"Capital is frozen"

by Bill Claydon

Cross posted at RedState.com

The Veterans for Gibson coalition held a barbecue event for area veterans at Gurtler Brothers VFW Post 420 in Saratoga Springs on September 12th. Colonel Chris Gibson (R) is challenging incumbent Scott Murphy (D) in New York's 20th Congressional District. Veterans from all wars starting with World War II through to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were present and congratulated (by individual war) for their service.

The event was very well attended with the majority of picnic tables filled. Speakers thanked people for their enthusiasm and asked that they stay the course through election day.

Gibson spoke, reminding people of the need to live by a budget, citing growing up in a working family. His family lived within their means and did not spend money they didn't have. This is the model our Congress needs to adopt.

He talked further about the Constitution with its checks and balances to prevent any particular part of government from gaining too much power over the other or over the people. Gibson also stressed the need to eliminate some parts of the bureaucracy.

But the area where Gibson spoke the most about is the economy. As he noted, capital is frozen. Small businesses are holding onto what they have in terms of employees, but they cannot expand due to the uncertainty and terrible economic climate. They have no idea whether the tax cuts passed years ago will remain or whether they will be going up next year. With that in mind, businesses cannot possibly consider hiring new employees or investing in new equipment.

The "stimulus" was passed 20 months ago. (Note: Scott Murphy supported this "stimulus" but was not yet in Congress to actually vote on it.) We were recently at 9.5% unemployment but now are up to 9.6%. "That's the wrong direction," Gibson reminded people.

Citing 1931, when taxes went up after the 1929 stock market crash, Gibson pointed out that we need to learn from history. Raising taxes was the worst possible thing then and is the worst possible thing to do now in an attempt to "fix" the economy.

On health care, Gibson talked about wanting to repeal and REPLACE the current health care bill. Pointing out that the onerous regulations of the bill passed last spring are preventing businesses from hiring or expanding (note: self-proclaimed businessman Scott Murphy flip flopped and supported this bill), Gibson called for replacing it with something better. He wants to allow people to buy insurance over state lines, have more non-profit companies compete with for profit companies, introduce tort reform, and bring about other changes which will make health care affordable for people without the numerous problems in the multi-thousand page bill Congress pushed through earlier this year.

Noting that he has read the health care bill, he cannot see how this particular bill will help. He asked people to try and convince him otherwise. Nobody stepped forward.

Gibson also asked that we pay attention to what he is doing in Congress should he win. If he gets off track and supports bills which do not serve the people, he should be fired. It's refreshing to see a politician that is actually concerned about representing the people of the 20th district. Hopefully we'll have a representative like that come January 2011. It will be a welcome change from the status quo, in my opinion.