WVGOP Speaks Frankly On Taxpayer Paid Mailings

Democrats call it a tempest in a teapot, but the aura of scandal has attracted the attention of both state outlets and the Washington Post.  Officials with the West Virginia Republican Party, after an exhaustive study, say that House Democrats have abused their franking privileges.

Franking dates back to the beginning of the Republic, well before the advent of broadcast media and the internet.  Newspapers did not even really report news as much as attack those holding other political ideals.  Constituents in far flung areas relied on their congressmen or legislators to send them news through the mail. Under law, legislators can send constituents mail with the understanding that it is for information, not politicking.

Republican Party chair Conrad Lucas claims that House Democrats, fearful of losing their slender majority, have sent campaign style letters to targeted voters.  Specifically, 12 House Democrats mailed nearly 65,000 items to overwhelmingly Democratic recipients.  Delegates David Walker (Clay), Justin Marcum (Mingo), and Nancy Guthrie (Kanawha) mailed, according to the WVGOP, 95 percent of the time or more to Democrats alone.

Interestingly, Walker sent over 8,300 pieces of mail.  His district, men, women, and children, adds up to approximately 24,000 individuals.  Almost 2,800 of them turned out to vote in the primary in his 33rd District.

The letters sent out include photographs of the delegates.  This is highly unusual in constituent correspondence because the extra ink needed to print color photographs is cost prohibitive.  Typically, the body contains a list of Democratic accomplishments and good wishes for the constituent.  Since the mass mailings did not include regular GOP voters, however, the letters are seen as campaign mobilization rather than trying to inform every voter.

Democrats fired back by saying they do mail to Republicans.  Delegate Don Perdue from Wayne, who sent out over 4,000 pieces himself, noted on West Virginia Metro News' Talkline that it was "much ado about nothing" because he had gotten a complaint from one Republican voter.  Democrats also attacked the mailing practices of Congressman David McKinley, who has returned almost $370,000 to the US Treasury from his office budget since taking office. (Author's note: As a long time and regular 1st District voter, I can say that I have never received mail from David McKinley except in response to a specific concern.)

What makes the scandal more noteworthy is that elected officials have more free ways to reach the public than ever before.  Instead of a deluge of thousands of letters into Mineral County, Delegate Gary Howell writes a regular newspaper column and puts live legislative updates on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.  For no charge, the State Legislature itself puts out a comprehensive bulletin of all its activities while in session to anyone interested.  This renders a specific mailed list pointless.

Republican's figures date back to the beginning of the year and analysis is not complete.  Democrats may well fall back to the defense that the mailing added up to mere thousands of dollars out of millions in the state budget.  First, every bit counts.  The state may be on the verge of cutting the popular Courtesy Patrol, which helps stranded motorists on state highways.  Budgets will get vastly tighter when Medicaid expansion costs, agreed to by Democrats, start to sink in.  West Virginia cannot afford to pay for delegates' campaigns.

Second, this reflects an arrogance that has plagued state politics for a long time.  Elected officials too often exploit the gray areas.  Board of Public Works officials used state funds to pay for trinkets and billboards featuring their names until voters finally punished the most egregious offender, Darrel McGraw.  The state deserves better.

Free Market doing its job

During my trip out west at the beginning of the month I saw the Free Market doing its job. I have driven across the continent many times and I usually see these oil pumps sitting idle. This time it was different. Most of the pumps were bobbing up down looking like giant birds picking up corn.

The reason is because oil prices are at record highs. The Free Market is bringing these wells online to fill the demand for oil. The supply and demand curve is infallible as price increases more people are willing to supply product.

The few pumps that were not running seemed to be waiting in line for repair crews to arrive, and we saw many repair crews working in the fields. We also saw drilling rigs drilling new wells, especially across southern Indiana and Illinois.

All of this is evidence of the Free Market responding to consumer demand. As the oil from these wells begin to fill the pipeline (both figuratively & literally) oil imports will drop helping the US economy and the price at the pump.

Now many people forget that West Virginia is an oil producing state. In fact we are the second state that oil was discovered in, but our government is holding us back from taking advantage of it. Bad policies by the government cause us to lag behind.

If Del Nancy Guthrie (D-Kanawha) has her way, there would be no business at all in West Virginia. People like Guthrie don't understand how Free Markets work and they fear it. She actually wants more government control over you life. To the point Karl Marx would be proud.

Can you imagen how bad this would be if the government was in total control? The Free Market brought those oil wells online quickly. If we had to wait on government to do it, then I'm not sure if they would have even began to study what to do yet. After year or so of study, they would determine that we would need to start up the old wells, something the free market did automatically.

Government can never do what the Free Market does. The best expertise in the world can never anticipate what the market will do. The head of IBM in the late 70's never saw a need for personal computers, but yet we all have them today. The ability of the Free Market to react to changes in the market place is essential to economic growth and that is something that central planning can never replace.