Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Executive envy

Daily Kos has a post today that debunks another sloppy bit of insider babble from Washington Post columnist David Broder. Broder makes the claim that voters prefer executive experience in their presidents to those without — even though there is no evidence that this is the case.

It’s true that few Senators have been elected President, but it’s more likely that Senators—especially prior to the advent of national fundraising for Senate candidates in recent decades—just have too much baggage to win elections. There are so many things “they actually did vote for” before they voted against it that there’s plenty to pull out of their record. Plus, being an “outsider” free of the “taint” of politics as usual in Washington, DC often explains the success of governors in national elections at least as much as executive experience.

There is something else worth pointing out: Few, if any of those elected (aside from George W. Bush, and we know how that worked out) ran as competent managers. In fact, the only one to do so that I can remember was Michael Dukakis — who drove his tank off a cliff during the general election.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Rock, rock, rock, rock,rock and roll Republicans

Politicians — at least those that capture the moment, as Barack Obama seemed to do earlier this month — are sometimes referred to as “rock stars.” Of course, John Kerry is no Bruce Springsteen, even if the Boss did stump for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, and I just don’t see anything about George W. Bush that reminds me of Ted Nugent (Dick Cheney, maybe).

In any case, the notion of “rock star” politicians got me thinking: What if the current crop of Republican candidates for president were to form bands (Mike Huckabee is an accomplished bass player) and released albums. What would their bands be called and what might they call their debut discs?

Well, here’s what I came up with:

  • Rudy Giuliani: Rudy G and the Autocrats, “A 9/11 State of Mind”
  • Mike Huckabee: Mike Huckabee’s Anti-Evolution Revolution, “Too Much Monkey Business”
  • Fred Thompson and Aqua Velva, “Wake Me When It’s Over”
  • Mitt Romney: Willard Romney and the Many Faces of Mitt, “Money to Burn”
  • John McCain: Mack Daddy McCain, “Straight Talk Gone Crooked”
  • Ron Paul: The Ron Paul Conspiracy, “Tilting at Windmills”
  • Duncan Hunter: Duncan Hunter and the Invisible Campaign, “Who is Duncan Hunter and Does Anyone Care?”

I think this sums up the field fairly well, if I do say so myself.

I’ll come back to the Democrats at another point.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Toll plan redux redux

Interesting piece by Linda Stamato, who teaches at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. She asks some basic questions about the governor’s toll-hike and debt plan that need to be answered before anyone should offer any support.

She writes:

I don’t buy the governor’s “either/or” framework for fiscal salvation. We don’t either need to increase the income tax by 20 percent or the sales tax by 30, or the gas tax by 12 cents or live with the governor’s plan. A combination of approaches makes more sense to me. And, certainly we ought to be putting more on the table for inclusion than has been placed there so far. We need a combination of taxes, a freeze on spending and reductions in costs, to accompany reasonable increases in tolls. An income tax increase should not be summarily dismissed by any means, certainly if equity is a consideration, and, it must be. An increase in the gas tax also makes sense if the intention is to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund, address ransportation-related needs, including public transit, and, not least, encourage fuel efficiencies and reduce carbon emissions. (To be sure, Governor Corzine’s own ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions ought to figure in this picture as well.)

My own issues with the plan are as follows:

  • It is not broad-based. The plan asks a narrow class of people to pay the costs of fixing a mess created by the state Legislature and previous governors and that provided a host of benefits to people across the state.
  • It hits workers pretty hard, increasing the cost of people who must use the toll roads to get back and forth to work and those who drive for a living.
  • It is likely to force cars off the toll roads and onto local roads — for those of us in Central Jersey, that means an increase in cars and trucks on Routes 1 and 130.
  • It cuts debt, but does nothing to address the myriad problems that created the problem in the first place. Yes, the governor wants to force the state to go to voters when it wants to borrow money; that would be a positive step. But it leaves in place the 1,400 or so taxing entities — municipalities, school districts, fire districts, county governments, etc. — that craft their own budgets and have their own staffs. That’s a lot of overlapping jobs that could be eliminated if some of these entities were to be merged.
  • And the likely use of the toll money for pork projects, as Charles Stile points out in today’s column.

My sense is that a broader-based approach is necessary and must include steps to reduce spending and alter the tax structure — in addition to consolidation, we need to reconsider nearly everything we ask the government to do, what should be a state responsibility, a local responsibility and how much of the cost of government in New Jersey we expect the state to cover.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.