It’s the pitching, stupid II

Mike Pelfrey (left, pictured from The New York Post) offers a reason for optimism this year at Shea. The 23-year-old pitcher, considered one of the two top pitching prospects in the Mets organization, appears ready for the bigs, having tossed 14 innings and given up just two earned runs.

More reasons for optimism: Oliver Perez and his 95 mph fastball seem to be rounding into shape after a shaky first outing earlier this month.

From the Post:

In the first inning, after freezing Ortiz on a slider, Perez fell behind Ramirez 3-and-1. But when the offbeat Boston slugger tried to walk to first on an inside fastball, plate umpire Jerry Meals ruled it a strike. The same thing happened on a full count, as Perez froze Ramirez on an inside fastball on the black. He
whiffed them back-to-back again in the fourth.

Impressive.

So far this spring, the biggest questions marks — John Maine, Perez and Pelfrey — have been impressive, while No. 2 starter Orlando Hernandez has been old. Let’s hope youthful exuberence turns into wins when the games count.

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Patience?

President George W. Bush is asking for patience. In his speech yesterday, the president continued his pipe-dream approach to a conflict we had no reason to enter:

Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through.

Resolve? We’ve had four years of resolve that has resulted in more than 3,200 dead American soldiers — along with thousands who have sustained debilitating injuries — and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis killed in combat and by the chaos that has come to replace Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime.

And yet, after four years of resolve, four years in which we’ve shown too much patience for a deceiptful and incompetent presidential administration, we are being told that more patience is in order, that we must avoid the temptation “to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home.”

That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating. If American forces were to step back from Baghdad before it is more secure, a contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country. In time, this violence could engulf the region.

I’d like to believe that our presence in Iraq may lead to greater security. But the evidence is just not there. Various reports from the region — from sources unaffiliated with the administration — have indicated that the so-called surge has forced the insurgents underground, but only temporarily.

That has created an illusion of calm, they say, even as the many bombings continue. The Guardian of London, for instance, reports that

Despite the month-long security crackdown in the capital, six people were killed and 30 injured in a car bomb blast in a Shia suburb yesterday. In all, 24 corpses were found in different parts of the city.

None of this should be a surprise. In many ways, it is the American presence that is exacerbating the situation.

H.D.S. Greenway, writing in The Boston Globe last week, made just this point:

When the president and surge proponents talk about restoring law and order to Baghdad, they underestimate the fact that it is the very presence of American soldiers themselves who are sparking the resistance, and thus the chaotic conditions in which criminals can operate, and militias appear to be the population’s only salvation. Americans may try to do their jobs humanely, but the nature of their business is coercive, brutal, and ultimately counterproductive.

So, forgive me for a lack of patience.

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Delay levy cap indefinitely

Gov. Jon Corzine has signed several of the Legislature’s tax reform proposals (if you want to call them that), but he’s yet to sign what Trenton has pegged as the most important of the measures — the bill that would create the 20 percent tax credits and impose a 4 percent levy cap on municipalities, schools and county governments.

The governor ostensibily is holding out for a ban on dual-office holding in New Jersey, but he should take the time to rethink the proposed levy cap and push the Legislature to find more efficient and effective ways to hold local spending down.

Spending an afternoon talking about the budget with South Brunswick school officials puts the levy cap in perspective. The cap, as Superintendent Gary McCartney points out, applies to the total amount to be raised by taxes — regardless of whether the tax base grows (new houses, new warehouss, etc), and regardless of whether enrollment grows or an unexpected major expense (roof repair, for instance) is needed.

About 80 percent of the budget is personnel costs — either salary or health and retirement benefits. The rest is a mix of facilities and supplies, including heat, electric and other utilities costs.

For the most part, the district has done a solid job in recent years of keeping spending increases to a minimum, adding staff only to keep teacher-student ratiosstatic, to man new buildings or to provide newly mandated programs.

But education is expensive — the average house with two children in school might generate $5,000 to $10,000 in school taxes but costs the district more than $20,000, a net loss. That means rising school taxes.

The new cap law attempts to control spending by attacking the sympton (rising taxes), without addressing its causes (among them single-source funding and not enough state financing, too many school districts) — setting limits without giving school districts, in particular, real tools to stay within the limits without slashing instructional programs.

It’s a prescription with the potential for way too many dangerous and debilitating side-effects. It needs to be changed.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Cut down the trees

In New Jersey, under both political parties, Christmas has traditionally occurred in July.

And while there is talk in Trenton about ending the practice, comments by Democratic State Party Chairman Joe Cryan, an Assemblyman from Union County, make it clear that ending it will be difficult at best.

As questions swirl around hundreds of millions of dollars lawmakers added to the state budget last year, the head of the Democratic State Committee defended the grants Tuesday by calling attention to the role state aid plays in supporting causes such as cancer research, autism services and children with disabilities.

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, D—Union, pointed to the more than 70 organizations signed up to testify during a day-long budget hearing as evidence of the state’s needs. Many of those needs, he argued, are served by grants.

“Media accounts tend to focus on the very limited, narrow scope of the negatives as opposed to the very broad brush of the positives for the people of New Jersey,” said Cryan, who sits on the Assembly Budget Committee and heads the state Democratic Party.

But as The Asbury Park Press writes, the issue is not the usefulness or necessity of the specific programs, but a process that is conducted under cover night and that legislators may use to woo local voters:

Some of them were worthy. But the process for doling them out is anything but.

The grants last year — as in the past — were handed out at the 11th hour with no public scrutiny. Most of them went to Democratic districts — often to benefit legislators’ friends, relatives, employers or pet causes.

And it costs the state loads of money and, like so much of what happens around New Jersey, erodes trust in government. The practice has to end.

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