Category: News and Opinion

You have three castes in New York: the executive caste, the political caste, and the serfs. The executive caste rides around in taxis and black cars, or drives their own luxury cars to paid-for corporate parking spaces, lives in the wealthier parts of Manhattan or the more affluent suburbs, and sends its children to private or suburban schools. Its capital gain and investment income is taxed at favorable rates, but this caste nonetheless pays much of the city’s taxes. The political caste drives its own or city cars to public parking spaces reserved for it by placard, receives much its pay in tax-advantaged retirement income and employer-financed health care, lives in the middle-caste suburbs (even if required to live within the city) or in a limited number of suburban-type city neighborhoods, and sends its children to suburban or “special” city public schools. To the extent that in the past there were special “middle income” housing deals on offer, such as Mitchell-Lamas, the political caste got them.

It seems that both the political caste and the executive caste are in favor of extending, in fact repealing, term limits. And based on the polls, the serfs are not.

Gatemouth’s commentary on the two Sarahs repeated an “urban legend” about the 2004 campaign that was created when DC pundits still thought Karl Rove was a genius.

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/two_schmuels_for_sister_sarah.html

Gatemouth wrote – “In 2004, there was virtually no effort made by Republicans to attract black voters to George W. Bush, and as a result he got virtually none. The one exception was in Ohio, where helped by the presence on the ballot of an anti-gay marriage initiative, Republicans did undertake such efforts, and Bush managed an eye-popping 25%, which alone may have deprived John Kerry of the White House.”

The back-to-school employment data is out from the New York State Department of Labor (attached), and guess what? In the face of an upcoming fiscal and economic catastrophe, the public schools in the portion of New York State outside New York City added another 4,900 jobs in the year to September 2008, bringing the total increase since September 1993 to 76,400. This despite staffing levels (as well as pay and cost) in the rest of the state that were already sky-high relative to the national average (adjusted for the student population, the cost of living, etcetera). Overall local government employment in the portion of the state outside of New York City is up 2,500 from a year earlier and 119,500 from 1993. All these people have a “right” to their jobs, pensions and benefits, it seems, and if honoring that right in a budget crisis would drive property taxes too high, well, New York City’s share of state education funding will just have be cut again, Silver and Skelos are likely to agree. As in the previous two recessions, but perhaps to a greater extent, particularly if credit conditions prevent the state from getting through the recession by borrowing even more.

Across the country, voters are preparing to take part in (or already taking part in) a national referendum on such monumental issues as “Smart Diplomacy versus Aggressive Isolationism“, “16 More Months (‘God Willing’) versus 100 More Years (‘Make My Day’)”, “Sensible Regulation versus Adam Smith on Acid and Steroids” and “Guaranteed Health Care versus the Freedom to Die Free From Government Interference in Excruciating Pain” .

And yet, in over 10% of New York’s City’s Congressional Districts, seriously delusioned voters will be unable to cast a vote for a Republican candidate for Congress (although in one of the offending districts, they will have the option of voting for a Conservative).

I have avoided commentary on this presidential race lately, mainly because there are things I don’t want to discuss right now. As it relates to political issues, I will wait until it is all over before I get back to brass tacks. But given that I have been badgered by some of my many fans to call the race: I will. In fact I will do a little more than that. 

Let me say that there will be a record turnout for this year’s presidential race. I am talking about raw votes not percentage(s). Barack Obama will win easily; it won’t even be close. He will get closer to 400 electoral votes than three hundred. He will receive more single votes than any presidential candidate in the history of this great country.

The year was 2000; I was on line at JFK, about to check my baggage for a flight to Florida, answering questions from a young woman with a clipboard.

“Is this trip for business or for pleasure?”, she asked. I felt like Jack Benny asked to choose between his money or his life. A minute went by and then another. She tapped her pencil as folks behind me began to grumble.

“Neither”, I finally responded, “I’m going to visit my parents.”

This less than happy memory came back to me like acid reflux as I pondered the strategy behind “The Great Schlep”, an effort by young Jewish Obama supporters to impact the votes of their grandparents by trekking down to Florida.

At Thursday’s City Council hearing on extending term limits, former Mayor Ed Koch supported Bloomberg’s scheme.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/live-blogging-the-term-limits-hearings/#koch

Koch said:

“The change I support would allow those who are term limited to serve three terms rather than two. I have always supported 12 years as opposed to eight years. My belief in the need for three terms was predicated on my experience of mayor of the city of any.”

Read any news source and you'll find the realization spreading that the United States is suffering from a crisis of profligacy, addicted to spending more than it earns, using more energy than it can produce, and having a culture of "I want for me now" that has gone on for 25 years. We are facing national bankruptcy even as millions are unable to make ends meet in their own homes, and we face an economic depression unless people in other countries, poorer countries with problems of their own, continue to sacrifice and save in order to lend us more and more money each and every day. And yet in their debates and in their campaigns, the two candidates for President have done little but promise Americans that nothing they do needs to change, that there will be an easy way out, that the government will provide it, and that it won't cost them anything. Instead of Commander in Chief, we have two candidates for Panderer in Chief.

All the talk about energy independence in the last debate was a bunch of hot air, just as it has been for the past 35 years. If the next President wants to be a leader and turn this country around, he's going to have to make requests and not promises, and he'll have to convince people to work together in ways that are difficult in the short run to make things better in the long run. And I have a suggestion — one thing that can be done within months rather than years. Dynamic carpooling on a large scale.

With the prospect of a Democratic Party victory appearing more and more likely, many conservatives are looking for a “silver bullet” to snatch victory.

The Wall Street Journal has come up with an interesting idea but I think it probably won’t work.

In an editorial titled, Conservative Canada, John McCain take note, the Journal points to this week’s re-election win of Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper.

A former student of mine called in anger recently. Of course the issue was this pending malevolent attack on term-limits (and probable hijack), by Mayor Bloomberg and a New York City Council majority; via proposed legislation altering the term limits law voted in by the people. The student was livid. 

With typical youthful innocence and idealism, he kept challenging me to make sense of all this. How could a plebiscite be overturned without going back to the voter via referendum? Why were there two referenda on this issue, when the legislators could just come in and sweep away the people’s vote (will) at anytime? And what is to stop them from extending the limit another four years, when 2013 rolls around?  Is this the “democracy” that we Americans love to boast about to the rest of the world?