September 15, 2011:Rotary Log (Gov. Roemer)

Another Thursday, another fine meal at PCC--salmon and butternut squash.  It seems only yesterday we were digging into day-old scrod--and almost liking it.  How times have changed.  Today we welcomed six guests: Patti Waters, Jonathan Cohen, Jeff McLean, Mitch Brown, Amy Colbert and Analea Angot.  Kay Jarvis also graced us with her presence.

On a more urgent note, the moose remains unnamed.  Sadly, Bullwinkle has been taken.  The plea for a creative, inspired name remains.  Son of Bullwinkle anyone?

The Group Study Exchange is still in need of four professionals for the upcoming trip.  Please visit the District 7780 website for more details.

General announcements included an upcoming Interact meeting and the formation of a new Basic Needs Committee with a scheduled meeting at the Edgewood Center this coming Thursday.  Anyone interested in participating is welcome to attend.  The last announcement concerned the showing of a documentary film on conflict resolution in Kenya staring recent guest speaker Reverend Helmut as well as Dan Smeltzer on his efforts with a Kenyan orphanage.  The film will be shown by the Seacoast Rotary Club on the 29^th.

It appeared the PCC staff was helping us prepare for the coming winter season by keeping the room a little on the chilly side, or a lot, depending who you asked.  For those of us with Polar bear blood running through our veins, it was divine.  In any event, our guest speaker, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, kept the place toasty and our members engaged with his fiery rhetoric.  He may be in his sixties, 5 feet 7 inches tall and a whopping 150 lbs. soaking wet, but he still has the fire to shake even the sturdy knees of the mighty Bill Hurley.  At least that’s the word on the street and from the mouth of the mighty Bill Hurley himself.  And don’t let anyone tell you differently, he will say.

  Gov. Roemer, a dark horse Republican candidate for President and perhaps more importantly, a former Rotarian, informed us about his career in politics and in the private sector.  A lifelong resident of Louisiana,--growing up on a cattle farm in the predominantly German and Scottish north of the state--he served as the state’s governor from 1988 to 1992 and also served as a Congressman during the Reagan Administration.  He remains the only candidate that has served in both executive and legislative capacities.  He proudly informed us of his inspired transformation from a Democrat to a Republican—must have been the Reagan effect.

 He studied at Harvard due to his lifelong admiration of New Hampshire’s very own Robert Frost.  He fondly recalled for us how Mr. Frost influenced his life and about his wonderful chance meeting with Mr. Frost in the Harvard student union.  His love of all things Frost remains as he regularly travels to Derry to see the Frost farm.  He has even moved to Manchester in pursuit of the Republican Party nomination.

            In the private sector, Gov. Roemer has worked in the banking industry for decades.  He has started small banks and grown them.  To his credit, not a single bank he created has failed.  Because of his expertise, he informed us of the ill-advised repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that emerged from the Great Depression that kept investment and commercial banks separate.  He attributes the Act’s repeal as the genesis of the country’s current fiscal problems.  He cited the enormous donations made by the banking industry to then President Clinton and to Congressional members as the single biggest reason why the repeal occurred. 

            His campaign can be summed up as a direct attack on special interests, which, he declares, “run the show.”  As a prime example, he explained to us how the latest efforts to curb the excesses of the banking industry failed on a number of fronts.  “Too Big to Fail” has not been eliminated.  Larger capital ratios for large banks were not instituted.  And Glass-Steagall was not reintroduced. In his view, these failures have contributed to the almost 20% unemployment rate when permanently part-time workers are included in the unemployment rate.  Another startling fact was the diminishment in overall number of people employed.  Fifteen years ago, 131.8 million Americans were employed.  Today, only 130.3 million are employed even though our population has increased by 41 million in that time.  He blames the tax code for much of this as well.

            As a Harvard Business School grad, he informed us he “knows these guys” when he described GE’s employment history and tax liability of $0 on $14.2 billion in revenues, the current poster child for tax reform.  As for employment numbers, GE fired 86,000 US works and hired 51,000 foreign workers.  This was used as an example of how two out of three manufacturing jobs have been lost in the US in the past twenty years.  He gave us many anecdotes from his colorful career including his visitation of all 30 Chinese states and the universally deplorable state of employment in China.

            His campaign platform can be summed up as follows.  He wants:

1)     fair trade especially with China;

2)     a progressive tax code with lower marginal tax rates;

3)     to reduce federal spending by 1% each year for five years;

4)     to use tariffs and credits on foreign oil to pay off the national debt;

5)     to eliminate all energy subsidies;

6)     to consolidate national IT from the current 1150 software packages being used;

7)     to increase social security eligibility by one month per year for 24 years;

8)     to change the cost of living index from a wage index to a price index;

9)     to allow insurance companies to compete over state lines;

10) to allow pharmaceuticals to give price discounts to large users;

11) to implement tort reform;

12) to regulate large businesses differently and more stringently than small businesses;

13) to create three to four million jobs a year;

14) to eliminate the mortgage deduction to lower marginal rates;

15) to keep the charitable deduction;

16) to eliminate Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; and,

17) to use the President’s veto power to veto spending bills.

As a prolife candidate, he explained to us his veto as governor of an abortion bill that did not protect the mother.  The veto was ultimately upheld by a 9-0 Louisiana Supreme Court decision on a similar bill.

To eliminate the effect of special interests, his campaign will only accept donations up to $100.  He proudly informed us that his is the only campaign that is not in debt.  In one of his parting comments, he informed us he is old enough to know what to do and young enough to get it done.  Good luck to you, Gov. Roemer.

Lastly, the 50/50 raffle was held and Janis Evans was the lucky Rotarian this week.  She won $56 and it was not a match.  A PCC gift certificate was also won by an unnamed Rotarian as the speaker system seemed to fail at the precise moment the winner was named.  Congratulations to you whoever you are.  That’s all folks.