Ironman's blog

Liberal  Simsbury First Selectwoman (i.e.Mayor) Mary M. Glassman had a startling revelation today over Connecticut's economic crisis. Doing a state capitol presser today, she revealed

 “We can’t come up here and ask the state for more money and we can’t go back to our communities and ask our taxpayers for more money.”

Funny how she was more adamant about tax and spend policies when she ran for Lt. Governor in 2006, .supporting the "millionaire's tax"

Government should live within its means. What a novel concept. Of course, in Connecticut Democrats sound positively disgusted that the economy and those cranky voters have put an end to the usual ping-pong of raising state taxes one year, local taxes the next.  

The Democrats "own" government now. Let's see how they pay for and/or break their promises.

I'm a near RINO from the suburban Northeast who supported Rudy Giuliani and the Patriot Act.

So when my back is up about a proposal as being destructive of civil liberties, maybe this is something that might resonate with the apolitical general public

Oregon looks at taxing mileage instead of gasoline

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010300412.html

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes. ......

In Oregon's pilot program, officials equipped 300 vehicles with GPS transponders that worked wirelessly with service station pumps, allowing drivers to pay their mileage tax just as they do their gas tax.

Whitty said the test, which involved two gas stations in the Portland area, proved the idea could work.

Though the GPS devices did not track the cars' locations in great detail, they could determine when a driver had left certain zones, such as the state of Oregon. They also kept track of the time the driving was done, so a premium could be charged for rush-hour mileage.

Another concern is that such devices could threaten privacy. Whitty said he and his task force have assured people that the program does not track detailed movement and that driving history is not stored and cannot be accessed by law enforcement agencies.

"I think most people will come to realize there is really no tracking issue and will continue to buy new cars," Whitty said, noting that many cell phones now come equipped with GPS, which has not deterred customers.

Well, Mr. Whitty, last time I checked Verizon didn't bill me based on where I made my calls. I also can turn off my cell phone, now can't I.  Verizon also is not the government.

Let's look at this extraordinary proposal. I'm sure Oregon needs money to fix roads and maybe the gas tax is obsolete. Fine. But do we need to respond by creating a system where the location of every vehicle in the state is tracked every moment of every day on whatever road it gets driven on?

I have an EZ Pass to speed my way through toll booths in NY State, NJ  and MA. They've been very effective in divorce litigation to puncture alibis.  This would be taking that de minimis privacy violation (one can choose not to use EZ Pass) and placing it on steroids.

I'm not buying "the technology is primitive" argument. I've seen pictures of my house on Google Earth where the color of my car in the driveway was easily visible. I have little doubt a GPS tax tracker will become equally detailed.

There is also the fact that once the American public buys into allowing their cars to be tracked morning, noon and night by the government all you fans of the Second Amendment will find this puts limits on gun registration on the road straight to Heller.   (yep, you can't ban guns but we'll put tracking chips on all of 'em)

I recall Chris Dodd shut down the Senate when the FISA act was used to "invade the privacy" of a few terrorists calling overseas. I'm sure now the Senator will voice outrage that technology would be used to track the whereabouts of every law abiding citizen in a, ahem "Countrywide" fashion?   Right? It's one thing to trade some freedom for security. See Justice Jackson's take on this. 

 Trading our liberties to make the taxman's job a bit easier? What of that, our liberal friends?

There's a reasonable , less intrusive way to implement this. If the state wants to tax the use of certain roads and do "time of day' pricing in congested urban areas, just put up old fashioned toll booths and let people get EZ Pass if they choose. And if they want to do a mileage tax, make it like the 1040 and require drivers to self assess annually. The shortage (if any) can be paid at sale or trade in of the car by checking the odometer and collecting the shortfall then at time of transaction.

Simple, proven and no privacy concerns.

But the bigger implications here is that liberals want to change behavior and know about behavior. It's not about collecting the most money the most effiicient way possible to pay for their stuff.  Many people in government aren't mercantilists, they are social engineers.

And a database of personal whereabouts is a virtual treasure trove for them to correct our behavior. Maybe I should trust the goverment with this personal data.  After all, this stuff is never used to harass political opponents, now is it? 

Now , you might think... this is just some tree hugging state on the Left Coast out to impose itself on its populace. Not so. This is gonna to be , as ZZ Top sang, bad, and nationwide. 

There is kind of a coalition that's naturally forming around this.....

Congress is talking about it, too. A congressional commission has envisioned a system similar to the prototype Oregon tested in 2006-2007.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing is considering calling for higher gas taxes to keep highways, bridges and transit programs in good shape.

But over the long term, commission members say, the nation should consider taxing mileage rather than gasoline as drivers use more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles.

As cars burn less fuel, "the gas tax isn't going to fill the bill," said  Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committeehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010300412.html

 

We are likely to see a tsunami of lefty social engineering proposals try and blitz a dazed public in the first weeks of the Obama Administration. I would like to think this is one socialist vehicle that ought to be disabled in the driveway before it gets down the road and runs down the Fourth Amendment.  

Who's with me?

This headline has got to make a lot of liberal hangovers today feel a lot worse

Sarah Palin most desirable celebrity neighbor: poll

All is quiet on New Year's Day

A world in white gets underway.....

I...I will begin again

I...I will begin...again....

After sunrise, it's back to work, folks.

When "hope" and "change" are revealed as merely marketing slogans, we get to make America right 

The usually erudite Michael Barone has lapsed into a bit too much holiday cheer, I fear.

He recently has expressed hope that the President-elect, Barack Obama, will resemble Dwight Eisenhower. 

Now, apart from the fact an infantry officer from West Point does not equate to a community organizer from Harvard Law School, let's look at the one resemblance:an interest in infrastructure  

Eisenhower's signature project was the Interstate Highway system . The program is still a major national asset and was constructed at current dollar price of less than $500 billion.It was paid by user fees, not deficit spending

During Eisenhower's years in office the federal debt burden as a percentage of GNP fell dramatically

Compare this with Obamanomics, a trillion dollar grab bag of odds and ends which are unlikely to make a lasting difference in our nation's economic future, like golf courses in resort communities. 

And remember the perennial Democrat pledge "to make America respected in the world". Well, our profligate fiscal policies are not winning friends across the pond.   As the UK's Financial Times pointed out

This is a dangerous tactic. America is already estimated to have a $12 trillion debt pile — roughly 70 per cent of gross domestic product. America’s annual deficit has now hit the highest level since the Second World War, running at an equivalent of about 7 per cent of GDP, surpassing the previous record in the early Reagan years of 6.5 per cent.

Having been born in 1959, I was an infant during the Eisenhower years, therefore I can't credibly do the Lloyd Bentsen speech. But even a cursory review can demonstrate Barack Obama is no Dwight Eisenhower.

Congratulations are in order for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnson, who have welcomed a son into the world. 

As for the Associated Press, not so much....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081230/ap_on_re_us/bristol_palin_baby

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The teenage daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose quest for the vice presidency began to go downhill the day she announced the pregnancy, has given birth to a son, a magazine reported Monday

Hmm, the daughter's news came out before this event, which the Associated Press seemed to think went pretty well for the Alaska Governor

 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=155&sid=4180481

NEW YORK (AP) - Barack Obama apparently isn't the only "rock star" in presidential politics this year.

After days of intense media coverage about Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's qualifications, more than 40 million Americans tuned in Wednesday to see for themselves what they thought of her.

The huge audience for Palin's acceptance speech rivaled that for Obama's address at the Democratic National Convention six days earlier, and set a tough standard for the top of her own ticket. John McCain was to accept the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday.

You know, it might have been classy to have avoided a political cheap shot in a birth announcement. It might have been professional to have at least made an accurate statement in taking a shot. I think most rational observers would have identified the Katie Couric interview as the point where Governor Palin's fortunes waned......but maybe that doesn't fit the narrative the elite media want to promote.

You see, no one with Sarah Palin's background and family was supposed to get this far. Now, if her maiden name was Kennedy, I'm sure this story would have been written a slight bit differently.

We are going to have to work overtime to keep the AP from trying to put anything positive about the Republican party and its candidates in the Orwellian "memory hole" over the next few years. Even if it means using a birth annoucement as a partisan hit piece.

In politics, often times you find allies who you never thought you would have, but have decided necessity and temporary convenience make for a common cause.

Has Moveon.org jumped to our way of thinking on corporate bailouts? And if so, can we assemble a Right/Left coalition to fight the Great 2009 Bailout War?

Perhaps. Consider their recent mass e-mail

Dear MoveOn member,

Enough already!

We gave the banks $350 billion. It was supposed to get them lending again, to help companies and consumers get credit. But the credit markets are still frozen and the economy's getting worse. 

Now Treasury is asking Congress for the remaining $350 billion in bailout funds.1  No more oversight. No strings attached. Just $350 billion that could be spent on health care, or green jobs, or more teachers—going instead into the black hole that is our financial system.

We can't let that happen. Please sign our emergency petition:

"Not another dime for Wall Street until we understand where the previous bailout money went—and why the bailout didn't work as expected."

Clicking here will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/bailout3/o.pl?id=15290-9234983-PGJEvbx&t=4

What happened to our bailout money? The banks won't tell the media, or Congress, or the Government Accountability Office!2

But we do know a few things.

Banks appear to have used much of the money to buy other banks.3 As one analysis found, the bailout "touched off a banking-sector version of 'Let's Make a Deal,' in which the biggest U.S. banks are using government money to get even bigger."

Then there's good old-fashioned waste. Insurance giant AIG, for example, spent $442,000 on a lavish corporate spa retreat just days after receiving $85 billion of taxpayer money.4 How much got wasted? We don't know, since there's zero accountability or oversight.

What the banks don't seem to have done is lend the money out. The credit markets are still frozen.5 Companies that need loans can't get them. Consumers can't get credit to buy cars.

In other words: driven by greed, Wall Street brought our economy to its knees through bad lending and complex financial instruments based on little more than air. Then Wall Street got took our bailout money and seems to have spent it on everything BUT getting the economy moving.

And now they want $350 billion more.

No. Way. Not 'til we understand what happened, and know that the money will go to something that actually benefits our economy.

Please click here and sign our petition:

http://pol.moveon.org/bailout3/o.pl?id=15290-9234983-PGJEvbx&t=5

Let's not let this happen!

Thanks for all you do.

–Noah, Carrie, Patrick S., Joan and the rest of the team

Sources:

Now, I'd rather NOT use the extra $350 Billion to ramp up government social spending as far as the eye can see. But, if the Left decides it's tired of bailoutmania, this is going to place major pressure on Democrats in the House and Senate to recant their previous positions in favor of throwing money at failed business models.

I have not seen any recent polling on the Wall Street bailout , but I find it hard to believe they are held in higher esteem than the car companies , whose bailout is rather unpopular    One of the benefits of seeking common ground to liberals aghast at corporate welfare is obvious---it depoliticizes the opposition and makes opposition a matter of thoughful public policy, not reflexize partisan attitudes.  It creates a big tent for moderates and independents to see this is not just some hard-line conservative ideologues preaching Adam Smith who think it's time to make free enterprise be free of federal revenue.

There is also a predicament for Pelosi, Reid, Dodd and Frank. Since their party will be managing the bailout in a few weeks (and since the Democrats were too dense to replace their front men on this issue ) it's their problem now, and the people who allowed the problem to occur and wrote the remedy bill are now fully in charge.

Chris Dodd in particular is at risk. His recent CT poll numbers for re-election are upside down    and only large numbers of Democrats are keeping him near the waterline. (26% of Democrats are definitely for his re-election; only 5-6% of non-Democrats) But 8% of Democrats are definitely NOT voting for him. Can Chris Dodd survive losing support from his Left? It's not like CT Democrats haven;t turned before on a long time Senator whom they decided had  sold them out?    (one CT blogger has even suggested Rep. Chris Murphy might find Dodd weak enough to challenge in a Democratic primary )

Now this all may be self-serving drivel from Moveon. org the ostensible "grassroots" organization heavily bankrolled by some of the prime suspects in creating the mortgage meltdown, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Sandler   And it's not like they haven't had an Orwellian conversion before about an anti-consumer, pro-Wall Street Democrat they once pilloried, and now champion . (Ironic that the press sees no irony in Obama appointed the "Senator from MBNA" as the "honcho' for the middle class ) . Like, "what the Auk?"

But we really ought to take this an run with this. Either we gain a powerful, albeit temporary ally in the latest battle for fiscal responsiblity...and that would be great..

or we expose Moveon.org as an unprincipled partisan fraud unwilling to challenge their own party. I can live with that, too.

Either way, we unite our present allies and divide our opponents. And all for a good cause, too.   

Early this year Senator Dodd thought he had the answer to the foreclosure crisis. Right after he returned from his miserable failure of a presidential campaign, Banking Chairman Dodd proposed the "Hope for Homeowners" plan.

  http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4324

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, today announced his intention to introduce legislation that will create a new program within the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide aid to distressed borrowers currently trapped in mortgages they cannot afford.  Under the “HOPE for Homeowners Act of 2008," new mortgages that are offered by FHA-approved lenders will refinance abusive loans at a significant discount for homeowners facing difficulty meeting their mortgage payments

My problem at the time this was introduced was to promised to relieve imprudent lenders of much of the loss they should have eaten for bad lending decisions. Well, we've gotten way beyond that , having thrown a TARP over the whole blinkin banking sector. The new problem with Dodd's masterpiece----it isn;t helping homeowners.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston said the centerpiece of the federal government's effort to help struggling homeowners has been a failure and he's blaming Congress....

The three-year program was supposed to help 400,000 borrowers avoid foreclosure. But it has attracted only 312 applications since its October launch because it is too expensive and onerous for lenders and borrowers alike, Preston said in an interview.

"What most people don't understand is that this program was designed to the detail by Congress," Preston said. "Congress dotted the i's and crossed the t's for us, and unfortunately it has made this program tough to use."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/16/AR2008121603177.html?hpid=topnews

Nice job Chairman Dodd. The Wall Street bankers all are keeping their multiple houses and your expensive rescue plan for ordinary folks over their head is dysfunctional.

Well, maybe the new HUD secretary will throw enough money at this problem to make it look like someone is getting helped.    He went to the "right school"  but I'm not sure a background in NYC is all that relevant http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-hud-obama14-2008dec14,0,5865966.story .  There's hardly any owner-occupied housing in the city, which suffers from a chronic housing shortage   http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/shortage-of-housing-threatens-city-institutions/73748/ and  the debiltating effect of decades of rent control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York. Not exactly the background to deal with plummeting single family home values, in my book.

But it's certainly better credentials than Dodd's credentials to fix the auto business, as he felt compelled to kibitz http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4685  after the President jumped in to clean up the mess Dodd made of the bailout bill  http://thenextright.com/ironman/step-away-from-the-vehicle-senator-dodd    Dodd is now upset about worker concessions; well, given the stock price of GM the investors already took their hit.  http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GM#symbol=GM;range=1y Everyone who has looked at this knows the Corker plan is the only way to create a viable business model, but no doubt the Obama team will try and create "American Leyland" http://thenextright.com/ironman/can-hope-change-a-spark-plug to appease the Greens and UAW. 

Just so you know Santa knows who is naughty and nice, the Q poll came out and Dodd did rather poorly for a long time Democratic incumbent in the era of Obama ascendancy in the Blue States . Artful Doddger did a rather thorough write -up on the impact of the Q Poll in his blog   http://theartfuldoddger.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-poll-shows-dodds-vulnerability-in.html highlighting Dodd's vulnerability.

Let me add a couple of points here as to Dodd's winter of discontent.

a) He has an empty war chest at the moment and many of his old benefactors have entered a new chapter of their financial life. He may not be able to replenish at will like prior campaigns.

b) the "hard" opposition vote is larger than ever. Only 13% of CT voters will defintely re-elect Dodd, 27% will defintely vote to remove him.  We've seen what happened when there's an intensity deficit for a candidate. Dodd has this in spades; and unlike the war driven 2006 election or the Obamania of 2008, it's hard to see Democratic turnout in CT being quite as high in 2010.

If anything drives 2010 turnout it will be anger over the economy. Bad time to be chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, eh? 

Well, Chris, just remember your gift from Angelo Mozilo came early. Enjoy what you have.

Breaking news from the Northeast--where we are expecting a foot of shovel ready global warming.

There's been a speed bump on the way to the Caroline Kennedy coronation.

Evidently she doesn't bother to vote in a lot of local elections.

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081219/ap_on_el_se/kennedy_voting

NEW YORK – Caroline Kennedy, who wants to fill Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's seat, has not voted in a number of elections, including one race for the very job she is seeking.

The Democrat registered at her current address on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 1988. According to Board of Elections records, she missed several Democratic mayoral primaries in 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2005.

She also skipped the 1994 general election, when Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was running for re-election. It is the same seat she hopes to take over if Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state in the new administration.

So let's see, the Koch-Dinkins race didn't catch her fancy. The other races might be explained away as snooozers, but that one?

And evidently Mario Cuomo's fight for his political life in 1994 wasn;t enough to motivate Sweet Caroline to amble down the block to her polling place. I'm sure his son Andrew will be quite appreciative of this attentiveness to the state's management. Mario Cuomo, George Pataki, ahhh, whoever.. and wasn't there some big issue that year?... the "Contract with America"?...naw, why bother

This of course is on the heels of her trip upstate this week, where she appeared to be far more eager to be in Bordeaux than in Buffalo.   If the goal was to assauge the fear of upstate voters that they were not going to be neglected by a star struck downstate celebrity, well, it failed.

I'm not one of these hard-wired Kennedy family bashers; I actually have a bit of a warm spot in my Irish heart for them for having roguish charm.  But there are plenty of public servants in NY state in both parties who've paid their dues and would sweat blood to get and hold a U.S. Senate seat. it's not like politics is just entertainment for NY State these days post 9/11 and Bear Stearns.

RFK and Hillary Clinton at least went out and won an election for the seat.  Now, the political lifestyle of the rich and famous is to petition the Governor just to hand you a seat. In these troubled times, we are to presume we can count on your vote in the Senate when we couldn't count on you to vote in elections.

A few days back, I pointed out that alarming global warming headlines were appearing in upstate NY papers along with stories about the region being encased in ice. So what, I was told.--- It's December in the far northeast. Of course my in-laws should expect  to freeze

So, without commecial interruption I offer the current weather this evening for Palmdale, California  along with the forecast

. http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/coldandflu/wxdetail/USCA0829?from=36hr_fcst_flu

 http://www.weather.com/weather/alerts/localalerts/USCA0829?phenomena=WS&significance=W&areaid=CAZ059&office=KLOX&etn=0006

Issued by The National Weather ServiceLos Angeles, CA 1:09 pm PST, Wed., Dec. 17, 2008

... WINTER STORM WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT PST TONIGHT...

THE WINTER STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT PST TONIGHT.

MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW WILL CONTINUE ACROSS MUCH OF THE ANTELOPE VALLEY THROUGH THIS EVENING. STORM TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES CAN BE EXPECTED ACROSS MUCH OF THE VALLEY... WITH LOCAL AMOUNTS UP TO 15 INCHES IN THE FOOTHILLS. IN ADDITION... NORTHEAST WINDS 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH WILL CAUSE AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW... CREATING DANGEROUS WHITEOUT CONDITIONS WITH VISIBILITIES NEAR ZERO AT TIMES.

I know, I know, this influential movie  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/ means that by Valentine's Day the whole northern hemisphere north of 30N will be covered by glaciers and Dick Cheney's office will be relocated to Mexico City.