FDD = FDB
     That should be the new Tea Party bumper sticker. That should also be a new Republican rally banner.
     The old saw about "Big Government" is stale. "Tax and Spend" has meant less and less every year since the GOP and conservatives first began using it in the 60's. They have become vain repetitions.
     Just as the Left was able to do with Enron and AIG, those tired, old valid phrases need a face.
     Case in point: From 1.3 to 1.8 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus package was enacted...in the private sector!, i.e, jobs that produce things that produce income, that create money.
     So, did the stimulus work? Well, duh. Every state in the union except three have recorded budget shortfalls up to 35%, but all those shortfalls would have been double their size without the federal stimulus. Tens of thousands of jobs, bureaucratic jobs, were saved by the stimulus. No matter where you live, you can remember the local radio or television news that this school district, that county government or that state project was saved because of the stimulus. And they went on to say those were all blue collar front line jobs.
     Although no one has been able to count the new jobs created in the federal government they are hiring like crazy. The average federal job for this new hiring pays around $75,000, so it's safe to say they are not truck drivers and guys handling weed whackers. They are front office paper pushers and lawyers. So when Obama says "new jobs have been created", he is speaking of the public sector, where , by the way, nothing is produced, and money only disappears down a large black hole.
     Now, compare the private sector he are told to hate, and the public sector we are "advised" to revere; while President Obama has warned off private jets for corporations, his cabinet and staff have a fleet of them. He warned them corporations away from Las Vegas, but will be there soon...on his private jet. Nancy Pelosi has one just for weekend runs to the left coast. The new CAFE standards and resulting down-sizing of American automobiles over the next few years will not apply to the upper echelons of the political class, who are "authorized" big SUV's for security reasons. (Who will make these after Detroit and CAFE ends them in America? Will we be sending contract off-shore? Where's the unions?) Cabinet members are building even bigger and better homes, while  mine has lost 30% in the past year, and is unmarketable....yet has been appraised higher for tax purposes.
     As Bernard Chumm wrote last week, the differences between the Political class and the Drone class are becoming more and more stark every day.
     The problem the political class has is found the states, as expressed in California only yesterday. Even after the stimulus, there still isn't enough money. They need more. Much more. (By the way, that pit is bottomless.)
     Because the states have not yet found a way to simply barge into your home and grab you by ankles and shake all your remaining change out of your pockets, the People still have extraordinary power at the state level...and that is where the restoration has to begin.
     What the people need to do is put a face on that anti-tax rebellion at the state level. Go after the bureaucracy.
     We see the country being split generally into two camps, those 1) states that hope to deal with financial shortfalls honestly and responsibly, without becoming out-and-out step-children to Washington, and 2) states like California, Massachusetts, New York, who will move mountains to find some way to sneak into your home and take your money. If this means closing the border (state line)  so that you cannot move out of the state to avoid these tax increases, (New York has plans on the table for this already), so be it, as far as they are concerned. The federal government can provide a sort of shield for all these things to happen.
     So, it's not surreal at all  to hear rumors of secession from one camp or rumors of "armed takings" from the other. While both seem far-fetched, they really aren't, for both are imminently do-able.  Remember, had the south seceded in 1960 instead of 1860 it would never, could never, have been forced to rejoin the Union by military force. Any re-union would most likely have been along the lines laid out by MacKinley Kantor in his 1960 "If the South Had Won the Civil War."

      I am sure many of you wonder, well why can't states just cut back 30% like the rest of us?
      First answer, is "They can".
      But the real answer is one word: Bureaucracy, that's why.
      In fact, it would be easy to cut 30% from any state budget and still hold onto the basic services and functions of government. Just don't ask them to decide which 30%. That's the problem with current anti-Tax Tea Party slogans. They are far too broad. If you don't put a face on it, the government will and that face will be carrying out some necessary service the taxpayer relies on, i.e, the taxpayer will be punished. After the famous Prop 13-Jarvis Amendment in California that cut the legislature's access to property taxes, the state just turned around and cut essential services, especially in public safety (cops, fire fighting). That'll teach 'em.
      And if they can't beat you with pain, they will with guilt, i.e., a cut in services to those who do not pay taxes, i.e, the poor or unemployed. That is a lie too, as there is not a single program at the state of federal level that does not take from 45%-70% of tax dollars to pay for bureaucratic overhead...most of which is waste. So 50% of 50% (25%) minimum of every welfare program can be cut without disrupting services. The guilt trip is a canard.
      If you're going to put a face on it, put an unpleasant, repugnant face. Hell, you see them everyday. Every central post office has a bucket full of them. So do most state school boards. Or go to Sacramento or Lincoln or Salem and get a state directory and just visit the actual office of some of the more obscure departments and divisions. Go inside and ask for a mission statement. "Whattaya'll do here?" Peep inside the inner offices, if the doors are open. Note the decor. Get a name. Go to the parking lot and find the reserved parking sign. Note the car...usually a Beamer or Volvo, but lately Lexus. (Don't bother looking for an ice-pick, you are being watched.)
      You also can pick this person out of crowd in nearby restaurants and shops...usually doing office hours. It's easy to pick out a (UB) useless bureaucrat, for they are almost always overdressed in clothes no one who actually works for a living would ever try to work in, and have a carriage of false distinction that always reminded me just a little of the first time my sister tried to walk in high heels. The further you move down the line, from federal GS-16's to state to state school boards, the more they remind you of reformed whores...or pimps....or somebody's wife's cousin.
       As I said, they are everywhere, making up at least 10% of government workforces, top to bottom.
       But they are immune unless you (we, the people) put a target on their backs....for the only time they actually get off their couch and go to work is when there is a budget- or force-reduction in the works. That is when you can hear "unfairness", "prejudice" "sexism", "homophobia", or "racism" echoing up and down the hallways and the phones start ringing to Channel 6 of the local "Thunderstorm".
       In the end, either the proposed cutbacks are derailed or detoured, or some poor schlub emptying bed pans at the state mental facility loses his job. It's always Front Office versus Front Lines.
       Note to Tea Parties:
       If you want to squeeze these pimples the government has put on your backs, if you want to clean them and apply a preventative ointment (which always ends with the elected officials), you must point to them yourself. "This one, no not that one, this one!"
       We believe every state should have to debate every year a bill to reduce the state workforce (not budget, but workforce) by 25%, and insist on a commission in which a majority are elected by the citizens from their districts. No lawyers allowed.
       We also are working on an amendment to the Constitution that prohibits the federal government to count things, any things, except as provided for in the Constitution (the census) and a few legislatively mandated (super-majority) areas (we're making a list). This would include barring the government from hiring others, such as universities, unions or Acorn to do their counting for them.
       This will cut every department in government, all the way down to county health offices, byt about 15%.
       (If this works, we may move onto baning measuring stuff next.)
       Note to the GOP:
       If you want to raise a flag around which, even by 2010, 50% of all democrats who are not otherwise employed by the government will rush to your high ground, just put a face and name, and a bulls-eye, on the bureaucracy.
       But don't tarry. By 2016 the bureaucrats and their clients may very well outnumber you.
Robert Hightower
Bureaucracy Buster for the Sands Institute