Coakley Takes One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

In what must be the newspaper equivalent of the full Ginsberg the Boston Herald has three stories about our Attorney General today.

Starting with the good, AG Coakley takes National Grid to task for fleecing its customers:

“During the course of (reviewing National Grid’s rate-hike request), we found at least $300,000 worth of expenses that are outrageous and clearly provide no benefit to Massachusetts rate payers,” Jill Butterworth, spokeswoman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, told the Herald. “(And) we only scratched the surface.”

National Grid recently asked the state Department of Public Utilities to approve a $106 million-a-year rate hike for the company’s 850,000 Hub-area gas customers. That would raise ratepayer bills by about 4 percent to 11 percent, depending on where they live.

Some of the charges National Grid passed on to consumers:

$35,700 to send a senior vice president’s two daughters to the private British School of Boston

$30,000 for an executive’s personal medical bills

$4,363 for an employee’s trip to President Obama’s inauguration

$4,000 for company Christmas cards

$1,602 to matte and frame pictures for Grid President Tom King’s office

$1,433 for Rubik’s Cubes used in a team-building exercise

$1,254 to ship a wine collection across the ocean for a British employee who transferred stateside.

No employee expense was too small, with National Grid even passing on costs for $2 coat-check fees and $3.50 bottled waters.

Thank you Martha Coakley. Not only is the arrogance of National Grid executives a thumb in the eye of hard-pressed consumers, but the rate jump they are requesting isn't supported by the state of our economy. Sure winter is coming, but the economy is in big trouble, which means that natural gas supplies shouldn't be stressed, meaning prices should remain relatively stable. Even Obamanomics can't eliminate the basic rules of supply and demand. Natural gas futures fell slightly today.

Now for the odd:

After last week’s jailhouse suicide by accused Craigslist killer Philip Markoff - before he could be tried for the murder of erotic masseuse Julissa Brisman - Coakley reversed her earlier stance against interfering with the Web forum and demanded that Craigslist take down adult ads.

Coakley said the only reason for running the sex ads is to make money. “Craigslist should end the hypocrisy between its words and its practices,” Coakley wrote.

So, our AG is fine with the ads when a woman is murdered, but when her murderer takes his own life she changes her tune? Craigslist's popularity is based on the fact that it's free to the general public that are looking to post ads to sell a car, find a roomate, post a job etc. Without the revenue Craigslist makes from the adult themed ads, they will either need to start charging to post non-adult ads or go out of business. I'm sure the Globe wouldn't shed any tears if that were to happen.

I wonder when AG Coakley is going to go after "alternative" newspapers like the Boston Phoenix. After all, they make their money selling adult ads too. Maybe if Craigslist had a few reliably left-wing reporters on staff that could be counted on to write favorable stories about Martha, the AG would agree to continue looking the other way?

Finally, Jay Fitzgerald covers the downright indefensible:

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office is withholding key details from the public about how she arrived at her Cape Wind rate-cut deal.

Coakley - whose office recently negotiated a 10 percent reduction in how much Cape Wind and National Grid can charge customers for wind-generated electricity - submitted a report late last week full of blacked-out pages related to wind-project price comparisons associated with the multibillion-dollar Cape Wind project.

The report, which was Coakley’s official justification of her rate settlement with Cape Wind and National Grid, includes “redacted” words, numbers, sentences, paragraphs and charts. It even blanked out a question asked of an energy expert hired by Coakley’s office - and the expert’s response was also crossed out, records filed with the Department of Public Utilities show.

This is a project that will cost between $2 billion-$2.6 billion when it's all said and done. The public has every right to know all the details. We're the ones that will be paying for the over-priced electicity generated by this green boondoggle. What are the proponents of Cape Wind afraid of?

Pres. Obama is the Reckless Driver

According to the Los Angeles Times President Obama is still pushing the driving metaphors on his fundraising tour on behalf of Congressional Democrats. So what did folks get for their $30,400? Andrew Malcolm reports on the President's stop in Tinsel Town http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/08/obama-democrat-findraiser-in-chief-.html. A snippet:

The president has also fallen into recycling the same jokes -- one about his favorite Republican, Abraham Lincoln (see full text below), and another, lifted from the rhetorical repertoire of Iowa Democrat Chet Culver, about American drivers knowing that to go forward they put their car in D and to go backwards they put the vehicle in R. (Groans.)

Before his next vacation, Obama is on a three-day, five-state tour of fundraisers -- Wisconsin to California to Washington to Florida to Ohio. Next to the size of the administration's deficits, of course, the millions in donations are minuscule. But they will help the ad wars in battleground districts. More importantly, all of Obama's travels cost him nothing, except a 747's massive transcontinental carbon footprint.

The simple truth is that President Obama is attempting to drive our country not into a "ditch", but over a cliff and he wants Americans to play Louise to his Thelma(or is it the other way around?) and clasp his hand as he punches the gas.

A primer on the President's plans for our country:

A $1.47 trillion 2010 budget deficit. The President's budget calls for doubling the national debt to $18 trillion by 2020, which will mean paying $2.5 billion a day on interest alone.

The President promised his $862 billion "stimulus" bill would keep unemployment below 8%. After reaching a high of 10.2%, it has settled at 9.5%. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) there are 14.6 million Americans that want to work but can't find a job. To put that number in perspective, 14.6 million exceeds the combined populations of the six New England states (ME,NH,VT,MA,CT,RI) by 170,280. Adding insult to injury, the stimulus which amounted to little more than a bailout for government employees and pork projects couldn't even provide full employment for the public sector. Congress needed to pass another $26.1 billion bailout to keep their union supporters fat and happy.

The President's own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS) estimates that Obamacare will run a $311 billion dollar deficit in its first 10 years, not the surplus the president promised. Also:

14 million Americans will lose their current employer provided health insurance.

18 million Americans will pay $33 billion in penalties due to the "individual mandate" and still lack health insurance.

Businesses will pay $87 billion in penalties, which is money they could be using to hire workers.

7.4 million seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage.

The drastic cuts to Medicare in Obamacare will make 15% of Medicare providers unprofitable "jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries".

Letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire will mean one of the largest tax increases in American history, including onerous tax increases on small business which typically creates 2 out of 3 jobs in a recovery.

By supporting the Ground Zero Mosque President Obama is handing Al Qaeda its biggest propoganda victory since 9/11. To radical jihadists the 13 story, $100 million Cordoba House will be seen as a victory for Islam and a great recruiting tool in Al Qaeda's war against the West. The Islamists don't care about American rights to freedom of religion or private property, to them it will be a mosque going up on the site of their greatest victory.

Finally, for the second month in a row China has been a net seller of T-Bills. The Chinese know that the fiscal path President Obama has us on is "unsustainable" and they aren't as willing to lend us the money to continue spending beyond our means. The Federal Reserve gobbling up all the extra T-Bills is the only thing keeping interest rates from going up. How long do you think the Fed can keep it up?

Mr. President, cars come with reverse(R) for a reason. The voters need to slam the brakes on your agenda and back away from the cliff on November 2, 2010. America is too great a country to end as a pile of burning wreckage.

Cambridge on the Merrimack

Tax hikes, paid parking and stretch codes? Oh my. Actually, make that a Heck No! If enacted, Mayor Holaday's green and tax agenda will place a heavy burden on Newburyport's economy. The mayor and city council need look no further than today's paper "Tax holiday not enough, say some liquor stores"(Aug.12), to see for themselves how increasing taxes changes people's behavior. In their effort to soak the tourists, it's the businesses and residents of Newburyport that will wind up getting hosed.

The council will soon be asked to vote on Councilor Cameron's proposal to implement a "local option" on the meals and room taxes. This will mean a meals tax of 7% and room excise tax of 6%. I believe the visions of new revenue have caused the mayor and councilor Cameron to lose sight of the fact that tourists are pretty sparse in wintertime. In January when the wind is howling up State St., it's locals that keep the eateries in town a going concern until summer rolls around. As for the tourists, if you make it more expensive to eat and stay here, they will simply take their business elsewhere.

Next up in the mayor's quest for more revenue is a proposal for paid parking downtown, including the potential for a parking garage. Residents and those that work downtown are promised a sticker, while tourists will have to pay by the hour. How exactly is a sticker that will likely cost $10-20 a good deal when we can park for free now? The mayor likes to use Portsmouth, NH as an example of how painless paid parking will be without mentioning that it lacks a 6.25% sales tax. The more expensive you make it to visit our city the more incentive folks have to keep driving up 95 to NH or just over the bridge to Salisbury.

The mayor's effort to make Newburyport greener, while not a tax, will make its residents poorer. The stretch codes will add $10-20 thousand in construction costs for new development and more problematically will apply to all renovations. Everyone should want to spend less on energy, but it's a mistake to make us subject to the green police. A bureaucrat with more idealogy than sense, like that fool in Oregon who shut down a child's lemonade stand, could have made repairing damage from that powerful spring storm a nightmare. Imagine wanting to fix the hole in your roof, but being told you needed new windows and a new furnace to be green compliant and you couldn't get a permit until you agreed to make the upgrades. Now, imagine getting your insurance company to pay the bill.

The City Council needs to check Mayor Holaday's efforts to make it more expensive to live, work and visit our city. The great recession has forced many in America to do more with less, City Hall should do the same.

Is CA Brewing Another Taxpayer Revolt?

The state that introduced the country to the idea of capping property taxes,appears ready to take on public sector unions. Here's hoping that what's happening in CA does as much for income and sales taxes as Prop 13 did for homeowners. Some backround.

First we have the city of Bell, CA, that even had Simple Festus up in arms. From the Sacramento Bee:

The Times reported that Bell's city manager, Robert Rizzo, was earning nearly $800,000 in annual pay, making him the highest-paid government manager in the nation. Police Chief Randy Adams was paid $457,000 a year, and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia made $376,288.

Under pressure from residents, all three have resigned. At a City Council meeting Monday night, Bell residents are expected to push for the resignations of four of the five council members; each of the four makes $100,000 a year for a part-time job.

Next up on the hit parade is San Jose. From the Mercury News:

Amid nationwide outrage about public employee salaries, a divided San Jose City Council on Tuesday took aim at the city's soaring compensation costs. As a result, voters this fall will decide whether to rework the city's pension system and clamp down on costs for police and firefighters.

The council voted 7-4 to put a measure on the ballot that would change a three-decade-old policy giving outside arbitrators the final say in contract disputes with public safety workers. Mayor Chuck Reed says the policy has helped hike police and firefighter costs 99 percent since 2000, contributing to 10 consecutive years of deficits. Just last week, the city laid off 50 firefighters to help plug a $118.5 million shortfall.

How did the unions take the news?

Union members were stunned by the upset. For hours, they had pleaded with the council to delay putting the arbitration and pension measures on the ballot until the council, unions and community could study the issues further.

"This was an object lesson in how to make bad law," said Jody Meacham, spokesman for the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. The measures, he said following the meeting, "have been cooked up in a hurry and will be presented to voters as some sort of solution to the city's budget problems. Nobody knows if they are solutions or if they create more problems."

Meaning if the unions lose the vote, they'll sue. The mindset of public employees in this country seems to be "I don't care if city, town or state X goes broke, I better get mine".

Finally from the City of Angels. From the LA Times:

The cost of retirement benefits for Los Angeles city employees will grow by $800 million over the next five years, dramatically eroding the amount of money available for public services to taxpayers, according to a report issued Tuesday.
By 2015, nearly 20% of the city's general fund budget is expected to go toward the retirement costs of police officers and firefighters, who now have an average retirement age of 51. The figure was 8% last year.

Once civilian employees are factored in, nearly a third of the city's general fund could be consumed by retirement costs by 2015, Santana said.

"For every dollar you're paying into your pension systems, you're not paying into libraries, parks and various other city services," Santana told the council.

Shortly after Santana's presentation, the council voted to study the possibility of using employee-managed 401(k) investment plans — long favored by private industry — to provide a portion of the city's retirement benefits.

Representatives of the city's public safety unions warned officials not to rush to judgment on fixes to the pension problem.

"I highly recommend that we go very slow on this issue," said Peter Repovich, director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file officers. "It seems there's a lot of group-think going on across the state and the nation" on the issue.

The taxpayers across this nation simply can't afford the outsized paychecks and pensions that public unions have negotiated with elected officials that they largely helped put in office in the first place. For good and for ill, California sets trends for the rest of our nation. Here's hoping that the days of public union employess being untouchable end and that the latest $26 billion bailout for states to ensure full employment for public sector unions is the last.

The days of politicians and unions playing "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" at the expense of the taxpayer are going to come to an end; it's just a question of how and when because the current path is "unsustainable".

34 to O

The voters of the Missouri, our 34th state, told President Obama exactly what they think of his idea of health care "reform". Here's how the NRSC framed the results:

Show Me State voters also approved Proposition C — which attempts to shield Missourians from the Washington Democrats’ mandate to buy ObamaCare — by a massive 71-29 margin. Recent surveys show that 61 percent of Missourians oppose the Democrats’ recent health care law.

What is the President's reaction to such a lopsided result on his policies?

Asked what the vote meant to the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "Nothing."

When you lose a vote 71-29 and you claim not to care you either:

1) really don't care what the American people want

or

2) are scared witless and aren't honest enough to admit that your signature legislation was a terrible mistake

Frankly, I'm surprised the White House didn't take the opportunity to chastize Missourians for running up the score.

The Race Card, Politics At Its Worst

Now that the bogus effort to label the tea party movement as "racist" has been exposed time and again as lies. The left has decided their new tack is going to be we knew it was false, but it was good politics. Here's what Mary Frances Berry wrote to Politico:

“Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.”

If journalists ever become interested in learning what really drives the tea party movement, they should check out this poll by Scott Rasmussen:

In official Washington, there appears to be a belief that policy makers must choose between helping the economy or reducing spending and deficits. A number of polling companies have even asked questions on the trade-off.

However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 28% of voters believe increased government spending is good for the economy. Fifty-two percent (52%) believe increased government spending is bad for the economy, while 12% say it has no impact. Eight percent (8%) are not sure.

This suggests that for 72% of voters, asking about a trade-off between cutting spending and helping the economy doesn't make sense. A look at the demographics shows that the trade-off makes sense for only one group-- the Political Class. Among that group, 67% believe increased government spending would be good for the economy.

In a nutshell, there is a severe disconnect between the people and those in power on what is best for our country. President Obama's policies, not the color of his skin is the driving factor behind America's awakening.