Pasco County News | Breaking News

It’s a signature scandal! (Except when it’s not)

Posted Jun 1, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jun 1, 2011 at 09:33 AM

Listen, I wish Rick Scott hadn’t had security escort demonstrators away from his budget signing ceremony at The Villages the other day.  Facing with good nature a little dissent is good for the soul, and for the image.  The governor could stand to have some folks around him who understand that, and can persuade him to engage.

That said, it’s not like the Scott team’s decision to screen the audience and keep demonstrators at bay is without precedent, as we are reminded in this report about the arrangements surrounding President Obama’s signing of the (cough-cough) stimulus package in February 2009. From ABC 7 News in Denver, we read this:

Obama’s signing ceremony is by invitation only. The museum closes to the public today for the occasion.

That wasn’t the last time the President shut the door on fans of the opposing team.  He also held invitation-only signing ceremonies in public venues here and here.

I mean, just so the record is clear, and we can better understand when the act of orchestrating a signing ceremony for political purposes is a scandal ... and when it isn’t.  Evidence indicates it all pretty much depends on whether there’s an R or a D between the parentheses following the name of the signer.

Not that you would know that from the entirely balanced (cough-cough) coverage of Scott’s similarly boosterized little autograph session.

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Vets’ duty, honor memorialized in letters home

Posted May 30, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 30, 2011 at 08:15 PM

I’m thinking about my dad this Memorial Day, a World War II veteran from a small town in west Tennessee who spent more than two years in Northern Africa, Italy, France and Germany as part of the Third Infantry Division.

Wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star for gallantry during the Allies’ smashing of the legendary Siegfried Line, my father was among the fortunate ones.  He did his duty, helping to end fascist rule in Italy and crush the Third Reich, then came home to make a life and build a family while accommodating memories of horrific experiences and an ache for the boys who made their final resting place in foreign soil.

His wife and my mom—the preternaturally organized and historically alert Dee Jackson—preserved each of his letters to her, and some to other relatives and friends.  I have drawn from them to present a sliver of one infantry grunt’s legacy in the last good war.

From the World War II letters of Pfc. David P. Jackson

(To his wife, Dee Crouse Jackson)

March 1, 1944 (on Anzio beachhead)

I noticed in the Stars and Stripes that some woman’s club in New York wanted the government not to bomb or shoot up Rome.  I would like to see the city saved, too, if there was any other way, but the Germans just don’t walk out of a place.

I wonder how in the hell they think we are going to get them out.  They are in New York and we are over here being shot at and they don’t want Rome shot up.  That is a laugh.  I would be willing to be that the women who make up that club don’t have very many sons over here.

March 27, 1944

There isn’t any news that I can write about, but wanted you to know that I am all right.  My outfit is getting relieved so we will get a few weeks rest that we have been needing. Maybe we will get something to eat besides “C” rations, and a good bath.

I have Ernie Pyle beat in the length of time that he went without a bath.  I am two months without one now, but it isn’t so bad.  I can think of some things that are lots worse.

April 8, 1944

Did I tell you that your letters saved me from getting a very bad wound?  That day and the day before I had received several letters from you.  We were up pretty close to the front at the time and the night I got hit we were going to move back so when I was getting my things ready I put all my letters in my left hip pocket.  Before we moved I was called out on a little mission and that was when I got hit.

The shrapnel went through all the letters and into my fanny about an inch and a half or two inches.  If it had not been for the letters it really would have gone in.

April 21, 1944

How do you like Ernie Pyle’s stuff?  I think he is pretty good and read him every chance I get.  I think he is doing more for the G.I. than any other person.  He is the one that is trying to get the boys who are up front more money.  He is the only who has ever tried to get the boys in the trenches more money or anything.  We don’t give a damn about the money so much, it is the breaks that we want.

May 4, 1944

I read the other day that Mrs. Roosevelt said the boys overseas weren’t fit to come home to the American girls.  She said after they were put in a camp for six months (after we got back to the States), and were made to take a bath several times a day and went before a doctor once a day for a check-up, she thought we might do to turn loose if we didn’t have anything wrong with us.

I will grant her there are some that will need treating, but as a whole they won’t.  I think she should keep her mouth shut about the men and start on the WACs.  She helped promote the headache of the Army.  I can’t see why the President doesn’t lock her up.  She has cost him more votes now than he will ever know and he is going to need all he can get this time.

Sept. 19, 1944

I am really seeing a beautiful part of France.  I can’t believe northern France is anything to compare with this part.  I know it has all the large cities and I would like very much to see Paris, but for beauty this part of France can’t be beaten.

I think it will take me some time to learn to speak French and we are moving so fast I think it would be a waste of time because it won’t be long until I will have to learn to speak another language, so I am going to wait.

This war won’t be over until we get to Berlin.  Everyone thought the Germans would give up when the Americans went on German soil, but we are 10 to 12 miles inside Germany now in places and they haven’t quit and won’t.

Oct. 11, 1944

I know you are anxious to know the extent of my wound after getting the V-mail.  As I told you, I’m not hurt very bad.  I was walking down the road when a sniper got me in the neck and then once in the right arm.  It is good to get out of the rain and cold of the mountains for a while and I hope we are out of them when I go back.  That’s about all I can tell you about my being hurt because there isn’t any more to it.

Oct. 12, 1944

I noticed not long ago in the Stars and Stripes that the government was getting rid of 30,000 trucks and jeeps and we still walk.  I think someone should have his head examined.

Oct. 30, 1944

The Purple Heart is very pretty, isn’t it?  The Combat Badge is very nice, too, but we have to go through too much hell for either one of them.  I will have a bronze star to go on the Purple Heart now.  That is what we get every time we are wounded after we get the Heart.

Try not to be afraid of answering the telephone.  It is no good to be afraid all the time of something you can’t control.  I know.  I have been the same way.  I’m not saying I’m not afraid any more, but I never let myself think about what is up there because there is nothing I can do about it.

Nov. 8, 1944

After I was hit I walked a little over two miles back to the aid station.  I don’t know how long that took, but I was pretty weak when I got there.  I didn’t lose too much blood, but I lost enough to make me pretty weak and shaky.

When I got to the aid station they bandaged me up, gave me a shot, and sent me right to the field hospital.  I wasn’t there long until I didn’t know anything until the next morning.

Nov. 11, 1944

I know now why I was so long in getting most of this mail.  It was sent to the hospital about the time I left, getting ready to go to France.  It has been every place I have been and finally got back to my outfit.  Then they sent it on over here to me.  Your oldest letter was dated July 30th.

The death of a hometown boy really brings the war close to home, doesn’t it?  You were telling me about Donnell Gravette being killed.  I wonder how they would feel if they saw lots of the boys lying out in a field or along the side of a road.  I’ll be they wouldn’t like it and if enough of them could see that, then there wouldn’t be any more (domestic labor union) strikes.

Dec. 9, 1944

I am to have my tonsils out this afternoon.

Feb. 24, 1945 (out of Naples hospital, in replacement camp)

Last night was beautiful and very cold.  The moon was so bright.  You have been reading about all the bombers that have been attacking Germany.  Well, I could see them go over last night, it was so bright.  There were so many it took them about thirty minutes to pass over.  I can’t for my life see how and why Germany keeps fighting.

Feb. (censored), 1945

As I write this I am on one of the Seven Seas.  It is too cold to be up on deck so everyone is down in the hold.  Some of the boys are sleeping, some are playing cards, and others are writing.

I used to think making a trip like this would be fun, but I changed my mind long ago.  There isn’t anything pleasant about this Army. …

I tried to read a little while ago, but my mind is going around in circles and I couldn’t get interested in it.  After being in the hospital for almost five months and then start back to the front, it is almost like going up for the first time.  The only difference is I know what is up there and the first time I didn’t know what to expect.

From a citation issued in the spring of 1945

On 18 March 1945, near Zweibrucken, Germany, Pfc. Jackson twice exposed himself to the fire of four enemy machine guns at 150 yards range, in order to reorganize his machine gun section and regain contact with the rifle company which he was supporting.

Despite hostile shellfire that fell as close as 20 yards to him, he moved 1,000 yards each trip searching entrenchments, pill-boxes and shell craters until he found over 30 soldiers and directed them to the company for a continuation of the attack.

He also administered first aid to three casualties and marked their position for the aid men.

(For gallantry in action, Pfc. Jackson was awarded the Silver Star.)

April 5, 1945

I don’t know how much I can tell you about the Siegfried Line, but I lay two days and nights there scared to death.  The line where we went through was twelve miles of trenches and pill-boxes.  The trenches are from six to seven feet deep and they run from one pill-box to another.

The pill-boxes hold about fifty men and have a bunk for each man.  I don’t know how deep the pill-boxes go in the ground, but they are three floors deep.  The top is just above the ground with two machine funs in each of them and everything is electrically operated.

The top is about 18 to 20 inches thick and made of steel.  I saw one of our tanks put some fifty-odd shells into one pill-box and when we finally took it you couldn’t tell a shell had ever hit it.

The infantry finally got in the trenches and that is the way we took the Siegfried Line.  The tanks kept the machine gun fire off us until we got in the trenches.  One pill-box covers another and I have counted as high as fifty-two or fifty-three pill-boxes.  That is all I could see without moving.

I’m not telling you this to scare you.  I just want you to know the Line is everything they say it is.  That is all behind us, thank God.

April 11, 1945

I found something the other day that is hard to believe.  It is a small medal, made like the Iron Cross, only it is given to girls who gave birth to babies for Hitler. …

I can see what we are fighting for now.  Every farm is covered up with International Harvester implements.  We don’t go in a town or city but the first thing we see is a nice service station with Standard or Texaco gas or some other American gas company.  Nearly every home has a Singer sewing machine.

You can see what I mean when I say I can see what we are fighting for.  These are only a few of the big companies that are over here.

There is a stage show out in the field.  I guess I had better go out and see an American girl again.  It has been some time since I have seen one. …

… Well, I am just back from seeing Marlene Dietrich and her show.  I thought it was pretty good, but I can’t see how she ever got in pictures.

May 3, 1945

For the first time in over a week the news really sounded good this morning.  We heard last night that Hitler was dead, but that was from Germany’s radio.  This morning we heard that he was dead by the Allied radio, so maybe he is.  I hope so.  All the German people seem to think he is.

May 6, 1945

We had a field day two days ago.  The roads are jammed with German soldiers coming to give up.  They are coming in every way you can think of – walking, in their own cars and trucks, wagons and teams, and every other way.  We have so many prisoners we can’t handle them all.

We also went into Berchtesgaden two days ago.  I thought they would fight for this place if they were to go fight at all, but we went in in trucks an there wasn’t a shot fired.

Hitler’s home is outside Berchtesgaden on the side of a mountain.  That is, it was until the planes did away with it. …

I would like to see the papers at home.  I know everyone of them has big headlines.  There is lots of excitement going on over here and I know it is at home, too.  The war isn’t over, but everyone expects it to be at any moment now.

I think the hardest fight has been won now.  I am very happy that it is as close to being over as it is, but I can’t get out and rejoice like most of the boys are doing.  I keep thinking about all of those thousands of boys who gave their lives that this might come about.

May 8, 1945 (V-E Day, in Nancy, France)

I wish I could describe France last night and tonight to you, but I haven’t the schooling to do that.  Once can’t walk down the streets because of the large crowds.  The streets are jammed with people dancing, shouting and just standing talking.

It is really dangerous to be on the streets.  The people are wild with joy, firing pistols, flares and anything else they can get their hands on.  Outside of town the big guns are firing and all the search lights are on.

It is even worse than the front lines. …

I am afraid to go back on the street.  I haven’t been kissed on both sides of the cheek less than a thousand times in the few bars where I have stopped – by old men and old women and girls.

Five months later, having served as a restless member of the Allied occupation forces in Salzberg, Austria, and various locations in Germany, David Jackson rode the Queen Mary into New York harbor.  It was October 1945, and he had endured to honor 32 additional Memorial Days until his death in 1988, at the age of 75.

 

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A means to shatter the Social Security contract

Posted May 29, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 29, 2011 at 11:09 PM

In his sit-down with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week Sunday, Indiana Gov.  Mitch Daniels—not a candidate for President, by the way—demonstrated why his potential run generated a fair amount of enthusiasm.  What Daniels, a modern-day Calvin Coolidge, lacks in rock star persona he makes up for with arguments that are sober, sound and unthreatening.  Just what the country needs.

Among other things, Daniels refused to shrink from the House Republican budget (even in the face of last week’s largely—if gleefully—misinterpreted Democratic win in the special election in New York’s 26th congressional district), calling it “the best way” to take on Medicare reform.

Shrink?  Heck, Daniels declared Republicans serious about winning elections and governing effectively in their aftermath should make it the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Over at National Review Online’s The Corner, Andrew Stiles (”Daniels Defends Medicare Reform”) quotes Daniels thusly:

“I think it is the central dilemma,” he told Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week.  “I think it ought, therefore, to be the centerpiece of the next election. We ought to test the proposition—I have faith that the answer will be yes—that Americans are absolutely up to the job of making changes necessary, once they understand the facts.”

Stiles praises Daniels for effectively parrying Amanpour’s thoroughly loaded question about whether Medicare reform could happen without excessively “burdening” seniors.

“There’s a way to do that that protects the most vulnerable seniors more,” he said. “I mean, another important and positive point to be made is that our current system (is) brutally unfair, it is tilted toward higher income people in many, many ways. There’s no reason on Earth that we should be sending Warren Buffett a pension check, or paying for Bill Gates’ healthcare or mine for that matter.  And in the 2.0 system of Medicare and Social Security — for the next generation, not this one — we ought to heavily devote the resources to those who need them most.”

Stiles continues:

Of course, Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan does exactly that, providing far greater “premium support” for lower-income seniors than it does for wealthier individuals, and Ryan often argues this very point. Perhaps he should be emphasizing it more.  At the risk of stooping to the Democrats’ level and engaging in class warfare, Republicans could simply drive home this point as a way to appeal to the (popular) notion of “shared sacrifice” to reduce the deficit — stressing the need for a revamped entitlement system that offers less to those who can afford to pay their own way and more for those who can’t. It certainly has a nicer ring to it that the Democratic notion of “shared sacrifice” — economy-crippling tax hikes.

This is fine, as far as it goes.  But Daniels’ points, and Stiles’ enthusiasm, gloss over some fundamental problems. The governor brandishes Buffett and Gates as examples of the über-rich whose 24k golden years should disqualify them from federal aid.  Who wouldn’t agree with that?  But getting at the root of the entitlement crisis requires digging rather deeper.

That’s where governing gets ticklish.  How far down the rich guys (and gals) list must we go to avert our entitlement crisis?  Do we nick America’s 100 most wealthy and 100 top earners?  The top 500?  The top 10,000?  And when do we decide whether they made the list?  Bernie Madoff’s investor/dupes might have made those lists, right up until the feds closed in.  Do we reimburse the formerly rich who went bust?  Do we ding working stiffs toiling 100-hour weeks to develop their genius startups the moment their IPO goes berserk?

In an economy as unpredictable as ours, this could get complicated.

Moving on:

Let’s leave Medicare out of the balance of this discussion—not just because it is a popular program and proposals for its reform are easily demagogued.  Americans have recognized Medicare since its inception for what it is: welfare for seniors.  And welfare in every form should be means-tested.  No one ever said your taxes were going into some Medicare trust fund with your name on it. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services do not issue an annual report describing the size of your health care benefit.  Means-test it; adopt a sliding scale for government support based on some combination of income, wealth, and physical condition, as the Ryan plan does, and let’s move on already.

The same formula cannot, must not, be applied to Social Security.  Theoretically, workers’ taxes feed an account bearing their name; each year, they get a report describing the size of their post-retirement reward.  The idea is, you’re buying income insurance.  And because the size of your benefit is limited, so is the amount of your income that’s subject to payroll taxes.  This is only proper.

For those of a certain age, then, Social Security payments are not welfare.  They represent, officially, a return on your investment (meager though it may be).  That was the deal when Franklin Roosevelt coaxed it through Congress, and that’s the deal today.  In that light, means-testing, while attractive in a smarmy, class-baiting fashion and a convenient path toward long-term solvency, is shameful and an abomination.

Alas, once we choose to means-test Social Security, the contract at its foundation is voided.  It becomes just another welfare program, a fraud on taxpayers that, like most entitlements, discourages individual responsibility, particular for those at the margins.  Means-testing has to begin phasing in somewhere, and wherever (and however) that somewhere falls, it reduces the value of the next dollar set aside for retirement, whether socked into that 401(k) or IRA, or squeezed from a company pension through working extra hours or extra years.

This is plainly counterproductive. We ought to be encouraging policies that reward self-sufficiency and individual wealth creation, not putting up ever more government-approved obstacles that thwart responsible Americans.

In short, this whole business of altering the recipient’s relationship with his personal Social Security account—which Daniels suggests isn’t just appropriate, but should be encouraged—stands as the supreme argument on behalf of a hybrid (Is he really going to say the word?! Omigod, he is!) privatization alternative.  Or personalization, if you prefer.

Perhaps Washington has a legitimate interest in seeing to it America’s seniors can exist on their own (although current policies—Please, sir, may I have my COLA?—have a funny way of demonstrating it).  Better than means-testing and tax hikes (mere camouflage for continuing to buy the votes of retirees with their children’s and grandchildren’s earnings), Congress should phase in Social Security accounts that more closely resemble self-directed IRAs—self-directed IRAs that grow ever more conservative as the owner approaches retirement age (to reduce the affect of stock market hiccups), but self-directed IRAs nonetheless.

Changes to behavior, all for the better—financial alertness, investment acuity, a sense of independence—would be evident almost from the get-go.  Inside two generations, Americans of all ages would be richer (genuinely personal Social Security accounts wouldn’t only grow larger, they would be heritable) , freer, more secure in their day-to-day lives and more confident in what the future held.

Means-testing Social Security is a terrible idea on so many levels, not least of all because it gets Washington off the hook for a crisis Washington created, and does so by scapegoating wealth-creating employers and other dream-chasing entrepreneurs—not just Warren Buffett, either, but your family doctor; the guy who risked everything to start a plumbing company; the event planner who made your daughter’s wedding a success; the couple who risked their life savings in a bounce house/laser-tag/video arcade that cures every dilemma from where to have your 12-year-old’s birthday party to where to drop him on rainy summer vacation days; even the alert heavy-equipment operator who picks up extra jobs on the weekend.  Is that really our best plan?

A better way not to let this crisis go to waste—to borrow a catchphrase—is to turn it into an empowerment opportunity.  Not by feeding the worst fears of nervous Nellies— You’re on your own, suckers!—but by describing in compelling detail how America can and will spin challenge into opportunity and opportunity into a ship-raising sea of abundance that lifts all boats.

 

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Mudcat’s wonderful world embraces Killebrew

Posted May 28, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 28, 2011 at 11:58 PM

Commended to your attention: Lacoochee’s Jim “Mudcat” Grant, a mainstay in the starting rotation of the standout Minnesota Twins teams of the 1960s, sings in memorable tribute to his late teammate, baseball Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew.

It turns out—as a commenter faster on the trigger than I notes—there is crying in baseball.

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Mediscare warning: Alert the media

Posted May 25, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 25, 2011 at 05:11 PM

Spot the exaggerations. (Emphases in original.)

Florida Seniors Tell Senator Rubio to Keep His Hands off Medicare

TALLAHASSEE – Florida seniors will participate in a press call on Thursday at 3 p.m. telling Senator Marc (sic) Rubio to not end Medicare. The Republican budget plan replaces Medicare with a privatized voucher program that will double out-of-pocket costs for seniors and put them back into the prescription drug donut hole. For Florida seniors, this plan would increase out-of-pocket expenses by more than $7,300.

Rubio today confirmed that he will vote for the Republican budget and is on record saying, “I will support any plan that saves Medicare, doesn’t impact current seniors and doesn’t hurt economic growth. The Ryan plan does that.”

The Ryan plan, in fact, attempts to balance the budget on the back of this country’s most vulnerable populations while protecting those who created the economic mess. The plan would end Medicare as we know it.

For Americans serious about avoiding national bankruptcy, “ending Medicare as we know it” ought to be an applause line. Blogging at National Review Online’s “Critical Care” outpost Wednesday, healthcare policy analyst John C. Goodman’s post  is precisely on point.

Medicare cannot go on unchanged. Since at least 2009, we have received reports of physicians declining to accept new Medicare patients (as I wrote here). Asking the American people whether they want any flavor of reform versus “Medicare continuing the same as it is now” is like asking the Titanic passengers if they’d like the same dinner menu every evening until the ship docks.

Goodman compiles a collection of revealing charts —visual aids! yay!—comparing the probable outcomes of leaving Medicare (and America) to the tender mercies of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) vs. adoption of Paul Ryan’s premium support plan. Check them out.

 

 

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Rubio’s federalist attack on debt, cynicism

Posted May 17, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 18, 2011 at 12:08 AM

As the debate raged over whether Florida should accept federal money for the first leg of a (not-so) high-speed rail network, one argument was notable as much for its cynicism as its repetition.  Take the money, the advocates (including prominent editorial pages) said again and again; if we don’t it, other states will.  Yes.  Other states will get our money.

And indeed they did.  Not long after Gov. Rick Scott declined Washington’s borrowed $2.4 billion—saying, among other things, he could not square the Sunshine State’s sense of economic sanity with going even deeper into hock—President Obama’s Department of Transportation began reallocating Florida’s spurned dollars into other black holes where state officials are less circumspect.

What followed was equally predictable and disgusting—gloating elsewhere, snooty toldja-sos locally—neither changing the fundamental truth: The grab-it-while-you-can argument isn’t simply awful (although it is).  It also is insidious, reducing Florida and the other states in the choo-choo mix to just so many undignified baby birds in a nest, all gaping maws atop scrawny necks craning for Momma Fed’s morsels.

Worse, the argument encourages Washington’s paternalistic pathology—requiring states to dance to the federal tune (never mind our needs; we’ll spend our money your way) to reclaim some portion of their taxes—while shrugging off our founding principles.

Now a freshman U.S. Senator—Florida’s Marco Rubio—has introduced a bill seeking to eliminate this double-barreled affront to fiscal responsibility and federalism.  Rubio’s “REFUND Act” (Returned Exclusively For Unpaid National Debt) would restore rejected, unwanted or otherwise unused federal money designated by state legislatures to the treasury for the purpose of shrinking the national debt.

Said Rubio in a press announcement released Tuesday:

“The REFUND Act ends the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ mentality that encourages states to take debt-financed cash from Washington that will be a crushing burden on our children and grandchildren.  Fiscally responsible state officials should be allowed to divert Washington’s spending spree towards debt reduction and do their part to end the practice of spending money we don’t have.

“It takes a great deal of courage for state officials to take the long view and reject debt-financed federal funds, but this legislation will encourage them to make decisions with their state’s and nation’s best interests at heart and without worrying that the money will be spent elsewhere if they don’t.  For our children’s and grandchildren’s sake, Washington’s dysfunctional culture of borrowing and misspending has to end, and this is one way states can join the fight for this national cause.”

Like many worthwhile ideas currently knocking around inside the Beltway, this one is (a) desperately overdue and (b) almost certainly doomed … at least until federalist-minded deficit hawks such as Rubio and Montana’s Denny Rehberg, the REFUND Act’s sponsor in the House, command the majority on Capitol Hill, and a like-minded chief executive operates at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Nonetheless, they’re practically giddy over at Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union, where one less argument for spending borrowed money always is welcome.  Besides, they’ve probably heard there’s an existing way to get from Tampa to Orlando at 80 mph—locals call it “Interstate 4”—and it’s paid for.

 

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Former Speaker’s wearisome playlist

Posted May 15, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 15, 2011 at 11:56 PM

It is hard to believe anybody – outside the diehard left – is buying this.

Then again, it is posted under a nom de web that reveals the author’s delusions.  Nancy Pelosi officially surrendered the gavel (after a painfully long ode to herself) four months ago, but she’s still laying claim to it.  In the interest of remaining true to the theme conjured by the former Speaker’s ghost-bloggers—time for GOP House freshmen to “face the music” over “your vote to end Medicare as we know it®,” we suggest Neil Sedaka’s golden oldie: “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”

Nonetheless, what GOP congress members have reported – blowback over the GOP-passed House budget during recess town-hall meetings was orchestrated by liberal front groups (MoveOn.org, Progress for America) – I witnessed at Rep. Rich Nugent’s constituent debriefing in Dade City last month.

The solitary instigator sat impassively in the last row of the city hall board room through Nugent’s PowerPoint presentation of the Paul Ryan budget plan and the first several questions from the audience of about two dozen. When he did leap in, he did so not merely with both feet, but with misrepresentations blazing.

Why did he favor Medicare vouchers?  Why did he want so put seniors in hock?  Why was he in favor of privatizing Social Security?  And so on.  Nugent gamely parried, correcting the premise of his several questions.

Then, when he suggested the Senate was a better place for a filibuster and it was time to give others with hands raised a chance, the unidentified operative dashed from the room and out to the parking lot.  He vanished before the lone member of the media in attendance—*blush*—could catch up and ask him to expand on his concerns.

Instructively, no one else picked up where the apparent operative left off.  Follow-up questions about vouchers, about gouging seniors, about wrecking Social Security: zero.

Plainly, one town hall meeting does not disprove a trend.  But the edgy manner of the questioning followed by the quick exit is suggestive of a coordinated strategy.  Was he even a resident of District 5?

Not that residency itself is a disqualifier; these are, after all, national issues.  But learning the presumed plant’s home base would have helped complete the picture of the degree to which there’s homegrown unrest in Nugent’s district.

The failure of legitimate constituents who stayed through to the end to fan the plant’s fires spoke volumes.  It suggests District 5 retirees and others nearing retirement are no longer easily frightened by liberal demagoguery – an extremely encouraging sign.

Indeed, they appear to grasp they are far less likely to suffer lifestyle or economic disruptions under the Ryan plan than under any cynical Democratic proposal that, against all actuarial evidence, attempts to maintain “Medicare as we know it.”  In fact, the program is hurtling toward bankruptcy (2024), five years earlier than previously projected; it will be altered, or baby boomers rolling into retirement will experience a legitimate Mediscare.

The unsupportable talking points manufactured by the left notwithstanding, the Dade City audience for Nugent’s town hall seemed to understand the crisis at hand.  As for the operative who beat his hasty retreat, his moment in the spotlight recalled Nancy and Frank Sinatra’s 1967 No. 1 hit single:

“Something Stupid.”

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Targeting Big Oil for spite and political gain

Posted May 13, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 13, 2011 at 11:34 PM

The U.S. Senate and its fawning media pets have been harmonizing about socking it to Big Oil all week, but while the coverage has been long on ending “tax breaks” to oil and gas producers, there’s been precious little explanation of what exactly those breaks are, or how desperately they’re draining the federal treasury.

It took some poking around, but The Jax Files finally found what appears to be the gritty details.  So, here we go.  From the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee report, chaired by Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, key portions of “End Tax Breaks For Big Oil (Reduce the Federal Deficit Without Increasing Prices at the Pump).”

Repeal the 2004 Section 199 credit (effectively reducing corporate income tax rate up to 9 percent for all manufacturers) but ONLY for oil and gas companies, whose credit was one-third less than other manufacturing companies to begin with.  Gee, that sounds equitable.

Eliminate “intangible” drilling costs.  This would prevent oil and gas companies from deducting in the year they are purchased certain capital equipment items (derricks, tanks, pipelines) that have no salvage value; instead, companies would have to “capitalize” equipment, and deduct their expenses over a period of years.  The change sure incentivizes those companies to rev up extraction operations.  No doubt Congress will be targeting other capital-intensive industries that enjoy similar tax treatment too, right?  Anybody?  Anybody?

Similarly, would prevent oil and gas companies from expensing in the year they’re purchased certain “tertiary injectants” – chemicals used to help coax oil and gas into their pumps.  The change would force them to expense the cost of the injectant over the life of the well, reducing the deficit by a whopping $7 million annually (or less than a couple of minutes of federal borrowing).

Finally, the report recommends creating, for oil and gas companies exclusively, provisions preventing them from deducting foreign royalty payments (a tax by another name) from their U.S. corporate income taxes.  The report says this will reduce the deficit by $429 million in 2012.  More than likely, it will simply keep oil company profits made overseas offshore and beyond the grasp of the IRS, as many U.S.-based multinational companies do now.  Instead of bringing dollars home to invest domestically, they’ll stay in the Middle East or the North Atlantic countries where those royalties were paid, creating jobs there, not here.

Now that I have a better idea what’s at stake (a pittance; not even a rounding error) and how when you get right down to it these “breaks” aren’t exactly exclusive to Big Oil, it makes sense.  I totally get it.

This amounts to nothing more than classic congressional grandstanding, the opportunistic targeting of an industry that makes about 6 cents on a dollar of revenue.  All because gasoline is $4 a gallon … largely as a result of Washington’s long-standing policies designed to limit domestic production and refining.  Cool.

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NLRB’s rogue mission threatens Florida, too

Posted May 10, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 10, 2011 at 10:05 PM

Like South Carolina, Florida is a right-to-work state.  Also like South Carolina (and Tennessee and Texas), in their most recent election, Florida elected business-friendly candidates to state and federal lawmaking positions, with an eye to enhancing the job-creation atmosphere in the Sunshine State.

Clearly, then, Floridians have a keen interest in the recent activities of the unelected and unaccountable National Labor Relations Board, a rogue attempt to block Boeing from opening a new Dreamliner plant in North Charleston.  The factory, representing a $2 billion investment and thousands of high-skilled, high-wage jobs, is precisely the sort of project Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature have in mind luring here.  Alas, left unchecked, the NLRB’s unwarranted intrusion almost certainly will have a chilling effect.

South Carolina’s rookie governor, Nikki Haley, and not-to-be-trifled-with Sen. Jim DeMint, are pushing back, but hard, as noted by National Review Online’s Andrew Stiles (“The GOP vs. The NLRB”).

At a press conference (Tuesday) at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, GOP senators joined South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R.) in denouncing the general counsel’s actions and calling on the president to speak out on the matter. “This goes against everything we know our American economy to be,” Haley said. “For the president not to weigh in on this and not to say that this is going to be harmful is a problem.”

The NLRB complaint alleges that Boeing’s decision constitutes illegal “retaliation” against a machinist union in Washington State. But Haley, along with South Carolina senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, is outraged and sees the decision as a threat to her state’s economy. “This is personal,” Haley said. “When you go after a corporate citizen in South Carolina, it is personal to me.”

Graham decried the NLRB’s “unbelievable attack” on Boeing, which, he said, is merely seeking out the best environment in which to do business. “It’s not like Boeing just picked up and came to South Carolina without any discussions,” he said. “This was a long, hard decision by the Boeing company, and they made a good business decision after a lot negotiations with many people. . . . Under the law, they have the right to do this.”

Boeing has already invested about $2 billion in the South Carolina plant, and now faces millions more in legal fees as a result of the NLRB complaint. The company has pointed out that no jobs or benefits have been cut in their original Puget Sound plant. In fact, more than 2,000 new positions have been created there since the decision to place the new plant in South Carolina.

DeMint called it “absurd” that in a country like the United States — a beacon of free enterprise — an unaccountable, unelected government agency could potentially undermine thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment. “This is something you would expect in a Third World country,” he said. “It is thuggery at its best, and we cannot stand for it here in this country.” He argued that the NLRB likely knew full it could not possibly win with such a spurious argument, but was simply trying to raise the cost (i.e. legal fees) for other companies who might follow in Boeing’s footsteps.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), a former governor, said concern over the NLRB’s overreach extended well beyond South Carolina, which is why he is drafting legislation — dubbed “The Right to Work Protection Act” — to clarify existing law to not only forestall the NLRB’s pending action against Boeing but also to prevent any similar attempts against other companies. Alexander expects significant bipartisan support.

Another important aspect of the bill would protect an employer’s free-speech right to “have honest negotiations without fear that comments will be used as evidence in an anti-union-discrimination case.”

A question for Floridians, then: Should Republican legislation in the U.S. Senate gain momentum, how will Florida’s senior partner, Democrat Bill Nelson—facing reelection in 2012—respond?  Will he line up (as usual) with his party’s monolithic pro-union leadership, or will he be guided by more practical considerations back home—the knowledge that several thousand Floridians with remarkable technical skills face the loss of jobs as NASA winds down its shuttle mission at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center?

Haley isn’t waiting for legislation.  She wants to hear from President Obama, now.

Haley took a more aggressive tack, urging Obama to overhaul his attitude toward the business community. “All he’s doing right now is creating best friends with every other country in the world — they are loving him right now — because he is forcing business to go out of our country and he is keeping business from coming in,” she said. “We need him to love this country, we need him to understand what he’s doing to this country. He absolutely owes the American public a response.”

Florida’s leadership should find out where Bill Nelson stands on this, as well.

 

 

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Another nugget for OBL conspiracy theorists

Posted May 4, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 4, 2011 at 01:03 PM

The Jax Files is not a lawyer; nor is it a toll-free number for locating legal services.  It barely survived Constitutional Law 301 at the University of Florida.

The Jax Files furthermore concedes, readily, that the following is pure speculation that renders him a candidate for membership in the swelling OBL conspiracy jihad.

Nonetheless: Is it even remotely conceivable that the White House preferred OBL dead and silent over alive and potentially spilling priceless intel because – (OK, here goes) – the moment the al-Qaida kingpin received legal counsel (for prolonged incarceration leading to a military tribunal), his attorney (maybe one from Attorney General Eric Holder’s old firm) would file a habeas petition – that is, demonstrate how OBL is legally held – and mayhem would have ensued.

This is not entirely idle wool-gathering.  The U.S. Supreme Court’s last decision regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees held that those imprisoned there had every right to challenge their incarcerations.  And then-candidate Barack Obama’s position on the matter was, briefly, an issue in the 2008 campaign.  As Sen. John Kerry told the New York Observer:

“The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that they have those rights—this is not Barack Obama, this is the Supreme Court of the United States. If John McCain were president he’d have to give them those rights. This is a phony argument.”

Given the circumstances under which OBL was located, it becomes an argument with thorns.

Grounds for the challenge?  OBL’s seizure would have been fraudulent because the triggering information leading SEALs to him – the nickname of a trusted courier – was coerced using methods no less than the Obama administration ascertained were illegal (rendition, “enhanced” interrogation).

See details in this developing story in the Daily Caller here.

Imagine the administration calling as its star witness the vilified John Yoo, the Bush-era lawyer investigated by Barack Obama’s Justice Department for writing briefs defending aggressive interrogation.  Imagine AG Holder being forced to walk back his opinion on waterboarding and secret prisons.

Other oars would have to go in the water.  Imagine putting CIA and NSA officials under oath to describe the variety of leads their agencies were pursuing that had no links to the courier, and that OBL’s discovery in Abbottabad remained imminent.  Imagine, even if they testified in secret, the ruinous potential for leaks. 

If, ultimately, the federal courts ascertained the entire capture operation was fruit from a poisoned tree, we’d have had to turn OBL loose.  The alternative – So sorry, we can’t do that; national security and all that – would trigger a constitutional crisis.

Under that messy scenario, it would be far less complicated to order the butcher of 9/11 taken out.
 
So, is this nutty? Yeah, probably.  There were at least 3,000 extremely compelling reasons for a Navy SEAL marksman to put a bullet through the eye of the inspiration for AQ’s 9/11 massacre.

In the alternative, we offer the concept as the framework for a Grisham/Clancy national security legal thriller partnership: International terrorist figurehead, capable of entertaining CIA operatives with identities, locations and favorite haunts of his top lieutenants, is discovered in a remote hideout in Pakistan.  But before choppers loaded with a highly trained strike force lift off from their base in Afghanistan, a bunch of former law professors in the White House make a coldly calculated decision to avoid political embarrassment ahead of a re-election campaign.

Who needs a habeas fight? Dead men file no petitions.

But an idealistic SEAL on the team who’s also a Navy lawyer has other ideas.

 

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Strutting their family values

Posted Apr 21, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 22, 2011 at 12:04 AM

Thursday, just in time for Earth Day, the family of sandhill cranes that shares its year-round home with the humans who work in and around Tampa North Aero Park (including the Tribune’s Wesley Chapel outpost) made itself available for a photo opportunity.

Mom and Dad must be doing something right.  Their two chicks – the annual quota – have survived past their most vulnerable fuzzy golden down days.  This is reassuring.  I’ve seen plenty of breeding-age couples tending only a single chick this spring, and some none at all.

I mean, I know bobcats, foxes, coyotes and such have to eat.  The circle of life and all that.  Nonetheless, it tugs at the old anthropomorphic heartstrings to see adult couples with one offspring or chick-less, and to imagine their loss.

All of which makes the sighting of an intact sandhill quartet an occasion for celebration.  Thank Gaia.

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Dear Commissioners: Decline this bad deal

Posted Apr 18, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 18, 2011 at 06:01 PM

Lousy plans are like bad wine: They do not improve with age.

In some cases, they go from bad to worse.

Which brings us to Tuesday’s meeting of Pasco County commissioners, and a proposal that they throw perfectly good public money down a private-sector rat hole – a plan bound to further erode the deteriorating name of “affordable housing.”

The petitioners, operating under an umbrella called Pasco CWHIP Partners, LLC, include one developer from Pinellas County and another with a rather familiar last name.  Tuesday at the West Pasco Government Center in New Port Richey, Tom Smith – president of General Home Development Corp. of Pinellas – and Tom Schrader – President of Ten Oaks Development Corp. and brother of District 1 County Commissioner Ted Schrader – will seek between $700,000 and $1.37 million to resurrect a construction project that had dubious merit when it came up in the winter of 2007, and has worsened with age.

Pasco CWHIP (Community Workforce Housing Innovation Pilot Program) proposes to erect 30 houses in the Ten Oaks development on Eiland Boulevard just outside Zephyrhills.  Its target audience: Government employees who earn no more than 140 percent of the local median income.

Nearly half the project’s $5.567 million cost comes from the state, money extracted from the settlement of a lawsuit involving Pasco CWHIP and other similar partnerships, which sued when the Legislature – having come to its senses – rescinded the original grant money in the wake of the exploding real estate bubble, on the theory that widespread foreclosures pretty much cured the housing crunch.

We’re hoping the Legislature learned a valuable lesson.  Responding to an overheated housing market, lawmakers hoped to carve out a niche for “essential” community workers, such as teachers, police and firefighters, that would keep them close to home.  The notion was adorable … and utterly wrongheaded.

This is the same brand of denial of economic reality that brought us state-run Citizens Property and Casualty Insurance, an unwarranted governmental intrusion into premium rate-setting with the potential to bankrupt the state.

Just ahead of the meltdown, however, the school board and county commissioners voted to approve Pasco CWHIP’s plans.  Exercising breathtaking statesmanship, each body reasoned if we didn’t get ours, somebody else would.  Since then, the school board has withdrawn; there will be no community of special interests built on district property in west Pasco.

That leaves Ten Oaks.  Tuesday, the partnership will seek to be made whole by the Board of County Commissioners.  Did we mention one of the principles is the brother of District 1 Commissioner Ted Schrader?

In a memo that reads as if it was written with one arm twisted behind his back, George Romagnoli, Pasco’s Community Development Manager, recommends diverting $700,000 from its Neighborhood Stabilization Plan account.  Among the negatives, Romagnoli notes: “Building new homes in a newer subdivision does not really stabilize neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosure, the intent of NSP.”

Moreover, “(N)ew homes are being built and sold in this area, so a government subsidy is not required to develop homes there.”

Indeed, the Tribune’s real estate section featured a new home builder opening for business in Ten Oaks just last week.  Beth Dolan wrote about it here.

Then there’s the idea that taxpayer dollars would be going to a project that carves out affordable housing opportunities only for government employees.  As if we haven’t spent the past nine months identifying all the ways government employees at all levels – who were generally doing better than their private-sector counterparts anyway – have dodged most of the worst effects of the Great Recession.

And finally, among a litany of downsides, the worst may be this: Approving Pasco CWHIP’s proposal would almost certainly put an end to the county’s contributions to local Habitat for Humanity operations.

Specifically, East and Central Pasco Habitat for Humanity’s plans to build as many as 50 houses in Lacoochee would be at a standstill.  Infrastructure – sewer, water, sidewalks and such – that accompany new construction and lend momentum to the long-distressed community’s pined-for comeback, would end.

“We’ve already got four houses started,” says Director John Finnerty. “If the county sends those dollars somewhere else, we could see some foundations just sitting there for a while.”

East and Central Pasco Habitat draws from a variety of funding sources, but with private contributions well down from historic levels, it has come to rely on county support – the kind for which NSP was specifically designed.

Consider a bridge, Finnerty says.  His organization has enough money coming in to build all but the center span.  But without the funds to close the gap, it’s useless to sink the first pylon.

The news comes at a pivotal moment, less than two weeks before Habitat begins its ballyhooed “Women Build” project, when two houses are scheduled to be built in the week leading to Mother’s Day.

“I can’t say we’re in great shape for that, but we’ll do everything humanly possible to complete those houses,” Finnerty says. “It could be tight. It could be very tight.”

The moment for sober reflection has arrived.  By slashing impact fees, commissioners already are bowing to pressure from homebuilders, despite a glut of unsold, never occupied homes on the Pasco landscape.  To reiterate, the affordable housing problem has pretty much taken care of itself.

Commissioners have no obligation to Pasco CWHIP.  They should tell the partners thanks, but no, thanks.

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Rich Nugent is unimpressed ...

Posted Apr 13, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 13, 2011 at 09:13 PM

... with President Obama’s sudden (re?) discovery of America’s calamitous deficit and debt, as well as his fancy footwork shadowboxing the crisis of our day.

Nugent (R-Spring Hill), Florida’s District 5 representative (much of the Nature Coast, plus central and east Pasco, some of Sumter and a corner of Polk) dispatched the following from his Capitol Hill office following Obama’s oddly inspecific, unserious and frequently self-contradictory speech at George Washington University (surely its namesake is restless in his tomb) Wednesday:

“The President tried to take a mulligan today.  His actual budget, released just a few weeks ago, was widely criticized as not even being credible.  His approval rating on his handling of the deficit is in the low thirties.  His advisors told him that he needed to follow the Republicans’ lead and make a real proposal. 

“Americans will have to decide if this is a credible proposal or if it is just more of the same fluff.  In my estimation, it will take more than a speech and some poll-tested new talking points to convince Americans that he is serious about the deficit.

“He has a great record of using big talk to sound like a leader, but he doesn’t have the best record on following through with that rhetoric.

“In his State of the Union Address, President Obama talked tough about the deficit and then proceeded to outline all of the things that we cannot cut, cannot reform, and cannot discuss. 

“In his speech today, President Obama said, ‘I guarantee that if we don’t make any changes at all [to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security], we won’t be able to keep our commitments to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher healthcare costs than those who came before.’  Then he proceeded to skip proposing any real reforms to those programs and fell back on talking points about raising taxes.

“His speech warned listeners to beware of politicians who talk about ‘eliminating waste’ as cover for not having a real plan.  He then proceeded to talk repeatedly about making government programs ‘more efficient’.

“He made a big deal about creating a deficit commission and then flatly rejected their recommendations.

“He is trying to walk back his own budget to avoid the criticism that he’s not serious, but he’s trying to do it with more vague proposals about spending cuts and more familiar proposals about tax increases.

“The most positive thing in all of this is that we are at least talking about how much to cut and not how much more to spend.”

To paraphrase: The President’s message on America’s debt crisis was another high-speed trainload of bovine soil enrichment.  If only a way could be found to bag it up.

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Alligator season: Give ‘em room

Posted Apr 11, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 11, 2011 at 11:22 AM

Nothing particularly newsworthy to report here.  It’s just a reminder that as our temperatures rise, many of the creatures with which we share our surroundings will become increasingly active.  And even though they generally are content to go about their business and leave us to tend to ours—there’s an admirable streak of libertarianism in much of the wild kingdom—we are well-advised this time of year to respect nature’s boundaries.

The young alligator shown here has made its home in the cypress preserve that’s part of the warehouse district along Pet Lane in Wesley Chapel, where the Pasco Tribune maintains news, advertising and circulation operations.  We’ve been watching it since it showed up last spring, small enough to fit into a shoebox, basking on the banks of the retention pond next door.  It’s about 5 feet long now, and—as these photographs of watchfulness and retreat indicate—it maintains a healthy shyness.  Good for it, good for us.

We’re content to observe it at a distance while adhering to a strict no-feeding policy

This also bears noting: The Tampa Bay area abounds with water features both natural and manmade.  This time of year especially, when the thoughts of Florida’s reptilian symbol alternate between the no-nonsense urges of feeding and procreation, it is wise to presume that there’s at least one alligator for every lake, pond or oversized puddle.  As fascinating as they are—languid one moment, exquisitely ferocious the next—they are not to be trifled with.

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On shutdown, Rep. Nugent sounds duplicity alert

Posted Apr 8, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 8, 2011 at 11:34 AM

A right and proper excoriation of those in Washington who would attempt to use America’s fighting personnel as political pawns arrives from the office of freshman Congressman Rich Nugent (R-Spring Hill):

PRESIDENT AND SENATE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE CONVERSATION;
OUR TROOPS DESERVE THE TRUTH

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – In response to news that Senate Democrats have repeatedly voted for the provision they are claiming to now oppose, Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL-05) released the following statement:


“Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ensure that our troops would be funded in the event of a government shutdown.  The same bill also included funding to keep the government open for another week while reducing non-defense discretionary spending levels by $12 billion.

“Inexplicably, the President threatened to veto the troop funding.  The Democrats are citing a very common policy rider in the bill that would prevent federal funding of abortions in the District of Columbia as the reason. 49 sitting Democrats in the Senate have voted for and President Obama has signed into law this very provision in previous bills.  President Obama in fact voted for it twice during his brief time in the Senate, Vice President Biden has voted for this provision seven times since 1995, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has voted for it ten times. 

“To shut down the government and refuse to pay the troops under the guise that you don’t support a federal abortion funding ban that you have voted for repeatedly is dishonest and it is irresponsible.  If President Obama wants to veto the bill and shut down the government because he doesn’t want to cut spending by a fraction of one percent, he needs to come out and say that.  Our troops deserve the truth.”

**Recent Democrat-supported spending bills that have contained the same policy include:  The FY09 Omnibus Appropriations Act (Public Law 111-8),  the FY08 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 110-161), and the FY07 Revised Continuing Appropriations Resolution (Public Law 110-5).**

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