Positions

By Bill Chambers

Political Pork, Constitutional Rights, Death Penalty, Education, Eminent Domain, English as our Official Language, Gun Control, High Speed Rail, Our Borders, Peripheral Canal, Propositions, Taxation

Here's the best way for me to explain pork barrel spending by our politicians:

Let's take a pig to represent pork barrel project spending. We'll have the left side of the pig represent Democrats and the right side will represent Republicans. Now we'll split the pig down the middle from head to tail. What will we see? There's just as much pork on the right side as there is on the left side.

Republicans should not be complaining about anyone else in regards to pork barrel projects when they promote their own. If it's not good for us when our opponents waste our money, then it's not good when we waste our money! Taxpayers are always left footing the bill, no matter who's serving the pork.

Constitutional Rights:

There are too many people and groups that misuse the term "rights". All of us as Americans have the rights as expressed in the United States Constitution and all twenty-seven amendments. There is no "right" for heterosexual marriage, nor should there be for homosexual marriage. No one has the "right" to live where they want to, they can only choose to live where they can afford to. The list of these examples can go on and on. Laws are used to cover the areas that our Constitution doesn't. Our laws are subject to not violating our Constitutional "Rights". Laws may, or may not, reflect the opinions of the majority of our citizens. If laws need to be made or changed, they must be able to be enforced. Without the ability to enforce a law, the law becomes ineffective. When the "people" pass propositions, the new law(s) should remain in effect until the "people" change it through another proposition.

Death Penalty:

I'm in favor of the death penalty in situations where there is no question as to who is guilty. DNA testing should be mandatory, when possible, to verify someone's guilt or innocence prior to carrying out the execution. I would also like to see a new plea or verdict added for the courts. "Guilty by reason of insanity." If someone commits a crime and there is no doubt as to whether or not the person did commit that crime, how can they possibly be innocent by reason of insanity?

Education:

An education is the most important thing that anyone can have. It's the one thing we can give our children that nobody can ever take away. California's school systems have plummeted in the national rankings. Parents need to promote the need for an education to their children. Parents need to make sure they know what their children are doing in school and enforce the curriculum at home. The schools need to push the children to meet reasonable expectations and to excel whenever possible. In today's day and age there is NO excuse for a child not to have an excellent education. Excuses as to why a child can't read and write should NOT be accepted. Children who are incorrigible should not be allowed to ruin the opportunity for other children to get an education. Vocational education should be available to all children who do not intend to go to college. Public colleges need to be affordable for everyone. When someone graduates college, they should not have to be tens of thousands of dollars in debt. This is not the way to start a career. Before we spend any more extra money on schools, we need to find the reasons for their failures. We have seen from experience that the increase in school budgets has not improved the test scores or reduced the dropout rate proportionately. Just spending more money has not, and will not, get us the results we need.

Eminent Domain:

Eminent domain by definition is "the right of a government to take or purchase private property for public use". We need to secure private property ownership with a definition of "public use" for California. "Public use" should not be defined with taking private property and passing it to private developers for their personal gains. Public use is for the general population. Such as: roads, freeway on and off ramps, bridges, overpasses, schools, city halls, fire and police stations, etc....

English as our official language:

I'm in favor of making English our official language in our State and Country. Being multi-lingual is a very helpful asset in life. It allows you the opportunity to understand cultures besides your own. However, if you can't speak the language of the country you live in, you are limiting the opportunities that are available to you to become more knowledgeable and successful. We need to improve the lives of all of our citizens. Teaching / learning and using English is the first step to help those that come to our country.

Gun Control:

To put it simply, I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America in its entirety, from the preamble through and including the twenty-seventh amendment. The second amendment states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The second amendment is what allows all of our "rights" to be enforced by the people. The second amendment gives us the ability to fight our government, should they try to change from the Republic that we are, to another form of government. Should there be laws for gun ownership? Absolutely, but they should be based on facts, not political agendas. More restrictive guns laws aren't effective on lowering crime rates, because criminals don't abide by our laws. Homeowners need the ability to defend themselves, since help may not arrive until after a crime has been committed. In many cases, the mere presence of a firearm can defuse a possible violent or deadly situation.

High Speed Rail:

I know I may get some grief from my co-workers on this subject, but I don't believe California needs or can afford high speed rail at this time, if ever. The cost to the taxpayers is my number one concern. The approximate cost is $45 billion. ($45,000,000,000) That's about $56 million per mile. Governor Schwarzenegger and the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) want Californians to believe that our cost will be reduced by a $4.7 billion allocation from the federal government. Who do they think the $4.7 billion comes from? It's us the taxpayers who pay federal income taxes as well as other federal taxes. They claim there will be a demand for 450,000 permanent jobs statewide once the system is fully built. Where are these jobs coming from? It better not be just for the 800 mile high speed rail. [My employer, Union Pacific Railroad, has approximately 32,400 miles of track. According to 2003 statics they had approximately 52,000 employees.] The CHSRA claims once built at $45 billion, the profits will be over $1 billion annually. That's over $2,739,726 daily. That's a profit of over $3,424 per mile in a 24 hour period. Without calculating any interest, it will take 45 years to break even if we were at full capacity the first year. The CHSRA claims there will be 88 to 117 million passengers annually. That's approximately a 241,000 to 320,000 for the daily average number of passengers. I haven't been able to find what the passenger capacity of each train is yet, so let's use 2,000 and 4,000 as examples. (An Amtrak coach car holds approximately 130 passengers.) With a passenger capacity of 2,000 it will take 120 to 160 trains daily. With a 4,000 capacity it will require 60 to 80 daily. Call me a pessimist, I prefer a realist, but I don't see how this is good and/or affordable for California. If it's such a great idea, why don't we have private investors build it?

Offices / Positions which are appointed:

I believe any token office or position, which a governor appoints someone to fill (usually campaign donors, friends, etc.) and which serves no useful purpose, should be eliminated. Those needed positions should only be filled with qualified individuals at a daily rate along with a reasonable per diem for expenses.

Our Borders:

I believe that the United States Military should be protecting our borders. I am against individuals taking matters into their own hands with vigilante type policing. They do not have the authority or ability to tackle this situation. Our military should be the only Homeland Security that we need.

Peripheral Canal:

California as well as every other state and country has a finite amount of water which we receive every year. Do we make the best use of what we get? I don't think so. I've seen over the years where water is let out of the dams in order to reduce the chance of flooding and to make room for the next spring's runoff, only to realize that the projections of the year's rainfall never came close to what we actually received. The more we cover the land with buildings and roads, the less water we get to replenish our ground water supplies. As our population increases, the demand for water increases. The more lawsuits we have to protect migratory fish, the less water we have for other uses. In the Sacramento Delta we have to be concerned with the salinity levels as a result of the influx of sea water from the San Francisco Bay. Farmers who are allocated their irrigation water should not be able to sell it to anyone else for a profit. Our water needs to be used wisely and the Peripheral Canal will lead to more waste, more misuse of our water, and more shortages in Northern California as the population increases. We need to look into the feasibility of desalination plants for our coastal cities. If it works for El Paso, Texas, why can't it work for us?

Propositions:

I believe that if the PEOPLE of California vote for a proposition, all of the elected officials of the state must respect and enforce the outcome of that election. To repeal any proposition, it must only be done by another election by the PEOPLE. No elected official(s) or courts should have the authority to override the voice of the people. Whether or not they agree with the PEOPLE, politicians are elected to represent the PEOPLE, not campaign donors, not special interest groups, and not themselves. The PEOPLE have more power collectively, than any one person, company, or politician in our state. The courts should only be called upon to determine whether the proposition is constitutional. Propositions should not be used to dictate to the Legislature how to spend the money. This has created problems for us. Expenses, costs, and needs vary every year, so we need to be flexible in our spending.

Taxation:

I think California's Executive and Legislative Branches of Government are completely out of control when it comes to taxing and spending. Cuts in spending come first in order to get our budget balanced. Some social programs need to be eliminated or at the very least cut back. The government cannot provide everything for everybody. People need to live within their means and so does our state and country. If the PEOPLE want improved infrastructure within our state, then we may have to raise taxes to accomplish this (after making all of the possible cuts in spending as we can). We cannot increase spending without increasing tax revenues.

Remember, the government does not have any money of its own. The government only has the money that it collects by taxing us. We can reduce our taxes only by cuts in spending.

The next time someone says: "The Government should provide me with..." Have them rephrase the statement to say: "My family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers should provide me with..." This is the reality of who pays the bills that our politicians create. Politicians don't seem to realize, or maybe they just don't care, who pays for their outlandish spending. Politicians can promise the People everything, because they don't foot the bill.

I would like to see some realistic figures on a flat rate tax (fixed percentage), based upon our current individual tax returns to see how feasible and / or cost saving it could be.