On Wednesday the Senate voted down an attempt to tack a quarter of a trillion dollars onto the federal deficit. 13 Democrats voted with all Republicans against the proposal. Both MA Senators, Kerry and Kirk, both Democrats, voted FOR additional deficit spending. I think it should be mandatory for all incoming Senators to take at least one college level course on economics. If a Democrat, at least two courses.
“Senator John Kerry released his plan today to eliminate the deficit. He said all we have to do is find a really rich country like Switzerland and marry it.” - Jay Leno
"John Kerry announced a fool-proof plan to wipe out the $500 billion deficit. John Kerry has a plan, he's going to put it on his wife's Gold Card." - Craig Kilborn
One of the biggest projects facing the town of Natick over the next several years is the construction of a new high school.The current high school was constructed in 1953, with renovations in 1964 and 1995.It has served Natick well, but the physical plant is deteriorating, and a new school needs to be built.Below are some pictures of the current high school.
Recently a location was selected, as well as an architect and a blueprint for the new school.The new building will be constructed on the tennis courts/baseball fields/soccer fields right next to the existing school.
During construction, one wing of the old school (the “B” wing) will need to be torn down.This wing, the ‘leftmost’ wing of the school as you face it, is closest to the construction site of the new building.In the picture below, we are looking at the left side of the high school, with the front to the right of the picture, and the back to the left (the chimney can be seen in the picture above for further orientation).In the foreground we can see the soccer fields where the new building is intended to be built, and we can see the “B” wing.The brick structure to the right of the B wing is a gym, which will also have to be torn down during construction.
Here’s another picture of the current high-school complex with a little height.Again, the left side of the complex below is what we are looking at in the picture above.
Here is one more picture of the construction site.If you went over to the Gym in the above picture, and turned around, this is what you would see:
How much will the new building cost?Estimates vary, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million to $90 million seems to be the first take.The town has chosen to build a ‘model’ school to take advantage of significant state subsidies for the project.The model school chosen is the Whitman-Hanson model.
For the Natick portion of the cost, an over-ride will be necessary.That over-ride vote will take place in the town election this spring.If the over-ride passes, the new school could be completed in approximately 3 years.If the over-ride fails, Natick will go to the back of the line on the state’s priority list of schools.Natick would then have the choice of either funding the entire amount of the new school itself, or putting off the construction for many years until the town works its way back up the state funding priority list.
The over-ride vote is certain to be contentious, as all over-ride votes are, but in this case, I think it is pretty clear Natick needs to build a new high-school.There really isn’t a Republican/Democrat partisan angle that I can see – there are likely to be people on both sides of the issue from both camps.But as the largest spending issue facing Natick, I thought it was worth a mention.
A point we have been emphasizing for some time is that the implosion of the US capital markets was caused by federal regulations interfering with the market. Thomas Sowell writing today nails if far more succinctly than me:
“Our current economic meltdown results from the federal government, under both Democrats and Republicans, declaring home ownership to be a "good thing" and treating the percentage of families who own their own home as if it was some sort of magic number that had to be kept growing-- without regard to the repercussions on other things. We are now living with those repercussions, which include the worst unemployment in decades. That is the price we are paying for increasing home ownership from 64 percent to 69 percent.”
“Federal regulatory agencies leaned on banks to lend to people they were not lending to before-- or else. The "or else" included not having their business decisions approved by the regulators, which could cost them more money than making risky loans.
Mortgage lending standards were lowered, in order to raise the magic number of home ownership. But, with lower lending standards, there were-- surprise!-- more mortgage payment delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures. This was a problem not only for banks and other lenders but also for those in the business of buying mortgages from the original lenders. These included semi-government enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Wall Street firms that bought mortgages, bundled them together and issued securities based on the anticipated income from those mortgages.
In other words, all these economic transactions were "interconnected," as the Russian economists would say. And when the people who owed money on their mortgages stopped paying, the whole house of cards began to fall.”
To sum up: the Federal government played Russian roulette with the US economy in an effort to get people who could not afford to own homes to own homes, and the economy got shot in the head. There were a whole host of Federal busy-bodies responsible for the fiasco, but our own Barney Frank was clearly the most prominent. He should resign out of simple embarrassment, but the sad fact is he does not even realize he caused the problem. Perhaps voters can explain it to him in the 2010 election.
Wendy Button, a Democrat speech writer, writing in Politics Daily, talks about her experience with Massachusetts healthcare:
“Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here's how I lost my insurance: I moved. That's right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care.
In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at GeorgetownUniversityHospital. As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount.
In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven't changed. I didn't stop writing and become a stunt double. I don't smoke. I drink a little and every once in a while a little more than I should. I have a Newfoundland dog. I am only 41. There has been no change in the way I live my life except my zip code -- to a state with universal health care.”
Ms Button raises an interesting point:why are policy makers in Washington ignoring the debacle that is Massachusetts ‘universal’ healthcare? For that matter, why are they ignoring the crisis that is Medicaid and Medicare? What about Canada?Why are politicians, such as Massachusetts own Ed Markey, Barney Frank, and John Kerry ignoring the many precedents for disaster that have been set over the years?Are they ignorant of history?Do they just not care?As my dad always told me, don’t assign to malice what can be explained by ignorance.So I’m going to go with ignorance of history rather than malice towards their constituents for why they are working to demolish the US healthcare system.Should these people really continue to represent Massachusetts voters?
One other point that struck me in reading Ms Button’s story – she says she is not insured. But she HAS to be insured, it’s mandatory in this state.She claims she can not afford coverage, but IT DOESN’T MATTER. She MUST have insurance, whether she can afford it or not. She will be paying fines if the government catches on to her. Mandatory healthcare coverage is a tax increase – a big one – a point Ms Button could have made.
It’s an excellent ‘light bulb moment’ story for a liberal speech writer. Read the whole thing here.
The Obama administration is taking the country down a lot of wrong roads all at once, from healthcare to Iran, so it is important for Conservatives to keep fighting on all fronts. One front that is very active is the government’s intrusion into the energy sector with pending cap-and-trade legislation. This issue will come to a head in December when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to work on a “global warming” agreement. As we've blogged about previously, the fact that the world has been getting colder since 1998 is not slowing Al Gore down in the slightest. Here in the northeast in fact, we’d better keep the shovels handy.
From Lynn Woolley, writing at HumanEvents.com:
“Let me state this as plainly as possible: Global warming is a hoax designed to provide a crisis that will lead to a spreading-of-the-wealth among nations. Here at home, it will greatly increase the power of the government and Central Planning. If the government wants your thermostat set at 72 degrees, then that it what it shall be. If the government says get rid of your SUV -- you’ll have to find a used Yugo somewhere. It will be government’s choice and not yours.”
Welcome to the the blog of the Natick Massachusetts Republican Town Committee! We are a group dedicated to electing people to public office who share our republican principles of governing.
Many of our right-thinking friends have left the state for more sane political environments, but those of us who have remained believe it is important that there be alternative ideas for governing, clearly articulated and in place, when Massachusetts finally collapses under the weight of socialist policies.
This blog exists to be the discussion forum for those ideas. For more information on who we are, and to follow our local and state-wide efforts, check out our webpage atwww.NatickRepublicans.org.
