Gentleman Please Show a Little Respect for the Ladies of the Democratic Party

Bless his little pea picking heart but Sam Bregman is no southern gentleman when it comes to how he treats the ladies of the Democratic Party in this state. Now he might pitch a conniption fit for me saying so the evening before the election but this man does not know that it is not good to put off a southern lady when she asks for a sit down. I find his behavior very offensive and downright disrespectful.

I think I have had far too much of politicians who think they know what is good for the voting public without even beginning to listen to the voters of this state. Democratic Women make up the majority of the active voters in this state. We can pick a leader who can care about our issues without telling us that we don’t understand how busy they are in the first place. At this point we know very little about this man because he is far too busy to speak with us.

As such we are looking to find a party leader who cares about our issues of quality education for our children, fair wages that equal those of the men in this state, and an equal voice when it comes to small business development.

Now if this is how he begins his drive for party leadership then just how will he behave if elected to that position tomorrow evening? One does have to wonder…

We don’t want nor do we need some foul mouthed men who think they can just dismiss us because this state already has Congressman Steve Pearce who cares nothing about women’s rights or the environment for that matter.

I would suggest that the Ladies of the Democratic Party vote for the only woman,Letitia Montoya,in the race and teach these gentlemen that they need to learn some good old fashion southern manners before they can get elected to office.

The Economy, The Economy, The Economy Stupid!

The republicans are trying to destroy Medicare for our senior citizens. They want to give large tax breaks to the richest Americans while cutting programs for mothers with babies and old people. They want to hand fragile untouched land to oil companies like BP who rake in billions in profit while on government public assistance and charge customers $4.88 per gallon at the gas pumps.

What is wrong with this picture? Someone in Washington start standing up for our values.

Democrats win races when they stop giving into republicans and start standing up for party values. Democrats need to start telling the voting public that we value teachers and a quality education for our children that do not include our teachers teaching to the test while having their pay and benefits cut.

We have to tell the voters that the environment is the only thing that we can truly give to our children and grandchildren. We don’t want the same future for our children that the Japanese will pass down to their children. We don’t want to see fishermen’s way of live destroyed any further than it already has on the gulf coast, and we don’t want our coastlines destroyed by oil that will only increase the damage done by future hurricanes. The wrong path on these issues will only result in death and destruction for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

We value education for all because it provides a way for poor children to become middle class in the future. We value freedom so that our population can dream the dreams that no other country can dream. Those dreams are what makes people from all over the world want to be American.

We want our children to be free to build a better life and not just be tied to their parents because their parents are too poor to take care of themselves in their old age. That is what Social Security and Medicare is all about in the first place. These are the programs that built the middle class in this country.

Democrats can do one of two things. They can either start standing up for party values or they can stand by and watch the republicans destroy the American Dream for all.

How to fix the Budget—End Corporate Welfare

Let’s start by ending corporate welfare. All businesses in this country should either pay their employees a wage that covers the basics expenses of food, housing, basic living needs, child cares, and transportation.

If a company of any size does not pay their employees this basic wage then they should have to pay the government in taxes the cost of these basics not covered plus the administrative fees to cover having the government do it for them. After all why should taxpayers have to support employees of dead beat companies and corporations such as Wal-Mart?

Next if a company is willing to provide health insurance to their employees and their family which an employee can afford to pay any deductibles and or co-pays without cutting into the resources to cover basic needs than that would do away with that needed social programs for their employees. This in return could lower everyone’s taxes.

Then if a company or corporation would supply wages that would allow them to deduct money for a retirement plan without cutting into the money needed to cover basic living expenses plus healthcare then could I see lowering their tax rate. The company or corporation should be required to deduct that money pre-tax and see that it is wisely invested for the employees being covered.

We are still going to need taxes to pay for roads that employees use to get to and from work each day. We will need taxes that cover the cost of repair and upkeep of roads that companies and corporations use to get their goods to and from market. We will still need public schools to ensure that companies have a skilled labor workforce. We will still need funds to support people who find after illness or injury that they are unable to work. And of course we will still need money to pay for employees who find themselves unemployed where it was not fault of their own. Lastly we will still need to pay for a standing army to protect the rights of the American people and to keep our country safe from out siders who might harm our employers when it comes to their freedom to run a business and make a profit.

Any companies or corporations who fires or lays of people, because they don’t have the money to pay all of these benefits to their employees without cutting into their huge profits, should be forced to pay even higher taxes. Any companies or corporations that take their production or supplies out of the country to avoid these expenses should pay the highest taxes for goods and services they sell. If they raise their prices in order to pay for the employee benefits without cutting into their mega profits then they should also pay much higher taxes.

The America people pay far too much in taxes to support dead beat corporations and companies in this country. These organizations have come to depend on corporate welfare. We need to reform our system to reward employers who do the right thing and don’t depend on the government to cover expenses that should be paid by private companies and corporations.

In the long run all of these reforms would reduce the size of government and reduce the taxes that every American has to pay.

Republicans Showing Lack of Desire for Current Candidates

Gee, I wonder why… Republicans are all on board to lower taxes for the mega rich while putting the burden off onto the middle class workers in this country. How out of touch can one group of candidates get in an election year?

The people that are out there in the republican lineup are all the nutcases that no sane republican would ever want to vote for in the first place. Our own ex-governor Gary Johnson is now considering a run. This is the ex-governor who wants to make drugs legal so he can tax their profits. Maybe he would also want to impose a tariff on the ones coming across the Mexican—New Mexico border. Then again since they are so rich maybe he will want to protect the drug cartels from taxes all together since he promised no new taxes.

One does have to wonder what type of core values the Republican Party has of late when they take money from children and poor mothers with babies in order to hand it over to the richest individuals in this country. These are the people who want to take Medicare away from the elderly so they can put the tax dollars in the bank accounts of the already too rich.

Knowing the republicans they will probably next want to do away with social security so that they can then give large corporations larger tax cuts. The republicans don’t care what happens to the baby boomers that make up this country’s middle class as long as they get their tax dollars for the mega rich and the corporations in this country.

I wonder how long it will take all those middle class and working poor republicans to wake up and understand that their current crop of candidates don’t care about them. Then again maybe they already have and that is why they don’t want to vote for their own candidates.

2012 Campaign Season is Starting

The race this year will be one where the republicans will try to control the message. The question for the State Democratic Party will be can they do a better job and does that mean acting just like the republicans? Nothing turns democratic voters off more than hearing their candidates attacking the republicans. Democratic voters don’t want attacks they want a message that says what their candidates can do in the future that will help the middle class and the working poor.

They want to know how they will vote when it comes to things like raising taxes on the top 2% of wage earners in this country. They want to know how candidates plan to reduce the price of gas and increase the number of jobs so people can afford to live in this country and this state. They want to know how they plan on reforming education in this state without driving out gifted teachers.

Candidates would do well to dismiss the negative messages being put out by the Republican Party as hate filled and harmful to our form of government. Then they should act more like Congressman Martin Heinrich who stands by his pass votes while telling the voters that he is willing to work with both sides to achieve the best results for the voters he represents in this state. This is a candidate that will perform well on the national stage as our next senator. We would do well to have more candidates like him at the state level. His example will be the one that guides our party to success in the future.

Later this month the state central committee will pick one of two men to lead our party into the next election cycle. At present we have two candidates running for the state party chair. They are Sam Bregman and Javier Gonzales.

Sam Bregman has promised to take the attack to the republicans. To be a forceful presents in the local media. He wants to organize the party by having district meetings where he works with the long established activists to organize the party. Now the state central committee members must decide if they trust his message and if it will not drive core democratic voters away from the polls. As of yet he has not explained how he will reach out to individuals who feel they have been cut out of the political process by long time operators.

The other candidate is well known State Party Chairman Javier Gonzales. He is known for his diplomatic style approach to campaigns. He is more of a behind the screens type operator. He has already done work to build the party from the ground up by organizing local activists. He knows the value of getting his message out to the voters in the nontraditional venues as most of the media is very right leaning in this state.

Javier’s problem will be to bring the outsiders into the party and to make them feel welcome. His first attempt in 2010 did not go all that well as most of those voters did not favor the negative message being put out by the lead candidates in the state elections. Can Gonzales convince candidates to keep their message about issues and to stay away from the negative attacks that cost our state the governor’s office in 2010? Gonzales has been endorsed by retiring U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman. Senator Bingaman’s endorsement will carry a lot of weight since he has lead our party on the federal screen for the last few years.

The next move is up to the Democratic State Central Committee members. Will they chose wisely and will the approach of the next state party chairman work?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Even for Republican Representatives

Mayor R. J. Berry is trying to get seventy-five of the most vulnerable homeless people off the streets and into a safe environment where they can be treated for their medical and mental conditions.

So far only 3 of those individuals have been helped but the process is a long one and finding placement is often difficult at best. The main difficulty for the people trying to place these individuals is the lack of medical facilities in the city that can treat mental illness and addiction.

Also there is the problem that no one wants a homeless individual moving into their neighborhood. These individuals usually have long criminal histories due to abuse of either drugs or alcohol. Their behavior is unpredictable at best and at worst could pose a potential danger to the people surrounding them.

Republicans are attacking Mayor Berry for wasting their few precious tax dollars on something as weak and unimportant as protecting vulnerable homeless people. With the summer heat coming those are the ones that will cost the city nine hundred thousand dollars in medical care and emergency services.

I see it all the time where the police are called to San Mateo and Kathryn for some homeless person who has passed out due to the heat or cold. It requires a few police officers and an ambulance to transport the individual to the nearest emergency room. All of these costs are paid for by the middle class taxpayers in this city. Very little of it is paid by the rich republicans who complain about the waste of helping these individuals the most.

It would help if the local convenience store would stop selling these individuals large cans of beer which they take to the local bus stop to drink since it provides the only shade in the area. These individual also go behind the local businesses to drink and do drugs which makes the local small business leaders upset because it discourages customers from visiting their establishments.

With over six hundred homeless individuals out on the streets and more to come this summer as the temperatures increase in the city I for one would hope that local government would do all they can to help these individuals. In the long run this will keep them and the good people of our city a lot safer on our city streets. It will also reduce the cost of caring for these people to the middle class taxpayers.

Still this one small program will not even begin to address the problems this city faces when it comes to helping the homeless. While the mayor is at it maybe he can do something about the dumping ground of sex offenders which has been building up in the southeast part of our city over the last ten years. This only encourages that part of our city from having safer neighborhoods. This in the long run attracts more of the homeless to that rundown part of the city.

The Lie Behind the False Truth—Cutting Government Spending does not Create Jobs!

Governor Susana Martinez refused to raise taxes and instead cut from education in this year’s legislative session. How does that affect New Mexico? First by cutting back teacher’s pay they managed to take that much more money out of the pockets of small businesses in this state. You can’t spend what you don’t have people.

Every time Martinez reduces government it means that other public sector jobs will also go away because those government workers will no longer have the money to spend in their local neighborhoods. Small town New Mexico is being hit the hardest because there are even fewer jobs in those areas to begin with in the first place.

So what should the governor of New Mexico be doing to fix the unemployment problem in this state? First close tax loopholes so that the money stays in the state. Second stop giving money to big oil and gas because their profits are already obscene.

Once we have that money how do we invest it back into the state to create jobs? First fix education so that the funding goes directly to teachers and support staff in the classrooms. Next we spend money on improving the classrooms with new textbooks, computers and supplies. We should spend some of it on educating our local teachers so that they can in turn improve their skills that they use in the classrooms.

Next we can start supporting small business growth in this state. Educate anyone and everyone who is willing to go out and start a small business. Encourage and promote new projects that are developed locally such as at the business park just outside Kirkland Air force base. Work with and encourage our National Labs to provide research and develop for local businesses.

All of this will put New Mexicans back to work and improve our economy.

Cutting funding to education and local government while keeping corporate taxes low is a sure way to cause our state to enter a second recession also referred to as a double dip recession which is something no one in this state wants to see happen. Not even the rich.