The Ann Arbor City Council Should Resign

Sunday June 7, gave a glimpse of the minds of our local government: They do not even take themselves seriously. The Ann Arbor News deserves credit for their front page coverage of the event. From the story:

But while they publicly endorsed the efforts, the same City Council members who backed "Safe Passage Great Lakes Days" in March mocked its significance in e-mails that flew back and forth during the council meeting.

Greden's March 16 missive prompted a dozen messages in which the four council members made sport of environmental or wildlife protection measures that they had passed.

"If only there were sea turtles in the Huron we could keep the streak going," Hohnke wrote.

"Come on," Teall responded, "we can think of something in the Huron to save ... it's the fish, going upstream, after the Argo dam decision!!"

These comments sound more like jabs from political cartoons than council members' thoughts. There is no excuse for this kind of language during a City Council meeting. Why should residents take anything the City Council does seriously, if the Council itself is not serious?

Leigh Greden previously said "there was nothing to apologize fore, unless anyone was offended" until the story broke. His comments were less extreme and possibly misinterpreted.

Hohnke and Teall - who openly mocked their own resolutions during the meeting - should resign. If neither of them has that much courage, the citizens of Ann Arbor should see to it they are not re-elected.

Advice from McGovern

George McGovern has some advice for Obama. First, "Why not order all U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan by Thanksgiving?" Because that would be destabilizing to the region and put in peril the gains for which so many soldiers have fought and died. Second, cut the defense budget in half, allocating the $250 billion saved to "national health care, improved education, a better environment and restoring our infrastructure" and to "build the fastest, safest and cleanest powered railway system in the world."

McGovern seems to have missed that we recently spent triple that amount on just those kinds of programs. This is liberal spendthrift at its worst.

Swine Flu

As Swine Flu, or A/H1N1 if you prefer, fades from the headlines, perhaps next time we should focus not on the fear of a "pandemic" but on the mighty efforts of the various organizations that helped target, treat, and contain the virus.

Re-building Ethics

A note on the WSJ editorial page called our current situation "a crisis of ethic proportions." The writer, Mr. Bogle, goes on to say, "Substituting 'ethic' for 'epic' is a fine turn of phrase, and it accurately places a heavy responsibility...on a broad deterioration in traditional ethical standards." Rebuilding these standards in an age when "money manager agents...now hold 75% of all shares of public companies" is the solution Mr. Bogle foresees. In reading this, I could not help but be stuck by Pope Benedict XVI's insight in Spe Salvi that "every generation must also make its own contribution to establishing convincing structures of freedom and of good." We must recognize that our grandfathers' and fathers' regulations will not keep us honest, if for no other reason than we must embrace and build them as our own.

The Grass Isn't Always Greener

In some measure, it is human nature to be envious of what others have. But the grass is not always greener on the other side, no matter our perception of it. The passing of David Kellermann, acting CFO for Freddie Mac, is a tragic reminder. In a May 6 article the WSJ notes that "To neighbors and friends, he seemed to live an enviable life. His wife and daughter sometimes stopped by the office to have lunch with him" and "They just had one of those relationships that everyone wants to have in life".
Privately fulfilling and publicly successful - what more could a guy ask for?

Yet he worked in an environment that had "near-constant management upheaval" since 2003, he harbored doubts that he was ready to be CFO, and his sense of humor slowly slipped away from him.

Mr. Kellermann's tragic passing should give us pause when we glibly lay blame on executives of any title.

Who to Trust?

In relation to Steve Rattner, President Obama's auto industry adviser, and the New York pension investigation, the WSJ noted it was "growing evidence of corruption by officials who use their power over public pension funds to shake down private companies. This is the same political class that has been blaming banks for "greed" in the financial crisis. The pension fund scandal exposes the myth of the superior virtue of the public and nonprofit worlds. Greed is universal. And the opportunity for corruption is enormous when political discretion is tied to vast sums of public money."

The love of money is the root of evil. Americans should not be so naive as to believe that because an individual is a "public servant" they are immune to the pressures and temptations of the private, "for profit" world. The reality is, all people seek profit. We should therefore limit the amount of power, money, and blind trust we give to our "civil servants".

Don't Eat Babies, Tax Emails!

I’m on a roll today. Even though I should probably save this for another day, I just can’t stop.

This country needs money. The Obama administration is deficient spending through our noses. The rich, businesses of all sizes, and gas and oil companies, to name a few, are being taxed to oblivion. The troops need money, Obama’s plan for universal health care is not going to be cheap, the goal to have everyone in this country with a college degree is going to cost some serious dough. We need money, plain and simple. This is my proposal: enact a taxation on email.

According to one site, 210 billion emails are sent per day. Let’s assume, for the sake of numbers, that 1/2 of those are sent to or from America. That means that 105 billion emails every day would be available for taxation. If Uncle Sam charged just $.05 per email, he would acquire 5.3 billion dollars a day. In just 149 days, about five months, the entire stimulus package of $787 billion could be completely paid for in little more than it costs to send a text message. Perhaps the taxation plan could offer discounts or tax deductions for emails sent within between family members or coworkers to keep business costs feasible, and the stimulus could still be paid for within a year.

Think of all the other advantages of an email taxation: no spam, no email chain-letters, and fewer company advertisings (like Amazon’s “Since you bought that, we know you’ll love this!” emails). If you work in a customer-service based industry, you’d get fewer stupid-question emails, since people would be more likely to research their question before emailing it. There are so many advantages to treating emails like they are text messages!

You could do any one of these things:
Pay for Bush’s bank bailout of $700 billion within five months
Full pay for the new $3.6 trillion budget within Obama’s first term (1.7 years)
In 5.6 years, the entire $10.8 trillion Federal deficit would be $0

If you’re reading this Obama, just know that instead of socialistically taxing only the wealthy, you could communistically fairly tax us all a measly $.05 per email.

Gold a haven as Government screws economy!

According to the ticker at WSJ.com "The rising price of gold says investors are starting to freak out over governments' response to the credit crunch." (emphasis mine) Obama really needed that stimulus passed right away so that the markets could get back to normal.

No surprise that government intervention is causing such havok. Obama et al. should have read the writing on the wall when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's recovery plan was greeted with negative market action and as the Dow fell 5.1% to 7850.41 since Obama and team "unveiled it's efforts to aid the credit markets" (WSJ - C1)

If the President and Congress actually held to the 48 hour waiting period to review the biggest spending bill in history - as Congress voted unanimously - perhaps some of the damage would have been mitigated by better knowledge and stripping additional pork from the bill.

Honorable Mention

I can't believe our government won't accept its own currency as cash.

At least he got his day in court . What I consider even more damning is the case cited involving the man who is attempting to pay his tax bill in 100s. That's the largest denomination printed. Is the government saying that checks are more acceptable legal tender than dollars? How can the government not accept its money as payment for a debt to the government?