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A very heartfelt thank you.

2008-03-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

I wanted to thank everyone for the encouraging e-mails regarding my run for State Representative. Since Mr. Crowley linked to my website and blog address, my web traffic has increased 42% and I've received more words and acts of encouragement than I can mention. I wanted to say thank you and in the words of Ronald Reagan, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

Thanks again!
Steve Knipper

Our Tax System Explained in Bar Terms

2008-02-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one
day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were
unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20
windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.

But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would
each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to
reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts
each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But
once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he
got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!' 'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers
without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They
didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too
much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they
might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Special thanks to David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Democracy Lifecycle

2008-02-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier: " A democracy is always temporary in nature ; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the people will always vote for those who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence :
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage.

With the country moving in the direction of every career politician wanting to give away everything for nothing, please realize what is at stake. I ask you not to tire, but fight on and believe that we can stop and reverse the cycle. Most of all, please remember that apathy is the greatest threat to our democracy. Freedom and Liberty are virtues that are to be protected at all cost. Once you surrender Liberty or Freedom for Dependence you have enslaved yourself and your children to a life of hardship and fear that leads to tyranny. Choose this day what is most important to you and your children. Your vote for City Council, State Representative, US Congress, Judge, and President matter more than ever.

Join the Revolution and return our Commonwealth and Country back to the people.
Election day is May 20th for the Republican primary and the General Election is November 4th.

"I ask for your support to change Frankfort forever."
-Vote knipper on May 20th and again on November 4th, 2008.
www.knipperweb.com
Join the Revolution!

Who is Steve Knipper?

2008-01-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

Within 24 hours of registering to challenge Mr. Kerr in this year's 2008 Republican primary, the blogs were wondering.....who is Steve Knipper?
A relevant question that can be best answered this way- I am a conservative father of four who sees a problem with the way Democrats and non-conservative Republicans in Frankfort and Washington are spending our childrens' future. Everyday we move closer to socializing our economy and surrendering our liberties and nothing seems to change that. Not phone calls, letters, or pleas to our elected officials. If something is done (like building the border fence), six months later the funding is pulled and the public loses out again. So the only thing left to do is run and win. Then day by day we start to change things from the inside.

I see two main issues with politicians today: Entitlement & Selfishness. In the fashion of 18th century aristocrats, today's politicians look at their office as something owed to them. An entitlement that they must hold on to at any cost--even if that means stealing more money from people through taxes, taking away property rights or restricting free speech. Their love of power is all consuming. To the point that they serve themselves long before they serve the people.

I believe politicians today think it is more important for their political "enemies" to fear them and for their "friends" to like them than it is to serve anyone. Case in point are the answers that were posted in response to Pat Crowley's blog question - Who is Steve Knipper? The answers revolved around whether I was affliated with any party. What faction of the N Ky. Repbulican party did I belong to?...How much money was I going to raise?.... Am I a tough challenger?

I will be very open with you. I treasure our state and country, with its liberties and God given freedoms, more than my own political success. I am running only because there is NOT a candidate around that has the courage to risk everything to make sure that the state and country we leave for our children will be better than the one we inherited. Somewhere, somehow, people have started to believe that we've lost our edge. I reject that notion and believe that Kentucky's best days are ahead of us. But those days depend on the choices we make this year.

My family has spent time in China and I've witnessed the hardships, struggles and heart ache of people oppressed by a self serving politcal class of elites. Several people throughout China confided in me that all they wanted was the freedom to make a difference and change their system of government. We as Kentuckians have the freedom to change the political elite. I ask you, this May 20th, to give me the chance to change politics from the inside out. If Mr. Kerr and incumbant politicians like him get re-elected, then nothing will change. If I get a chance, Ky will change forever....Won't you, Join the Revolution..?

Martin Luther King- A Republican?

2008-01-22T19:05:00.000-08:00

It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman's issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.
Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation's fist goals and timetables.

Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.Critics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President against Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.

Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater also ignore the fact that Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on Jan. 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only 35 words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King's protest against the Vietnam War, Johnson referred to Dr. King as "that N***er preacher."Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist "Dixiecrats" did not all migrate to the Republican Party. "Dixiecrats" declared that they would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was know as the party for blacks. Today, some of those "Dixiecrats" continue their political careers as Democrats, including Robert Byrd, who is well known for having been a "Keagle" in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another former "Dixiecrat" is former Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, who put up the Confederate flag over the state Capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd praised Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War. Yet Democrats denounced then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott for his remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.). Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Byrd and Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for their selfish gain. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3 kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans.

Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty.

Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.In order to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party's economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity. -Thanks to Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) and may be contacted at www.NBRA.info.

Victory is ours already we don't need to work toward it...

2008-01-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

Today was a very significant day. I officially declared my candidacy for State Representative for the 64th District in Kenton Co. Additionally, the new Governor of Ky (Steve Beshear) gave his State of the State address tonight and I watched to hear what he had to say.

I have to admit I was shocked to hear a Democratic Governor speak of fiscal responsibility. Although he didn't make the now infamous, "Read my lips, no new taxes," quote he did provide a fiscally conservative overtone in his message saying that the State government had to make some cuts in the coming days and he didn't want to raise taxes "unless necessary".

The "unless necessary" part jolted me back to reality. Why? Because the hope of turning Ky around doesn't exist in the hands of the politicians at all. In fact, the best thing he could have said tonight is, "I intend to get out of the way and not stand in the way of the free markets." You see, the Governor gave a good speech tonight, but he missed the philosophy of success.
The philosophy of success is to work from victory, not toward it.

Let me explain...
The Governor spoke in very flowery non-descript words tonight. He spoke of working toward victory. The problem is, why spend any more time working toward victory when that road map has already been laid? John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan showed us that the road map to economic recovery starts with tax cuts.

After each of the aforementioned tax cuts, we experienced great economic prosperity and the same can work in Kentucky, but we need people in office who understand that the secret to success has already been established and the rule of law exist in the Constitution. We just need representatives who are brave enough to follow it and truly restore the power of government to the people by following tried and true conservative principals-small government, lower taxes and LESS spending.

We need a governing body and a Governor who don't look to government to fix the problems. No, we need a batch of new servants in Frankfort who understand the philosophy of success and get out of the way of the free markets.

Welcome!

2008-01-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog where I'll post my thoughts on politics in Northern Kentucky.