Worcester County Freedom Trail

Surprised I’m just seeing this now for the first time, but I really like it so thought I’d share it with you all. Pastor Joe Wright from Central Christian Church in Kansas, delivered this prayer on the floor of the Kansas House of Representatives in 1996. Somehow this got attributed to Billy Graham, but it’s actually Wright’s.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance.

We know your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Nicolas Sanchez, Professor of Economics at Holy Cross, spoke to a standing room only crowd of more than 100 people on June 30, 2009, at the Worcester Public Library. His talk, “Why President Obama’s Economic Policy Will Not Solve Our Economic Problems,” provided startling information about the economic crisis — how we got here, what’s being done that won’t work, and what should be done to turn things around.

Below is an excerpt from the talk with horrifying numbers about what the current administration has done to the money supply and what that means over the long run.

How, then, is the current Administration dealing with the crisis?

I will begin this third part of my presentation with something that I discussed at the Tea Party in Worcester on June 20th. This is the statistic that you should memorize; and that you can easily obtain if you forget it, for it is available at the web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, one of the branches of our central bank. Five years after the Fed’s creation, in 1918, the monetary base—which is what allows the money supply to expand in multiple proportions—grew from $4.8 billion to $870 billion, as of August of last year. This growth of the monetary base occurred at a steady pace for over 90 years. Yet, between August of last year and May of this year the monetary base has risen by almost $1,000 billion—in other words, it has more than doubled in the past eight months! This is the type of behavior that you find in Argentina or the approach that communist regimes have used to attach the problem of unemployment: print enough money so that firms can hire the people who want to be employed.

Let me make clear that I do not believe that this Administration is simply imitating communist regimes—for some other, non-communist countries have also followed this type of reckless monetary behavior in the past. I gave the example of Argentina, which has never been a communist country, but I do believe that a more appropriate example is the Weimar Republic—in other words, Germany in the 1920s. Germany was an advanced country that was in deep trouble because of its military commitments and the debt that it had acquired as a result of the First World War. Unions were also quite powerful and big business tolerated the power of those unions. Big government, big labor and big business finally decided that the country could only get out of debt by inflating the currency—big time.

The one surprise that you will hear in this lecture is that the policy was in fact successful, at least initially and with regard to unemployment and the financial markets. (The stock market boomed.) The big German inflation began slowly but peaked in 1923; then the German government finally stabilized the mark (which was the German currency) by forcing an exchange of 1 trillion old marks for 1 single new mark. (The stock market collapsed.) The consequence of this approach was that the structural problems of the nation were not addressed and that there was massive redistribution of income within the country that ultimately led to massive social unrest, and ultimately to the rise of Adolf Hitler. People on fixed incomes, like the elderly, were financially devastated by the inflation. This, I believe, is a possible scenario for our own economy.

Our forefathers never envisioned the role of legislator as permanent or full-time. It’s easy to see the problems. Our elected officials are mere humans and humans in a position of power will more often than not do what it takes to keep their position of power. That includes breaking ethics laws and bending or ignoring rules. In Massachusetts, we see a perfect example in the indictments of three consecutive Speakers of the House: DiMasi, Finneran, and Flaherty.

That’s why I was quite happy to learn that Rep. Karyn Polito (R-Shrewsbury) filed a term limits bill earlier this year.

From the Worcester Telegram’s editorial pages:

‘Allowing the same people to remain in power in decades is not healthy for our democracy and our state,” state Rep. Karyn Polito of Shrewsbury told me during a recent interview. “If we really want to change the culture on Beacon Hill, end entrenched bad practices and level the balance of power, we need a system that encourages fresh ideas and fresh perspectives.”

She made those remarks as she was filing a constitutional amendment that would place term limits on members of the Legislature. “Timing is everything,” she said. “Scandals, mismanagement and the absence of political balance have diminished people’s confidence in government. We need to restore integrity.”

She’s right on target. The alarming loss of credibility on Beacon Hill has many roots, ranging from the criminal indictments of three House speakers in a row, to the ethical morass created by self-serving politicians who bilk the treasury and fatten their pensions — not to mention fiscal irresponsibility that caused state spending to increase 57 percent in a decade. About 40 percent of those lawmakers have been around for more than 12 years, and 80 percent of them belong to the same party, marching in lockstep with leaders who exercise all but dictatorial authority.

Boston Globe editorial on ethics reforms

Details on Rep. Karyn Polito’s term limits bill