Is Taxation “Voluntary”?

February 28, 2009 by

The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, says taxes are voluntary in this interview, while also acknowledging that there are civil and criminal penalties for not paying them.

Seems to me, that if I don’t pay them, an enforcement officer with a badge and gun will come after me.  For Democrats like Reid, they must be “voluntary”.  Witness tax cheats like Tom Daschle and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner being nominated for cabinet positions in this administration!  It sure looks like a “voluntary” system for them.

Filed under Constitutional Issues, Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

Transparency In The Budget: Obama Style

February 27, 2009 by

“Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price,” the President said in his Tuesday night address to Congress.

It seems that these new rules for the budget, mentioned by the President, include a secrecy pledge that must be signed by Pentagon officials.  Officials are prohibited from discussing details of the budget development process until it is released to the public.  This is usually when Congress begins holding debates on the budget.  Among the reasons for this: lobbyists.

When lobbyists find out their pet project is on a list of proposed cuts, they step into high gear to get members of Congress to apply pressure to take it off the list.  This keeps spending in the budget, without a public debate being held on the merits of a program.  Hopefully, this secrecy pledge will help when cuts to the budget are being proposed.  I would hope that the secrecy pledge will be given to other departments, outside of the military as well.  We need cuts in Federal government in areas outside of the Pentagon too. 

Human nature being what it is, I suspect any lobbyist worthy of his salary will get the information they are looking for anyway.  Back in the days when I was in the service, I could usually find out all sorts of things by going to the designated smoking areas of various headquarters buildings.  Even though I wasn’t smoking, it was easy to engage in conversation during “break time” and find out about all the latest happenings.  Ditto for after hours conversation at bars, restaurants, and other gathering places.

While I am cautiously optimistic that this secrecy pledge will be helpful in getting some wasteful programs killed, I still have a healthy amount of skepticism.  Until members of Congress police themselves better, and start paying attention to voters more than lobbyists, I have my doubts about government spending being reduced.

Filed under President Obama Tagged with , ,

Dumb Crook News: DUI Suspect In Zillah

February 26, 2009 by 2 Comments

Zillah – State Trooper Trevor Downey, out of the patrol academy for just six weeks, was headed home at the end of his shift Tuesday when he encountered a Dodge Avenger going 30 mph in a 50 mph zone.

The driver soon turned into a private driveway on the same road and entered the garage on the property.  When Downey contacted the driver to ask why he stopped there, the suspect said he lived at the location.

Trooper Downey corrected the man, and took him into custody.  The suspect had pulled into the trooper’s own driveway and garage!

Joseph Takesgun, 31, of Buena, was arrested for driving under the influence and driving with an invalid license.  He has three previous DUI convictions.

Lt. Jim Keightley said “They don’t get any easier than pulling into your garage for you..”

Note to crooks trying to ditch patrol cars by pulling off the road: you will not ditch law enforcement by going to the officer’s house!

From the Yakima Herald: DUI suspect winds up on trooper’s doorstep

From Washington State Patrol News Release: Trooper Arrests Drunk Driver Who Drove To Trooper’s Residence

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with , , ,

Federal Stimulus: Division Of Money In State Of Washington Explained

February 24, 2009 by

At Monday night’s Sunnyside City Council meeting, City Manager Eric Swansen noted that Yakima County is not receiving very much in the way of Federal stimulus money.

The Yakima Herald documents the City of Yakima’s frustration in an article entitled: Stall Stimulus: There’s little in it for City of Yakima

So how does this happen, when over $800 billion has been appropriated for this “stimulus”?  One Washington State Senator, Mary Margaret Haugen (D) Camano Island, explains what happened at the state level in a YouTube video.  She does state that this is Federal money with lots of strings attached:

Update: Stimulus Funds To Pay For Roundabout at I-82 and Valley Mall Blvd

Filed under Economy, Sunnyside Council Tagged with , , , ,

Candidates For Vacant Sunnyside City Council Position

February 24, 2009 by

Candidates for the vacant position on the Council for the City of Sunnyside had until February 17 to file with the City Clerk.  The deadline has passed, and six citizens have stepped forward for consideration.  I am one of the six, and am pleased with the high interest in the vacant seat.  Regardless of whether I am selected, I feel good about the process that has brought forward such a great group for consideration.

In no particular order, here are the candidates:

Mike Farmer: Past member of the City Council (8 years), and small business owner for 36 years.  Mr. Farmer has served on various city, school, and community boards and committees.

Jesse Hernandez: President of the Chamber of Commerce (2 years), and member of the city’s planning commission as well as parks and recreation commission.  Mr. Hernandez is in business as a Financial Advisor (CMFC).

Craig Hicks: 20 year veteran of the United States Coast Guard, with experience in development and administration of annual budgets.

Jose Salas: CEO of a small business in Sunnyside.  Prior management experience and work in collection accounts for multiple businesses.

Kristiann Vlieger: Graduate of Washington State University, B.S. in Agribusiness, B.A. in French.  Ms. Vlieger has experience as a business owner, in customer service, food service, and horse training.

Jason Raines: Your humble blog editor, graduate of Auburn University, Auburn, AL, Management Information Systems.  Four year U.S. Army veteran. Current stay at home father.  Prior retail management and customer service experience.  Former business owner / independent contractor as an Over The Road truck driver.

The current plan is for the City Council to consider all of the candidates in a special session, prior to the start of the regular meeting on March 9, 2009.  A selection to fill the position can be made by Council at any time.

Filed under Sunnyside Council, Uncategorized Tagged with

The Congress Shall Assemble At Least Once Every Year…How Sunnyside Can Use This Example

February 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that Congress shall assemble at least once every year.  This section has been modified by the 20th amendment, but the language requiring Congress to assemble at least once every year was retained.

This should tell us something about our founding fathers’ intent for how much government would effect our everyday lives.  In fact, when this part of the Constitution was being debated, some felt like it was an overburdensome requirement!  They felt that there would not be enough business for Congress to have to meet every single year.

Proponents of an annual meeting felt that for Congress to be an effective check and balance for the President, an annual meeting would be beneficial for the people.  How times have changed!  It seems Congress is almost always in session, with politicians saying that it would be a “catastrophe” if they don’t act on a seemingly endless variety of issues.

Another benefit to having Congress meet (at least annually) is that the public can stay informed about issues of government.   It is this aspect to meeting at least once every year where I think our City government can improve.

At the start of this year, the City and the Port held a joint meeting where our Council and Port attendees could not agree on whether the Sunnyside Economic Development Association legally exists, or has been dissolved!  Former Council Member Bruce Epps noted at the meeting that SEDA is supposed to meet at least once a year.  See the Daily Sun News story, here.

At the same meeting, Sunnyside Mayor Paul Garcia to noted, “We have many boards in existence, but nothing ever happens with them.”

It has been over a year since the Airport Committee (not a formal committe in City Code) has met.  A special meeting of City Council was required to avoid missing the deadline to accept FAA grant money.  With regular meetings, the public would have been better informed, and perhaps this could have been handled more efficiently.

It seems to me that if we go to the trouble of forming a committee or board, requiring a meeting at least once every year would not be too much to ask.  At the very least, the public will have an opportunity to stay informed.  If the board or committee does not require meeting every year, then it should be dissolved.  It is my contention that a “do-nothing” committee does not need to exist.

Filed under Constitutional Issues, Sunnyside Council Tagged with ,

Socialism versus Freedom

February 22, 2009 by 4 Comments

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
-Milton Friedman

 

Filed under Campaign for Liberty, Economy Tagged with , , , ,

New Computer And Router For My Home

February 21, 2009 by 1 Comment

This post will be a little different from my usual news commentary.  It is about a new purchase of technology for my home.  I bought a Netbook and a wireless router.  Here is what I got:

For about $400:

MSI Wind 10" Netbook Intel ATOM 1.6GHz 1GB RAM 160GB HDD Windows XP

MSI Wind Netbook

A netbook is a mini laptop, good for web browsing, email, on-line banking, making phone calls over the computer, and other basic everyday type uses.  The one I purchased has a 10″ LCD screen, Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor, 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM, wireless b/g/n, webcam, bluetooth, SD card reader, 3 USB ports, Windows XP, and a 6 cell lithium battery.  It weighs about 2.6 lbs.  I purchased this machine from COSTCO.

As far as Netbooks go, this one carries a higher price than others, but has a few extra features.  The screen is 10″ instead of the popular 9″ you see on comparable machines at Wal-Mart and Target, etc.  It has N band wireless built in, which is supposed to work faster and have better range than the common G band in widespread use now.

The keyboard is “big” for a Netbook, but more compact than a regular laptop.  My wife has no trouble with it, but my big fat butterfingers are still getting used to it.  At home, I have a wireless, full size keyboard, that was being used with my previous laptop.  This full size keyboard is what I am using to write this post.  When on the go, the smaller built in keyboard is a slight inconvenience, but the extreme portability of the machine makes up for it.  The smaller keyboards are the only negative thing I have to say about Netbooks in general, but it is not a showstopper.

The machine does not have a DVD/CD drive, but if I need one, I will get an external one.  I wasn’t using the DVD drive very much on my old laptop anyway.  The bare bones approach to the design is energy efficient, with an advertised 6 hours of use on a battery charge.

At some point in the future, I will get a full size laptop with more capabilities, but this new Netbook should be adequate for most of what I do right now.

Another reason I chose to get a Netbook, is that it has Windows XP.  It is the operating system I have used for several years, and is generally accepted among computer users.  There have been many stories about problems with Windows Vista, which make me a bit gun shy.  I still remember when it was introduced that it did not work with iTunes, giving it a bad name from the get go.

One local blogger, Jim Restucci, put up a post saying “It’s OK To Skip Vista“.  Given these types of lukewarm reviews of Vista, I will give the Netbook a workout for now.  Windows XP is the devil I know, and I am just more comfortable with it right now.

The other item I purchased is a NETGEAR RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNR3500, which was about $130. 

Netgear RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router

It is a bit higher in price than some other models, but received mostly good reviews from Consumer Reports.  It has 8 internal antennas to maximize performance and range.  I had it setup in about 15 minutes and it is working fine.  My wife’s laptop (with wireless G) is sharing the connection with the new Netbook (wireless N).  We have not noticed any issues with having both G and N band wireless systems running on the same home network.  The advertised claim is that this router is up to 15 times faster, with up to 10 times the coverage of the G band routers.  All I can say is, it works fine in my home.

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Fiscal Federalism In Sunnyside

February 20, 2009 by 6 Comments

At Tuesday night’s special meeting of the Sunnyside City Council, Eric Swansen, the City Manager, complained that under our system of “fiscal federalism” FAA grant money for the airport could not be used to fund other aspects of the City government.  That is why Council thought it would be a good idea to take funds from some of those other areas and fund the local match for airport improvements.  In their mind, they had no choice.

Respectfully, I disagree.  This “found” money to fund airport improvements came from sales tax revenue.  Correct me if I am wrong, but this does not sound like a one-time influx of cash, but rather like revenue the City is depending on for day to day operations.  Having worked in the retail and transportation industries, I can tell you that business activities are subject to seasonal fluctuations.  When the times are good, you need to think about how you will manage the slow times, and prepare for it.

Relying on handouts from the federal government is not a good long-term policy if we want to develop our local economy.  Federal grants should not be the driving factor in how our City government develops and implements policy.

We can take control of our own destiny, and not be serfs to the fiscal federalism that Mr. Swansen spoke of.  This starts with Council taking a look at the City budget and making some potentially unpopular choices.  Nobody likes budget cuts, but there are ways we can save money.  We can do this without compromising public safety further by cutting law enforcement officers.

We need to examine employee pay and benefit packages that take the lion’s share of the budget.  While in retail management, I had to make sure payroll expenses were controlled for the company to remain solvent.  While working in the health insurance industry, I gained experience with servicing benefit packages for literally hundreds of employer groups (to include union and government benefit contracts).  We need to start to become innovators in policy, making changes that will streamline operations.  If we don’t, then we will have more taxes, and less services for the citizens of Sunnyside.  Human resource staff, the unions, and Council will need to work together to make meaningful changes for the benefit of the community.

All options need to be considered.  If we don’t get serious about this, then we can expect another round of pay raises for employees next year, increases in cost to their benefits packages, more increases in taxes, more cuts in services, and cuts to personnel to raise the money to pay to pay for it all.

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with ,

Acts Of Good Are Done In Daylight, Acts Of Evil Are Done In Darkness

February 19, 2009 by

Recently, the Sunnyside City Council broke with its policy of conducting open public meetings in regards to collective bargaining.  While legal, it violates the spirit of the Open Public Meetings Act, which secures the right of the public to attend meetings at which government business is being conducted.  The act gives an exemption for collective bargaining, which the City Council used, to conduct discussions of police contracts in Executive Session after the last regular meeting.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a group advocating that these types of discussions be held in public meetings.  Eleven states already have various provisions that call for collective bargaining to be done in public meetings.  They are Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Ohio.

Open meetings and the resulting increase in oversight result in government using taxpayer money more effectively.

Following Tuesday night’s special meeting of the City Council, I asked Mayor Garcia for clarification of the City Council position on this issue.  He stated that the police contract discussions involved unique circumstances requiring the Executive Session.  Garcia stated that the City Council intends to hold future collective bargaining discussions in regular meetings.

I applaud the decision to keep meetings involving collective bargaining in the public eye.  Hopefully, it will not be necessary to use the exemption from the Open Public Meetings Act to hold any more Executive Sessions on this matter.

The model legislation below comes from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, details of which can be found here.

While the proposed model legislation is designed to be used at state level, the City of Sunnyside does not need a state law to hold open meetings.  This is a decision the Council can make on its own.

 

Model Legislation
AN ACT Relating to public access to public sector collective bargaining; amending RCW 42.30.140; and adding a new section to chapter 42.30 RCW.

Sec. 1. RCW 42.30.140 is amended to read as follows: If any provision of this chapter conflicts with the provisions of any other statute, the provisions of this chapter shall control: PROVIDED, That this chapter shall not apply to:

(1) The proceedings concerned with the formal issuance of an order granting, suspending, revoking, or denying any license, permit, or certificate to engage in any business, occupation, or profession or to any disciplinary proceedings involving a member of such business, occupation, or profession, or to receive a license for a sports activity or to operate any mechanical device or motor vehicle where a license or registration is necessary; or

(2) That portion of a meeting of a quasi-judicial body which relates to a quasi-judicial matter between named parties as distinguished from a matter having general effect on the public or on a class or group; or

(3) Matters governed by chapter 34.05 RCW, the Administrative Procedure Act.; or

(4)(a) Collective bargaining sessions with employee organizations, including contract negotiations, grievance meetings, and discussions relating to the interpretation or application of a labor agreement; or (b) that portion of a meeting during which the governing body is planning or adopting the strategy or position to be taken by the governing body during the course of any collective bargaining, professional negotiations, or grievance or mediation proceedings, or reviewing the proposals made in the negotiations or proceedings while in progress.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 42.30 RCW to read as follows:

(1) Collective bargaining sessions between the employer or its agent and an employee organization or its representative pursuant to chapters 41.80, 28B.52, 41.80, 41.56, 41.59, 41.76, 47.64 RCW are public meetings subject to the provisions of the open public meetings act as contained in this chapter, as now or hereafter amended. This section shall not apply to grievance, mediation, or arbitration proceedings with employee organizations, or that portion of a meeting during which a governing body is planning or adopting the strategy or position to be taken by the governing body during the course of any collective bargaining, grievance, mediation, or arbitration proceedings.

(2) The representatives or agents of the employer shall be subject be subject to liability for violations of this chapter under the provisions of RCW 42.30.120.

(3) Any records which are created or presented by the employer during collective bargaining sessions, or which are received from the exclusive bargaining representative by the employer in the course of collective bargaining, are public records subject to the provisions of chapter 42.56 RCW.

Filed under Freedom Issues, Sunnyside Budget Issues, Sunnyside Council, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,687 other followers