Ed Martin For Congress » Stimulus

Labor Day, 2010

Webmaster — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:06:49 +0000

Labor day is a day first established to celebrate ”the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.” Today all of America’s workers enjoy the holiday, both those who are and are not organized. The interests of both categories of workers have converged and in most ways we are all in the same boat. As we enjoy the lovely weather and take the day off from our labors, I think it is important to look at where we are when work resumes on Tuesday.

Too many Missourians are out of work. Recessions are part of the cyclical life of an economy. I have lived through at least three, depending on how you count them, and while it is frustrating and worrisome, America has always bounced back, stronger than before.

This recession has enjoyed a great deal of “help” from the Federal government, or at least what has happened has been billed as help. As the various schemes to “help” the average worker have unfolded, we find the only folks helped were the politically connected.

Consider the Chrysler bailout, ostensibly to help stabilize the job situation for auto workers. First, the deal shut-down hundreds of dealerships. Sales staff were laid off at these firms, along with union service workers, disproportionately in areas away from an urban center. The decisions to shut down one dealership over another had nothing to do with the long-term economic health of the company, but rather was done under an airy rubric of “shared sacrifice.” In reality, the closures brought no measurable improvement to Chrysler’s bottom line, and may be a long-term detriment as buyers switch to other makes that have a local presence.

Fenton workers certainly shared in the “sacrifice” as they watched their tools, equipment and jobs packed up and shipped to Mexico and Canada. Their children and grandchildren will be paying the taxes that cover the cost of Chrysler’s bailout with no job to show for it. The Chrysler bailout fiasco is an unfortunate example of this congress’s incompetence.

The stimulus, another attempt by Congress to borrow enormous sums of money to shore up the economy is proving to be a colossal failure. Among the few types of projects we can all agree create jobs that benefit us all are “infrastructure” projects. How many times did we hear “shovel ready” jobs. The River Des Peres was built during the Great Depression era and benefits St. Louis to this day. However, in nearly a trillion dollars of borrowed money that we will have to pay back, only about 5% is going toward those sort of long-term infrastructure jobs. What of the other 95%? Did Russ Carnahan tell us only 5% will be going toward “shovel ready jobs? Who do we blame for this bald-faced lie?

Any reasonable person would see spending 300 million dollars in our district to make 561 jobs as an insulting waste of resources America simply does not have, but that’s what we have done here in Missouri’s 3^rd District. Millions of dollars have evaporated into the pockets of the politically astute. Congressman Carnahan’s brother Tom is in line to receive $90 million stimulus dollars for his wind farm, one example among thousands of insiders getting their “fair share” at our expense, with no accountability whatsoever, and no jobs as promised.

America’s workers are the most productive in the world, and we love to work. Our government has been overtaken by nannies bent on regulating every aspect of our lives and greedy politicians who cloy and grasp at every dollar they can send to their friends who in return send pennies on the dollar in campaign contributions for favored treatment. 55% of Russ Carnahan’s campaign war chest comes from political action committees who want to keep their place at the trough he fills with borrowed money.

The private sector is being strangled with red tape and robbed with high taxes, wrecking jobs that exist and preventing job growth that would normally occur naturally after an economic correction. It is Congressmen like Russ Carnahan tightening the collar.

These days, what we need in Congress are men and women with a conscience. One of my ancestors is James P. Mitchell (my grandmother’s father’s cousin, though we called him our “great uncle”) who served as Eisenhower’s Labor Secretary. Secretary Mitchell was well-regarded by both labor and business owners for his fairness and obvious concern for the workers of America. As I have come to understand my uncle’s career and approach, I see a man who knew that business owners and their employees need each other to succeed. This congress is punishing business owners without regard to the effect on the tens of thousands who are being thrown out of work, or kept off payrolls all over the country. I will work to be a leader like Secretary Mitchell, who provided commonsense leadership and put the needs of the people first.

No more wealth redistribution, giveaways to family members and campaign donors. Stop the takeover of health care, energy, and finance. Congress needs to change direction and chip away at the taxes and regulation that are creating uncertainty in the business community and destroying growth.

No more bailouts. No more regulatory burdens and stifling taxes for small business. I mean to go to congress and get the IRS and the bureaucracy off the neck of small business. From this new, free environment will flow jobs, jobs, jobs. Congress just needs to get out of the way.

Stimulus – Epic Failure

Webmaster — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:47:38 +0000

I heard a pastor say that you can either be humble, or be humiliated. The chart below, adapted from the slick packet used by the Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama to sell America on mortgaging our future, details how the arrogance of the Obama administration is meeting its nemesis. Far from the mild unemployment and speedy recovery, we have historically high unemployment and we seem stuck there with no end in sight.

Nothing about this is surprising. Tea party activists all across the nation warned against the $787 billion dollar stimulus. We knew from managing our own financial lives that America cannot borrow and spend its way into prosperity. The Federal government has no money of its own to waste, it can only take it from the private sector – or in this case obligate. Billions in spending will, like night follows day, lead to billions in taxes. Businesses clinging by their fingernails know that various regulations like Cap and Trade and programs such as Obamacare will increase the cost of hiring a new employee or expanding their business. Couple this with the inevitable tax increases, the massive spending is having the opposite of its promised effect.

There is zero satisfaction in pointing this out, only the bitter knowledge that Congressman Russ Carnahan lacks the basic economic understanding that government spending of this nature benefits the economy. The American constitution in defining narrowly what the Federal government may do had the added effect in keeping the Federal government out of the way of the private sector. For two centuries America was able to pay its bills, only occasionally going into debt, then retiring that debt responsibly. This congress has found a wide variety of spending opportunities and have frivolously wasted it on pet projects that do nothing to deal with our most pressing issue – Americans need jobs.

The only thing that can save America is Americans. We need congress to stop spending, reduce regulation, relax taxes and undo legislation that has been signaling businesses that the Federal government is going to punish their efforts to prosper with higher taxes and increased red tape.

Where are the Jobs? (Video)

Webmaster — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:48:41 +0000

The stimulus was pitched to America as a way of keeping unemployment at 8% or under. We are now at 10%.

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Boondoggle (Video)

Webmaster — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:40:12 +0000

As we celebrate the “anniversary” of the stimulus bill -- a clever video from the NRSC.

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Dec Jobs Report: Stimulus – Money for Worse than Nothing

Webmaster — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:00:02 +0000

In order to bring you this unemployment update, we interrupt our effort to get Congressman Russ Carnahan to come to his district to explain the soon to be voted on health care scheme rather than spending taxpayer money on a slick brochure legislation.

When Congressman Carnahan voted in favor of the stimulus bill he voted to saddle each family in our district with at least an additional $10,000 in debt. The promise was that the additional spending would keep unemployment from reaching 9%, and that people would return to work sooner than if we did not take on the additional debt.

What Congressman Carnahan delivered with his flawed scheme was peak unemployment of 10.2%. We are now in our second month of 10% unemployment.

So, to review – Congressman Carnahan saddled you and me with another $10,000 in debt and bought a worse jobs situation than if he had not done anything at all. Carnahan, Pelosi and Reid got a nice fat slush fund for their political supporters, but for us, nothigng close to what was promised. If congress were a Missouri business, the attorney general would be investigating them for fraud.

Remember this on election day.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled attempt to get Congressman Carnahan to have a health care town hall.

Statement of Ed Martin Regarding More Spending Votes by Russ Carnahan

Webmaster — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:34:16 +0000

I have a statement on the House vote on the Omnibus Spending bill over in our media section.

Dec. 10, 2009 – Statement of Ed Martin Regarding More Spending Votes by Russ Carnahan (Acrobat)

MO Wind Farm Floating on Taxpayer Breeze

Webmaster — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:16:01 +0000

I sincerely hope that the wind farm being built in DeKalb County, Mo., works out. The $300 million project slated to begin next year is supposed to bring 2,500 jobs to that area and generate enough power for 50,000 homes.

From a conservationist’s viewpoint, generating electricity with minimal environmental consequences is a good thing – a very good thing. However, every alternative source of power generation has to stand on its own two feet economically. The fact that this project is seeking a $90 million aid package from the federal Stimulus bill is sufficient reason to make you wonder. Requiring nearly one-third of the project’s budget from taxpayers already groaning under mountains of debt and evaporating jobs is a very bad sign.

Many people will understandably justify the government’s involvement based on concerns about global warming. But how valid are those concerns? Climategate demonstrates that the scientists giving politicians like Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Russ Carnahan a thin veneer of legitimacy were in reality cooking the books, torturing data until it confessed to what they wanted to hear. With global warming skeptics vindicated, how do we justify shoveling nearly $100 million of taxpayer money into a wind farm?

According the Business Journal, Tom Carnahan’s company has secured $240 million in loans for a $300 million project. For whatever reason, these lenders and investors do not believe in the project enough to cover the entire note. Why not? What do the guys putting up their own money – or the money of investors – know about the project that says “we are only in for 80 percent” ?

That sounds suspiciously like they expect a 20-percent down payment from Tom Carnahan’s company. Is this what the $90 million in our taxes is for? By my math, $90 million from the stimulus bill Missouri Representative Russ Carnahan voted for will cost each Missouri 3^rd district citizen (man woman and child) about $3. Twelve bucks for a family of four may not seem like much, but multiply that by thousands of other projects like this all over the United States. It adds up.

You probably don’t have relatives in Washington who can vote for Cap and Trade legislation to create the need for alternative energy your company hopes to fill. Few of us have a brother who can vote for stimulus bills to cover the costs of filling that need. If we have a bright idea, we have to secure our own money and put it at risk. If we succeed, we reap the benefits. If we fail, we lose our investment.

This looks like a classic example of a politically connected business hoping to reap all the benefits without taking any of the risks, instead putting taxpayers on the hook. Tom Carnahan and his fellow investors are welcome to build wind farms to their hearts content — I sincerely hope they succeed. But I am weary of private sector businesses going to Uncle Sam with their hand out, and I am sick of politicians accommodating them. If a wind farm in DeKalb County is a good investment, it’s a good investment without a fat wad of taxpayer cash.

Government is not the answer. We are.

Jeff.Peyton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:36:25 +0000

The United States was conceived in liberty and, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, dedicated to the extraordinary proposition that Almighty God has created all men and women equal. He has endowed each of us with rights that no government can take away.

Unfortunately, Congress no longer concerns itself with the principles upon which America was founded. A long decay in leadership has culminated in a big government that exists to feed its own lust for power and control at the expense of the very people it was intended to serve and protect.

Flowery rhetoric failed to bring about change we could believe in. Big government “solutions” have had no more success in restoring the integrity of our economy than a coat of whitewash would have in restoring the integrity of a rotting piece of wood.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that government was to be the servant of the people, not their master. Our founders built for us a nation based on individual initiative and unlimited opportunity.

I believe in the America Jefferson envisioned and Lincoln fought to sustain. I believe, as Ronald Reagan famously insisted, that our nation’s best days lie ahead. I am running for Congress to ensure that the future my children will inherit is one filled with opportunity. But it will take all of us, working together, creating and applying real solutions to our nation’s troubles.

“Together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”

Ronald Reagan said that in his first inaugural address, and I believe it is still true today.

Statement on Recovery.gov Scandal

Webmaster — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:11:09 +0000

I have a statement on the Recovery.gov scandal over in our media section.

Nov. 19, 2009 – Ed Martin Statement on Recovery.gov Scandal (Acrobat)

Blog Post Corrected

What Do We Have to Show?

Webmaster — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:00:59 +0000

Russ Carnahan may be proud of his work making sure Nancy Pelois’s agenda passes with as little maintenance as possible, the results are not too much to be proud of.

Even though I trust the “created or saved” numbers about as far as I can throw an aircraft carrier, these numbers are dismal even by the bogus standards set by this administration:

District	Jobs “Saved or Created”
Missouri District 4 Missouri District 6 Missouri District 1 Missouri District 8 Missouri District 7 Missouri District 9 Missouri District 2 Missouri District 3	12724.22 523.05 478.7 375.9 324.92 253.91 130.39 101.95

I oppose pork barrel spending – it is literally buying votes with the taxpayer’s money. Nevertheless, if you are going to saddle the people of your district with crushing debt, they ought to have something to show for it.