Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
www.dailycorinthian.com
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, May 3, 2013
Corinth, Miss.
Letter to the editor
We’re overwhelmed with solicitations To the editor: We get letters in the mail wanting donations for everything. They include donations for paralized vets, animals’ league, Cystic Fibrosis, etc. And they come almost every day. Almost weekly, my school-aged child gets letters from school wanting money for fundraising, the heart association, etc. Now, to top things off, the “same bunch” is in front of local businesses soliciting donations every weekend. I give to charities as do many Mississippians, but it is getting annoying seeing the same people wanting donations all the time. Something needs to be done to stop this. And no, I can’t spare a $1 or $2 every time I go to buy toilet paper. Michelle Mathis Corinth
Keeping In Touch State: Sen. Rita Potts Parks Alcorn, Tishomingo, Tippah counties 662-287-6323 (H) 662-415-4793 (cell) rparks@senate.m.s.gov Rep. Nick Bain Alcorn county 662-287-1620 (H) 601-953-2994 (Capitol) nbain@house.ms.gov Rep. Lester “Bubba” Carpenter Alcorn, Tishoming counties 601-359-3374 (Capitol) 662-427-8281 (H) lcarpenter@huse.ms.gov Rep. William Tracy Arnold Alcorn, Prentiss counties 662-728-9951 (H) warnold@house.ms.gov All state legislators can be reached via mail: c/o Capitol P.O. Box 1018 Jackson, Miss. 39215 Federal: U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee 202-225-4306 (Washington D.C.) Fax: 202-225-3549 662-327-0748 (Columbus) Fax: 662-328-5982 U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran 202-224-5054 (Washington D.C.) Fax: 202-224-9450 601-965-4459 (Jackson) 662-236-1018 (Oxford) Sen. Roger Wicker 202- 224-6253 (Washington D.C.) Fax: 202-228-0378 601-965-4644 (Jackson) Fax: 601-965-4007
Five presidents and an enduring constitution The United States, though still a young country by comparison, has the oldest continuous constitution of any country in existence in the world today. On rare occasions an event takes place that reminds us of the uniqueness of our country. Such an event took place two weeks ago in Texas. Although we had very little practice at forming an enduring government, we took a shot at it and got it right. We defined, in writing, the structure of a government for a free people and that structure has stood the test of time. Two weeks ago we were given pause to consider for a moment the march of recent history as we arrive at this juncture in the life of this Constitutional Democracy called the United States of America. The event making this possible was the dedication of the George W. Bush Library and Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I will confess that I had no special plans to watch the dedication ceremonies, but I passed the television just as the festivities were beginning. Five first ladies of the United States were introduced, followed by four former presidents and current President Barack Obama. That scene of five presidents arrayed across the front steps of the Bush Library was plenty breathtaking. Several thoughts occurred to me. First, often the transfer of power in oth-
er countries is the cause for great tension and in many cases it serves as the stimulant for Marty violent adWiseman venturism for those wishStennis ing to take Institute advantage of what they perceive as a momentary power vacuum. Secondly, it hit me that never have I had the occasion to see five heads of state from each of the two major parties from the same country standing arm-in-arm. Thirdly, a quick flood of memories of dilemmas and crises spanning the times in office of these five presidents proved to be mind-boggling. There was the Georgia peanut farmer, Democrat Jimmy Carter, who came to office somewhat by surprise and perhaps overly imbued with idealism about the way things ought to work. He suffered through the Iranian hostage crisis that went a long way toward spelling doom for his administration. Yet it was President Carter who mediated the Middle-East peace accords — The Camp David Accords — between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar El Sadat. Republican George Herbert Walker Bush like Carter served only one term. But it was during that term that the elder Bush presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall and demise of Soviet style Com-
munism in Eastern Europe. This was an event that most of us assumed we would never see in our lifetimes, and to many it signaled the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Then there was, and for that matter still is, the Democrat from Arkansas, Bill Clinton. He will be remembered for numerous domestic efforts as well as the protracted Balkans conflagration in Eastern Europe. And yes, there is the incident of the Monica Lewinsky affair and the ill-fated attempt of the rival Republicans to remove Clinton from office following his impeachment. Clinton has been rehabilitated and now is most often remembered for producing the first, and perhaps the last period of budget surpluses in all of our lifetimes. The honoree, Republican George W. Bush, upon reflection, was called upon to deal with many issues and threats to national security. The events of Sept. 11, 2001 remain indelibly imprinted on our nation’s psyche. Then there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of course the historically-disputed 2000 election in which Democratic Party challenger Al Gore polled over a half million votes more than the ultimate winner Bush, who won via the electoral college. Finally there was the appearance of current President, Democrat Barack Obama -- the nation’s first African-American President. No doubt his accomplishment of an approach to
the provision of health care to virtually all Americans after so many others had tried and failed will be a hallmark of the Obama Presidency. So too will numerous battles fought over social issues and the constant partisan headwinds in his face from the worst recession since the Great Depression. The missing link at the festivities, but one that would have most certainly further enlivened the partisan Republican crowd, was the late president and Republican icon Ronald Reagan. It was good to see the angry bickering among the partisans of these philosophical opposites shoved out of sight for a few hours. Four decades of the orderly transition of power and representative government were on display. As might have been expected, as the words of the benediction faded into the Texas afternoon, the talking heads reloaded their verbal arsenals and resumed combat. Fox News refocused its sights on President Obama and its claims that the president had reopened the door to terrorism. MSNBC began dismantling the accolades spoken during the Bush Library dedication as mere revisionist history. Here we go again. (Daily Corinthian columnist Dr. W. Marty Wiseman is professor of political science and director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government, Mississippi State University. His e-mail address is marty@sig.msstate.edu.)
Prayer for today Father, thank you that we now walk in the light of Jesus and His kingdom which is filled with righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A verse to share “And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.” — 1 Samuel 2:1
Worth Quoting A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. — Arnold H. Glasow
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Flying over an act of monumental stupidity I knew that Congress would come to its senses eventually, that it would realize that the ham-handed budget cuts ordered by the so-called “sequester” weren’t going to work, that some government functions were too important to be cut. And I was right, kind of. Last week it restored funds to the Federal Aviation Administration. There had been big lines and flight delays at airports around the country, you see, and we can’t have that. Congresspersons have to get back to their districts every Friday so they can beg for money and corporate executives have to get to their appointments on time so they’ll have the money to pay off the beggars. It’s called politics. So, in a heart-warming example of bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats joined hands to get the FAA back up to strength and the Republic was saved. Republicans, of course, could not resist using the occasion to take a whack at President Barack Obama. “Why is President Obama unnecessarily delaying
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
publisher rterry@dailycorinthian.com
editor editor@dailycorinthian.com
Willie Walker
Roger Delgado
circulation manager circdirector@dailycorinthian.com
press foreman
your flight?” t w e e t e d House majority leader Eric Cantor. In truth, the RepubliDonald cans foisted Kaul the farce of this sequester Other Words on the nation in 2011. That was when they demanded it in return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling, which is nothing more than agreeing to pay the bills they’d already run up. The law further requires that agencies, the FAA included, cut all their programs equally on a percentage basis, making it impossible to move funds from nonessential functions to essential. That would be too sensible. The idea was that this arrangement was such a monumentally stupid idea and would be so harmful to the economy that the parties would be forced to compromise on a real budget. That badly underestimated the monumental stupidity of the conservatives in Congress. They decided we didn’t need a real
budget since we don’t need government anyway, so the sequester was just fine as it was. And they allowed the cuts to go forward. Until they caved on air traffic. That’s undoubtedly a precursor to further cherrypicking among government programs. You can count on the well-lobbied programs getting exceptions. The great victims of this sequester will be our children, the unemployed, the poor and the elderly — all groups with feeble lobbies or no lobbies at all. The government had to cut housing vouchers to 140,000 low-income families, people already on the cusp of homelessness. Seventy thousand preschoolers are going to be turned away from Head Start programs. Unemployment benefits, the only thing standing between the families of millions of jobless workers and hunger, are being cut 11 percent. A program that provides free school breakfasts, sometimes the only decent meal poor kids get on a given day, is being cut by $25 million. My city of Ann Arbor is
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a high-tax Granola liberal place that’s proud of its superb schools. And our local officials considered doing away with 10 or more of the reading specialists in the lower grades before working cuts that would drop 80 other staff members into the latest budget proposal. All in the name of deficit reduction. The sequester is the economic equivalent of the Iraq War: a self-mutilating blunder undertaken for ideological reasons, rather than any that make sense. The idea of improving the economy during a recession by cutting the budget harkens back to the days of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. It didn’t work then; it doesn’t work now. If you don’t believe me, ask the European nations that have been trying to deal with their punk economies by enforcing austerity measures on its Euro zone members with dismal results. Did I mention that this stinks? It really does. (Daily Corinthian and OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Mich. OtherWords.org).
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