The Hayseeds blog, No. 238 for the week starting January 5, 2008.
December 22, 2007
Hayseeds No. 237
January 5, 2008
Hayseeds No. 238
January 12, 2008
Hayseeds No. 238
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There is a report in today's Times Union that says 1 out of 5 legislators have been convicted of a crime or violation in the past 5 years.
This is a real measure of civic virtue. But indeed, these include minor infractions such as speeding or failure to appear to court for a parking ticket. Nothing to much more then most people—probably by the standards of the paper 1 in 5 New Yorkers have violated the law at least once in the past five years.
Adult arrest rates for crimes within large populations in the United States are measured in different, sometimes flawed ways by states and the federal government, but depending on the criteria, they can range from a few percentage points to more than 5 percent. That suggests the arrest rate for the state Legislature, arguably just above 5 percent, may be normal.
However, these are elected lawmakers. While outright crime is the exception rather than the norm at the Capitol, government watchdog groups bemoan a system of legal loopholes in Albany that encourages bribery and a legislative culture prone to winks and nods with only private wrist-slapping for any ethics violations.
Here's a rundown of the worst things some of the legislators have done from missing court appearances to things up to felonies or at least accused of felonies and yet to be tried.
Last Thursday night, Plattsburgh Councilman Bill Provost introduced a resolution to well...
A resolution to rename the City of Plattsburgh Wastewater Treatment Plant after two local reporters was easily defeated Thursday night.
Outgoing Councilor William Provost proposed a resolution to rename the City of Plattsburgh Wastewater Treatment Plant the Ducky Drake/Joe LoTemplio Water Pollution Control Plant. He said it was a symbolic issue and he was clearly not anticipating that it would pass.
After the meeting, he said he drafted the resolution to call attention to unfair and untruthful reporting by LoTemplio and Drake.
"It's been inaccurate on too many occasions to not address," Provost said. "If they can do that to an elected official and expect to get a free pass, they didn't get a free pass."
See more at Press Republican.
It should be great fun to see what people make up there minds about when it comes to support for President in 2008.
It's the first time in many years that both parties will being having Presidential caucuses in Iowa, and there is for the first time since 1952 no clear forerunner in either party.
Obviously, I hope that Edwards pulls it off in Iowa. He might just do that—caucuses are strange beasts that can be difficult to poll. At caucuses people have to publicly support a candidate in front of their friends. That can differ from what people will say to strangers on the phone.
To say nothing of the undecided and those who don't want to announce their support until they are finally asked to do so at the forum. Or those caucus-goers who will have to move to another candidate when there first choice is not viable.
I really like the idea of a caucus system. It gets the truly committed in to discuss the issues of the day and to make a decision in a public way. There is no making votes in secret, or being an uninformed voter just stopping by to pull some levers in a clueless fashion.
Yes, it does mean that some people won't be able to participate as they have to work or other things that they have to attend to. It's too bad for them, but the reality is we want fully-informed voters who after a discussion pick a candidate.
It looks like in a nasty-back room deal that big coal-candidate Barack Obama will be getting the vote of some Kucinich supporters based on pissing match with Edwards:
Last summer, Kucinich criticized Edwards' "consistent lack of integrity" for suggesting fewer candidates should participate in presidential forums. Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton had discussed the possibility of limiting the number of debate participants, and their exchange was captured on camera and an open microphone after one such event in Detroit. Kucinich felt the comment was directed at him.
Poor Kucinich's ego. Read more about this on the AP Newswire.
This LtE in the Times Union makes a powerful case against just throwing more money at SUNY for supposed fixes:
Just when you think New York can't possibly have any more expensive "secrets," along comes Fred LeBrun's Dec. 18 column about how crummy SUNY has been allowed to become. LeBrun goes on to lament that SUNY has fallen behind such state university systems as Michigan's and California's. How have these states managed to be so successful without taxing their citizens to the point of bankruptcy? What secret have they discovered that has eluded the leadership of New York for more than 40 years? Are their education bureaucrats smarter and more visionary than ours? Are they able to extract more value from the money they have to work with?
...Somehow this vast expenditure of money that New York does not have will result in the long-hoped-for wave of prosperity. For the last 20 years, we have heard these promises of an upstate renaissance, and all we have to show for it is the highest tax burden in the country. Maybe the reason for the dismal state of the upstate economy is the highest tax burden in the country? Maybe that's why New York is hemorrhaging population?
That's an interesting point. Certainly we spend relatively little on SUNY compared to K-12 public schools in our state. And SUNY benefits many New Yorkers, like myself, greatly. But how much can we afford to make SUNY a better place? Isn't it possible for the school to do more with less money?
It's a difficult question. But we should first look at shifting money away from existing sources—such as K-12 schools or Medicaid rather then adding additional money that our state doesn't have.
It looks like Mark Alesse, the former state director of the National Federation of Independent Business wants the AMD proposed plant killed as it's never was a realistic project and continues to be a drain on state resources:
Notwithstanding the state's expenditure of more than $150 million on infrastructure and the promise of $1 billion more in aid (an absurdly expensive and ineffective approach to economic development), it is clear now that AMD is stringing New York along.
AMD is a company beset by major problems. In the last three quarters it lost $1.6 billion—and it's not clear when it will return to profitability. The acquisition of graphics-chip maker ATI for $5.4 billion was a costly mistake that saddled the company with massive debt and restructuring charges. It is about to borrow $2 billion more, at the same time that profit margins are being squeezed by competition with Intel, and its stock is down 44 percent this year to date.
With AMD's reported operating loss of $226 million in the third quarter, and a net loss of $396 million, AMD is even scaling back plans to convert older facilities in Germany to newer chip-making equipment, a much less expensive proposition than building new fabs.
The worst news for New York is that AMD responded to its problems with a new strategy called "asset-light" manufacturing, meaning that it will outsource more of its chip fabrication to third-party manufacturers.
He goes on to suggest what New York really needs to do is not waste money on AMD but to attract businesses through lower taxes and smarter regulation.
If New York had a normal business climate, with average costs of doing business and average taxes, a company in financial difficulties might take advantage of the offer of $1 billion in state aid. But in the last 10 years we've done almost nothing to slow what are now the highest costs of doing business in the nation.
Instead we've banked on an approach that requires politicians and bureaucrats to guess which industries have the best growth prospects, and which companies within those industries are the strongest, and cajole them to build here with the promise of huge infusions of state money. This is a fool's game that can't succeed. It is unfair to businesses already here, and does nothing to help New York.
Unfortunately he is quite right.
But do you want to throw your dying grandmother on the streets and deny your kids an education? We need to do something better in our state, and reform it—besides giving money away to big corporations in hopes that they will turn it around.
Even if Hillary gets the Democratic nomination, it doesn't look like she will have strong support from the men in the Democratic party, with one poll suggesting only 20% of males who are also Democrats would vote for her.
Why do so many men dislike Clinton? Is it simply because she's a woman? Susan Carroll, Senior Scholar at the Rutgers University Center for the American Woman and Politics, told me that politics provides a more important explanation than sexism: "Men are more likely than women to identify as Republicans," she explained. "Men are more likely than women to prefer Republican candidates and their policy positions. Men's partisan preferences are the main reason why many of them wouldn't vote for Clinton. Many of the men who say they won't vote for Clinton wouldn't vote for any Democratic candidate, man or woman."
...Clinton advocates point out that if she got 44 per cent of the male vote in November—the figure in that Washington Post poll matchup with Giuliani—she'd end up ahead of Kerry, who got only 41 per cent of men in 2004. She also would end up ahead of Al Gore, who got 42 per cent of men in 2000.
Amazingly, if she got that 44 per cent of men in November, she'd be doing better than Bill Clinton, who got only 43 per cent of the male vote when he won his reelection race in 1996. According to the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers, Bill Clinton's 43 per cent of men is the best a Democratic candidate has done in the last 25 years.
This article on The Nation Blog is quite fascinating.
He was here a grand total of 99 days, following much of the record of his previous governors of rarely being in Albany.
Understandably, much of that time he was traveling the state. And it's not like he hides out in Albany like Pataki did—I've seen him walking around the 1st floor the Capitol without a long lines of guards.
Russell Haven, of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said Spitzer's lack of presence in the capital sends the wrong message when little is being accomplished in state government.
"The public normally doesn't really care where the governor's head hits the pillow, but when there's gridlock in Albany, it feeds into the perception that he should be in town more often," Haven said.
The last governor to live full-time in the mansion was Mario Cuomo, who famously spent few nights away from Albany.
While Cuomo wouldn't criticize Spitzer for choosing to live in New York City, he said he felt it was important during his years as governor to be a regular presence in Albany.
Cuomo made the move even after former Gov. Malcolm Wilson suggested he spend more time in Manhattan "because that's where the money is; that's where the power is."
"I chose to stay in Albany because that's where the government was," Cuomo told The Post.
Mario Cuomo set the bar high. That said, Cuomo always tended to keep a low-profile life in Albany, being out there and friendly, and driving around a beat up old station wagon.
While Bruno says that he's against all tax hikes including closing tax loopholes for multi-millionaires, he's quite happy about raising user fees to close any budget holes.
Which user fees would these be? It already costs $7 to go to a state park, $21 to camp at a state campground, $10 surcharge on all parking tickets, and $15 to recieve a new ID card when your address changes it.
Or we could just sock it to the young, raise the SUNY tution and make it harder for people to go to college, and put them in for debt longer, taking more money directly out of our economy for decades to come.
Obama wins big in Iowa as does Mike Huckabee on the Republican side. NPR has some pretty good coverage on the wins.
So it happened. It looks like Hillary is posed to win New Hampshire, meaning that by the time super Tuesday comes it will largely be a Hillary and Obama fight. Which is good for them—although I personally hope Hillary pulls it through at the end of the day.
While Edwards would have been a great President, realistically I think he's much more likely to be a strong Vice President. I would be proud to support a Clinton-Edwards or Obama-Edwards ticket, that would for sure bring some of the brightest and best together in our Democratic Party and make our nation great again in the eyes of the world.
