Limbaugh’s Mistake

Rush Limbaugh made a mistake, but it was not the general point he was making — i.e., criticizing the Georgetown Law Student who wants the university to pay for her contraception. He was right — not just because Georgetown is a Catholic Institution. In my opinion neither Georgetown, nor any other college or university, should pay for a student’s contraception as part of their health insurance.

Limbaugh’s mistake was not letting his audience draw their own conclusions. All he had to do was point out the facts — that the need for contraception is not a health matter but a personal life style choice. If students are adult enough to decide whether they want to engage in heterosexual activity, then they ought to accept the responsibility for paying for that choice.

Personally I’m opposed to covering viagara as well as contraception. I’d also probably eliminate coverage for a dozen other lifestyle choices from mandated health coverage. Adding those coverages is a major reason health insurance is so expensive.

Wanted: A President Willing to do the Job

Watching the Republican primary one has to wonder if any of the candidates know what job they’re running for. Part of the problem is that they don’t have a good role model to emulate. When’s the last time we had a president who understood that running the executive branch — as opposed to being America’s cultural tsar — was what they had signed up for?

Case in point: Recent GAO (Government Accountabilty Office) reports remind us that our government is about as streamlined as the contestants on day one of The Biggest Loser. (See WSJ, 2/28/12) Their 2011 report found 81 areas of unnecessary duplication including 53 programs to help entreprenuers (how’s that working so far?), 15 unmanned air-craft programs and nine agencies protecting our food system from terrorists attacks. The 2012 report will show that progress has been made in reducing duplication in some of those areas, BUT…it also found more than 50 new areas of inefficiency.

What’s the cost to the American taxpayers for duplication and inefficiency? Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) estimates $100 to $200 billion a year.

Government reform faces two roadblocks. Congress passes laws forcing the executive branch to start programs that duplicate existing ones in order to produce headlines that fool constituents into thinking they are solving America’s problems and Presidents don’t like to cut programs because that means laying off public employees which angers the public employee unions and hurts the Washington, D.C. economy.

Some Presidents find it easier to blame corporations and rich business people for the country’s economic malaise. Why? If the public buys that sales pitch, they can start new duplicative programs and hire campaign contributors to administer those programs, which is a lot more fun than closing down 54 of the 55 overlapping Transportation Department programs or 20 of the 21 programs spread across five agencies to combat nuclear-smuggling overseas.

AG Schneiderman: Presidential Aspirantions or Just Cause?

I feel sorry for the attorneys and other staff who work for the NYS Dept. of Law. It seems that starting with Eliot Spitzer their jobs are now defined by how often they get their leader’s name in the newspaper and whether they are helping them position themselves for a short layover in Albany on their way to the White House.

In some cases the three Musketeers — Spitzer, Cuomo and Schneiderman — have chosen targets that are appropriate given a reasonable reading of the AG’s responsibilities and duties. In other cases, however, it appears as if they are looking for wounded elephants that can be taken down without much resistance.

The latter seems to be the case with Mr. Schneiderman’s suit against the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS). Any attack against the banking industry and the mortgage infrastructure — particularly any attack that does not further tarnish the FHA, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae — is sure to garner headlines without regard for the merits of the case. The suit against MERS seems particularly flimsy and misguided.

And, as has been noted with regard to the recent settlement with the five large banks by many of the states’ attorneys general including Mr. Schneiderman, neither proof of harm to more than a few home owners nor remedy of the supposed harm seem to be the primary focus of the litigants. That leaves one no choice but to conclude that the motives are political.

Welcome City & State

The people of New York State owe a big thank you to Manhattan Media for continuing to promote the kind of journalism that is needed to protect the public from the politicians. Their combined publication City & State continues to provide the kind of investigative reporting that is essential in a democracy where the average citizen doesn’t have the time (or the skills frankly) to see through the curtain of rhetoric our political system engenders.

Take today’s story by Chris Bragg — Martin Golden’s Member Items Help Group That Helps Him. Bragg exposes how member items are used by elected officials like Martin Golden (D-Brooklyn) to help themselves in the name of helping their communities. Read the article to learn exactly how Golden runs this scam.

Whether technically legal or not, it is the self-serving use of taxpayer funds like this that is behind the anger voters feel towards elected officials. Whether they express their anger by joining the tea party movement or sleeping in a tent in some public park, they are right to be angry.

Thank you Manhattan Media. We look forward to more stories like this in the future.

Malware Attack Update

According to Google’s automated testing program, the Empire Page has been clean of malware since August 23, the date of the most recent attack. Some people, however, tell us the site is still infected and almost everyone is still getting the warning message.

That message by the way doesn’t mean the site is infected. It only means we were at one time. That’s part of the problem I’m having to deal with — Google and its allies are able to condemn a site without offering the means to address the problem.

As I am not a software programmer or security expert, I am forced to rely on other people to help me resolve the problem. I have asked numerous people for assistance, including programmers who have worked on the site in the past, and I will continue to try to find the right person (or business) until the problem is solved for once and for all.

Meanwhile if you have access to a Mac you can bypass the message without danger. The malware only targets PCs.

I’ll keep everyone posted as soon as I have more information.

Thank you for your patience.

Avoiding Greece in New York

One of the major factors dragging down the Greek economy is its large inventory of non-performing private property. Only now, when faced with extreme cutbacks is the government starting to put some of its $500 billion inventory on the market.

What does that say to New York State? Get serious now about selling state-owned property that is not essential to the public welfare. That should include selling marketable state land in the Adirondacks that is not essential to protecting the environment and that would benefit the region’s economy.

The goal of purchasing more and more land in the Adirondacks has little to do with protecting the environment – despite claims of groups like the Adirondack Council. Instead it’s all about political power – who gets to make decisions – Albany or the local community – and at whose expense.

The end result of land purchases is that many Adirondack communities are not economically viable. The latest census reports declining populations throughout the region. Young people move out as soon as they can because there are no jobs for them and even if there were, there is no affordable housing for them to live in. The fact that there is a finite amount of lakefront property also limits the opportunities for middle class families south of the Park to purchase summer homes.

Instead of buying more land the state should be selling land such as the northwest shore of Sacandaga Lake (not to be confused with the “Great” Sacandaga Lake). Hamilton County needs to expand its tax base. Adding 10 or 20 more properties on the shore would help the County and aid local businesses as well. There are no environmental reasons for keeping that land in state hands.

There is one property on the west side of Sacandaga Lake that the state is going to take back from a 99-year leaseholder when the current resident dies. This is an example of government imperialism – using state power to quash citizen rights. The descendents of the current owner should either be allowed to up the current lease or the state should put that property on the market. Again, there is no environmental justification for taking that land.

If it takes a constitutional amendment to end the tyranny of state land ownership in the Adirondacks, then so be it. That’s just one more reason to hold a constitutional convention before 2017.

Capitol Pressroom Recap

Thanks to Susan Arbetter for having me on Capitol Pressroom today. You can find a pod-cast of the show at http://thecapitolpressroom.org/.

We talked about how fiction and politics mix in reference to my novel, The Expendable Man, about self-publishing and about this year’s legislative session.

Susan asked if people could order the book at their favorite bookstore. The answer is yes, but the only bookstore that has copies in stock right now is The Book House in Styvesant Plaza. I’ll be visiting other bookstores in the coming weeks and will announce locations as they take copies.

One of the issues is that the major distributor — Ingram — only offers bookstores a 25% discount on self-published books when the stores need 40%. That’s why I have to become a store-to-store salesman, offering stores the 40% they deserve. Such is the politics of the publishing industry.

I also offered to talk to anyone who is considering self-publishing – fiction or otherwise. Contact me at peter@expendable-man.com if you’d like to take me up on the offer.

The Beat Down Goes On

The lead story this past week that all New Yorkers should be paying attention to was “Audits Find Widespread Waste in Spending by State Government” by Nicholas Confessore, published Thursday in The New York Times. Confessore reported the preliminary results of audits of state government that Andrew Cuomo called for upon taking office January 1 as New York’s 56th governor. In essence the audits discovered why New York State has been running in the red since Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson River. Okay. Sorry. Maybe only since Nelson Rockefeller took office in 1959.

The bottom line is that when it’s somebody else’s money and nobody is paying attention, people will spend it like it doesn’t matter whether what they’re buying is needed, a good price or even that it works. This is not a knock on state workers in general. It’s HUMAN NATURE that is the problem. It’s why we have RULES and LAWS, except for the past 50 years, the rules governing what you and I can do as private citizens have multiplied by a factor of ten while any rules about what politicians and the executive branches of government could do with our tax dollars were ignored.

Gov. Cuomo’s solution is one that promises to reduce the problem of waste and corruption by centralizing the purchasing authority of the state. That’s good, but foregive me if I are wrong here, but isn’t that what the Office of General Services was supposed to do? Like what have we been paying all those good folks at OGS all these years to do — look the other way?! Maybe we don’t need an Office of General Services. Maybe we can save a few billion dollars tomorrow by getting rid of that bureaucracy’s bureaucracy?

This week’s poll question asks you whether the results of these audits — finding the state is spending millions of unused office space and overpaying vendors for products and services — is the exception to the rule or the tip of the iceberg or if you haven’t been paying attention.

Story # 2

Like Nick Confessore’s piece the second big story of the week is just a hard-working reporter’s taking the time to plumb his sources for news that we all should be paying attention to. I’m referring to Rick Karlin’s piece for the Albany Times Union “Upstate taxes tops in national study“.

All those opposed to doing something about runaway property taxes in New York ought to pay attention to this story which reports that the 15 highest taxed counties in the United States of America are in upstate New York. Could that fact have some relation to why so few young college graduates of New York colleges and universities stay in New York? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that businesses don’t want to move to New York unless we give them tax breaks and free employees and serve them double mocha lattes every morning when they report to work; or maybe it is related to the fact that middle class retirees move out of the state if they can find someone willing to buy their homes!

Oh, and we’re not just talking about Westchester County here folks. We’re talking about Orleans County and Niagara County and Allegany County. No wonder the tea party movement is so strong in the western part of the state.

Time to Read Books?

If you have time to read books and are interested in winning a book, here’s your opportunity. The Empire Page is giving away 4 books. To enter, just email editor@empirepage.com and tell us which of the four you’d like to have a chance to win. One entry per carbon unit please.

Here are the four:

1. Tales from the Sausage Factory by Dan Feldman and Gerald Benjamin
2. Vale of Tears (a novel) by Congressman Peter T. King
3. Deliver us from Evil (a novel) by Congressman Peter T. King
4. Terrible Beauty (a novel) by Congressman Peter T. King

What the (Federal) Budget Debaters Are Ignoring

When Andrew Cuomo points out that NYS is not getting the value for its educational dollar, he’s expressing the criteria that must be used to evalute government bureaucracies from villages to Washington.

That is especially true when it comes to the federal spending. Anyone who has been following the activities of the federal bureaucracy must conclude that with rare exceptions our federal bureacracy is bloated, inefficient, wasteful and non-productive, populated by many people who are incompetent and assigned to jobs that are unnecessary and that can be eliminated. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what FEDERAL EMPLOYEES have to say in response to a recent Washington Post poll:

IRS employee: Bottom line, there are way too many levels of management, too many executives, too much duplication of effort, too many meetings, etc. We simply have too much “managing” going on: meetings about meetings, time spent fine-tuning the administration of the organization and so on. We could greatly reduce our budget by simplifying the management areas of responsibility, thereby reducing the executive and upper-level management ranks. We also have too many employees (many of them in higher pay brackets) in the administrative areas and too few in the field, assisting taxpayers.

NIH employee: I think the workforce needs to be looked at. There are a lot of workers who are not doing 100 percent of what they should be doing. Due to such things as the misuse of EEO (equal employment opportunity), there are a lot of employees who are able to hold onto their positions, collect paychecks and not do what they were hired to do. This creates more work for those who do their jobs, as well as a waste of taxpayers’ money. A really good way to accomplish this is to do an overhaul of the PMAP system, that is, the performance-based system that the grade-scaled federal employees are on. Under this system, most employees receive a “fully successful,” even if they are not performing their duties, due to their supervisor’s fear of backlash from that employee. If the PMAP system can be redone in order to have it more based on performance, employees who are not performing can be let go easier, and this will cut costs.

NRC employee: Most middle mangers; many have old-time skills and non-innovative processes. . . . Redundant training, which has nothing to do with real-world skills.

Environmental Protection employee: Management. The layers of management are insane. . . . It takes 13 steps and five layers to get a signature from our office director, more to get a signature to the assistant secretary/administrator.

Interpretation of Obama’s Federal Budget Position

By pretending that we need to raise taxes to reduce the debt instead of cutting the federal bureacracy, President Obama is telling us that he would rather see programs cut that HURT people than reform the federal bureacracy.

The primary change that is needed in the federal bureaucracy is the overhaul of work rules so that managers can re-assign people to do needed work instead of protecting make-work activity, fire people who are incompetent and who are not needed, and hire people who are skilled and appropriate for the task.

I don’t know how deep the bureacracy could be cut — 30%, 20%? We just need to do it.

Of course the downside if the President were to take this measure is that a lot of people will be put out of work and those people belong to public employee unions which would threaten to withdraw support for his re-election. That’s why he won’t do what should be done and why we’ll probably have to wait for someone to take over the job.

Mid-Week Poll Question

The contract negotiated between Gov. Cuomo & Council 82 is creating a stir all across NYS. Therefore, the Empire Page interrupted our poll question on hydrofracking to ask you to grade the Council 82 agreement. If you don’t know the details of the agreement, then read up on it — there are several stories in today’s Empire Page report.

Hydrofracking Numbers

Our poll on where people stand on hydrofracking — the technology used to extract oil from shale — was interesting. More than half the people who voted (53%) are in favor of employing it now; just under a quarter (24%) say they need more facts while one in five (20%) oppose it “unalterably”. I used the word “inalterably” purposely in hopes that people knew they were saying they won’t change their minds under any circumstances.