Pasco County News | Breaking News

Senior-sensitive Nugent likes Ryan budget blueprint

Posted Apr 5, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 5, 2011 at 05:32 PM

From the Washington office of Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Spring Hill), whose district includes a disproportionate number of retirees, comes this full-throated endorsement of the 2012 spending blueprint released Tuesday by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.):

“As Chairman Paul Ryan was putting the budget proposal together, I testified before the budget committee that I could not support a plan that cut seniors’ benefits. I am pleased to say this proposal does not change one dime for those on or near retirement.

“There isn’t an economist in the world—Republican or Democrat—who thinks our current fiscal path is sustainable.  The only question is what to about it and how much longer we can afford to put off that decision. 

“Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal leads where the President’s did not by putting America back on a path to stability and prosperity.  It strengthens the social safety net in this country by guaranteeing that programs like Social Security and Medicare will be there for decades to come.  It does so while protecting current recipients and those 55 and up from any changes to their Social Security and Medicare.

“In a statement released today, the co-chairs of President Obama’s own Deficit Commission called the plan ‘a serious, honest, straightforward approach to addressing our nation’s enormous fiscal challenges.’  I think that says it all.”

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Bracing for elocutionary whiplash

Posted Apr 4, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Apr 4, 2011 at 04:27 PM

If conventional wisdom regarding the successor to Pasco Sheriff Bob White prevails, there is at least one thing we can say with no fear of contradiction: The sheriff’s office is about to suffer a significant colloquialism deficit.

The presumptive frontrunner, Chris Nocco, so recently promoted to major he’s still wearing uniform shirts embroidered with “Captain,” is a raspy-voiced Philadelphian who – based on evidence presented Monday – appears to be a reluctant public speaker.

Not Prince Albert/ “The King’s Speech” reluctant.  Nocco gets the words out OK.  Still, the contrast between Nocco and the man he hopes to replace could not be more striking.  Addressing the Land O’ Lakes Rotarians at their weekly luncheon Monday, the big man from Philly was clipped, economic and sober.  He made Sgt. Friday sound effusive. (He also aggressively resisted uttering anything remotely newsworthy.)

Assuming Nocco wins Gov. Rick Scott’s nod, brace for elocutionary whiplash.

True to his red-clay rearing in Moultrie, Ga. (just west of Valdosta), White arrived on the scene informal and homespun, a precisely groomed country pastor brimming with bromides whose congregation was the half-million residents of Pasco County.

White always was “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”  He’d say, “If I felt any better, I’d be twins.”

Facing difficulty, he’d tell his command staff, “We’ve got to turn this around quick like a bunny.” How would he explain his agency’s budget woes to county commissioners?  “We’re going to tell them how the pig ate the cabbage.”

Nocco’s contrasting, north-of-the-Mason-Dixon style is scarcely a disqualification, or even off-putting (although it could be an issue, assuming he’s the incumbent, in the 2012 campaign).

For the moment, it’s just interesting, is all.  Sort of like switching to a Jeep Cherokee when you’re used to driving, you know, a Tahoe.

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Beguiling parallels from a couple of Jims

Posted Mar 9, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Mar 9, 2011 at 06:58 PM

As it stands today, I am no fan of the so-called “farm” bill – sponsored by freshman state Sen. Jim Norman – that would made it a felony to photograph or publish photographs of “legal agricultural activities” without written consent from the farm owner or its management.  It is desperately overbroad and constitutionally problematic.

Nonetheless, Norman’s bill and yet another stealthy hidden-video sting of a cherished liberal institution – NPR, as represented by Ron Schiller, the network’s suddenly former development director (aka: fundraiser) – presents a beguiling parallel.

At a luncheon with what he believed were representatives of a front group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood ready to bestow $5 million on NPR, Schiller unleashed a typhoon of bigoted scorn on opponents of the left – real and imagined—including the Tea Party movement and Israeli/Zionist media influences.

Schiller, who had already given notice that he was taking employment elsewhere, was cut loose almost immediately after the edited video was published.  Also swiftly dispatched – er, “allowed to resign” – was NPR CEO Vivian Schiller.  (The disgraced pair are “unkindred except in spirit,” notes Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto.)  In the wake of the unflattering tumult over the firing of former news analyst Juan Williams—now routinely venting on NPR for Fox News—this second earth-shaking scandal on Vivian Schiller’s watch was one scandal too many.

After all, while NPR’s disdain for conservatives is an open secret, this latest upset has all the timing of Bobby Thomson’s legendary “shot heard ‘round the world.”  Here was more fodder to embolden U.S. House Republican leaders already eager to cut public broadcasting off the federal dole as part of an overall budget-reduction plan.

Now comes the righteous handwringing.  O’Keefe, famous for masquerading as a pimp to reveal the nefarious tendencies of ACORN a while back, is being scolded anew for employing untruthful methods to bag his subject.  Let us weigh the virtues of pirate journalism – it pretty much comes down to: hate it when it nails my side; love it when it nails the other guys – while we wait for CBS to return the case full of Emmys won for hidden-camera stories broken by “60 Minutes.”

Which brings us back to Norman’s tortured attempt to head off – by making them illegal – similar episodes involving Florida’s agriculture industry.  As noted above, the bill is shot through with problems, and Norman has promised a rewrite.

Meanwhile, Trilby businessman and egg farmer Wilton Simpson, a constituent whose fingerprints are on the bill, says commonsense farmers would never try to prosecute tourists photographing bucolic scenes of cows and calves lounging on roadside meadows, or aerial photographers hired to map fields targeted for development.

Instead, Simpson says, the law is necessary to prevent activists from posing as job applicants who would shoot undercover video once they were employed – much the way ABC News producers acquired access to a North Carolina Food Lion grocery store for its ballyhooed 1992 expose on the company’s food-handling policies.

About that:  Following a review of more than 40 hours of video “outtakes” and depositions from Food Lion’s lawsuit against ABC News, Accuracy In Media, a right-leaning watchdog, concluded Food Lion had been railroaded. By then, however, the damage to the grocery chain’s profitability, stock price and expansion plans was done.  Simpson would wonder where Food Lion goes to get its reputation back.

Moreover, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals routinely publishes undercover video on its web site, and ferociously defends the practice.  What’s needed is more video, not less, says PETA’s Jeff Kerr.

Kerr calls PETA infiltrators courageous “whistleblowers” who play a vital role in exposing misbehavior in the agriculture industry.

As we have seen in the attacks on O’Keefe, however, one side’s whistleblower is the other side’s lowlife anarchist rule-mangler.  Good luck writing a law to fix that.

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What we need is a new amendment

Posted Mar 2, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Mar 2, 2011 at 05:18 PM

Offered here, a brief addendum to Wednesday’s column, “Bobbing along in Madison’s ripples.”

As noted, last year’s attempt to modestly amend the class-size amendment failed to achieve the 60 percent threshold necessary to become part of the state constitution.  It was, however, favored by 54.5 percent of voters (2,751,878 out of 5,049,879 cast). Both the percentage and the raw numbers are revealing statistics.

In 2002, the original class-size amendment squeezed out a 4.8 point victory, 52.3 to 47.6 percent. Alas, the battle was waged before the 60 percent stipulation was adopted; thus was a change that has proved expensive and unwieldy without demonstrating any educational benefit (as critics claimed during the campaign) woven into the fabric of the state constitution by a narrow majority.

The raw numbers, compared to last November’s outcome, are also instructive: 2,550,201 (out of 4,867,872 cast) supported the class-size amendment.

To clarify, in 2010, more voters—by percentage and in absolute numbers—wanted to tweak constitutional class-size provisions than supported the amendment in the first place. But because of a change in the ratification process, this apples-to-apples preference of the voters was thwarted.

In that light, we propose a new state constitutional amendment: Ballot measures designed to modify or repeal amendments that (a) passed before the 60 percent mandate and (b) failed to achieve support from at least 60 percent of voters, shall be deemed modified or repealed if they attract (a) a larger percentage of the original vote while (b) matching or surpassing the original raw vote total.

We’re just trying to level the playing field.

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Read and reconsider, Gov. Scott

Posted Feb 23, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 23, 2011 at 02:13 PM

The Heritage Foundation expands on George Will’s Sunday column, “Out of Wisconsin, a lesson in leadership for Obama,” which laid an eloquent foundation for understanding the incompatability with the public interest inherent in public-sector unions.

Will writes, in part:

For some of Madison’s graying baby boomers, these protests are a jolly stroll down memory lane. Tune up the guitars! “This is,” [Gov. Scott] Walker says, “very much a ‘60s mentality.”

He does, however, think there is sincerity unleavened by information: Many protesters do not realize that most worker protections - merit hiring; just cause for discipline and termination - are the result not of collective bargaining but of Wisconsin’s uniquely strong and century-old civil service law.

“I am convinced,” he says, “this is about money—but not the employees’ money.” It concerns union dues, which he wants the state to stop collecting for the unions, just as he wants annual votes by state employees on re-certifying the unions. He says many employees pay $500 to $600 annually in union dues—teachers pay up to $1,000. Given a choice, many might prefer to apply this money to health care premiums or retirement plans. And he thinks “eventually” most will say about the dues collectors, “What do we need this for?”

What follows is the money graf:

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway - grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members’ employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees’ salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy “negotiations” with unions.

Well.  Scott made news by saying he has no problem with those unions and collective bargaining practices that amount to Hoovering taxpayer pockets. Hmmm.  Perhaps Florida’s new governor believes he has enough on his plate already without picking a fight with public employee unions.  But they were never going to be on his side in the first place, and they’re already lining up (with teachers’ groups at the forefront) to assail his austerity-now budget proposal.

In that light, the Heritage Foundation piece, “Morning Bell: Government Unions vs American Taxpayers,”  makes a compelling argument for urgency:

Recent studies show that state and local governments are severely underestimating their pension and benefit promises, including a $574 billion shortfall for the nation’s top major cities and a possible $3.4 trillion shortfall for the states. The cause of these crippling pension and benefit obligations is no secret. The Post explains: “Public employees often enjoy more generous pension and health-care benefits, and these are at the root of the long-term budget problems confronting many states.”

How did this happen? Why did so many state and local governments not only spend too much today but promise future spending far beyond the means of taxpayers to pay for it? Government unions. And across the country, legislators and governors are beginning to fight back.

The professional left (including the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the NEA, AFSCME and President Barack Obama) is trying to portray these budget battles as an assault against all unions. But as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), who is pushing legislation to curtail government union bargaining power, explained last night, this is just plain false:

“The bill I put forward isn’t aimed at state workers, and it certainly isn’t a battle with unions. If it was, we would have eliminated collective bargaining entirely or we would have gone after the private-sector unions. But, we did not because they are our partners in economic development. We need them to help us put 250,000 people to work in the private sector over the next four years.”

Walker is right: Government unions are inherently different from private-sector unions. The purpose of private-sector unions is to get workers a larger share of the profits they helped create. But government is a monopoly and earns no profits. All government unions do is redistribute more tax dollars from taxpayers to unions. The left used to understand this. Not only did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt write in 1937: “All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” but as recently as 1959, the AFL-CIO Executive Council stated that “government workers have no right [to collectively bargain] beyond the authority to petition Congress—a right available to every citizen.”

Scott surely knows this already. And Florida’s reckoning day—ask the Pasco County School Board, currently at a potentially disastrous impasse with the teachers’ union—will arrive sooner rather than later. How the governor will escape the corner he’s painted himself into will be a demanding test of political dexterity.

 

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Rich Nugent objects, courteously

Posted Feb 23, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 23, 2011 at 01:29 PM

The effect may mimic flying paper airplanes into a granite wall.  Nonetheless, U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Brooksville) has dispatched a letter to headstrong Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood over the $2.4 billion—rejected by Gov. Rick Scott—the White House had dangled for a high speed rail line linking Tampa and Orlando.

In a nutshell, Nugent argues for letting Florida keep the (borrowed) money, no strings attached, so the state can address other critical needs in its ports and highways.  Failing that, the (borrowed) money should be returned to the Treasury, in the interest of reducing the national deficit and debt.  Yeah, like that’s important to this White House.

Anyway, here’s the letter. It’s a fine piece of work.

Dear Secretary LaHood,

I write you today about the $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funds that the Obama administration has made available to the State of Florida.  It’s obviously an important issue for our government and I would like to take a moment to share my constituents’ thoughts with you. 

First, before anything else, let me thank you for your heartfelt intention to help stimulate job growth in the region.  It goes without saying that Florida was one of the states hit hardest by the recession, and high unemployment persists in many areas, including my own.

I know that as a former member of Congress and now a member of the President’s Cabinet, our fiscal situation is not lost on you.  You know as well as I do that having spent money for years that America didn’t have, our debt has now grown out of control.  Our interest payments on the national debt, already surpassing $200 billion annually, are projected to quadruple over the next ten years.  By 2014, interest payments on our debt will surpass the current spending on our entire non-defense, discretionary budget – including transportation.  And by 2018, net interest payments will eclipse even annual spending on Medicare or the entire Department of Defense.  Frankly, Mr. Secretary, it’s already spiraling out of control.

While I appreciate the administration’s view that building a high-speed rail line connecting Tampa and Orlando is key to America’s future prosperity, I can assure you it is not.  Governor Scott, I believe, has expressed to you the infrastructure needs that the state is currently facing – ports and highways among them.  If the administration sees fit to return Florida taxpayers’ dollars to them, it is my wish – and my constituents’ wish – that those dollars be returned to the state in such a way that Florida can determine for itself how best to use them.

If the state is not given the flexibility to use its own funds as it sees fit, I respectfully ask that the money be used to pay down the national debt that has, in part, been borrowed in Florida taxpayers’ names over the years.  Frankly sir, I reject the premise that this money belongs to the federal government.  It does not.  Further, I submit to you that it is the height of federal arrogance to presume to tell a sitting governor that he is wrong about what investments in infrastructure are best for his state.

I understand that as a member of the President’s Cabinet, you must advocate for the President’s initiatives, but I must also believe, that as a former Republican member of Congress, this federalist principle is not lost on you.

As for the general question of high-speed rail in our state, believe me, I understand the appeal.  Europe and Japan have developed train networks that are the envy of the world.  China and others are investing as well.  But in my opinion, given that the federal government is falling so desperately short of fulfilling its current obligations, and given that small business owners and others in Florida are facing massive tax increases to cover unemployment obligations, this is not the appropriate time for “nice to have” projects.

I do not disagree with the premise that spending $2.4 billion to construct something will result in construction jobs.  Of course it will.  But I also believe that it is in the taxpayers’ interest to build something that will yield the greatest return on their investment and one that best manages their risk over the long term. 

Having spent the last twenty years of my life living in Central Florida, I know I am not alone in my suspicion that projected ridership numbers and revenues associated with this line are optimistic.  I believe we must also take seriously the stark example of Amtrak subsidies that the federal government has thus far been unable to shake. 

The day of reckoning about our federal budget is coming, Mr. Secretary.  And when it does, this rail line will be set against the other competing obligations of the federal government.  You know as well as I do that this and so many other initiatives like it will fall short.  The states – already burdened with a federal government that takes too big a share of America’s tax revenue – will be left with the tab.

I understand that your office’s instinct will be to send more projections and analysis of how great this high-speed rail network will be for Central Florida.  I appreciate the thought and will happily save you the postage.  My intention is not to have a debate about the general merits of high-speed rail.  One day, when Washington has come to its senses, when business is thriving again, and the federal and state coffers are stuffed full of surplus revenues, I look forward to having that discussion. 

Until that time comes, however, I ask that you and your counterparts across the federal government take a hard look at where we stand now.  I ask that you personally consider whether this $2.4 billion – so seemingly expendable and abundant today – will be so easy to come by in the future.  And if it is not - when that $2.4 billion is needed desperately for something else in the future – will the administration have truly put it to use in the most judicious way on behalf of the taxpayers who earned it?  In my opinion, the answer is no. 

While I disagree strongly with much that the administration has done over the last two years, just as I disagree with this now, President Obama did not create all of this debt on his own.  And in the same way that both parties contributed to our current situation, it will take cooperation from both parties to recover from it.  While this may be the first appeal to you from my office, I hope that you will also take it as an honest gesture of my willingness to keep the lines of communication open.  I listen to my constituents as you no doubt listened to yours during your time in Congress.  My job now, as it was yours then, is to communicate their will to the executive branch.  Mr. Secretary, my constituents do not want this train and I hope that your administration can understand that.     

Sincerely,

Rich Nugent
Member of Congress

“I ... will happily save you the postage.”  Sweet.

 

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Wall Street Journal: Scott correct on high-speed choo-choo

Posted Feb 18, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 18, 2011 at 10:20 AM

While others wring their hands, rend their garments and plot alternate routes for hanging billions in long-term debt on Florida taxpayers in exchange for short-term political gain, we are pleased to direct your attention to the sober-minded grownups in the room—more specifically, the Wall Street Journal editorial board room.

In an editorial published Friday (“Florida Railroad Check”), the Journal salutes Gov. Rick Scott for declining the $2.4 billion dangled by Washington for a high-speed rail connection between Tampa and Orlando, advertised as the first link of a statewide network that would next include Miami. Promoters say after the federal seed money is in place, private industry would step up to build, maintain and operate the project. Without further taxpayer subsidies? History reports otherwise.

Says the Journal, “Florida Governor Rick Scott avoided a costly train wreck ... by hitting the brakes on his state’s high-speed rail project.”  Furthermore:

Mr. Scott rejected $2.4 billion of federal money for an 84-mile line from Tampa to Orlando, saying that it would likely end up costing state taxpayers an additional $3 billion when the state’s budget deficit this year is $3.6 billion. Then there’s the half a billion dollars in operating subsidies that the train would need every decade, which could be more depending on how much the state has inflated ridership projections.

The state has estimated that about 2.4 million people would take the train in its first year, which is about two-thirds of the ridership for Amtrak’s Acela, which travels along a far more populated urban corridor. Call us skeptics, but we think most people would prefer to drive from Tampa to Orlando. It’s cheaper and only takes half an hour longer.

State Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey) rightly notes that when it comes to transportation dollars, Florida is and has for the longest time been a donor state.  He is right to petition Washington to give back what is ours.  Of course, that opens a whole new federalism argument, which is a subject for another day.  What Fasano fails to mention, however, is the blackmail quality of the feds’ dangled carrot.  Spend your money as we see fit, says the Obama administration through Transportation Secretary Ray “Toyotas are Killing Machines” LaHood—there’s a reliable source for you—or we’re giving Florida’s money to someone else more cooperative.  Says the Journal: 

Rather than allowing Florida to redirect the money to more productive and cost-effective projects like highways and ports, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood plans to redirect Florida’s rail money to other states. When new governors in Ohio and Wisconsin killed their rail projects late last year, California scooped up more than half of the cash. New York, California and Washington state have all lined up for a share of Florida’s leftovers.

This means taxpayers in fiscally prudent states like Florida could end up having to subsidize these and other states’ reckless projects. Or maybe not. House Republicans in Washington are already proposing to cut Mr. Obama’s high-speed rail request by billions of dollars. The Senate will try to keep irrational hope alive, but more Governors would be wise to follow Mr. Scott and cut their inevitable railroad losses.

There ought to be handwringing, all right.  But not about Scott blocking the Obama Boondoggle Express.

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High-speed boondoggle

Posted Feb 14, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 14, 2011 at 05:53 PM

From our perch up in Pasco County—where we, too, suffer our own misguided rail-centric preoccupations—we wonder how it is possible there isn’t a single mayoral candidate in Tampa willing to see (and condemn) the proposed high-speed rail link to Orlando for the unquenchable, tax-dollar-swilling boondoggle it is.  While we’re on the subject of clear-eyed realists, Gov. Rick Scott is correct to resist federal plans to open this sinkhole of public debt.

Nonetheless, we commend to the next mayor’s reading pleasure Washington Post economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson’s Sunday piece, “High-speed rail is a fast-track to government waste,” in which he meticulously excoriates city-to-city rail.

Samuelson’s complaint, in a nutshell:

There’s something wildly irresponsible about the national government undermining states’ already poor long-term budget prospects by plying them with grants that provide short-term jobs. Worse, the rail proposal casts doubt on the administration’s commitment to reducing huge budget deficits. The president’s 2012 budget is due Monday. How can it subdue deficits if it keeps proposing big spending programs?

High-speed rail would definitely be big. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has estimated the administration’s ultimate goal - bringing high-speed rail to 80 percent of the population - could cost $500 billion over 25 years. For this stupendous sum, there would be scant public benefits. Precisely the opposite. Rail subsidies would threaten funding for more pressing public needs: schools, police, defense.

Samuelson also explodes the subsidy myth promulgated by HSR pushers:

Rail buffs argue that subsidies for passenger service simply offset the huge government support of highways and airways. The subsidies “level the playing field.” Wrong. In 2004, the Transportation Department evaluated federal transportation subsidies from 1990 to 2002. It found passenger rail service had the highest subsidy ($186.35 per thousand passenger-miles) followed by mass transit ($118.26 per thousand miles). By contrast, drivers received no net subsidy; their fuel taxes more than covered federal spending. Subsidies for airline passengers were about $5 per thousand miles traveled. (All figures are in inflation-adjusted year 2000 dollars.)

The payoff paragraphs are at the bottom:

It’s a triumph of fancy over fact. Even if ridership increased fifteenfold over Amtrak levels, the effects on congestion, national fuel consumption and emissions would still be trivial. Land-use patterns would change modestly, if at all; cutting 20 minutes off travel times between New York and Philadelphia wouldn’t much alter real estate development in either. Nor is high-speed rail a technology where the United States would likely lead; European and Asian firms already dominate the market.

Governing ought to be about making wise choices. What’s disheartening about the Obama administration’s embrace of high-speed rail is that it ignores history, evidence and logic. The case against it is overwhelming. The case in favor rests on fashionable platitudes. High-speed rail is not an “investment in the future”; it’s mostly a waste of money. Good government can’t solve all our problems, but it can at least not make them worse.

Now, if we could just get our elected officials and candidates throughout the Tampa Bay area to embrace the wisdom (through cost-control) and flexibility of designated bus lanes, or bus rapid transit,  as a superior alternative to commuter light rail, we’d really be getting somewhere.

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Amending, extending and correcting our remarks

Posted Feb 14, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 14, 2011 at 01:07 PM

Alert reader William Jenkins of Land O’ Lakes points out an error—one of sloppiness and sloth—in Sunday’s column that we are only too happy to hasten to correct.

Writes Mr. Jenkins, correctly:

Are you aware that since Jan 1, 1985, members of Congress may choose from one of the many health plans offered to all government employees? They pay the same co-pays as any other government employee enrolled in the same plan. There is no free health insurance for congressional members. This myth of free benefits has traveled the Internet for years and I am shocked you would fall into the good representative’s attempt at obtaining good press. Certainly they have benefits not available to the general government populous, but they certainly are not free.

Indeed, “free” is a misnomer.  FactCheck.org lays out the broad particulars:

According to the Congressional Research Service, the FEHBP offers about 300 different private health care plans, including five government-wide, fee-for-service plans and many regional health maintenance organization (HMO) plans, plus high-deductible, tax-advantaged plans. All plans cover hospital, surgical and physician services, and mental health services, prescription drugs and “catastrophic” coverage against very large medical expenses. There are no waiting periods for coverage when new employees are hired, and there are no exclusions for preexisting conditions. The FEHBP negotiates contracts annually with all insurance companies who wish to participate. There is plenty of competition for the business; FEHBP is the largest employer-sponsored health plan in the U.S. ...

Like other large employers, the government pays a large share of the cost of coverage. On average, the government pays 72 percent of the premiums for its workers, up to a maximum of 75 percent depending on the policy chosen. For example, the popular Blue Cross and Blue Shield standard fee-for-service family plan carries a total premium of $1,120.47 per month, of which the beneficiary pays $356.59. Washington, D.C.-based employees who prefer an HMO option might choose the Kaiser standard family plan. It carries a total premium of $629.46 per month, of which the employee pays only $157.36.

In addition, members of Congress also qualify for some medical benefits that ordinary federal workers do not. They (but not their families) are eligible to receive limited medical services from the Office of the Attending Physician of the U.S. Capitol, after payment of an annual fee ($491 in 2007). But services don’t include surgery, dental care or eyeglasses, and any prescriptions must be filled at the member’s expense.

House and Senate members (but not their families) also are eligible to receive care at military hospitals. For outpatient care, there is no charge at the Washington, D.C., area hospitals (Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center). Inpatient care is billed at rates set by the Department of Defense.

So, to reiterate, congressmen such as freshman Republican Rich Nugent are eligible to partipate in the federal employees’ range of plans.  Their coverage is not gratis but, as is often the case in the private sector, is substantially subsidized by their employer—in this case, the American taxpayer.

Mr. Jenkins does not argue the fundamental point however.

To refresh: The several GOP congress members who have opted out of federal coverage and also voted to repeal the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as ObamaCare) have not, Politico’s recent article notwithstanding, undergone epiphanies about the nature of health insurance or delivery of medical care. Their misgivings are as they have been, and their experiences merely have reaffirmed their convictions about correcting what ails the nation’s health care industry without compromising America’s tradition of liberty and individual choice.

Challenging our position on that point we leave to alert reader Joe Ryan, who contends we’re just making stuff up:

First, you stated that “the trick” to getting to covering people with pre-existing conditions is how to get there “without the indvidual mandate that is noxious to a majority of Americans and almost certainly unconstitutional.”  Poll after poll shows that the feelings of Americans towards the health care law is almost a dead split, sometimes 47 to 46 in favor, sometimes 47 to 47 against, hardly a “majority” of Americans.  Second, two judges have ruled the health care law as constitutional, two judges the other way.  Let’s see where it lands in the Supreme Court before we all declare ourselves constitutional scholars.

We can’t say for certain where Mr. Ryan finds the polls he is quoting. The folks over at Real Clear Politics, who serve as sort of the clearing house for all major polling outfits, cite Rasmussen Reports as the only pollsters sampling ObamaCare opinion on an ongoing basis.  Rasmussen does not break out—as we did in Sunday’s column—the “noxious” quotient for the individual mandate.  It does find, however, a persistent double-digit preference among likely voters (the only cohort whose opinion we respect) for having the whole thing repealed.

Moreover, Real Clear Politics lists polls from a variety of sources taken over the past six weeks on ACA here, and finds a healthy 6.9 point gap between adults who oppose the law and those who favor it.

As for declaring ourselves constitutional scholars, well, that’s columnist license for you.

 

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So much for the ‘revenue enhancement’ argument

Posted Feb 1, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Feb 1, 2011 at 07:15 PM

Intersection fatalities drop where cameras monitor red-light scofflaws.  So says a study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, confirming what a majority of motorists suspected all along.

The reduction is not insignificant, either. In 14 large cities where red lights were in place during 2004-2008, traffic deaths tumbled by nearly a quarter.

“Red light cameras are working,” said institute president Adrian Lund. “There are hundreds of people who are alive because some communities had the courage to use this method of enforcement.”

Writing in “The Driver’s Seat,” a Wall Street Journal blog, Joseph B. White notes optimistically an apparent spillover effect:

IIHS researchers looked at accident data from 99 large U.S. cities. Of those, 14 had installed red light cameras between 2004 and 2008, but didn’t have such systems between 1992 and 1996. Another 48 cities didn’t have red light cameras during either period.

The researchers found that the rate of deadly crashes linked to motorists who ran red lights dropped for both groups of cities, but the rate of deaths fell faster in cities with red light camera systems. The researchers concluded that the rate of deadly red light running accidents during the 2004-2008 period was 24% lower in cities that used cameras than would have been expected without cameras.

The IIHS concludes that if red light cameras had been used by all large cities in that four year period, 815 lives could have been saved.

The Institute says its research found that all types of accidents at intersections decline when red light cameras are installed – suggesting that motorists are more cautious when they know their indiscretions could be caught on camera.

Clearly, enhanced revenues to the local governments that employ red-light cameras is only a side benefit.  And, like so-called “sin” taxes, fines are paid only by drivers who violate red lights, putting the well-being of fellow travelers at risk.

This does not mean the anti-camera forces will curb their protests, or keep making noises about cameras increasing rear-end collisions. The research on that score is not conclusive. But even if it were, people generally walk away from rear-end smash-ups. T-bone collisions—an all-too-common outcome in red-light violations—kill and maim.

The IIHS study confirms what respecters of traffic controls have known all along. We say, the more red-light cameras, the better.

 

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Gus salutes Vinson: ObamaCare not for us

Posted Jan 31, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jan 31, 2011 at 04:34 PM

U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Palm Harbor) also salutes Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling:

“Today’s decision reinforces what most Floridians believe; the health care overhaul goes too far and is unconstitutional,” Bilirakis said. “Since day one, I have said that it is unconstitutional to force Americans to buy a product, and will continue to work toward replacing the burdensome and over-reaching law with solutions that provide access to affordable coverage.”

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Rubio: Schedule repeal vote for ‘unconstitutional’ ObamaCare

Posted Jan 31, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jan 31, 2011 at 04:25 PM

Florida-based Federal District Court Judge Roger Vinson says every word of last year’s federal health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, including “the” and “and.”  While giving the ruling a standing ovation, freshman U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio says the rebuke gives Senate leadership every reason to schedule an up-or-down vote on repeal:

“Today’s ruling marks an important step toward undoing a health care law that creates uncertainty for job creators, threatens Medicare as Floridians know it and lays the foundation for government-run health care.  I commend Attorney General Pam Bondi for her leadership role in preventing ObamaCare’s unconstitutional federal health insurance mandate from becoming a burden to Floridians. I also thank former Attorney General Bill McCollum for initiating this lawsuit under his watch.

“Even before ObamaCare passed, it was clear to the American people that this legislation should not become law.  It was clear to the American people who stood up at town halls and ballot boxes across the country and voiced their opinions against it.  It was clear to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, which raised the very concerns about its constitutionality that the federal judge in Pensacola ruled on today.  Unfortunately, none of these warning signs compelled ObamaCare’s supporters to take a hard look at the error of their ways.

“ObamaCare was a mistake.  However, we cannot leave this decision in the hands of judges alone. The Senate Democrat leadership should follow the House’s lead and hold an up-or-down vote to repeal ObamaCare.  The optimal outcome for Florida and the American people is to repeal the federal health care law and replace it with common sense reforms that will lower health care costs and get more Americans insured.”

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Choosing, and advocating, school choice

Posted Jan 24, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jan 24, 2011 at 11:02 PM

A reminder, first mentioned in my Friday Pasco Tribune column, of a local alternative to the President’s State of the Union Address:

As part of “National School Choice Week”—not just an event on the calendar, but a national movement of disparate groups interested in one thing: the best educational outcomes for America’s youngsters—a hybrid seminar and town-hall-style meeting featuring conservative media heavyweights is scheduled Tuesday at TPepin’s Hospitality CenEvents Center on north 50th Street in Tampa.

“Education Revolution: Restoring America’s Exceptionalism” features pundit/author Dick Morris, syndicated radio talker Michael Medved and veteran activist Ralph Reed. The trio is scheduled to convene its debriefing at 7:30 p.m. Admission to the main event is free.  Tickets for a meet-and-mingle reception that begins at 6 p.m. are $59.

Additional information is available at the Talk Radio 860, WGUL website.  Full disclosure: WGUL, 860 AM is home to “The Jax Files Weekend,” hosted by your humble correspondent (*blush*) Saturday mornings at 10.  My interview with Morris from our last episode is available, via podcast, here.

This also makes an opportune moment to note, as does Kathryn Jean Lopez over at National Review Online’s “The Corner,” that “National School Choice Week” will not go entirely unnoticed during President Obama’s speech:

This week is National School Choice Week and that’s not lost on Speaker of the House John Boehner, as he prepares for tomorrow night’s State of the Union Address.

His first Speaker’s box will include parents, students, and teachers. Three of four children who will be sitting there will be students who are attending Catholic schools in Washington, D.C. under the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program this president and congressional Democrats have thus far refused to renew.

Also sitting in the Speaker’s box will be someone who has written for NRO: Virginia Walden Ford, the brave, energetic hero to many D.C. parents and children, who runs D.C. Parents for School Choice (who I’ve met many a time at the Heritage Foundation). She’s been a tireless advocate for the D.C. school-choice program, a tireless advocate of young people in our nation’s capital.

One of two newly elevated American cardinals in the Catholic Church, Washington, D.C.’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl will also be sitting in the Speaker’s box.

The presence of Wuerl, Ford, students, parents, and teachers will underscore the Speaker’s commitment to not only these scholarships but a bipartisan effort to continue them in the 112th Congress.

A senior House GOP source tells NRO: “If President Obama is serious about bipartisan education reform, his administration should start by supporting bipartisan education reform in the form of saving the successful D.C. school choice initiative.”

On Wednesday morning, Boehner and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman will hold a press conference to introduce the reauthorization of the school-choice legislation. To give an idea of prioritization: This is the only bill the Speaker currently plans to sponsor himself this session.

The rest of Lopez’s compelling post is here.

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A question of perpetual care

Posted Jan 24, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jan 24, 2011 at 04:34 PM

Alert reader Joseph Hamel asks, in the wake of Sunday’s column – “Finances redefine priorities” – a question that is simultaneously provocative, insightful and appropriate (as all good questions are).

I wonder if the hundred or so palm trees that have been planted in Zephyrhills are needs or wants.  Maybe we should ask Mr. Weatherford. I have no idea who or what funded these things.

An e-mail to the likely suspects produced this quick response from Zephyrhills City Manager Steve Spina:

The palm trees were a grant from the Florida Department of Transportation – enhancement/beautification grant.  The grant was for $80,000.  The city will have to maintain the trees and right of way where they are planted. 

I would probably say they are a “want” rather than a “need,” although trees, beautification, landscaping, etc. are all important aspects of public lands, rights of way, downtowns, etc.

While we agree with Spina that nothing says Florida beautification quite line a grove of palms, what happens to them after they’re planted got us thinking about the nature of government programs, especially how, after they are created, they tend toward self-perpetuation.  Consider the palms of Zephyrhills.  Taxpayer dollars purchased them and paid to have them installed.  Now even more taxpayer dollars will be spent on maintaining them.

Perhaps this is as it should be – public dollars being spent to maintain public dollars invested in a perishable product.

But the new government austerity referred to in Sunday’s column ought to encourage thinking that is slightly outside the proverbial box.

If I were directing public policy in Zephyrhills, however, I’d find out whether it made sense to invite private sector entities to adopt and tend some or all of the new palms.  We imagine a line of companies, not limited to landscapers, and civic clubs, vying for opportunities to strut their stuff.

In exchange for performing maintenance (in accordance with state and local mandates), the volunteers would post modest signs that declare (for purposes of advertising and assigning responsibility – the old carrot-and-stick approach) who’s looking after this particular patch of palms.

Everybody wins.  Thanks to alert reader Joseph Hamel for provoking this helpful thought experiment.

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As Marco Rubio dials up the pressure, does Bill Nelson feel the squeeze?

Posted Jan 19, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated Jan 19, 2011 at 06:36 PM

In an event closely related to the post below, freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Miami) fires a salvo across Majority Leader (until 2013) Harry Reid’s bow. Says Rubio:

“In voting to repeal ObamaCare, our colleagues in the House have taken an important step.  We need to repeal the federal health care law and replace it with common sense reforms that will lower health care costs and get more Americans insured.  ObamaCare creates uncertainty for job creators, threatens Medicare as Floridians know it and lays the foundation for government-run health care.

“Instead, we need to replace it with reforms that promote competition, empower patients with more high-quality health-care options, combat fraud and integrate the latest technologies to make the system more efficient and the patient better informed. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and hope the Democrat leadership will heed the American people’s call by allowing an up-or-down vote.”

Democratic leadership in the Senate may well resist, initially, but one wonders whether donks from tradititionally red states who face tough reelection battles (Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Ben Nelson in Nebraska, to cite two; our own Bill Nelson may also qualify) really want to face conservative-leaning voters having to (a) defend their support for ObamaCare while (b) resisting attempts to start anew?

As a matter of policy and politics, only a handful of Democratic senators need to go wobbly before Wednesday’s vote in the House turns out to have far more punch than the mere symbolism claimed by the White House and Senate majority leaders.

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