Paying Honeywell to stay

Honeywell -- and its 1,800 jobs -- will be staying in New Jersey. The questions is, however, at what cost?

According to Forbes.com,

Cote said the $33 billion company had been seriously considering moving out of New Jersey and taking its 1,800 jobs with it. He said the company was persuaded to stay after getting assurances from Gov. Chris Christie that his administration will work with the Legislature to expand a tax credit program aimed at retaining companies.

So what's the cost? At $2,225 per job saved -- which is what the governor wants the tax Business Retention and Relocation Assistance Grant program expanded to -- that amounts to $4 million a year for six years. The compnay, according to its annual report, had state tax liabilities in all the states in which it operates totalling $71 million (combined currrent and deferred obligations) in 2009.

I'm not arguing that the tax credit is bad in this particular instance. The preservation of 1,800 jobs cannot be sniffed at, nor can the property and other taxes generated. The question, however, is whether tax credits like this encourage companies to shop around, to see if they can find communities that are willing to bid down their tax liabilities to get companies like Honeywell to pick up and move and whether the benefits to the state offset the tax costs in the longrun.

New Jersey Policy Perspective has issued several reports on this, including this one on Citigroup in 2007 and this one on Jersey City tax abatements. The upshot, according to NJPP, is that these kind of incentives might be better reserved for small businesses and not tossed at multinationals.

From the executive summary of the Citigroup report:

An analysis of Citigroup's practices in four states--New York, New Jersey, Kentucky and Texas--suggests that the world's largest financial institution rarely makes a move without getting taxpayers to help foot the bill.

Using the threat of moving facilities and jobs elsewhere, Citigroup has repeatedly played state against state and locality against locality to attract at least $285.9 million in subsidies in just the four states.

STATE AND LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

SUBSIDIES TO CITIGROUP

1989-2007

STATE * AMOUNT

New York* $125.5 million

New Jersey $101.1 million

Kentucky* $46.7 million

Texas* $12.6 million

TOTAL * $285.9 million

Given that Citigroup operates in many states in the US and more than 100 other countries, these findings are in all likelihood just the tip of the iceberg.

In some cases, Citigroup sought special tax deals even though it was not pledging to create any new jobs. Worse, despite the company's claims at the time that the job subsidies were necessary or that they determined where the company ultimately decided to expand or relocate, our findings also suggest that business basics--such as a skilled work force, affordable housing, good transportation infrastructure and a modern telecommunications system--mattered far more in determining where Citigroup jobs went.1

Giving Citigroup such large subsidies is no guarantee the company will stay or that it will avoid layoffs. The latest proof of that came in April 2007 when the firm announced it will eliminate 17,000 positions worldwide. In that respect, Citigroup is a revealing case study in the perils of granting large, company-specific tax breaks.

Sometimes, Citigroup appears to have taken advantage of rivalry among states, exploiting the "prisoners' dilemma" dynamic to mislead one government that it is competing against another, when no rival offers actually have been made.

Finally, the idea that Citigroup "needed" the tax breaks is undermined by its willingness in the same years to spend lavishly on global acquisitions, baseball stadium naming rights and executive compensation. For those who argue that economic development incentives are best reserved for small businesses that truly lack access to adequate or affordable capital, Citigroup--with more than a trillion dollars in assets and more than $21 billion in profits last year--presents compelling evidence.

Admittedly, this is an incomplete picture, but what we have here does not paint a convincing picture that these kinds of tax breaks create economic growth -- which contradicts the conventional wisdom. At the least, it should offer ammunition to other entities to do a comprehensive study of tax incentives in the state.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Grassroots: Be bold, be progressive.

My Grassroots column, in The Progressive Populist, is up -- it's on the need to move the debate to the left.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Dispatches: Sacrificing green for green

Dispatches is on the trend away from environmental protection in New Jersey.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

More bad news

I know this is a big news story, but is it really a surprise to anyone? We know the state faces another massive shortfall, which made it fairly certain that no one would be seeing more state money come their way.

And yet, one has to wonder if there is some way this governor can find money for schools to keep districts from another round of teacher layoffs and to minimize tax increases.

The difficulty I have with the way in which Gov. Chris Christie has gone about his budgeting is that he has failed to engage the state in a discussion of priorities and instead has moved forward with his own conservative goals while allowing taxpayers to assume that he is only cutting waste.

I have no real sense that New Jerseyans understand that slashing aid to schools and towns means an equivalent slashing of services. Fewer teachers mean larger class sizes, while schools have had to resort to pay-to-play for sports and extracurricular activities, fewer elective courses and less building maintenance to offset their lost aid. Municipal governments face similar problems. (Imposing spending caps do little to address these problems, but certainly make the politicians feel good about themselves.)

Should the state increase income taxes on higher-income residents? What about corporations? What if the higher tax rate prevented cuts to health-care, AIDS and senior programs?

And what about consolidating municipal and school services and outright mergers of towns? The governor alludes to this idea, but has not forced it onto the agenda.

Part of the problem, of course, is the decaying status of the state's newspaper industry -- layoffs and cutbacks have forced a joint Statehouse bureau into existence, which has left both The Star-Ledger and Bergen Record unable to perform their watchdog functions with the same zeal as in the past.

We need to have these discussions; if we don't, we are just shooting in the dark, which makes it more likely that we will hit innocent bystanders.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Logical fallacy, an example to the extreme (right, that is)

Here is a response to my posting on the federal court ruling on the Arizona "Papers please" law:

You are obviously an idiot.
This is not about Fearing Mexican Nationals.

This is about National Security. I understand you on the left don't really give a flip about National Security and as long as you are affected by it, who gives a flip.

You on the left remind me of the Movie Independance Day, when the idiots climbed up atop the building to wowwy zowwy, zippy zappy the "ALIENS" and try to make nice with them. Right before they were vaporized.

There is nothing racist in the Arizona Bill. Sooner or later WE,THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE CARE OF A MESS THE GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO DEAL WITH.

First though November 2 and the draining of the swamp in D.C.

Is this what passes for debate these days? Name-calling? Tarring with a broad brush?

I am not opposed to a serious discussion of the Arizona law, including discussions of:

• how requiring the presentation of papers squares with the Bill of Rights,
• how the rights of legal immigrants and citizens will not be violated or should not be of concern,
• what impact the law will have on law enforcement,
• what the law actually will accomplish, and so on.

What we don't need are ugly screeds calling into question the patriotism of the law's critics.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Rational ruling on immigration

A federal judge has temporarily stopped the clock on Arizona's punitive immigration law, citing several sections that would impose unnecessary and unconstitutional burdens on both legal immigrants and citizens. The ruling does not end things and only moves the process a step closer to the Supreme Court.

That ultimate fate, unfortunately, still gives the xenophobes home-court advantage, given the conservative majority on the court. That makes it imperative that Congress and the president get serious about immigration reform and not wait.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Consequences: The unemployed, benefits and Republican recalcitrance

Republicans spent a number of months holding up basic benefits -- in the form of a much-needed extension -- for unemployed Americans. Their stated reason: The deficit.

The move was both heartless (longterm unemployment is reaching record levels) and foolish (aid to the unemployed gets cycled right back into the economy in the form of spending).

The question remains, however, will the GOP be made to pay for the political posturing. The pundit class doesn't think so, saying that anger will be focused on incumbents over the general state of the economy. There is some truth to this, though the generally terrible quality of GOP candidates is likely to save the jobs of some Democrats who should be joining the unemployed in seeking work.

There also is the very real possibility that unemployed Americans -- about 14.6 million at the moment, not including the millions who are under-employed -- will remember the way they were treated by the GOP and the distortions tossed into the political dialogue by people like Sharron Angle and others.

That's the point of this story from The Washington Independent, which explains how comments by Paul, Angle and others "began reverberating in what might be termed the unemployed netroots — a system of highly trafficked, influential blogs and sites connecting the jobless and updating them, often in minute detail, about ins and outs of Congress’ work on unemployment issues."

During the eight month battle to extend unemployment insurance, with the unemployment rate peaking over 10 percent, huge online networks of the unemployed came into fruition. Now, coming into the fall and the midterms, King and other grassroots organizers for the unemployed are hooking up with formal organizing groups to add institutional oomph to the effort. They say they do not want to let the long battle for simple extensions go to waste.


Already, a number of unions and other organizations have created dedicated working groups or online organizations for the jobless. Last year, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union, founded the Ur Union of Unemployed, or U-Cubed, for jobless workers. Additionally, the AFL-CIO’s Working America affiliate has launched Unemployment Lifeline, an online site to rally and organize the unemployed.

Working America is “the biggest organization for the unemployed,” according to spokesman Robert Fox. By the union’s own count, 500,000 of its 3.2 million members are currently jobless, and the group is going door-to-door, recruiting more members from the ranks of the unemployed.

“We spend most of our time demanding the reform of banks, demanding good jobs, and trying to make sure that there’s investment being made in our communities,” says Fox. But come this fall, “We’re going to be engaging our members fully, making sure they’re aware of which candidates to support.”

“We have the ability to make sure a lot of unemployed folks know where politicians stand, who is voting against making investments in jobs, who needs to hear from unemployed workers and who needs to hear from them twice,” he says.

So, who is correct? Will the new fervor bubbling up below the pundits' radar alter the accepted narrative being spun by Washington? I'm not going to predict.

But I know what outcome I'm rooting for.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Memo to Christie: Enough is enough

At what point does the governor's attacks against the state's teachers union become seen for the petty, vengeful and unseemly vendetta that they are? After all, Gov. Christie rarely misses an opportunity to slam the NJEA -- as he did yesterday.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Public education in decline

Just came across this commentary by Diane Ravitch on public education. It goes to a column I wrote last month on the topic.



We've done a remarkable amount of damage to public education in recent years, because we insist on elevating tests and degrading our teachers. It is a shame and we will pay dearly for it in the future.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The war grinds on

The hope that yesterday's release of thousands of documents on the Afghanistan war, documents that cast our misguided effort there into much starker relief than before, would alter policy proved very quickly to be baseless. Congress voted, as it has since the beginning of the war, to approve supplemental war funding, ensuring that the war will continue.

The revelations in the Wikileaks papers -- described briefly here and here by The New York Times -- should have been as damaging as those contained in the Pentagon Papers If documents describing a corrupt Pakistani intelligence service that had ties to the Taliban, failures on the ground and a sketchy rationale behind the war did not temper Congress and the administration's commitment to the war, then I'm not sure what can.

At least Rush Holt, Frank Pallone and Donald Payne voted against the supplemental -- but what about the other 10 members of the Congressional delegation?

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

More evidence on big banks' greed

A special master appointed by the Obama administration says 17 banks handed out "excess compensation" at a time they were receiving bailout money to keep their firms afloat. Translation: Taxpayer money paid executives at failing firms for their failures. Beautiful.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Cut the Pentagon budget

I'm thinking the Pentagon budget needs more than a trim. How about a full-on buzz cut?

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

NJ's economic funk

Gov. Chris Christie was elected promising a rebirth of the state's economy, a promise it was clear he couldn't keep given the structural changes that have helped to gut the state's private-sector workforce over the last couple of decades.

According to the Federal Reserve, "a slow jobs recovery and a shrinking manufacturing sector mean the Garden State, which entered the recession six months before the rest of the nation in June 2007, could also be one of the last to emerge."

"Economic conditions in New Jersey remain essentially flat," William Dudley, the Fed’s president and CEO, said during a quarterly press briefing on New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. "Although activity there is no longer declining, New Jersey has yet to establish a sustained recovery."

Dudley cited several key issues facing the state -- consolidation in the pharmacutical industry and a dying manufacturing sector -- that will make it difficult for New Jersey to rebound. What he did not say was that the state was particularly hard hit by the Wall Street crisis, which dried up credit and stalled the housing boom here and also resulted in a chunk of jobs being eliminated both in Hudson County, where financial firms had started settling following 9/11, and in Manhattan, which affected New Jersey commuters.

The governor has blamed the state's faltering economy on high taxes and red tape, but it is not all clear that tax reform and deregulation will keep companies in New Jersey or attract new ones -- especially if services and infrastructure in the state continue to decline.

In the past, the state could point with pride to its roads, but over the last decade-plus, they have fallen into disrepair, as have the state's bridges and rail network. Schools remain our jewel, at least those in the suburbs, but the assault by the governor on teachers and the uncalled for cuts in state aid for education are likely to create a downward death spiral there, as well.

Fed economists added another factor to the state's economic woes: "weak job growth in the public sector" (i.e., police officers, teachers, environmental regulators, etc.). Gov. Jon Corzine cut 7,000 jobs from the state payrolls; Gov. Christie has doubled down on that, and is pushing through reforms that have forced and will continue to force local governments to slash jobs, as well.

Reducing the number of public employees may make over-taxed residents happy and could have some short-term fiscal impacts (i.e., balancing local budgets), but it does nothing to aid in the state's economic recovery. Adding thousands of formerly employed people to the unemployment rolls means that there will be less money being spent by New Jerseyans on consumer goods and services, ultimately spreaading the economic pain beyond that felt by ex-teachers and firefighters.

This is not Christie's fault and, in many ways, it is not Corzine's fault either. We have been undergoing an economic restructuring for years that was hidden from view by stock-market and housing bubbles, regulatory changes and a belief that we could live on our credit cards without consequence. As this was happening, governors and legislators of both parties ignored the consequences of their own profligacy, kept spending like drunken sailors and used an assortment of accounting tricks to avoid asking taxpayers to pay the bill that was being rung up.

Now that the bill has come due, we find out we are broke and have no prospect of raising the needed cash to make the payments.

If New Jersey was a household, the bank would be foreclosing.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Holt urges Warren nomination

Here is the letter U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, who represents South Brunswick and several other municipalities in Central Jersey, wrote to President Barack Obama urging him to nominate Elizabeth Warren as the head of the new consumer financial watch dog agency:

Dear Mr. President,

We are writing to ask that you nominate Dr. Elizabeth Warren as Director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

A consumer financial protection body was Dr. Warren’s idea, first expressed in a journal article in 2007, and we can think of no better person to be its first Director. As a professor at Harvard Law School since 1982, she has risen to national prominence in the area of economics of the middle class. Even before the financial crisis, Professor Warren was warning of risky financial products and of lenders who “deliberately built tricks and traps into some credit products so they can ensnare families in a cycle of high-cost debt.” As Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel she has been an essential voice of reason in the wake of the financial crisis-- and an ardent supporter of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

In her original conception, Dr. Warren modeled the Consumer Finance Protection body after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, describing the main functions of the agency “to establish guidelines for consumer disclosure, collect and report data about the uses of different financial products, review new financial products for safety, and require modification of dangerous products before they can be marketed to the public.” She foresaw the new Bureau as being able to evaluate these products to eliminate the gimmicks that made some far more dangerous than others.

At a time when the nation is still coping with the aftermath of a decade of a hands-off regulatory approach that brought the nation the worst financial crisis in three generations, with mortgage foreclosures still occurring at a rate of one million a year, with nearly one in five Americans either unemployed, under-employed, or who have given up looking for work altogether (while still trying to cope with a mountain of consumer debt), we need a CFPB Director who truly understands the burden that American families are coping with today, and the mission of this new body.

Dr. Warren is simply the perfect choice for that post. We hope you will act quickly to appoint her as its Director.

He's right.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Public ownership of dog park a bad idea

As anyone who has read this blog knows by now, I am a dog owner and a dog lover. I have two crazy mutts -- Rosie and Sophie -- and have had dogs for about 25 years. They are like family.

I also think dog parks can be great for some dog owners (my dogs, however, might not do so well -- Rosie is not very friendly to other dogs).

This brings me to South Brunswick's proposed purchase of a private dog park in the Little Rocky Hill section of town. The plan, which gets a final vote on Tuesday, calls for the council to

purchase the privately owned Rocky Top Dog Park, 4106 Route 27, for $360,000, which would come out of the open space fund.


”The plan is to try and generate revenue so the park pays for itself with maintenance, but also to replenish the Open Space Trust Fund,” said Ron Schmalz, public affairs coordinator.

The 5.75-acre dog park currently generates between $60,000 to $90,000 in revenue each year, Mr. Schmalz said.

The plan appears to have majority support -- only Republican John O'Sullivan voted against it -- because council members view it as a revenue-generator that would increase the money available for future open space purchases.

But, as Frank Chrinko, a former member of the Township Committee and a longtime gadfly in town, writes in this letter, it is a dangerous gamble and "does not meet the test of an essential municipal function."

And that seems key to me. I am not a small-goverment conservative. I believe government has a role in providing for our well-being, and I don't see how getting into the dog park business does this. This is the kind of spending we should be targeting -- as with the governor's proposal on the horse-racing industry. A dog park is not essential any more than state-subsidized horse racing or a sports stadium.

Let a private firm buy Rocky Top if it wants.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Hire watch dog for watch-dog agency

Good piece from ABC News on Elizabeth Warren and the Obama administration (via a heads-up from David Sirota on his Facebook page). Warren is an outsider in Washington and concerned only with the consumers that the agency progressives are pushing her to lead was set up to protect. And she's disliked by the bankers, which in my book is one hell of an endorsement.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

NJ not so green these days

New Jersey had been one of the greener states. But with the economy mired in recession, the state's legislators have retreated from their strong defense of environmental planning and rules.

The result is a somewhat less-than-stellar report card from Environment New Jersey, a green advocacy group. From the Associated Press:

A new report gives New Jersey lawmakers poor marks as stewards of the environment.

Environment New Jersey's biannual report shows the average state legislator's score dipped to 55 percent, a drop of 20 percent from the prior report.

The group released scorecards today for the state Senate and Assembly, ranking eight environmental votes.

Four lawmakers — Sens. Bob Smith and Shirley Turner and Assembly members Linda Greenstein and Peter Barnes — achieved perfect scores. Four others — Assembly members Alison McHose, Gary Chiusano, Jay Webber and now-retired Rick Merkt — scored zeros.

Environment New Jersey ranked votes on solar energy, development and energy savings bills.

More to come on this when I get a copy of the report card.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Sherrod controversy in context: The uses of racism by the right

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow last night offered the best summary of the larger meaning of the Shirley Sherrod controversy -- one that demonstrates how it is part of a larger narrative the GOP has been using since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the fleeing of southern whites from the Democratic Party.

There are a number of interesting things that could be said -- about Fox News' bias and its infection of the mainstream media, about the weakness of national reporting, the ease with which black women continue to be scapegoated and the capitulation of the Obama administration to Washington's consensus narrative -- but the Maddow point, that the GOP is using lingering white fear of black advancement to fan the flames of resentment in the hopes of recreating the Nixonian southern strategy, is perhaps the most important. I'll let her explanation stand on its own.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

New poem at The Subterranean

My latest revision of "Villanelle for Minnie Imber" is on my poetry site, The Subterranean.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

'Gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth'

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact

But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
-- Bruce Springsteen, "Atlantic City"

I mentioned this yesterday, but I want to expand a bit on it. The governor is proposing a long overdue overhaul of the state's gaming and sports bureaucracy, but one that may not go nearly far enough.

Here is what the Ledger has reported about the plan:

Among the recommendations contained in the report, which was reviewed by the newspaper:

• The state would seek to transform Atlantic City into a convention and family friendly resort, including a major expansion of the boardwalk that would include amusement rides. The entertainment areas would be placed under the control of a new state authority, essentially turning it into an independent city within a city.

• Money from the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, now shared throughout the state, would stay in Atlantic City for projects and improvements there.

• The Meadowlands Racetrack could be sold for a token $1, or turned into an off-track wagering facility without live horse racing.

• The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority would be all but disbanded, becoming simply a landlord for the facilities it now operates. The Izod Center arena in the Meadowlands could be privatized or sold.

• The state would help re-finance the long-stalled Xanadu project in the Meadowlands, enabling a new developer to take control of the garish, high-visibility retail and entertainment complex alongside the New Jersey Turnpike that many consider an embarrassment.

The dysfunction that has crippled these interlocked industries has to be addressed and I think that the governor is right to move forward with a complete restructuring. The question is whether the plan goes far enough toward disengaging the state from industries that should be private.

I would argue that the state should get out of the stadium building and leasing business altogether, get out of the management of racetracks and sell the businesses and properties to private hands during an open bidding process. The state should then create a set of stringent regulations covering both at-track and off-track betting. As part of the move, the state should make it clear that there will be no subsidies in the future for tracks, football teams and concerts and that the businesses will have to pay their way, including the overtime that might be due to police as a result of a major event.

Entertainment, afterall, is not the kind of service government needs to provide. Goverment's role is to assist those who need help, to protect the citizenry (with police and environmental, safety, consumer and health watchdogs) and to provide services and facilities that are needed by society as a whole (such as roads, schools, health centers -- which we should provide, but don't).

The government's job should not include construction of a massive football stadium that will be used by two teams and for some college games. Leave that to the private sector.

Atlantic City poses a different set of issues, given the way in which it was created as a gaming town (via statewide referendum) and the need for heavy regulation. The governor's proposal -- to take over the gaming districts and impose a new vision on them -- seems to make sense. The city needs to be more than a gambling destination -- as things stand now, the casinos are designed to keep you from wanting to go outside, the beach and boardwalk are not very accessible and the outlet shopping near the casino district is no different than outlet shopping anywhere else, except for the lower sales tax.

The casino experiment in New Jersey has gone on for a long time, but it cannot be called a success. Atlantic City remains a depressed city and has been losing out ot other areas for years. It is not a resort destination, by any stretch of the imagination and stands as one of the least interesting Shore towns in the state.

It's time to change things.

As Mark Di Ionno points out today, the sports and entertainment industries are "a billionaire’s game these days, not something taxpayers should shoulder."

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Dispatches: Blaming Peter to pay Paul

This week's Dispatches column is on the pension mess and why it's not state workers' fault.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Call it an interesting bet

A potential overhaul of the state's gaming industries could be in the offing -- and, given how badly Atlantic City and the state's tracks are ailing, could be provide a bit of medicine and maybe correct things.

It's early, but it's worth watching.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The way Washington works

Everyone should read Christopher Hayes' piece at The Nation. The deficit, he points out, has grown from three economic facts: our two unnecessary wars, thge Bush tax cuts and the recession. End the first and let the second expire and we're long on the way to addressing the debt and deficit crisi.

That said, Hayes makes it clear that we are working against a dangerous rhetorical tide:

The conversation—if it can be called that—about deficits recalls the national conversation about war in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. From one day to the next, what was once accepted by the establishment as tolerable—Saddam Hussein—became intolerable, a crisis of such pressing urgency that "serious people" were required to present their ideas about how to deal with it. Once the burden of proof shifted from those who favored war to those who opposed it, the argument was lost.


We are poised on the same tipping point with regard to the debt. Amid official unemployment of 9.5 percent and a global contraction, we shouldn't even be talking about deficits in the short run. Yet these days, entrance into the club of the "serious" requires not a plan for reducing unemployment but a plan to do battle with the invisible and as yet unmaterialized international bond traders preparing an attack on the dollar.

What Hayes is describing is the way of Washington, the way that the conventional wisdom dictates all narratives and pushes inconvenient facts out.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Hot funk in Charlotte

As we walked through Charlotte's downtown -- called Uptown -- we were serenaded by this local band of street musicians. They packed some pop. Unfortunately, I didn't get the band's name.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Grassroots: The savior trap

Grassroots, my Progressive Populist column, is on the failure of the left to act independently of Obama.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Dispatches: 'Irrational prejudice'

This week's Dispatches is on the most recent court ruling on same-sex marriage.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Explorations 1

We're wandering the Uptown section of Charlotte, near the basketball arena. What a nice looking city.

Light blogging, but you knew that

I've been on vacation, touring a bit of the South, and have only had spotty access to the Internet. Blogging has been light and likely will remain so until Monday. I'm in the Charlotte area now for a few days and hope to get a few more posts us. We'll see.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

An unemployment debate in a vacuum

Buried in this story on the impasse over the extension of jobless benefits is a nugget about a misleading study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco -- a citation that lacks anything in the way of context or explanation:

Economists worry that months of jobless benefits discourage workers from finding work. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco calculated this year that extended jobless benefits kept the unemployment rate about 0.4 percentage points higher than it otherwise would have been — a figure that translates into more than 600,000 extra people on the unemployment rolls. Still, they called the impact "relatively modest."

The question this should raise is how did the Fed arrive at this figure? What were the assumptions used and how were the numbers crunched? Without knowing these things, it is hard to know what to make of such a finding.

The other issue I have with the use of this statistic is that it comes within a story that lacks any discussion of the actual jobs picture. We know that people are out of work -- USA Today quotes them -- but the paper fails to give us a sense of the actual job market. How many applicants are there for each job opening? How many new jobs have been created? How does that match with the number of people who are in the workforce?

It's painful that the unemployment discussion always seems to move forward in this kind of vacuum.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Watching the ocean settles the soul

It's a beautiful day on the North Carolina beaches, onthis first full day of vacation.

The shifting, swelling and receding waves, a rhythm settling the internal clock.

I love the beach, wish the crazy housing market would allow for us to at least rent a small bungalow on the Jersey Shore for the week or two (let alone buy something), but it's too expensive so we settle for these long trips that are just too short. (This will be our only beach day, alas.)

Let voters decide in West Virginia

Democratic partisans may not like this -- West Virginians going to the polls in November to replace the recently deceased Robert Byrd in the U.S. Senate -- but it is only fair to ask voters who they want sitting in the Senate. Governors should not get the chance to appoint Senators, even on a temporary basis. Special elections to fill vacancies should be the rule.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Hiding in plain sight

LeBron James is heading to Miami to create what Harvey Araton in The New York Times calls the Evil Empire in South Beach or Miami in pinstripes, a corporate-behemoth masquerading as a sports franchise (which, in reality, underplays the reality of sports as industry).

Who outside of South Florida wants to root for Miami after the way James walked out on Cleveland and his home territory of northern Ohio in a mercenary reach for championship rings? On the other hand, who won’t want to see the fledgling super team take a big fall?

Araton reminds us that James not only left Cleveland, his hometown team, and followed the easy money to title town (or, that's how this grouping of expensive superstars is being portrayed so far), where he will play, as Dave Zirin points out, A-Rod to Dwayne Wade's Jeter (the Heat will always be Wade's team). In doing so, he forgoes the opportunity to create his own championship legacy (winning a title in Cleveland with long downtrodden Cavs -- or even with the Knicks or historically lowly Nets -- would have been truly Jordanesque). Instead, a Heat title will be greeted the same way a Laker title is, or a Yankee title, as expected, no big deal, etc.

Wade brought Miami a championship in 2003. Wade would have the ball in his hands for many of the offensive sets. Wade would on some nights be the best player on the court. This is Lebron hiding in Miami. It’s the act of someone who doesn’t think he can create his own legacy, but has to ride on someone else’s. Wade would be Jeter, and Lebron would be A-Rod. It’s the worst possible choice because it immediately puts a cap on James’s career and mind-bending potential.

That's what James is missing here, I think, is that should the Heat fail to win or win often enough, he will be the guy to take the blame; if they win, it will be Wade's victory or a team victory (see A-Rod in New York). It truly is a no-win situation from a basketball standpoint, both for James and for the fans.

***

I should add something to yesterday's post on the same subject regarding the NBA pantheon. I left Bill Russell of my list, an purposeful oversight, though not because I doubt his greatness. I just didn't see him. He, and Bob Cousy and the Big O, and a few others, belong on any list of the the greatest of greats.

My point was that James, if he were to choose Miami, would be viewed as buying his title in a way that the other greats did not (Shaq chased the big payday; the title was never viewed as guaranteed as this still-to-be-won title already has been).

Here is a list of some of the other greats that I left off my list. Feel free to add yours in the comment section: Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettite, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier, Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld, Earl Monroe, Dr. J, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and John Stockton, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Moses Malone, Bernard King, Bob Pettite, George Mikan.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

A small victory over DOMA

Buried amid the hoopla surrounding that basketball player heading to Miami is this story, a court ruling overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act:

In the case brought by Attorney General Martha Coakley, Judge Tauro found that the 1996 law, known as the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, compels Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens in order to receive federal money for certain programs.

The other case, brought by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, focused more narrowly on equal protection as applied to a handful of federal benefits. In that case, Judge Tauro agreed that the federal law violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution by denying benefits to one class of married couples — gay men and lesbians — but not others.

Neither suit challenged a separate provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that says states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. But if the cases make their way to the Supreme Court and are upheld, gay and lesbian couples in states that recognize same-sex marriage will be eligible for federal benefits that are now granted only to heterosexual married couples.

“This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status,” Judge Tauro wrote in the case brought by Ms. Coakley. “The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state.”

The court added:

In the Coakley case, the judge held that that federal restrictions on funding for states that recognize same-sex marriage violates the 10th Amendment, the part of the Constitution that declares that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government, or denied to the states, belong to the states.

There are scholars -- including some who support same-sex marriage -- who think the ruling will be overturned when it hits the Supreme Court and not because the court has moved to the right.

“What an amazing set of opinions,” said Jack M. Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School. “No chance they’ll be held up on appeal.”

Professor Balkin, who supports the right to same-sex marriage, said the opinions ignored the federal government’s longstanding involvement in marriage issues in areas like welfare, tax policy, health care, Social Security and more. The opinion in the advocacy group’s case applies the Constitution to marriage rights, he said, undercutting the notion that the marriage is not a federal concern.

"These two opinions are at war with themselves,” he said.

The arguments concerning the 10th Amendment and the spending clause, if upheld, would “take down a wide swath of programs — you can’t even list the number of programs that would be affected,” he said.

By citing the 10th Amendment and making what is essentially a states’ rights argument, Professor Balkin said Judge Tauro was “attempting to hoist conservatives by their own petard, by saying: ‘You like the 10th Amendment? I’ll give you the 10th Amendment! I’ll strike down DOMA!’ ”

I hope he's wrong. But in the meantime, the ruling may have created an opening through which same-sex marriage supporters can slide to win the day.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Consider your legacy, LeBron

Professional sports reporting makes the televised pundit class look like the paragons of journalist professionalism. The kind of loosely sourced stories that pass for reporting on sports sites just would not fly at a reputable paper.

That said, ESPN is reporting that LeBron is heading to the Heat -- a sorry conclusion to a free-agent summer that looked so promising.

I say this not as a Knicks fan, but as a basketball fan and as an admirer of King James. James in a Knicks' uniform has always been my preference, even though I knew the chances that he'd end up in the Garden were far slimmer than any of us would admit.

The issue here is legacy. Which team offers James the best chance to create a legacy that rises to the level of Michael Jordan or even Kobe Bryant? Putting the question that way, of course, implies the answer: Jordan was drafted by the Bulls and was responsible for carrying the team across the finish line to six titles. Jordan had his wingman -- Scottie Pippen -- and a cast of solid role players. He was a Bull, through and through.

Kobe is in that rarified air now, with five titles with the only team he's played for. His supporting cast, like Jordan's, has included a hall-of-famer (Shaq) and a few top-notch talents (Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, etc.). Kobe was the 1A player on the first set of titles and has been A no. 1 during the last two -- bu the key is that Kobe did not leave LA in search of an all-star squad on which to play.

James, if he signs with Miami, will look like little more than a mercenary (in a way that signing with the Bulls or Knicks would not), because it seem he took the path of least resistance to a title. There is not a team in the Eastern Conference with the same level of talent -- Miami would have the top shooting guard and small forward in the conference and one of the two or three best power forwards. The team would become the prohibitive favorite to win the conference and probably the favorite to unseat the Lakers.

This brings me to the second part of the James legacy. Aside from the mercenary label he'd be forced to wear, James would move into Patrick Ewing territory. James, ultimately, will be judged based on the number of titles he wins -- as Ewing has been, which is why many people rate him behind David Robinson, though Ewing was the better center. A James-Wade-Bosh troika, however, would raise the bar beyond needing a handful of titles to Bill Russell's Celtics territory -- a trio of relatively young stars in their prime would be expected to run off a long string of titles, to dominate in a way that only a couple of teams have in the league's history.

Expectations, therefore, would determine his legacy to a greater degree than they do now, creating built-in disappointment. (To understand this, by the way, consider the reaction to his mediocre play against the Celtics in the conference finals this year; square that criticism and it doesn't begin to approach what he'll be subjected to.)

If he were to win a couple of titles in Cleveland, his legacy would solidified his placement among the true pantheon of super greats (Jordan, Magic, Bird, Chamberlain, Jabbar, Shaq, Kobe, Tim Duncan).

I'd still ove to see him in a Knicks' uniform (yes, hypocrisy), but Cleveland is where he belongs.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Thoughts on public education and the scapegoating of teachers

Ann Sisko, my former sixth-grade teacher, passes along an important essay from Rethinking Schools magazine that follows up on some of the themes I touched on a few weeks ago in my Dispatches column, i.e., that the school reform movement is pushing public education off a cliff, that public schools and public school teachers have been devalued and that the accountability movement is taking us back to a less effective time of rote learning.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Dispatches: Just another budget gimmick

This week's Dispatches offers a critique of the new state budget cap.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Stoudamire a good signing, but only first step

There's been a lot of talk about David Lee being a cheaper alternative to Amare Stoudamire for the Knicks and he will prove to be cheaper. But Lee, even though his numbers were comparable this year to Stoudamire's, is not Stoudamire.

 

I say this as a big David Lee fan who is disappointed the team could not bring him back.

 

But consider a couple of things:

• Lee played on a bad team and it has long been a truism in the NBA that you should not trust good players from bad teams. Basically, someone has to score and someone has to rebound. In the absence of other players, that often falls to someone whose reputation grows disproportionate to their actual talent. Lee is a solid player, a good player with a nice mid-range jumper and solid passing skills. He's willing to do the dirty work. He's a modern Charles Oakley, in that respect. Stoudamire, however, is a rock star who was the prime scorer on a team that fell a couple of games short of the finals.
• Stoudamire gets to the foul line about twice as often as Lee. That is something not to be undervalued. The Knicks, as a whole, were woeful in that regard, demonstrating a lack of aggressiveness that no one can accuse Stoudamire of displaying.
• Stoudamire has a history of injuries, though he played all 82 regular season games and all 16 post-season games, getting to the line an average of about nine times a game.
• My issue with Stoudamire is on the defensive end and the glass, where he puts up far weaker numbers tahn I'd like, while Lee is a rugger rebounder and pretty good defender.
• There also is just five months separating them -- Stoudamire will turn 28 early in teh 2010-2011 season, while Lee will hit 28 in April.

 As for the other two major power forwards out there: Chris Bosh has the potential to be a better version of Stoudamire, but he remains a lesser player (see comment on good player/bad team), while Carlos Boozer is a throw-back power forward who will get star money though he should not be the go-to guy on your squad.

 

I like the Stoudamire signing, but I'm not sure it gets the Knicks that much farther down the road.

 

Reeling in LeBron James, on the other hand....

 

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Hotter than hot

This the temperature recorded by my car's thermometer at 11:17 a.m. Need I say more?

I hope the AC is working at the office.

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

Poem: Whistles

WHISTLES
by Hank Kalet

we’re blowing dog whistles in a city full of cats
chanting cat calls in an empty theater
screaming out the names of the dead in the dead of the night
in the silence before dawn
in the empty spaces between thoughts.
Language fails
as steam rises from coffee cups,
winter morning outside where
the itinerant immigrants
mass for work waiting
for a pickup, a van,
a job, fails
as the wind keens high-pitched
and cold, as the light
breaks open the dawn,
the last birds circling
like the steam from the drier vent rising
and dissipating
like the families of the children
in Haiti sent
into “domestic servitude”
by parents who cannot afford to care for them” –
poverty so bad I just can’t imagine,
sitting here with the TV on
and the dogs asleep on the couch,
so bad it doesn’t even show
in the junk mail
asking for cash,
or break through the noise
that passes for news.

Notes:
• Line 1: from a Readings item called “Paper Jam,” from Harper’s Magazine, February 2007
• Lines 19-22: Associated Press story by Evens Sanon, Dec. 22, 2009

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Breaking news: Elites angry that Obama not aggressively procorporate enough

What a strange story. The Daily Beast is reporting on a supposed trend among the intelligensia -- a turning away from Obama by the "elites." Look closely at the list of sources in the story and you'll discover an interesting commonality: Aside from Ariana Huffington, all of the "elites" mentioned are center-right or right-wing in their economic outlook, deficit hawks who view social programs as creating "negative incentives." This may be Barack Obama's natural habitat, but it also is a collection of people who a) are more concerned with protecting capital than with the well-being of average, working people, b) view workers as raw materials, no different than steel or plastic, and c) have been consistently wrong about the economic twists and turns that ultimately resulted in the current deep funk. They didn't just miss the housing bubble -- and the tech bubble before it -- but actively dismissed any notion that housing prices were unsustainable.

My hope would be that Obama will take this abandonment by his base and move in a more progressive direction; it is a pipe dream, of course.

The reality is that the president is a "centrist," which in mainstream political parlance means he follows the conventional wisdom expressed by television talking heads and the editorial page of The Washington Post. Rather than crack down on our corporate overlords, smash the military-industrial and prison-industrial complexes, end our foreign adventures and make major investments in green infrastructure (our needs dwarf the money he has committed so far) and job creation, he is talking about the deficit and entitlement reform.

Should we have expected anything different? No. The signs have always been there, explained clearly in his book The Audacity of Hope and in his legislative career. His conflation of the concepts of partisanism and ideology/philosophy, his near-religious commitment to conciliatory bipartisanship, his appointments down the line -- not just Lawrence Summers, Ken Salazar, Tim Geithner and others, but his retention of Robert Gates and Ben Bernanke -- and his freezing out from the health-care debate of single-payer advocates were all indications that hope and change were going to be little more than slogans.

Obama, like Clinton before him, has quieted liberals, while continuing the corporate project that has been underway in the United States since World War II and the smashing of any real labor-left in this country.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Do as I say, not as I do

This is not necessarily a bad plan -- refinancing transportation debt to raise some short-term cash for the next year, to get needed projects going and create some jobs -- but isn't it exactly what Corzine did two years ago? Didn't the Republicans blast him for doing it? I'm waiting to hear the Christie administration explain how this is not a budget gimmick.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Grassroots: Setting an Example

Grassroots, my regular column in The Progressive Populist, is on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Unintended consequences

Fear can cause rash decisions. This story pits the scientific community concerned that potential response to the Gulf oil spill will create unforseen consequences against local officials who want something done and done quickly. Personally, I think it would be foolish, even with the oil approaching the coast, to cut the scientific community out of the loop.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Patriotism is the last refuge

I posted this quote (by me, by the way) to my Twitter feed before and received some surprisingly positive feedback. It pretty much sums up my thinking on today:

It's a fine line between respect for your homeland's ideals and unthinking patriotism. Our nation was born in dissent, not thoughtless nationalism.

I should add this from Matthew Rothschild's commentary from Friday:

Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism.

And patriotism is but the father of nationalism.

Patriotism is not something to play with. It’s highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties.

It gulls people into believing their leaders.

It masks those who benefit most from state policy.

And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation.

Plus, it’s a war toy, wheeled out whenever a leader needs to improve his ratings by attacking some other country—often after invoking God’s name, too.

It’s been so since the Spanish-American War and World War I and right up through the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War.

American patriotism has also gotten in the way of solving global warming. Many in the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world’s resources but has just 4 percent of the world’s population, believe we have the God-given right to use up all the resources we can. And there is an all-too-common attitude that we don’t need to listen to any other countries, or the U.N., or obey any international agreements because we’re Americans, and we’re better than everybody else.

We’ve got to get over patriotism, and we’ve got to cure the American superiority complex.

That would be a great way to show our independence.

Happy 4th.

(Image is from Museum of Modern Art Web site, Jasper Johns retrospective.)

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Doggie diaries: The story of Rose and Sophie

It's been a hot a July 4, so the dogs have been enjoying their pool. And now a little rest.

Rockets' red glare and all that

The fireworks show in South Brunswick was as good a show as I've seen in a long time, and it offered a great closing to a nice community event designed to bring people in town together.

What was nice, I think, was that the event had nothing to do with the kind of marshal nonsense that tends to characterize these things, the gaudy, overbearing patriotism and flag-waving that always makes me a bit queazy.

We got there late, but my brother and his friends were there and set up near the front. We grabbed some food and I had a chance to talk to Councilman Joe Camarota, who was the primary organizer. He was marveling at the crowd and rightly pleased with the response from the community. Volunteer groups and businesses jumped in when the town opted not to fund the display (the right choice in these budgetary times) and the result was something more and better than it otherwise might have been.

(Before anyone jumps in to say this is proof the private sector can do things better than the government, I need to point out that the fireworks festival is not a necessity and should be handled privately, unlike fire and police, medical care and many other things.)

Camarota says he's hoping to kick the whole thing off with a parade next year. If tonight's event was any indication, I'm sure he'll make it happen. And I'm looking forward to it already.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Tax cap still a bad idea

The governor spoke before a joint-session of the state Legislature today and reiterated his desire to see a constitutional amendment be placed on the ballot that would limit tax increases to 2.5 percent -- or, barring that, a state law that would do the same.

Gov. Chris Christie calls it tax relief, but it really is nothing more than an abrogation of executive and legislative responsibilities and an admission of failure.

Property taxes have been and continue to rise in New Jersey, driven upward by a mix of bad policy and the high cost of health insurance. The bad policy part -- a belief that we could avoid making hard decisions without paying the cost of those decisions, cannot be addressed by a cap; rather, it takes one of the decisions out of the hands of the people we've elected and sent to Trenton -- or that we have sent to town hall.

The problem in New Jersey is not just out-of-control spending. A good chunk of the money the state spends is on programs its citizens want: Good schools, police officers, open space, etc. The problem is that the state government has ignored the revenue side of the ledger for years, preferring to offset rising costs with one-shot gimmicks and magical sleight-of-hands that delayed the day of reckoning.

For 15 years, for instance, governor after governor has shorted the state pension fund, which reduced expenditures in the short-term, but shorted the fund for the longhaul.

We have sold roads from one the state to the Turnpike Authority, borrowed agagainst a settlement with the tobacco industry, and so on until we had run out of shell games to play.

All the while, property taxes continued to rise, angering taxpayers and leaving the state in the lurch.

The governor's response has not been to put the state on sound fiscal footing, though he has talked as if that is his goal. His budget is balanced using an assortment of tricks -- pension shortfall, anyone? -- that are no different than those used by his predecessors. And now he wants to enact the biggest gimmick of all, an artificial cap that removes all fiscal flexibility from elected officials. That sounds good now but, as the folks in California and Colorado and elsewhere are finding out, it is going to come back to bite us hard on the ass in the future.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Headline faux pas

I'm not sure about today's headline from Page 1 of the Star-Ledger:

Christie
pressures
Dems on
tax relief

Calling it relief in the headline seems a bit biased. Shouldn't we just call it reform?

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Financial reform is impressive, but full of leaks

Russ Feingold, the senator from Wisconsin, sums up the failure of financial regulatory reform, unmasking the claim that we have witnessed the greatest overhaul of the system since the Great Depression. It may be the most far-reaching reform, but that's only because all we've done since World War II is back track from the New Deal.

It would be a huge mistake to pass a bill that purports to re-regulate the financial industry but is simply too weak to protect people from the recklessness of Wall Street. That would be like building an impressive-looking dam without telling everyone that it has a few leaks in it. False security is no security at all.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.