beterwas
honestly misbehaving
Archive for Confound Authority
December 29, 2009 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Aid Fellow Travelers, Confound Authority, Finish Ahead
The best ideas are always the simplest.
About a year ago, I wrote a post that used George Bailey as a metaphor for the community. I suggested that the citizens of Muncie could all pull together, make relatively small changes and investments in their community, and our city would be a better place.
Well, it turns out that I haven’t been the only one thinking along those lines. Lots of people have been working to come up with effective and sustainable ways to improve their communities, and do so with minimal impact to the already-strained finances of its members.
As it happens, though, the simpler the idea, the better it is; and a group has come up with one of the simplest of all: Move your money.
Read the rest of this entry »
September 16, 2009 at 5:33 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Raise The Debate
How come I never heard of Congressman Anthony Weiner before today?
“The health insurance industry shouldn’t exist at all, because unlike a pharmaceutical company that is producing…at least they have someone doing research trying to make someone healthy. A health insurance company is just making money on the transaction, and really not contributing anything to the end product.”
So, basically the entire health insurance industry is just a big middle man. I guess I always knew that, but I never really thought about it in those terms. That being said, it makes me wonder why the right is so obsessed with preserving it.
Their big argument against bringing government into anything is that it contributes no value, increases costs and adds layers of beaurocracy. What’s the difference? Read the rest of this entry »
July 24, 2009 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Finish Ahead
I’ve been an avid Bill Maher fan for many years. I find him to be astute, fair and absolutely intolerant of intentional stupidity – much like me.
A few months ago, he started in on this idea that what’s really wrong with this country is that we don’t treat each other very well, and that we’re obsessed with money. The two feed into each other until we get to the point where we are, well, here.
The first time he really brought it forward publicly was in an interview with Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. He talked about the recent return to usury in our society, and how we’re having to work too hard to convince lawmakers that it’s not okay for credit card companies to use dirty tricks to bury fellow Americans under mountains of debt.
In a later episode, he goes further to illustrate examples of how we’ll do just about anything to anyone for money: Soldiers in Iraq being electrocuted in the shower because of shoddy electrical work.
“How can one American kill another American to save a little money on wire?” he asks, and it’s a good question. Greed exists in every society; but only ours touts it as a virtue.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 21, 2009 at 3:07 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Musings, Raise The Debate
Every day is a shite storm in Muncie, it seems.
Yesterday’s StarPress featured an article on the City Council’s plans to introduce new LOIT taxes, in an effort to bridge our City’s funding gaps.
You can imagine the reaction.
Like everyone else, I don’t enjoy paying taxes; any more than I enjoy paying for utilities, gasoline, medical bills or anything else. Like those other things, though, I recognize both the necessity and the benefit of paying for them.
I meet people every day that say to me “government produces nothing,” or make comparisons between taxes and “reaching into your neighbor’s pocket;” and quite honestly, it frustrates me. I understand that there is an anger and anxiety that drive such sentiments, as well as a sense that our tax dollars are being wasted at every turn; and to some extent, there is validity to those feelings.
But there is also an irrationality behind them. To say that government produces nothing suggests that roads, schools, public safety, rule of law, etc. would just magically materialize on their own. To compare paying for public services to robbing your neighbor suggests that we don’t have an obligation to support public services; but rather that they are an entitlement of sorts. And while no one can argue that there isn’t fraud, waste and abuse when it comes to local government’s stewardship of tax dollars, the picture that is painted is at best a caricature – the waste comprises a small portion of the overall budget, not a majority.
The other comment I hear oft-repeated has to do with local government “living within their means,” and “living on a budget, like the rest of us have to.” The fundamental problem I have with those attitudes is that the two represent very different dynamics. Managing your personal finances revolves around making decisions that best benefit you, personally – it is a “me” proposition. Government operations, on the contrary, are about providing collective services and managing the things individual citizens can’t manage themselves – which is more of a “we” proposition.
Read the rest of this entry »
May 25, 2009 at 1:54 pm · Filed under Call Bullshit, Confound Authority
I just received a phone call from Mayor McShurley.
It was a “courtesy call” to tell me that my email addressed was being blocked, and that her entire staff was informed to no longer take my calls.
None of my calls or emails have been abusive, profane or harassing. I’ve been polite, friendly and helpful to everyone at City Hall, despite having being met with rudeness and contempt (such as that stunt she pulled during the last CC meeting).
I have offered suggestions and assistance, volunteered my time and expertise, and until recently, been supportive of the city administration (almost to a fault, according to some).
Admittedly, I did recently make a comment about “pissing contests” between the Mayor’s office and the City Clerk’s, in response to spending six months trying to get some documents emailed to me. I can’t believe that’s it, though. Saltier things have come out of her mouth, to be sure.
I guess that’s how she rolls. Funny, I thought she worked for me.
Has anyone else out there received a similar call, I wonder?
April 20, 2009 at 2:49 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Raise The Debate
It’s time to stop the insanity.
Norm Stamper, retired Seattle Police Chief, pens a great column comparing the use of marijuana and alcohol.
“Over the past four years I’ve asked police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada) two questions. When’s the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? (I’m talking marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause, they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask: When’s the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.”
Read the rest of the story here.
April 9, 2009 at 11:56 am · Filed under Confound Authority, Raise The Debate
The current crisis over the Muncie Fire Department’s vehicle fleet has been building over many years, and has now come to a head. Despite repeated request for equipment budgeting, the current and past city administrations have chosen to try and force the department to choose between manpower and other needs, in an effort to weaken the firefighter’s union.
Now the consequences of that single-minded approach to dealing with the city’s public safety needs have come to bear, and we are faced with paying a premium for our poor planning. As is often the case, the suggested responses to this crisis are as short-sighted as the thinking that got us into this mess in the first place: Close stations, lay off firefighters, replace professionals with volunteers and other variations on the theme of trading manpower for equipment.
As Einstein famously said, no problem can be solved by the same thinking that created it. There are other options out there for us to explore.
Look at Anderson. They have nearly 10K fewer people, but have 126 personnel in eight stations covering a 40 square mile area (as opposed to our 25 ). Coverage is not all about population.
Their fleet has only one vehicle over ten years old, and it’s a 1995 Sabre – as opposed to Muncie’s fleet, whose newest vehicle is 23 years old. They don’t buy used vehicles anymore, and they pay cash, both of which save the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
How do they do it? For starters, they operate their own EMS. It nets them about $1M per year, all of which goes into a fund specifically for fire equipment and buildings. That means that their near $10M budget doesn’t have to account for vehicles or building maintenance.
Also, they take full advantage of available grants. One of the many grants available is the federal SAFER grant, which I imagine we would easily qualify for.
Bloomington, on the flip side, has around 10K more people than we do, but a slightly smaller coverage area of 19 square miles. They have five stations, 99 personnel on staff and much more up-to-date vehicle fleet (of course, we don’t exactly set a high bar to get over).
Their $8M budget, however is supplemented by IU to the tune of over $1M/year. Granted IU is roughly twice the size of BSU, but BSU only pays $100K/year for their contract with MFD. That’s about 1% of our total FD budget, despite the fact that the university makes up 10% of the coverage area and over 25% of the city’s population.
As an aside, both cities also have public safety-friendly mayors. Anderson’s previous administration, however, was much like ours in that they often grappled with the FD in the interest of union-busting. They got voted out in their last election, though, and some of them are now part of our current administration.
The point is that there are lots of ideas out there that don’t involve drastic cuts to an already small department, potentially jeopardizing public safety, as well as our city’s ISO rating – which Chief Clevenger indicated at Monday’s City Council meeting is a very real threat that would result in higher property insurance premiums for everyone.
Also, we can learn much from our neighbors about how to fund and staff our department in ways that don’t involve raising taxes.
Pursuing those ideas, however, means putting aside the animosity that exists towards MFD, and foregoing the underlying objective of ridding the city of unions.
It’s not a game. Lives, property and livelihoods are at stake here. Let’s all stop playing politics and bashing one another, and come together to solve this problem.
November 9, 2008 at 3:39 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Finish Ahead
I read many letters, blog posts and online comments that express a real frustration and powerlessness over is happening in government today. At the federal level, it looks like the Bush administration has managed to make one more massive money grab, before heading out the door.
At the state level, sources of tax revenue are being shuffled around at a dizzying rate, resembling a game of three-card-monty.
And at the local level, which may be the most maddening, the city and county grapple with a desperate financial situation, while numerous parties vie to protect their own interests. What makes the local government situation particularly frustrating is our proximity to it. Indianapolis seems far away, and Washington D.C. even further; but we see City Council members every day around town, and yet still feel like we can’t be heard.
What can we do? Actually, lots of things.
Read the rest of this entry »
November 5, 2008 at 12:29 pm · Filed under Confound Authority, Finish Ahead
November 3, 2008 at 12:25 pm · Filed under Confound Authority
I love it when unintended consequences work out in our favor. It’s such a rarity in life.
In two days, hopefully, we’ll wake up to President-Elect Barack Obama, and the face of America will be indelibly altered.
I try to imagine a young Afghan or Pakistani boy, sitting in a madrassa, looking at a picture of Barack Obama. I imagine it was easy to sell George W. Bush as the Great Satan, with that smug expression on his face. But the anti-western imams out there will soon have their work cut out for them, trying to sell the idea that a Kenyan-American named Barack Hussein Obama is the enemy of Isalm.
In two days, we may discover how to truly win the war on terror.
Two days
Next entries »
