Randy Dutton - a fiscal conservative

Where are the questions about leveling the playing field with our international trading partners? Why doesn’t the union look at charging the total security and customs cost of products safety and container imports to the importers?  I’m very much in favor of that. 

Why doesn’t the union look at questioning China’s Most Favored Nation status?  I certainly would advocate it.

Atmospheric corrosive gases are extremely high in countries that burn dirty coal.  In Shanghai, one Lucent Technologies 2005 survey showed H2S concentrations 200 times higher than in the North American average.  Not only are the gases killing a million Chinese a year, the corrosive effect is latent failure of electronics which severely hurts our economy because of premature failure, and the need to repurchase components.  Where is the quality control demand from the union that forces China and India to clean us their working environment, and the penalty for their not complying?  This could be a position where we could demand China buy air pollution abatement equipment from the US in exchange for goods we buy from them.

Pollution from East Asia was shown in 2003 to deposit 10 billion pounds/year onto North America.  It added up to 15% of the total pollution in North America.  This pollution is contaminating our streams, lakes, and forests.  Some of these emissions from dirty coal burning include heavy metals like mercury.  Why aren’t the unions making this the issue?

Ethanol is a corrosive solvent that damages many of the components in equipment fuel systems.  Ethanol is found to actually harm the environment more than it helps.  Ethanol fires put fire fighters and society at risk because of ethanol burning through foam used on petroleum fires.  Ethanol continues to drive up the cost of food and has a regressive cost to American families.  Yet our government is pushing more and more into our fuel because of farm lobbies.  Why isn’t the union demanding the government cease it’s ethanol mandates and stop subsidizing a failed policy?  Food-to-fuel policy of ethanol production has contributed to the increase of the people at risk of starving by 100 million and the number of countries at risk of collapsing by 40, according to the UN.  Some of these starving poor live in Islamic countries, and many soon will be recruited by Islamic terrorists in joining their jihad against us.  The current fuel policy will end up killing Americans.  Many foreign leaders are calling US policy a “crime against humanity”.  When will the union demand our political leaders face up to reality?

Global warming isn’t happening as illustrated in 2008 by the JPL Argo project that showed over the past few years the oceans actually cooling.  The temperature has been going down since 1998, yet the unions continue the old story that man in responsible for raising the global temperature.  Atmospheric global temperatures decreased 0.7^oC in 2007.  Why does the union continue to hype global warming when most Americans now are skeptical?  The effect of the scare mongering is to ship more jobs overseas, and mostly to China. 

And that brings me to a great opportunity for the unions…if CO2 really isn’t the problem (in fact it has been shown by the State of Oregon to increase crop and dramatically increase tree growth at a linear rate), then according to the 2005 Rand Institute Study and the USGS, the US has over 800 billion barrels of high quality recoverable shale oil in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.  The shale oil can be extracted through in situ thermal extraction with much less pollution than many other methods.  At $100/barrel that is $80 trillion!!! Yet politicians have put it off limits.  Why isn’t the union fighting to develop our domestic oil supplies?  That is money that could balance our budget, create millions of good, paying union jobs, reduce our foreign balance of trade, and eliminate our dependence on foreign dictatorships.  If you don’t like that we are in Iraq, then get the US to develop its own oil supply, insist we drill in ANWR, and offshore.  The US has over 7 times the oil of Saudi Arabia, but politicians prevent us from getting it.  The alternative is buying oil from dictators and from the more dirty oil extraction process in Canada.  Alberta oil sands projects burn the equivalent of 2 barrels of oil to ship us 1 barrel.  And they’re increasing their capacity to 5 million/day by 2012.  Which is the more sane policy?

If you want alternative energy, and the good paying jobs associated with it, and the inexpensive electricity necessary for several business types, then get behind the wind/tidal projects such as proposed off Western Washington State www.graysharborenergy.com.  If we can’t get the public behind such projects, all the political rhetoric in the world won’t shift our energy production to alternatives.  I haven’t seen any unions getting the public behind alternative energy beyond talk.  But of course, union supported Ted Kennedy is seen as a complete hypocrite and a national joke, and just this week Scotland voted down the $1 billion wind project that was designed to provide ½ of Scotland’s power because the public just didn’t want it, mostly because of the view.

If you want increased exports and more mining, trucking, and stevedore jobs, why didn’t the union challenge Clinton’s putting off-limits of Staircase Escalante and its #1 world class deposit of billions of tons of very clean anthracite coal, which we could have exported to Japan, Korea, and China through the Port of Long Beach?  Everyone knows he was protecting his Indonesian benefactor who controlled the #2 deposit.  Why not now insist Escalante be opened up?

If you want a balance budget then why did the union hail the cash payments to the public, and the loan bailouts to those who got in over their heads?  The effect actually hurt the US economy by weakening our dollar, which incidentally increased the cost of fuel, and took away many foreclosed homes away from those who might now have been able to buy a house on the cheap.  Yes that’s right, by bailing out someone who took a bad risk and isn’t being held for the consequences, that’s one less house available for someone who didn’t mess up, and for the first time might have been able to buy a house.  

If you want good schools, the unions have to let good administrators clean house and get rid of the incompetent ones.  It doesn’t lessen the union enrollment, it brings in competent teachers.  Our schools are in chaos, not because of funding, but because of the sexual predators, the teachers who sell grades, teachers who don’t have control and let kids do whatever they want, teachers who show cartoons instead of teaching, teachers who play videogames in class, schools that give students 22 half days off instead of using the time for instruction, and teachers who are afraid of their students.

My point is that your questionnaire is focused inward and not outward.  If you want a politician who understands economics, world politics, science, technology application, and most importantly, looks at the big picture and sees how to help society as a whole, then throw support my way.  On the other hand, if the union is parochial and wants to protect people from themselves, give it to my opponent. If I am elected, my actions are likely to create more high paying jobs, improve the budget, increase exports, and improve the educational system than one who gave you the answers you think you seek.

 Regards,

Randy Dutton