A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION?

The end of one year and the dawn of the next is a time to inventory what we have accomplished and what remains to be done. It is a time of resolutions and a time for fresh new beginnings. It gives us a new slate and an opportunity for a fresh start.

At this time next year our forty-fourth President will be preparing to appoint a new cabinet, writing an inaugural address, and overseeing the transition to new leadership for the executive branch of the federal government. One third of the United States Senate will have just been elected, as will the entire House of Representatives.

Here in South Carolina we will also be electing the entire General Assembly -- all the Members of the House and Senate. For these reasons, among many others, the new year is a critical crossroads in our lives as Americans. Candidates are particularly sensitive to the will of the voters, and the year ahead offers “we the people” the opportunity to powerfully influence the direction of our state and nation and to shape the policies that will determine the kinds of lives our children and grandchildren will have.

As I think back on the great policy issues of 2007, one thing stands out. The issue of border security and illegal immigration became a national firestorm. Americans rose up as they have on very few issues to demand that our borders be secured and our laws be enforced. Having been badly burned on their amnesty bill and its “paths to citizenship” for law breakers, one would think that lawmakers would have learned a lesson. Unfortunately, some of them came back again and again trying to achieve the same end.

In the days before Christmas, as Congress was finalizing a massive spending bill to keep the federal government running, lawmakers passed a bill laden with more than eleven thousand pork barrel projects (they call them “earmarks”) worth approximately $20 billion. These projects receive almost no public scrutiny and debate.

Earlier this year Congress and the President had pledged to cut the number of pork barrel projects in half, from the 2005 peak of 13,492 to 6,746. But old habits die hard. Congress was, however, astonishingly successful at cutting one major project and its $3 billion price tag -- the border fence that Congress had previously approved and that the American people have been demanding!

Of course, efforts are underway to restore funding for the border fence. The organization that has probably done more than any other in mobilizing public opinion in support of border security and enforcing our immigration laws, NumbersUSA, has already collected volumes of signatures asking President Bush, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid to restore funds for the border fence.

When one sees the U. S. Congress boldly defying the will of the American people, it strongly suggests that there is very strong counter-pressure from highly organized special interest groups. Legislators have determined that small, well-funded, special interests, perhaps with a financial interest in lots of cheap labor flooding into the country, can be of more help to them politically than can the vast, disorganized citizens they are supposed to represent.

There is a lesson here for us all. We need to take our responsibilities as citizens and voters very seriously. We need to challenge our representatives when they ask for our votes, and we need to hold them accountable if they betray us. A good New Years resolution would be to register on the NumbersUSA website, take advantage of the free faxes they provide for contacting the Congress, and make sure your representatives truly do represent you, and not some special interest that wants to pick your pockets for spending you oppose.

The year ahead is an exciting opportunity for all of us, working together, to ensure that our state and nation have leadership worthy of our families, our history, and our ideals.

My family and I wish you a New Year full of joy, peace, and hope. May God richly bless you in 2008 and beyond.

A JOYOUS AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

There was a recent news story that British primary schools have been voluntarily giving up what had been a staple of their Christmas season for generations, the school nativity play. It was reported that only one in five schools are planning to perform the traditional nativity play this year. To American readers, the idea of schools making any mention of Christmas, faith, or allowing prayer and Scripture reading has become strange and foreign. And it is particularly sad to see such things voluntarily abandoned elsewhere when they have been forcibly forbidden by court order in our own country.

The news story explained that while most British parents want the tradition of nativity plays to continue in British schools, many school officials have decided to abandon the plays out of concern over “not offending anyone.” Sound familiar?

Because expressions of faith have been stripped from America’s public schools, it does not seem as shocking when Christmas displays are stripped from our courthouse squares, the word “Christmas” is eliminated from retail advertising, sales people are forbidden to wish customers a “merry Christmas,” and public officials celebrate “winter holidays.” In recent weeks there has even been controversy over whether it is appropriate for political leaders to wish their constituents and voters a “merry Christmas.”

Were it not so commercially lucrative, all celebration of Christmas would probably be eliminated everywhere but inside our churches. We are doing what the British schools are doing, surrendering the public square to a small number of secularists aided by the ACLU, and convincing ourselves that even though the vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian, it would be impolite to let it show.

The judges and educators that have banned even the reading of a psalm at a school assembly program or a prayer at graduation will tell us that one of the reasons for the chronic failure and increasing violence in our schools today is that too many students lack “self esteem.” Could there possibly be a connection between that lack of self-esteem and the fact that schools prevent a student from talking about where he or she came from, what the purpose of one’s life is, and where we are headed?

The acknowledgment that one can be the adopted child of not merely a king, but the King of Kings, who loved us before the world began and who “so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have life eternal” can do wonders for a child’s “self-esteem.”

Let us remember during this holy and happy season that “Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.” Let us joyfully reclaim our culture, return to the roots of our nation’s founding, proclaim the good news, and celebrate the life-changing, world-changing event when “God became man and dwelt among us” as the Light of the World.

My family and I wish you and all your loved ones a happy, joyous and blessed Christmas. May God richly bless you and yours this Christmas and throughout the New Year!

THE PRIMARY PROBLEM WITH PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCES

The presidential election that has been underway for over a year, and will continue for nearly another year, has raised many important issues and generated needed discussion about problems confronting our country. However, it has also made clear to many Americans that our system of choosing party nominees and electing Presidents is itself a problem that needs fixing.

Our presidential elections have become far too long, too expensive, too divisive, and they divert attention, time and money from problems on which our political leaders, and all Americans, should focus and work together. They have also become the near-exclusive domain for the wealthiest or most prominent Americans with ambitions to hold the highest office in the land.

Within the lifetime of many adults today, candidates for President did not even announce their candidacies until the spring of the presidential election year. We used to have a primary system that started out slowly, with primaries in small states like New Hampshire, West Virginia and South Carolina, where good, unknown political leaders without enormous amounts of cash, could hire a bus, travel from town to town, and become known.

This sorting-out process in the smaller states allowed merit to be recognized and little-known candidates of merit to become known, thus broadening the field beyond the very wealthy and the more prominent leaders from the largest states. The primary season, having begun in March in small states, culminated in June in large states like New York and California.

Unfortunately, this sensible system has now been destroyed by large states competing against smaller ones to be among the first to hold primaries. Instead of a slow, testing process that moved from state to state, “super primaries” requiring hundreds of millions of dollars are now held in January and February of the presidential election year.

But today many recognize that the party nominees will be determined within the one month gap between “Iowa caucus day” on January 3rd and “super primary day” on February 5th when voters in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah will go to the polls to choose their party’s nominee.

With one-half of every four year election cycle being consumed as it is with highly partisan, national political activity there is an enormous spill-over effect on the Congress, with the parties and their leaders framing issues for the sake of partisan advantage instead of focusing on the best interests of the nation as a whole. This situation has produced a demise of statesmanship.

While most Americans probably would not want to see national elections carried out with strict spending limits within a six week period, as they are in Great Britain, our current system needs to be fixed, and most of our political leaders know it. Even while the current system is enriching political consultants, advertising firms, and the broadcast media, it is creating revulsion, cynicism, or apathy among the general public. I am reminded of a television personality who said, “I never vote; it only encourages them!”

Once our 2008 presidential election is finally over, our next President, senior leaders in Congress, and party leaders should promptly convene a bipartisan commission to advise political parties and office holders on how to restore a sane political process that ensures a level playing field, giving preference to character over cash and policies over partisan gamesmanship.

In these perilous times, there are too many threats facing our nation for us to spend half our time fighting partisan battles that only divide and weaken our nation in the eyes of the world. There may be at least two sides to every issue, but in confronting Islamic jihad and the terrorism that seeks to destroy us, Americans cannot afford to be less than one nation, under God.

ANOTHER DAY OF INFAMY?

Many of our political leaders who supported amnesty for illegal aliens and a “path to citizenship” for law breakers were shocked by the enormous, collective, “no” they received from the American people this year. Concerned that they have been on the wrong side of what most Americans regard as the nation’s greatest threat, many have attempted to make amends by suddenly talking tough about securing the border and enforcing our laws.

New legislation in the Congress now gives us the opportunity to address the immigration crisis with tough new tools. It also gives the tough talkers the opportunity to show the voters that they “got the message.”

Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) has introduced the Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, H.R. 4088. The House bill already has 122 cosponsors, including South Carolina Representatives Gresham Barrett and Bob Inglis. The Senate version, S. 2368, is identical and was introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), but thus far has only one cosponsor, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

The legislation, which already has bipartisan support but little apparent support from South Carolina’s delegation, does those things that our Congressional leaders say they support. Specifically, it:

• Increases the number of Border Patrol agents by 8,000 over five years.
  
  
• Employs the newest technology available, including satellite communication and aerial surveillance.
  
  
• Expands and mandates the use of E-verify, a free program administered by the Department of Homeland Security that enables employers to confirm the legal status of their workers and job applicants. The bill will phase in all employers over four years.
  
  
• Allows for information-sharing between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to close all loopholes and ensure that no illegal aliens are eligible for Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs.
  
  
• Expands the detention capacity and resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
  
  
• Increases the number of Federal District Court Judges so as to expedite deportation hearings for lawbreakers.
  

We have all heard the tough, new rhetoric about border security and about enforcing immigration laws, but only two members of South Carolina’s Congressional delegation have yet signed on to this legislation that has the bipartisan support of 124 of their colleagues.

The problems and expenses created by our undefended southern border, and the opportunity it offers terrorists, cannot go unaddressed any longer. Sixty-six years ago today on December 7, 1941, our nation suffered the first attack on its own territory. Our President directed that all measures be taken for our defense and assured the republic that “we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

It is time that our leaders remember those words and recognize the damage being done to us through a passive attack by tens of millions of scofflaws. The American people are just as willing to address today’s prolonged national attack as they were following that sudden “Day of Infamy” in 1941.

The Joys and Perils of Christmas

Christmas is a time of year when we joyously celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ and God’s giving of His son for us, and many people respond by giving gifts to loved ones, friends, and even to total strangers in need. It is always good that we extend acts of love and charity to others, and to do so seems especially appropriate this time of year.

Unfortunately, some merchants view the extraordinary goodwill and generosity shown by Christmas shoppers as an extraordinary opportunity to take advantage of their goodwill and generosity. In that regard, shoppers need to be aware of certain perils, namely in buying gifts cards and using credit cards, and should shop accordingly.

Gift cards can seem like a very practical way to ensure that those to whom we give get the perfect gift. Last year, U.S. sales of gift cards exceeded $80 billion. Unfortunately, consumers lose nearly $8 billion annually through such cards either by misplacing or forgetting to redeem them, through various hidden fees, or through expiration dates imposed by the merchant. It’s a point worth making that the legal tender used to buy a gift card has no expiration date.

It’s very important for both the giver and the receiver of gift cards to read and remember the fine print. Terms and conditions that accompany these cards can substantially decrease their face value. This fine print may include:

· a fee to be paid upon purchase of the card;

· a fee to be paid if the card is lost or stolen (and even then the lost card’s bar code and the receipt provided the gift-giver may be required before a replacement will be given);

· a monthly maintenance fee to be charged on inactive cards;

· a fee to be charged simply to check a card’s remaining balance;

· a restriction to limit the period of time that a card is valid.

Many retailers realize that a significant percentage of gift cards will be lost, forgotten and never used, or if partially used, a small balance may go unclaimed. Very few gift cards allow the recipient to redeem the card for cash, even if after a purchase there is only a small balance remaining on the card.

Both the giver and receiver of gift cards should learn about any expiration dates that apply and any fees that may be assessed against the cards. Furthermore, the gift card, a copy of its bar code, and the receipt for its purchase should all be kept in a safe place. But in the end, most losses could be avoided if those who get gift cards use them sooner rather than later.

A second peril for Christmas shoppers exists with using credit cards issued by merchants. Major retailers will frequently ask if you’d like to put your purchase on your store credit card, and if you don’t have one they’ll offer you the opportunity to apply for one on the spot. These offers often include a generous discount for the purchase if it is made with either your existing or a newly applied-for card. Retailers know they will make far more as your creditor than they could ever make by simply selling you merchandise. Some retailers even sell merchandise at a loss knowing that the real profits are made in their lending of money.

Offers for “no payments until next June” or “interest-free payments for six months” are designed to encourage you to carry unpaid balances on your account. Buyer beware. These offers all come with hefty, hidden price tags. One financial advisor illustrates the point with the following example:

The average credit card balance these days is pushing $8,000 and the typical interest rate is about 18 percent, with many folks paying even more. Doing the simple math, an 18 percent interest rate on an $8,000 balance is $1,440 a year.

If you need more convincing, what if rather than paying $1,440 a year to the credit card company, you invested $1,440 every year for the next 20 years and you earned an average return of 8% a year. In 20 years, you’d have accumulated a nest egg of $71,169!

That should make us all think twice when we’re offered credit or we’re tempted to reach for a credit card to make a purchase.

The Christmas season should be a holy and joyous time marked by generosity. It’s a time for giving. But we should be careful that as we give gifts, we give them with our heads as well as with our hearts.

A Politically Correct Thanksgiving?

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, it can be valuable to consider the roots of this uniquely American holiday because too often its history and meaning is ignored or distorted in our secular age. Some schools are even using textbooks that suggest that the first Thanksgiving feast was about nothing more than expressing thanks to Squanto and some of the Indians, instead of thanking God.

The pilgrims were English Puritans, poor farmers who were struggling to practice their “separatist” religion in their homeland in the face of government harassment and religious persecution. In 1608 they emigrated from England to Amsterdam, and a year later, they moved to Leiden, Holland, where they remained for 12 years. However, they eventually became concerned about the corrupting influences their children faced in that country and, spurred by economic difficulties, they negotiated with the London Company for passage and the right to settle in Virginia, which was the northern part of the company’s jurisdiction.

Eventually, fewer than half of their members agreed to leave Leiden. As part of their agreement with the London merchants financing the voyage, they would travel with a larger group of other passengers. The Mayflower began its historic journey on September 16, 1620, with 102 passengers, including 37 from the Leiden congregation.

The voyage took 65 days, during which two passengers died. A baby was born at sea, and another was born while the ship lay at anchor off the Massachusetts coast. Conditions in the dark, crowded ship were appalling. Most of the passengers were seasick almost from the beginning, there was little to eat, they suffered from bleeding gums, infection, bites from vermin, hunger, rotting food, and they were not able to bathe for the more than two month passage.

When at anchor it became obvious that they would not reach the land in Virginia for which they had contracted, there were threats of mutiny. To ward off the threat and establish a basis of government in an unsettled region, they drew up the Mayflower Compact. This legal framework, based on biblical principles, provided for just and equal laws for believers as well as for non-believers; significantly, it also called for a common store of goods with each person, providing an equal share of ownership and use.

In that first harsh winter more than half the suffering settlers died from cold and starvation, and for some years after settlement the community still failed to flourish. In his history of the Mayflower Company, Governor Bradford indicated that the inherent problem was the collectivist system established by the Mayflower Compact. He wrote:

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years -- that by taking away property, and bringing community into common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing -- as if they were wiser than God. For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense … that was thought injustice.”

Bradford, recognizing the power of incentive, wisely remedied the problem by assigning each family their own plot of land to work and manage as they wished, thus turning loose for the first time on the American continent the powerful engine of free enterprise. Bradford wrote that his privatization reforms “had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.”

The resulting bounty allowed the settlers to trade and exchange goods with the Indians. It even allowed them to pay off their debts to the London merchants ahead of schedule.

Thus, when the practices of the settlers accorded with the laws of human nature, which laws their leaders recognized were authored by our Creator, the people prospered and were moved to give thanks to the Author of life and natural law.

As we study the lives of these first settlers and the history of their enormous struggle, the spiritual roots of our country are unmistakable and clear. When our textbooks and government schools distort that history or deny the powerful spiritual roots of our nation’s founding, we need to insist, with the same strength of conviction shown by those courageous settlers, that their story be told fully and truthfully. When socialist proposals are put forth for “comprehensive health care” and other collectivist ideas, our children need to know that these ideas were tried and have failed not only in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but right here in America nearly four hundred years ago.

Since those first, difficult days our country has been richly blessed like no other on the face of the Earth. As we gather with our families and contemplate the extraordinary blessings of freedom and bounty we enjoy as Americans, let us resolve, like those first settlers who risked all for their faith, to thank God from whom all blessings flow.

In this spirit, my family and I wish you and yours a very happy and most blessed Thanksgiving. Let us all especially pray for the families and the safety of our troops overseas, remembering also to thank God for their success.

A Dangerous Mix of Money and Power

We’ve all heard politicians and candidates talking about the “ordinary” people they’ve recently run into, and telling teary-eyed stories to show that they feel our pain and really care about us little guys.

This week I heard a radio segment focusing on a personal story recently used by a presidential candidate in her campaign rhetoric while traveling around Iowa. The reporter following her campaign described how this Senator stopped at a local sandwich shop for lunch with her entourage. The Senator settled onto a stool at the counter, ate a sandwich, chatted with her waitress, and then was on her way. According to the reporter, this experience gave the presidential candidate “perfect fodder for her next few stump speeches.”

To be sure, it was glorious fodder. She talked about the working mom she had just met who is raising two boys, working two jobs at minimum wage, struggling to make ends meet, and how, when she becomes President, ordinary people like her waitress will have it much better. It must have all sounded so heartfelt coming from a famous candidate, and no doubt crowds were touched by this sort of profound compassion and concern for their less fortunate neighbors.

The reporter decided to return to the diner to get more background on the one whose life had gotten drawn into a famous candidate’s stump speech, thus becoming part the 2008 presidential election. Yes, it turns out that the waitress indeed has had a difficult life. She has often worked two and three jobs to support her boys. In addition to her job in the sandwich shop she also works at a nursing home to pay her own school loans and make ends meet.

The diner indeed had provided lunch for the candidate and her campaign entourage, but this poor waitress, who was the subject of the campaign rhetoric, insisted that she was not even left a tip for her services. Not five cents for the struggling mom by whom the candidate was so moved.

This story reminds me of an issue that came before the state Budget and Control Board last week. At its meeting, the Board approved major salary increases -- nearly 20 percent increases for some -- for a very small group of agency heads, despite no performance review for the raises, despite some of them being on the job for only a few months, and despite none of them asking for raises. The three most generous raises in the group were for $20,000, $23,000, and almost $36,000!

Governor Sanford and I voted against those hefty increases, particularly since state government is heading into what could be a $220 million deficit next year. Yet the three other members of the Board disagreed with our position, overrode our votes, and approved the raises.

Now these three are serious gentlemen of comfortable means who I assume have been successful in business. I simply can’t imagine they would ever grant an employee of theirs, who had been on the job only a few months, or who had not been given increased responsibilities, a 20% pay raise. But many elected officials think differently of spending taxpayers’ money than spending their own, and spending it generously. For some, politics is about power, and many have grown accustomed to letting the hard-working citizens of South Carolina buy that power for them.

Like the Senator who wouldn’t leave her own spare change for a working mother who had served her, too many of our politicians see taxpayers as merely useful props. Some will talk with great compassion about their concern for the poor. They’ll conceive great governmental programs to improve life for middle class families whose votes they covet. But it will be the very people they say they want to help -- the struggling mom raising two boys alone and waiting tables or the self-reliant middle class mom and dad who want to rear their children as their parents reared them -- who will ultimately pay the tab for the generous big government, big spending schemes of the politicians.

Someone once said that “giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” In the interest of protecting our financial safety, perhaps it’s time to insist upon more restrictive driving rules for those to whom we’ve given money and power.

It’s Wrong… Patently Wrong!

Even before many of our rights were codified in the U.S. Constitution, the right of an inventor to own all rights to the creations of his own genius was constitutionally protected. The patent system crafted by our founding fathers has been so successful that it has enabled America to produce more inventions than all the rest of the world’s nations combined.

Unlike many countries, America’s patent system has guarded intellectual property by protecting the confidential contents of a patent application until a patent was granted, or by returning an application to the inventor with his secrets intact, so that he could make modifications and possibly resubmit an application.

Unfortunately, foreign interests, multinational corporations, and American “globalists” who believe that people, products, and information ought to be able to cross national borders unfettered are attempting to “harmonize” America’s patent system with systems that exist elsewhere in the world. Based upon globalist ideology, a “Patent Reform Act” has already been passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and is under consideration in the Senate.

For the sake of “harmonizing” the American patent system with systems of foreign nations, foreign interests and multinational corporations are aggressively pressuring Congress to make these changes. After all, they are aware that the so called “reforms” would give them access to the research and development done by small inventors and businesses that account for 40% of America’s innovation, and would free them from having to pay for their inventions.

The proposal would change the rules for filing patents and would give property rights to the “first to file” rather than the first to invent. Obviously, large foreign interests are far better positioned than are most of our own small businesses and individual inventors to hire teams of powerful lobbyists and lawyers in Washington, D.C. to help them gain rights to an American invention they didn’t devise, simply by rushing to submit paperwork before it is submitted by the actual American inventor.

The proposal would require the U.S. Patent Office to open its files and publish all inventions 18 months after the date of application, even though the current application process for an American inventor takes much longer to successfully complete. This would mean that before American ideas and inventions are protected with a patent, confidential information would be published so that any country can pirate American ideas and inventions and put them into production.

The Patent Reform Act would also limit damages that can be awarded for patent infringement and outright theft. Again, the small American company or individual would be at a severe disadvantage in attempting to win just compensation from an unscrupulous multinational corporation or foreign nation.

Finally, the proposal would hurt our most creative and productive citizens while it would help those who pay no taxes in the United States and who have no loyalty whatsoever to our country. It would also reward and assist those countries that already are pirating the intellectual property of American citizens, manufacturing products based on ideas they have stolen from us, and selling those products back to us.

The American government should be working in the best interests of America’s small businesses that create new jobs and account for most of our productivity rather than penalizing them with the Patent Reform Act. If America’s inventors are not protected from foreign nations and multinational corporations, America will lose the foundation for its prosperity with innovation moving overseas just as manufacturing has done.

Because of the rapid changes that have come with the digital age, there indeed might be some updating and improvements needed to our patent system. But given that America still leads the world in technology and innovation, it seems odd that our lawmakers would feel the need to throw out our patent system and pattern it instead on the systems of far less creative countries. Perhaps we should remind our Senators of an old adage: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” To do that would be patently wrong.

Never Too Late

Many Americans were disappointed to learn that existing home sales in the United States fell 8 percent in September, and that sales have plummeted a hefty 19 percent during the past year. At the same time, national median selling prices are down 4 percent from a year ago.

These are worrying statistics, particularly because after a half century of increasing housing prices, many had come to believe that housing prices would always increase. Indeed, many Americans have come to depend on the increasing value of their home to provide security in a crisis and support in their retirement years, rather than to routinely save some of every paycheck for those critical purposes.

There has also been a recent flood of stories about home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies stemming from easy credit and overspending. During recent times of relative prosperity, Americans have become poor savers. The U.S. savings rate has declined from approximately 10 percent in the 1980s to 6 percent in the 1990s and to a negative ½ percent in 2005. That means that Americans spent more than they earned in 2005. The last time the savings rate was negative for an entire year was in the Great Depression years of 1932 and 1933.

Something doesn’t feel right about these numbers. In the last decade, total household net worth for Americans has doubled -- yet America’s personal savings rate has now sunk to among the lowest in the world.

These statistics should not panic us, but they should be a wake-up call for us to return to better financial habits that most Americans remember, but fewer and fewer practice. Our savings dearth has been fostered by politicians who fail to recognize the need for better public policy and tax policy for encouraging more savings, and who at the same time provide awful examples by the careless way they spend every last dollar they can snatch from the public purse and then, once spending them all, continue to spend by incurring runaway public debt.

Government seems oblivious to the problem of our low personal savings rates. American Debt Resources, Inc., a non-profit credit counseling organization is one of many private sector organizations helping Americans reclaim control over their financial future. The organization points out that in any ten year period 75 percent of families will experience a major financial crisis, whether it is loss of a job, illness, divorce, or some other unexpected challenge.

Its advice is to save, and it emphasizes that the best way to save is to always pay oneself before paying anyone else. Its counselors explain that to do that requires “taking a set amount of your paycheck before paying any bills and putting it in savings. Then plan your budget around the remaining income.”

Saving through automatic payroll withholding is a foolproof way to develop better savings habits. That technique allows you to save first before spending the first dollar from your paycheck. I’ve never known anyone to regret that they saved. Automatic saving is one of the best practices available to rich or poor for building wealth and financial security, but it is also one of the most frequently ignored practices.

Time is running out for many baby boomers, and many are underestimating how much they’ll need to make it through their retirement years. A study by The Center for Retirement Research estimates that Americans are saving at a rate that will allow them to replace only 57% of their pre-retirement income after they stop working. Many have optimistically assumed that by selling homes that are constantly appreciating in value they will be able to meet retirement income shortfalls, yet emerging housing statistics challenge the validity of that assumption.

We should all return to better savings habits. Good savings habits are not only good for families, they are vital for our country and its economy. Our household and national savings provide more than just funds for the future, they also provide the capital for investment by new and existing businesses, which in turn ensures that there are well-paying jobs for all Americans.

Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again -- and expecting different results. Your failure to save will do nothing to produce the financial security you want. The surest way to reclaim a sound financial future and peace of mind is to begin saving today. While time is a saver’s best friend, it’s never too late to begin.

Never Too Soon

In recent years there’s been much discussion about what schools should and should not be teaching. But there is a growing consensus that most schools have overlooked one very important aspect of preparing students for life’s responsibilities. For most of our lives, we are all involved to some degree in financial management – whether that entails budgeting and spending responsibly, buying a house or a car, saving for our children’s education, managing a retirement fund, running an organization or business, or overseeing the finances of government. To be sure, the recent staggering number of people who have been overwhelmed by easy debt or who have lost their homes through foreclosure, along with the runaway spending by government officials at all levels, suggests that much more should be done to teach all Americans better principles of money management.

That is why I was delighted to learn recently that the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has developed a program to teach very young children about money. Recognizing that attempts to teach financial literacy to high school and middle school students often fail, CUNA has wisely designed its program for preschoolers. Because older students already have been saturated with advertising messages and with peer pressure for the newest and best of everything, no matter the cost, the obstacles for beginning a financial literacy program once bad habits are established are impractical to overcome.

As CUNA points out, “Children learn about money from many sources. Long before they enter school, they observe adults using money and buying things. They watch television daily and see thousands of commercials each year. Like it or not, money is a part of your preschooler’s life.”

The Credit Union National Association calls its program “Thrive by Five,” and it offers “parent and child tested” activities and resources on its website that are meant to give parents ideas for:

* Teaching how money works and what it can do,
* Talking about how your family uses money, and
* Modeling good money management.

In addition to providing tips for teaching preschoolers about money, CUNA’s website contains simple stories about money for preschoolers, a list of 17 things a five-year-old should know about money, and hands-on learning activities that teach concepts such as “saving should be a habit; once money is spent, it’s gone; people have to make choices with money; and don’t trust ads.”

This sounds like an excellent program. It is especially encouraging that our state currently has the highest per-capita rate in the nation of “Thrive by Five” program materials distributed to our schools. Come to think of it, if ”Thrive by Five” is successful for toddlers, why not offer a similar program to those government officials who often provide such poor examples for our youth by the routine way they indifferently exhaust public funds and concurrently chalk up crushing public debt?

Responsible money management is important for everyone, whether individuals, families, businesses, or governments. We are seeing credit card debt, bankruptcies, and mortgage foreclosures increasing out of hand. It would be a true blessing for us all if other civic and business organizations follow CUNA’s lead in assuring that people get an earlier start in learning how to handle money wisely. If this program proves to be effective in the long run, we’ll all benefit tremendously.

PROVIDE A WATERY GRAVE FOR A LOST CAUSE

One has to wonder what drives the Administration and some members of Congress to promote policies that weaken US sovereignty, threaten American industries, export jobs, leave our borders undefended, and subject American businesses, our military personnel, and our citizens to the laws and regulations established by transnational bureaucracies like the United Nations, instead of by our elected representatives in Washington. Do these promoters distrust their own country, are they willing to allow the interests of the UN to take precedence over the interests of our citizens, or are they just idealistically pursuing what Henry Kissinger refers to as the new “international architecture?”

It was just a few months ago that a national uprising of the American people persuaded Congress to soundly defeat a proposed illegal alien amnesty bill. Yet in the last few weeks, the Administration and many amnesty supporters have been attempting to repackage their amnesty bill into something called the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.

The DREAM Act, which was quietly tacked on to a defense authorization bill, would have granted amnesty to illegal aliens who entered the United States as children. These young illegal aliens would have been granted permanent, lawful status that would have then allowed them to seek permanent lawful status for their parents who brought them into the country illegally as children. Once again, the American people said “no.” Americans understandably want our laws to be respected and our borders secured and defended.

Remarkably, the Administration is now collaborating with Senator Joseph Biden on something called the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), a United Nations power grab rejected by President Reagan a quarter of a century ago because among other reasons it would undermine U.S. sovereignty. LOST was first proposed by the United Nations in 1982, and it would give the UN authority on, over, and beneath the ocean’s surface.

LOST would restrict the U.S. Navy’s intelligence gathering and submarine operations; it would require our military to obtain permission from the UN before boarding or detaining any ship it suspects of carrying terrorists or terrorist supplies; it would give the UN its first authority to tax, by imposing hefty fees and assessments on any American company involved in such things as seabed mining; and it would establish a UN tribunal, superior to our nation’s courts, that would have the last word over all maritime issues involving fisheries, marine environmental protection, oceanographic research, and navigation.

Hasn’t our long, difficult experience with the UN made clear what such a treaty would mean for the United States? It would mean that our laws, our sovereignty, our freedoms, and our property rights would be turned over to an assortment of nations that despise what we stand for, yet covet what we have.

Some of our political elites may dream of a new “international architecture,” but the remarkable house that was built in Philadelphia more that 230 years ago has provided Americans with freedom, wealth, and opportunity unknown anywhere else on the face of the earth. It is time to demand that those in Washington defend our remarkable Constitution, as Ronald Reagan did, against all who would undermine it. The LOST Treaty and any similar schemes that assault America’s interests should be slipped into the deep blue sea for a fitting burial.

Phyllis Schlafly on the Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST)

The Price of Freedom

The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress recently published a report entitled American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics (Updated June 29, 2007). As we approach Veterans’ Day this year, it is a document worth reflecting on, because it provides in great detail the U.S. casualty statistics for every war in which the United States has participated, from the Revolutionary War through our current Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The report lists, by branch of service and by a variety of demographics, the 4,435 deaths in the Revolutionary War; 2,300 in the War of 1812; and 1,733 in the Mexican War. While the report lists only Union casualties, other sources reveal that between 618,000 and 700,000 Americans, both blue and grey, died in the Civil War. Taken alone, this vast number of casualties nearly exceeds our combined loss in all other wars from our nation’s first, the Revolutionary War, through Vietnam.

These somber statistics tell of the sacred commitment through the years of those who fought and died to provide freedom for their fellow Americans. In the Spanish-American War, nearly 2,500 of our countrymen perished; two decades later in World War I, nearly 117,000 gave their lives, as did another 500,000 in World War II.

In Korea there were 36,754 American deaths; and in Vietnam, 58,209; in the brief first Persian Gulf War, 382 perished. Since the early nineties, we have continued each year to lose 1,000 to 2,000 of our young men and women in uniform, even during times of relative peace. But that number of annual casualties is actually declining.

In the Global War on Terrorism being waged in Iraq during the past 4½ years, our losses to date have totaled 3,800. While this is much lower than the toll from conflicts of the past, the loss of each American life is heartbreaking and the measure of that sacrifice is enormous. Each life we lose is sacred in the glorious cause of liberty and freedom. And as we thank the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, we at least can gain some solace that the number of our casualties has been on a decline.

One cannot handle this Congressional Research Service report without seeing past the numbers to the hundreds of thousands of selfless young men and women who have paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we cherish. I suspect that nearly every American family has been touched by the loss of at least one loved one within memory, and through those tragic and painful losses, we are all profoundly invested in the great American cause of liberty and justice for all.

There is much controversy stirred up by the axis of the radical political left, including its Hollywood and media allies, over the War in Iraq. They would have us view this war, which most of us sensibly understand is a battlefield of the Global War on Terrorism, as a pointless waste, a quagmire, a war that cannot be won.

But the truth is that with the recent troop “surge” under General Petraeus, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of military and civilian deaths in Iraq. Last month saw the lowest monthly toll since July 2006 and the fourth consecutive drop in the monthly death toll following a high of 121 in May. Civilian deaths are down by over 53 percent.

Some feel that this surge started much too late, but it is clearly working. Thousands of terrorists who, were they not engaged in Iraq might be terrorizing and killing civilians in the United States or wherever people enjoy freedom, have themselves been neutralized as a result of the surge.

The price tag for our freedom has always been beyond measure, but it is a price Americans have always had the courage and will to pay. It would betray the memory, honor, and youthful treasure of so many thousand brave Americans who have given their all defending our freedom, were we to head down the slippery slope of retreat, defeat, and humiliation advocated by the radical left.

The words of the ancient Greek historian, Thucydides, written four centuries before the birth of Christ, remain true today: “The secret of freedom is courage.”

I pray that our nation will never cower from this time-tested truth.

Madness In Our Policies, Danger On Our Roads

Upon leaving office, President Eisenhower was asked to name his greatest accomplishment; he cited the Interstate Highway System. This vast network of safe and well maintained roads has spawned a $623 billion trucking industry that, among the many goods and services it transports, has enabled Americans to enjoy a greater variety of fresh foods at lower prices than are enjoyed by virtually any other nation on earth.

Unfortunately, the White House has recently implemented a provision of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) that will allow up to 100 Mexican trucking companies, and an unspecified number of their trucks, to use our roadways to freely haul their cargo anywhere within the United States. The policy of allowing unsafe, unregulated, low-paid truckers onto our roads threatens an American industry, American jobs, the quality of American life, and the health and safety of all Americans.

Because of enormous opposition at the time from American trucking companies, the Clinton Administration had the good judgment to put a hold on this NAFTA pilot project. This year the U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted on multiple occasions to prohibit this onslaught of Mexican trucks.

The Teamsters Union and the Sierra Club have also opposed the project in federal court. Yet despite the overwhelming opposition of a major American industry, the overwhelming and bipartisan opposition from Congress, and even before a federal judge ruled last month to permit the project, the Administration began granting Mexican truckers the unrestricted access to every roadway in the United States.

At a time when our nation is spending billions of dollars fighting a war on drugs, when millions of Americans are demanding that our border be secured because of the legions of illegal aliens already here and the very real threat of terrorists crossing our unprotected border, when so many once-vibrant American industries and jobs have been exported to foreign countries -- one has to wonder what drives such thinking and policies as this. Is the Executive Branch of our government even concerned what our Constitution says and what the people think, or has it become beholden to powerful transnational corporations that have no allegiance whatsoever to our United States?

Our highly regulated trucking companies will find it difficult to compete with foreign companies paying their drivers a fraction of U. S. wages. Further, Mexican drivers, unlike their U.S. counterparts, have no restrictions on the number of hours that a trucker may actually work, and Mexico keeps no data on the criminal and driving records of its truck drivers!

While American companies will be offered reciprocal access to Mexico, most American companies refuse to send trucks into Mexico because some Mexican police are as likely to rob and extort bribes as Mexico’s vibrant crime syndicates are.

At a time when the Administration is continuing to neglect border enforcement, do we really want to provide more people more ways to illegally enter our country? And what assurance do we have that those low-paid Mexican truckers will not be bribed to transport illegal drugs or illegal aliens or materials of mass terror?

When trucks that do not have to abide by the same pollution and safety standards as American trucks injure or kill Americans on our roadways, what protections and guarantees do Americans have that the perpetrator will be insured and will face the same penalties as an American trucker.

Consider a policy that erodes U. S. sovereignty, threatens a major American industry, is likely to export even more jobs out of our country, threatens the health and safety of Americans on our roadways, and could facilitate moving more illegal drugs, aliens and criminal activity into our country. This is not a policy in the interest of the people of the United States. It’s time for Congress to terminate this fool-hearty project that is increasingly undermining our sovereignty and the best interests of we, the people of the United States of America.