People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
David H. Comins
Uncivil Obama Administration Quote of the Day
"It’s not temporary [administration’s proposed stimulus] when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman...I wish [GOP opponents to state/local bailouts] had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.”
Vice President Joe Biden
[Discussion after the embedded clip.]
We now have the latest nomination to the crowded list for my tongue-in-check 2011 Jackass of the Year, a mock award for uncivil and/or otherwise egregious Democratic politician behavior. Joe Biden joins, among other well-qualified nominees, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Anthony Weiner, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the Wisconsin state senate Democrats. And we still have another 2 months to go... Past
In particular, Joe Biden wants you to believe that federal dollars make all the difference when it comes to stopping crime. He knows, because he's been to the alternate universe America and can tell you exactly how how many murders have been stopped or rapes prevented by Obama cashing a check on your grandchildren's taxes. It's NOT that MONEY IS FUNGIBLE. Everybody knows that compensation of Lovely Rita, Meter Maid comes out of city coffers, whereas Lt. Columbo is paid by federal "stimulus" money. Because Joe Biden said so!
We really shouldn't be surprised that Biden would resort to desperation fear-mongering. Actress Lindsay Lohan is reportedly doing community service at a California morgue. Perhaps she'll find Obama's "jobs bill" there and put lipstick on it... [Regular readers will recognize my frequent mocking reference to Obama's favorite expression during the 2008 campaign ("You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.")]
Part of Joe Biden's diatribe involves the use (or, more accurately, misuse) of Flint, Michigan crime statistics. In particular, Biden alleged that the 121 layoffs of an original 265 member police force had resulted in a doubling of murders and a tripling in rapes. These allegations have been debunked in an interesting Washington Post piece using FBI statistics (the author explained that local crime statistics are less accessible): it's true there has been an increase in the murder rate, but significantly less than a double, and the rapes have actually gone down. The Flint mayor's office is, of course, trying to support Biden's bailout agenda, and there are a number of methodological criticisms made of certain discrepancies between certain Flint and relevant FBI numbers; they basically argue that the Flint and FBI numbers are apples and oranges and/or there were (convenient) errors in data feeds to the FBI. The author notes that some local news reports made references to certain crimes going down.
I love to go into methodological issues, which I won't do here, except to note: measurement procedures are quite often consistent even if they were biased. For example, if I have a ruler that is really 13 inches not 12 inches long, the people I measure with it will seem to be shorter than their "real" height, but we would expect the measurements to be commensurate with observed height differences. Thus, it may well be that local definitions of homicide may be different than the FBI's definition of what constitutes homicide, but I would expect that the standard feed process to the FBI is consistent: I would not expect Flint to report apples one year, oranges the next and pears the third.
Second, the relationship between the number of police and various factors, say, murder rate is not clear from available data. Kessler discusses that there may be a number of factors besides police counts which can explain changes in homicide rates. I'm not saying these examples are valid or explain any variance; I'm just trying to explain the concept: perhaps the prison population was declining (budget constraints, liberalized parole mechanisms, court rulings, etc.). Or suppose there was an escalating illicit drug epidemic.
Here's what Flint Police Chief Alven Lock had to say, according to local news reports:
“Officials said the fact that 46 police officers were laid off last year had little to do with the escalating crime. Most of the crimes were between people that knew each other. ‘No matter how many officers we have, we can't stop disputes between two people in their own homes,’ “A smaller police force doesn't automatically mean more crime, said Flint police chief Alven Lock. ‘There's been years when we had 300 officers and we still had more homicides,’ he said, referring to 1986, when he was in the homicide division and homicides hit an all-time high of 61.”Other statistics are cited in the article, including how NYC has crime statistics continuing to drop since 2000, even though it has reduced its police force by 10%.
I have been discussing a number of issues with the concept of state and local bailouts. First, it rewards financially irresponsible behavior (why isn't there a rainy day fund?) and sets a bad precedent. Second, it does little more than defer the day of reckoning. Third, it fosters undue dependence on the federal government and blurs the line between the states and the federal government.
Finally, there are points relevant to local/state budgeting. It could be, for instance, the pension agreements crowd out police staff hiring; what we need to see is budgetary reform. Or perhaps a city should shift funds from other areas, say, the library or park division. And of course, a police chief has a lot of discretion in terms of setting priorities and allocating officers (e.g., parking or traffic enforcement vs. homicides, desk duty vs. street patrols, etc.)
Political Humor
"Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is dead. Even more shocking: He was killed by an escaped tiger from Ohio." - Conan O'Brien
[My turn, Conan. The story is a Zanesville, Ohio man, who owned an exotic animal preserve and was deeply in debt, killed himself after releasing the animals. Among the rare animals killed by sheriffs: a mad dog from the Middle East.]
"There was a truck filled with President Obama's teleprompters and it went missing. Meanwhile Joe Biden’s teleprompter shot itself." - Conan O'Brien
[My turn, Conan (you're overdoing the Ohio bit): Obama's teleprompter was unavailable for duty. Hence, there was a constitutional crisis over succession of teleprompters: Joe Biden's teleprompter was next in line to serve. But Obama didn't want to use Joe Biden's teleprompter because it has glitches. Those gaffes? Uh-huh.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
CCR, "Bad Moon Rising"
