The Democrats are trying to turn Nebraska into Pottersville

By David D. Begley

January 4, 2023

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is ranked as one of America’s greatest movies. The movie posits the question: What would Bedford Falls be like if George Bailey never would have been born?

Bedford Falls became Pottersville because the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan failed under the leadership of Uncle Billy. Mr. Potter ends up controlling the housing stock and most people are renters rather than owners of their own homes in Bailey Park.

George Bailey was in the building and loan business. That entire industry was gutted after President Clinton signed the law that repealed Glass-Steagall. The legal barrier between investment banking and commercial banking was eliminated. Instead of local S&Ls retaining mortgages, today they are sold and repackaged. Mortgage-backed securities were created by Wall Street and they were the proximate cause of the 2008 Crash. Warren Buffett famously called them financial weapons of mass destruction.

Pottersville was home to substance abuse, gambling and crime. Pottersville was full of vice and little virtue.  

Recently the Omaha media ran stories on the fentanyl deaths of Taryn Griffith (24) and A.J. Wiblishouser (16). During the first two years of the Biden Administration, over 193,000 Americans have died from fentanyl. That’s as if all of the people in Sarpy County were exterminated.

Illegal drugs have flooded America the past two years and the reason why is that the Biden Administration has intentionally left the border open. About six million illegal aliens have entered the U.S. That’s three times the population of Nebraska. We could easily see another 10 million over the next two years.

Democrats see drug deaths of young people as collateral damage in their mission to fundamentally change America. Joe Biden and the Dems don’t care how many Americans die from drugs. Notwithstanding Hunter Biden’s severe drug addiction, the President has no empathy for similar heartache visited on 193,000 American families.

Former Governor Ben Nelson told me to my face that he was proud to create the Nebraska lottery. A lottery, however, is small potatoes compared to what legalized gambling will become. Gamblers lost $4.27 million at Lincoln’s Warhorse casino in October. The State of Nebraska’s cut is 20%. It is projected that Omaha’s Warhorse casino will separate gamblers from $150 million per year.

The social consequences of gambling are severe. Embezzlers routinely steal money in order to gamble and many end up in jail. Tom Osborne knew that and that’s why he has always opposed gambling.

The contempt and hate the Democrats and Wall Street have for average Americans is most acutely demonstrated by the net zero carbon scam. Both OPPD and NPPD have committed to reducing carbon emissions in order to save the planet in the year 2100 notwithstanding the fact that China and India are on a building spree of coal-fired power plants.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act promised $380 billion in federal tax credits to developers of solar and wind projects. That sum will further fuel inflation and add to our current federal debt of $31 trillion.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the renewables push is the suggestion that wind and solar energy is free. Net zero carbon will come at a very high cost. The Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment has concluded that electric rates will triple in Minnesota and Wisconsin if net zero carbon is achieved. The worst of it is that forced blackouts are projected in the winter. A winter blackout is a deadly thing, but in the mind of the Left that human sacrifice is acceptable in order to save Mother Earth. 

Energy poverty is a thing in Europe and it is coming to America if this net zero carbon foolishness isn’t stopped. The beginning of the end of this scam in Nebraska will be when the Cass County Board of Supervisors reject the conditional use permit for a 3,000-acre industrial solar development.

Nebraska doesn’t have to participate in the hivemind craziness of the Left. Today’s Democrat party is a death cult seeking power and money. I’m a strong believer in Nebraskans’ common sense. We saw that in the county attorney races in Omaha and Lincoln. “The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen” is carved over the main entrance of our Capitol. As long as Nebraskans remain vigilant, there is hope that Nebraska won’t become Pottersville.