Too bad that three words - turnout, mileage and ratio - must be missing from Scott Walker’s vocabulary. It would have spared the people of Wisconsin lots of turmoil. Let’s define these words in Wisconsin-speak.
Turnout - Wisconsin voters turn out in far larger numbers during presidential elections than in “off-year” elections. Walker was elected governor with 52 percent of the vote last November, 2010, when fewer of his constituents were paying attention. Now all of America is paying attention.
Mileage - Scott’s office in Wisconsin’s capital city, Madison, is in easy traveling distance of Wisconsin’s two largest cities, 77 miles west of Milwaukee and, well, Madison. Most convenient for throngs of angry citizens - especially union members - to descend on Madison and protest Walker’s union-bashing legislation.
Ratio - Half of Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents live in 13 counties - out of 72 - located in the southeast corner of the state. Ten percent of Wisconsin residents live in Milwaukee, 90 miles north of Chicago. The north to south length of Wisconsin is listed as 360 miles. Couldn’t the southeast counties get along without the rest of Wisconsin?
Walker triggered a vigorous rebellion when he proposed slashing collective bargaining rights and benefits of public employees a few months after he was elected - by a respectable but slight margin in a low-turnout election.
“This is our moment,” Walker has proclaimed.
The new Republican governor must have thought he had a mandate to do whatever he felt like doing, Tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents - an estimated 70,000 on Saturday, Feb. 19 - told him they had a different idea as they flooded the streets of Madison and jammed the Capitol building.
Most were unionized public employees, including teachers who called in sick to schools in Milwaukee and elsewhere, and trekked to Madison. That would be a more daunting challenge for unionized teachers in Miami or Los Angeles, each of which is roughly 400 miles or more from their respective state capitals.
The Republican-controlled state Senate planned to vote on the measure, but were stalled when the Senate’s 14 Democrats moved to Chicago and environs until Walker is willing to compromise.
Walker dug his political hole deeper by refusing to change his mind and threatening massive layoffs.
Do the people of Milwaukee, Madison and their surrounding counties really need this? Why tolerate these conservative governors and legislators who try to dictate how they should live?
The Milwaukee-Madison axis takes up a relatively small, concentrated area that can probably operate on its own. Its geographic arrangement compares with metropolitan areas in New York, Florida, California and Pennsylvania.
Large cities are usually beset by the most alarming problems in their respective states while their populations combined with their suburbs far outnumber the populations of other parts of their states. However, these cities do not utilize as many state services as smaller towns and must follow state edicts on means to confront their problems.
When Philadelphia enacted gun-control laws to quell crime, Pennsylvania’s legislature countered with legislation to cancel out the city’s rules.
At the same time, metropolitan areas usually supply state government coffers with a disproportionate amount of tax revenues.
Of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, a single county generates 10 percent of statewide revenues from the 6 percent sales tax, according to a recent study. If you cannot figure out which county, here’s a hint: Independence Hall is located there.
The same study informs us that Philadelphia in combination with its four suburban counties comprises 31 percent of the state’s population yet accounts for 37 percent of all tax revenues statewide.
In New York state, median property taxes in the five suburban counties surrounding New York City in 2009 were double or more the median state average of $3,755, from $7295 to $9,044 in Nassau, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester counties, according to a report issued by the Tax Foundation, The New York Times reports.
Los Angeles County is home to 20 percent of California’s 36.9 million residents, including not only the city of Los Angeles but Malibu, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Is it possible that Bakersfield or Salinas contributes as much tax revenues to the state treasury?
Yet every year, Philadelphia, New York and other big cities beg their state legislatures for money that the state would not have if not for these same cities. If these cities were on their own, they would have much more money to spend on their needs as they see fit.
They could receive federal funds directly from the federal government instead of through the state, operate their own driver-testing centers and run the welfare and unemployment offices themselves. In Philadelphia, the city already operates its own child-welfare department while Pennsylvania is directly responsible for child-welfare offices in most other counties.
Few of these cities, if any, would have to contend with a state legislature with Republican majorities in either house. NYC residents have long been frustrated because of an anti-urban state Senate controlled by the GOP.
NYC’s Senate delegation is overwhelmingly Democrat, roughly two dozen vs. two Republicans. Three out of the four senators from Westchester and Rockland counties to the north are Democrats, though all nine Long Island senators are Republicans who, of course, ally themselves with upstate Republicans.
Likewise, Democrats dominate the legislative delegations of Philadelphia and Los Angeles County as well as other urban areas.
The most beneficial arrangement would involve a merger of some form between the city and suburbs, as these communities are so intertwined. Probably some services could be administered on a metropolitan level while other services could be provided by the individual communities.
Predictably, political differences could easily obstruct combining a city with its suburbs. Usually, the city is controlled by Democrats while most of the suburbs are run by Republicans.
Whatever is possible, if Milwaukee County - which encompasses the city of Milwaukee - should ever break away from Wisconsin, Walker would govern a state where he does not live. He would need to relocate from his home in…Milwaukee County.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Being Boehmer
John A. Boehner showed he was capable of infusing three odious attitudes into this Feb. 15 sound bite: “Over the last two years, since President Obama has taken office, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs. And if some of those jobs are lost in this, so be it. We’re broke.”
Our current speaker of the House is accused of lying about those 200,000 jobs and sheds no tears - his specialty, remember? - over lost jobs, but what’s really incredulous is his claim that “we’re broke.” He broke the national bank, along with most of his cronies in Congress and the former Bush administration. What’s more, they could save programs under the “human services” label by raising taxes on the wealthy.
Thank the filibuster and the Senate’s composition. The Democratic majority last December sought to restore higher tax rates for couples earning more than $250,000 yearly, but the filibuster process blocked it.
When the framers devised the Constitution, they authorized each state to send two representatives to the Senate while the House of Representatives was apportioned on a proportionate basis. James Madison and other delegates staunchly argued for proportionate representation in both houses.
They ultimately signed the completed version of the Constitution and Madison even defended the Senate composition in the Federalist Papers. He changed his position for one reason only - there would be no Constitution if he did not accept the Connecticut Compromise which mandated the split system.
Delegates from three small states demanded equal representation, or there would be no Constitution. Two of those states - New Jersey and Maryland - are now big states and the third, Delaware, shares the same moderate to liberal ideology prevalent in the Northeast.
The Constitution likewise authorized each chamber to set its own rules. The Senate adopted the filibuster after Vice President Aaron Burr chided the Senate for failing to allow an adequate amount of debate. Ultimately, the Senate filibuster permitted a minority of senators to block action on bills. A filibuster could only be stopped by a 60-vote measure for cloture.
George W. Bush entered the White House with a comfortable surplus and produced a colossal deficit before leaving the White House. In between, the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and slashed taxes for the wealthy.
We are currently stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan and we cannot be sure when the military can leave either country. In December 2010, Democrats in Congress sought to revive higher tax rates for the wealthy, but Senate Republicans used the filibuster to maintain the lower tax rates.
Boehner never complained. He must share the blame now that “we’re broke.” So be it.
Our current speaker of the House is accused of lying about those 200,000 jobs and sheds no tears - his specialty, remember? - over lost jobs, but what’s really incredulous is his claim that “we’re broke.” He broke the national bank, along with most of his cronies in Congress and the former Bush administration. What’s more, they could save programs under the “human services” label by raising taxes on the wealthy.
Thank the filibuster and the Senate’s composition. The Democratic majority last December sought to restore higher tax rates for couples earning more than $250,000 yearly, but the filibuster process blocked it.
When the framers devised the Constitution, they authorized each state to send two representatives to the Senate while the House of Representatives was apportioned on a proportionate basis. James Madison and other delegates staunchly argued for proportionate representation in both houses.
They ultimately signed the completed version of the Constitution and Madison even defended the Senate composition in the Federalist Papers. He changed his position for one reason only - there would be no Constitution if he did not accept the Connecticut Compromise which mandated the split system.
Delegates from three small states demanded equal representation, or there would be no Constitution. Two of those states - New Jersey and Maryland - are now big states and the third, Delaware, shares the same moderate to liberal ideology prevalent in the Northeast.
The Constitution likewise authorized each chamber to set its own rules. The Senate adopted the filibuster after Vice President Aaron Burr chided the Senate for failing to allow an adequate amount of debate. Ultimately, the Senate filibuster permitted a minority of senators to block action on bills. A filibuster could only be stopped by a 60-vote measure for cloture.
George W. Bush entered the White House with a comfortable surplus and produced a colossal deficit before leaving the White House. In between, the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and slashed taxes for the wealthy.
We are currently stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan and we cannot be sure when the military can leave either country. In December 2010, Democrats in Congress sought to revive higher tax rates for the wealthy, but Senate Republicans used the filibuster to maintain the lower tax rates.
Boehner never complained. He must share the blame now that “we’re broke.” So be it.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Give us clearance from Clarence
The couple that thumbs their noses at the people…
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court neglected to disclose that wife Virginia received $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. Federal law requires disclosure of the income of a justice’s spouse.
Virginia Thomas promoted herself as a lobbyist with “experience and connections” for would-be clients who want health-care reform overturned by the Supreme Court. The single obvious interpretation we can take away from this comment is that she claims she can influence a Supreme Court justice.
Many court observers have low expectations of Thomas to begin with. It should not surprise us that a judge could have already decided on a case before it even comes before him. A judge might also have inappropriate contacts with people who have an interest in a case or a pattern of cases linked to a particular ideology.
The Thomases are long known to share the same conservative attitudes. Virginia Thomas’ goals includes having people like her husband placed on the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. The justice likewise needs no counsel from her. A form of mental telepathy is sufficient.
This latest episode reflects some of the deficiencies of the federal courts, especially the process for choosing Supreme Court justices and the utter absence of accountability.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York City made a federal case of these acts when he led 73 House Democrats in signing a letter to Thomas with the request that he recuse himself from any deliberations on health-care reform, on grounds that his wife’s lobbying activities creates “the appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to The Washington Post.
The representatives wrote: “As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.
“The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife’s financial stake in the overturn of health-care reform is blurred.
“Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has ‘experience and connections’ and appeals to clients who want a particular decision - they want to overturn health-care reform.
“Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health-care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.
“This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you ‘participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the (5-4) decision’ on the Citizens United case.
“Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.
“Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.”
Weiner’s letter says even more about the judicial system than Thomas and his wife.
How did Thomas get there? Under the Constitution, the president nominated Thomas and the Senate confirmed him. The House is left out of the process no matter what House members think.
Of those three institutions, we can only be guaranteed that House members represent the majority of voters in each congressional district. Each House member represents their constituents on a proportionate basis.
The Senate does not. Because each state is allowed two members, the senators from the 26 least populous states could potentially control the Senate.
Practically speaking, control of the Senate depends on which political party runs it. In recent years, most large states are represented by Democrats and most small states are represented by Republicans. Texas is one of the prominent exceptions, as both senators are Republicans, while Delaware and Vermont are represented by three Democrats and a socialist.
The president, too, can potentially represent only a minority of the citizenry because s/he is selected by the majority of the electoral votes that are cast. The president can lose the popular vote or win a plurality but not the majority vote.
George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, but did not nominate any justices until his second term, for which he won the popular vote. Bill Clinton only won the plurality of the vote in both of his elections, and two justices joined the court during his tenure.
The lifetime tenure for justices may shield them from political influence, but it also gives them the freedom to do whatever they please.
When justices are allowed an unlimited period on the bench, we are often able to predict the decisions of most of the justices from year to year.
Elected officials have exploited the lifetime appointments as an ideological strategy to place justices for a long stretch. Both Thomas and Elena Kagan were nominated and confirmed at the age of 50.
Why can’t each be appointed for a fixed term - from 9 to 15 years - when they are closing in on retirement age? A 60-year-old attorney with extensive experience could figure on ending his/her term at 75.
Many of us will miss some justices when they leave, depending on our attitudes, but others we will happily help pack on their way out. Enduring lifetime tenure for some justices, such as Thomas, is tantamount to a life sentence for many Americans.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court neglected to disclose that wife Virginia received $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. Federal law requires disclosure of the income of a justice’s spouse.
Virginia Thomas promoted herself as a lobbyist with “experience and connections” for would-be clients who want health-care reform overturned by the Supreme Court. The single obvious interpretation we can take away from this comment is that she claims she can influence a Supreme Court justice.
Many court observers have low expectations of Thomas to begin with. It should not surprise us that a judge could have already decided on a case before it even comes before him. A judge might also have inappropriate contacts with people who have an interest in a case or a pattern of cases linked to a particular ideology.
The Thomases are long known to share the same conservative attitudes. Virginia Thomas’ goals includes having people like her husband placed on the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. The justice likewise needs no counsel from her. A form of mental telepathy is sufficient.
This latest episode reflects some of the deficiencies of the federal courts, especially the process for choosing Supreme Court justices and the utter absence of accountability.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York City made a federal case of these acts when he led 73 House Democrats in signing a letter to Thomas with the request that he recuse himself from any deliberations on health-care reform, on grounds that his wife’s lobbying activities creates “the appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to The Washington Post.
The representatives wrote: “As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.
“The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife’s financial stake in the overturn of health-care reform is blurred.
“Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has ‘experience and connections’ and appeals to clients who want a particular decision - they want to overturn health-care reform.
“Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health-care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.
“This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you ‘participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the (5-4) decision’ on the Citizens United case.
“Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.
“Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.”
Weiner’s letter says even more about the judicial system than Thomas and his wife.
How did Thomas get there? Under the Constitution, the president nominated Thomas and the Senate confirmed him. The House is left out of the process no matter what House members think.
Of those three institutions, we can only be guaranteed that House members represent the majority of voters in each congressional district. Each House member represents their constituents on a proportionate basis.
The Senate does not. Because each state is allowed two members, the senators from the 26 least populous states could potentially control the Senate.
Practically speaking, control of the Senate depends on which political party runs it. In recent years, most large states are represented by Democrats and most small states are represented by Republicans. Texas is one of the prominent exceptions, as both senators are Republicans, while Delaware and Vermont are represented by three Democrats and a socialist.
The president, too, can potentially represent only a minority of the citizenry because s/he is selected by the majority of the electoral votes that are cast. The president can lose the popular vote or win a plurality but not the majority vote.
George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, but did not nominate any justices until his second term, for which he won the popular vote. Bill Clinton only won the plurality of the vote in both of his elections, and two justices joined the court during his tenure.
The lifetime tenure for justices may shield them from political influence, but it also gives them the freedom to do whatever they please.
When justices are allowed an unlimited period on the bench, we are often able to predict the decisions of most of the justices from year to year.
Elected officials have exploited the lifetime appointments as an ideological strategy to place justices for a long stretch. Both Thomas and Elena Kagan were nominated and confirmed at the age of 50.
Why can’t each be appointed for a fixed term - from 9 to 15 years - when they are closing in on retirement age? A 60-year-old attorney with extensive experience could figure on ending his/her term at 75.
Many of us will miss some justices when they leave, depending on our attitudes, but others we will happily help pack on their way out. Enduring lifetime tenure for some justices, such as Thomas, is tantamount to a life sentence for many Americans.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Room for independents in Congress?
Pity the poor independent voter whose attitude toward the two major parties is simple: A pox on both your houses.
That long-standing phrase could be taken literally given GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic control of the U.S. Senate.
Many independents voted for Republicans last November to send a message: If those in charge mess up, we will vote them out. At this rate, Republicans will be vulnerable to voter wrath in November 2012.
As television host Rachel Maddow correctly points out, Republican candidates pledged to focus on supplying jobs to the millions of Americans who are out of work. GOP House members insist that all their legislative initiatives since early January are tied to new jobs.
It is a stretch that their Jan. 19 repeal of the Affordable Care Act has anything to do with job creation. Or their new proposals on Tuesday, Feb. 8, to add restrictions on funding for abortions and eliminate federal financing for women’s health care clinics that provide abortions. Republican House members engaged in internal party squabbles over funding reductions.
An end to gridlock? Republicans can barely agree on a bad course of action, much less any course.
American voters will always be upset with this country’s direction so long as Democrats and Republicans are fighting one another. Why must we tolerate this?
More importantly, why must voters be forced to choose between candidates from the two major parties? Each Democrat voted out of Congress was replaced by a Republican. Did the dissidents specifically want Republicans in charge? Would voters consider electing a credible independent with a viable chance of winning?
Let’s suppose that in Congressional District 1 an independent candidate with a sensible platform entered the race against the Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger. Voters are disappointed, justly or not, with the Democratic incumbent and are not enthused with the Republican. What would they do?
Under the present system, they might fear they will throw their vote away for the independent because most of their neighbors will vote Democrat or Republican. Or, the independent might draw votes from the lesser of the two partisan evils - in this case, the Republican - and the greater evil, the Democrat, will win. Also, the party candidates no doubt are better financed and operate more efficient political organizations.
Suppose a system is created in which no one candidate draws votes away from another candidate. Instead, citizens can vote for their candidates and then list their next preferences. If no candidate wins a majority of votes, then a person’s vote can be transferred to a next-preference candidate with a larger share of the votes.
The Center for Voting and Democracy describes further how the system, called Instant Runoff Voting, operates: “IRV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few as they wish, but can vote without fear that ranking less favored candidates will harm the chances of their most preferred candidates.
“First choices are then tabulated, and if a candidate receives a majority of first choices, he or she is elected. If nobody has a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoffs are simulated, using each voter’s preferences indicated on the ballot. The weakest candidates are successively eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to next choices until a candidate earns a majority of votes.”
IRV has prompted criticisms, but at the very least it takes us in the right direction away from what we now have.
An educated guess: If IRV was in place last November nationwide, the new crop of House members would have likely consisted of a healthy mix of independents and Republicans, along with incumbent Democrats who survived re-election because voters ranked them as their next preference. Maybe neither party would have the majority.
The infusion of a large number of independents in Congress would be the best move for America. The democratic process would be enlivened. Independents would inherently act on the basis of policy and the needs of their constituents. They will not be beholden to either major political party to any appreciable degree, even though they would form alliances with either party depending on the issue at hand.
There are good people with fine intentions in both parties, but they will always factor in the wider political needs of their parties. They need their parties for financial and organizational support in future elections, and they will consider how there votes will affect the political fortunes of other party members.
As it stands, it is nearly impossible to comprehend why the Republican Party exists now except to perpetuate their place in government. They back policies that are harmful to the poor and middle class, and only the greediest among the rich need their help. Democrats make a good-faith effort to serve the public, but they still tailor their positions to shore up re-election chances for the president and for senators and representatives from swing areas.
Democratic leaders would call this moving to the center, others would call it blatant pandering.
Two independents now serving in the Senate usually vote with the Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-acknowledged socialist, evolved as a highly respected mayor of Burlington, part of the largest metropolitan area in Vermont, and he subsequently served in the House before running for the Senate in 2006.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman represented Connecticut for three terms before losing the Democratic primary in 2006. He ran as an independent and beat the Democratic nominee in the general election.
The emergence of viable independent candidates is possible in communities with relatively small constituencies such as congressional districts and in small states for Senate posts. It does not seem practical for an independent to get elected president or senator in a large state.
The latter thought may appear to be unrealistic, but it is certainly not impossible. After all, this is America.
That long-standing phrase could be taken literally given GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic control of the U.S. Senate.
Many independents voted for Republicans last November to send a message: If those in charge mess up, we will vote them out. At this rate, Republicans will be vulnerable to voter wrath in November 2012.
As television host Rachel Maddow correctly points out, Republican candidates pledged to focus on supplying jobs to the millions of Americans who are out of work. GOP House members insist that all their legislative initiatives since early January are tied to new jobs.
It is a stretch that their Jan. 19 repeal of the Affordable Care Act has anything to do with job creation. Or their new proposals on Tuesday, Feb. 8, to add restrictions on funding for abortions and eliminate federal financing for women’s health care clinics that provide abortions. Republican House members engaged in internal party squabbles over funding reductions.
An end to gridlock? Republicans can barely agree on a bad course of action, much less any course.
American voters will always be upset with this country’s direction so long as Democrats and Republicans are fighting one another. Why must we tolerate this?
More importantly, why must voters be forced to choose between candidates from the two major parties? Each Democrat voted out of Congress was replaced by a Republican. Did the dissidents specifically want Republicans in charge? Would voters consider electing a credible independent with a viable chance of winning?
Let’s suppose that in Congressional District 1 an independent candidate with a sensible platform entered the race against the Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger. Voters are disappointed, justly or not, with the Democratic incumbent and are not enthused with the Republican. What would they do?
Under the present system, they might fear they will throw their vote away for the independent because most of their neighbors will vote Democrat or Republican. Or, the independent might draw votes from the lesser of the two partisan evils - in this case, the Republican - and the greater evil, the Democrat, will win. Also, the party candidates no doubt are better financed and operate more efficient political organizations.
Suppose a system is created in which no one candidate draws votes away from another candidate. Instead, citizens can vote for their candidates and then list their next preferences. If no candidate wins a majority of votes, then a person’s vote can be transferred to a next-preference candidate with a larger share of the votes.
The Center for Voting and Democracy describes further how the system, called Instant Runoff Voting, operates: “IRV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few as they wish, but can vote without fear that ranking less favored candidates will harm the chances of their most preferred candidates.
“First choices are then tabulated, and if a candidate receives a majority of first choices, he or she is elected. If nobody has a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoffs are simulated, using each voter’s preferences indicated on the ballot. The weakest candidates are successively eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to next choices until a candidate earns a majority of votes.”
IRV has prompted criticisms, but at the very least it takes us in the right direction away from what we now have.
An educated guess: If IRV was in place last November nationwide, the new crop of House members would have likely consisted of a healthy mix of independents and Republicans, along with incumbent Democrats who survived re-election because voters ranked them as their next preference. Maybe neither party would have the majority.
The infusion of a large number of independents in Congress would be the best move for America. The democratic process would be enlivened. Independents would inherently act on the basis of policy and the needs of their constituents. They will not be beholden to either major political party to any appreciable degree, even though they would form alliances with either party depending on the issue at hand.
There are good people with fine intentions in both parties, but they will always factor in the wider political needs of their parties. They need their parties for financial and organizational support in future elections, and they will consider how there votes will affect the political fortunes of other party members.
As it stands, it is nearly impossible to comprehend why the Republican Party exists now except to perpetuate their place in government. They back policies that are harmful to the poor and middle class, and only the greediest among the rich need their help. Democrats make a good-faith effort to serve the public, but they still tailor their positions to shore up re-election chances for the president and for senators and representatives from swing areas.
Democratic leaders would call this moving to the center, others would call it blatant pandering.
Two independents now serving in the Senate usually vote with the Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-acknowledged socialist, evolved as a highly respected mayor of Burlington, part of the largest metropolitan area in Vermont, and he subsequently served in the House before running for the Senate in 2006.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman represented Connecticut for three terms before losing the Democratic primary in 2006. He ran as an independent and beat the Democratic nominee in the general election.
The emergence of viable independent candidates is possible in communities with relatively small constituencies such as congressional districts and in small states for Senate posts. It does not seem practical for an independent to get elected president or senator in a large state.
The latter thought may appear to be unrealistic, but it is certainly not impossible. After all, this is America.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
NYC, caught in a state-federal crossfire
New York City, bullied by Albany and Washington?
First New York state’s new governor, Andrew Cuomo, picks on the city, then the next day the U.S. Senate kicks it around a little. So claims Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
After less than a month in office, Cuomo announced that he seeks to slash $659.4 million from aid to NYC as part of his effort to eliminate a $10 billion budget gap.
Next day, the Senate voted 81-17 to withdraw unspent federal monies already allocated to cities and states which could mar transit and hospital projects and assistance for the homeless in NYC.
“The residents of our five counties pay a disproportionate amount of state taxes, and they deserve the same level of support,” says Bloomy, who came to office as a Republican and switched to independent.
Many New Yorkers probably hate to say anything nice about Bloomy, but he has a point that can apply to both state and federal funds. Like other cities, NYC likely sends much more money to the state and federal governments than it gets back.
After all, more than half of New York state’s 19.5 million residents live downstate. NYC accounts for more than 8.2 million people and its combined population with Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island amounts to more than 11 million.
Cuomo, a Democrat who originally hails from Queens, now lives among New York’s upstate’s minority, by 25 miles. His home is in Mt. Kisco, Westchester County, a half-hour ride north of the boundary with the Bronx.
Cuomo’s $132.9 billion budget plan, unveiled on Tuesday, Feb. 1, would include a cut of $579.7 million from the school system. Bloomy claims that Cuomo’s reduction does not mention a walkback of $1.4 billion for NYC schools as part of $2 billion in promised state funds, according to The New York Daily News.
Also griping about unfunded mandates, the mayor declared, “Without those changes, we will be looking at thousands of layoffs in our schools and across city agencies…The budget does not treat New York City equitably. It eliminates 100 per cent of New York City’s revenue-sharing aid - more than $300 million - while cutting other localities by just 2%.”
Robert Megna, budget director for Cuomo, countered that Bloomy can draw from $2 billion in reserves and misrepresented the reduction in revenue-sharing aid, the News reported.
The day after Cuomo presented his budget, the U.S. Senate turned back an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act which in turn led to approval of an amendment that jeopardizes projects in NYC, according to the News.
The amendment is intended to help small businesses follow the health-care law by ending arduous reporting and payment mandates, which triggered a $22 billion budget gap. The Senate in turn voted 81-17 to withhold that amount in unspent federal money previously granted to cities and states.
The News catalogued some of the programs that would affect New York state, including $1.1 billion for hospital projects; $184 million for high-speed and inter-city rail; $130 million in cyber security investments; $206 million for homeless assistance; $160 million in Section 8 housing aid; and $514 million for transit projects.
The Senate turned aside another amendment to cut subsidies for oil companies to fill the budget gap instead.
Gillibrand said, “We should end taxpayer giveaways to oil companies, not slash important funds for housing, hospitals and infrastructure in New York.”
Schumer added, “This particular version of the proposal cut the lifeblood of New York, including mass transit, cops on the beat and aid to schools at a time when our state can ill afford it. The best way to pass this measure without adding to the deficit is to repeal subsidies for the big oil companies, and that is the proposal I voted for.”
People who despise Bloomy might view this as poetic justice after the city’s mammoth snow cleanup failure, a $700 million contracting scandal and appointment of an unqualified schools chancellor.
Personalities aside, Bloomy, Schumer and Gillibrand are asking for the money back that the city already gave to Albany and Washington.
NYC turns over a high proportion of taxes to the state, and some of the money its citizens provide the federal treasury is spent on rural states that do not pull their weight.
For that matter, it makes one wonder why NYC needs to be attached to New York state any longer or fork over so much money to the feds. NYC and other cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles could probably be self-sufficient if they spent their state taxes and some of their federal taxes on themselves.
There have been calls in the past for making NYC its own state, as with Philadelphia and even Long Island. Some Staten Islanders have wanted to secede from NYC and some living in Far Rockaway wished to break away from Queens to join Long Island.
Clearly, some communities have been enriched at the expense of others. These conditions demand equity.
First New York state’s new governor, Andrew Cuomo, picks on the city, then the next day the U.S. Senate kicks it around a little. So claims Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
After less than a month in office, Cuomo announced that he seeks to slash $659.4 million from aid to NYC as part of his effort to eliminate a $10 billion budget gap.
Next day, the Senate voted 81-17 to withdraw unspent federal monies already allocated to cities and states which could mar transit and hospital projects and assistance for the homeless in NYC.
“The residents of our five counties pay a disproportionate amount of state taxes, and they deserve the same level of support,” says Bloomy, who came to office as a Republican and switched to independent.
Many New Yorkers probably hate to say anything nice about Bloomy, but he has a point that can apply to both state and federal funds. Like other cities, NYC likely sends much more money to the state and federal governments than it gets back.
After all, more than half of New York state’s 19.5 million residents live downstate. NYC accounts for more than 8.2 million people and its combined population with Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island amounts to more than 11 million.
Cuomo, a Democrat who originally hails from Queens, now lives among New York’s upstate’s minority, by 25 miles. His home is in Mt. Kisco, Westchester County, a half-hour ride north of the boundary with the Bronx.
Cuomo’s $132.9 billion budget plan, unveiled on Tuesday, Feb. 1, would include a cut of $579.7 million from the school system. Bloomy claims that Cuomo’s reduction does not mention a walkback of $1.4 billion for NYC schools as part of $2 billion in promised state funds, according to The New York Daily News.
Also griping about unfunded mandates, the mayor declared, “Without those changes, we will be looking at thousands of layoffs in our schools and across city agencies…The budget does not treat New York City equitably. It eliminates 100 per cent of New York City’s revenue-sharing aid - more than $300 million - while cutting other localities by just 2%.”
Robert Megna, budget director for Cuomo, countered that Bloomy can draw from $2 billion in reserves and misrepresented the reduction in revenue-sharing aid, the News reported.
The day after Cuomo presented his budget, the U.S. Senate turned back an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act which in turn led to approval of an amendment that jeopardizes projects in NYC, according to the News.
The amendment is intended to help small businesses follow the health-care law by ending arduous reporting and payment mandates, which triggered a $22 billion budget gap. The Senate in turn voted 81-17 to withhold that amount in unspent federal money previously granted to cities and states.
The News catalogued some of the programs that would affect New York state, including $1.1 billion for hospital projects; $184 million for high-speed and inter-city rail; $130 million in cyber security investments; $206 million for homeless assistance; $160 million in Section 8 housing aid; and $514 million for transit projects.
The Senate turned aside another amendment to cut subsidies for oil companies to fill the budget gap instead.
Gillibrand said, “We should end taxpayer giveaways to oil companies, not slash important funds for housing, hospitals and infrastructure in New York.”
Schumer added, “This particular version of the proposal cut the lifeblood of New York, including mass transit, cops on the beat and aid to schools at a time when our state can ill afford it. The best way to pass this measure without adding to the deficit is to repeal subsidies for the big oil companies, and that is the proposal I voted for.”
People who despise Bloomy might view this as poetic justice after the city’s mammoth snow cleanup failure, a $700 million contracting scandal and appointment of an unqualified schools chancellor.
Personalities aside, Bloomy, Schumer and Gillibrand are asking for the money back that the city already gave to Albany and Washington.
NYC turns over a high proportion of taxes to the state, and some of the money its citizens provide the federal treasury is spent on rural states that do not pull their weight.
For that matter, it makes one wonder why NYC needs to be attached to New York state any longer or fork over so much money to the feds. NYC and other cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles could probably be self-sufficient if they spent their state taxes and some of their federal taxes on themselves.
There have been calls in the past for making NYC its own state, as with Philadelphia and even Long Island. Some Staten Islanders have wanted to secede from NYC and some living in Far Rockaway wished to break away from Queens to join Long Island.
Clearly, some communities have been enriched at the expense of others. These conditions demand equity.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Dying to fill the coffers
Robert Hudson may well have died so the city of New York could collect a fine from his wife for neglecting to wear her seatbelt. Maybe.
If the account presented by his widow’s attorney is true, Hudson was victimized by New York’s desperate search for revenues to compensate for the money it has lost over the years. New York’s practice reflects the efforts of other cities and states to raise money.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has transformed this process into an art form, but it occurs in plenty of other places, especially in large cities and populous states. For decades, taxpayers in major cities and populous states have been filling up the bulk of state and federal treasuries to the point that cities and states cannot support themselves.
To break this out, the federal government receives much more money from large states than elsewhere because that’s where the money is. Not only do we have a greater number of citizens to pay taxes in these states but a high percentage of the wealthy live in places like Beverly Hills, Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Fairfield County in Connecticut.
Not to mention suburbs like Newton in Massachusetts, Bethesda in Maryland, Lower Merion in Pennsylvania and Teaneck and Cherry Hill in New Jersey.
Likewise, these cities and wealthier communities stuff the coffers of state governments in higher proportions. The statehouses in Albany, Springfield and Sacramento stay in business largely thanks to downstate New York, Chicago and vicinity and Los Angeles County.
A recent study reveals that of 67 counties Pennsylvania derives 10 percent of its sales tax revenues from a single county, Philadelphia, where the largest number of and most expensive hotels are located. The combined population of Philadelphia and its four suburban counties amounts to 31 percent, yet their tax revenues to the state account for more than 37 percent.
What kind of money does that leave for a city or a county, or a state? When they are in trouble, they must find ways to compensate. Often, the methods are outlandish and extreme, maybe enough to induce a fatal heart attack.
An account in The New York Daily News reported that Robert Hudson, 72, drove his wife Doris, also 72, to a Queens Village pharmacy on Jan. 14 so she could obtain medicine and she took her seat belt off.
Two police officers arrived, accused her of not wearing the belt and told her she would receive a summons, but she had no identification with her.
Hudson’s attorney, Bonita Zelman, told a Daily News reporter that police prohibited her husband from driving home to get the identification, so instead he spent 45 minutes walking home a half-mile back and forth.
While he was gone, Mrs. Hudson obtained her medicine and the officers wrote her a summons on the basis of her name and address from the prescription, the News reported.
The Hudsons subsequently returned to the car and drove off. After driving a block or more, Robert Hudson collapsed behind the wheel and later died at Franklin Hospital.
“There was no reason not to let him drive home,” Zelman raged. “He wasn’t the one getting the summons. Instead, they had him walk home. He tried to walk as fast as he could, but he’s 72 years old and some of the walk is uphill.”
Mrs. Hudson disputed police claims that the officers were willing to write the summons without inconveniencing Mr. Hudson.
The News quoted an unidentified police official who said the officers “showed poor judgment.”
Reading between the lines, if Mrs. Hudson’s story is true, the officers were probably under merciless pressure to return to the police station with a stack of tickets that would generate wads of cash for the city.
Police officers elsewhere in New York have complained about being forced to make quotas, and this is typical of many local and state governments, and they do this with agencies other than police departments.
The Hudson episode would be an extreme example of how New York gropes for new money, but it is no isolated incident. A few years ago, some women were each fined $250 for wading into the ocean at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn after 7 p.m. Even if they violated the law, why were the fines so steep?
Not only members of City Council but also state legislators fumed over a plan for the fire department to charge at-fault motorists $365 and $490 for any kind of car accident with the intention of raising $1 million yearly, a tiny fraction of the department’s $60 million budget gap.
“This cracks open a door that if we don’t close now, they’ll kick open and start charging fees for 911 or garbage pickup,” state Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn told a Daily News reporter.
Added Councilman Peter Vallone of the Astoria section of Queens: “Firefighters are supposed to provide help, not assess damage and who is to blame. They are simply not set up to be judge and jury at the scene.”
More than 3.2 million parking tickets were contested in 2010, 15 percent higher than those contested the year before, stated the 2010 Mayor’s Management Report, according to the News. More than $600 million from parking tickets were collected by the Finance Department in 2010.
Personal experience prompted state Assemblyman Michael DenDekker, a Queens Democrat, to introduced a revised bill requiring all municipalities in the state to pay $100 to motorists who are falsely ticketed. His 74-year-old mother was ticketed for violating New York’s alternate-side parking rule in August 2010.
She received the ticket on a Thursday, but the regulation is only in effect on Wednesdays. She sent the Department of finance a copy of the ticket and pictures of the street sign. Not enough. The city notified her in January that she must provide more photos of the street sign.
“We need to hold government accountable for these frivolous tickets written to innocent people,” her son told a News reporter. “When someone does nothing wrong and they have to prove themselves, they should be reimbursed for their time and effort.”
One fascinating example of a city likely trying to save money - New York again - was exposed when the U.S. Department of Justice sued NYC in mid-January, 2011, charging that it overbilled Medicaid by “by at least tens of millions of dollars” when it improperly authorized 24-hour home care for thousands of patients.
“The allegations here are serious and unfortunately reflect a systemic failure to responsibly administer the Medicaid program,” said U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara in a statement.
As The New York Times reported, the federal complaint points out that the city avoided expenses for more appropriate programs by enrolling patients in the Personal Care Services program. Until 2006, the city had to share the cost with the state and federal governments, but after that year NYC was spared paying for it.
The complaint alleges that the city either enrolled patients who did not need the services or approved in-home care for patients who needed more intensive services such as nursing home care. The city would have been mandated to share the cost of a nursing home.
The suit said the city placed patients in personal care “even though certain patients were ineligible to receive such services and should have received services through a different program. The city has been unjustly enriched by this practice because, since January 1, 2006, the P.C.S. program is not funded by the city, whereas alternative programs are.”
Let’s lay off NYC and move across the Hudson River where New Jersey Transit inflated its fares 50 percent. Actually, Gov. Chris Christie will tell you that single-ticket fares only rose 25 percent. However, discounted round-trip tickets were eliminated simultaneously.
A $21.50 round-trip ticket between Trenton and Manhattan ballooned to $31 on May 1, 2010.
New Jersey’s school aid cuts had a strange downhill impact. Christie axed state aid to the schools by $1 billion to contend with the state’s $11 billion budget gap.
After losing $1.5 million from the state, Haddonfield’s school district initiated a campaign to attract tuition-paying students from outside the district for 10 students per grade between sixth and 10th grades, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“The primary reason is to raise revenue because of the loss of state aid,” Superintendent Richard Perry told an Inquirer reporter.
School officials in the Los Angeles United School District - second largest district in America - hope to raise up to $18 million by seeking corporate sponsorships to make a dent in budget cuts. In November, 2010, 1,000 employees were let go in a new round of layoffs, the New York Times reported.
School board members who approved the corporate sponsorship program in December found the move distasteful. “The reality is public funding is not funding public education,” Steve Zimmer told the Times.
Smaller school districts have been permitting naming rights for their stadiums for a long time, but Los Angeles is the biggest district to take this step.
The D.C. Council in Washington considered a bill in December to force homeless families to prove they reside in Washington before they can be admitted to a shelter, according to The Washington Post. Council members argued during a meeting that the homeless shelters are frequently overwhelmed.
“We cannot be the hotel for Virginia and Maryland residents,” said bill co-sponsor Tommy Wells, a Democrat.
Mary M Cheh, also a Democrat, said as quoted in the Post, “I think in its various applications it’s going to be cruel.”
The governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia seek to eliminate or curtail the states’ decades-old state liquor store system. Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania campaigned on abolishing the state-store operation and selling licenses to private companies.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell in mid-January 2011 proposed replacing 332 state-owned stores with 1,000 private retail outlets to acquire $200 million from the sale of liquor licenses and $13.1 million more than it currently collects each year in profits and taxes at Alcoholic Beverage Control stores, according to The Washington Post.
Back in NYC, the city could pull in $500,000 from issuing 9,910 summonses to people who failed to move their vehicles when its alternate-side parking rules resumed on Monday, Feb. 7, 2011, following the deluge of snow and ice, the Times reported.
Spoiled motorists whined that their cars were still trapped by snow and ice, and therefore they could not move them to legal spots, giving new meaning to the ritual of entrapment.
If the account presented by his widow’s attorney is true, Hudson was victimized by New York’s desperate search for revenues to compensate for the money it has lost over the years. New York’s practice reflects the efforts of other cities and states to raise money.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has transformed this process into an art form, but it occurs in plenty of other places, especially in large cities and populous states. For decades, taxpayers in major cities and populous states have been filling up the bulk of state and federal treasuries to the point that cities and states cannot support themselves.
To break this out, the federal government receives much more money from large states than elsewhere because that’s where the money is. Not only do we have a greater number of citizens to pay taxes in these states but a high percentage of the wealthy live in places like Beverly Hills, Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Fairfield County in Connecticut.
Not to mention suburbs like Newton in Massachusetts, Bethesda in Maryland, Lower Merion in Pennsylvania and Teaneck and Cherry Hill in New Jersey.
Likewise, these cities and wealthier communities stuff the coffers of state governments in higher proportions. The statehouses in Albany, Springfield and Sacramento stay in business largely thanks to downstate New York, Chicago and vicinity and Los Angeles County.
A recent study reveals that of 67 counties Pennsylvania derives 10 percent of its sales tax revenues from a single county, Philadelphia, where the largest number of and most expensive hotels are located. The combined population of Philadelphia and its four suburban counties amounts to 31 percent, yet their tax revenues to the state account for more than 37 percent.
What kind of money does that leave for a city or a county, or a state? When they are in trouble, they must find ways to compensate. Often, the methods are outlandish and extreme, maybe enough to induce a fatal heart attack.
An account in The New York Daily News reported that Robert Hudson, 72, drove his wife Doris, also 72, to a Queens Village pharmacy on Jan. 14 so she could obtain medicine and she took her seat belt off.
Two police officers arrived, accused her of not wearing the belt and told her she would receive a summons, but she had no identification with her.
Hudson’s attorney, Bonita Zelman, told a Daily News reporter that police prohibited her husband from driving home to get the identification, so instead he spent 45 minutes walking home a half-mile back and forth.
While he was gone, Mrs. Hudson obtained her medicine and the officers wrote her a summons on the basis of her name and address from the prescription, the News reported.
The Hudsons subsequently returned to the car and drove off. After driving a block or more, Robert Hudson collapsed behind the wheel and later died at Franklin Hospital.
“There was no reason not to let him drive home,” Zelman raged. “He wasn’t the one getting the summons. Instead, they had him walk home. He tried to walk as fast as he could, but he’s 72 years old and some of the walk is uphill.”
Mrs. Hudson disputed police claims that the officers were willing to write the summons without inconveniencing Mr. Hudson.
The News quoted an unidentified police official who said the officers “showed poor judgment.”
Reading between the lines, if Mrs. Hudson’s story is true, the officers were probably under merciless pressure to return to the police station with a stack of tickets that would generate wads of cash for the city.
Police officers elsewhere in New York have complained about being forced to make quotas, and this is typical of many local and state governments, and they do this with agencies other than police departments.
The Hudson episode would be an extreme example of how New York gropes for new money, but it is no isolated incident. A few years ago, some women were each fined $250 for wading into the ocean at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn after 7 p.m. Even if they violated the law, why were the fines so steep?
Not only members of City Council but also state legislators fumed over a plan for the fire department to charge at-fault motorists $365 and $490 for any kind of car accident with the intention of raising $1 million yearly, a tiny fraction of the department’s $60 million budget gap.
“This cracks open a door that if we don’t close now, they’ll kick open and start charging fees for 911 or garbage pickup,” state Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn told a Daily News reporter.
Added Councilman Peter Vallone of the Astoria section of Queens: “Firefighters are supposed to provide help, not assess damage and who is to blame. They are simply not set up to be judge and jury at the scene.”
More than 3.2 million parking tickets were contested in 2010, 15 percent higher than those contested the year before, stated the 2010 Mayor’s Management Report, according to the News. More than $600 million from parking tickets were collected by the Finance Department in 2010.
Personal experience prompted state Assemblyman Michael DenDekker, a Queens Democrat, to introduced a revised bill requiring all municipalities in the state to pay $100 to motorists who are falsely ticketed. His 74-year-old mother was ticketed for violating New York’s alternate-side parking rule in August 2010.
She received the ticket on a Thursday, but the regulation is only in effect on Wednesdays. She sent the Department of finance a copy of the ticket and pictures of the street sign. Not enough. The city notified her in January that she must provide more photos of the street sign.
“We need to hold government accountable for these frivolous tickets written to innocent people,” her son told a News reporter. “When someone does nothing wrong and they have to prove themselves, they should be reimbursed for their time and effort.”
One fascinating example of a city likely trying to save money - New York again - was exposed when the U.S. Department of Justice sued NYC in mid-January, 2011, charging that it overbilled Medicaid by “by at least tens of millions of dollars” when it improperly authorized 24-hour home care for thousands of patients.
“The allegations here are serious and unfortunately reflect a systemic failure to responsibly administer the Medicaid program,” said U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara in a statement.
As The New York Times reported, the federal complaint points out that the city avoided expenses for more appropriate programs by enrolling patients in the Personal Care Services program. Until 2006, the city had to share the cost with the state and federal governments, but after that year NYC was spared paying for it.
The complaint alleges that the city either enrolled patients who did not need the services or approved in-home care for patients who needed more intensive services such as nursing home care. The city would have been mandated to share the cost of a nursing home.
The suit said the city placed patients in personal care “even though certain patients were ineligible to receive such services and should have received services through a different program. The city has been unjustly enriched by this practice because, since January 1, 2006, the P.C.S. program is not funded by the city, whereas alternative programs are.”
Let’s lay off NYC and move across the Hudson River where New Jersey Transit inflated its fares 50 percent. Actually, Gov. Chris Christie will tell you that single-ticket fares only rose 25 percent. However, discounted round-trip tickets were eliminated simultaneously.
A $21.50 round-trip ticket between Trenton and Manhattan ballooned to $31 on May 1, 2010.
New Jersey’s school aid cuts had a strange downhill impact. Christie axed state aid to the schools by $1 billion to contend with the state’s $11 billion budget gap.
After losing $1.5 million from the state, Haddonfield’s school district initiated a campaign to attract tuition-paying students from outside the district for 10 students per grade between sixth and 10th grades, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“The primary reason is to raise revenue because of the loss of state aid,” Superintendent Richard Perry told an Inquirer reporter.
School officials in the Los Angeles United School District - second largest district in America - hope to raise up to $18 million by seeking corporate sponsorships to make a dent in budget cuts. In November, 2010, 1,000 employees were let go in a new round of layoffs, the New York Times reported.
School board members who approved the corporate sponsorship program in December found the move distasteful. “The reality is public funding is not funding public education,” Steve Zimmer told the Times.
Smaller school districts have been permitting naming rights for their stadiums for a long time, but Los Angeles is the biggest district to take this step.
The D.C. Council in Washington considered a bill in December to force homeless families to prove they reside in Washington before they can be admitted to a shelter, according to The Washington Post. Council members argued during a meeting that the homeless shelters are frequently overwhelmed.
“We cannot be the hotel for Virginia and Maryland residents,” said bill co-sponsor Tommy Wells, a Democrat.
Mary M Cheh, also a Democrat, said as quoted in the Post, “I think in its various applications it’s going to be cruel.”
The governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia seek to eliminate or curtail the states’ decades-old state liquor store system. Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania campaigned on abolishing the state-store operation and selling licenses to private companies.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell in mid-January 2011 proposed replacing 332 state-owned stores with 1,000 private retail outlets to acquire $200 million from the sale of liquor licenses and $13.1 million more than it currently collects each year in profits and taxes at Alcoholic Beverage Control stores, according to The Washington Post.
Back in NYC, the city could pull in $500,000 from issuing 9,910 summonses to people who failed to move their vehicles when its alternate-side parking rules resumed on Monday, Feb. 7, 2011, following the deluge of snow and ice, the Times reported.
Spoiled motorists whined that their cars were still trapped by snow and ice, and therefore they could not move them to legal spots, giving new meaning to the ritual of entrapment.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
GOP's 'heavy heart' attack on health care
So there was John McCain facing Kathleen Sebelius at a U.S. Senate committee hearing.
Arizona’s senior senator reminded Sebelius, who is secretary of health and human services, that his governor sent her a request to waive Medicaid requirements to save $541 million in annual state expenses. This exchange was broadcast on C-span.
It seems like only yesterday - actually, it was last March - when President Obama signed the watered-down Affordable Care Act into law. McCain did his part in quashing any chance for creation of a publicly-funded health-care system.
It was only Jan. 19 when 242 Republicans and three Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law.” Arizona’s Republican House members who voted for it were Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Paul R. Gosar, Benjamin “son of Dan” Quayle and David Schweikert, while Arizona Democrats Ed Pastor and Raul M. Grijalva voted against the bill. Of course, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is being treated after surviving the Jan. 8 assassination attempt.
Arizona is among 26 states challenging the health-care law in court. One federal judge even ruled the entire law to be unconstitutional. However, these challenges are expected to be decided by the Supreme Court.
Now Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer faces a cash-flow nightmare: The cash is not flowing. Collectively, many states are contending with a budget gap estimated at $125 billion. Brewer wants to make up for almost half the state’s deficit by dumping 280,000 of her fellow Arizonans from Medicaid coverage.
She sent a letter to Sebelius asking for a waiver in the new health-care law that requires the states to retain eligibility levels if they want to receive federal Medicaid money, according to The New York Times; other governors in both parties might follow suit. She wrote: “Please know that I understand fully the impacts of this rollback, and it is with a heavy heart that I make this request. However, I am left no other viable alternative.”
Here’s a recommended response from Sebelius, the mild-language version: “Jan, you talk about a heavy heart. You and your pals in Congress have hardened my heart. Democratic governors will get serious consideration for a waiver, but not any of you knotheads from Austin, Atlanta, Tallahassee or your beloved Phoenix. You might not have this problem if your cohorts in Congress had not obstructed a serious initiative to reform our health-care system. As my Democratic friends from the Bronx would say, waiver this! And give my best regards to Sen. McCain.”
Those cities are the capitals of four states where Republican governors hope to cut medical coverage to balance their budgets. Did Brewer, Rick Perry of Texas, Nathan Deal of Georgia or Rick Scott of Florida ever rise in support of a single-payer health-care bill and press congressional delegations to back it up?
All four of them, listed in a Jan. 29 New York Times account, exhibit the usual Republican hypocrisy on policy issues. In 2009, the House voted to approve a partially government-funded system, known as the “public option,” that would cover most or all Americans.
The House version was shelved in the Senate after the Republican minority along with a few Democrats threatened a filibuster. The result was the current law now being contested in the courts.
This term, Republicans who took control of the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act when they knew full well that the Senate would reject it anyway. The Senate voted it down - the repeal, not the law - by a 51-47 party-line vote on Feb. 2.
The states are telling the courts that the mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
The health-care act, beginning in 2014, would expand Medicaid eligibility to allow for the addition of 16 million beneficiaries by 2019 and pay for the full cost until 2016, according to the Times. Afterwards, the states must pay for a share that would peak at 10 percent by 2020. Under Medicaid, the federal government has paid most of the cost and sets minimum standards for eligibility that states are permitted to exceed.
At this time, federal money for Medicaid from the stimulus package will end July 1 and force a sharp hike of between one-fourth and one-third in each state’s share of Medicaid expenses, the Times account reports. States are restricted to what they can cut from Medicaid due to federal eligibility limits.
Brewer wants to unload 250,000 childless adults and 30,000 parents from Medicaid who were allowed eligibility as the result of a 2000 referendum. It was funded from cigarette levies and a tobacco lawsuit until 2004, when the general fund took up the slack, according to the Times.
Elsewhere, Georgia’s Nathan Deal seeks to eliminate Medicaid coverage of dental, vision and podiatry treatments for adults; Florida Gov. Rick Scott is proposing expansion of managed care plans; and Texas Gov. Rick Perry is looking at new cuts of up to 10 percent in payments to providers.
The Democratic governors of the most populous and third most populous states, respectively Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York, are also proposing Medicaid cuts, according to the Times account.
Brown and Cuomo cannot be blamed for bringing this on themselves or, rather, the collective 56.4 million people whom they serve.
Arizona’s senior senator reminded Sebelius, who is secretary of health and human services, that his governor sent her a request to waive Medicaid requirements to save $541 million in annual state expenses. This exchange was broadcast on C-span.
It seems like only yesterday - actually, it was last March - when President Obama signed the watered-down Affordable Care Act into law. McCain did his part in quashing any chance for creation of a publicly-funded health-care system.
It was only Jan. 19 when 242 Republicans and three Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law.” Arizona’s Republican House members who voted for it were Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Paul R. Gosar, Benjamin “son of Dan” Quayle and David Schweikert, while Arizona Democrats Ed Pastor and Raul M. Grijalva voted against the bill. Of course, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is being treated after surviving the Jan. 8 assassination attempt.
Arizona is among 26 states challenging the health-care law in court. One federal judge even ruled the entire law to be unconstitutional. However, these challenges are expected to be decided by the Supreme Court.
Now Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer faces a cash-flow nightmare: The cash is not flowing. Collectively, many states are contending with a budget gap estimated at $125 billion. Brewer wants to make up for almost half the state’s deficit by dumping 280,000 of her fellow Arizonans from Medicaid coverage.
She sent a letter to Sebelius asking for a waiver in the new health-care law that requires the states to retain eligibility levels if they want to receive federal Medicaid money, according to The New York Times; other governors in both parties might follow suit. She wrote: “Please know that I understand fully the impacts of this rollback, and it is with a heavy heart that I make this request. However, I am left no other viable alternative.”
Here’s a recommended response from Sebelius, the mild-language version: “Jan, you talk about a heavy heart. You and your pals in Congress have hardened my heart. Democratic governors will get serious consideration for a waiver, but not any of you knotheads from Austin, Atlanta, Tallahassee or your beloved Phoenix. You might not have this problem if your cohorts in Congress had not obstructed a serious initiative to reform our health-care system. As my Democratic friends from the Bronx would say, waiver this! And give my best regards to Sen. McCain.”
Those cities are the capitals of four states where Republican governors hope to cut medical coverage to balance their budgets. Did Brewer, Rick Perry of Texas, Nathan Deal of Georgia or Rick Scott of Florida ever rise in support of a single-payer health-care bill and press congressional delegations to back it up?
All four of them, listed in a Jan. 29 New York Times account, exhibit the usual Republican hypocrisy on policy issues. In 2009, the House voted to approve a partially government-funded system, known as the “public option,” that would cover most or all Americans.
The House version was shelved in the Senate after the Republican minority along with a few Democrats threatened a filibuster. The result was the current law now being contested in the courts.
This term, Republicans who took control of the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act when they knew full well that the Senate would reject it anyway. The Senate voted it down - the repeal, not the law - by a 51-47 party-line vote on Feb. 2.
The states are telling the courts that the mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
The health-care act, beginning in 2014, would expand Medicaid eligibility to allow for the addition of 16 million beneficiaries by 2019 and pay for the full cost until 2016, according to the Times. Afterwards, the states must pay for a share that would peak at 10 percent by 2020. Under Medicaid, the federal government has paid most of the cost and sets minimum standards for eligibility that states are permitted to exceed.
At this time, federal money for Medicaid from the stimulus package will end July 1 and force a sharp hike of between one-fourth and one-third in each state’s share of Medicaid expenses, the Times account reports. States are restricted to what they can cut from Medicaid due to federal eligibility limits.
Brewer wants to unload 250,000 childless adults and 30,000 parents from Medicaid who were allowed eligibility as the result of a 2000 referendum. It was funded from cigarette levies and a tobacco lawsuit until 2004, when the general fund took up the slack, according to the Times.
Elsewhere, Georgia’s Nathan Deal seeks to eliminate Medicaid coverage of dental, vision and podiatry treatments for adults; Florida Gov. Rick Scott is proposing expansion of managed care plans; and Texas Gov. Rick Perry is looking at new cuts of up to 10 percent in payments to providers.
The Democratic governors of the most populous and third most populous states, respectively Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York, are also proposing Medicaid cuts, according to the Times account.
Brown and Cuomo cannot be blamed for bringing this on themselves or, rather, the collective 56.4 million people whom they serve.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Does Scalia know what he's talking about?
When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia addressed the House Tea Party Caucus, law professor A.E. Dick Howard of the University of Virginia suggested, “The tea party members may learn something from hearing a justice talk about the Constitution.”
Maybe not.
Scalia possibly misled 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and their staffers when he addressed the caucus in a closed session Monday night, Jan. 24. He faced criticism for appearing before the caucus due to the appearance of bias because of the tea party's conservative leanings.
“He said we should all get a copy of the Federalist Papers and read it, underline it, and dog-ear it,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represents a Chicago suburb, told the Associated Press. She was among a few liberal members of Congress who attended.
We should hope that Scalia was joking. Granted that the Federalist Papers are reputed to offer valuable insights about what went into the Constitution, which was signed by its framers in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787, and subsequently ratified by the original 13 states.
As part of a research project, I read at most a half-dozen of the 85 essays and found myself griping, “For a great man, Mr. Madison, why can’t you get to the point?” I soon placed the papers low on my priority list for exploring constitutional issues. James Madison, later elected president of the United States, was a driving force in the framing of the Constitution and one of three authors of the Federalist Papers.
Aside from this being dense reading, the Federalist Papers served as an early form of political advertising, as concluded by three scholars who authored books on the Constitution.
From Richard Beeman’s “Plain, Honest Men: The History of The American Constitution”: “However much the essays may on some occasions rise to the level of high-minded political theory, they were, first and foremost, political propaganda aimed at persuading undecided voters to support the Constitution.”
Beeman is a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Writes American history professor Pauline Maier of MIT in “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788”: “The ambitious scope of the series and the authors’ technique of answering opponents without acknowledging their existence (with a few exceptions) can easily mislead readers into thinking The Federalist is a dispassionate analysis of the Constitution, far removed from the political background, which was for ’Publius’ first and foremost New York.”
She added, “It (the first essay) also described the Constitution’s critics as acting from selfish motives and said some of them supported dividing the country into separate confederacies, which signaled that ‘Publius’ was hardly dispassionate or apolitical.”
History and American Studies Professor Jack N. Rakove of Stanford University writes in “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution”: “The intellectual properties of complexity, breadth and nuance that have turned the study of The Federalist into a growth industry of scholarship may well have detracted from its appeal to ordinary readers of 1787-88.
“Few of them knew or guessed the identity of its authors; nor could many readers have found the patience to wade through essay after essay with the ambition of mastering all its arguments or synthesizing its diverse themes. Nor did they know anything of the doubts that left both men privately convinced that the Constitution might prove seriously, even fatally, flawed because it lacked key provisions each respectively favored.
“All of these qualifications need to be pondered before the Federalist is uncritically exalted as the definitive exposition of the original meaning of the Constitution.”
The Federalist essays were hurriedly written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, and each essay was published anonymously under the name “Publius.” The papers were mainly published at the time in newspapers in downstate New York, a hot battleground over ratification.
Scalia is fond of following the “original intent” of the framers. Whose original intent? Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention wanted to abolish slavery and others insisted on retaining it. Delegates from the large states favored proportionate representation in Congress and those from small states persisted on equal representation for each state, and two of those small states are now large states.
Madison fought intensely for proportionate representation in both chambers, yet he promoted equal representation in the Senate in one of his Federalist essays.
The original intent of all the framers was to establish a viable system of government. Very little was indicated about civil rights in the Constitution. Civil rights issues were addressed in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments, but that was taken up by Congress in 1791 and subsequently ratified by the states.
Madison advocated for the Senate’s composition not because he liked it. If Madison and other delegates did not sign the Constitution as formulated, there would be no Constitution. Most delegates concurred that the finished product was far more preferable to the Articles of Confederation.
There was another original intent: By September, the delegates wanted to get it over with and return to their families. After all these years of hearing Scalia and his pals carp about “original intent,” we should know how the framers felt.
Maybe not.
Scalia possibly misled 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and their staffers when he addressed the caucus in a closed session Monday night, Jan. 24. He faced criticism for appearing before the caucus due to the appearance of bias because of the tea party's conservative leanings.
“He said we should all get a copy of the Federalist Papers and read it, underline it, and dog-ear it,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represents a Chicago suburb, told the Associated Press. She was among a few liberal members of Congress who attended.
We should hope that Scalia was joking. Granted that the Federalist Papers are reputed to offer valuable insights about what went into the Constitution, which was signed by its framers in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787, and subsequently ratified by the original 13 states.
As part of a research project, I read at most a half-dozen of the 85 essays and found myself griping, “For a great man, Mr. Madison, why can’t you get to the point?” I soon placed the papers low on my priority list for exploring constitutional issues. James Madison, later elected president of the United States, was a driving force in the framing of the Constitution and one of three authors of the Federalist Papers.
Aside from this being dense reading, the Federalist Papers served as an early form of political advertising, as concluded by three scholars who authored books on the Constitution.
From Richard Beeman’s “Plain, Honest Men: The History of The American Constitution”: “However much the essays may on some occasions rise to the level of high-minded political theory, they were, first and foremost, political propaganda aimed at persuading undecided voters to support the Constitution.”
Beeman is a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Writes American history professor Pauline Maier of MIT in “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788”: “The ambitious scope of the series and the authors’ technique of answering opponents without acknowledging their existence (with a few exceptions) can easily mislead readers into thinking The Federalist is a dispassionate analysis of the Constitution, far removed from the political background, which was for ’Publius’ first and foremost New York.”
She added, “It (the first essay) also described the Constitution’s critics as acting from selfish motives and said some of them supported dividing the country into separate confederacies, which signaled that ‘Publius’ was hardly dispassionate or apolitical.”
History and American Studies Professor Jack N. Rakove of Stanford University writes in “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution”: “The intellectual properties of complexity, breadth and nuance that have turned the study of The Federalist into a growth industry of scholarship may well have detracted from its appeal to ordinary readers of 1787-88.
“Few of them knew or guessed the identity of its authors; nor could many readers have found the patience to wade through essay after essay with the ambition of mastering all its arguments or synthesizing its diverse themes. Nor did they know anything of the doubts that left both men privately convinced that the Constitution might prove seriously, even fatally, flawed because it lacked key provisions each respectively favored.
“All of these qualifications need to be pondered before the Federalist is uncritically exalted as the definitive exposition of the original meaning of the Constitution.”
The Federalist essays were hurriedly written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, and each essay was published anonymously under the name “Publius.” The papers were mainly published at the time in newspapers in downstate New York, a hot battleground over ratification.
Scalia is fond of following the “original intent” of the framers. Whose original intent? Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention wanted to abolish slavery and others insisted on retaining it. Delegates from the large states favored proportionate representation in Congress and those from small states persisted on equal representation for each state, and two of those small states are now large states.
Madison fought intensely for proportionate representation in both chambers, yet he promoted equal representation in the Senate in one of his Federalist essays.
The original intent of all the framers was to establish a viable system of government. Very little was indicated about civil rights in the Constitution. Civil rights issues were addressed in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments, but that was taken up by Congress in 1791 and subsequently ratified by the states.
Madison advocated for the Senate’s composition not because he liked it. If Madison and other delegates did not sign the Constitution as formulated, there would be no Constitution. Most delegates concurred that the finished product was far more preferable to the Articles of Confederation.
There was another original intent: By September, the delegates wanted to get it over with and return to their families. After all these years of hearing Scalia and his pals carp about “original intent,” we should know how the framers felt.
2
‘Imagine how much worse this would be’h
(double-check quote)
- Sen. Mitch McConnell on link between jobs and taxes, Dec. 5, 2010
Carolyn Maloney, representing Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1992, was re-elected on Nov. 2, 2010, with 75 percent of the vote. Henry Waxman, repping Beverly Hills and Malibu since …, was returned to the House with 64 percent.
Along with them, Anna Eshoo, representing Palo Alto and other towns ringing Stanford University, received 68 percent; Ed Markey and Barney Frank, from Boston’s very rich western suburbs, took 64 and 54 percent, respectively; and Jim Himes, from Connecticut’s Fairfield County, 51 percent.
They represent six of the wealthiest congressional districts in America. The majority of their constituents generally vote Democratic. Before Himes, Fairfield voters regularly elected a moderate Republican until Bush administration policies became too radical for them.
If the people of Malibu, the Upper East Side and these other communities are so keen on keeping the Bush tax cuts, denying pay extensions to the unemployed and opposing an increase in Social Security outlays, why do they continue to elect these House members? Why would they want to be represented by politicians who persist in supporting initiatives to help vulnerable people from the other side of the tracks?
As November 2010 blended into December, U.S. Rep. Darryl Issa’s plans to expose waste were outlined in a New York Times piece.
Issa, who was re-elected with 51 percent of the vote, was slated to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January. He wanted to use committee investigations to “focus on places where money can be saved, where we can literally close agencies or sub agencies or programs.”
Easy to understand, impossible to take seriously. Republicans had six years to save money when they ruled Congress and conspired with President Bush to transform a … (how much?) surplus from the Clinton years into a $5 trillion (double check this) deficit.
Of course, the American people should keep close tabs on how government spends our money, every day. Issa must think we’re stupid to believe that they want to guarantee that our money is spent properly.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even said, quite bluntly, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Nothing is wrong with seeking the ouster of a president or any other officeholder. That’s what a democracy allows.
Our democracy was created to serve the public, but the early weeks of December were crammed with episodes illustrating why millions of Americans are violated by the very system established to protect and empower them. Certainly, this is a subjective determination.
Everything that could go wrong in the system, it seems, went wrong.
America’s economic mess was produced in large part by President Bush’s two costly wars, slashing taxes for the wealthy and awarding of billions of dollars in spurious contracts to firms friendly with the administration. With the collusion of the Republican-controlled Congress.
This is not to excuse the Democrats. Many Democratic members of Congress voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq and Obama’s expenditures have contributed to the deficit (better wording).
While the rent on my center city apartment continues to rise each year, my employer - the city of Philadelphia - just entered its 18th month without reaching a contract with nonuniformed employees. My income remains stagnant because the city is broke while sending far more tax money to the federal and state treasuries than it gets back.
Six subway stops north of City Hall, a dozen activists for an anti-poverty group marched into a state-run welfare office on Dec. 2 to protest congested conditions in the office that aggravate the problems of welfare applicants. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare confirmed to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter that financial constraints compelled caseworkers to interview applicants about sensitive family issues in a public area.
At least North Philly clients do not need to contend with rats, bedbugs and floods as do New York state employees and the jobless at a rented unemployment office near Yankees Stadium (check this) in the South Bronx, reports Joanna Malloy of The New York Daily News.
A photo spread in The Philadelphia Daily News, published just prior to Thanksgiving, depicted a line-up of people waiting in line for food underneath Interstate 95 early one morning. Bill Clark, president of Philabundance, said to a reporter that “we’ve seen the demand increase over 60 percent in the last two years.”
Also in November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 49 million Americans lived in homes without regular access to satisfactory food, the Times reported. Children lived in more than half-million households with “very low food security.”
One night in November, 1,000 children and 1,600 adults were living in Philadelphia’s emergency shelters, a group called Project HOME announced, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. That same night, 352 people sleeping on center city streets were counted in a survey. No doubt some of them made their homes along the two blocks between City Hall and my apartment building.
Across the country, 200 men and women lived in a tent city in 2009 on a grassed-over landfill along the American River in Sacramento, California’s capital city. A Los Angeles Times reporter interviewed people who a short time ago held jobs and owned homes or rented apartments.
Just north of Philadelphia’s border, a St. Louis-based company announced that it was closing a plant in Bensalem, Pa., leaving its 500 employees jobless after failed union negotiations. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the company, Express Scripts inc., made $827.6 million in profits in 2009.
(Hummus move from Queens)
Across the Delaware River, where state aid has been reduced to local towns, Newark and Atlantic City have already laid off 167 and 43 police officers, respectively, plus other employees, and police, fire and other positions are endangered in Camden and Jersey City, The Phildelphia Inquirer reported. Three suburbs, Cherry Hill, Collingswood and Winslow, let go either police officers or firefighters.
New York state plans to lay off 12 employees at the Bronx Psychiatric Center, where patient violence is already difficult to control. In states as diverse as Maine, Illinois and Oklahoma, law enforcement officers are increasingly carrying out emergency services for the mentally ill because of reductions in services traditionally operated by community mental health systems.
In New York City, both city and state leaders are threatening to lay off more employees. The Metropolitan Transportation Agency has already dismissed … employees and will raise fares on Jan. 1, following the lead of Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. New Jersey Transit jacked up the round-trip commuter-rail cost of riding from Trenton to Manhattan from $21.50 to $31.
Pittsburgh’s transit board voted to cut service by 35 percent on the day before Thanksgiving when they eliminated 47 routes and 400 jobs. Transit officials blamed the loss of state funds while local critics accused the agency of mismanagement, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In the Jamaica section of Queens, the 130-year-old Wonder Bread plant is slated to close in January, which could put up to 200 employees out of work; the -based owner, Hostess, may offer some employees jobs in Wayne, N.J., Philadelphia or Biddeford, Maine, the NY News reported.
Yahoo Inc. in northern California announced less than two weeks before Christmas that it is laying off 600 employees to increase its earnings.
Back east, the Philadelphia Housing Authority faces investigations over spending practices involving repairs, contracts and purchases. Carl R. Greene was fired as the PHA’s executive director in September 2010 after the board learned that Greene secretly settled three sexual-harassment complaints against him, which he denied. (PDN 1/7/2011)
The city’s school system has been under fire for failing to protect Asian students from severe assaults at South Philadelphia High School and facing a possible $500 million deficit after foolish appropriations of stimulus funds (PDN, 1/5/2011, Phil Goldsmith column)
Ninety miles to the north, six consultants hired to design a project to computerize time sheets for New York City’s work force were charged on the ides of December with bilking the $700 million-plus program of $80 million. They reported to Joel Bondy, who headed the Office of Payroll Administration, and Bondy reported to Mayor Bloomberg.
Bondy resigned two days later, and Bloomberg…he’s still Mayor Bloomberg.
The city’s Department of Education was authorized to spend $200 million on consultants between 2008 and 2010, just as class size is rising, after-school programs are jeopardized and the department cannot keep track of its teacher evaluations. Nydn - 1/7/11
Meanwhile, prostitutes have been hanging out next door to a Bronx elementary school. Seven-year-old Karina Castro told the Daily News 1/7/11 that she cannot enter the school playground without taking notice of street people across the street hanging out on a large rock just below the No. 2 and No. 5 elevated trains.
Immediately after Christmas, Bloomberg became the most detested person in New York City when a 2-foot snowfall paralyzed the town. Bloomberg’s people did not bother to call a snow emergency early enough and waited late before seeking private haulers to help plow the snow. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority ignored its own procedures to minimize transit problems.
Bloomberg on Wednesday, Dec. 29, even promised to plow all streets by 7 a.m. Thursday, leading to Friday’s New York Daily News headline of “White Lie.”
In Pennsylvania, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille regularly accepts dinners, plane rides, tickets to sporting events and rounds of golf from attorneys and businessmen. It is legal for nearly all Pennsylvania judges, according to the Inquirer.
The month before, former President Bush admitted in his book “Decision Points” that he approved waterboarding of CIA detainees, which is generally considered a form of torture that would make Bush vulnerable to prosecution.
After 17 years, on Dec. 18, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy is repealed in the Senate. Before homosexual Americans were granted the right to openly serve their country, more than 14,000 military careers were ruined and millions of dollars were wasted on their training before they were expelled.
The same day, 55 senators vote for the Dream Act to offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought into America while they were young children. Whatever one’s view of this legislation, a majority is once again insufficient to pass the bill.
While New York and California hemorrhage after sending far more to the federal treasury than they get back, federal spending for Alaska was 38 percent higher than the national average in 1996, according to the Times. By August 2010, the expenditures rose to 71 percent above the national average.
NBC anchor Brian Williams dubbed it a “Mr. Smith goes to Washington moment.”
When I returned from dinner at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 10, Bernie Sanders was still filibustering the tax-cut deal after eight hours on the Senate floor.
He would never have had to filibuster this bad bargain if not for the filibuster as we knew it on that day. For the past two years in particular, Republicans exploited the Senate rule to block legislation sought by President Obama and the Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Already that week, Republicans prevented repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law which subjugates gays and lesbians in the military, and blocked passage of the $7.4 million Zadroga bill to compensate emergency workers who were sickened while cleaning up the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 attacks.
Under the filibuster rule, 60 votes are needed to end debate on any issue before a vote allowing a majority to pass a measure. This 60-vote act has been dubbed “a super-majority.“
In other words, a puny-minority can obstruct legislation backed by a majority of senators. That week, the filibuster rule was employed to offer tax relief to wealthy Americans.
President Obama and Senate Republicans bartered for a deal that would extend all Bush-era tax cuts, including those for couples making $250,000 yearly - in exchange for the 13-month unemployment pay extension.
Many Democrats were furious and Sanders - actually, he’s an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats - took his platform in the Senate to fight fire with fire - or, to fight filibuster with filibuster.
City are in danger of dismissing poli
At my office six blocks from
people of this country are eason.
exactly that. Americans have been striving to eliminate leaders from office for more than 220 years.
This can be used elsewhere…
Thomas Jefferson did exactly that to John Adams. Theodore Roosevelt pushed out … (who?) when he ran as a spoiler candidate. Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a knockout punch to Herbert Hoover in 1932. And, Thomas Dewey edged out Harry Truman in 1948. Oops, I almost relied upon that Chicago Tribune headline.
(double-check quote)
- Sen. Mitch McConnell on link between jobs and taxes, Dec. 5, 2010
Carolyn Maloney, representing Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1992, was re-elected on Nov. 2, 2010, with 75 percent of the vote. Henry Waxman, repping Beverly Hills and Malibu since …, was returned to the House with 64 percent.
Along with them, Anna Eshoo, representing Palo Alto and other towns ringing Stanford University, received 68 percent; Ed Markey and Barney Frank, from Boston’s very rich western suburbs, took 64 and 54 percent, respectively; and Jim Himes, from Connecticut’s Fairfield County, 51 percent.
They represent six of the wealthiest congressional districts in America. The majority of their constituents generally vote Democratic. Before Himes, Fairfield voters regularly elected a moderate Republican until Bush administration policies became too radical for them.
If the people of Malibu, the Upper East Side and these other communities are so keen on keeping the Bush tax cuts, denying pay extensions to the unemployed and opposing an increase in Social Security outlays, why do they continue to elect these House members? Why would they want to be represented by politicians who persist in supporting initiatives to help vulnerable people from the other side of the tracks?
As November 2010 blended into December, U.S. Rep. Darryl Issa’s plans to expose waste were outlined in a New York Times piece.
Issa, who was re-elected with 51 percent of the vote, was slated to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January. He wanted to use committee investigations to “focus on places where money can be saved, where we can literally close agencies or sub agencies or programs.”
Easy to understand, impossible to take seriously. Republicans had six years to save money when they ruled Congress and conspired with President Bush to transform a … (how much?) surplus from the Clinton years into a $5 trillion (double check this) deficit.
Of course, the American people should keep close tabs on how government spends our money, every day. Issa must think we’re stupid to believe that they want to guarantee that our money is spent properly.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even said, quite bluntly, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Nothing is wrong with seeking the ouster of a president or any other officeholder. That’s what a democracy allows.
Our democracy was created to serve the public, but the early weeks of December were crammed with episodes illustrating why millions of Americans are violated by the very system established to protect and empower them. Certainly, this is a subjective determination.
Everything that could go wrong in the system, it seems, went wrong.
America’s economic mess was produced in large part by President Bush’s two costly wars, slashing taxes for the wealthy and awarding of billions of dollars in spurious contracts to firms friendly with the administration. With the collusion of the Republican-controlled Congress.
This is not to excuse the Democrats. Many Democratic members of Congress voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq and Obama’s expenditures have contributed to the deficit (better wording).
While the rent on my center city apartment continues to rise each year, my employer - the city of Philadelphia - just entered its 18th month without reaching a contract with nonuniformed employees. My income remains stagnant because the city is broke while sending far more tax money to the federal and state treasuries than it gets back.
Six subway stops north of City Hall, a dozen activists for an anti-poverty group marched into a state-run welfare office on Dec. 2 to protest congested conditions in the office that aggravate the problems of welfare applicants. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare confirmed to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter that financial constraints compelled caseworkers to interview applicants about sensitive family issues in a public area.
At least North Philly clients do not need to contend with rats, bedbugs and floods as do New York state employees and the jobless at a rented unemployment office near Yankees Stadium (check this) in the South Bronx, reports Joanna Malloy of The New York Daily News.
A photo spread in The Philadelphia Daily News, published just prior to Thanksgiving, depicted a line-up of people waiting in line for food underneath Interstate 95 early one morning. Bill Clark, president of Philabundance, said to a reporter that “we’ve seen the demand increase over 60 percent in the last two years.”
Also in November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 49 million Americans lived in homes without regular access to satisfactory food, the Times reported. Children lived in more than half-million households with “very low food security.”
One night in November, 1,000 children and 1,600 adults were living in Philadelphia’s emergency shelters, a group called Project HOME announced, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. That same night, 352 people sleeping on center city streets were counted in a survey. No doubt some of them made their homes along the two blocks between City Hall and my apartment building.
Across the country, 200 men and women lived in a tent city in 2009 on a grassed-over landfill along the American River in Sacramento, California’s capital city. A Los Angeles Times reporter interviewed people who a short time ago held jobs and owned homes or rented apartments.
Just north of Philadelphia’s border, a St. Louis-based company announced that it was closing a plant in Bensalem, Pa., leaving its 500 employees jobless after failed union negotiations. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the company, Express Scripts inc., made $827.6 million in profits in 2009.
(Hummus move from Queens)
Across the Delaware River, where state aid has been reduced to local towns, Newark and Atlantic City have already laid off 167 and 43 police officers, respectively, plus other employees, and police, fire and other positions are endangered in Camden and Jersey City, The Phildelphia Inquirer reported. Three suburbs, Cherry Hill, Collingswood and Winslow, let go either police officers or firefighters.
New York state plans to lay off 12 employees at the Bronx Psychiatric Center, where patient violence is already difficult to control. In states as diverse as Maine, Illinois and Oklahoma, law enforcement officers are increasingly carrying out emergency services for the mentally ill because of reductions in services traditionally operated by community mental health systems.
In New York City, both city and state leaders are threatening to lay off more employees. The Metropolitan Transportation Agency has already dismissed … employees and will raise fares on Jan. 1, following the lead of Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. New Jersey Transit jacked up the round-trip commuter-rail cost of riding from Trenton to Manhattan from $21.50 to $31.
Pittsburgh’s transit board voted to cut service by 35 percent on the day before Thanksgiving when they eliminated 47 routes and 400 jobs. Transit officials blamed the loss of state funds while local critics accused the agency of mismanagement, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In the Jamaica section of Queens, the 130-year-old Wonder Bread plant is slated to close in January, which could put up to 200 employees out of work; the -based owner, Hostess, may offer some employees jobs in Wayne, N.J., Philadelphia or Biddeford, Maine, the NY News reported.
Yahoo Inc. in northern California announced less than two weeks before Christmas that it is laying off 600 employees to increase its earnings.
Back east, the Philadelphia Housing Authority faces investigations over spending practices involving repairs, contracts and purchases. Carl R. Greene was fired as the PHA’s executive director in September 2010 after the board learned that Greene secretly settled three sexual-harassment complaints against him, which he denied. (PDN 1/7/2011)
The city’s school system has been under fire for failing to protect Asian students from severe assaults at South Philadelphia High School and facing a possible $500 million deficit after foolish appropriations of stimulus funds (PDN, 1/5/2011, Phil Goldsmith column)
Ninety miles to the north, six consultants hired to design a project to computerize time sheets for New York City’s work force were charged on the ides of December with bilking the $700 million-plus program of $80 million. They reported to Joel Bondy, who headed the Office of Payroll Administration, and Bondy reported to Mayor Bloomberg.
Bondy resigned two days later, and Bloomberg…he’s still Mayor Bloomberg.
The city’s Department of Education was authorized to spend $200 million on consultants between 2008 and 2010, just as class size is rising, after-school programs are jeopardized and the department cannot keep track of its teacher evaluations. Nydn - 1/7/11
Meanwhile, prostitutes have been hanging out next door to a Bronx elementary school. Seven-year-old Karina Castro told the Daily News 1/7/11 that she cannot enter the school playground without taking notice of street people across the street hanging out on a large rock just below the No. 2 and No. 5 elevated trains.
Immediately after Christmas, Bloomberg became the most detested person in New York City when a 2-foot snowfall paralyzed the town. Bloomberg’s people did not bother to call a snow emergency early enough and waited late before seeking private haulers to help plow the snow. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority ignored its own procedures to minimize transit problems.
Bloomberg on Wednesday, Dec. 29, even promised to plow all streets by 7 a.m. Thursday, leading to Friday’s New York Daily News headline of “White Lie.”
In Pennsylvania, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille regularly accepts dinners, plane rides, tickets to sporting events and rounds of golf from attorneys and businessmen. It is legal for nearly all Pennsylvania judges, according to the Inquirer.
The month before, former President Bush admitted in his book “Decision Points” that he approved waterboarding of CIA detainees, which is generally considered a form of torture that would make Bush vulnerable to prosecution.
After 17 years, on Dec. 18, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy is repealed in the Senate. Before homosexual Americans were granted the right to openly serve their country, more than 14,000 military careers were ruined and millions of dollars were wasted on their training before they were expelled.
The same day, 55 senators vote for the Dream Act to offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought into America while they were young children. Whatever one’s view of this legislation, a majority is once again insufficient to pass the bill.
While New York and California hemorrhage after sending far more to the federal treasury than they get back, federal spending for Alaska was 38 percent higher than the national average in 1996, according to the Times. By August 2010, the expenditures rose to 71 percent above the national average.
NBC anchor Brian Williams dubbed it a “Mr. Smith goes to Washington moment.”
When I returned from dinner at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 10, Bernie Sanders was still filibustering the tax-cut deal after eight hours on the Senate floor.
He would never have had to filibuster this bad bargain if not for the filibuster as we knew it on that day. For the past two years in particular, Republicans exploited the Senate rule to block legislation sought by President Obama and the Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Already that week, Republicans prevented repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law which subjugates gays and lesbians in the military, and blocked passage of the $7.4 million Zadroga bill to compensate emergency workers who were sickened while cleaning up the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 attacks.
Under the filibuster rule, 60 votes are needed to end debate on any issue before a vote allowing a majority to pass a measure. This 60-vote act has been dubbed “a super-majority.“
In other words, a puny-minority can obstruct legislation backed by a majority of senators. That week, the filibuster rule was employed to offer tax relief to wealthy Americans.
President Obama and Senate Republicans bartered for a deal that would extend all Bush-era tax cuts, including those for couples making $250,000 yearly - in exchange for the 13-month unemployment pay extension.
Many Democrats were furious and Sanders - actually, he’s an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats - took his platform in the Senate to fight fire with fire - or, to fight filibuster with filibuster.
City are in danger of dismissing poli
At my office six blocks from
people of this country are eason.
exactly that. Americans have been striving to eliminate leaders from office for more than 220 years.
This can be used elsewhere…
Thomas Jefferson did exactly that to John Adams. Theodore Roosevelt pushed out … (who?) when he ran as a spoiler candidate. Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a knockout punch to Herbert Hoover in 1932. And, Thomas Dewey edged out Harry Truman in 1948. Oops, I almost relied upon that Chicago Tribune headline.
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