In science one tries to tell people,
in such a way as to be understood by everyone,
something that no one ever knew before.
But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
Paul Dirac
Alan Grayson: New Florida Congressional Seat?
My First JOTY Nomination in Weeks
Yes, redistricting is upon us, and Florida will be seating two new Congressional seats next year. The newly redrawn Orlando area Ninth District, according to the Hill, heavily favors the return of Alan "Just Call Me Mr. Manners" Grayson, the 2009 winner of my Jackass of the Year Award.
Yes, the same man who once called a Bernanke adviser a "K-Street whore", summarized GOP health care reform for senior citizens as "to die quickly", and calls his opponents across the aisle "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals" is back from the dead as political road kill in the last election.
His new campaign material includes the following descriptions of prominent Republicans:
- Mitt Romney: “was born with a silver spoon in some orifice, and he never was able to get it out....He’ll only be happy when he can strap us to the top of his car.” [a reference to the Romneys' dog Seamus].
"Of hundreds of Romney's law and business school classmates at Harvard, just 15 earned the dual degree — which packed courses required for the two degrees into less time than earning them separately. Romney didn't just earn the degree. He graduated with honors from the law school and in the top 5 percent of his class in the business school." Hmmm. And Obama thinks that he deserves an A- for his work as President...
- George W. Bush: "is no more popular than venereal disease." Just classy...
It sounds like someone in the Florida Democratic Party leadership forgot to take out the trash... Given the smell, I suspect that mad cow disease is rampant in the Orlando area. Let's hope that District 9 voters can cut through the crap...
Retirement From the Rat Race:
Working For the City
D.W. MacKenzie, a Montana private college economics professor, recently penned for the Freeman a guest column: "A Few Observations on the Efficiency of Local Government: A tale of great waste". As many cities face their day of reckoning, some even filing for bankruptcy, Scranton, PA finds itself paying its employees minimum wage, and Obama, already more than $5T in the hole in less than 1 term as President, is constantly hyping bailouts for cities and states (i.e., teachers, police, and firefighters), we see some cities resorting to (gasp!) outsourcing all services except public safety. McKenzie fleshes this out, explaining his experiences working as an engineering student intern for the engineering department in the city of Livingston, NJ.
Like other libertarians, MacKenzie argues that we shouldn't settle for efficient government but smaller government. This may sound counter-intuitive, but he explains that local government systems usually aren't transparent, services are poorly tied to revenues and highly politicized, and the people who know about government waste have a stake in maintaining the status quo.
The reason for shrinking vs. efficiency becomes clearer as MacKenzie provides some anecdotal evidence from his experience (my edits):
- "The engineering department of Livingston had three fulltime civil engineers. There wasn’t enough actual work to keep even one busy. We surveyed land that had already been surveyed. We observed a road construction project and some housing construction."
- "Every morning the water department van would go out to fix broken water mains. How often did water mains break? Once every month or two. How long did it take them to fix a broken main? Two or three days. (Between broken mains,) they would hang around the local parks, the Livingston Mall, The Donut Basket..."
- "The road department would clear fallen trees or branches a few times a year. During the summer I worked in the Town Hall, some of them were busy replacing street signs they had previously misspelled."
- "The oddest daily event was the 2 p.m. break in the town hall. Every day town employees would gather in the break room for about an hour for donuts and coffee. Soon after the “break” ended, town employees would fill up their cars at the taxpayer-funded town gas pump, and go home."
Now let's go to my former neck of the woods: Chicagoland. In the blue collar west suburb of Bellwood, population 20,000, we have one 57-year-old retiree, Roy McCampbell.
According to the Chicago Tribune (my edits):
McCampbell, who retired in January 2010, was hired as comptroller-administrator to run Bellwood in 2001 at a starting pay of about $120,000. McCampbell, known as one of the first suburban officials to push red-light cameras, said he did the work of 10 people for Bellwood — comptroller, administrator, public safety CEO, finance director, budget director, human resources director, mayoral assistant, corporation counsel, property commission director and development corporation officer.
His 2009 compensation, used as a basis for determining his pension, was as follows:
- base salary as comptroller and administrator: $128,940
- base salary public safety CEO, budget director, human resources director, finance director, head of two separate development boards and a classification as "assistant to the mayor: $115,101
- "special duty assignment" as corporation counsel: $66,000
- cashing out 120 unused sick and vacation days: $126,000
- other cash outs (not sure; just the comptroller: ask the village accountants): $36,000
- "generous vacation, personal and sick days. He accumulated nearly five months' worth of such days a year starting in May 2008, on top of the 435 days (he had already accumulated)"
- car and gas paid for by taxpayers; his premiums for health and life insurance; his pension contributions
And now that he was retired? "General IMRF guidelines indicate his monthly pension checks could be about $22,000, or $264,000 year."
But don't worry, citizens of Bellwood: there have been adjustments made since then: McCampbell "has seen his retirement checks whittled by pension officials to about $230,000 a year." They knocked off nearly 4 years because they couldn't verify from social security records teenage employment of 19 months for his local school district, another 15 months at Schiller Park, and the remainder in credit for unused sick leave.
Local officials claim that they had no idea McCampbell was making that much money... McCampbell says that they're lying. As far as I'm concerned: bad news no matter who is right...
Now let's go to the firefighters of Boston. Who could possibly have anything negative to say about firefighters? One might as well attack Mom, apple pie, or (courtesy of Bush/Obama: partially taxpayer-owned) Chevrolet... Oh, well; here we go:
This news item is dated (HT Carpe Diem), going back about 3 years, but it illustrates more of the shameless public sector employee game playing at taxpayer expense that occurs as public employees attempt to spike the ending year(s) of compensation, typically a basis for determining pension payment. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had just signed pension reform legislation closing a key loophole:
These firefighters were worse than my students procrastinating on computer assignments or exams until the day before they were due! Whatever the merits of the underlying disability claim, the issue is one of manipulating a benefit against the spirit and intent of the law and at the expense of taxpayers; it's morally unconscionable.Nearly 30 Boston firefighters with pending disability claims filed for retirement yesterday, just two days before a new state law ends a controversial benefit that allows them to significantly enhance their pensions if they claim career-ending injuries occurred while filling in for a superior at a higher pay grade.
Of the 29 who filed yesterday, 25 said they were filling in for a superior at the time of their injuries, according to city officials, which makes them eligible for a pension benefit at the higher salary scale. That perk, which can add hundreds of thousands of dollars over a retiree's lifetime and cost taxpayers millions, will not be available to anyone filing after today.
Over the prior six years, 102 Boston firefighters had substantially enhanced their tax-free disability pensions by claiming career-ending injuries while they were filling in for superiors at higher pay grades. Some firefighters have sought the enhanced benefit after filling in for a superior for just one day, leading critics to call it the ``king-for-a-day'' provision. Starting tomorrow, firefighters who file for disability pensions would see their retirement checks based on their average salary from the 12 months prior to their injury.
It isn't often that I praise Governor Patrick (D-MA) and Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) in this blog (Brown specifically addressed income spiking abuses in his recent pension reform proposal), but I'm glad to see Democrats taking at least baby steps to protect the taxpayer. What is needed, of course, is a conservative governor and a conservative legislature to get real reform done...
Political Humor
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| Welcome to the All Spin Zone Courtesy of Michael Ramirez / investors.com |
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| Courtesy Gary McCoy / Townhall |
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| Courtesy of didntbuildthat.com |
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The Babys/John Waite, "Missing You". Technically this is a solo hit, but I sometimes do blended series (e.g., like BTO was an offshoot of the Guess Who). My next featured group will be Blondie.
