Hank Kalet

Tom Moran of The Star-Ledger on the cool reception that state Sen. Stephen Sweeney — himself a labor leader — received at the state AFL-CIO convention this week.

One thing about this, Moran makes it clear why the Sweeney proposal — that state unions give a little back to help balance the budget — is not the kind of fight that unions should use to stand as a symbol of the labor movement in 2006.

Conven tions like this are supposed to give them a chance to champion the common man against the rich CEO.

But what if there is no rich CEO? In the case of public workers, the cost comes out of the hide of the average middle-class taxpayer.

Essentially, the fight in question comes down to worker versus taxpayer — or, if you prefer, worker v. worker.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

The GOP in Congress wants to limit the freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution by passing an amendment to allow the federal government and the states to make desecration of the flag a crime.

Motivation aside, the amendment is flawed in far too many ways to count. Suffice to say that, in their zeal to prevent flag desecration, the GOP will be desecrating the Constitution.

Here is a good piece from today’s Washington Post.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

This is from Joshua Marshall and his indispensible blog, Talking Points Memo. I offer it in its entirety because it offers a necessary rejoinder to the usual thinking on the conservative movement.

Zooming down the northeast corridor I was just reading Greg Anrig’s delightful post at TPMCafe on conservatives’ attempt to get their way out of under the Bush presidency. Greg’s is actually a riff on Jon Chait’s piece at TNR, which I’m just starting.

With all the efforts now to disassociate President Bush from conservatism, I am starting to believe that conservatism itself — not the political machine, mind you, but the ideology — is heading toward that misty land-over-the-ocean where ideologies go after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Sort of like the way post-Stalinist lefties used to say, “You can’t say Communism’s failed. It’s just never really been tried.”

But as it was with Communism, so with conservatism. When all the people who call themselves conservatives get together and run the government, they’re on the line for it. Conservative president. Conservative House. Conservative Senate.

What we appear to be in for now is the emergence of this phantom conservatism existing out in the ether, wholly cut loose from any connection to the actual people who are universally identified as the conservatives and who claim the label for themselves.

We can even go a bit beyond this though. The big claim now is that President Bush isn’t a conservative because he hasn’t shrunk the size of government and he’s a reckless deficit spender.

But let’s be honest: Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasn’t been part of conservatism — or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism — for going on thirty years. The conservative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isn’t borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton.

Take the movement on its own terms and even be generous about it. What’s it about? And has it delivered?

Aggressive defense policy? Check.

Privatization of government services? Check.

Regulatory regimes favoring big business? Check.

Government support for traditional mores and values on sex and marriage? Check.

That about covers it. And Bush has delivered. The results just aren’t good.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Donald Hall is the nation’s new poet laureate, replacing Ted Kooser. Hall,

The New York Times describes him as “a poet in the distinctive American tradition of Robert Frost” who has “been a harsh critic of the religious right’s influence on government arts policy.”

Congratulations.

(Photo is from Hall’s page at the American Academy of Poets Web site and was taken by Hugh Chatfield.)

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

The proposal to privatize a portion of New Jersey’s toll highway system — as bad an idea as it is — is not exactly unique. As The Washington Post writes today, selling off toll roads has become a growing trend around the nation.

Indiana has already leased a portion of the Indiana Toll Road to investors, placing it “at the leading edge of a nascent trend in which states and local governments are exploring the idea of privatizing parts of the United States’ prized interstate highway system.”

The idea goes beyond projects, such as Northern Virginia’s Dulles Greenway, in which states have turned to private companies to build or widen toll roads. Now, they are considering selling or leasing some of the best-known and most-traveled routes across America.

The trend started 1 1/2 years ago, when Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) pushed through a 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway, nearly eight miles of elevated highway across the South Side, for $1.8 billion.

Since then, a New Jersey lawmaker has proposed selling a 49 percent interest in the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. New York Gov. George E. Pataki (R) is trying to persuade the legislature to let investors rebuild or replace the Hudson River’s Tappan Zee Bridge. In Houston, Harris County officials are studying leasing 57 miles of toll roads.

Locally, Virginia transportation officials announced last month that they would lease a debt-ridden toll road outside Richmond, the Pocahontas Parkway, to a private firm for $522 million.

The idea, basically, is to bring cash to the table to ensure that the roads are maintained and that new projects might be able to go forward. And, as in the case of New Jersey, to find ways to offset shrinking revenues from other sources.

Will companies take good care of highways? Will toll roads become too expensive to drive? Will investors pluck profitable routes, leaving others to crumble? What will happen to public toll-road workers — including 600 in Indiana who have been promised interviews by the new operators, but not the same job?

And there are potential budget implications — will the lease produce recurring revenues and, if not, what wil that mean for future budgets? And what about accountability? Who will residents and taxpayers turn to with complaints should privitization turns into a fiasco? Obviously, it will be the states’ governors and legislators who will have ceded control of one of the most basic functions of government to private entities.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press