Working Hard or Hardly Working?

 

Our state legislators have been belly-aching for a raise for awhile now, and they’ll probably give themselves one before current session ends. The poor dears have to get by on a mere $90,000 on average for a whopping 63 days of work each year. They also get an additional $154 per diem when they are in session, plus generous pension and inusrance plans. And almost all of them have outside employment.

Nevermind that the state is looking at a $4.4 billion deficit this year. These folks need a raise bad. Sheldon Silver is seeking around a 20% increase, and Eliot Spitzer says he’s inclined to go along.

Here’s a breakdown of the legislature’s workload for February (via NYPIRG and Albany Watch):

Assembly
Total time in session: 15 hours, 3 minutes
Total bills passed: 149*
Average time spent debating each bill: 6 minutes, 4 seconds
Total session days: 8**

Senate
Total time in session: 4 hours, 16 minutes
Total bills passed: 101
Average time spent debating each bill: 2 minutes, 32 seconds*
Total session days: 9

*This does not factor in session time spent passing resolutions, introducing constituents in the audience, confirming appointments, or tending to other miscellaneous business.  The actual time spent debating each bill is significantly lower.

**The Assembly did not convene on Super Tuesday, which is why they have one less session day than the Senate.

I suppose we should count our blessings. They could be up there spending our money and passing dumb laws full-time.

The Libertarian Party’s Response to the State of the Union Address

The following is a response by Libertarian Party National Chairman William Redpath

Washington, D.C. - Following President Bush’s annual State of the Union Address, the Libertarian Party issued their response from National Chairman William Redpath:

Tonight’s State of the Union address went much as expected.  Instead of calling for a more limited role of the federal government in American society, the President laid out plans that would only increase the government’s intervention into the realm of economics, health care, education and foreign policy.  It is unfortunate to see that after seven years of increasing the size of government and increasing the government’s presence in the day to day lives of all Americans, the President refuses to limit the scope of the federal government, a once championed virtue of the President’s party.  The President’s last State of the Union address encapsulated his legacy of an abandonment of the principles of limited government and individual freedom.

The Redistribution of Debt

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s a saying as old as history, and just as toxic. It’s misled millions to believe they’re doomed to poverty and that wealth is just an elusive dream for a select few. But the 2008 Economic Stimulus package may help put us all on equal footing. By ensuring everyone experience poverty through massive inflation.

Both Democrats and Republicans are in favor of the plan. The proposal would pay up to $600 to individuals, married couples up to $1,200, plus $300 per child, and even many who don’t earn enough to pay taxes, can receive up to $300. The total plan will cost an estimated $150 billion dollars. But despite it’s good intentions, the program may turn a mild recession into a full-blown one, or worse.

There’s only three ways it can be paid for: taxes, new currency or credit. Through taxes, while it would force government to cut spending in the short term, which is a good thing, there’s no doubt taxes will be raised in the long run to compensate. If it’s paid by printing new currency, the dollar would definitely devalue even further and our current inflation would spiral out of control. But the real problem is credit. By merely tacking it onto the national deficit, which is currently at $9 trillion, it will still devalue our dollar with taxpayers footing this seemingly endless debt.

There’s no doubt spending stimulates an economy. It was lack of spending which fueled the panic from the 1929 Stock Market Crash into the Great Depression. Which is why it’s ironic to hear those who at one time swore the “trickle down theory” only benefited the wealthy, are now clamoring for the potential spending behind the stimulus package. Some, such as the AFL-CIO Labor Union, claim it isn’t enough.

But spending on credit, especially amounts that can’t be realistically paid for, creates serious problems. After all, that’s what got us here in the first place thanks to the subprime mortgage crisis. This is why the Economic Stimulus package is nothing short of a welfare handout. Simply giving money away and conditioning people to an entitlement mindset every time they make mistakes will never address this fundamental problem.

And deficit spending by a government comprised of career politicians who believe they can manage our money better than we can, creates disastrous results. Especially when they simply take our money out of one pocket just to put into the other. Minus inflation no less, not to mention compounding interest. That’s not even the redistribution of wealth. It’s the redistribution of debt.

Now Where Have I Heard That Idea Before?

Curtis Sliwa says he’s going to run for Public Advocate in 2009 on a platform of abolishing the position.

 Sounds very familiar…

Surprise, Surprise

The state’s ”dedicated” tax fund for bridge and highway repair has seen $750 million diverted to, um, undedicated boondoggle spending. (Hat tip: The Daily Gotham)

Of course, the politicians have an entirely predictable solution: newer, bigger dedicated taxes for bridge and highway repair.

TANSTAAFB!

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, Robert Heinlein observed. But that’s not stopping New York City politicians from trying to convince taxpayers there is such a thing as free breakfast. (”There is!” exclaims the Daily News, whose editors apparently never took Econ 101.) Fortunately, the kids of New York aren’t biting:

Despite city efforts to boost participation, the city has the second-worst rate of 23 large cities in the federally funded program, according to a national report out yesterday…

“While it is always a sad day when we lose to Boston in baseball, it is truly heartbreaking when we lose to them and 20 other cities in feeding our children,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Ah yes, how sad that we have fewer kids dipping their hands into the taxpayers’ pockets. I could have sworn it was only a decade ago that we were actually trying to reduce welfare dependency, not increase it. And “free” lunch is nothing if not another welfare program. The bleeding-hearts (in both the Democratic and Republican wings of the ruling Socialist Party) pull this same hand-wringing crap with their “free” child healthcare plan that “not enough” kids sign up for.

City Councilwoman Christine Quinn said the report “serves as a strong reminder that more must be done.”

Maybe Quinn and Bloomberg can start going door-to-door in the morning and serve the little tikes breakfast in bed. At least it will keep them out of City Hall where they keep cooking up these hare-brained schemes.

A Jeffersonian Democrat in Harlem?

Could Adam Clayton Power IV be a Libertarian in Democrat’s clothing? I suspect it’s safe to answer no. Still, it’s refreshing to see a New York politician who would rather not introduce any new laws:

For the last three years, an East Harlem assemblyman, Adam Clayton Powell IV, has stood out for his streak of inactivity.

Of the thousands of bills introduced this year, Mr. Powell can take credit for not a single one. If Mr. Powell doesn’t introduce a bill in the next month, he will have made it through three consecutive session years without acting as the prime sponsor of any piece of legislation, according to a legislative database.

The other law-happy assembly members may laugh at him, but Powell has the crazy notion that new legislation isn’t all that.

“There’s much more to being a strong leader than how many insignificant bills you introduce,” Mr. Powell said. “There seems to be a race among the media and political pundits as to who will introduce the most bills.”

Mr. Powell also argued he was behaving in a fiscally responsible way, noting: “Each bill we introduce costs thousands of dollars.”

Three cheers for Powell’s moratorium on new laws. Now if he takes the next step and tries to repeal some old laws, I’ll give him a standing ovation.

Congress wants you to take a knife to a gun-fight

Rumor has it that the people who want to take away your free speech are at it again.

Of course this doesn’t apply to you if you want to stand idly by while the ruling class decides how you should live your life and who gets a piece of the pork paid for by the money they take from your paycheck.  It’s true, that includes most of us.  But just in case you think your Senators and Congressmen( Congressperson’s?) want to hear from you, you might want to consider Congress’s plan to make it more difficult for you to tell them what you think.

Unfortunately, Congress won’t tell you what their plan is.

Earlier this year Senate Bill 1 was stripped of provisions that would have regulated so-called grassroots lobbying.  S1 -The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007, would have imposed regulations on small organizations engaged in political outreach and activism while leaving large lobbyists such as big corporations, unions and organizations like the NRA or AARP unscathed.  Let me see, Archer Daniels Midland can give huge campaign contributions in return for increased farm subsidies but you and I can’t send an e-mail to our friends encouraging them to email their Senator telling them to stop it?  Good plan.

Okay it’s a little more complicated than that.  The defeated grassroots provisions would have applied to paid lobbying, but not to organizations communicating with shareholders, members, etc. So the NRA or Halliburton can engage in paid lobbying for their members or shareholders. But apparently if a few friends get together and pay an intern $25,000 a year to send political e-mails we are to be subject to grassroots lobbying regulation. So what?

Well - our costs go up - and our time spent on productive activity goes down. Who has time these days to stay on top of the reams of legislation coming out of Washington?  Not me - and apparently not our Senators and Congressman - because they don’t read the laws the force on us either.

So Congress wants to make it way more expensive for me to “hire” the lobbyist/s of my choosing by joining an organization like DownsizeDC.org.

These provisions were defeated before and the corporate welfare queens learned from their mistake.  This time they won’t tell us what they are plotting.  There is a big profit in lobbying for the corporate welfare queens who, according to Mark Fitzgibbons of grassrootsfreedom.com, are actually writing the bill.  But I am just trying to hold on to what’s left of my paycheck.

Why should my elected representatives want to put me at a disadvantage compared to the corporate welfare queens?  Ok that’s a stupid question and the answer is pretty obvious.  This trick is as old as civilization itself. First conquer your subjects either by sword or by ballot box - and if the ballot box approach looks a little iffy - control political communication to make sure only your side of the story gets out.  Then tax everyone enough to keep them working so hard they have no time to fight back. Then make it impossible for them to combine resources. 

Choose your weapon - you get the pea-shooter and Halliburton gets the assault rifle.  And that’s exactly the way Congress - and the corporate welfare queens want it.

The law-makers are law-breakers

Somebody get the Albany County D.A. on the phone. Joe Bruno and Sheldon Silver just broke the law — one they enacted just this past January.

As part of the “everything changes on day one” charade, the very first new law signed by Eliot Spitzer on January 24th was a budget “reform” measure. The new law mandates that, before asking our state legislators to vote on the final budget, the assembly and state senate will provide their members with a report summarizing all the changes to the governor’s original budget proposal. The traditional, deplorable practice in Albany has been that the members would be asked to vote on the final budget sight unseen.

So when the assembly and senate voted on the final budget over the weekend, guess what they never saw? That’s right, the report detailing the budget changes. Once again, they voted on the final budget without knowing what was in it, in violation of the law they enacted two months ago.

Whoops there goes another $1 billion (CORRECTED)

The Empire Center for New York State Policy posted a nifty $pend-O-Meter at the bottom of their home page showing how much New York State has pissed away since the start of the fiscal year on April 1. As of this writing, just three days in, the meter has already passed $1.1 trillion billion.

Calibrated to Governor Spitzer’s estimate of $120.9 billion in “all funds” spending under the enacted budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year, the Empire Center’s “Spend-O-Meter” spins at the following rates:

$3,834 per second

$230,023 per minute

$13,801,370 per hour

$331,232,877 per day

$2,325,000,000 per week

$10,075,000,000 per month

“Under this year’s budget, our state government will spend more every 12 seconds than the average worker earns in a year,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center.

Just think how much worse it would have been if “everything” hadn’t “changed on Day 1.”

Hat tip: Capitol Confidential

UPDATE: Commenter Tom Blanton caught a major goof on my part. The state spends $1 billion every three days, not $1 trillion. I guess all those zeroes made my eyes glaze over.