Declaring independence from our Presidents

Independence Day should remind Americans where our nation came from and what it should be…and how we’ve strayed from what was intended.   

Students of American history will recall the many grievances against King George III that were called out in the Declaration of Independence. Among them were the following:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

“ …imposing Taxes on us without our Consent”

“…depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury”

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws”

I cite those indictments because they represent just a few that still affect us to this day.

But, rather than a monarch being the source of such unconscionable anguish, it is our very own Presidents who have been guilty of such crimes against our people.

It was never intended to be this way.

In the years that followed the signing of that sacred document on July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers utilized their newfound independence to fashion a government that was beholden to the people -- rather than a people that were beholden to the government.

Knowing full well the flaws that come with Kings, they created a republic, and for it a Constitution that clearly called out the limited powers and responsibilities of our federal government. In just over 1,000 words they defined the role of the Executive – the President – someone who theoretically replaced the role of the King, but unlike a King, had almost no powers. The President could not make laws, create taxes and fees, and declare war – all powers that Kings took for granted. A President’s duties were very few: He was to be the face of our nation, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, the appointer of judges and ambassadors, and he was to execute the laws created by Congress.

Although the ultimate law of the land – the Constitution – clearly and concisely identifies the legal role of the President, we regularly see the office stray from those limitations. 

Despite protestations by the Democrats, this is nothing new to the office since Donald Trump came into power. Every President of our lifetimes has been as despotic as kings, including alleged small government types like Ronald Reagan and others like Barack Obama who said they were doing the people’s will.

This addiction to centralized, unconstitutional power has become the norm and dates back to the days of Lincoln, a man who had no consideration for the Constitution. His efforts to stifle a crisis of national identity and integrity opened the floodgates that led to the modern and popular interpretation of the presidency that allows Presidents to declare war (our last Constitutional war and occupation was World War II), suspend trial by jury and exert indefinite detention, and use their administrative offices to make regulations (which are laws), impose taxes (fees and fines), and infringe upon the rights of the people and the sound operations of the free markets. They have grown beyond the boundaries of their duties and have assumed the powers that were once - and are elsewhere – bequeathed to monarchies, doing everything, unchecked, that a Congress should, thus taking power away from the people and keeping it for themselves.

The people fail to see that the ultimate power should be in their hands, through our representative form of government. The nation was founded so that the Congress was the most powerful branch of government. The general belief is that all branches share equal power; this is not so -- the Executive Branch should only be a check and a balance to an overreaching Congress, as are our courts to both. Our nation was founded this way so that the masses were equally represented and the development of laws and budgets came from a governing body directly accessible to the common man and which could actually be comprised of the common man. The rights and consent of the governed were paramount.

 
Yet, sadly, that is not what the people seem to want anymore. Carefully observe how Trump supporters cherish his actions. Watch what voters now demand of their candidates in this new election cycle. They want to know what the President and presidential candidates will do for them. They expect them to fix the economy, regulate industry, exert social mores upon the masses, assume war powers, make laws, control the Congress, create tax policy, intervene in foreign affairs, and suppress liberty in the name of security.

They think the President is -- and they clamor for -- a singular power, a central office...in essence, a king.

Isn’t that what our forefathers declared independence from?

From the 03 July 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

The climate bill will further destroy the upstate economy

Our state legislators are obviously not students of their predecessors’ history. They haven’t learned from past mistakes when it comes to public policy’s impact on the economy.  

In the late-1970s and 1980s New York State forced power companies to buy energy at what became costs twice that of the standard market rate from the numerous cogeneration facilities which had become wildly popular due to federal grants and 1978’s Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.

After seeing some utilities suffer because of that edict, New York rescinded the rule. But, existing contracts with the co-gen plants were grandfathered. So, the bleeding continued.

Facing potential bankruptcy, in 1997, the power company which was Niagara Mohawk at the time used billions in junk bonds to buy-out those government-mandated contracts.

Even putting aside the higher electrical costs from 1980 to 1996, the impact of New York’s folly was measurable. Over a 14 year period beginning in 1997, Niagara Mohawk had to put the cost of its efforts to save itself onto ratepayers. That state-induced salvation charge cost the average homeowner a total of $2,700 on her power bills over those 14 years.

Over that same time period, Confer Plastics paid $4 million towards the surcharge. That’s not a typo. $4 million was thrown away all because the state thought it knew better than the marketplace, issued a feel-good mandate, and left a ruined economy to fix itself. We were just one of thousands of manufacturers that suffered. It’s no wonder so many, especially those with power bills much larger than ours, left the state.

The state is on the path for that to happen again.

This time, it will be worse.

Last week, the legislature passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The Senate’s press release said it will “address and mitigate the effects of climate change by drastically cutting greenhouse gases, diverting the state’s energy reliance to renewable sources, and creating green jobs to promote environmental justice across New York State.”

While everyone wants environmental justice – there isn’t a single person who wants polluted waters and skies – there’s such a thing as taking it too far and imposing an injustice on society. The Act does just that.

It demands an 84 percent reduction in statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including a 34 percent reduction by 2030 and, by doing so, it requires 100 percent clean power by 2040, 70 percent by 2030. That means no gas-fired electricity or nuclear energy despite both being cheap and reliable and the latter being exceptionally clean.

Previous attempts at green energy standards didn’t have teeth, they were goals without enforcement. This time it’s real. The Department of Environmental Conservation is empowered to enforce the emissions rules while the Public Service Commission is given carte blanche to impose the clean energy standards upon the utility companies.

The rules they have to live by won’t be economically feasible.

In the language of the bill, hydroelectric -- which is the best energy sources in terms of cost, efficiencies, and cleanliness -- is mentioned just once, in the definition of renewable energy. It never again appears in the document because the state’s focus is trained upon solar and wind which will require vast solar parks on upstate lands, massive wind farms in that region, and offshore turbines in the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean. Specific minimum targets are 9 gigawatts of off-shore wind by 2035 and 6 gigawatts of solar in the next 6 years.

To make that happen, the legislation demands that green energy developments be funded in part or whole by the utilities (who will pass the costs on to consumers) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (who get their revenues from a tax on your power bills). The aforementioned energy projects will cost tens of billions of dollars to build, and most of it will be on the backs of ratepayers.    

Even after those investments occur and the projects are connected to the grid, homeowners and businesses will pay more for electricity than what they are accustomed to, even though they today pay among the highest rates in the nation. New York residential rates are already 43 percent higher than national average, while commercial rates are 50 percent higher than the national average.

Those numbers will grow when you consider that solar electricity costs more than twice that of nuclear and hydro; wind is 23 percent more than those two sources; and solar costs exceed those of gas-fired plants by 42 percent. Then, there are the reliability costs – how does a renewable grid keep homes and businesses energized when there’s no sun or wind?  

While New York’s leaders may be banking on a green future, there will be far less green in the banks of residents and entrepreneurs in the future. It’s frightening to think about the economic damage this will inflict.

For the first time, I am truly worried that my company will not make it to the fourth generation in New York. It’s already tough to do business in the Empire State. If our input costs spiral out of control under this act there’s no way we can be competitive against domestic and global threats.

You should be worried, too, about what the economic prospects are for your next generation – jobs and prosperity will be leaving the state, as will your sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

It’s almost as if the “Community Protection” part of the act’s name was added with sarcasm. Communities will be ruined.

From the 24 June 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Small town schools and world class educations

Last week, my friends at Buffalo Business First released their annual rankings of the school districts across Western New York. School administrators and parents always wait with bated breath for the report, hoping to see that their district is highly-rated and, if it’s not, that it’s quickly climbing the charts.

Almost always, the suburban schools dominate the study while rural and small town districts languish in the shadows.

Here is how some of the rural districts from this paper’s readership ranked: Barker, 29; Newfane, 37; Warsaw, 54; Lyndonville, 85; Holley, 87. 

My school district, Niagara County’s Royalton-Hartland, came in at 55 out of 96 districts. Roy-Hart is up three places from last year’s study and its 10-year range saw it as high as 50^th and as low as 79^th.

I am a product of Roy-Hart. Does its ranking have me wishing I was educated elsewhere? Does it have me second-guessing sending my kids there?

The answer to both is, unequivocally, “no”. 

Back in 2016, I had the privilege and honor of delivering the commencement speech at Roy-Hart. The focus was on the super powers the graduates gained by being raised in a small town and educated in a small school. I prefaced the speech with this statement: “There’s a reason Clark Kent was raised on a farm. If he was raised in Metropolis he never would have become Superman.”

Those who send their children to or are themselves alumni of a rural district know where I’m coming from.   

Out here in the country we may not have some of the resources that the high-ranking suburban schools like East Aurora, Williamsville, Clarence, and Orchard Park might possess, but we offer our students so much more.

It comes down to being a name and not a number.

It all starts with having access to people.

In our district, there are less than 1,200 students in grades kindergarten through 12, an average of 92 per grade level.

Let’s compare that to Williamsville. They have approximately 10,000 students.

In larger districts like that the teachers can’t know all the students, the parents and pupils can’t know all the teachers and administrators, and the students can’t know all their peers. Having the very easy chance to get lost in the shuffle has to be overwhelming to middling students or young men and women lacking in confidence or support at home.

Contrast that to smaller schools like mine. We know one another. We look out for one another. We work together to make sure no one is left behind. In a small school, students and their families have access to the educators, staff and coaches that can’t be held in larger districts. Those educators know the kids and have watched and will watch their development every step of the way. A school becomes a family and a legacy.    

Coming with those smaller numbers and that veritable one-on-one attention is a similar and equally remarkable benefit to students: Having access to experience.

The larger schools’ sports teams, choruses, and bands could be considered havens for only the elite. Due to there being only so many available roster spots not everyone has a chance to glean the experiences of teamwork, self-discipline, self-betterment and sense of urgency that extracurricular activities provide.

That’s not the story at smaller schools. Everyone has a very real chance to acquire and strive for a place on the team or band. This gives every student the chance to become elite or put their very best effort into it – and that’s what education is all about. Similarly, smaller clubs -- be it robotics or Future Farmers of America -- give each participant a heightened chance to shine, lead and change the world.

Likewise, smaller peer groups lead to better access to labs, experiments, public speaking exercises and more in the classroom, all of which lead to more experience – and that’s what adds capability and productivity to the intended results of tests and standards that all schools have to master.     

I often say that the larger an organization gets – be it a business, church or government – the farther away it gets from the people within it, the people it is supposed to serve, and the core values that defined its foundation. There’s a reason why people don’t like Big Government or Big Business. The smaller the better.

That holds true for schools, too. So many people champion the “it takes a village to raise a child” mantra because there’s something to be had in that interpersonal, intercommunity connectedness -- the direct and universal ownership of individual outcomes -- that the village mentality entails.

So, I say to the parents who wonder if they are doing right by their kids for sending them to a small school, “fret not”. The rankings may not show it, but your kids are getting a world class education. They are receiving the access, attention and experience they deserve…all of which they will put to great use as tomorrow’s workers, volunteers, leaders and parents.

From the 17 June 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News