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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Costly china, SEC football talent, Obama dilemma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
New 320-place setting White House china selected by the Bushes cost almost $500,000. So what? It was paid for by a privately-funded trust. Let the man go.
The Georgia General Assembly should write a legal definition of “blight” based on the 1300 block of Joseph E. Boone Boulevard (formerly Simpson Road) in northwest Atlanta — and then limit the creation of tax allocation districts to those that fall within it. Creating them in the path of development that’s occurring anyway is nothing more than a taxpayer giveaway.
Alabama embarrasses the Southeastern Conference in the Sugar Bowl, losing to Utah. How in the world can we continue to hang on, breathlessly awaiting an announcement by some 17-year-old football prospect that he’s chosen a Southeastern Conference school, preferably Georgia, when the talent is employed as poorly as it was then by the Crimson Tide?
Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan insisted on martyrdom and made himself readily available. Israel complied. Properly so. Best suggestion for Gaza and the Palestinian Authority comes from former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton, writing in the Washington Post. Argues Bolton: “We should look to a ‘three-state’ approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty.”
MARTA’s projected deficit of $57 million may prompt higher fares (up 25 cents to $2), higher parking fees or service reductions. One other proposed “solution” is more tax. My suggestion would be to consolidate MARTA as a mass transit-only agency. Spin off the buses into the private sector and let them provide service where and how the market dictates.
Grady Memorial Hospital officials start off the new year right, trying to save the hospital by getting a handle on expenses. CEO Michael Young proposes, quite responsibly, to charge a discounted rate to the near poor that’s less for patients from Fulton and DeKalb than for patients from elsewhere. It’s an eminently defensible proposal and management and politicians, sometimes one and the same, should stick to their guns in implementing it.
Kudos to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle for his vow — I think it’s a vow — to resist higher taxes. “The time is not for raising taxes,” he says. “The time is for right-sizing state government.” Hear, hear! And for dismissing all the interest groups with their palms up.
Interesting dilemma for President-elect Barack Obama, who vowed to shut the Guantanamo military detention center. Turns out no nation wants the bad guys. Take ’em, pleas U.N. torture investigator Manfred Nowak. Many, he says, are harmless. Maybe. But many aren’t.
Griffin Bell was one of the truly great men that Georgia, or any state, produces. He’s monument material.
A commentary on life offered by Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, whose team lost 24-21 to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl in the final minute. “That’s the problem with tight ballgames like this… Sometimes you finish it [and] the game ends when you are the one ahead and sometimes the game ends when you’re not.”
The recession prompts the state to permit slightly larger class sizes in core elementary and middle school classes, up to two students more for the coming school year. One fine day the state will get out of the business of dictating inputs, like class size, to local school officials. Ideally, local systems will sign contracts, like the one Gwinnett is inking, that would commit them to performance outcomes. The state should set standards, provide experts and advice, and let the locals deliver the goods. Or, if they can’t, give the money to parents and let them find a provider who can.
Calling Atlanta’s neighbors to the north “northern suburbs” requires a definite perspective. For those of us who live there, Atlanta is our suburb. Wonder why you never see it described as Cobb’s southern suburb.
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Earmarks, no, but problem’s bigger
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Without question, a spending stampede from Washington will plant thousands of little boondoggling spending programs across the country. A prime example is the money allocated to local governments to stave off foreclosures while saving neighborhoods.
Atlanta, to use an example from today’s AJC, has $16 million and applications from 37 fund-seeking organizations requesting $20 million. Some version of this story is in newspapers all across the country. The reality will be that the so-called federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program is a play-thing for politicians, a place to park their buddies until the economy gets better with a fund that allows them to be pretend wheeler-dealers doling out pork to favored individuals and neighborhoods. Check back in three years and you’ll find waste, fraud, abuse and ineffective spending to be the legacy of this program nationally.
President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, announces that a follow-up economic stimulus package estimated at $775 billion, will mark a “new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight.”
By that he means that earmarks will be banned and that details of the plan will be available online “so the American people will know where their precious tax dollars are going and whether we are hitting our marks.”
Earmarks are the symbols of wasteful spending, no doubt. The proposed commuter rail line from Atlanta to Lovejoy, a White Elephant boondoggle that may very well get built, came to life as an earmark. There was never any examination of its transportation value prior to its insertion in a spending bill. And it lingers because the money’s been allocated, or at least a token sum to get it started.
The Neighborhood Stabilization Program, while not an earmark, is the equivalent of the rail line to Lovejoy. It plants a bad idea and keeps it around with a never-satisfied appetite for more public money.
It’s worth noting that a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, including Oklahoma’s blue-chip fiscal conservative Tom Coburn and Wisconsin’s liberal Russ Feingold, are proposing what they call “major earmark reform.”
“Congress has a 9 percent approval rating because broken processes like the earmark process have caused us to lose the trust and confidence of the American people,” said Coburn.
Called the “Fiscal Discipline, Earmark Reform, and Accountability Act of 2009” (I hate the dishonest names politicans bestow on programs; it’s political trickery.) Nevertheless, it does propose to do three useful things.
One would be to allow senators to object to “unauthorized earmarks on appropriations bills” and 60 votes would be required to overcome that objection.
Secondly, all appropriations and authorization conference reports would have to be online and electronically searchable at least 48 hours before full Senate consideration.
And, finally, those who get federal dollars would be required to disclose any money spent on registered lobbyists — something that could curtail business for professional lobbyists while creating more junket opportunities for lobbying politicians.
Earmarks are a symbol. But given the sums of money that’s pouring out of Washington without real oversight and direction, earmarks are hardly the major worry for fiscal conservatives and for taxpayers.
