The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1357204
D-4 Wednesday, March 31, 2021 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg The best ways to tame environ- mentally harmful emissions is to al- low the private sector to innovate cleaner and more efficient ways to produce, distribute, and use energy. Unfortunately, government sub- sides, mandates, and other regula- tions largely fail to spur such devel- opments, and instead bolster govern- ment-favored technologies. The latest example of this is a re- cent proposal from the House Ways and Means Committee to expand a long list of energy tax credits. One of the credits extended in the package, the carbon capture tax credit, provides a cautionary tale for policymakers who hope to direct en- ergy innovations with subsidies from Washington. The carbon cap- ture tax credit (which some call "45Q" after its tax code section) low - ers the tax bill of energy compa- nies based on how much carbon diox- ide is captured and sequestered under- ground in special geological forma- tions. Companies receive $50 for every captured and sequestered metric ton of carbon dioxide, or $ 35 per ton if the captured carbon dioxide is used for enhanced oil recovery. The process of capturing carbon that this tax credit seeks to incentivize is con- sidered by some an effective way to mitigate the release of emissions from fossil fu- els. But past examples of car- bon capture and storage pro- grams show that this technol- ogy is not viable, even with big subsidies. As chronicled by Gizmodo, the Petra Nova coal plant in Texas—which was once held up by proponents of the carbon cap- ture and storage process as a suc- cess story—just closed down. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Points to Ponder By Rev. Ford Bond Continued on page 5 We are in the midst of the Holy Week. It's Holy Wednesday. Year af- ter year for as long as I can remem- ber, this cycle of faith journey has been marked by a mix of sadness and gladness. Sadness in the sense that just around the corner, Good Friday will be commemorated, a solemn remem- brance of the death of our Savior Je- sus Christ. He came to open our pathway to heaven and He was willing to of- fer His life to give proof of His mis- sion. He was made to suffer and die by the religious authorities at that time, with the help of the Roman au- thorities and soldiers of the Roman empire. Then after that took place, He rose from His death three days later, on a day called Easter. That was the glad- ness part of the sto- ry. This story has been told for the past two thousand years, and if it were not true, this sto- ry would have dis- appeared and nev- er would have sur- vived the test of time. I have to remind you that I have no degree in Theology, but I think in my lifetime of studying and adhering to the Christian faith, I think what I know is sound and backed by Scrip- ture, faith and reason. What also I know is that there are currently about sev- en billion residents on earth, and that not all have neither heard nor believe this story. I did not even count how many have been gone the past thou- sands of years who were once inhabitants of this planet. It is hard to fathom this mystery. However, what is not hard to know is that ev- eryone without exception, all of mankind, has an end to their physi- cal existence and will face the reali- ty of some form of judgement about My Point of View By H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Holy Week Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Give Me a Break By John Stossel Get off my property! Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore The fall of Chile is a warning to America The God of Indiana is Basketball I am through pulling punches. I de- sire that this column was strictly sat- ire, but it is not. From this point for- ward, I care little about being ridi- culed, deplatformed, or shamed. I am set for the defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I need to say some hard things, and to some, these words will sting and hurt, but they need to be said. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome, "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." I am convinced there is little integ- rity within the apparatus of govern- ment, and if the reader would read the ancient philosophers, they will learn those before us considered all governments were evil and served a small elite. March 25, 2020, our president and governor cried out that we must flatten the curve of COVID or mil- lions would die. We need to shelter in place for about two weeks; then we can emerge for Easter and celebrate the hope of the Resurrection. They lied. This Wednesday, March 2, our In- diana governor announced all man- datory restrictions from his office are to be ended on April 6 [however, the mayor of Indianapolis stated that the county will continue to keep all COVID protocols in place for Mari- on County]. In case you do not have a calendar handy, Palm Sunday is March 28, and Easter is April 4. What is wrong with this picture? Let us play basketball, but keep the churches at minimal occupancy, and the faithful can continue to worship virtually. Math is not my strong subject, but I find between Easter 2020 and 2021 were 357 days or a church year. In mid-March 2020, we were told the Church would be open for Eas- ter. They lied, and we are still being abused and lied to all in the name of public safety. That is, also a lie [removing the comorbidities that makes COVID deadly, the survival rate jumps to 97 to 99.75 percent!] How has this played out among the Saints? Millions have abandoned the gathering of the Church and stay home because the High Priests of COVID have demanded that we do no harm to others. Yet these same people who use COVID as an ex- cuse to stay away from Church go to restaurants, family gatherings, ball games, fly to family reunions, shop for groceries, and take vacations. Je- sus is going to say to some, "I never knew you." Perhaps He will say it to the stay at homers and the Hoosier hysterics. I suppose we can be thankful mil- lions did not die, but there was not go- ing to be millions die, and the govern- ment officials and the high priests of COVID knew that. The statistics prove this! All levels of government lied with New York Governor Cuo- mo leading the charge and given an Emmy award as thousands of elder- ly nursing home patients died alone without spiritual comfort. We can also be thankful that Hoo- sier Hysteria is allowed to be played out, and the governor was able to at- tend his favorite game[s], and pro- mote NCA A Basketball. As a matter- of-fact, the lead story on Channel 13, as I write, is basketball; no mention of Palm Sunday and everlasting life. Allow me to ask one question. Why are churches to remain on semi-lock- down through the most Holy period of the year, while basketball, which has no long term benefit for our state and nation, is allowed to be promot- ed? Our governor and the mayor by their actions have declared the god they serve is BASKETBALL! What we have witnessed over the last year is that the Church has been body slammed by government, which is unconstitutional. Where was the ecclesiastical leadership? Cowering in their basements telling the faithful that they could not par- take in the grace of the church and withheld communion from the Saints for the public good. These actions suggest that Christ has become an offense to the public, and the Church fares no better than a nightclub or tavern. What action[s] did you take when Continued on page 5 Before dawn, dozens of union ac- tivists invaded a strawberry farm, shouting through bullhorns. This frightened workers and infuriat- ed the farm's owner, Mike Fahner, who thought that in America, own- ing property means you have a right to control access to that property — your home is your castle, and all that. Not in California, where politi- cians allow union organizers to raid farms. "If I didn't allow them, I'm the one going to jail," says an outraged Fahner in my new video. "That is as- inine." The property invasion law's sup- porters say the United Farm Work- ers union deserves the exception to property rules because rich farmers abuse migrant workers. I threw their argument at Fahner, who replied that it's absurd to say he abuses work- ers, because they keep coming back: "450 people travel 400 miles. ... Why in the world, if they were being abused, would they continue to return year after year? " Because they don't know they have other options, says the union. They also don't know about their right to unionize, so unions must come onto farms to tell them about union benefits. The union's predawn farm inva- sion didn't win over many of Fahner's employees. Fewer than 10 % joined the union. Fahner already pays al- most double California's min- imum wage. But the protests them- selves impose a cost. He on- ly has six weeks to harvest, pack, ship and process his strawberry plants. "If we miss that window, you de- stroy the fields." In response to the farmers' complaints, California Depu- ty Attorney General Mat- thew Wise claimed, "Any access to the property is brief, unobtrusive..." But the law allows union organiz- ers to enter a farm three hours a day, up to 120 days a year. That's hardly "brief" or "unobtrusive." Back in the 1970s, the nation of Chile embarked on one of the bold- est sets of free market economic re- forms in history. The government called in the Chicago Boys, as they were called, led by Milton Friedman and other University of Chicago free market economists. They were given a free hand to re- design the Chilean economic system with property rights, a low flat tax, privatization of the Social Security system and industry deregulation. In 1991, Friedman wrote that Chile now "has all three things: political free- dom, human freedom and econom- ic freedom. Chile will continue to be an interesting experiment to watch to see whether it can keep all three." For four decades, the experiment worked better than anyone could have imagined. According to a study by economist A xel Kaiser for the Ca- to Institute: "Be- tween 1975 and 2015 per capita in- come in Chile qua- drupled to $23,000, the highest rate in Latin America. As a result, from the early 1980s to 2014 poverty fell from 45 percent to 8 percent." Chile became one of the wealthiest nations in South America. And it happened in three decades, an eye blink of history. The Marxists and intellectual class of Latin America always hated the free market reforms. They dis- paraged the Chicago Boys as "fas- cists." They spent decades at- tacking the policies (with the stooges in the American me- dia echoing their protests), even as Chile became the jew- el of South America. The Marxists invented a narrative of "inequality": "The rich were getting rich- er, and the poor were get- ting poorer, and capitalism is evil." They infiltrated all of Chile's cul- tural institutions: the media, the schools, the universities, the Catho- lic Church, the arts, the unions and even the corporate boardrooms. Heritage Viewpoint By Adam Michel Tax incentives won't drive energy innovation Biden driving border crisis Secretary of Homeland Securi- ty Alejandro Mayorkas summed up our border crisis in a statement he released March 16: "We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years." According to The Wall Street Jour- nal, Border Patrol agents made about 75,000 arrests of migrants crossing illegally in January. And, the Journal reports, "the gov- ernment is seeing more children ar- riving each day than ever before, with an average of 523 children taken into custody by Border Patrol agents each day over the last three weeks ..." The basic factors driving those from the Northern Triangle of Cen- tral America — Honduras, Guatema- la and El Salvador — to want to come to the USA is no mystery. Per capita income in the U.S., per the World Bank, is $ 65,298. In Hon- duras, it's $2,575. It's $4,620 in Gua- temala and $4,187 in El Salvador. The already-horrendous econom- ic conditions in these countries were further exacerbated over the last year by the COVID-19 pandemic and by hurricanes. However, the conditions that moti- vate people to consider entering the United States illegally and that moti- vate them to actually try it are differ- ent. They try to do it when they think they can succeed. And for this reason, those wanting to do it followed our November presi- dential election carefully. The New York Times quoted one such asylum seeker from Bolivia. "He's our only hope," she said of President Biden. "With Trump there was no hope. ... Everything was go- ing backward, backward, backward." Not surprisingly, Mayorkas put the blame on former President Don- ald Trump. A ramped-up wave of migrants trying to enter illegally is Trump's fault, per Mayorkas, not because he secured our borders but because he cut foreign aid to these Central American countries. The root cause of the problem "is the poverty, violence, the per- secution of people ... of the North- ern Triangle," said Mayorkas. "And why we are seeing the surge now is in part because the funds that were dedicated to those three countries, to address the root causes, was dis- continued under the Trump admin- istration ..." Spoken like a true liberal. The Trump administration an- nounced a $560 million cut in foreign aid for these three Northern Trian- gle countries. The waste and inefficiency of for- eign aid money is legend and well documented. The root cause of poverty, violence and persecution in these countries is corrupt, mismanaged governments, not the absence of U.S. taxpayer dol- lars. Transparency International pub- lishes annually its Corruption Per- ceptions Index, rating countries worldwide based on perceived cor- ruption. Out of 180 nations rated, with 180 being the worst, El Salva- dor ranks 104, Guatemala 149 and Honduras 157. In addition to our border problem, American taxpayers should be wor- ried that those running our govern- ment now think sending hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer funds to the most corrupt countries in the world will solve their poverty problems. But personal responsibility has never been a big point on the liber- al agenda. We might note that becoming an American immigrant once meant em- bracing the values of freedom and personal responsibility. Today it means arriving to a cul- ture dominated by critical race the- ory, where outcomes are govern- ment-mandated racial and ethnic head counting rather than work and personal initiative. The fact that skin color and ethnic- ity may grant these potential immi- grants from Central America special standing in the U.S. may give them further motivation to enter illegally. Revealingly, Hispanic voters ar- en't buying it. In a recent interview in New York Magazine, Democratic Party analyst David Shor discussed the 2020 election. "Hispanic support" for Democrats "dropped by 8 to 9 percent," noted Shor. Court Down Wheat