Government always gets gamed
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
● Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and a dozen members of City Council deserve the highest praise for promptly confronting a malady that could bankrupt the city. They made a change in the city’s pensions affecting new hires that seems insignificant, but could be the difference between solvency and bankruptcy. It lowered a key multiplier in a formula based on pay and service. The change will save big bucks long-term. The real worry-point for Atlanta taxpayers, though, comes 10-15 years down the road when the new hires gain critical mass and start demanding “fairness” and “equality” in their pension plan. That’s when weak and ignorant politicians buckle.
● Cobb officials delude themselves in believing that employees given a permanent financial incentive to retire are saving taxpayers money. Transferring them from one cost-center to another, while rehiring them at lesser pay, creates paper savings for taxpayers. Real savings would be if the jobs are actually and permanently eliminated.
● The office of the director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board views her difficult-to-find office at City Hall as reflecting the board’s status as a stepchild of city government. The analogy disparages stepchildren, who have a rightful, unquestioned place in the family. Citizen Review Boards for police are relics with, at best, a one-time episode or situation-prompted purpose. A responsible mayor along with a competent chief and district attorney are the proper citizen review authorities. Don’t give power to those who may have agendas now or in the future and are not accountable to voters.
● I’m a big fan of privatization of government services and of putting business types in charge of most operations. But ultimately some things the private sector does that are tax-driven aren’t desirable for government. Example: Federal government buildings in Atlanta are being inventoried in an effort to dispose of unnecessary space. Steve Massell, president of Massell Commercial Real Estate, suggests sale and lease-backs as a way to “put money back into government coffers.” Selling roads, airports, buildings, public monuments, parks or anything else that’s paid for and leasing it back is a lousy idea for taxpayers. It gives today’s politicians spending money by transferring a current “asset” to future debt. Government can’t write the lease payments off its income tax.
● Tolls on existing, paid-for interstate lanes — the coming tax on users of a to-be-converted high-occupancy vehicle lane on I-85 in Gwinnett County, for example — is consistent with the sale-leaseback concept. Taxpayers are forced to pay again for something they already financed. (It’s just a matter of time before liberals insist on a toll-subsidy for those who aren’t the SUV-driving “rich.”)
● Horror of horrors! Because Georgia did not push the individual “earmarks” of a member of Congress to the top of its list of priorities, it’s about to “lose” $2.4 million in federal transportation funds to the dreaded alternative, a process called “competition” in which funding is based on a project’s merit. The very last reason anybody in public office should decide to commit state money is because a congressional earmark exists.
● DeKalb County and Doraville need a kick in the pants for thinking about giving $36 million in taxpayer money to a developer proposing to build on the old General Motors site in Doraville, one of metro Atlanta’s prime development prospects.
● Supporters of cop-killer Troy Anthony Davis employ the redefinition of words now commonplace on Washington when they demand that he get “justice.” Don’t get too deep into the “recanted testimony” before its quality gets fully aired.
● On illegals and in-state tuition in Georgia colleges: If submitted Social Security numbers aren’t validated, all we’re doing is training people to lie. People aren’t dumb. The street knows how to game every system government devises.
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30 comments Add your comment
dougmo2
June 24th, 2010
7:45 pm
First, and proud of it.
Brad Steel
June 24th, 2010
8:01 pm
(It’s just a matter of time before liberals insist on a toll-subsidy for those who aren’t the SUV-driving “rich.”)
Wooten, this hackneyed and whiney class-war comment diluted an otherwise persuasive point. Please drop the immature whines.
neo-Carlinist
June 24th, 2010
9:59 pm
just one thought re: Troy Davis. let’s say all four witnesses are NOW telling the truth. who cares? trials (especial death penalty cases) rely on evidence and testimony. I personally find it hard to believe all four witnesses were coerced by the police and/or lied to save their own butts. do you mean to tell me out of all the witnesses, there was not one who had the dignity and character to say; “I didn’t see anything…” or, “I don’t know what I saw…” or, “the police told me to say this…”? what did they have to lose in 1991 in being honest? it’s not like the Savannah P.D. or Chatham County prosecutor was going to sentence any witnesses to death. it really is amazing. maybe we need to get rid of the death penalty for murder, but apply it to those convicted of perjury. this 20 years after-the-fact peace of mind stuff is for the birds.
Please Jim
June 25th, 2010
12:12 am
Mr. Wooten would you PLEASE educate your former colleague Maureen Downey on the fact that discipline problems ARE a major issue in the public schools.
Apparently she’s in some sort of denial.
Please Jim
June 25th, 2010
12:14 am
While you’re at it, educate the young whippersnapper Mr. Wingfield. He apparently doesn’t understand that if you don’t give teachers the authority to hold students accountable for personal responsibility and the rule of law when they are young, it’s going to make it disproportionately harder to do it when they are older.
Real American
June 25th, 2010
5:28 am
hmmmm. nothing on the BP escrow account, nothing on McChyrstal….yeah, this is all old Jim was thinking about LMAO!!! Rethugs are soooooooo transparent. Ya love privatization of gubment services, oh….but not this kind! Yeah sure. LOL, keep ya hands off my medicare huh Jim?
Tyler Durden
June 25th, 2010
6:34 am
Jim, if it weren’t for self-serving selective perception, you’d have a gov’t issue dog and a socialist white cane. Even when winding down to spend eternity kissing Sean Hannity’s buttocks, you still find time to drag out and dust off your paint-by-numbers commentary against anything that threatens your tired GOP ‘values’.
Sadly, the next generation of echo chamber enthusiasts, Mr Wingfield, seems more than capable of continuing your fine tradition of dittoing the party line. BUT, there may be hope for him yet; he occasionally slips up and shows promise that he might not be an autobot journalist.
For you, though, it’s just too late…
Mid Ga Retiree
June 25th, 2010
6:57 am
Your comment about the Citizens Review Board is right on. They are driven by publicity and emotion and personal agenda. None of them have any idea whatsoever about what officers face on the street each day. This is “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” at its worst!!!
????
June 25th, 2010
7:06 am
Nathan Deal, the former congressman who’s now running for governor, lists his interest in Gainesville Salvage & Disposal at between $1 million and $5 million. Republican Deal’s involvement with the company came under scrutiny after an AJC investigation in August showed that Deal personally intervened with state officials to preserve a vehicle salvage program that earned the company nearly $300,000 a year. Deal also lists as assets a $1 million-plus stake in an outdoor equipment company in Baldwin that is now apparently out of business.
other-jim
June 25th, 2010
7:34 am
*abandon all pensions-grownups should take care of themselves
*feds should be in DC-not atlanta
*all roads should have tolls-why should i pay for your highway
*any pol who gets an earmark should have a notch cut in his ear
*if dekalb and doraville had given GM $36M they would probably still be there
*Troy Anthony Davis deserves Justice-it’s the rest of us who can’t figure out what that is
*illegal aliens should not be allowed to pay tuition in Georgia colleges-if georgia colleges
can’t figure out if they’re illegal then educations appears to be useless
Van Jones
June 25th, 2010
7:38 am
Wow, Real American and Tyler Durden are such CTucker sychophants.
other-jim
June 25th, 2010
7:43 am
Government is a game that only smart guys win..
Real Athens
June 25th, 2010
8:14 am
Jim,
You lost your train of thought:
“Tolls on existing, paid-for interstate lanes — the coming tax on users of a to-be-converted high-occupancy vehicle lane on I-85 in Gwinnett County, for example — is consistent with the sale-leaseback concept.”
“that is being enacted by the predominantly REPUBLICAN General Assembly, State Senate, Office of the Governor and Republican County Crooks, um, Commisisoners of Gwinnett County.
You then make a completely unrelated leap to “Libs” and “SUVs”.
C’mon Jim, that’s not writing, it’s typing.
metoo
June 25th, 2010
8:15 am
” I’m a big fan of privatization of government services and of putting business types in charge of most operations.”
Sounds like something that a person who has never worked a day in the corporate world woud say!
Haywood Jablome
June 25th, 2010
8:36 am
My prediction: Obama doesn’t make it through one term.
wow. profound.
My prediction: DEWSTARPATH should shut up.
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 25th, 2010
8:40 am
Speaking of assuming a precarious position, you are the director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board charged with policing the police with an office difficult to find at City Hall. And you most likely live among an inordinate amount of contentious neighbors that have no qualms about invading your person or property. And you know or you should know the only thing that keeps many of your neighbors at bay is the fear of the possible violent response of the police and the criminal justice system in their duty to provide safety and security for citizens.
Policing the police is an almost impossible task for those who hold a difficult-to-find office, director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board or those who occupy highly visible offices; a responsible mayor, a competent chief of police, and district attorney. If they are too critical of competent policing, each office run the risk of injuring the ‘police mind,’ degrading morale, losing qualified competent police, resulting in poorer service and the unthinkable.
The parties involved run the risk of unintended consequences i.e. strengthening the hand of contentious neighbors that have no qualms about invading your person or property and reducing the police to a band of unqualified, incompetent, lawless jack-booted thugs under color of law.
Tyler Durden
June 25th, 2010
9:14 am
Real Athens:
Your argument is valid, but remember: asserting logic into a GOP argument simply will not happen. It’s like asking a dittohead: ‘Have you ever held an original thought?’
Jim wants to assert that his views aren’t contradictory, so all he had to do was type them to make them accurate and true, automagically! And the bleating you hear from DEWSTAR and the others in support of them only reaffirms the truth and accuracy of this faulty logic.
That’s how it works in the Party of No (common sense, brains, chance at being taken seriously. etc)
Will
June 25th, 2010
9:17 am
The sacking of General McCrystal this week offers a prime opportunity to gage just how evil partisan politics has become.
Only the most shrill, partisan hack would critize President Obama’s decision to re-establish the time honored and essential dictate of our grand republic’s civilian control of our military. Most republican legislators quickly came to the defense of the President relating to this decision, even the sad figure of Senator McCain who has been forced to abandon his principals in order to survive a primary challenge.
Of course, republican radio and tv entertainers and the republican television network fell all over thenmselves to demonstrate that their mandatory opposition of all things Obama always trumped the good of the nation, further demonstrating why they have marginalized themselves in rational discussion
What’s that you say? Fringe democrats did the same thing to President Bush? Of course they did, that’s why they represent the fringe. So, what’s your point, that republicans can be as irrational as democrats?
Lee
June 25th, 2010
11:08 am
We witness GM’s Doraville and Ford’s Hapeville plants shut down. Plants, I might add, that provided thousands of jobs over the years and generated untold revenues for their communities.
At the same time, our state governments are handing out hundreds of millions in tax breaks for new car companies to locate in the Southeast.
Somewhere, there is a sensible middle of the road.
Lee
June 25th, 2010
11:11 am
General McCrystal is a genious. Stuck in a no win situation in Afghanistan, he publicly questions Obama’s strategy and gets sacked. A few years from now, when the US limps out of Afghanistan with our tail between our legs, he can say “See, I told you so.”
John Galt
June 25th, 2010
12:13 pm
Privatization and business types in government- both OK when warranted, but certain government functions do not lend themselves to being privatized, and certain business types operate based on false premises and outdated models.
The current Georgia State Revenue Commissioner, for example, is an MBA from the University of Tennessee. He has privatized the Revenue Department almost to a standstill, removing all of the employees who were experienced tax collectors and replacing them with private collection agencies. The private firms do not have the legal authority to collect delinquent taxes, and all they do and indeed are able to do, is use automatic dialers to call over and over. They do no field work, and cannot levy or garnish.
Those legal actions are now done by private attornies, who are appointed as “Special Assistant Attornies General” and who get paid hefty fees for doing what Delinquent Tax Collectors within the Department used to do. This is the main reason that the Department of Revenue does many fewer garnishments and levies than a few years ago.
Much of this privatization was based not on optimal tax collection practice, but on the typical Republican perception that State employees are worthless and that privatization is the answer to all governmental problems. I would maintain however that tax collection, odious as it undoubtedly is, is one of the proper functions of government, and is best done by properly appointed Tax Collectors armed with the legal authority already in the laws of Georgia.
Tom
June 25th, 2010
1:42 pm
An eminently sensible post by John Galt @ 12:13–no wonder it’s gone unanswered: too reasonable for Wooten-land.
Hillbilly Deluxe
June 25th, 2010
1:48 pm
Steve Massell, president of Massell Commercial Real Estate, suggests sale and lease-backs as a way to “put money back into government coffers.”
Sounds to me, more like a way to put money in his coffers.
On the toll-lane idea.
It won’t do anything to help traffic. One of two things will happen:
A) People won’t use it, so it won’t make traffic better.
B) A lot of people will use it but you’ll still have the same number of cars on the road. Since a lot of people are using it, they’ll want to expand the number of lanes and it’ll become a toll road. The traffic will still be there but somebody will be making money off it.
Strikes me as being all about money.
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 25th, 2010
2:39 pm
It just occurred to me that musical extraordinaire, King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died a year ago, June 25, 2009. His death shouldn’t have caught any of us by surprise. He had already disfigured and destroyed his body; he became an imminent threat to his very existence.
Michael Joseph Jackson, (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009).
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 25th, 2010
2:57 pm
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/MichaelJackson/popup?id=7978250
nobama
June 27th, 2010
7:11 pm
I have tried to tell yall all along what I was up to……….
pay attention…….
GB
June 28th, 2010
7:32 am
Good points, as always, but there is another way to look at the toll lanes. The point is not to pay for the construction and maintenance, but to use the highways more efficiently through the mechanism of price rationing.
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 28th, 2010
9:45 pm
Can anyone tell me who African Americans are partitioning, pleading, and begging for ‘another chance’ when they run afoul of the law? It’s definitely not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I think it’s the God of this world, the devil.
It’s a sad, sad, sad situation. For the last forty years, integrationist African American, women and men, have turned their backs to God Almighty to face the glitter of receiving plush jobs, cars, houses, fame, status, money; materialism. And their children are paying a painful deadly price for the decision their parents have made.
Before my mother-in-law died, I promised her that my family would never sell our souls or that of other children for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of easy living; it’s not worth it. After a season in the sun, you die and leave it behind to come face to face with judgment. The tradeoff is obviously not worth it. We would never make the tradeoff, I promised.
Question: How could it be worth it to integrationist African American leaders and their minions to make the tradeoff?
Answer: They have no regard for the God Almighty or their children, biological or otherwise. But payday is coming. It’s a sad, sad, sad situation.
Playground taunt
June 29th, 2010
7:21 am
Oh, for the days of political foreskin, jbmlaw, time for the truth, Glenn, Dusty, Redneck Convert, Maniac is Accurate, Midsouth Philospher, etc. Jim’s retirement dragged an entertaining universe down with it.
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 29th, 2010
9:23 am
I’m told that integrationist African American ‘abortion’ laden women are on the radio complaining because their communist social engineering system is not working. African American men are not integrationist. And they’re not about to participate in such a way as to lend support to it.
To set their record straight, white women aren’t about to turn white men over to adversarial communist social systems like the department of family and children services; and I applaud them. Believe it or not, prior to integration, African American women were less likely to betray African American men into the hands of their enemies than white women. My have we made progress over the past forty years.
By the way, why do integrationist African American women and men make white people the standard by which people are measured? I’m sure you’ll know the answer. But that’s a subject for another day.