Bizarre town meeting tonight. Only four commissioners present (Commissioner Styron was absent).
After an interminable discussion of minutes, the board considered a request by the town manager to amend the budget. Purpose: to appropriate funds to pay bills incurred and projected for hurricane clean up and remediation, including mosquito control. When two commissioners pointed out that there are still unexpended funds in the budget, the manager explained that he has no authority to expend those funds for any purpose other than the authorized line items. Except for hurricane expenditures, the approved budget is being implemented with no problems. He further explained that hurricane expenditures will be reimbursed 75% by FEMA and 25% by the State of North Carolina. The purpose of the amendment is to allow the town to pay its bills before FEMA and state reimbursements are received.
"Well what if they don't reimburse us?" Commissioner Johnson asked. "I'm worried that the Oriental taxpayers will be stuck with the bill."
After reiterating that he has negotiated the details both with FEMA and the state and explaining that he is carefully establishing a project number for each job, following FEMA guidelines, the manager posed a key question. Suppose there were no FEMA and no funds from the state. Is there anything the town is doing (debris pickup, mosquito control, etc.) that the board wouldn't want the town to do anyway. He received no answer.
The board rejected the motion to approve the budget amendment.
Commissioner Johnson then introduced a new motion to approve a smaller amount than requested for hurricane debris pickup and for mosquito control.
A similar series of actions first rejected a requested amendment to the water fund, and then approved a lower amount than requested.
"Oh, we don't want to dip into the reserve fund," Commissioners Johnson, Roe and Bohmert explained.
In many states, the reserve fund is known as the "rainy day fund."
We just had a very rainy day (Irene) and the health and welfare of the residents of Oriental are seriously threatened. And our commissioners want to dither about whether to pay for contracted services for which we will be reimbursed.
Looks like tonight was another rainy day at the meeting.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Cracks In Flood Aid
Last Sunday's Sun Journal had an article examining cases of victims of hurricane Irene who "fell through the cracks" in FEMA's flood relief efforts. The stories concerned those whose houses had been flooded during hurricane Isabel and had received flood relief assistance to repair their houses. FEMA had informed them they must get flood insurance or they would not be eligible for repair assistance in the future.
Some blame FEMA for not providing repair assistance to these victims. But the decision doesn't lie with the Federal Emergency Management agency. The policy was set by the US Congress.
Last Friday's New York Times had a very interesting debate by five experts entitled Who Benefits From Federal Flood Aid? The debate examines a number of problems with federal flood aid, including the federal flood insurance program itself.
An underlying assumption of much of the discussion is that people who live in areas prone to flooding are sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford insurance that covers flood damage. Or they shouldn't build there.
But what of the 90 year old widow living on social security in the house she grew up in? Or the minimum wage worker living in manufactured housing in a low cost area? What of a person whose choice is between buying food or paying for flood insurance? A person who lacks the resources to move?
None of the solutions presented in the New York Times debate addresses these questions.
Some blame FEMA for not providing repair assistance to these victims. But the decision doesn't lie with the Federal Emergency Management agency. The policy was set by the US Congress.
Last Friday's New York Times had a very interesting debate by five experts entitled Who Benefits From Federal Flood Aid? The debate examines a number of problems with federal flood aid, including the federal flood insurance program itself.
An underlying assumption of much of the discussion is that people who live in areas prone to flooding are sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford insurance that covers flood damage. Or they shouldn't build there.
But what of the 90 year old widow living on social security in the house she grew up in? Or the minimum wage worker living in manufactured housing in a low cost area? What of a person whose choice is between buying food or paying for flood insurance? A person who lacks the resources to move?
None of the solutions presented in the New York Times debate addresses these questions.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Class Warfare
The clearest comment I have heard on the "class warfare" issue was by Elizabeth Warren, who is runniing for the US Senate in Massachusetts.
The video of her explaining why wealth should be taxed is plain, clear and to the point. Worth watching.
http://youtu.be/htX2usfqMEs
The video of her explaining why wealth should be taxed is plain, clear and to the point. Worth watching.
http://youtu.be/htX2usfqMEs
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Buy Now, Pay Later
We've heard a lot about debt lately. According to some (mostly conservatives), public debt is illegal, immoral and probably fattening as well. This is only a slight variation on themes we have heard ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933.
Our current economic downturn, though, was not caused by public debt. It was brought on by a breakdown in the over leveraging of private debt. It was a consequence of financial deregulation and the resulting bubble in housing. After the bubble collapsed, in 2007, 2008 and 2009, we saw a massive reduction in overall debt in the U.S. Overall borrowing (net increase in debt, including US state and local government, federal government, financial companies, non-financial companies, and US household borrowing) dropped like a shot from about four and a half trillion dollars in 2007 to two and a half trillion in 2008 to negative 438.4 billion dollars in 2009. Yes, federal government borrowing increased, but that increase was overwhelmed by reductions in borrowing and spending by state and local governments and private borrowers.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be," Polonius advises Laertes in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
That's very bad advice if the goal is economic prosperity. In fact, debt (properly managed and regulated) was the foundation of our postwar prosperity. Without consumer debt, aggregate demand for products would be a fraction of what it became in the 1960s.
Just imagine the consequences to the economy if we were to abandon "buy now, pay later." Actually, I don't have to imagine it. I remember it. If my grandmother wanted to buy something at the department store - say a winter coat - she would put it on "lay-away." She would pay the store a certain portion of the price and the store would set it aside (or lay it away) until she completed paying for it. Then she could take it home.
It was possible in the 1940's to take out a loan for a major purchase such as a car. It helped to know the banker. That was possible, since most banks were local businesses. That made travel a problem. Only local businesses would accept a check made on your local bank. If you went on a trip you needed to take enough cash for expected expenses. There were no credit cards.
If you worried about being robbed of your cash, you would buy traveler's checks before setting out. To cash a traveler's check, you had to countersign it in front of the cashier. That system was "pay now, buy later."
The ordinary transactions of daily life were very much more complicated sixty years ago than they are now.
Do you remember long distance telephone calls? I'll save that for another time.
Our current economic downturn, though, was not caused by public debt. It was brought on by a breakdown in the over leveraging of private debt. It was a consequence of financial deregulation and the resulting bubble in housing. After the bubble collapsed, in 2007, 2008 and 2009, we saw a massive reduction in overall debt in the U.S. Overall borrowing (net increase in debt, including US state and local government, federal government, financial companies, non-financial companies, and US household borrowing) dropped like a shot from about four and a half trillion dollars in 2007 to two and a half trillion in 2008 to negative 438.4 billion dollars in 2009. Yes, federal government borrowing increased, but that increase was overwhelmed by reductions in borrowing and spending by state and local governments and private borrowers.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be," Polonius advises Laertes in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
That's very bad advice if the goal is economic prosperity. In fact, debt (properly managed and regulated) was the foundation of our postwar prosperity. Without consumer debt, aggregate demand for products would be a fraction of what it became in the 1960s.
Just imagine the consequences to the economy if we were to abandon "buy now, pay later." Actually, I don't have to imagine it. I remember it. If my grandmother wanted to buy something at the department store - say a winter coat - she would put it on "lay-away." She would pay the store a certain portion of the price and the store would set it aside (or lay it away) until she completed paying for it. Then she could take it home.
It was possible in the 1940's to take out a loan for a major purchase such as a car. It helped to know the banker. That was possible, since most banks were local businesses. That made travel a problem. Only local businesses would accept a check made on your local bank. If you went on a trip you needed to take enough cash for expected expenses. There were no credit cards.
If you worried about being robbed of your cash, you would buy traveler's checks before setting out. To cash a traveler's check, you had to countersign it in front of the cashier. That system was "pay now, buy later."
The ordinary transactions of daily life were very much more complicated sixty years ago than they are now.
Do you remember long distance telephone calls? I'll save that for another time.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Irene's Wake
I've been a bit busy lately cleaning up after Irene. I've got a couple of posts in the works, but have to sleep on it. Tomorrow is another day.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sex And The Military
At last Thursday's Republican debate, Rick Santorum declared "any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”
What arm of the military did he serve in?
He didn't?
That explains it.
What arm of the military did he serve in?
He didn't?
That explains it.
Language and the Constitution
While boxing up stuff to put in storage while the house is restored from Irene, I came across an interesting clipping.
The late James Kilpatrick, conservative columnist, commentator on the US Supreme Court, in his final years published a regular column titled "The Writer's Art." One of his final columns, "Simplify Overstuffed Sentences," printed on page 13A of the News and Observer of Saturday, August 30, 2008, shed an interesting light on the Court's 2008 decision that the Second Amendment grants an individual right to keep and bear arms. I posted a comment on that issue last January.
Kilpatrick's 2008 column takes issue with loose use of "people."
"A recent item in the Washington Post began 'Federal prosecutors charged 11 people yesterday with the theft and sale of more than 40 million credit card numbers...'
People? Eleven people? Suppose the charges are dismissed against 10 of them. What's left? One people.
"The solution to this perplexity is to reserve 'people' for lots and lots of human beings with some common bond - e.g. the dispossessed people of Darfur. The noun 'person' carries a smaller load of baggage.
"Thus the Constitution speaks of the right of 'the people' peaceably to assemble, to keep and bear arms, and to be secure in their homes. But when it gets to crime and punishment, the Constitution says that no 'person' shall be put in double jeopardy, no 'person' shall be compelled to be a witness against himself, and no 'person' shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
"Those old boys who wrote the Bill of Rights had a lovely feel for language. I wish our present leaders were equally blessed."
Kilpatrick didn't say so right out, but one of the leaders he might view as linguistically challenged is justice Antonin Scalia, who drafted the decision in District of Columbia Vs. Heller. In that decision Scalia concluded the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" was an individual right.
Kilpatrick would dissent.
If the authors of the Second Amendment had intended the right to be an individual right, they would have written 'persons.'
The late James Kilpatrick, conservative columnist, commentator on the US Supreme Court, in his final years published a regular column titled "The Writer's Art." One of his final columns, "Simplify Overstuffed Sentences," printed on page 13A of the News and Observer of Saturday, August 30, 2008, shed an interesting light on the Court's 2008 decision that the Second Amendment grants an individual right to keep and bear arms. I posted a comment on that issue last January.
Kilpatrick's 2008 column takes issue with loose use of "people."
"A recent item in the Washington Post began 'Federal prosecutors charged 11 people yesterday with the theft and sale of more than 40 million credit card numbers...'
People? Eleven people? Suppose the charges are dismissed against 10 of them. What's left? One people.
"The solution to this perplexity is to reserve 'people' for lots and lots of human beings with some common bond - e.g. the dispossessed people of Darfur. The noun 'person' carries a smaller load of baggage.
"Thus the Constitution speaks of the right of 'the people' peaceably to assemble, to keep and bear arms, and to be secure in their homes. But when it gets to crime and punishment, the Constitution says that no 'person' shall be put in double jeopardy, no 'person' shall be compelled to be a witness against himself, and no 'person' shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
"Those old boys who wrote the Bill of Rights had a lovely feel for language. I wish our present leaders were equally blessed."
Kilpatrick didn't say so right out, but one of the leaders he might view as linguistically challenged is justice Antonin Scalia, who drafted the decision in District of Columbia Vs. Heller. In that decision Scalia concluded the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" was an individual right.
Kilpatrick would dissent.
If the authors of the Second Amendment had intended the right to be an individual right, they would have written 'persons.'
Friday, September 23, 2011
Imprison Mosquitos?
My last post on mosquito control was intended as a tongue in cheek comment not only on mosquitoes, but on programs that obviously need to be carried out by government. The idea of relying on individuals to spray their own property is (I thought) patently ludicrous.
Had I attended last Monday's county commissioners meeting, I would have learned that one commissioner insisted the county's spraying program confine itself to public rights of way.
You can't control mosquitoes that way.
Normally, mosquitoes confine themselves to an area within one to two miles of the place they hatched. Some are more peripatetic, and have been found seventy-fives miles from where they hatched.
Unless the commissioner in question knows of some way to confine mosquitoes to the lot on which they hatched, the policy she proposes will be totally ineffective for mosquito control.
Why worry? Aren't mosquitoes just a nuisance? Well, no. They transmit diseases that can be fatal to man and beast. West Nile virus and equine encephalitis, for example.
My father suffered from malaria. He didn't contract it in the jungles of New Guinea where he served during WWII - he contracted it as a child in Holmes County, Mississippi.
Malaria disappeared from the US in the 1940's as a result of a number of measures, including aggressive use of DDT. We know better now about other adverse consequences of DDT.
Maybe someone will develop mosquito prisons.
Had I attended last Monday's county commissioners meeting, I would have learned that one commissioner insisted the county's spraying program confine itself to public rights of way.
You can't control mosquitoes that way.
Normally, mosquitoes confine themselves to an area within one to two miles of the place they hatched. Some are more peripatetic, and have been found seventy-fives miles from where they hatched.
Unless the commissioner in question knows of some way to confine mosquitoes to the lot on which they hatched, the policy she proposes will be totally ineffective for mosquito control.
Why worry? Aren't mosquitoes just a nuisance? Well, no. They transmit diseases that can be fatal to man and beast. West Nile virus and equine encephalitis, for example.
My father suffered from malaria. He didn't contract it in the jungles of New Guinea where he served during WWII - he contracted it as a child in Holmes County, Mississippi.
Malaria disappeared from the US in the 1940's as a result of a number of measures, including aggressive use of DDT. We know better now about other adverse consequences of DDT.
Maybe someone will develop mosquito prisons.
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