News that hits home

I’ve been following this story — “News Corp. Makes a Bid for Dow Jones” — with a bit of trepidation, partly for personal reasons and partly because of what a Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal might mean for the industry and the Journal itself.

On the personal side, my wife works for Dow Jones on the business side and any sale could have major ramifications for the workforce. Basically, I have no idea of a sale would mean layoffs or what it would do to her benefit package — the uncertainty is a bit scary.

As for the industry, the bigger Murdoch gets, the more his brand of tabloid-style journalism spreads. Right now, the Journal news pages are among the finest in the business, offering a level of in-depth reporting found few other places.

Just as important, as Ari Berman points out in The Nation’s Notion blog, a sale to Murdoch could mean the end of the Journal’s impressive separation of news and opinion — the extremely conservative editorial page has no bearing on the reporting elsewhere in the paper.

Murdoch is known for pushing his publications, such as the once-liberal New York Post, to the right. Under Murdoch’s purview, would the news pages of the Wall Street Journal become more like its conservative editorial section?

I am hopeful that the announcement that the announcement by the Bancroft family at 4:30 today that the family, which owns a controlling interest in the company, “will vote shares constituting slightly more than 50 percent of the outstanding voting power of Dow Jones … against the proposal submitted by News Corporation.”

The Journal and Dow Jones have their problems. I just don’t see how Murdoch is the solution.

Jeff Jarvis isn’t so sure. Here is his BuzzMachine item on the potential sale.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Accomplishing the right mission

Baltimore Sun — like most of the nation’s major dailies — editorializes on the anniversary of President George W. Bush’s notorious Top Gun moment (photo from CNN), tying it back to the current fight over the war funding bill he plans to veto.

He doesn’t want deadlines for withdrawal because that will tell the enemy what America’s plans are. But if U.S. soldiers aren’t going to leave by 2008, when are they going to get out? The obvious implication here is this: The president expects them to stay in Iraq for a very long time to come. The only way he can see to justify the losses so far is to keep fighting.

In April alone, the war took 100 American lives and cost about $9 billion. Yesterday, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction reported on one little corner of the war effort – but it’s a little corner that seems emblematic of the whole enterprise. His inspectors looked at eight completed construction projects, paid for by the U.S. – not a representative sample, because most projects are in areas that are too dangerous to visit, but just eight projects that could be assessed. They found that seven were structural failures.

This is what Americans are getting for their blood and treasure. Failure, failure, success, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure. In the four years since President Bush put on that Navy flight suit and headed out on his mission before the cameras, his administration has accomplished almost nothing in Iraq, and now argues that that is the very reason U.S. soldiers and Marines must stay there and keep fighting and dying.

The Record of Hackensack makes similar points in its editorial:

The fourth anniversary of the “mission accomplished” speech is a grim reminder of thousands of lives needlessly lost. Unless Bush shifts course, the nation will be mired in Iraq for the fifth anniversary as well.

The mission that needs to be accomplished is to bring the troops home.

Yes. “Bring ‘Em Home,” as The Boss sings on this Pete Seeger tune. Bring ’em home.

E-mail me by clicking here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The wrong direction on Route 1

OK. Route 1 is now off the table.

At least that’s what Gary Toth, director of the Division of Project Planning and Development for the state Department of Transportation, told the South Brunswick Industrial Commission today.

Mr. Toth told the commission during its business luncheon (attended by our reporter Paul Koepp) that widening Route 1 in South Brunswick would cost between $300 million and $400 million — a pricetag that includes design, purchase of land, construction and reconfiguration of most Route 1 indtersections. Given the fiscal problems facing the state (massive debt, an underfunded pension system, flat revenues and an empty road fund), the state “does not have the resources.”

This is not exactly the news that South Brunswick officials or residents were hoping to hear. Local officials say they’re not done fighting for the widening, though it appears South Brunswick will need a whole lot of help if it is to convince the DOT to put the widening back on the table.

I am the first to admit that traffic along the seven-mile stretch in South Brunswick is not nearly as bad as in other areas, but that does not mean that it is not bad or that the lack of a third lane will not have longterm impact.

So what gives? The DOT is focusing on two new approaches: 1.) spending on less-expesnive mass transportation, like bus-rapid transit systems, rather than on new highways and roads; and 2.) refocusing land-use to bring locate new housing near new jobs.

Both approaches are consistent with the aims of environmental and traffic planning groups like the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which for years has been critical of the state building its way out of congestion.

I am all for expanding mass-transit options, especially along Route 1, though I am a bit doubtful that we will be able to convince New Jerseyans to get out of their cars. And I’d argue that widening the highway is not creating new infrastructure, but improving existing infrastructure — something that fits in with the state’s new approach.

As for the second change, I’m afraid it sounds like one of those ideas conceived by planners and engineers that look good on paper (or on their computer screens) but are destined to fail when applied to the real world.

The idea is to encourage towns to limit commute times by encouraging a reconsideration of the mix of housing and commercial development. Currently, not enough housing is being built to accommodate the people working in the warehouses and offices being built — meaning that workers have to get in their cars and drive. That clogs roads, lengthens commutes and worsens the myriad problems tied to traffic congestion (air pollution, exhaust residue in the water supply, driver aggravation, less time with families, etc.). Creating the right mix would, according to the state, shorten commute times and make everyone happy.

Except it won’t. First, homeowners are not likely to buy into this approach. People live where they like, but work where they can. Many factors dictate where we choose to live: Home prices, property taxes, neighborhoods, school systems, recreational programs, proximity to other family, etc. Proximity to work is only one small factor — and one that is becoming smaller and smaller as jobs become more precarious in the age of layoffs.

Homeowners are not likely to sell their homes in Hamilton, for instance, because they work at Dow Jones in South Brunswick, or sell their homes in Kendall Park to be closer to their jobs in Edison — unless there are other compelling reasons to do so, especially if there is even the smallest of chances that their job could be eliminated.

And this assumes that municipalities in New Jersey will be clamoring to build more housing — which is not likely given that the state’s current tax structure rewards towns that build warehouses and offices and penalizes them for building housing (warehouses produce tax revenue without school costs, considered a net gain; houses with kids, which is what we are talking about, rarely generate enough taxes to offset the cost of schooling).

In New Jersey, it seems, everything is tied to tax reform. If we are to remove this counterproductive incentive system, we have to streamline local government and change the way we pay for services — in particular, the public schools — so that development becomes a question of jobs and housing and not tax revenue.

In the end, however, that leaves South Brunswick with the only four-lane section of Route 1 between the Lawrence split and Woodbridge. And while the road in South Brunswick is not nearly as congested as it is to the north and south, it seems counterintuitive to me to leave a potential bottleneck in place.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Reasons to be cheerfulabout clean elections

A Saturday story in the Portland Herald Press details a Maine report on its clean elections program that offers an example of why supporters of public financing in New Jersey are so hot to have the pilot program here work. The 14th legislative district, which includes Cranbury, Jamesburg, Monroe and South Brunswick, was chosen as one of three pilot districts this year. Assembly members Bill Baroni, a Republican, and Linda Greenstein, a Democrat, are co-sponsors of the clean-elections program and probably the Legislature’s biggest backers.

According to the Maine paper, the 11-year-old clean-elections law “has encouraged more people to seek office and boosted the number of challengers who take on incumbents.” The law has helped control “direct spending by legislative candidates, but not indirect campaign spending by special interests” because “political action committees and political parties are spending more to help or hurt candidates.”

This should not be a surprise — nor should it be used to damn the law. Interest group ads were a prominent feature of the last presidential race and have become a staple of races for all level of office. One option is for clean elections legislation to provide a boost in funds to candidates targeted by independent groups or those who run against candidates who opt out of the system.

The goal of public financing, however, is not just to reduce costs. Privately financed campaigns already cost the public a lot, though those costs are hard to quantify (pay-to-play contracts, corruption, access to legislators). Public financing breaks this connection, while also increasing participation.

“I think the most significant findings are that the act is encouraging first-time candidates to run for office” and allowing challengers to run competitive races, said Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the state ethics commission.

From 1990 through 2000, the number of general-election legislative candidates averaged 349, the report says. That number jumped to 391 candidates in 2004 and to 386 in 2006, as public financing became more popular.

Adopted by Maine voters in a 1996 referendum, the Clean Election Act first made public financing available in legislative races in 2000 and in gubernatorial campaigns in 2002. In last year’s general election, 81 percent of the candidates for the Legislature used the Clean Election Fund to pay for their races. So did three of the five gubernatorial candidates who were on the ballot in November.

Let’s hope the New Jersey pilot works and that clean elections can be expanded to the entire Legislature next time out.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.