecting the overall outcome, especially in the big national elections that matter most. I ask you to consider three things. First and foremost you should be outraged on principle, because any fraudulent vote that is cast for the opposing candidate cancels out your vote, and voting is the most sacred privilege that is bestowed upon us by our country. Knowing that there are people out there taking your vote away from you, and being able to do it with such easy should cause a violent emotional response. The second thing we must remember is that local elections (towns, cities and counties) can effect eventual state and federal elections. Most of our national elected officials started off as local officials and worked their way up, and local elections are by far the most lax in their ID procedures and are decided by much fewer votes, making voter fraud much more effective. The last thing we should remember is the amount of votes that decided the Bush vs. Gore election of 2000. Need I say more?

So what’s the solution? It’s so painfully obvious it makes you wonder why it has only been implemented by 7 states. Requirement of a government (state or federal) issued photo ID solves the problem instantly. You walk in to vote, they ask for your name and ID, you show it to them and you’re on your way. Only the correct registered voter would ever be able to vote, problem solved. What’s the argument against it? The main push-back against such a requirement is that it may disenfranchise lower-income voters who don’t have driver’s licenses and can’t afford to get the photo ID. In a sense, they would have to pay a fee in order to vote and that may prevent some people from being able to do it, and discourage others from doing it, and that would be an unlawful practice. In the U.S. we have the right to vote. We also have the freedom to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, but not without showing a photo ID (the store doesn’t take my word for it when I tell them my age). We have the freedom to own and operate motor vehicles, but not without carrying a state-issued photo ID on us at all times. Still not convinced? We have the freedom to get on an airplane and fly to anywhere in the country we want, but not without showing a photo ID and proving our identities before we even set foot on the airplane. I don’t hear any civil liberties groups screaming about poor people being “disenfranchised” from their freedom to buy a six-pack of Schlitz or catch a red-eye to Atlanta, because of the costs associated with getting a photo ID.

However, I like to think I’m a fairly generous guy, so for the sake of this article I’m going to concede the point above, because even if it stops only one person from being able to vote, such a policy would be unacceptable. In any issue involving voter’s rights or a possible infringement on a person’s ability to vote we should air on the side of caution, so I’ve got a solution. I believe that a photo ID requirement for voters should be passed on a federal level, and that acceptable photo IDs should be one of the following: 1.) A state-issued driver’s license. 2.) A state-issued photo ID. 3.) A military ID 4.) A federally-issued photo ID. However, I believe that state or federal photo IDs should be free. After all, anyone with a driver’s license has already paid to get that, so the majority of American adults would be covered. It would be in a state’s best interests for its citizens to have photo identification if they do not drive, so why not provide it for them and kill two birds with one stone. I know I’m not usually somebody who believes in more government spending, and I’m not suggesting that anyone be forced to get a photo ID, just that they would need one in order to vote. For people casting an absentee ballot, the person who collects the ballot could check the ID and sign-off on it.

Since I don’t believe in using people’s tax dollars to pay for such things, how do we fund these free IDs? I usually like the idea of cutting the billions of dollars of wasteful government spending, but let’s assume that’s not going to happen and come up with something a little more creative. Let’s start with the voting equipment itself. All those portable voting booths and machines just sit in a closet and collect dust between elections, so why not rent them out? Large companies might like to have a couple so employees can vote anonymously on company initiatives like changing health care providers or offering stock-options in the upcoming year. They could also be used for more light-hearted matters like employee surveys or voting for an “Employee of the Month” award. Private schools might like to use them for school elections and local clubs and lodges usually have elections for their officers or board of directors. Another way to generate revenue is through vanity IDs and driver’s licenses. People always seem willing to pay for ways to express their individuality, and although the standard photo ID would be free, why not give people additional options for an additional charge, like cooler background colors or a theme (tropical, retro, rock n’ roll, etc.) for their ID, just like we already do with license plates. Also, whenever an individual or organization (like ACORN) is caught filing fake voter registrations or committing some other form of voter fraud, why not levy a stiff fine against them that goes directly toward funding these IDs, and helping legally registered voters cast their ballot. These are just a few ideas to get the politicians started…

In the end, Requiring photo IDs for voting ensures that your vote counts and maintains the vital integrity of the system. The only people this new law would “disenfranchise” are illegal immigrants, the deceased, or criminals, and that’s not such a bad thing now, is it?

Gov. Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Gov. Patterson (D-NY)

Just because every Democrat in the Senate voted to pass their health care bill doesn’t mean that states with a majority of Democratic voters support it. In fact, the Governors of California and New York (the two largest Democratic states) are strongly against the measure, saying it will put their already near-bankrupt economies over the edge (read the full article from Politico.com here). To be specific, Governor David Patterson (D-NY) said, “[I] am deeply troubled that the Senate version of the bill worsens what was already an inequitable situation for New York and I will continue to be an advocate on behalf of New Yorkers to ensure we are treated fairly by this critical federal legislation,” and Gov. Schwarzenegger wrote “When asked for my support, I was assured that federal legislation would not increase costs to California or include new unfunded mandates,…Unfortunately, under nearly every scenario we can predict, the federal health care reform legislation being debated would cost California’s General Fund an additional $3 billion to $4 billion annually.” Wow, these are strong words, and I have to assume that if these two states see further economic problems arising from this new health care legislation (as I predicted in my last article, Our nation must have been naughty this year), that they are not the only ones.

To further complicate the matter, as I’ve been reporting all along, American voters still do not support the new health care legislation that has been proposed. The numbers released from Rasmussen Reports on 12/30/09 show that 58% of U.S. voters are opposed to the bill, while only 39% support it (read the full story here). To underscore this number further, of the 58% that oppose it, 46% strongly oppose it, but of the 39% that favor it, or 19% strongly favor it.

Another interesting component to this health care vote that I brought up in my article Do our Representatives care what we think?, is the fact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was trailing by significant margins in every re-election poll run (regardless of which GOP candidate emerged from the primaries to run against him). Many people believe that his push for this version of health care reform is to blame for his new-found unpopularity in his state, and it looks like this may be the beginning of trend of backlash against representatives who don’t listen to their constituency. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the last Democrat holdout on the Senate bill until a provision was added to exclude Nebraska from having to contribute funds to the new Medicaid expansion that is included in the bill. You’d think the people of Nebraska would be thanking him for getting them the best deal of any of the 50 states, until you remember one fact. The voters of Nebraska oppose the new legislation at an even higher rate than the nation (64% oppose in Nebraska vs. 58% nationwide, and 53% strongly oppose in Nebraska vs. 46% nationwide), and Sen. Ben Nelson just wasn’t listening. He refused to  break ranks with the rest of his party, even though that’s what the people that elected him wanted, and instead put up a stink for a while, and got them a special concession, and thought that would make everything OK. In other times that might have been true, but voters around the country are “on alert” right now, and the voters of Nebraska saw right through Sen. Nelson’s smokescreen, and the proof is the poll numbers. In a poll released on 12/29/09, if Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman were to run against Sen. Nelson in 2012 he would receive 61% of the vote and Sen. Nelson would receive 30% (read the full story at Rasmussen Reports). That’s a great example of letting your vote speak for you, and a 31 point deficit in the polls speaks very loudly.

So, just like all of my other health care articles lately, we are left with the same conundrum. The majority of American voters do not support this version of health care reform. As Gov. Patterson and Gov. Schwarzenegger have pointed out, it will not reduce or even maintain costs for states, and as I have tried to repeatedly point out in previous articles, it will not reduce costs for the average American who already has health care (which was one of the original selling points). It will add additional burdens to businesses, and probably lead to increased taxes or insurance premiums for individuals (during a recession). The Senators and Representatives who vote for this bill are in danger of being voted out the very next time they run, according to many polls. Yet, even with all of this on the table, this legislation rolls on, with a seeming inevitability of being passed and signed into law, and the question I keep asking is, why? To this point, I have yet to receive a good answer.