13 August 2004
Spectator
The outrage deficit
Albany ass-sitters
The Spectator continues to wonder about the lack of outrage in this country and now, in this state. New York state legislators are among the highest paid in the nation. Their biggest job is to pass a budget. this year, the vital issue of school aid formulas was added to their less than overflowing plates. The legislature's response? To do NOTHING!!! What's with that? Until a frantic late summer frenzy of bill passing in mid-August, we had no state budget. Even now, after the legislature has proven what can be done if they want to do something, the governor has indicated his willingness to propagate the stalemate by vetoing key aspects of the budget.
Does anyone else have a job where the two most important tasks can be ignored and you keep your job and your salary? Has there ever been a more compelling case for a pay cut for Assembly members and Senators? They met in Albany every week from January to July, collecting salary, travel allotments and other bonuses. Can anyone out there name one thing they've done? I know that's sort of asking if anyone saw George Bush at the Alabama National Guard meetings he was supposed to attend but think about it. Can you name one thing they did? One thing other than setting a new record for ineptitude in failing to pass a state budget, of course? It is simply amazing to me that this chronic and continuing dereliction continues to be tolerated.
This year, Assemblyman Brian Higgins wants to take his "record" and run for Congress. Senator Byron Brown and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt are soon going to tell you their experience in Albany qualifies them to be Mayor of Buffalo. Brown actually got up in front of his state office building to denounce the do-nothing legislature. Yo! Byron! You are part and parcel of that system. We protest! You are suppose to listen, not the other way around! That kind of do-nothing experience might qualify you to be a used car salesman or a Buffalo News columnist but it hardly fills one with confidence that sitting on your ass in Albany and collecting a check every two weeks is "experience."
We now have received word on something that was done in Albany this year. An awful lot of people got hired and this during an "absolute freeze" on hiring imposed by the fiscal conservative George Pataki. What would have happened without the" freeze?" Where did Alice put that looking glass?
How about a control board for Joel?
Where is the outrage at Joel Giambra's fiscal mismanagement of Erie County? He took a perfectly healthy treasury and ran it into deficit, resulting in a bond rating downgrade. Sound familiar? - start with a healthy surplus and create a huge deficit - page right out of the George Bush songbook. Now, Giambra is blaming things on the state. The same "state" that Giambra got to impose a financial control board over the City of Buffalo? That same "state?" He budgeted a bunch of "if-comes" that had to be enacted by the courage-challenged legislature and signed by Giambra's buddy, Pataki. When the "if-comes" didn't materialize, the budget collapsed but not on Giambra. It collapsed on county workers who will sooner or later be sacrificed on the altar of Joel's shortsightedness. Perhaps it's time for a control board for Erie County with Giambra talking about layoffs and tax increases. The annual pig-out on the penny sales tax was obviously not enough. The $125 million + isn't enough for Joel. He needs more revenue. Sounds like a control board might impose a little fiscal discipline on a county executive who is out of control.
Bush continues to stick it to schoolkids, GIs, vetsLittle known fact - George Bush offered more money as a bribe to Turkey to allow us to stage our military for the Iraq invasion than he allocated for the his big education initiative - No Child Left Behind. (courtesy of the Hightower Report)
And our final outrage of the moment, how does a "war president" who spares no rhetorical opportunity to laud American soldiers leave the same soldiers high and dry when it comes to caring for them and their families? A crisis being inflicted by the Iraq war is taking health insurance away from families whose loved ones have been activated as a result of the war. Active duty troops have health care benefits extended to their families while they are on active duty . Not so with Reservists and Guardsmen and women. If an employer suspends the health insurance of an employee on extended active duty, the families go without. Common sense, patriotism, and national duty would seem to demand that the nation and its "war president" make some allowance for the Guard and Reserve and their families. But George Bush had such an easy time of it in the Guard - (1) leaping ahead of 500 Texans on a waiting list cuz his daddy was a congressman (2) being picked for flight training without the requisite experience, and (3) showing up for Guard duty only when he had a cavity - that he refuses to extend health benefits to the families of part-time servicemen and women. What a guy
"Why the Spectator isn't a Republican," chapters 14 and 15
Chapter 14: The Majority Whip in the House of Representatives has recently mandated an across the board cut in housing and veterans benefit programs because the House didn't fund the Bush space initiatives. Tom DeLay has said no vote will be made on the budget until funding is in place for NASA initiatives. What, you might ask, is DeLay's big interest in space. Is it because he's a certified space cadet? Perhaps, but DeLay is much more pragmatic. His district now includes the Houston Space Center and if it's good for DeLay, who cares if it's good for the rest of the country? DeLay wouldn't have much interest in veterans anyway since he, like Bush, Cheney, et al., dodged Vietnam. And like Bush, DeLay had a great excuse for missing out on the fun and games in SE Asia. He said he tried to enlist but the minorities had already taken all the slots. I kid you not. I couldn't make this stuff up.
Chapter 15: When asked recently if he knew how many Americans had died in Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz - the guy in "Fahrenheit 9/11" who licked his comb before combing his hair - said "400 or 500." The actual count was 900. Is the Spectator being unreasonable in thinking that if your policy sent Americans off to die you ought to at least have the goddamned decency to know how many you got killed?
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.