Federal Budget: Go After The Tax Expenditures

While Tea Partiers in Congress are having a field day attacking the budget and hoping to ax $$ for various social programs, Democrats are standing around in their usual helpless manner, whining about the cuts but not doing much of anything.

What about going after tax expenditures? In the past decade, Congress, led by Republicans, has enacted hundreds of billions of dollars in special interest tax breaks, better labeled as tax expenditures. Most of these tax breaks are distortions of the "free market" principles the GOP loves to espouse--they elevate one group over another for tax purposes.

We suggest that Democrats draw up a list of tax expenditures to repeal, focusing on those that most narrowly favor Republican interest groups. Dems can then hold a series of high profile votes on repealing these tax expenditures, highlighting the budget deficit reductions that would occur without them.

Lyon Park To County: Your Fire Trucks Are Too Fat

Here's a curious story. Arlington County told residents of a block of Edgewood St. in Lyon Park that they were going to restrict parking to one side of the street because with cars parked on both sides the street is too narrow for safe passage of fire trucks.

The Lyon Park Civic Association has objected. Ok, we were kind of sympathetic to the residents of this little block of Edgewood.

But then Lyon Park sent a letter to the County Board suggesting that the real problem is that Arlington's fire trucks are too wide. Hence, the County should get thinner fire trucks and leave the residents of Edgewood alone.

Talk about losing your audience! Hey, maybe the folks on Edgewood St. (in Lyon Park--we live on a nice wide stretch of Edgewood in Lyon Village) should get smaller cars.

Neglecting Short Children

This from today's Washington Post:

Physical Activity Bill Goes To Governor

The Virginia General Assemby is sending Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R)

a bill requiring tall children in public elementary and middle schools

to participate in at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week to

fight obesity.

Two comments: what about those short children, and what about a bill requiring newspapers to proof read their copy?

We'll have more on this misguided bill later this week.

Dead Or Alive--DOA!

If you're a Tom Clancy fan but haven't yet read his latest novel, "Dead of Alive," let us save you the trouble.

We've read most of Clancy's work over the years, and enjoyed many of his books. We wonder, however, whether major authors sometimes get to the point where they refuse to let their publishers properly edit their work. Or whether in today's publishing world editors have just become irrelevant, or too expensive to bother with.

Whatever the case may be, this is a book that could've used some major editing. The fundamental story is entertaining enough: a private clandestine intelligence agency set up by former uber-President Jack Ryan is tracking a thinly veiled Osama Bin Laden character ("the Emir") as he embarks on a set of interrelated terror attacks. When the book sticks to this storyline, it's reasonably fun.

The problem is that Clancy can't resist inserting pretty much every character he's ever created from any of his books into the story, often in some far-off tangent, side-story or backstory. There is a LOT of this in the book, and it really bogs it down.

When we started reading, the opening and the first chapter were vintage Clancy, sucking you in and getting you ready for a fast-paced thriller. Then the pace slows to a crawl as Clancy gets into all the irrelevant material. This goes on for page after page after page for pretty much the entire first half of the book. When you're in the middle of a book on Kindle and you find yourself opting to play solitaire instead of reading, you know there's a problem.

There's also an entire side-story of the former President Ryan gearing up to run again--the country having fallen into the hands of a spineless liberal President--that goes nowhere (or maybe to the next book?). Readers of Clancy books always have to put up with his right-wing leanings, and we could stomach that again here but for the seemingly endless pages of boring and confusing irrelevancies.

Clancy doesn't need to bring along all the baggage of his old books, and a good editor would tell him not to. Unfortunately, the answer to the title's question--dead or alive?--is dead on arrival. Take a pass on this clunker.

Arlington "Wins" On HOT Lanes

Arlington appears to have "won" it's battle against HOT lanes on I-395, at least for now--see here and here.

The only question, is at what cost from spiteful legislators and bureaucrats in Richmond? Instead of gloating, County officials might want to offer a few olive branches.

Richmond Hypocrisy

One of the big complaints from Tea Partiers and other conservatives is what they see as "meddling," "interference," etc. from Washington in local affairs. Keep the feds off our backs, they say.

We hear the same thing from Virginia's TP'ers. But while they want Washington out of local affaris, they evidently have no problem with imposing RICHMOND into local affairs.

Put aside that under Virginia law local governments have to get permission from the General Assembly to do just about anything, including imposing new taxes. (In contrast, the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes clear that the states have the right to do anything not specifically reserved to the federal government.)

We also have Delegates who like to impose their mores on jurisdictions they don't represent. The latest is a bill from Delegate David Albo, a Republican of the Tea Party ilk from Fairfax County, that would prevent Virginia localities from restricting the "enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." Albo doesn't like the fact that Arlington briefly discussed "opting out" of the federal government's "secure communities" initiative due to strict immigration enforcement issues.

Arlington has since concluded that it cannot opt out of the secure communities program. Furthermore, Arlington cannot "restrict" the enforcement of federal laws--the federal government can enforce those laws in Arlington to its heart's delight. So Albo's proposal is superfluous.

We have a suggestion, however: the General Assembly should simply pass a law that prohibits all Virginia localities--and the STATE (including the Attorney General)--from restricting the "enforcement of [ALL] federal laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." Somehow, we don't think that would go down with the TP'ers.

Memo to Albo and cohorts: if you don't want the feds to meddle in Virginia, then don't have the Commonwealth meddle in localities.

Memo To NHTSA: To Make Safer Cars, Get Rid of Drivers

The nation's automotive safety agency--NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to those of you living outside the beltway)--held a press briefing yesterday to tout ways it intends to make cars safer in the future.

Among the ideas bandied about were cars that can tell if you're over the legal alcohol limit, talking cars to let you know if someone ahead is braking, and various proposals to prevent distracted driving while texting, tweeting and facebooking.

Here's a better idea: get rid of human drivers. The age of the driverless robo-car is nearly upon us. The technology already exists in affordable form--it's just a matter of testing it and tweaking it for the myriad circumstances a robo-car might encounter on the road (especially as long as there are still human drivers). Indeed, Google has been testing a pair of robo-cars in various big cities with great success.

There are a lot of advantages to robo-cars. One is that a person can go partying and still get home without endangering the rest of us. Another is that everyone in the car becomes a passenger, and they can do whatever they want--text, yap on the phone, tweet, update their Facebook profile, put on make-up. If ALL cars were computer driven, they could also get us where we want to go faster, as the variability of human drivers would be taken out of the question.

We also like the idea of universal valet service--have the car drop you at the front door of wherever you're going and then find it's own place to park.

This won't happen overnight, but we think that by 2020 fully automated robo-cars will be a routine part of the transportation landscape. The Curmudgeon son is about to get his learner's permit (egads!), but we think the grandchildren will never learn to drive their own vehicles.

Arlington's Palm Reading Crisis

Lately, we've noticed a horrifying trend in Arlington: our palm readers are disappearing at an alarming rate!

We had one in Lyon Village, over on Lee Highway, but that property is now up for sale. We wonder what the market is for houses used for psychic purposes--would you pay a premium for that?

Then we saw that another palm reader, on Wilson Blvd. just west of Clarendon, had shut down, the property being redeveloped (condos, we predict, but a psychic would know for sure).

We call on the County Board to take action! Arlingtonians will be at a distinct disadvantage if they don't have professional assistance in seeing the future. Let's use some of that housing money to create a cluster of palm reading homes!

Republican Illogic On Health Reform

We couldn't say it better than Paul Krugman in today's NYT:

The War On Logic

Tucson

There's not a lot we can say about the tragedy in Tucson. True, our level of political discourse is pretty appalling, but it's been worse--much worse--at many times in U.S. history.

There's no evidence that the killer was motivated by any particular ideology, commentator or political type, and trying to assign blame in that area is simply counterproductive.

There is, however, a stark contrast in leadership styles in terms of the response to the crisis. While President Obama gave a moving speech seeking to promote healing, Sarah Palin went on a petty rant, which is no surprise because that's the type of person she's always been.

While we don't blame anyone on the right, left or middle for Jared Loughner's deranged act, it's sad that we as a society make it so easy for an unbalanced individual to inflict such devastating harm. The hardcore position of a small minority that we cannot, under any circumstances, regulate firearms is ridiculous. No one needs a 30 round clip for a pistol.

The Blessing and Curse of Constant Contact

If you've never heard of Constant Contact, just look at the bottom of any of those periodic emails you get from your school(s), church, sports groups, charities and anyone else you've given your email address to--CC is the software package powering all those updates you regularly get.

In the nonprofit world, Constant Contact is king. At the Arlington Soccer Association, where the Curmudgeon serves as President, we use the software to keep in touch with nearly 6000 families on a wide range of programs and activities.

On the other hand, as the recipient of a burgeoning in-box of quasi-legitimate, but nonetheless spammy email from all kinds of groups we're affiliated with in some manner, Constant Contact is getting to be a burden.

Lately, we've taken to unsubscribing from a few that have abused the privilege. Email is a great way to keep everyone up to date on what's going on, but there is such a thing as too much information. Maybe it's time for a new software package: "Occasional, But High Quality, Contact."

What's Ailing The Hoyas?

We usually stay away from sports topics on this blog, but with our beloved Georgetown Hoyas in freefall, we need to get this off our chest.

The Hoyas started the basketball season in fine form, going 11-1 against the toughest pre-conference schedule in the nation, then promptly went into the toilet, going 1-5 so far in the Big East. What's the problem?

When a team this good gets into a funk, it's the coach's responsibility to get them out of it. This isn't the first time it's happened to G'town--a couple years ago the Hoyas had a great start to their season, culiminating in a dramatic drubbing of UConn on the road, before going into a swoon and missing the NCAA tournament. Coach John Thompson III was not able to get his team turned around.

Can he do it this time? We'll see. The big problem is the Hoyas' offense, modeled on the so-called "Princeton offense" of swift ball movement and backdoor cuts. The other Big East teams have now seen this offense for several years, and they've figured it out defensively.

An inherent trade-off in the offense is a lack of offensive rebounding; the offensive strategy compensates for this by getting easy "backdoor" baskets that don't require rebounding. But when the offense stalls, requiring a forced shot as the time clock expires, a miss is essentially a turnover. That's exactly what we've been seeing from a team suddenly shooting quite cold from three point land. Earlier in the season, the team was getting good threes--open looks--and making them; now, they're shooting in desperation and missing.

Thompson needs to show more flexibility. Using the same offense no matter who he has on the floor makes no sense. Last year, he had big man Greg Monroe, one of the best passers in college basketball, and a threat to go to the basket himself. It was perfect for the Princeton offense. This year is much different. The Hoyas have the best guard trio in the country, but rather than turning them loose on opponents, they are forced into a slow tempo offense.

During last weekend's loss against a decidedly ordinary West Virginia team, the Hoyas showed a couple of flashes of brilliance. In both instances, Thompson uncharacteristically put his team into a full court press, with instant results. The quick Hoya guards forced turnovers and easily converted them into points with lay-ups. But the press didn't last, and the Mountaineers recovered as soon as the pressure relented.

JTIII has a talented bunch on the court. He needs to turn them loose, instead of forcing them into an offense that their opponents have completely solved.

The Limits of Energy Efficiency

Ever heard of the Jevons Paradox?

Neither had we until we happened across the Dec. 20 New Yorker (thanks to Mrs. Curmudgeon) and an article by David Owen, "The Efficiency Dilemma: If Our Machines Use Less Energy, Will We Just Use Them More?"

William Stanley Jevons, an English engineer of the 19th century, postulated that the more we conserve energy, the more energy we'll use.

Recently, some scientists have returned to Jevons', wondering whether we can solve our current energy problems through increases in energy efficiency, i.e., conservation. Perhaps not.

The problem, of course, is that as a technology becomes less expensive, it becomes more widely used. Contrary to Jevons' paradox, however, it's not just the cost of the energy input that matters. It's the total cost, particularly as a proportion of one's income.

Thus, as Owens points out, while the cost of the energy needed to provide lighting has declined over time, the overall cost of all the materials needed, especially in proportion to income, has gone down dramatically. Yale economist William Nordhaus has estimated that it would have taken an ancient Babylonian 41 hours of work to acquire enough lamp oil to provide 1000 lumens of light (the equivalent of a 75-watt bulb burning for one hour). By Thomas Jefferson's time, it would take about 5 hours of work to get the same amount of light (with a tallow candle).

Today? It would take the average American less than half a second to get 1000 lumens. Pretty incredible. But, of course, our per capita use of light has exploded since Babylonian and Jeffersonian times (as I write this, I'm bathed in energy efficient light from compact fluorescent bulbs; pretty much half the lights in our house are on right now).

Another example is refrigeration. Today's refrigerator uses just 25% of the energy of its smaller counterpart in the 1950's. That's great progress, but today, refrigeration is far more widespread than it was 50 years ago. Refrigerators, freezers and coolers are ubiquitous--just about every hotel room now has a small fridge; most houses have more than one; just about every retail store has a drink cooler and supermarkets sport many square feet of refrigerated and frozen food. Most likely, we're using more energy in total today for refrigeration than we were in the 1950's. That's not just because of energy efficiency gains--the relative cost of the appliances that refrigerate has also plummeted.

We could go on and on (and Owens does, to some degree).

The big growth in energy use today is in developing countries, like China and India. The first time we went to China, in the 1980's, air conditioning was almost non-existent and refrigerators were rare. On our last trip, four years ago, our Chinese relatives were rapidly catching up with us. And there's no stopping it. We can't tell the rest of the world that they can't have the benefits of air conditioning, refrigeration and a personal automobile--they deserve to get just as obese as we are!

That's not to say we shouldn't try to achieve energy efficiency; indeed, the market will probably do this regardless of what we want. But the potential result of that efficiency may not be to "save" energy--rather, it might instead just help someone else in the world catch up to our gluttonous standard of living.

Amazing Graphic Of Human Progress Over 200 Years

So much for Glenn Beck's good ol' days!

One of the Best Days of the Year!

Cold (again!), cloudy, gets dark early--so what's so great about today? With yesterday's winter solstice, today is the first time in six months that we're adding a little daylight! It's a start; Spring is on its way!

Time To Enforce Arlington's New Snow Removal Ordinance?

After the serial blizzards of last winter, Arlington finally adopted a snow removal ordinance that requires businesses and homeowners to clear the walks abutting their property within 24 hours of a storm.

It seems that many Arlingtonians need a reminder of this requirement. Hey folks, just because it's "only an inch" of snow doesn't mean you can ignore it. Walking around Lyon Village and Clarendon today, we saw quite a few very icy sidewalks that had never been cleared (although we saw mostly clear sidewalks--thanks to the majority who did their duty).

The photo here is of our neighbor's sidewalk at the corner of Edgewood and Franklin streets. Our neighbor caddy-corner from them did no better (no surprise--neither cleared their walks last winter).

Business owners should remember to clear ALL the walks around their property, not just that in front of their entrance. We noticed that the back of the Comcast property on Franklin was quite icy today, and some other Clarendon businesses ignored some of their side and back walks as well.

Hooray for Repeal of DADT

Finally, the U.S. Congress has done the right thing and will allow gays to serve openly in the military. It's sad that it took this long, but it's another sign of progress, ever so slowly. We're happy that both Virginia senators voted for the repeal--they did the right thing, and it will help them, not hurt them, politically in the Commonwealth (they aren't going to get the right wing homo-phobe vote anyway, and shouldn't want to).

Should Government Be Subsidizing TV and Radio Media?

In Virginia, Governor McDonnell is proposing deep cuts in state support for public broadcasting, and we can expect similar efforts from new members of Congress at the federal level.

Some of our friends on the left will be disappointed at this, but we tend to agree with the governor on this one.

When television first came along, the idea of promoting public broadcasting was a good one. In many markets there were just three or four commercial broadcast stations, and only three national networks. Public television carried programming--largely educational and cultural--that would never see the light of day in the limited broadcast environment that existed at the time.

That has all changed, of course. Today, we have hundreds of television stations on cable and satellite. Some are built on the traditional commercial television models, others (such as HBO) on a subscription model. These stations cater to many specialty audiences.

Of course, public television (and radio) have many fine offerings. The question, however, is why can't those fine offerings simply compete in the regular television market. It's hard to imagine that one of Ken Burns' fine documentaries wouldn't find an audience on, say, Bravo or A&E.

As it is, public television and radio these days operate on a quasi-subcription model--but instead of subscribing, they have interminable telethon like fundraising campaigns that, frankly, are worse than commercials.

Most of the programming on public television and radio could easily survive in a commercial or subscription environment, and that which couldn't--well, maybe it shouldn't be on at all. In fact, freed of the strictures of public funding, the programming on "public" television and radio might get even better.

There may be an exception where public funding is justified--some of the state programming on public television is for educational programs used in schools. But the funding for that could easily be moved into the Education budget to avoid any public confusion on its purpose.

We don't see a strong continuing rationale for using taxpayer dollars to subsidize "public" television and radio. Most of that programming appeals to a very narrow audience, not the public in general. And while our lefty friends generally enjoy public television and radio, we can see why more conservative taxpayers would not. If NPR were to suddenly adopt a Fox-like slant, you'd see the end to Democratic support for such subsidies.

We need to make some hard decisions about what government should and should not be doing. This is a fairly easy one.

[Now, having said that, Governor McDonnell ought to take a hard look at some of the programs he likes that subsidize the business community. These are often disguised as "jobs" programs, but they almost always benefit a narrow segment of the private sector.]

Are Tea Partiers Libertarians?

Generalizing anything about Tea Partiers can be difficult, but the same can be said about Democrats and Republicans.

Today, we ask the question, are Tea Partiers libertarians?

The answer: not really. Let's start with gay rights. Tea Partiers are more likely than Republicans in general to oppose gay rights. You certainly don't see any of them leading the charge (or even following) on repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

In fact, the Tea Partiers appear to be descended from the same people who opposed extension of civil rights to blacks; who opposed women's suffrage and later opposed the women's rights movement. Sarah Palin seems oblivious to the fact that she'd be nowhere if it weren't for the women who fought for equality for women in the political and economic spheres.

Some of the tea partiers also seem to question the First Amendment's anti-establishment clause for religion, arguing that the founders only intended to prohibit a national establishment of religion, but not state establishments of such. This is a popular line of argument from Utah's new senator, who comes from a state that would love to impose Mormonism on all its citizens (and ultimately, all of us).

Indeed, when it comes to religion, Tea Partiers seem to become much more of government activists. There seems little doubt that if they COULD, the WOULD impose a whole raft of right wing Christian moral strictures on the rest of us--their Taliban. They're certainly not shy about asking that public schools teach things the way they see it.

They do like to rant and rave about government regulation of businesses. God forbid that a gun dealer should have to adhere to some rationale standard of care in selling a dangerous product to the public. Or that an industry that pollutes the environment should have to include in the costs of its product the price of cleaning up.

The fact is that many industries in the U.S. have learned to welcome regulation (to a reasonable point) because it protects them from fly-by-night operators charging low prices for inferior products. You think GM has it bad now--suppose any Indian or Chinese auto manufacturer could bring some $2000 piece of crap dangerous as hell car into the U.S. market? Where would GM be then? The point is, many businesses benefit from a well-regulated market, and they have plenty of lobbyists and lawyers poring over every new regulation to make sure their voices are heard.

Would you really want to live somewhere with no zoning laws? And have someone open up a hog farm in your neighborhood, or put an auto repair shop next to your house without a question being asked?

Tea Partiers, then, are not true libertarians.

The "Tax Deal"--Vintage Congress

If you thought the mid-term elections with all their colorful Tea Party candidates were going to change the way things are done here in the Nation's Capital, think again.

The "tax deal" brokered by Pres. Obama and the Republicans in Congress is vintage pork politics. After all that talk about the deficit and getting real about bringing the budget under control, we got a "deal" that INCREASES the tax breaks for everyone, including hyper-millionaires, and that EXTENDS unemployment benefits for people who haven't managed to "find" a job for two years.

Result: bigger deficit. Screw the American people. But everyone in Congress gave out a holiday goodie to their constituency. Unfortunately, that's the way our system works.

In our next post, we'll discuss why those new Tea Party congresspeople won't be any different. [Hint: they're not for less government, or less spending--they just want the government to tell you and I how to live our lives, and to give tax breaks to their cronies, the classic Republican way of spending.]