Category Archives: Politics

Taxpayers/ratepayers Continued

“The last thing we need is more tax increases,” said House GOP leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk. “We have a realistic, responsible budget. I didn’t want to stand up here and talk just in terms of charts, rhetoric and one-liners.”

This sort of statement is pretty point blank. It sounds good. But it’s meaningless. We can refer to ourselves in all manner of terms, such as “taxpayer” and “ratepayer.” Recall yesterday’s post on the question–partly–of the color of money and the color of corruption. CT on the current budget wants us to believe that the politicos are worried about tax increases or targeted taxes. But a rate increase for energy either way you color it hues the same: green tossed out the window. CT should take the millions it would use to build generation plants and distribute solar and wind power. I wonder if the Dems’ plan to tax online items would cost more than it would solve.

The Republicans are looking at the budget in a fundamentally different way than Rell and most Democrats.

Republicans say they cannot understand why the state needs tax increases when it has $1.1 billion in the “rainy day fund” for fiscal emergencies. In addition, the state surplus is projected at $628 million – a jump of $92 million from last month’s estimate because collections from corporate taxes have been better than expected. With the economy still relatively strong and the Dow Jones industrial average breaking records recently on Wall Street, Cafero predicted that the state’s surplus this year will reach $800 million.

It’s not STUPID stamped on my forehead, it’s a markered grin.

Just to pursue this a little more:

Blumenthal claims that a Maguire supervisory inspector, William Fritz, was told by a DeFelice worker that DeFelice was doing “substandard work,” some of which involved unacceptable materials, such as unapproved drainage pipe.

“Defendant Fritz, aware of the defects and aware of the use of substandard materials, told the worker to go away and not to advise him any further of any deficient work,” according to the suit.

Fritz, who has resigned from Maguire and is now Clinton’s first selectman, denied participating in such a conversation.

“I don’t remember ever saying that and I wouldn’t,” Fritz said. “Come on, that’s bizarre.”

Fritz also raised questions about the role of state Department of Transportation inspectors and engineers in approving project work and materials, questions that have been raised by several industry sources but which were not addressed in the state suit.

“Any of the pipe that came in on that job was certified by the state (transportation department) lab,” he said. “Any of the metal pipe that came in, the state came out and checked the pipe. And it all gets submitted through the state’s testing process.”

Ray Garcia, an attorney representing DeFelice, criticized the suit for ignoring the state’s role in any construction failures. As did Fritz, he contended that state inspectors were closely involved in the project, signing off on DeFelice work before the state issued the company regular payments for work in progress.

“It is impossible for the alleged defective work to exist at the level described by the state … without the direct current knowledge of direct (state transportation) employees who control every phase of the work all along the work timeline,” Garcia said. “So the state knew about the problems they claim currently exist and they actually approved the work and paid for it. The job wasn’t perfect, but the state approved everything for which payment was received.”

Senior state transportation officials have said repeatedly that the state has no responsibility for the project failures. They have said that since they hired Maguire as their consulting engineer, the state had no inspection responsibilities. State employees were involved, for the most part, in reviewing project paperwork, they said.

The state officials have refused to disclose the identities and responsibilities of employees assigned to the project. The transportation department also has been reluctant to make public copies of quality assurance tests done on project materials, such as pipe.

Come to Connecticut. Start a business and a life here. Stay and grow. Three examples of irony.

Gay Marriage and Logicless-ness

One of the problems with this commentary by Leslie Wolfgang is that it insults fathers. Another problem with it is that it misinterprets the state’s influence on the lives of people “in specific.”

Let’s first start with the strawman:

But now that I have children and realize the importance of Daddy in the lives of families, I am willing to speak out against attempts, however unintentional, to institutionalize fatherless-ness as just another option for raising healthy children.

The strawman comes with this notion that legitimizing gay marriage unintentionally institutionalizes “fatherless-ness.” We could rewrite the intention of the move: that it would strengthen contractual relationships and relieve many people of the burden of inequity.

Inherently, when the state removes gender as a requirement for marriage, it institutionalizes and approves of the absence of a man for the prospective care and raising of families.

In this context, I have no idea what Wolfgang means by “inherently” and “prospective.” (I assume “inherently” simply should be taken as “this should be readily obvious.) But let’s look at the logic

What concerns me and others is that same-sex marriage will, in the long term, further discourage men from becoming responsible parents through the social institution of marriage. Statistics show that this fatherless-ness hurts children and their mothers by making them more likely to be poor, sexually abused, under-educated and engaged in illegal behavior.

The writer here asserts that fatherless-ness “hurts children.” Statistics say, but I’d love to see them. But to link the “kind” of fatherless-ness to the unintentional result of gay marriage is patently illogical, given that the author has yet to supply enough inductive proofs to make the link debatable. But there’s also the insult part. Good fathers don’t practice good fathering because of any institutional structure or reward. “Why are you a good father?” asks A. B responds: “Because if I’m not the state will punish me.” This is not what Plato argues in Crito. Men may assume the obligation, but that’s the beauty of the obligation: I chose it and try to do the best job I can, gender or no gender. In my mind, a man has more than an obligation to “fatherhood.” If you’re a father, be the best damned one you can be. I believe that a women can be just as good a father as any man. Masculinity is not what fatherhood is about. The next element of support comes from a quote by Maggie Gallagher of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

As Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, stated during her testimony last week at the Capitol, “When a child is born, there is bound to be a mother somewhere close by. If we want fathers to be involved in raising their children and supporting the mothers of their children, there’s a cultural process by which we teach the next generation of men and women that fathers have an obligation to children and their mothers, and the word for that is `marriage.'”

This is just wonderful. The author plays as if we’re simply meant to buy the authority wholesale. Because Gallagher says it, it must be true. But what Gallagher says is mere “this is just what I think.” Marriage teaches men they have an obligation. Yikes. Whence do people learn obligation? This attitude of institutional indoctrination is nothing I want relations with.

A few more points. The author writes:

Our youngest generations, relying on the rule of law to help them form their minds as to what society expects, will take the senator’s suggestion to its logical conclusion that because they are optional, fathers don’t really matter for marriage and children.

We have forgotten as a society that the state’s interest in marriage is not to validate mutual affection. If that were so, the state would issue friendship certificates or mutual-admiration badges. The purpose of licensing marriage is to encourage the most stable environments for raising well-adjusted future citizens. By licensing marriage without regard to gender, the state will present absentee fatherhood as an equally good alternative for raising children. It wasn’t long ago The New York Times reported that “from a child’s point of view, according to a growing body of social science research, the most supportive household is one with two biological parents in a low conflict marriage.”

The first section up there is more strawman building and, indeed, undercuts the author’s point: is it the rule of law or parents who should raise and teach a child? Again, the idea that law influences peoples’ decisions this deeply is a false conclusion: legal obligation cannot force a mind to change. Any father or mother can be a hapless dolt, regardless of the law. Where is the proof that “this out of this” many marriages under this set of conditions produced less fools. Such evidence isn’t supplied because it isn’t available. To suggest that gay marriage is about “validating mutual affection” is inexcusably illogical. The accompanying article in the Courant Commentary certainly doesn’t argue such a point. The quote from NYT, just to close things off trivially, is laughable as support. From a child’s point of view, chocolate cake could be a vegetable.

A state can certainly create laws that define marriage as this or that. But I think the law should reflect a collective wisdom not collective bias, fear, or belief. Wolfgang asserts not the place of the law but a personal ethic that just happens to coincide with current tradition. But should law maintain tradition always? My opinion is no.

This is not Poetry

In this article yanked from the Hartford Courant, we have examples of the wonderful world of the language of politics

Gonzales and the White House made the final decision to proceed with the plan, Sampson said. “I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate,” Sampson said.

and

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the top Republican on the panel, said Sampson’s testimony did more to cloud Gonzales’ future than clear up the controversy. “I think there are more questions,” Specter said, adding that there was now “a real question as to whether he’s acting in a competent way as attorney general.”

The White House stepped back from defending Gonzales even before Sampson finished testifying.

“I’m going to have to let the attorney general speak for himself,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Even so, President Bush “is confident that the attorney general can overcome these challenges, and he continues to have the president’s support,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Typically, when words like “accuracy,” “speak for himself,” “is confident,” “competent,” and “I think” are used by spokespeople and those in Congress all kinds of other things are meant. We could revise the language this way

What he said was bullshit.

and

He’s an asshole and I’m one for not admitting it.

and

I wish I were invisible.

and

We’ll just make like Rumpelstiltskin.

In an opinion piece, found here, Larry McHugh writes

Study after study has demonstrated the significance of education in the lives of young people. The better the education, and the earlier it begins, the better. The governor and General Assembly have always recognized the importance of education, but we are at a critical juncture. Moving education front and center in the current legislative session, as a harbinger of comprehensive action before adjournment, is about as good as it gets for our state’s business community.

“Study after study has . . . ” And this means what? I guess it’s okay to reference studies as a convention in this kind of writing. Most people, however, just open their eyes in the morning. “The better the education, and the earlier it begins, the better.” There are better ways of expressing this and they don’t involve circles.

More on Symmetry

“I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on,” Gonzales said.

Maybe he just doesn’t remember. Anyway, this would seem to indicate otherwise. Which brings me back to the scruple: why can’t these guys just stand up? Again, I just don’t get it.

I miss the old theme.

Computer Science in the Courtroom

Here’s to Connecticut’s computer science faculty for advocating reason in the Julie Amero case. Hard to believe that their suggestion–an “independent investigation” of the case (people can figure out what happened in the classroom)–hasn’t already come to pass.

Internet Time

The lastest on weblogging from Colin McEnro in the Hartford Courant makes this often made case

. . . the blogosphere does not merely resemble the American frontier. It is the frontier. The blogosphere is Deadwood, where you earn your rep by what you can do, not by your class and family connections that mattered so much back in Boston. In Deadwood, the language is vulgar and combatants are quick to go for their guns. The lowliest man can rise to be mayor.

I would suggest that it’s time to move on. I would argue that the tiered nature of the system proves its maturity. I’d like to hear a few new ideas.

On another note, I hadn’t realized the extent to which the 2008 elections had worked their way into a frenzy. I heard Wolf the other day explaining the Primary system, a system he will simply have to explain again and again and again, I would assume (this is why perpetual elections are good for business). I have absolutely no interest in the 2008 election, however, and have no wish to “learn” about the candidates. But for the national press, this is easy stuff. No need to put a lot of thought into filling that 24 hours. The script’s already written.

Bush, Schools, and Bunk

Every time GWBush adds to the subject of schools. a whole host of writing follows, which basically cover all the same ground. Public school quality, choice, NCLB, alternatives. As I’ve said before, states can create all the choices they want for students and families but none of these will solve a core problem: the spaces where people live. A student subject to a poor-quality school may be bussed to a wonderful school in the pristine woods, but where will that student study and apply their knowledge?

No, performance isn’t fundamentally a school issue.

What needs to occur is a national movement to improve neighborhoods and cities so that they form a supportive space for learning and creativity to happen.

1. Troubled neighborhoods should be incorporated as economic entities by cities or states.
2. Local leaders should organize, plan, and manage neighborhood improvement, hiring local talent and workforce, putting efforts right into the spaces where quality of life can be improved. House by house, those who live in the area should the designers and the builders.
3. Connecting these areas to the life of the region would happen naturally.
4. Schools, in this context, would attract teachers, parents, and would naturally improve because space would improve and children would be a part of the activity.
5. Economic output would increase. Regions would explode. People would have work.

Nothing will work until the people who live in neighborhoods are provided the opportunity to build things themselves, from the inside out.

If I were a mayor or a president, this is the kind of plan I would encourage.

Provide not the choice to move to another school. Provide the choice to change the very ground.