A Day at the Statehouse

I visited the Statehouse gallery in Concord today.

Gov. Perry and Gov. Huntsman gave short speeches. Perry transformed himself into a populist for most of his talk. He ranted about the corrupt connection between DC, beltway bandits and Wall Street, consumers getting snookered by predatory mortgage lenders, bailouts and secret insurance guarantees by the government to financial services firms and he vowed to clean up the corruption
from K Street to Wall Street. I liked it. This part of his speech would have got
a standing ovation at Occupy Wall Street.

Then he shifted gears and said that he favored “right to work” laws, a part time Congress and a flat income tax. About now, most of us would probably agree
with a part time Congress.

Huntsman said we have a trust deficit as well as a financial deficit, also pitched term limits for Congress, attacked the revolving door between Congress and lobbyists, and said he would fix the big banks.

I wish both of them would take a lesson from a former Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, and break up the“too-big-to-fail” financial service corporations that have torpedoed the world economy and kick their executive advisers and
economist stooges out of the White House. Oh, yeah - and throw the executives that are looting our economy into jail.

In the same Statehouse session, progressives won two close victories. House Speaker William O'Brien tried to overturn Gov. Lynch's veto of House bills HB474 and HB542 but he couldn't get the 2/3 vote required. HB474 was the so-called
“right to work” bill that attacks unions. HB542 would have allowed parents to demand that “objectionable“ materials be removed from class curricula.

I'm glad these bills were killed. I don't think that we want to have our workers making the pitiable salaries of the States that have instituted right to work laws or disrupt our classrooms with the replacement of science by intelligent design. On the latter subject, I read that China is now turning out about 100 times the number of scientists and engineers than we are each year. It's getting way late for another Sputnic moment.

It appears  that there were just enough legislators to see the “we” as well as the “I” in “Free”.

Live Free or Die